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On July 03 2011 00:31 BlackFlag wrote:Show nested quote +On July 03 2011 00:09 Haemonculus wrote:On July 02 2011 21:46 Slakter wrote:On July 02 2011 15:31 Cyba wrote:
Anarchy talk reminds me of that South Park episode :D
At any rate worst thing about anarchy would be monopoly, let's say somebody does actually decide to build roads and tax you for them. He owns all the roads in his area so he can tax you w/e he wants to use them and you'll need them for sure. If the guy is so inclined he's going to have so much money he can buy some weapons for those anarchy loving hippies he's bleeding of their money, motivate them with some proper food and payment and sendem to fight the guy next to him to get his roads too, and so on.
Then when you speak of governments some people even say elections for anarchy, that's no longer an arachy dude at BEST it's a VERY liberal democracy, but certainly not anarchy.
Anarchy is not even an Utopia it's more of a dream within a dream within a dream then inception. Well you obviously dont know what an Anarchy is. An anarchy can often times consist of a direct democracy within a small autonomous area where everyone goes to vote on the things they care for or is relevant to their lives. You like many others believe that anarchy means no central ruling and utter chaos which is wrong, it just means that the peolpe as a whole decide what´s best instead of the people deciding people who decide for them. I´m not here to discuss the ups and downs of anarchism (there are downs, I know. Lots of them) since I do not really see the gain in discussing it on a forum like Teamliquid where everyone pretty much has their views cemented already (Myself included) and so I will not convince anyone of becoming an anarchist. I also dont feel capable of doing it since English is my second language and I feel like I would probably just spout gibberish if I tried to join an intellectual debate in english. However I feel it´s my responsibility to tell people the facts about what an anarchism means to better the worlds understanding. Tis all. My views are far from cemented. I don't like everything my government does. I wish pot and gay marriage were legal, I don't want *my* taxes going to fund overseas wars in the middle east, and I think our lobbying system is horribly corrupt. Please just *try* to explain how my world would improve were we to abolish the central government. How would *your* life improve? I'm serious, give me some practical examples. If it's just "oh, I can spend my untaxed income on more things!" then I can assure you that Donald Trump's untaxed income will be spent on more things too. I also guarantee you that he can hire more guys with better guns than you ever could. Your idea of an anarchy seems to be that of a village-democracy. We know everyone in town, and all the men get together and decide stuff. That worked great when there were what, 300 million people total on the *planet*? How will New York City, or hell, Tokyo, handle such a system? Just because you or the OP or whoever else lives in a small house far from your neighbors doesn't mean that's everyone's reality. People as a whole deciding what's best from them? Ok, how do we implement that? Have general elections for everything? Who runs and organizes that? If you're for smaller government, alright, I can dig that. But to claim the absence of any ruling body would be an improvement over what we have now is absurd. Are there still health, safety, workplace, and social standards? Who enforces these? I wanna practice medicine, but I've never been to medical school. If I open a clinic, who regulates my practice? I feel like I could wing it and perform surgery, but I've never tried so who knows. That'd be safe, yeah? To the other poster who said that roaming armed bands of thugs are less scary than the state, what the shit are you smoking? Please give me some. I think your bubble will burst the minute you see a dead body in the street. Let's be honest. What has the American government reealllly done to fuck you over? Movies like Brazil are fun and all, but you can't seriously think that' what happens, right? The big scary government is kidnapping and torturing its citizens? In a few cases I'm sure we have. Guantanamo was pretty fucked up. But the private sector is equally capable of such things, and without a governing body to send federal agents in, Jamie Leigh Jones may have stayed locked in a shipping crate after being gang raped by her *private sector employers*. Lastly, general defense of the nation? We certainly don't need to have an army the size that we do now, I will happily admit that and am all for shrinking our military spending. But in your stateless society, what happens if war does occur? Do we play medieval peasants and wait for them to come to our towns/cities, and do our best to fight them off ourselves? I can assure you I'd be pretty useless in a warzone. I just want to reiterate my main point. The people who are for anarchy seem to think that they personally will still lead comfortable lives and that the only difference will be no taxes. I'm trying to explain that that's a horridly unrealistic viewpoint, and that yes, I would rather have a structured and regulated police force than a multitude of random thugs with guns enforcing their own justice system. on your last point, in an anarchist society there exist no taxes because means of production are socialized and money is abandonded. stop mixing libertarian ideologie with anarchism. an example of anarchism in practice were spain during the civil war and ukraine during the russian civil war. for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_RevolutionAnarchism is social revolutionary and has more in common with communism (no, not in a stalin-way) than with capitalism.
Bet Lenin didn't think communism should be in the stalin-way either. That's just what faulty systems (and communism was alot better thought out then anarchy) end up creating.
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On July 03 2011 00:31 BlackFlag wrote:Show nested quote +On July 03 2011 00:09 Haemonculus wrote:On July 02 2011 21:46 Slakter wrote:On July 02 2011 15:31 Cyba wrote:
Anarchy talk reminds me of that South Park episode :D
At any rate worst thing about anarchy would be monopoly, let's say somebody does actually decide to build roads and tax you for them. He owns all the roads in his area so he can tax you w/e he wants to use them and you'll need them for sure. If the guy is so inclined he's going to have so much money he can buy some weapons for those anarchy loving hippies he's bleeding of their money, motivate them with some proper food and payment and sendem to fight the guy next to him to get his roads too, and so on.
Then when you speak of governments some people even say elections for anarchy, that's no longer an arachy dude at BEST it's a VERY liberal democracy, but certainly not anarchy.
Anarchy is not even an Utopia it's more of a dream within a dream within a dream then inception. Well you obviously dont know what an Anarchy is. An anarchy can often times consist of a direct democracy within a small autonomous area where everyone goes to vote on the things they care for or is relevant to their lives. You like many others believe that anarchy means no central ruling and utter chaos which is wrong, it just means that the peolpe as a whole decide what´s best instead of the people deciding people who decide for them. I´m not here to discuss the ups and downs of anarchism (there are downs, I know. Lots of them) since I do not really see the gain in discussing it on a forum like Teamliquid where everyone pretty much has their views cemented already (Myself included) and so I will not convince anyone of becoming an anarchist. I also dont feel capable of doing it since English is my second language and I feel like I would probably just spout gibberish if I tried to join an intellectual debate in english. However I feel it´s my responsibility to tell people the facts about what an anarchism means to better the worlds understanding. Tis all. My views are far from cemented. I don't like everything my government does. I wish pot and gay marriage were legal, I don't want *my* taxes going to fund overseas wars in the middle east, and I think our lobbying system is horribly corrupt. Please just *try* to explain how my world would improve were we to abolish the central government. How would *your* life improve? I'm serious, give me some practical examples. If it's just "oh, I can spend my untaxed income on more things!" then I can assure you that Donald Trump's untaxed income will be spent on more things too. I also guarantee you that he can hire more guys with better guns than you ever could. Your idea of an anarchy seems to be that of a village-democracy. We know everyone in town, and all the men get together and decide stuff. That worked great when there were what, 300 million people total on the *planet*? How will New York City, or hell, Tokyo, handle such a system? Just because you or the OP or whoever else lives in a small house far from your neighbors doesn't mean that's everyone's reality. People as a whole deciding what's best from them? Ok, how do we implement that? Have general elections for everything? Who runs and organizes that? If you're for smaller government, alright, I can dig that. But to claim the absence of any ruling body would be an improvement over what we have now is absurd. Are there still health, safety, workplace, and social standards? Who enforces these? I wanna practice medicine, but I've never been to medical school. If I open a clinic, who regulates my practice? I feel like I could wing it and perform surgery, but I've never tried so who knows. That'd be safe, yeah? To the other poster who said that roaming armed bands of thugs are less scary than the state, what the shit are you smoking? Please give me some. I think your bubble will burst the minute you see a dead body in the street. Let's be honest. What has the American government reealllly done to fuck you over? Movies like Brazil are fun and all, but you can't seriously think that' what happens, right? The big scary government is kidnapping and torturing its citizens? In a few cases I'm sure we have. Guantanamo was pretty fucked up. But the private sector is equally capable of such things, and without a governing body to send federal agents in, Jamie Leigh Jones may have stayed locked in a shipping crate after being gang raped by her *private sector employers*. Lastly, general defense of the nation? We certainly don't need to have an army the size that we do now, I will happily admit that and am all for shrinking our military spending. But in your stateless society, what happens if war does occur? Do we play medieval peasants and wait for them to come to our towns/cities, and do our best to fight them off ourselves? I can assure you I'd be pretty useless in a warzone. I just want to reiterate my main point. The people who are for anarchy seem to think that they personally will still lead comfortable lives and that the only difference will be no taxes. I'm trying to explain that that's a horridly unrealistic viewpoint, and that yes, I would rather have a structured and regulated police force than a multitude of random thugs with guns enforcing their own justice system. on your last point, in an anarchist society there exist no taxes because means of production are socialized and money is abandonded. stop mixing libertarian ideologie with anarchism. an example of anarchism in practice were spain during the civil war and ukraine during the russian civil war. for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_RevolutionAnarchism is social revolutionary and has more in common with communism (no, not in a stalin-way) than with capitalism.
