General Stupid Objections of Anarchy

[Havet]

Found these in an agorist blog (http://boredzhwazi.blogspot.com/) from a guy I once argued with. Let's see what you make of them.

"Anarchy is chaos."
Only in metaphor according to popular culture which doesn't know what anarchism is in the first place, and thus can't make adequate metaphor of it. The word "anarchism" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism) has a much more pertinent meaning, go look that up.

"The government does good things."
The bad (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War) things (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust) government (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery) does (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_brutality) far outweigh the good things, especially when considering that most of the good things government does would get done anyways without the government.

"Read/watch [fictional work], that's why anarchy doesn't work."
Honestly this is too stupid to even merit rebuttal. I'm mentioning it only because it's such a self-evidently impotent argument that it shows how dumb some of these objections can be.

"Blah blah necessary evil blah blah."
Well-known figures of speech are not axiomatically true.

"You're just a hateful little *****."
Ad hominem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem).

"You're too young blah blah blah..."
Tell Rothbard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Rothbard). Also, ad hom (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem).

"Rights are things the government gives the people."
Well then where did the group of people in "the government" get their rights from to give to everyone else? If they can create them ad nihilo, so can I. Governments aren't magic. (http://boredzhwazi.blogspot.com/2007/01/archoexceptionalism.html)

"In a democracy, we are the government."
We are supposedly given some control over the government. This does not make us the government.

"Well since anything that makes a decision is a government blah blah blah..."
This argument defines it's way out of the applicability of the arguments against government. Unfortunately, for this very same reason, it doesn't do anything to refute anarchist claims where they are intended to apply, which is to say, the state, and thus doesn't refute anything.

"If you go against the government they'll throw you in jail."
Argument from intimidation is fallacious.

"Mises (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_von_Mises) wasn't an anarchist."
He wasn't infallible either.

"We The People..."
...are not one single consciousness with one single will able to make something voluntary to all by pretending we did.

"...the Constitution of the United States..."
...is invalid, as Lysander Spooner (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysander_Spooner) so thoroughly proved (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Treason) in the 1860s.

"If you live here, you're consenting."
If I live in the ghetto, am I consenting to have my bicycle stolen?

"Love it or leave it."
You don't own the country, you have no right to tell me to.

"Look at the aftermath of Katrina."
What a great example of government failure. With all the weapons confiscation, roadblocks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effect_of_Hurricane_Katrina_on_New_Orleans#Gretna_ controversy), FEMA crawling all over the region inside the government-built failed levees (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effect_of_Hurricane_Katrina_on_New_Orleans#Levee_f ailures), you can say that it was chaos, but you can't say it was anarchy. Government set the dominoes up, and went out of it's way to knock them all down. The example has nothing to do with anarchy or anarchism.

"Look at Somalia."
Supposedly there isn't a government (http://www.mises.org/story/2701) except the one that supposedly is (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transitional_Federal_Government), and the UN (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNOSOM_I) and US (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mogadishu_%281993%29#Mission_shift_to_na tion-building) and Ethiopia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Somalia_%282006%E2%80%93present%29) were meddling in the region, and Somalia was essentially the poorest country on earth even when it had a state, thus Somalia being a wartorn shithole is no effective argument against anarchism at all.

"We should work within the system."
The state is inherently evil, and it isn't going to abolish itself by vote. Anything less than complete abolition is temporary relief and delays the government's ultimately destroying itself as all governments do. Like inflation, it feels good in the short term but is ultimately counterproductive in the long term.

"If men were angels, we wouldn't need a government."
If men were angels, the government wouldn't have the problems that support arguments in favor of anarchism.

"Anarchy assumes all people are good."
If all people are good, government is unnecessary. If all people are bad, government is intolerable. If some are good and some are bad, the bad will seek to dominate the good through government. In no case is government desirable.

"But it's too extreme!"
Too extreme for what? Not too extreme to be realized, communism, despite it's flaws, went from manifesto (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_manifesto) to revolution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Revolutions) in 70 years. Not too extreme to be true, extreme consistency (http://boredzhwazi.blogspot.com/2007/02/arguement-against-anarchy-4.html) does not make something invalid, just the opposite.

"Gangs of criminals will just take over and oppress us like dictators!"
Well, it's certainly possible (that's how we got governments in the first place), but using this as an argument to support government is hypocritical because it supports gangs of criminals taking over and oppressing us, which it's intended to stop. The same forces that smashed the old state would prevent the formation of a new one.

"Governments are necessary for cooperation."
Cooperation is necessary for government. Which came first, a cooperative group of people, or a government? Either cooperation does not require government, or government never would have formed.

"Anarchy is against human nature because people are meant to obey others."
Even if true (and it's not), this wouldn't disprove statelessness. You can still obey others and not have a state. You're just choosing a leader rather than having one forced on you. The state doesn't pass the objection, however. At the top of government are the final rulers, these people do not obey any others. This would be against human nature.

[Raúl Duke]

Here's my take

"The government does good things."
The bad (http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War) things (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust) government (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery) does (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_brutality) far outweigh the good things, especially when considering that most of the good things government does would get done anyways without the government.Most anarchists here are anarchists because they are anti-capitalists...they see the state as part of the wider problem (i.e. if you don't get rid of the state, as is, then there's the potential for state-monopoly capitalism/etc to arise).

Most anarchists might have responded to that question by saying something like:
"While the state has its good, I presume they are talking of welfare, but even these "good things" have their purpose. The state, in capitalism, is an instrument of which the bourgeoisie rule through and/or which they use to maintain the status quo. Welfare is just one of those things they use to maintain power, besides the use of violence (police force, etc). The state uses "sticks and carrots" to keep the workers down."

Most anarchist today have adopted some for of "class analysis/outlook/perspective" and time to time frame their arguments/responses along those lines.


"Rights are things the government gives the people."
Well then where did the group of people in "the government" get their rights from to give to everyone else? If they can create them ad nihilo, so can I. Governments aren't magic. (http://www.anonym.to/?http://boredzhwazi.blogspot.com/2007/01/archoexceptionalism.html)

"In a democracy, we are the government."
We are supposedly given some control over the government. This does not make us the government.
The state breaks out rights when it needs to (or thinks it does, since the state is a human invention and susceptible to our fail) in order to maintain the status quo.

Plus we don't live in a democracy. We live in a republic were our so-called "representatives" represent us but due to the nature of system (as a whole) it's basically corrupted by the power of lobbyists mostly under the employ of corporations/wealthy/etc.


"We The People..."
...are not one single consciousness with one single will able to make something voluntary to all by pretending we did.
One problem with the constitution is that it wasn't written by "the people" as a whole (there was no referendum as I'm aware to ratify this constitution) plus the times changed and it's possible that the constitution is obsolete.


"We should work within the system."
The state is inherently evil, and it isn't going to abolish itself by vote. Anything less than complete abolition is temporary relief and delays the government's ultimately destroying itself as all governments do. Like inflation, it feels good in the short term but is ultimately counterproductive in the long term.Most anarchists I know wouldn't say that it's "evil", they would use a different argument.

Most of the other questions and many responses are stupid or not important to me so I didn't cover them. Also some of my responses aren't very well-detailed but that's because it would make everything very long and consumes my time.

