Anarchy: Rules … without rulers

I replied to wrong post. I finally straightened it out below. I was up all night working and am a little scatterbrained. If there is a moderator to this site, please delete the above reply and the above new post (the ones by me) and leave the correct reply below.

Thanks.

Mark

Governments in the twentieth century murdered nearly 200,000,000 of the citizens they ruled through democide, and that excludes warfare, which killed tens of millions more. Before you start singing the praises of government, you might examine the record.

I'm generally familiar with governmental wrongdoing, and I do not dispute history. To say, however, that I am "singing the praises of government" is too vague a generalization. Rather, I am singing the praises of minarchist government in a society of just and educated people. I am singing the praises of the US Constitution COMPARED TO what we are suffering now under our ungoverned government.

For an excellent article about "The Worst Case Scenario Under Anarchy", go to http://www.strike-the-roo... and enjoy the writings of a man I see as potentially becoming the next Murray Rothbard.

What follows is a lengthy and thorough essay I have written this evening on Gregory's (and your) position. Unlike many, I find it fruitful to listen before answering, and to consider the case that is being made before I seek to refute it. What follows, therefore, is the kind of thorough treatment that I would want to get from a detractor who disagreed with my position.
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I have read and re-read the article and have found it to paint an impossible picture. Gregory sets up his ideal of anarchy by an admitted game of make-believe, in which everybody just somehow, some way, becomes such a believer in liberty as to dismantle or to otherwise abolish all government. From this miraculous position, he proceeds with the rest of his argument, which includes the following impossibility:

The Libertarian Party would split. Those in the organization who are anarchists at heart would feel relieved that they do not have to devote so much time to the gruesome political process anymore. Those in the party who are minarchists, or who actually like working within the system, would focus their efforts on bringing the state back into existence, just so they could have something to do.

If the people had all come about a government-less society via their love of liberty, how could anyone seek to build again a government? And if there were still minarchists about, how could they possibly fail to be converted to anarchism by all their anarchist friends? Further, by stating that their only motivation for minarchy would be as a cure for boredom, Gregory discredits the minarchist philosophy as trivial. Surely, if anybody would ever be converted to anarchy, it's a minarchist who has finally had a chance to see in real life just how wonderfully anarchy is working! Funny, though, that Gregory doesn't foresee anybody with a statist or fascist bent living in his anarchy. He cannot imagine anybody wanting to be a king in order to right the wrongs of society through the rule of an iron hand. Yet it is certainly possible that someone might imagine bringing about freedom by such a rule. (I'm not saying they're right, or that more than one in a billion people might actually be righteous enough to rule justly if he did indeed have such powers. All I'm saying is that it's as natural for somebody to think that way as it is for them to think like a minarchist. )

Even so, the author hints that he'd be happy enough with this. But I do not believe it would be so Any attempt to initiate a government in such a utopia as is described would surely be met with great resistance---Barney Fife himself leading the call to "nip it in the bud". Such a minarchy attempt could only gain traction if the anarchy were proving to be problematic---which eventuality is anathema to the author's dream and purpose..

Thereafter, the author then makes a leap:

Let’s say, however, that the masses are not devoted to freedom, peace, and markets. Let’s say that they are still prone to accept the institutionalization of violence. What, then, would be the worst-case scenario under anarchy?

Here's the trick. The story started with a make-believe event in which all government were put away BECAUSE "the people" loved liberty enough to make it so. But now the author has us imagining that we somehow arrived at anarchy without that love of liberty. From here he argues that if the anarchy fell apart, well, it wouldn't be so bad now, would it? Yet he has not provided a model by which any society may be brought to this point, except his make-believe beginning.

It very much reminds me of this excellent cartoon. http://www.sciencecartoon...

The fact of the matter is that this miracle depends upon a wholesale paradigm shift on the part of the majority of the world's population. "Miracle", therefore, is no exaggeration. What I am advocating is a wholesale educational campaign in the United States, by which those of us who care knock ourselves out to educated those who don't, with the goal of building a majority of people who will agree to abide by the minarchist Constitution.

While it is an exceedingly daunting endeavor, it is less demanding than converting an entire society to the philosophy of anarchy.

Indeed, the reason that the Constitution has failed (where it has failed) is that the PEOPLE lack the character to uphold it. To reason, therefore, that the people would be able to maintain NO government better than they have maintained a minarchist government is unreasonable.

Our minarchist Constitution has certainly been violated repeatedly. However, it has remained an amazing 220 years and is still more-or-less in force---let's just guestimate it at 50%. With a mere 10% increase in national diligence for the rule of law, this trend could be turned around and some restoration of the rule of law could occur.