Okay... but are you going to just disregard the rest of his post?
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I'm not interested in arguing, as long as people confuse two completly different ideologies. As long as people think that anarchism (I don't like the word anarchy because it has such a negative connotation) is just capitalism without rules discussing makes no sense. Read up on the wikipedia article, it gives at least a basic understanding of the difference.
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Is this meant to be serious? It's almost impossible for capital enterprise to flourish without security of a police force. I don't care about "costing less" or something like that. It's far too risky for businesses to have successful companies there. When I see a Somali restaurant chain or an independent gaming industry and things like that, then we can talk.
His paper talks about how things are getting better, but only because things are becoming more organized and drifting into a more governmented style. If the coordination was actually there, it would most likely be improving much quicker.
Also why are all the costs in dollars? Of course things are cheaper over there...
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On July 03 2011 00:31 BlackFlag wrote:Show nested quote +On July 03 2011 00:09 Haemonculus wrote:On July 02 2011 21:46 Slakter wrote:On July 02 2011 15:31 Cyba wrote:
Anarchy talk reminds me of that South Park episode :D
At any rate worst thing about anarchy would be monopoly, let's say somebody does actually decide to build roads and tax you for them. He owns all the roads in his area so he can tax you w/e he wants to use them and you'll need them for sure. If the guy is so inclined he's going to have so much money he can buy some weapons for those anarchy loving hippies he's bleeding of their money, motivate them with some proper food and payment and sendem to fight the guy next to him to get his roads too, and so on.
Then when you speak of governments some people even say elections for anarchy, that's no longer an arachy dude at BEST it's a VERY liberal democracy, but certainly not anarchy.
Anarchy is not even an Utopia it's more of a dream within a dream within a dream then inception. Well you obviously dont know what an Anarchy is. An anarchy can often times consist of a direct democracy within a small autonomous area where everyone goes to vote on the things they care for or is relevant to their lives. You like many others believe that anarchy means no central ruling and utter chaos which is wrong, it just means that the peolpe as a whole decide what´s best instead of the people deciding people who decide for them. I´m not here to discuss the ups and downs of anarchism (there are downs, I know. Lots of them) since I do not really see the gain in discussing it on a forum like Teamliquid where everyone pretty much has their views cemented already (Myself included) and so I will not convince anyone of becoming an anarchist. I also dont feel capable of doing it since English is my second language and I feel like I would probably just spout gibberish if I tried to join an intellectual debate in english. However I feel it´s my responsibility to tell people the facts about what an anarchism means to better the worlds understanding. Tis all. My views are far from cemented. I don't like everything my government does. I wish pot and gay marriage were legal, I don't want *my* taxes going to fund overseas wars in the middle east, and I think our lobbying system is horribly corrupt. Please just *try* to explain how my world would improve were we to abolish the central government. How would *your* life improve? I'm serious, give me some practical examples. If it's just "oh, I can spend my untaxed income on more things!" then I can assure you that Donald Trump's untaxed income will be spent on more things too. I also guarantee you that he can hire more guys with better guns than you ever could. Your idea of an anarchy seems to be that of a village-democracy. We know everyone in town, and all the men get together and decide stuff. That worked great when there were what, 300 million people total on the *planet*? How will New York City, or hell, Tokyo, handle such a system? Just because you or the OP or whoever else lives in a small house far from your neighbors doesn't mean that's everyone's reality. People as a whole deciding what's best from them? Ok, how do we implement that? Have general elections for everything? Who runs and organizes that? If you're for smaller government, alright, I can dig that. But to claim the absence of any ruling body would be an improvement over what we have now is absurd. Are there still health, safety, workplace, and social standards? Who enforces these? I wanna practice medicine, but I've never been to medical school. If I open a clinic, who regulates my practice? I feel like I could wing it and perform surgery, but I've never tried so who knows. That'd be safe, yeah? To the other poster who said that roaming armed bands of thugs are less scary than the state, what the shit are you smoking? Please give me some. I think your bubble will burst the minute you see a dead body in the street. Let's be honest. What has the American government reealllly done to fuck you over? Movies like Brazil are fun and all, but you can't seriously think that' what happens, right? The big scary government is kidnapping and torturing its citizens? In a few cases I'm sure we have. Guantanamo was pretty fucked up. But the private sector is equally capable of such things, and without a governing body to send federal agents in, Jamie Leigh Jones may have stayed locked in a shipping crate after being gang raped by her *private sector employers*. Lastly, general defense of the nation? We certainly don't need to have an army the size that we do now, I will happily admit that and am all for shrinking our military spending. But in your stateless society, what happens if war does occur? Do we play medieval peasants and wait for them to come to our towns/cities, and do our best to fight them off ourselves? I can assure you I'd be pretty useless in a warzone. I just want to reiterate my main point. The people who are for anarchy seem to think that they personally will still lead comfortable lives and that the only difference will be no taxes. I'm trying to explain that that's a horridly unrealistic viewpoint, and that yes, I would rather have a structured and regulated police force than a multitude of random thugs with guns enforcing their own justice system. on your last point, in an anarchist society there exist no taxes because means of production are socialized and money is abandonded. stop mixing libertarian ideologie with anarchism. an example of anarchism in practice were spain during the civil war and ukraine during the russian civil war. for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_RevolutionAnarchism is social revolutionary and has more in common with communism (no, not in a stalin-way) than with capitalism.
Money is abandoned. Fantastic. The means of production are socialized? Are we still talking about anarchy?
Do I barter for my groceries then? How do employers pay their employees? In food? In luxury goods?
Oh and by the way, quotes from George Orwell are hardly convincing.