[trivas7]

"Rights are things the government gives the people."
Well then where did the group of people in "the government" get their rights from to give to everyone else? If they can create them ad nihilo, so can I. Governments aren't magic. (http://boredzhwazi.blogspot.com/2007/01/archoexceptionalism.html)

"In a democracy, we are the government."
We are supposedly given some control over the government. This does not make us the government.

These are the errors all Marxists fall into. I.e., that government is some deus ex machina that fell from the sky to impose order and dispense rights to otherwise powerless creatures. And of course they believe in the magical powers of democracy, a most primitive and barbaric way of resolving issues.


Here's my take
Most anarchists here are anarchists because they are anti-capitalists...they see the state as part of the wider problem (i.e. if you don't get rid of the state, as is, then there's the potential for state-monopoly capitalism/etc to arise).


So their anti-statism is secondary to their anti-capitalism. What they are really against is the use of money. As if capital has some inherent evil attached to it. They don't believe in freedom, as money emerged historically separate from the state.

[Kwisatz Haderach]

You are correct that most of the objections you listed are stupid (which is why no intelligent opponent of capitalist "anarchy" will use them), but some are perfectly valid. And in other cases, the response is as stupid as the argument it was meant to refute.

Allow me to demonstrate...


"The government does good things."
The bad things government does far outweigh the good things...
Do they? How do you know that? In order to say that something bad outweighs something good (or vice versa), you need some way of measuring the good and the bad, so you can tell which is greater.

I haven't seen you even attempt anything close to a measurement of the total good and the total evil done by the state.

And then, of course, you also face another dilemma: Why should "the state," as an abstract concept, be held responsible for the bad things done by only certain states? Why should one state be guilty for things done by another state?


...especially when considering that most of the good things government does would get done anyways without the government.
So would the bad things. You provided links to articles on war, the Holocaust, slavery and police brutality. Are you suggesting that, in the absence of government, people would no longer fight each other, Nazis would no longer hate Jews, and men with guns would no longer try to enslave people without guns?


"Rights are things the government gives the people."
Well then where did the group of people in "the government" get their rights from to give to everyone else? If they can create them ad nihilo, so can I.
Rights are only as good as the authority enforcing them. Governments can grant rights because they have the power to enforce them. Can you enforce rights? Against an invading army? I'd like to see you try.


"In a democracy, we are the government."
We are supposedly given some control over the government. This does not make us the government.
If we had total power over the government (which we currently don't), then, actually, that would make us the government.


"If you go against the government they'll throw you in jail."
Argument from intimidation is fallacious.
Yes, but there is actually a very good point hidden in there:

If your society is of such a nature that governments tend to have more military strength than you, then your society is impossible to sustain in the long term because - sooner or later - a government will crush you. That may not be good, but it's the way things are.

Expecting to be left alone by people with the power to conquer you is the very definition of ridiculous utopianism.


"We The People..."
...are not one single consciousness with one single will able to make something voluntary to all by pretending we did.
Yes. But the voluntary or involuntary character of an action is irrelevant to the question of whether that action is good or bad.

Yeah, the state is involuntary. So what?


"If you live here, you're consenting."
If I live in the ghetto, am I consenting to have my bicycle stolen?
If you have the ability to move your bicycle somewhere else, but choose to keep it in the ghetto anyway, and if you are given plenty of warning in advance that your bicycle will be stolen if you keep it there - then yes.

The government announces what it will do to you loud and clear - all laws are published - and you have the ability to move to another country if you don't like it. This is enough to mean that you consent to the government's actions, at least by the right-libertarian definition of "consent."

A government's terms are exactly the same as the terms you are offered by a private employer or landlord: "Take this deal, or get off my land." If one is consensual, then so is the other.


"Love it or leave it."
You don't own the country, you have no right to tell me to.
Actually, we do own the country. Or we rightfully should. All land should be the collective property of Mankind.


Blah blah Somalia and Katrina don't count because of government interference blah.
Do you expect that all governments on Earth will vanish at the same time? No? Then tell me: Once you've abolished government in one place, what do you think neighboring governments will do? That's right. They'll interfere.


"Anarchy assumes all people are good."
If all people are good, government is unnecessary. If all people are bad, government is intolerable. If some are good and some are bad, the bad will seek to dominate the good through government. In no case is government desirable.
Because of rational self-interest, every individual will tend to want others to behave morally, without himself having to behave in the same way. A good society benefits everyone living in it - thus an individual will want to live in a good society, and will want to impose rules on other people that enforce such a society. But an individual can also derive great personal benefit from acting immorally and breaking the rules of the good society. Thus an individual will not want those rules to apply to himself. He will just want the rules to apply to others.

Or, to put it differently, people want others to be good and themselves to be bad.

This means that if every person were only able to make decisions about her own behavior, everyone would be bad. And if every person were only able to make decisions about rules of behavior for others, everyone would be good.

That is the fundamental reason why collectivism creates a good society and individualism creates a bad society.


"Gangs of criminals will just take over and oppress us like dictators!"
Well, it's certainly possible (that's how we got governments in the first place), but using this as an argument to support government is hypocritical because it supports gangs of criminals taking over and oppressing us, which it's intended to stop.
Even using your own metaphor, not all gangs are the same. The pro-state argument is that the gangs of criminals that will take over in the absence of the state will be much worse than the current state. Why? Because the power of the state has been greatly restricted and brought under some measure of popular control over the last two hundred years thanks to such things as democracy, separation of powers, and the rule of law.

Yes, those gangs of criminals would be like a new state... but they would be like a new state under absolute monarchy, which is considerably worse than what we have now.


At the top of government are the final rulers, these people do not obey any others.
Actually, that's not true. As much as I hate having to defend constitutional liberalism, your claim here is simply false. In a modern constitutional state, no single person or group is all-powerful. The head of the executive (the president or prime minister) has to answer to the legislative assembly (the parliament), and the legislative assembly cannot pass laws that are deemed unconstitutional by the highest organs of the judiciary (the supreme court).

Your arguments seem to be directed against the kind of states that were prevalent in the 18th century. You may want to visit us over here in the modern world.

[Raúl Duke]

They don't believe in freedom

Money/Capital =/= "Freedom"

Plus I didn't say that both arose at the same time, no one said that.

[Havet]

]Do they? How do you know that? In order to say that something bad outweighs something good (or vice versa), you need some way of measuring the good and the bad, so you can tell which is greater.

I haven't seen you even attempt anything close to a measurement of the total good and the total evil done by the state.

And then, of course, you also face another dilemma: Why should "the state," as an abstract concept, be held responsible for the bad things done by only certain states? Why should one state be guilty for things done by another state?

Yeah thanks for pointing that out. it seems impossible to measure everything good and everything bad.

However, communists also don't measure the good things and bad things current capitalism has brought to people. How can they know then that capitalism is doing more harm than good?

I understand it seems i'm kind of evading the question, but i'm pretty sure the social welfare, the infrastructures and some other types of government regulation in the past 100 years do not compare with the history of theft, murder, slavery and plunder of past states during all of human history. That is why the author did not proceed to measure precisely everything good and bad. It's sort of self-evident, even if just by the math.


So would the bad things. You provided links to articles on war, the Holocaust, slavery and police brutality. Are you suggesting that, in the absence of government, people would no longer fight each other, Nazis would no longer hate Jews, and men with guns would no longer try to enslave people without guns?

Nope, but the intensity would be lesser, because more power and resources would be decentralized (ideally, that is). The same forces that would bring a government down would prevent one from forming and from engaging in such violence as previous governments. I can't tell for sure though, but neither can you.