Anarchy is hard for people to grasp. The Constitution, on the other hand, can be grasped in just a few short weeks of paying regular attention to it---and shorter than that if you have a good teacher. Of the two, our minarchist Constitution has a much better chance than does anarchy.

Gregory continues with this fallacy:

But if the worst-case scenario – and I mean the worst-case scenario – that we can expect under anarchy is simply the end of anarchy and the reemergence of government, it seems we have very little to lose in calling for an end to state violence.

The fallacy is in the suggestion that one form of government is as good (or as bad) as another. The fact of the matter, however, is that our current form of ungoverned government---with its vestigal roots still in the Constitution, is (as of today, 30 June 2009) better than, say, Communism.

The primary cause for the formation of our government was "the common defence". If I were a large communist nation with a dream of invading and controlling America, I would do whatever I could do to get its people to idealize and to work toward anarchy. If they succeeded, they'd be sitting ducks for an invasion. And if I couldn't have THAT, then I'd see to it that the general public would get the false impression that the few minarchists (constitutionalists) in the nation were the same as those "radical anarchists", and should be summarily dismissed without a hearing.

As a Christian, I cannot countenance the existence of any institution as inherently brutally violent as the state.

OK, but that is interesting since, to my knowledge, neither Jesus nor the apostles made such statements. If I missed something, please do tell me where to find it.

Also, it is interesting that a great many of the states in this last century have been governed by self-avowed Christians, and populated by masses of self-avowed Christians. So if the message of Christianity is truly anti-state, then the word's not getting out.

If you have any longing in your heart for a peaceful society, at least admit the fact that governments are inherently violent,

I reject that statement as false. Governments are only "inherently" as good or bad as are the people who empower them. In the case of the US, it is the citizens who are the seat of corruption. They are the ones who keep putting the scoundrels back into office. They are the ones who keep supporting the corrupt parties, and who keep voting themselves money from the public treasury. They are the ones who have no compunction about the fact that we are a nation that does not follow its own laws.. No matter how evil the "government", those from whom the governmental powers are derived cannot absolve themselves of the responsibility for it. The evil is in the people.

as Mao Tse Tung so honestly stated, "Political power comes out of the barrel of a gun."

Not all political power is so derived. However, since you brought it up, even under anarchy, when, as Gregory put it:

There would still be some violent crime,

The power to stop that crime from eventually violating the rights of all people is not going to come from a group hug and some aroma therapy. The greater the threat, the greater the demonstrable need for collaboration. Hence, the US Constitution..

Now one more thing about Gregory's article:

When people reject institutionalization of violence, it will cease to be. In this sense, anarchy is unrealistic only so long as most people think it is.

I find this a bit euphemistic. Just what does it mean to "reject institutionalization of violence"? It that rejection brought to bear by saying, "OK, you AK-47 bullet that's flying toward my forehead, you should know that I reject you and the institutionalization of violence that you represent!"?

No. Most violence will not stop until it is MADE to stop. You can either outgun it, or you can starve it to death. And if you attack its food supply, be prepared for it to come after you.

Just like Hitler failed for a lack of troops and supplies to maintain the profusion of fronts he had created, anarchism will fail without a nearly-endless supply of mature, liberty-loving, and just people. And if those people don't start out as the majority, chances are exceedingly high that those people are going to have to start this campaign with guns.

So what I want to know is why the anarchists aren't already shooting at the government? Why aren't they bombing and sabotaging? Why aren't they undermining the government and compromising it however possible?

Ah, yes, is the NAP, right? The Non-Aggression Principle. Yet most anarchists tell me that if an intruder comes into their house, they'll blow them away. But when intruders trample their rights from distant shelter in Washington, there's no blowing them away. So they'll be peaceful until their actual house is invaded.

This means that there's even less chance of anarchy coming about than if the anarchists would actively overthrow the government. Thus, some of those who malign the supporters of the Constitution are actually often sitting back and saying, "Yeah, if sovereignty ever devolves on me again, I'll pick it up and run with it". That is, if they wake up one day and find themselves government-less, that would be really cool. But in the mean time, they'll do whatever they can do to discredit the very Constitution that can get them the closest to their ideal of anarchy. No, they'd never say this---in fact, they say that they ARE sovereign already, but they don't ACT like sovereigns whose rights are being violated. Instead, they'll come onto forums like this one and fight tooth and nail, vehemently deriding the Constitution, even though a return to it would get them closer to their anarchist "home" than any other conceivable event. But they are far from proactively finding a way to get to anarchism.