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On July 03 2011 00:34 Cyba wrote:Show nested quote +On July 03 2011 00:31 BlackFlag wrote:On July 03 2011 00:09 Haemonculus wrote:On July 02 2011 21:46 Slakter wrote:On July 02 2011 15:31 Cyba wrote:
Anarchy talk reminds me of that South Park episode :D
At any rate worst thing about anarchy would be monopoly, let's say somebody does actually decide to build roads and tax you for them. He owns all the roads in his area so he can tax you w/e he wants to use them and you'll need them for sure. If the guy is so inclined he's going to have so much money he can buy some weapons for those anarchy loving hippies he's bleeding of their money, motivate them with some proper food and payment and sendem to fight the guy next to him to get his roads too, and so on.
Then when you speak of governments some people even say elections for anarchy, that's no longer an arachy dude at BEST it's a VERY liberal democracy, but certainly not anarchy.
Anarchy is not even an Utopia it's more of a dream within a dream within a dream then inception. Well you obviously dont know what an Anarchy is. An anarchy can often times consist of a direct democracy within a small autonomous area where everyone goes to vote on the things they care for or is relevant to their lives. You like many others believe that anarchy means no central ruling and utter chaos which is wrong, it just means that the peolpe as a whole decide what´s best instead of the people deciding people who decide for them. I´m not here to discuss the ups and downs of anarchism (there are downs, I know. Lots of them) since I do not really see the gain in discussing it on a forum like Teamliquid where everyone pretty much has their views cemented already (Myself included) and so I will not convince anyone of becoming an anarchist. I also dont feel capable of doing it since English is my second language and I feel like I would probably just spout gibberish if I tried to join an intellectual debate in english. However I feel it´s my responsibility to tell people the facts about what an anarchism means to better the worlds understanding. Tis all. My views are far from cemented. I don't like everything my government does. I wish pot and gay marriage were legal, I don't want *my* taxes going to fund overseas wars in the middle east, and I think our lobbying system is horribly corrupt. Please just *try* to explain how my world would improve were we to abolish the central government. How would *your* life improve? I'm serious, give me some practical examples. If it's just "oh, I can spend my untaxed income on more things!" then I can assure you that Donald Trump's untaxed income will be spent on more things too. I also guarantee you that he can hire more guys with better guns than you ever could. Your idea of an anarchy seems to be that of a village-democracy. We know everyone in town, and all the men get together and decide stuff. That worked great when there were what, 300 million people total on the *planet*? How will New York City, or hell, Tokyo, handle such a system? Just because you or the OP or whoever else lives in a small house far from your neighbors doesn't mean that's everyone's reality. People as a whole deciding what's best from them? Ok, how do we implement that? Have general elections for everything? Who runs and organizes that? If you're for smaller government, alright, I can dig that. But to claim the absence of any ruling body would be an improvement over what we have now is absurd. Are there still health, safety, workplace, and social standards? Who enforces these? I wanna practice medicine, but I've never been to medical school. If I open a clinic, who regulates my practice? I feel like I could wing it and perform surgery, but I've never tried so who knows. That'd be safe, yeah? To the other poster who said that roaming armed bands of thugs are less scary than the state, what the shit are you smoking? Please give me some. I think your bubble will burst the minute you see a dead body in the street. Let's be honest. What has the American government reealllly done to fuck you over? Movies like Brazil are fun and all, but you can't seriously think that' what happens, right? The big scary government is kidnapping and torturing its citizens? In a few cases I'm sure we have. Guantanamo was pretty fucked up. But the private sector is equally capable of such things, and without a governing body to send federal agents in, Jamie Leigh Jones may have stayed locked in a shipping crate after being gang raped by her *private sector employers*. Lastly, general defense of the nation? We certainly don't need to have an army the size that we do now, I will happily admit that and am all for shrinking our military spending. But in your stateless society, what happens if war does occur? Do we play medieval peasants and wait for them to come to our towns/cities, and do our best to fight them off ourselves? I can assure you I'd be pretty useless in a warzone. I just want to reiterate my main point. The people who are for anarchy seem to think that they personally will still lead comfortable lives and that the only difference will be no taxes. I'm trying to explain that that's a horridly unrealistic viewpoint, and that yes, I would rather have a structured and regulated police force than a multitude of random thugs with guns enforcing their own justice system. on your last point, in an anarchist society there exist no taxes because means of production are socialized and money is abandonded. stop mixing libertarian ideologie with anarchism. an example of anarchism in practice were spain during the civil war and ukraine during the russian civil war. for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_RevolutionAnarchism is social revolutionary and has more in common with communism (no, not in a stalin-way) than with capitalism. Bet Lenin didn't think communism should be in the stalin-way either. That's just what faulty systems (and communism was alot better thought out then anarchy) end up creating.
I don't understand what you're trying to say with "faulty systems". And Lenin wasn't a saint, he thought systematic terror was ok, as long as the communist party profited over it. Also the thought that the social revolution can be achieved trough a vanguard party is what led to the totalitarian society the soviet union was. The difference between Stalin and Lenin was, that Lenin believed in a better world, while Stalin already was just a power-hungry warmonger. The methods both found ok, are unacceptable.
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On July 03 2011 00:46 Haemonculus wrote:Show nested quote +On July 03 2011 00:31 BlackFlag wrote:On July 03 2011 00:09 Haemonculus wrote:On July 02 2011 21:46 Slakter wrote:On July 02 2011 15:31 Cyba wrote:
Anarchy talk reminds me of that South Park episode :D
At any rate worst thing about anarchy would be monopoly, let's say somebody does actually decide to build roads and tax you for them. He owns all the roads in his area so he can tax you w/e he wants to use them and you'll need them for sure. If the guy is so inclined he's going to have so much money he can buy some weapons for those anarchy loving hippies he's bleeding of their money, motivate them with some proper food and payment and sendem to fight the guy next to him to get his roads too, and so on.
Then when you speak of governments some people even say elections for anarchy, that's no longer an arachy dude at BEST it's a VERY liberal democracy, but certainly not anarchy.