Rights are only as good as the authority enforcing them. Governments can grant rights because they have the power to enforce them. Can you enforce rights? Against an invading army? I'd like to see you try.

The point was that if government can create rights out of nowhere, or by enforcing them, then so can I, out of nowhere, or by enforcing them, which doesn't justify a state at all.

I'll reiterate, the government is a group of people. Anything one group of people can do, any group of people can do. There is nothing inherent in any one group of people that makes them superior to all others by the very title which they give themselves.



If we had total power over the government (which we currently don't), then, actually, that would make us the government.

What about people who didnt want be a part of the government? remmember the point here is to show how this doesnt disprove anarchy. Communists also use that argument here all the time (RGacky3 particularly): "Just because we are given power to rule doesn't justify the power."


Yes, but there is actually a very good point hidden in there:

If your society is of such a nature that governments tend to have more military strength than you, then your society is impossible to sustain in the long term because - sooner or later - a government will crush you. That may not be good, but it's the way things are.

Expecting to be left alone by people with the power to conquer you is the very definition of ridiculous utopianism.

if if if if

If you continue making arguments of the general nature "Everything goes wrong and there's nothing you can do about it", then please do allow me to do the same for you:

Suppose your state seizes absolute control of everything despite any restrictions that should have been in it's founding documents, but nobody in power seems to notice or give a fuck, or they're behind it. The people are so thoroughly indoctorinated, stupid, and lazy as they've been made by public schools that they are in support of it, or they don't know, or don't care, or are too passive to do anything about it, because to take the time to think they'd have to miss the big football game, the only free time they have left anymore.

You can't own guns to defend yourself against the corrupt police force, and they're indistinguishable from the military anyways, especially after the recent deal leasing surplus or retired harriers (or at least the ones that don't get dumped into the ocean) to the local police force.

Your savings account has been made worthless by inflation and you're taxed out of 80% of your income after income, sales, transfer, estate, property, licence, inflation, and other taxes, to speak nothing of the price increases from all the hidden taxes that get built into the sale price.

You're in a mountain of debt from the home loan you took out while housing prices were kept up by import tarrifs on the building materials and an artificially low interest rate and an artificially restricted supply that is by law unnecessarily expensive.

You can't get out because of your low wages, which you can't get raised because your union, if you have one, has been made irrelevant unless they can work through the state which is owned by the biggest businesses anyways, who you have to work for, ultimately leaving you just barely in the black at the end of the month.

Your every move is tracked, scrutinized, and regulated. Random attacks are made by the government against the people to keep the rams in patriotic, angry, unthinking fervor, while the ewes are kept in terrified submission.

Your door is busted down at 2 AM and police rush in with machineguns, yank you out of bed, and demand to know what the white powder in the bag is that you've never seen but they claim they found in your house, and drag you away to be held in a cell without bail while they try you in a secret trial without you being allowed to make a case, without a jury, where they imprison you for possession of cocaine, with intent to sell, they presume the money you earn is going to support terrorists and convict you of treason, and you're to be killed in the morning at sunrise by firing squad. Your family, if you aren't divorced, will have to take on all your debts in addition to their own.

Isn't this argument annoying? But so effective! It lets me completely evade whatever is likely or unlikely and pull the conditions out of my ass without regard to other effects of the same causes that brought this system to be in the first place. Using this wonderful tool I can base my conclusions on contradictory premises but they're too deeply hidden to be obvious and if you bother to find them I can just deny it anyways and accuse you of avoiding the question. You can't just ask for other conditions or take some way out that I failed to block in my scenario because I can just change the scenario to prevent that route from being available.

But yet, if you have any right to demand a response from me to your stupid situation, you must come up with an adequate response of what you would do in the situation which is not terribly absurd or unthinkable since we're already about 80% there anyways.

And now for the final question you expected me to answer which I highly doubt you adequately are able to without severely compromising your position: Then what?

Anyway, ill say it again, the same forces that will dismantle a state will prevent one from forming. These might be highly organized forces, or just individuals doing what they think is best for them and defending themselves.



Yes. But the voluntary or involuntary character of an action is irrelevant to the question of whether that action is good or bad.

Yeah, the state is involuntary. So what?

What? What do you mean? I'm not sure i'm understanding your argument correctly. This objection was pretty much an argument against collectivism and the notion that people can't get along with different interests.



If you have the ability to move your bicycle somewhere else, but choose to keep it in the ghetto anyway, and if you are given plenty of warning in advance that your bicycle will be stolen if you keep it there - then yes.

The government announces what it will do to you loud and clear - all laws are published - and you have the ability to move to another country if you don't like it. This is enough to mean that you consent to the government's actions, at least by the right-libertarian definition of "consent."

A government's terms are exactly the same as the terms you are offered by a private employer or landlord: "Take this deal, or get off my land." If one is consensual, then so is the other.

In the guetto, whoever sold you the house agreed you could now own it, so as any property inside it. By being stolen, you are certainly not consenting to it, because you'd prefer to keep your property.

As for the government, the main argument is that the government didnt gain ownership of the whole of the land legitimately (just got there and claimed everything, and assuming there is a legitimate claim to ownership). For a more specific case, consider that in a stateless place the intersubjective prevalent criteria for ownership is the homesteading principle, and that a group of people got there and claimed the land by simply stating it out loud. That group of people would be a state.

In a private employer, he owns the tools, and you consent to work for him by agreeing to receive a compensation/wages. This only works if he got those tools through the intersubjective prevalent criteria for ownership, and that the method which he pays his employee (wages) is a prevalent criteria for ownership as well (the people might think that unless the employer gives the person exactly what he produced, then hes exploiting him). It depends on the society around.



Actually, we do own the country. Or we rightfully should. All land should be the collective property of Mankind.

Why do you think it should?



Do you expect that all governments on Earth will vanish at the same time? No? Then tell me: Once you've abolished government in one place, what do you think neighboring governments will do? That's right. They'll interfere. And as long as they interfere that stateless society will not be stateless.

I'm pretty sure sometime there will be stateless societies without any state interfering (they just need to be able to defend themselves or the states will think theyre not any harm).



Because of rational self-interest, every individual will tend to want others to behave morally, without himself having to behave in the same way. A good society benefits everyone living in it - thus an individual will want to live in a good society, and will want to impose rules on other people that enforce such a society. But an individual can also derive great personal benefit from acting immorally and breaking the rules of the good society. Thus an individual will not want those rules to apply to himself. He will just want the rules to apply to others.

Or, to put it differently, people want others to be good and themselves to be bad.

This means that if every person were only able to make decisions about her own behavior, everyone would be bad. And if every person were only able to make decisions about rules of behavior for others, everyone would be good.

That is the fundamental reason why collectivism creates a good society and individualism creates a bad society.

How do you know every individual will try to benefit himself while doing harm to others? Trade is an example of an action where two individuals benefit themselves. The mere existance of trade would seem to disprove your idea that individuals always try to do good to themselves and bad to others.



Even using your own metaphor, not all gangs are the same. The pro-state argument is that the gangs of criminals that will take over in the absence of the state will be much worse than the current state. Why? Because the power of the state has been greatly restricted and brought under some measure of popular control over the last two hundred years thanks to such things as democracy, separation of powers, and the rule of law.

Yes, those gangs of criminals would be like a new state... but they would be like a new state under absolute monarchy, which is considerably worse than what we have now.

