Somalia - Success of Anarchy - Page 22

On July 02 2011 08:03 Haemonculus wrote:

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.

On July 06 2011 06:27 Treemonkeys wrote:


Hey you seem interested? I guess I will try to indulge your questions.

First of all, I said it would probably be hell at first. I might be wrong, but that is how I see it. Just because of how dependent people are on the structures of society, combined with how helpless and disarmed most people are. Plenty of room for plenty of suffering while the strong take advantage of the weak. Now it's not necessary to assume that EVERYTHING would stop working, but either way it is okay. It's also worth mentioning that the US makes life complete hell in other areas of the world, but I don't want to get into that too much right now outside of just mentioning it.

Why? Well value is subjective, so this is of course based on my own values. They don't have to be yours obviously. Let say you take every zoo in the entire world and release all the animals into the wilderness, each one in an area where they reasonably "should" be able to survive. Of course most of them wouldn't, they've been caged too long, they don't know how, and they lack the will required to endure and learn. Some would survive though, some would even reproduce. It might be a tiny fraction of all of them, but some most certainly would.

So some people would say it would be cruelty to release them like that, but I say it is cruel to keep them in the cage. That is just where I place my values. At some point I think people should realize that it's not a question of safety and a long life. We are all going to die. What should be more important is what we want out of the time we have. After all, without all of that horrible shit you described ever happening, everyone will die just the same.

Do we still use currencetly, etc? Yeah, human invention and ingenuity does not come from government, how accessible would it be for people who can't understand it and have almost nothing to offer? You can't really predict that. If you want to hear the good side of the idea though, check out some books by Murry Rothbard, he was good at making it sound stable and appealing.

What about me? My body is actually pretty weak and fucked up, like I wouldn't even be able to hold or pull the trigger on a gun, so no point in owning any of them. So if the shit hits the fan, how I would be able to survive would depending entirely on the people around me and how well we are able and willing to work together. Pretty much the same as it is for me right now, I was born in a successful part of the world with people around me who like to cooperate. There is definitely no way to predict what would happen to me if government disappeared overnight, but it is clear that I would be pretty helpless and would have to just roll with whatever opportunities or misfortunes that came my way. Fine with me. I am at the point were I would rather suffer than involuntarily cause suffering.

I'm not romanticizing about anything and I'm certainly not here trying to sell a new world. I am definitely not an anarchist, I am just a slave who doesn't enjoy being a slave. The reason I was debating in this thread, is because it bothers me when people throw around reckless arguments in support of government that are blatantly false. I actually don't see a big difference between government and anarchy. All of the horrible things from anarchy exist in this world. All of the horrible things from government exist in this world. Historically we think anarchy came first, but government is not externally imposed on us, collectively at some point in history we made it this way.

So if you want to look for the success or failure that will flow from an anarchist state, you only have to look at the current situation of the world. Success or failure simply based on your values and views of civilization. So as much as I hate government, if it disappeared overnight we would likely just end up in the same situation eventually - without some transcendence of human thought occurring in a critical mass of humans, enough to really change how we live and interact with each other. As long as government is here, schooling everyone, I don't see that happening. Even if it was possible to teach humans to live peacefully without the need for a violent authority, would they do it? No of course not, they have no incentive to - they have every incentive not to, it would destroy them. Everyone looks out for number one.

So it's totally not worth it to go through all of the suffering that may be brought by sudden removal of government if we would go through all that only to eventually end up in the same shit situation we are in now, which is why I am not an anarchist.

On July 06 2011 06:42 Treemonkeys wrote:
Modern standard of living fucked me over pretty hard personally, I wonder what I would think if it was not for that?

On July 06 2011 09:07 BestZergOnEast wrote:


As far as roads are concerned - well, I don't think we need to get rid of roads just because we get rid of governmnt. If there is a demand for transportation (which obviously there is and will be) there will be a supply for it. ECON 101. It's really no different than any other industry. How are we going to get food to 300 million people? We don't have to solve that problem. The market does. Same with water and sewage. Customers would pay companies to provide these services - and due to market competition it would be much cheaper.
As far as being safe - first of all, there's nothing the government does right now that will prevent you from getting assaulted. Maybe they will catch the guy after the fact, but even that is pretty unlikely. If you even bother to report the crime. But yes, I think carrying a gun is a good idea. And there is no need to complely abandon the idea of security simply because we abolish the state - their could be private companies you can hire for protection / redress.
Yes, we would have a currency - a gold standard, most likely, although that would depend on the market. The current fiat money supply is inherently inflationary; this need not be the case. Indeed, it wouldn't if we abolish central banking. Central banks cause business cycles - depressions, recessions, if we had sound mone this wouldn't happen. There would be no depressions, except in extreme circumstances (being invaded, for example).
Banks would be free to operate, certainly, but they would be treated like any other business. That is they would not have the government priviledge that is fractional reserve banking. The process of investment would be separated from the process of saving or warehousing of money.