Anarchy is not even an Utopia it's more of a dream within a dream within a dream then inception. Well you obviously dont know what an Anarchy is. An anarchy can often times consist of a direct democracy within a small autonomous area where everyone goes to vote on the things they care for or is relevant to their lives. You like many others believe that anarchy means no central ruling and utter chaos which is wrong, it just means that the peolpe as a whole decide what´s best instead of the people deciding people who decide for them. I´m not here to discuss the ups and downs of anarchism (there are downs, I know. Lots of them) since I do not really see the gain in discussing it on a forum like Teamliquid where everyone pretty much has their views cemented already (Myself included) and so I will not convince anyone of becoming an anarchist. I also dont feel capable of doing it since English is my second language and I feel like I would probably just spout gibberish if I tried to join an intellectual debate in english. However I feel it´s my responsibility to tell people the facts about what an anarchism means to better the worlds understanding. Tis all. My views are far from cemented. I don't like everything my government does. I wish pot and gay marriage were legal, I don't want *my* taxes going to fund overseas wars in the middle east, and I think our lobbying system is horribly corrupt. Please just *try* to explain how my world would improve were we to abolish the central government. How would *your* life improve? I'm serious, give me some practical examples. If it's just "oh, I can spend my untaxed income on more things!" then I can assure you that Donald Trump's untaxed income will be spent on more things too. I also guarantee you that he can hire more guys with better guns than you ever could. Your idea of an anarchy seems to be that of a village-democracy. We know everyone in town, and all the men get together and decide stuff. That worked great when there were what, 300 million people total on the *planet*? How will New York City, or hell, Tokyo, handle such a system? Just because you or the OP or whoever else lives in a small house far from your neighbors doesn't mean that's everyone's reality. People as a whole deciding what's best from them? Ok, how do we implement that? Have general elections for everything? Who runs and organizes that? If you're for smaller government, alright, I can dig that. But to claim the absence of any ruling body would be an improvement over what we have now is absurd. Are there still health, safety, workplace, and social standards? Who enforces these? I wanna practice medicine, but I've never been to medical school. If I open a clinic, who regulates my practice? I feel like I could wing it and perform surgery, but I've never tried so who knows. That'd be safe, yeah? To the other poster who said that roaming armed bands of thugs are less scary than the state, what the shit are you smoking? Please give me some. I think your bubble will burst the minute you see a dead body in the street. Let's be honest. What has the American government reealllly done to fuck you over? Movies like Brazil are fun and all, but you can't seriously think that' what happens, right? The big scary government is kidnapping and torturing its citizens? In a few cases I'm sure we have. Guantanamo was pretty fucked up. But the private sector is equally capable of such things, and without a governing body to send federal agents in, Jamie Leigh Jones may have stayed locked in a shipping crate after being gang raped by her *private sector employers*. Lastly, general defense of the nation? We certainly don't need to have an army the size that we do now, I will happily admit that and am all for shrinking our military spending. But in your stateless society, what happens if war does occur? Do we play medieval peasants and wait for them to come to our towns/cities, and do our best to fight them off ourselves? I can assure you I'd be pretty useless in a warzone. I just want to reiterate my main point. The people who are for anarchy seem to think that they personally will still lead comfortable lives and that the only difference will be no taxes. I'm trying to explain that that's a horridly unrealistic viewpoint, and that yes, I would rather have a structured and regulated police force than a multitude of random thugs with guns enforcing their own justice system. on your last point, in an anarchist society there exist no taxes because means of production are socialized and money is abandonded. stop mixing libertarian ideologie with anarchism. an example of anarchism in practice were spain during the civil war and ukraine during the russian civil war. for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_RevolutionAnarchism is social revolutionary and has more in common with communism (no, not in a stalin-way) than with capitalism. Money is abandoned. Fantastic. The means of production are socialized? Are we still talking about anarchy? Do I barter for my groceries then? How do employers pay their employees? In food? In luxury goods? Oh and by the way, quotes from George Orwell are hardly convincing.
and you see, this is the problem, it's hard for people to think outside the box. You don't barter, everyhting is free, from each according to his needs to his abilities. Before you cry unrealistic and all just read up a bit on this stuff, and how it worked in spain and ukraine, even tough those societies were piss-poor (Even more before "the revolution").
You can believe in quotes or not, but those people lived in these days.
edit: i know, a society based on solidarity instead of competition is pretty different to think about.
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Probably because everyone realizes that conflicts arise and the human race on the whole is everything but peaceful.
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I'd like to see this guy's article get peer reviewed. He would get destroyed no doubt
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[QUOTE]On July 03 2011 00:09 Haemonculus wrote:
[QUOTE]On July 02 2011 21:46 Slakter wrote:
[QUOTE]On July 02 2011 15:31 Cyba wrote:
Anarchy talk reminds me of that South Park episode :D
At any rate worst thing about anarchy would be monopoly, let's say somebody does actually decide to build roads and tax you for them. He owns all the roads in his area so he can tax you w/e he wants to use them and you'll need them for sure. If the guy is so inclined he's going to have so much money he can buy some weapons for those anarchy loving hippies he's bleeding of their money, motivate them with some proper food and payment and sendem to fight the guy next to him to get his roads too, and so on.
Then when you speak of governments some people even say elections for anarchy, that's no longer an arachy dude at BEST it's a VERY liberal democracy, but certainly not anarchy.
Anarchy is not even an Utopia it's more of a dream within a dream within a dream then inception.[/QUOTE]Are there still health, safety, workplace, and social standards? Who enforces these? I wanna practice medicine, but I've never been to medical school. If I open a clinic, who regulates my practice? I feel like I could wing it and perform surgery, but I've never tried so who knows. That'd be safe, yeah? [/QUOTE]
Yeah, I want to see this, lol.
Haemonculus invests a shitload of money into a clinic and recognizes that he gets no "costumers" because no one is that dumb to go to a surgeon without any reputation.
You should think first instead bombard us with so many questions.
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On July 02 2011 21:44 Daray wrote:I guess this thread is over since apparently no one wants to answer Haemonculus' questions. Bullshit jargon only goes so far  Maybe he should stop writing whole novels no one reads. I would prefer short and crisp questions.
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On July 03 2011 00:34 Cyba wrote:Show nested quote +On July 03 2011 00:31 BlackFlag wrote:On July 03 2011 00:09 Haemonculus wrote:On July 02 2011 21:46 Slakter wrote:On July 02 2011 15:31 Cyba wrote:
Anarchy talk reminds me of that South Park episode :D
At any rate worst thing about anarchy would be monopoly, let's say somebody does actually decide to build roads and tax you for them. He owns all the roads in his area so he can tax you w/e he wants to use them and you'll need them for sure. If the guy is so inclined he's going to have so much money he can buy some weapons for those anarchy loving hippies he's bleeding of their money, motivate them with some proper food and payment and sendem to fight the guy next to him to get his roads too, and so on.
Then when you speak of governments some people even say elections for anarchy, that's no longer an arachy dude at BEST it's a VERY liberal democracy, but certainly not anarchy.