This still doesn't prove such gangs of criminals would appear (again, the forces that would make a state disappear would prevent these high groups of violent people from taking over) and that the current state is any good and should not be abolished.



Actually, that's not true. As much as I hate having to defend constitutional liberalism, your claim here is simply false. In a modern constitutional state, no single person or group is all-powerful. The head of the executive (the president or prime minister) has to answer to the legislative assembly (the parliament), and the legislative assembly cannot pass laws that are deemed unconstitutional by the highest organs of the judiciary (the supreme court).

Your arguments seem to be directed against the kind of states that were prevalent in the 18th century. You may want to visit us over here in the modern world.

yeah that's right. it seems his arguments were more directed towards older forms of statism. Nevertheless, those constitutional powers could all bond toguether secretly and do whatever they want (assuming they can all manage to convince one another). Anyway, your point is taken.

[trivas7]

Money/Capital =/= "Freedom"

No one decided upon money. Money just happened in the normal course of human interaction. Money freely happened to facilitate human interaction.

[mikelepore]

These are the errors all Marxists fall into. I.e., that government is some deus ex machina that fell from the sky to impose order and dispense rights to otherwise powerless creatures. And of course they believe in the magical powers of democracy, a most primitive and barbaric way of resolving issues.

Marxists say that government fell out of the sky? To dispense rights to people? And democracy is magical? I have been a Marxist for 41 years and I don't remember learning those principles.

What I do clearly remember hearing and reading, and often repeating myself, is the Marxian argument that the workers can't intentionally choose to leave the police and army under the control of the capitalist class, but just seize the industries, and then not expect an unnecessarily extreme degree of repressive violence to occur. The working class has to use the political process and take possession of the state, in order to remove the weapons from the control of the capitalist class that would surely massacre huge number of rebelling workers if it can.

It's so odd. Never among martial artists, but only among anarchists, would we find an inexplicable tendency to argue: when your enemy is attacking you with weapons, and you easily have the ability to take the weapons out of their hands, still, don't do so, let's them keep their weapons.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

No one decided upon money. Money just happened in the normal course of human interaction. Money freely happened to facilitate human interaction.

Money and economics have not been static, unchanging concepts - what we have now is vastly more complex than what was initially developed.

[trivas7]

Do they? How do you know that? In order to say that something bad outweighs something good (or vice versa), you need some way of measuring the good and the bad, so you can tell which is greater.

Governments do nothing that can't be done better by non-governments.


Rights are only as good as the authority enforcing them. Governments can grant rights because they have the power to enforce them. Can you enforce rights? Against an invading army? I'd like to see you try.
This is a strawman argument. Right are conditions of human existence. But human existence doesn't depend on government.


If we had total power over the government (which we currently don't), then, actually, that would make us the government.
Non one person or group of persons can have total power over a government agent. That would require mind control.


If your society is of such a nature that governments tend to have more military strength than you, then your society is impossible to sustain in the long term because - sooner or later - a government will crush you. That may not be good, but it's the way things are.

Expecting to be left alone by people with the power to conquer you is the very definition of ridiculous utopianism.
Ridiculous. If an invading government has no government agency that surrenders to it, what is there to conquer?


Yeah, the state is involuntary. So what?
Ridiculous. The state is a person or persons who acts w/ motives like anyone else.


Actually, we do own the country. Or we rightfully should. All land should be the collective property of Mankind.
No, ownership is an intersubjective agreement bt individuals. And people don't agree that "we" own the country.


Because of rational self-interest, every individual will tend to want others to behave morally, without himself having to behave in the same way. [...]

Or, to put it differently, people want others to be good and themselves to be bad.
No, Original Sin is a myth, Christian.


Yes, those gangs of criminals would be like a new state... but they would be like a new state under absolute monarchy, which is considerably worse than what we have now.
Why be ruled by gangs at all?

[trivas7]

Money and economics have not been static, unchanging concepts - what we have now is vastly more complex than what was initially developed.
And this fact is relevant how exactly to whether or not money is intrinsically evil?

[trivas7]

It's so odd. Never among martial artists, but only among anarchists, would we find an inexplicable tendency to argue: when your enemy is attacking you with weapons, and you easily have the ability to take the weapons out of their hands, still, don't do so, let's them keep their weapons.
You labor under the false assumption that it is the threat of violence that keeps the state in power. Clearly you haven't studied jujitsu.

[Communist Theory]

:reda:
Anarchy is Order...
Hence the circled A.
A for Anarchy.
O for Order.
That's what I've read ain't there a quote that goes along with it?

[Kwisatz Haderach]

No one decided upon money. Money just happened in the normal course of human interaction.
Umm, if money "just happened" in the course of human interaction, then someone did decide upon money - those humans in the interaction.


Governments do nothing that can't be done better by non-governments.
Define "government," and then prove that statement.


This is a strawman argument. Right are conditions of human existence. But human existence doesn't depend on government.
Rights are not conditions of human existence, they are social rules of behavior decided by whoever has the power to enforce rules on society.


Non one person or group of persons can have total power over a government agent. That would require mind control.
By "total power" I meant being the only entity with the ability to give them legal orders and dismiss them from office if they fail to carry out those orders.

But you already knew that.


Ridiculous. If an invading government has no government agency that surrenders to it, what is there to conquer?
Oh, gee, I don't know... land? Oil? Cheap labour? Go ask the British government about Australia.


Ridiculous. The state is a person or persons who acts w/ motives like anyone else.
Yes. So?


No, ownership is an intersubjective agreement bt individuals. And people don't agree that "we" own the country.
Ok, if ownership is an intersubjective agreement between individuals, then we own the country if we can agree that we own it.

Works for me!


No, Original Sin is a myth, Christian.
Who said anything about Original Sin? My argument relied on self-interest.

Or do you mean to imply that self-interest is a Christian myth?


Why be ruled by gangs at all?
Because you need to form a "gang" in order to ward off attacks from other "gangs."

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

And this fact is relevant how exactly to whether or not money is intrinsically evil?

It might have seemed a good idea at the time, but that's not necessarily the case now. Capitalist society as it currently stands is criminally wasteful, for a start.

[Havet]

It might have seemed a good idea at the time, but that's not necessarily the case now. Capitalist society as it currently stands is criminally wasteful, for a start.

So you think that money is the root of all evil?Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?

When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others. It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money. Not an ocean of tears not all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor--your claim upon the energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money, Is this what you consider evil?

Have you ever looked for the root of production? Take a look at an electric generator and dare tell yourself that it was created by the muscular effort of unthinking brutes. Try to grow a seed of wheat without the knowledge left to you by men who had to discover it for the first time. Try to obtain your food by means of nothing but physical motions--and you'll learn that man's mind is the root of all the goods produced and of all the wealth that has ever existed on earth.

But you say that money is made by the strong at the expense of the weak? What strength do you mean? It is not the strength of guns or muscles. Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. Then is money made by the man who invents a motor at the expense of those who did not invent it? Is money made by the intelligent at the expense of the fools? By the able at the expense of the incompetent? By the ambitious at the expense of the lazy? Money is made--before it can be looted or mooched--made by the effort of every honest man, each to the extent of his ability. An honest man is one who knows that he can't consume more than he has produced.