The free market does keep the cost of health care down - something which government seems incapable of doing. Actually, doctors themselves aren't the problem - it's all the extra waste, bureaucries and market incentives... everything has to cost the maximum. Back before the government take over of health care everything cost the minimum, it was no big deal, you would go and pay what you could; the doctors would take care of you. That's the way it should be. There's no one to be afraid of. People are, for the most part, good, caring and sincere. We have just been taught our whole lives to fear each other... to put ourselves in adversarily situations where we need not.
I think in an anarcho-capitalist society I would probably start business. A society without government would be incredibly prosperous. If you look at examples throughout history, you will find the less government involvement in an economy the more prosperous the country. The middle evil times were terrible... like was short, bruttish and nasty, but we're not talking about going back in time. We are talking about how there is a criminal organization named the state and how the world would be a better place if we recognized that violence and coercion are immoral and that there is no problem so massive it cannot be conquered by the voluntary actions of a free society.

On July 06 2011 10:26 Shai wrote:
Another thing. Store A tries to sell a pineapple for $5 to Customer 1. Customer 1 decides a bullet in the face is cheaper.

On July 06 2011 07:42 Haemonculus wrote:

Could you care to elaborate on that? No pressure of course.

I had horrible asthma as a child. I was rushed to the emergency room numerous times before my first birthday. Had I been born 70-80 years earlier, I likely would have died an infant. I'm perfectly healthy today, but without modern medicine it's very unlikely I'd even be alive.

I know nothing of your condition, but would being born in a non-modern world have helped you live a better life?

On July 06 2011 10:26 Shai wrote:
Company A builds a road from City 1 to City 2. They charge 10,000 dollars to access this road once.

Company B says "Hey, why the heck don't we build a road and charge $5,000 dollars?" so they build a road between City 1 and City 2.

Assuming there are only TWO companies we now have TWO different road systems, taking up double the space it should. It's safe to assume some routes would have up to three different suppliers.

Another thing. Store A tries to sell a pineapple for $5 to Customer 1. Customer 1 decides a bullet in the face is cheaper.

On July 06 2011 10:32 Kaneh wrote:
it all sounds good to not have a government of some sort, and then you realize that there are always going to be people who just don't care and will screw you over in any way possible. without authority who's going to protect you and your belongings?

either you pay someone to do it,
they extort you,
or they just kill you and take it.

i like the first option, where as many bad points as all this government and authority has, it's the least of all the evils. I believe the quote was: "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."

Actually the American government and it's agents kill many innocent American citizens, most notably in encounters with the police.

On July 06 2011 15:24 DeepElemBlues wrote:


Actually about a thousand people a year are killed by the police and 50-100 police by citizens. We're talking intent for both sides not car crashes or anything... "many" sounds a bit hyperbolic.

On July 03 2011 10:35 Harrow wrote:


I guess we evolved past the cave part.

Sorry, but this is really a terrible argument against anarchism. At least, most anarchists I know don't advocate a society where people can shoot each other in the face and nothing happens...

On July 06 2011 15:33 Treemonkeys wrote:


lol, where do these statistics come from?

On July 06 2011 17:00 Nightfall.589 wrote:


People haven't evolved, they are just better conditioned.



And communists in the Soviet Union didn't advocate a society where everything was tightly rationed, and the nation lived in poverty. And, much like anarchists, they haven't figured out how to prevent that from happening, under their proposed system.

Good on you for pointing out the problems of centralised government... And then turning a blind eye to their counterparts in an anarchy.

What exactly would prevent the storeowner from getting shot over 5$, in your utopia, again?

Hired protection? So, if you don't hire Guys With Guns, you're on your own? And those Guys With Guns will never make mistakes? Kill innocent people? Ever?

You should really hold your proposed utopia up to the same level of criticism you apply to others.