Anarchy is not even an Utopia it's more of a dream within a dream within a dream then inception. Well you obviously dont know what an Anarchy is. An anarchy can often times consist of a direct democracy within a small autonomous area where everyone goes to vote on the things they care for or is relevant to their lives. You like many others believe that anarchy means no central ruling and utter chaos which is wrong, it just means that the peolpe as a whole decide what´s best instead of the people deciding people who decide for them. I´m not here to discuss the ups and downs of anarchism (there are downs, I know. Lots of them) since I do not really see the gain in discussing it on a forum like Teamliquid where everyone pretty much has their views cemented already (Myself included) and so I will not convince anyone of becoming an anarchist. I also dont feel capable of doing it since English is my second language and I feel like I would probably just spout gibberish if I tried to join an intellectual debate in english. However I feel it´s my responsibility to tell people the facts about what an anarchism means to better the worlds understanding. Tis all. My views are far from cemented. I don't like everything my government does. I wish pot and gay marriage were legal, I don't want *my* taxes going to fund overseas wars in the middle east, and I think our lobbying system is horribly corrupt. Please just *try* to explain how my world would improve were we to abolish the central government. How would *your* life improve? I'm serious, give me some practical examples. If it's just "oh, I can spend my untaxed income on more things!" then I can assure you that Donald Trump's untaxed income will be spent on more things too. I also guarantee you that he can hire more guys with better guns than you ever could. Your idea of an anarchy seems to be that of a village-democracy. We know everyone in town, and all the men get together and decide stuff. That worked great when there were what, 300 million people total on the *planet*? How will New York City, or hell, Tokyo, handle such a system? Just because you or the OP or whoever else lives in a small house far from your neighbors doesn't mean that's everyone's reality. People as a whole deciding what's best from them? Ok, how do we implement that? Have general elections for everything? Who runs and organizes that? If you're for smaller government, alright, I can dig that. But to claim the absence of any ruling body would be an improvement over what we have now is absurd. Are there still health, safety, workplace, and social standards? Who enforces these? I wanna practice medicine, but I've never been to medical school. If I open a clinic, who regulates my practice? I feel like I could wing it and perform surgery, but I've never tried so who knows. That'd be safe, yeah? To the other poster who said that roaming armed bands of thugs are less scary than the state, what the shit are you smoking? Please give me some. I think your bubble will burst the minute you see a dead body in the street. Let's be honest. What has the American government reealllly done to fuck you over? Movies like Brazil are fun and all, but you can't seriously think that' what happens, right? The big scary government is kidnapping and torturing its citizens? In a few cases I'm sure we have. Guantanamo was pretty fucked up. But the private sector is equally capable of such things, and without a governing body to send federal agents in, Jamie Leigh Jones may have stayed locked in a shipping crate after being gang raped by her *private sector employers*. Lastly, general defense of the nation? We certainly don't need to have an army the size that we do now, I will happily admit that and am all for shrinking our military spending. But in your stateless society, what happens if war does occur? Do we play medieval peasants and wait for them to come to our towns/cities, and do our best to fight them off ourselves? I can assure you I'd be pretty useless in a warzone. I just want to reiterate my main point. The people who are for anarchy seem to think that they personally will still lead comfortable lives and that the only difference will be no taxes. I'm trying to explain that that's a horridly unrealistic viewpoint, and that yes, I would rather have a structured and regulated police force than a multitude of random thugs with guns enforcing their own justice system. on your last point, in an anarchist society there exist no taxes because means of production are socialized and money is abandonded. stop mixing libertarian ideologie with anarchism. an example of anarchism in practice were spain during the civil war and ukraine during the russian civil war. for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_RevolutionAnarchism is social revolutionary and has more in common with communism (no, not in a stalin-way) than with capitalism. Bet Lenin didn't think communism should be in the stalin-way either. That's just what faulty systems (and communism was alot better thought out then anarchy) end up creating.
Yes, Lenin. The man who started the original communist personality cult, created the CHEKA, unleashed the Red Terror, and was responsible for saying gems such as "We must... put down all resistance with such brutality that they will not forget it for several decades... The greater the number of representatives of the reactionary clergy and reactionary bourgeoisie we succeed in executing... the better." And I'm not even counting his atrocities during the civil war.
I'll give the man some credit for NEP, but he's responsible for far more share of death, pain, and misery, then most people in the West give him credit for.
He is not much different from Stalin (Minus the paranoia, and the internal party purges). Stalin also felt that the horrible shit he was doing was a necessary sacrifice to keep the country strong.
The main difference is the times they ruled in... And one was denounced in a pretty famous speech by Khrushchev. If you're looking for a communist to pin a medal on, look for him. Right after Gorbachev.
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Norway28621 Posts
actually, searching for haemonculus and reading only her posts and no other posts is the best way to go about this thread. anarchy, be it socialist anarchy or anarcho-capitalism or whatever, is really, really stupid - she has already done a great job explaining why. (although the socialist anarchy hybrid is at least sympathetic and people who argue in favour of that are generally nice people!) furthermore, that someone can consider somalia a success story is so ridiculous it essentially invalidates everything that person says about history or society - much like how being a creationist invalidates any opinion you may have on evolution. you can't just pick and choose snippets of history that somehow validate your opinion.. bringing up the example of ukraine or spain during periods lasting a couple years (why are these areas no longer anarchistic?) in certain fairly small regions with fairly small numbers of people involved to prove that turning our society into an anarchist society would lead to an improvement of life for most people is just mind-numbingly dumb. I don't have a nicer way of putting it.. the foundation of this thread - that the policial development of somalia is positive and something other states should choose to mimic, is outrageously stupid. how about instead looking at say, the development of norway between 1945 and 1965? (to invalidate any argument that norway became wealthy because of oil/natural resources.) THAT is a story of great political success - and it absolutely did not involve dismantling the state.
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On July 03 2011 01:21 Sumsi wrote:
Yeah, I want to see this, lol.
Haemonculus invests a shitload of money into a clinic and recognizes that he gets no "costumers" because no one is that dumb to go to a surgeon without any reputation.
You should think first instead bombard us with so many questions.
Reputation given to you by who?
How does a new practicioner start out? Apprenticeship?
How is the knowledge retained? Books? The ones which will stop getting published? The academic world as a whole will collapse.
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On July 03 2011 01:58 Liquid`Drone wrote:
actually, searching for haemonculus and reading only her posts and no other posts is the best way to go about this thread. anarchy, be it socialist anarchy or anarcho-capitalism or whatever, is really, really stupid - she has already done a great job explaining why. (although the socialist anarchy hybrid is at least sympathetic and people who argue in favour of that are generally nice people!) furthermore, that someone can consider somalia a success story is so ridiculous it essentially invalidates everything that person says about history or society - much like how being a creationist invalidates any opinion you may have on evolution. you can't just pick and choose snippets of history that somehow validate your opinion.. bringing up the example of ukraine or spain during periods lasting a couple years (why are these areas no longer anarchistic?) in certain fairly small regions with fairly small numbers of people involved to prove that turning our society into an anarchist society would lead to an improvement of life for most people is just mind-numbingly dumb. I don't have a nicer way of putting it.. the foundation of this thread - that the policial development of somalia is positive and something other states should choose to mimic, is outrageously stupid. how about instead looking at say, the development of norway between 1945 and 1965? (to invalidate any argument that norway became wealthy because of oil/natural resources.) THAT is a story of great political success - and it absolutely did not involve dismantling the state.
I woudn't call half of spain, about 8 million people, or ukraine (i don't know how many people, but probalby about the same) small regions. It didn't succed because in spain it got crushed by internal and external factors. Sovietunion was the only supporter who sent weapons, but on their terms which meant, that spain had to give them their whole gold-reserves. This "support" also strengenthed the communists who were loyal to stalin. Nationalist spain under franco got massive support by italy and germany.
"Free Ukraine" got crushed in the middle of the fight between white and red troops. Fought of the Imperialist army and got backstabbed by the Soviet Union.
In argentina during the crisis anarchist worker selfmanagement in factories worked pretty well, until the got forced out when the economic situation got better.
You seem like an intelligent guy, you should that not always the best win. Most of the time just the most ruthless win. This stuff is also not something you force on people, but you should at least keep in mind that there are different ways possible and that the way our society is structured is not some kind of god-given natural state, but just the way WE created it.
also stuff you can learn from studying this are interesting if you don't believe in it. Decentralised decision making or self-management also wouldn't hurt in these days.
edit: I don't feel like i have the only truth, but i don't like when people ridicule something just because it is based on something completley different, than what we experienced in society our whole life.