To trade by means of money is the code of the men of good will. Money rests on the axiom that every man is the owner of his mind and his effort. Money allows no power to prescribe the value of your effort except the voluntary choice of the man who is willing to trade you his effort in return. Money permits you to obtain for your goods and your labor that which they are worth to the men who buy them, but no more. Money permits no deals except those to mutual benefit by the unforced judgment of the traders. Money demands of you the recognition that men must work for their own benefit, not for their own injury, for their gain, not their loss--the recognition that they are not beasts of burden, born to carry the weight of your misery--that you must offer them values, not wounds--that the common bond among men is not the exchange of suffering, but the exchange of goods. Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men's stupidity, but your talent to their reason; it demands that you buy, not the shoddiest they offer, but the best that your money can find. And when men live by trade--with reason, not force, as their final arbiter--it is the best product that wins, the best performance, the man of best judgment and highest ability--and the degree of a man's productiveness is the degree of his reward. This is the code of existence whose tool and symbol is money. Is this what you consider evil?

But money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver. It will give you the means for the satisfaction of your desires, but it will not provide you with desires. Money is the scourge of the men who attempt to reverse the law of causality--the men who seek to replace the mind by seizing the products of the mind.

Money will not purchase happiness for the man who has no concept of what he wants: money will not give him a code of values, if he's evaded the knowledge of what to value, and it will not provide him with a purpose, if he's evaded the choice of what to seek. Money will not buy intelligence for the fool, or admiration for the coward, or respect for the incompetent. The man who attempts to purchase the brains of his superiors to serve him, with his money replacing his judgment, ends up by becoming the victim of his inferiors. The men of intelligence desert him, but the cheats and the frauds come flocking to him, drawn by a law which he has not discovered: that no man may be smaller than his money. Is this the reason why you call it evil?

Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth--the man who would make his own fortune no matter where he started. If an heir is equal to his money, it serves him; if not, it destroys him. But you look on and you cry that money corrupted him. Did it? Or did he corrupt his money? Do not envy a worthless heir; his wealth is not yours and you would have done no better with it. Do not think that it should have been distributed among you; loading the world with fifty parasites instead of one, would not bring back the dead virtue which was the fortune. Money is a living power that dies without its root. Money will not serve the mind that cannot match it. Is this the reason why you call it evil?

Money is your means of survival. The verdict you pronounce upon the source of your livelihood is the verdict you pronounce upon your life. If the source is corrupt, you have damned your own existence. Did you get your money by fraud? By pandering to men's vices or men's stupidity? By catering to fools, in the hope of getting more than your ability deserves? By lowering your standards? By doing work you despise for purchasers you scorn? If so, then your money will not give you a moment's or a penny's worth of joy. Then all the things you buy will become, not a tribute to you, but a reproach; not an achievement, but a reminder of shame. Then you'll scream that money is evil. Evil, because it would not pinch-hit for your self-respect? Evil, because it would not let you enjoy your depravity? Is this the root of your hatred of money?

Money will always remain an effect and refuse to replace you as the cause. Money is the product of virtue, but it will not give you virtue and it will not redeem your vices. Money will not give you the unearned, neither in matter nor in spirit. Is this the root of your hatred of money?

Or did you say it's the love of money that's the root of all evil? To love a thing is to know and love its nature. To love money is to know and love the fact that money is the creation of the best power within you, and your passkey to trade your effort for the effort of the best among men. It's the person who would sell his soul for a nickel, who is loudest in proclaiming his hatred of money--and he has good reason to hate it. The lovers of money are willing to work for it. They know they are able to deserve it.

Let me give you a tip on a clue to men's characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it.

Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter. So long as men live together on earth and need means to deal with one another--their only substitute, if they abandon money, is the muzzle of a gun.

But money demands of you the highest virtues, if you wish to make it or to keep it. Men who have no courage, pride or self-esteem, men who have no moral sense of their right to their money and are not willing to defend it as they defend their life, men who apologize for being rich--will not remain rich for long. They are the natural bait for the swarms of looters that stay under rocks for centuries, but come crawling out at the first smell of a man who begs to be forgiven for the guilt of owning wealth. They will hasten to relieve him of the guilt--and of his life, as he deserves.

Then you will see the rise of the men of the double standard--the men who live by force, yet count on those who live by trade to create the value of their looted money--the men who are the hitchhikers of virtue. In a moral society, these are the criminals, and the statutes are written to protect you against them. But when a society establishes criminals-by-right and looters-by-law--men who use force to seize the wealth of disarmed victims--then money becomes its creators' avenger. Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they've passed a law to disarm them. But their loot becomes the magnet for other looters, who get it from them as they got it. Then the race goes, not to the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then that society vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter.

Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society's virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion--when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing--when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors--when you see that men get riWhenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it bounces, marked, 'Account overdrawn.'


When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, 'Who is destroying the world? You are.


You stand in the midst of the greatest achievements of the greatest productive civilization and you wonder why it's crumbling around you, while you're damning its life-blood--money. You look upon money as the savages did before you, and you wonder why the jungle is creeping back to the edge of your cities. Throughout men's history, money was always seized by looters of one brand or another, whose names changed, but whose method remained the same: to seize wealth by force and to keep the producers bound, demeaned, defamed, deprived of honor. That phrase about the evil of money, which you mouth with such righteous recklessness, comes from a time when wealth was produced by the labor of slaves--slaves who repeated the motions once discovered by somebody's mind and left unimproved for centuries. So long as production was ruled by force, and wealth was obtained by conquest, there was little to conquer, Yet through all the centuries of stagnation and starvation, men exalted the looters, as aristocrats of the sword, as aristocrats of birth, as aristocrats of the bureau, and despised the producers, as slaves, as traders, as shopkeepers--as industrialists.

Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns--or dollars. Take your choice--there is no other--and your time is running out.

[Kwisatz Haderach]

And that, boys and girls, was Hayenmill posting a direct quote from Atlas Shrugged. Without bothering to mention the source, or the fact that they were Ayn Rand's words and not his own.

Trivas did something similar a while back with Rothbard. What is it with these cappies?

Anyway, Rand is of course arguing against a strawman, as she always did. Money is not the "root of all evil" - and no socialist worth his salt ever claimed that it was. Private property is the root of all evil, and money simply takes the blame as one physical representation of the propertarian principle.

[trivas7]

Private property is the root of all evil, and money simply takes the blame as one physical representation of the propertarian principle.
Money is merely one form of private property. Why is private property the root of all evil?


Umm, if money "just happened" in the course of human interaction, then someone did decide upon money - those humans in the interaction.

Someone decided that exchange was facilitated by money; no one decided upon money.



Ok, if ownership is an intersubjective agreement between individuals, then we own the country if we can agree that we own it.
Untill you do reach agreement you don't own country.



Who said anything about Original Sin? My argument relied on self-interest.
Self-interest isn't acting immorally.


Because you need to form a "gang" in order to ward off attacks from other "gangs."This begs the question why you need to form a gang in the first place.

[Bud Struggle]

And that, boys and girls, was Hayenmill posting a direct quote from Atlas Shrugged. Without bothering to mention the source, or the fact that they were Ayn Rand's words and not his own.


Let's not do that again. That kind of shit sucks. :rolleyes:

[danyboy27]

and lets not forget THE excuse widely used by a certain cathegory of people on this website:


anarchy cant work! we need a leader so he can fix things for us and bake some cookies!

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

And that, boys and girls, was Hayenmill posting a direct quote from Atlas Shrugged. Without bothering to mention the source, or the fact that they were Ayn Rand's words and not his own.