Anarchism, for all these reasons and more, is an untenable position--a mere notion---and an exercise in imagination. It is about as practicable as a plan to populate Pluto without warp drive capabilities. In my view, it's time to wake up from the dream and to admit the obvious: that no one has yet conceived a way to get from step one to step three. As I have said many times here now, the devil is in the details.

Maligning the Constitution does nothing constructive for the cause of Anarchism. Yet my observations from the behavior of a few individuals here is that the lion's share of their anarchistic game plan is the denigration of the Constitution.

Gregory speaks of anarchism being "born", and perhaps dying thereafter. Yet the anarchism that is being promoted by most of the vocal participants here on this particular forum is a NEGATIVE. That is, it is merely the absence of government, and not the PRESENCE of anything in particular. Negatives, however, are not "born". A chicken cannot "lay" nothing. If laying is going on, something is coming out of the chicken. Similarly, it's not "teaching" unless there's some LEARNING going on. And so it is with things being "born"---some substance is required.

Therefore, if Gregory really believes in something being "born", then he must argue in the positive for the widespread adoption of liberty, peace, and trade, as he mentions in his opening. These principles, however, will take us down a path that passes our Constitution LONG before it will ever arrive at anarchy. Why the anarchists are not then lauding the Constitution as a natural way point is beyond me.

Where Washington said of government:

"Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force."

I would say of anarchism:

"Anarchism is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is complaining."

Minarchy is one step away. Anarchy is two steps away. The anarchists I've heard express themselves here will never make it to anarchy because they loathe the idea of passing by minarchy along the way. Their best hope otherwise is that somebody will nuke Washington one day.

And so they complain. They complain that minarchy (our Constitution) is indeed the very cause of our current sad state, even though it is quite plain that the PEOPLE themselves have failed to maintain the rights and powers recognized in the Constitution. Thus is it undeniable that the Constitution as written is far better than our current iteration of government under it. But such an admission is anathema to the spirit of the anarchists whose posts I have read here. They are in too much a hurry to complain even to admit the obvious along the way.

And then there's the terrible logic, the redefinition of common terms, and the name calling that seem never far from anarchistic discussion. All counterproductive and unbecoming of people who argue that they are indeed fit for self rule.

Perhaps, for some, anarchy is indeed a high-minded notion. For many others, however, little use of the mind is employed in either its promotion or its defense. Therefore, I conclude that it must appeal to the baser instincts of man that so many here would support it even though they cannot argue well for it. It is for them an attractive, predetermined conclusion, worthy of their cultic adulation, even if its merits and its composition are inexplicable and indefensible.

If just and limited government is indeed impossible because no good people can be found to sit in the seats, then just anarchy is all the more impossible as it requires, by its very nature, far more just people than does government.

Jack Pelham
Rule of Law Revolution
www.ruleoflawrevolution.c...

"In anarchy all services would be provided by the free market."

Really? How is it that everyone will be able to afford the services they need? Even if all my tax dollars were returned to me, I doubt very seriously that I'd be able to hire security, fire, sewer, road paving, and other similar things at my own expense. So just how is this supposed to work? And even if we all pitch in, who says how much I have to give? And who says which company is going to pave my street?

As to the "non aggression principle":

"NAP: No one may initiate force or threaten force on another person or their property. (Retaliatory force may be used in response to another’s initiation fo force)."

How are you going to get everyone to adopt this?

If Anarchy had such powers as to make all men adopt your NAP, then why hasn't it already made all government officials adopt anarchy itself?

I just don't see it. It's an Utopian notion that is without any roots in real world experience. The aggression of mankind is demonstrably alive and well. Many of our Founders regularly drew attention to this fact, stating that if men were angels, no government would be necessary.

As to Lew Rockwell's statement, let's say that there's a private security force that is coming to your house because I called them to come. They quote you some regulation, that you are supposed to have violated, and for which I turned you in. You think that the regulation is absurd, but they give you no right of appeal. The execute upon you whatever form of justice they deem appropriate.

If only you had known in time, you could have hired your own security company to come and to shoot my security force when they arrived, saving yourself from my "free market" execution. But what if you had no money to do this? Then where is justice?

Until you can demonstrate to me that all men will be angels under anarchy, I think it is a silly and reckless notion. Even under government with such flaws as ours, one is less likely to be molested than under anarchy---except for the fairy tale kind of anarchy in which the real behavior of mankind is absent.

Jack Pelham
Rule of Law Revolution
www.ruleoflawrevolution.c...