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On July 02 2011 12:57 Haemonculus wrote:Show nested quote +On July 02 2011 12:38 xarthaz wrote:On July 02 2011 12:08 Expurgate wrote:On July 02 2011 11:44 xarthaz wrote:
Consent differentiates exchange and robbery. The two actions are totally different in their implications for the economy - the first implies mutual benefit in regards to the property at hand, the second implies suffering. Hence why state creates suffering. Very cute of you to completely disregard my post. I wanted to quote this as an example of a blatant falsehood, because it's immediately apparent to even the untrained eye that forced exchanges can be beneficial. Firefighting is probably the best example, rather than something like policing that extremists can argue against. You are required by dint of paying taxes to support the firefighting system in most countries. Because there are natural benefits to making sure that your neighbors are also insured in the case of fire, as well as economies of scale in the logistics involved, the natural state of the firefighting market is monopoly. There is no demonstrated preference of goods - government bullying your money does not demonstrate you preferring the services received to money given - hence it being impossible to demonstrate public finance being mutually beneficial.
Economic theory and practice shows that monopolies supply less of a good at a higher price than nonmonopolistic markets. However, because the government can operate at a loss and has no profit motive (e.g. with revenues below expenditures), it can ensure that fires are fought no matter its (or your) financial situation. This is, of course, a massive benefit to the individual, although they may not consent to their taxation.
Please stop this ludicrous, fallacious reasoning, and respond directly to claims as they are submitted. Your posts continue to overemploy philosophical terminology in defending against eminently reasonable, scientific counterclaims.
Rothbardian monopoly theory refutes this claim, see "Man Economy State" paragraph 9 on firm theory. On July 02 2011 12:05 TranceStorm wrote:On July 02 2011 11:44 xarthaz wrote:On July 02 2011 08:03 Haemonculus wrote:On July 02 2011 06:55 Treemonkeys wrote:On July 02 2011 06:42 Haemonculus wrote:On July 02 2011 06:30 Treemonkeys wrote:On July 02 2011 06:19 mcc wrote:
I have no problem admitting something slightly different. Society of the area owns everything in that area. Government as an emergent organizations governs everything in that area. And both of those entities choose to grant some private ownership of property on the level deemed appropriate by them. So basically your case 1. But unlike you I see no problem with it and even if I did I would not have illusions that this can actually be changed. The only thing that can be changed are specific details of that society and government. I can relate to the mindset of thinking it is just the best option, but to say you see no problems with it seems quite delusional IMO. Millions killed in government run wars, massing enough weapons to destroy the entire planet, etc. I really can't tell if your posts in this thread are serious or not. Tell me what you think our country, (the US) would be like were it an anarchy. I'm seriously curious, how would it improve? Inside the US, it would probably be hell for a while. You can't expect generations of people born and bred of the government tit to act calm and rational if that tit was suddenly pulled away from the. Eventually though things would become much better. Outside of the US some places would improve almost overnight. Elaborate, please. How would things become better? All I can see are immediate problems. I live on the east coast. The vast majority of the food that I buy at the supermarket is trucked from the midwest. Are you assuming that the federal government somehow ceases to exist, but our national infrastructure keeps on working magically? There's over 300 *million* people in this country. What happens when the supermarkets out here stop getting food? Do we start our own farms and live off the land? There's not enough fertile farmland in the eastern US to support the current population. Millions would starve, but not before killing each other over the last bits of food. What happens in Japan, a country which imports much of its food and has a population density wayyy higher than the states? It's estimated that in the event of a worldwide disaster, the most important public service to maintain social order is sewage treatment. What happens when your water faucets stop magically pumping out pure healthy, government regulated drinking water? Again, in our imaginary world where the government's vanished, what happens when shit literally starts flowing out of your sink? What happens when the local water treatment plant backs up and becomes little more than a giant lake of festering sewage, spawning all sorts of horrible diseases? What happens when people all of a sudden can't drink? Do we all start bringing buckets of water out of the Potomac? I'm a 24 year old woman. I take for granted being able to walk around outside by myself without getting assaulted. Hell, all of you do. How do I protect myself? Do I buy a gun and keep myself armed 24/7? Is that an improvement on quality of life for you? Do I join up with a local gang or group for protection, or maybe find the biggest toughest bunch of brutes and cling to them for defense? Do I submit myself to whatever rules and law-systems they've come up with? How is this new world of yours going to treat women? Because I can only see us slipping backwards hundreds of years in equality. Do we still use currency? Do banks still operate? What happens to the Dollar without a government to back it up? What's the alternative? Do we go to a barter system? Because I don't have any livestock. I grow my own vegetables, but not enough to subsist off throughout the year. Do we still have modern technology? How do I pay my doctor? Does the free market magically provide ethical doctors who take care of me fairly for a reasonable price? Are there still education systems which pump out these qualified physicians? How do I buy goods on a daily basis? Forget my situation. What happens to you? Where do you live? What do you do for a living? How does that change in this new anarchy? Do you still have all the necessities for a comfortable life? What if the neighbors don't? What do you do when they show up, presumably armed, and want what you have? People *will* resort to acts we currently consider abhorrent when they can't get enough to eat. Do you arm yourself, maybe get some friends or a group together, and defend yourselves? Do you shoot the intruders? If they outnumber you? Ever killed someone before? Cleaned their corpses off your lawn? I know what it's like to romanticize an imagined world. I have a soft spot for the past, and often imagine a life in another time. If it's the medieval era, I'm a noblewoman. If it's the ancient era, I live in a peaceful village. If it's the 1800's, I'm a wealthy aristocrat who wants for nothing. If I was a peasant or something, I like to imagine I'd live in a peaceful village with a loving husband I chose for myself, farm my crops, raise healthy children, all the good stuff with none of the bad. Ask yourself honestly, where do you see yourself in this new world you're promoting? How do you know you wouldn't end up just barely scraping by a living, giving half your crop to the local warlord, having your wife, maybe sister or friend taken by said local warlord, and living in fear for your life on a daily basis? Do you picture your self in some nice big house and that everything's the same as it is today, except you don't have to pay taxes and can own as many assault rifles as you want? Seriously I just don't understand your thought process. Please fill me in. Fear. The video i posted touches in that. Let it go. Breath in and out. Remember, the argument doesnt stem from reason and logic, but of frightenment. Also remember, the state cannot fundamentally engage in demonstrably mutually beneficial activity. Private producers can. Hence, why it is aprioristically true that the anarchist method of production benefits consumers, while the statist method of production does not. And can arguments not arise because we fear things? We debate things with regards to the benefits and the harms that such an idea may bring. Dismissing an idea simply because it arises from frightenment should never be a reason to dismiss an argument because arguments that arise from fright point out flaws in the things they are critiquing. You say that private producers can account for many of the goods that governments currently do. But you haven't answered any of Haemonculus' arguments. You've merely dismissed them without truly considering them. On July 02 2011 12:04 Haemonculus wrote:
Fear, alright. Who's afraid? I'm assuming I'm the scared one, hiding in blissful ignorant slavery to my federal masters.
I can talk like Yoda too, or I can call you delusional. Please again explain to me how an anarchical society benefits the average person?
Private production can create "mutually beneficial activity?" Are you high? Private produce can produce working conditions similar to the early industrial era.