That was Rand?! I thought the sermonising, repetitious tone was familiar! :laugh:

Preachy git, ain't she?

[Rosa Provokateur]

Actually, we do own the country. Or we rightfully should. All land should be the collective property of Mankind.




Not to play the Devil's advocate but who exactly is mankind? Where would ownership by one part of mankind end and the other begin?

[Havet]

And that, boys and girls, was Hayenmill posting a direct quote from Atlas Shrugged. Without bothering to mention the source, or the fact that they were Ayn Rand's words and not his own.

Trivas did something similar a while back with Rothbard. What is it with these cappies?

Anyway, Rand is of course arguing against a strawman, as she always did. Money is not the "root of all evil" - and no socialist worth his salt ever claimed that it was. Private property is the root of all evil, and money simply takes the blame as one physical representation of the propertarian principle.

The following is an excerpt from Atlas Shrugged, © Copyright, 1957, by Ayn Rand (http://www.aynrand.org/). It is reprinted with permission from the Estate of Ayn Rand.

Source (http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=1826)

And THIS boys and girls, is where communist idiocy is currently at: someone *****ing not at the arguments themselves, but at the source of the arguments and the fact that they are from someone they dislike.

I don't know how long you can continue to keep such ideology as a religion and still believe you are being consistent. I don't mind though.

You'll accuse me of every possible fallacy before admitting you are wrong about ANYTHING. You'll accuse me of being illogical, unreasonable, trolling, idiocy, anything you like before thinking about my arguments and actually applying logic to understand them. But since you don't apply reason to your own arguments, how could you EVER understand mine?

If you have something to say, argue my arguments consistently, don't think that just because you can evade the effort of thinking others will make it work for you.

[Kwisatz Haderach]

Hayenmill, I regret to inform you that typing takes time and that, since I have a life, I am not always able to deliver a full length response to everything you post as soon as you post it. Sometimes I only attack certain aspects of your posts - for example plagiarism - not because I wish to ignore the rest, but because I wish to discuss the rest at a later time.

In other news, the universe does not revolve around you.

We now return to our regularly scheduled debate.


Yeah thanks for pointing that out. it seems impossible to measure everything good and everything bad.

However, communists also don't measure the good things and bad things current capitalism has brought to people. How can they know then that capitalism is doing more harm than good?
We don't believe capitalism is doing more harm than good in some absolute, self-contained sense. We don't believe capitalism is bad in an absolute sense. We believe capitalism is worse than socialism. Capitalism is bad in a comparative sense, in the sense that other systems are better.


I understand it seems i'm kind of evading the question, but i'm pretty sure the social welfare, the infrastructures and some other types of government regulation in the past 100 years do not compare with the history of theft, murder, slavery and plunder of past states during all of human history. That is why the author did not proceed to measure precisely everything good and bad. It's sort of self-evident, even if just by the math.
Again, why should some states be held responsible for the actions of others? Why should modern states be held responsible for the actions of other states centuries ago?

Over the course of all human history, it's probably true that states did more harm than good (but then we run into problems with the definition of the state - was the Holy Roman Empire a state? Were there states in pre-colonial Africa? etc). Over the course of the 20th century, however, it is undeniable that the state did more good than harm.

Yes, it was a century of great wars and genocides, but it was also a century of great state-sponsored medical advances. The eradication of smallpox alone probably saved more lives than all the people killed in both world wars and all the genocides of the 20th century. Remember, disease kills and torments far more people than the worst state ever did.

And here's an interesting argument (http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/war-faq.htm#Blame) from Matthew White:


Q: But isn't excess government responsible for more avoidable deaths in the 20th Century than any other cause?

A: Debatable. Consider, for example, those 300 million smallpox deaths. By 1900 smallpox was entirely preventable; vaccination was a common procedure, and most of the world had been incorporated into advanced industrial states and colonial empires, so a concentrated government effort might have eradicated the disease seventy years early and prevented those 300 million deaths. That single example suggests at least 300 million deaths by too little government versus 170 million by too much government. [n.1]

In fact, if we add up annual deaths from unclean water (12M/yr), air pollution (2.7M/yr), smoking (5M/yr) and traffic accidents (1.2M/yr) -- you know, all those things that statists want to regulate -- we could find an entire century's worth of democide in a single decade of government inaction. This doesn't mean that I want to ban smoking or confiscate cars; it only means that problems and solutions are more complicated than some people want to admit.

[n.1: Actually, my estimate is 83M democides, but for this example, we'll go with Rummel's more popular estimate of 170M.]
Nope, but the intensity [of violence] would be lesser, because more power and resources would be decentralized (ideally, that is).
That depends on what kind of stateless society we are talking about. Remember that resources = wealth. If we have a stateless society with a large degree of wealth inequality (the kind that anarcho-capitalists and other market anarchists want), then a great deal of resources are actually centralized in the hands of the rich. And if the rich happen to hate Jews...


The same forces that would bring a government down would prevent one from forming and from engaging in such violence as previous governments. I can't tell for sure though, but neither can you.
What kind of forces are you talking about, exactly? How do you imagine the government being brought down?


The point was that if government can create rights out of nowhere, or by enforcing them, then so can I, out of nowhere, or by enforcing them, which doesn't justify a state at all.
If rights are good, and if the state is the only entity capable of enforcing them, then that does justify the state.

The reason why the state can create rights and you can't is simple: Because you don't have the power to enforce them. If you had that power, you could create rights. You are right about this. But you DON'T have that power. (unless you happen to possess a secret arsenal of high-tech weaponry)


I'll reiterate, the government is a group of people. Anything one group of people can do, any group of people can do. There is nothing inherent in any one group of people that makes them superior to all others by the very title which they give themselves.
Agreed.


What about people who didnt want be a part of the government?
They can leave, go somewhere else and do whatever they want (or whatever they can) over there.


if if if if

If you continue making arguments of the general nature "Everything goes wrong and there's nothing you can do about it", then please do allow me to do the same for you: [example removed to reduce length]
My IFs are actually a favour to you. By saying "if...", I explicitly show you the premises of my arguments, and I acknowledge that the argument in question is only sound as long as the premise holds.

For example, I said: "If your society is of such a nature that governments tend to have more military strength than you, then your society is impossible to sustain in the long term because - sooner or later - a government will crush you. That may not be good, but it's the way things are."

By inserting the IF, I admitted that your society is unsustainable only under a certain condition - if it is of such a nature that governments tend to have more military strength than you.

Or in other words, I do not think your society could fight off an invasion from a hostile government. I understand that you may wish to argue otherwise. Very well. Please argue.


Isn't this argument annoying? But so effective! It lets me completely evade whatever is likely or unlikely and pull the conditions out of my ass without regard to other effects of the same causes that brought this system to be in the first place.
What are those causes, by the way? I know I asked this before, but how exactly do you expect the state to be brought down?

Oh, and for the record, I expect capitalism to be brought down by class struggle.


What? What do you mean? I'm not sure i'm understanding your argument correctly. This objection was pretty much an argument against collectivism and the notion that people can't get along with different interests.
I conceded that, yes, "We The People are not one single consciousness with one single will able to make something voluntary to all by pretending we did." But I also pointed out that, as far as I'm concerned, this doesn't matter, because I don't care about making things voluntary.