What keeps people from taking advantage of others? Of banning black people from their restaurant? Of beating their children or wives? The common decency inherent to mankind? You're a nut. The source of mutually beneficial capital allocation is profit management - where profit guides capital according to consumer preferences. Remember - this is why it is at all possible to construct anything consumers desire. It is regrettable however, that this does not take place. As government formally rejects this - only the informal reasonability government employed producers' profit seeking leads to remotely tolerable situation. Profit management will lead to a system which benefits everyone? Does that include the workers? The end consumer? Let's say I run a factory. I can have my workers do 8 hour shifts, give them a lunch break, implement safety standards, and pay them a reasonable wage. Or I can run 12 hour shifts 6 days a week, give a 15 minute break to eat, replace injured workers by firing them, and pay them shit wages. I, the wealthy factory owner, will have much higher profit margins in the latter sense. But I suppose in your world there's another better job out there, right? And that people would simply choose not to work in my factory, and instead go work for Joe who pays better? Any idea how many people work for walmart? You're adorable. I can implement product safety standards. I don't want my product to hurt the end user. Or I can ship out something that looks pretty but contains lead, mercury, and whatever other toxins are used in production. I betcha I'll save some money by skimping out on safety. Profit margins, yay! But those are economic concerns. Again, please address how your magical anarchical world treats its citizens? What keeps me from getting robbed or raped on my way home from work? Did I sign up with a local protection agency? Or am I carrying my machine gun to work with me? Guns are the great equalizer after all. You strike me as someone with the leisure time to sit around reading up on philosophy and economic theory from the comfort of your house. I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume that you're white, male, and middle-upper class, and quite likely lead a very comfortable life growing up in America. Is that where you see yourself in this new world of yours? As one of the elite towering over the masses of uneducated poor? Not everyone has had your opportunities.
Not that I wholly disagree with your general points, but you are kind of building a straw man here.
1. Assuming other opportunities for workers, the risk of injury and costs of shifts would be calculated into the wages they are willing to work for. Benefits of 8h shifts and a safe working environment lower the wages you have to pay your workers.
Then, even in anarchy, maybe especially so, workers can either just walk out on you, depriving you of production until you have new ones or rob everything in that factory if they deem the benefit of that to be greater than future employment under bad conditions.
My point is, where he assumes unlimited working opportunities, you are assuming instant adequately skilled laborers.
Then, I may be a little dreamy-eyed with Walmart for what they did for customers and supply chains, but 8-15$ isn't a bad wage for completely unskilled labor.
2. Your business model here assumes low set-up costs. You have to be able to make a profit even if you do not have repeat customers due to your product being shitty. So no setting up of an expensive efficient factory. Even if you decide to change your brand name every day for your product so customers cannot spot your bad product and become repeat customers, you are creating a demand for a second business that just gets paid for telling people what products to avoid.
Then, you have to assume that there is no substitute for your product that isn't bad and that people are not willing to pay a premium for products they have experienced to be safe. That would fly in the face of current marketing and signaling theory though.
3. See lojacks. Just the possibility of you having private security or a gun will reduce crime towards you whether you have it or not. This will reduce the criminals that are willing to attack you in an environment where failure means death to the truly desperate. Depending on the socio-economic environment in that anarchical society, that might only be a few people.
Anarchy might work, at first, for people that already are willing to adhere to certain social institutions. Where it gets funky is when the unregulated market brought about a company with enough power to form a government.
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On July 03 2011 02:16 Brotkrumen wrote:Show nested quote +On July 02 2011 12:57 Haemonculus wrote:On July 02 2011 12:38 xarthaz wrote:On July 02 2011 12:08 Expurgate wrote:On July 02 2011 11:44 xarthaz wrote:
Consent differentiates exchange and robbery. The two actions are totally different in their implications for the economy - the first implies mutual benefit in regards to the property at hand, the second implies suffering. Hence why state creates suffering. Very cute of you to completely disregard my post. I wanted to quote this as an example of a blatant falsehood, because it's immediately apparent to even the untrained eye that forced exchanges can be beneficial. Firefighting is probably the best example, rather than something like policing that extremists can argue against. You are required by dint of paying taxes to support the firefighting system in most countries. Because there are natural benefits to making sure that your neighbors are also insured in the case of fire, as well as economies of scale in the logistics involved, the natural state of the firefighting market is monopoly. There is no demonstrated preference of goods - government bullying your money does not demonstrate you preferring the services received to money given - hence it being impossible to demonstrate public finance being mutually beneficial.
Economic theory and practice shows that monopolies supply less of a good at a higher price than nonmonopolistic markets. However, because the government can operate at a loss and has no profit motive (e.g. with revenues below expenditures), it can ensure that fires are fought no matter its (or your) financial situation. This is, of course, a massive benefit to the individual, although they may not consent to their taxation.
Please stop this ludicrous, fallacious reasoning, and respond directly to claims as they are submitted. Your posts continue to overemploy philosophical terminology in defending against eminently reasonable, scientific counterclaims.
Rothbardian monopoly theory refutes this claim, see "Man Economy State" paragraph 9 on firm theory. On July 02 2011 12:05 TranceStorm wrote:On July 02 2011 11:44 xarthaz wrote:On July 02 2011 08:03 Haemonculus wrote:On July 02 2011 06:55 Treemonkeys wrote:On July 02 2011 06:42 Haemonculus wrote:On July 02 2011 06:30 Treemonkeys wrote:On July 02 2011 06:19 mcc wrote:
I have no problem admitting something slightly different. Society of the area owns everything in that area. Government as an emergent organizations governs everything in that area. And both of those entities choose to grant some private ownership of property on the level deemed appropriate by them. So basically your case 1. But unlike you I see no problem with it and even if I did I would not have illusions that this can actually be changed. The only thing that can be changed are specific details of that society and government. I can relate to the mindset of thinking it is just the best option, but to say you see no problems with it seems quite delusional IMO. Millions killed in government run wars, massing enough weapons to destroy the entire planet, etc. I really can't tell if your posts in this thread are serious or not. Tell me what you think our country, (the US) would be like were it an anarchy. I'm seriously curious, how would it improve? Inside the US, it would probably be hell for a while. You can't expect generations of people born and bred of the government tit to act calm and rational if that tit was suddenly pulled away from the. Eventually though things would become much better. Outside of the US some places would improve almost overnight. Elaborate, please. How would things become better? All I can see are immediate problems. I live on the east coast. The vast majority of the food that I buy at the supermarket is trucked from the midwest. Are you assuming that the federal government somehow ceases to exist, but our national infrastructure keeps on working magically? There's over 300 *million* people in this country. What happens when the supermarkets out here stop getting food? Do we start our own farms and live off the land? There's not enough fertile farmland in the eastern US to support the current population. Millions would starve, but not before killing each other over the last bits of food. What happens in Japan, a country which imports much of its food and has a population density wayyy higher than the states? It's estimated that in the event of a worldwide disaster, the most important public service to maintain social order is sewage treatment. What happens when your water faucets stop magically pumping out pure healthy, government regulated drinking water? Again, in our imaginary world where the government's vanished, what happens when shit literally starts flowing out of your sink? What happens when the local water treatment plant backs up and becomes little more than a giant lake of festering sewage, spawning all sorts of horrible diseases? What happens when people all of a sudden can't drink? Do we all start bringing buckets of water out of the Potomac? I'm a 24 year old woman. I take for granted being able to walk around outside by myself without getting assaulted. Hell, all of you do. How do I protect myself? Do I buy a gun and keep myself armed 24/7? Is that an improvement on quality of life for you? Do I join up with a local gang or group for protection, or maybe find the biggest toughest bunch of brutes and cling to them for defense? Do I submit myself to whatever rules and law-systems they've come up with? How is this new world of yours going to treat women? Because I can only see us slipping backwards hundreds of years in equality. Do we still use currency? Do banks still operate? What happens to the Dollar without a government to back it up? What's the alternative? Do we go to a barter system? Because I don't have any livestock. I grow my own vegetables, but not enough to subsist off throughout the year. Do we still have modern technology? How do I pay my doctor? Does the free market magically provide ethical doctors who take care of me fairly for a reasonable price? Are there still education systems which pump out these qualified physicians? How do I buy goods on a daily basis? Forget my situation. What happens to you? Where do you live? What do you do for a living? How does that change in this new anarchy? Do you still have all the necessities for a comfortable life? What if the neighbors don't? What do you do when they show up, presumably armed, and want what you have? People *will* resort to acts we currently consider abhorrent when they can't get enough to eat. Do you arm yourself, maybe get some friends or a group together, and defend yourselves? Do you shoot the intruders? If they outnumber you? Ever killed someone before? Cleaned their corpses off your lawn? I know what it's like to romanticize an imagined world. I have a soft spot for the past, and often imagine a life in another time. If it's the medieval era, I'm a noblewoman. If it's the ancient era, I live in a peaceful village. If it's the 1800's, I'm a wealthy aristocrat who wants for nothing. If I was a peasant or something, I like to imagine I'd live in a peaceful village with a loving husband I chose for myself, farm my crops, raise healthy children, all the good stuff with none of the bad. Ask yourself honestly, where do you see yourself in this new world you're promoting? How do you know you wouldn't end up just barely scraping by a living, giving half your crop to the local warlord, having your wife, maybe sister or friend taken by said local warlord, and living in fear for your life on a daily basis? Do you picture your self in some nice big house and that everything's the same as it is today, except you don't have to pay taxes and can own as many assault rifles as you want? Seriously I just don't understand your thought process. Please fill me in. Fear. The video i posted touches in that. Let it go. Breath in and out. Remember, the argument doesnt stem from reason and logic, but of frightenment. Also remember, the state cannot fundamentally engage in demonstrably mutually beneficial activity. Private producers can. Hence, why it is aprioristically true that the anarchist method of production benefits consumers, while the statist method of production does not. And can arguments not arise because we fear things? We debate things with regards to the benefits and the harms that such an idea may bring. Dismissing an idea simply because it arises from frightenment should never be a reason to dismiss an argument because arguments that arise from fright point out flaws in the things they are critiquing. You say that private producers can account for many of the goods that governments currently do. But you haven't answered any of Haemonculus' arguments. You've merely dismissed them without truly considering them. On July 02 2011 12:04 Haemonculus wrote:
Fear, alright. Who's afraid? I'm assuming I'm the scared one, hiding in blissful ignorant slavery to my federal masters.
I can talk like Yoda too, or I can call you delusional. Please again explain to me how an anarchical society benefits the average person?
Private production can create "mutually beneficial activity?" Are you high? Private produce can produce working conditions similar to the early industrial era.
What keeps people from taking advantage of others? Of banning black people from their restaurant? Of beating their children or wives? The common decency inherent to mankind? You're a nut. The source of mutually beneficial capital allocation is profit management - where profit guides capital according to consumer preferences. Remember - this is why it is at all possible to construct anything consumers desire. It is regrettable however, that this does not take place. As government formally rejects this - only the informal reasonability government employed producers' profit seeking leads to remotely tolerable situation. Profit management will lead to a system which benefits everyone? Does that include the workers? The end consumer? Let's say I run a factory. I can have my workers do 8 hour shifts, give them a lunch break, implement safety standards, and pay them a reasonable wage. Or I can run 12 hour shifts 6 days a week, give a 15 minute break to eat, replace injured workers by firing them, and pay them shit wages. I, the wealthy factory owner, will have much higher profit margins in the latter sense. But I suppose in your world there's another better job out there, right? And that people would simply choose not to work in my factory, and instead go work for Joe who pays better? Any idea how many people work for walmart? You're adorable. I can implement product safety standards. I don't want my product to hurt the end user. Or I can ship out something that looks pretty but contains lead, mercury, and whatever other toxins are used in production. I betcha I'll save some money by skimping out on safety. Profit margins, yay! But those are economic concerns. Again, please address how your magical anarchical world treats its citizens? What keeps me from getting robbed or raped on my way home from work? Did I sign up with a local protection agency? Or am I carrying my machine gun to work with me? Guns are the great equalizer after all. You strike me as someone with the leisure time to sit around reading up on philosophy and economic theory from the comfort of your house. I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume that you're white, male, and middle-upper class, and quite likely lead a very comfortable life growing up in America. Is that where you see yourself in this new world of yours? As one of the elite towering over the masses of uneducated poor? Not everyone has had your opportunities. Not that I wholly disagree with your general points, but you are kind of building a straw man here. 1. Assuming other opportunities for workers, the risk of injury and costs of shifts would be calculated into the wages they are willing to work for. Benefits of 8h shifts and a safe working environment lower the wages you have to pay your workers. Then, even in anarchy, maybe especially so, workers can either just walk out on you, depriving you of production until you have new ones or rob everything in that factory if they deem the benefit of that to be greater than future employment under bad conditions. My point is, where he assumes unlimited working opportunities, you are assuming instant adequately skilled laborers. Then, I may be a little dreamy-eyed with Walmart for what they did for customers and supply chains, but 8-15$ isn't a bad wage for completely unskilled labor. 2. Your business model here assumes low set-up costs. You have to be able to make a profit even if you do not have repeat customers due to your product being shitty. So no setting up of an expensive efficient factory. Even if you decide to change your brand name every day for your product so customers cannot spot your bad product and become repeat customers, you are creating a demand for a second business that just gets paid for telling people what products to avoid. Then, you have to assume that there is no substitute for your product that isn't bad and that people are not willing to pay a premium for products they have experienced to be safe. That would fly in the face of current marketing and signaling theory though. 3. See lojacks. Just the possibility of you having private security or a gun will reduce crime towards you whether you have it or not. This will reduce the criminals that are willing to attack you in an environment where failure means death to the truly desperate. Depending on the socio-economic environment in that anarchical society, that might only be a few people. Anarchy might work, at first, for people that already are willing to adhere to certain social institutions. Where it gets funky is when the unregulated market brought about a company with enough power to form a government.
on your first point, lets say those workers go on strike because they don't like the way get treated. Whats keeping the factory owner from just using force? The argument that everyone got weapons and that they could fight back? Sounds like a great society, where every demand for better conditions becomes a civil war.
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haemonculus is simply repeating the same argument that's been repeated against anarchist ideology since it's beginning. Really beating a dead horse too, in a very long, drawn out way. It's basically a strawman argument too, assuming that anarchy means taking every single thing the government does and eliminating it completely from society.
In my mind, anarchism is about an ideal. The government which governs least governs best. Arguing about the details of financing sewer systems is not really the point... The point is that government is an inherently immoral institution, and we should remember that fact, and avoid it's monopolistic force to achieve our goals as rarely as possible. If it's possible to replace a government function with voluntary exchange, then we should always embrace that. Repeating "what about roads durr?!!" is a way of completely disregarding an argument that makes a lot of sense.
What are the arguments against slavery, against murder, against theft, against a draft? They are all founded upon the same morality that anarchist theory is based upon. We need to be very careful about justifying the violation of individual rights in the name of convenience.
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I think it's ridiculous for anyone to call Somolia the success of anything, much less an example for the rest of the world...
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Anarchy is p perfect since if it wasnt for Blizzard Activision everyone would love eachother and only work together in harmony!11
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EPT