In the guetto, whoever sold you the house agreed you could now own it, so as any property inside it. By being stolen, you are certainly not consenting to it, because you'd prefer to keep your property.
So you bought the house under certain terms, one of which was that you'd be able to safely keep your bicycle in there. And then those terms were violated. In that case, you are correct that you did not consent to have your bicycle stolen.

But that's not what the state does. Taxes are not a secret. Taxes are not something that takes you by surprise, like a thief suddenly stealing your bike. Taxes are right there in the original conditions that came with the house.


As for the government, the main argument is that the government didnt gain ownership of the whole of the land legitimately (just got there and claimed everything, and assuming there is a legitimate claim to ownership).
Wait a minute... "just got there and claimed everything" is exactly how all land was historically acquired by its first private owners!


For a more specific case, consider that in a stateless place the intersubjective prevalent criteria for ownership is the homesteading principle, and that a group of people got there and claimed the land by simply stating it out loud. That group of people would be a state.
I already addressed this point in the Theory thread, but let me just say that the inter-subjective prevalent criteria for ownership in our society is certainly not the homesteading principle. Most people never even heard of it, so it's certainly not prevalent by any measure.


In a private employer, he owns the tools, and you consent to work for him by agreeing to receive a compensation/wages.
And it's exactly the same thing with the state, except the state owns the land instead of the tools.


Why do you think it should?
Because I think that all objects not created through human labour should be the collective property of all Mankind.


And as long as they interfere that stateless society will not be stateless.

I'm pretty sure sometime there will be stateless societies without any state interfering (they just need to be able to defend themselves or the states will think theyre not any harm).
Then we simply disagree about future events, and only time will tell who is right. I do not believe it is possible to ever have a stateless society without a state interfering unless the stateless society covers a whole planet and supports an military organization dedicated to destroying newly made states before they become a threat.


How do you know every individual will try to benefit himself while doing harm to others? Trade is an example of an action where two individuals benefit themselves. The mere existance of trade would seem to disprove your idea that individuals always try to do good to themselves and bad to others.
I assume that individuals will want to benefit themselves by any means necessary. This is a simple assumption of self-interest.

Now, if they can benefit themselves without harming others - for example by trade - then they will do that. But if they have a choice between two different actions that are both beneficial, they will want to take the action that provides the most benefit. Trade provides some benefit... but theft provides more benefit, since you can take things without giving anything in return. So, although individuals can trade, they would prefer to steal - if they could get away with it.

An individual would prefer to steal from others, but of course he doesn't want others to steal from him. So he would support laws and rules that prevent others from stealing. But he would prefer it if those rules did not apply to himself.

Therefore, in the case of theft, individuals want to enforce moral behavior on others ("Don't steal!"), but they would like to be able to act immorally when it comes to themselves ("I want to steal..."). The same applies in most other cases.


This still doesn't prove such gangs of criminals would appear (again, the forces that would make a state disappear would prevent these high groups of violent people from taking over) and that the current state is any good and should not be abolished.
Again, this depends on what exactly made the state disappear.

[Havet]

In other news, the universe does not revolve around you.damn



We don't believe capitalism is doing more harm than good in some absolute, self-contained sense. We don't believe capitalism is bad in an absolute sense. We believe capitalism is worse than socialism. Capitalism is bad in a comparative sense, in the sense that other systems are better. And how do you know Capitalism is bad comparing to socialism? have you measured both and then compared the good things of both and the bad things of both? If you're going to use the argument that it can't be measured, then it can't be measured by communists and socialists as well, no matter how much "their instinct" or they wish its better.



Again, why should some states be held responsible for the actions of others? Why should modern states be held responsible for the actions of other states centuries ago?

Over the course of all human history, it's probably true that states did more harm than good (but then we run into problems with the definition of the state - was the Holy Roman Empire a state? Were there states in pre-colonial Africa? etc). Over the course of the 20th century, however, it is undeniable that the state did more good than harm.

Yes, it was a century of great wars and genocides, but it was also a century of great state-sponsored medical advances. The eradication of smallpox alone probably saved more lives than all the people killed in both world wars and all the genocides of the 20th century. Remember, disease kills and torments far more people than the worst state ever did.

And here's an interesting argument (http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/war-faq.htm#Blame) from Matthew White:so your argument for the existance of a state is that even though it kills a lot, it makes up for it by engaging in other activities such as medicine. What about the people that died? What about the same medicine that could have been developed without a state and administered low-cost or maybe even for free?

I think you may be engaging in archoexceptionalism (http://boredzhwazi.blogspot.com/2007/01/archoexceptionalism.html), the belief that state is magical. It's the belief that while it's wrong for people to murder, enslave, and steal, it's alright and even beneficial if done by a state.

But as I've said before, what's state but a group of people?

If it is wrong for a person to do X, then it is wrong for all people to do X.
If it is wrong for all people to do X, it is wrong for groups of people to do X.
State is a group of people. It is wrong for state to do X.

This means, no war, no law, no taxes. This is not compatible with states.

This is why usually statists must be archoexceptionalists in order to rationalize it.

"No you cannot rob Peter, that's wrong. But Peter isn't paying his taxes, now Paul won't be getting a Social Security check."

"No you cannot force Peter to let you look around his house. But the police can get a search warrant and that's okay."

"No you cannot kill Peter, that's murder. But if he resists the IRS agents we're sending to his house we'll kill him."

"No you cannot print money, that would be bad. The Federal Reserve has to print all the money."

"Nobody but the government can build roads."

"Nobody but the government can school the children."

"Nobody but the government can stop the terrorists."

"Nobody but the government can offer police protection."

You can see the clear archoexceptionalism present in these statements.

Another great example is the definition of violence in the public mind.

When a man shoots a cop, even in self-defense, that's considered crime.
When a cop shoots a man, defensively or not, that's considered justice.

How does he do it? Archoexceptionalism. He's not just a man with a badge and a uniform, he's the state. He's excepted from the normal rules.

Statism requires archoexceptionalism.

Archoexceptionalism is irrational.

Statism is irrational.



That depends on what kind of stateless society we are talking about. Remember that resources = wealth. If we have a stateless society with a large degree of wealth inequality (the kind that anarcho-capitalists and other market anarchists want), then a great deal of resources are actually centralized in the hands of the rich. And if the rich happen to hate Jews... whoa there, market anarchists and ancaps do no want wealth inequality. That's exactly what they are fighting for right now. They believe that without these ridiculous regulations that actually benefit the rich, people would have a far better chance of decreasing the wealth inequality. I actually adressed this in that "get rid of the term capitalism" thread:

"For under this statist system, where licensing and regulation make it unduly difficult to actually be entrepreneurial, a disproportionate number of those who would otherwise be entrepreneurs become wage labor. This creates an oversupply of wage labor as opposed to entrepreneurial activity.

This gives the capitalist class an unfair advantage in two ways. First, it reduces the amount of competition on the market, increasing the capitalist's market share and prices with little effort on the part of the capitalist. Second, it reduces the amount of bargaining power the wage labor has. Because there is an oversupply of wage labor, wage labor is more easily replaced than it would be on a real free market, and wages are depressed. This amounts to an effective expropriation of value by the capitalists (who are in a state-created position of power) from the consumers on the one hand (through reduced competition and higher prices) and from the workers on the other (who are underpaid and have less than their fair amount of inflence) and even doubly due to the fact that the workers ARE consumers when they are not on the job.

In a free market, where more gain-oriented thought was present, where more entrepreneurs were around seeking to take from the reduced supply of voluntary wage labor workers, the capitalists would no longer have this unfair advantage. The workers, being scarcer, will thus command higher wages and more influence upon the employer, making it a much more fair system, the libertarian's view of it as an interaction between peers would be true."



What kind of forces are you talking about, exactly? How do you imagine the government being brought down?well one way (the least efficient and least likely) is through voting. Now that WOULDNT actually bring the state down, but it would have as purpose to reduce its size to some sort of Minarchism (minimal government in charge of the really basic stuff like defense and justice).

Then at some point we would start seeing individuals providing those same services in a market until a point where it would no longer be profitable for the state to maintain them. This would take some time though, but wouldn't have the risk of anyone dying like in a revolution.



If rights are good, and if the state is the only entity capable of enforcing them, then that does justify the state.

The reason why the state can create rights and you can't is simple: Because you don't have the power to enforce them. If you had that power, you could create rights. You are right about this. But you DON'T have that power. (unless you happen to possess a secret arsenal of high-tech weaponry)Well as adressed above the rights the state has of murdering, enslaving and killing are not really that good...

Even if the rights were all good, would it be worth enforcing them at the expense of others? By exploiting others?

but yeah the definition you gave of why i can't create rights i agree with. it also fits quite well in my definition of state (that whole prevalent criteria thing).




They can leave, go somewhere else and do whatever they want (or whatever they can) over there.Well you aren't a part of government yet. Do you want to be a part of the current government? If so, wouldnt you say you were agreeing with the current method of representative "democracy" by being elected (which you opposed), and if not, why don't you leave and go somewhere else and do whatever you want or whatever you can can over there?



My IFs are actually a favour to you. By saying "if...", I explicitly show you the premises of my arguments, and I acknowledge that the argument in question is only sound as long as the premise holds.

For example, I said: "If your society is of such a nature that governments tend to have more military strength than you, then your society is impossible to sustain in the long term because - sooner or later - a government will crush you. That may not be good, but it's the way things are."

By inserting the IF, I admitted that your society is unsustainable only under a certain condition - if it is of such a nature that governments tend to have more military strength than you.

Or in other words, I do not think your society could fight off an invasion from a hostile government. I understand that you may wish to argue otherwise. Very well. Please argue.I'm not going to argue the obvious (it would be very hard to convince everyone on a voluntary basis or to create a contract for everyone to sign agreeing to fund a military for defense without coercion), instead ill just say that it MAY be possible to defend against foreign nations by voluntary means, but that they do not prove that it will be.

In some sense, people could tolerate a government if they found out that the other choice was a worse government. But ideally and likely they could defend themselves without a government. It depends on the threat in question actually.



I conceded that, yes, "We The People are not one single consciousness with one single will able to make something voluntary to all by pretending we did." But I also pointed out that, as far as I'm concerned, this doesn't matter, because I don't care about making things voluntary.You care about becoming the ruling class then?



So you bought the house under certain terms, one of which was that you'd be able to safely keep your bicycle in there. And then those terms were violated. In that case, you are correct that you did not consent to have your bicycle stolen.

But that's not what the state does. Taxes are not a secret. Taxes are not something that takes you by surprise, like a thief suddenly stealing your bike. Taxes are right there in the original conditions that came with the house.and taxes are diffferent, because i do not consent to them, an nobody would if theu understood them, because they are illegitimate. They are assuming an entity gained ownership of something simply by claim instead of the prevalent criteria for gaining ownership.



Wait a minute... "just got there and claimed everything" is exactly how all land was historically acquired by its first private owners!Maybe, but there are 2 consequent situations:

1- if getting there and claiming everything was the prevalent criteria for ownership, then that person would not be a state
2- if getting there and claiming everything was NOT the prevalent criteria for ownership then that person WOULD be a state, and therefore illegitimate.

Im aware there were both cases in history. The non-state landowners should be respected (and were) contrary to the state landowners (those who used force in order to prevent the mob from trying to take the land they believed he got illegitimately).



I already addressed this point in the Theory thread, but let me just say that the inter-subjective prevalent criteria for ownership in our society is certainly not the homesteading principle. Most people never even heard of it, so it's certainly not prevalent by any measure.of course its not prevalent right now. I was merely using an example in a context. It once was, but now its not, well, because theres almost no virgin land to homestead.



And it's exactly the same thing with the state, except the state owns the land instead of the tools.the state owns the land without using the prevalent criteria for ownership

the private employer got the tools through the prevalent criteria for ownership: he used his labor, he saved money, he traded it for tools, and he started his business.



Because I think that all objects not created through human labour should be the collective property of all Mankind.But why should they be the colelctive property of all mankind? Who is mankind? how would it be settled? by democratic vote? what about those who didn't vote? would they get a fair share of the resources? and those who voted but didnt get the results they voted for? are they at the mercy of the majority? why?

Consider Lysander Spooner arguing about majorities and minorities:



If it be said that the consent of the most numerous party, in a nation, is sufficient to justify the establishment of their power over the less numerous party, it may be answered:
First. That two men have no more natural right to exercise any kind of authority over one, than one has to exercise the same authority over two. A man's natural rights are his own, against the whole world; and any infringement of them is equally a crime, whether committed by one man, or by millions; whether committed by one man, calling himself a robber, (or by any other name indicating his true character,) or by millions, calling themselves a government.
Second. It would be absurd for the most numerous party to talk of establishing a government over the less numerous party, unless the former were also the strongest, as well as the most numerous; for it is not to be supposed that the strongest party would ever submit to the rule of the weaker party, merely because the latter were the most numerous. And as a matter of fact, it is perhaps never that governments are established by the most numerous party. They are usually, if not always, established by the less numerous party; their superior strength consisting of their superior wealth, intelligence, and ability to act in concert.
Then we simply disagree about future events, and only time will tell who is right. I do not believe it is possible to ever have a stateless society without a state interfering unless the stateless society covers a whole planet and supports an military organization dedicated to destroying newly made states before they become a threat. Well we'll see. It's not like groups of people can't defend themselves, but i agree that it will be hard and difficult to imagine right now. Time will tell.



I assume that individuals will want to benefit themselves by any means necessary. This is a simple assumption of self-interest.

Now, if they can benefit themselves without harming others - for example by trade - then they will do that. But if they have a choice between two different actions that are both beneficial, they will want to take the action that provides the most benefit. Trade provides some benefit... but theft provides more benefit, since you can take things without giving anything in return. So, although individuals can trade, they would prefer to steal - if they could get away with it.

An individual would prefer to steal from others, but of course he doesn't want others to steal from him. So he would support laws and rules that prevent others from stealing. But he would prefer it if those rules did not apply to himself.

Therefore, in the case of theft, individuals want to enforce moral behavior on others ("Don't steal!"), but they would like to be able to act immorally when it comes to themselves ("I want to steal..."). The same applies in most other cases.If individuals can trade but would prefer to steal, then groups of individuals can trade, but would prefer to steal, which means a collective can trade but would prevent to steal, which doesn't give your collective any more legitimacy than an individual.

[Kwisatz Haderach]

Hayenmill, I am short on time right now, so I will reply to only one of your points for the moment. This is a point that I've already refuted in another thread (the Theory thread on the state, if I remember correctly).


so your argument for the existance of a state is that even though it kills a lot, it makes up for it by engaging in other activities such as medicine. What about the people that died? What about the same medicine that could have been developed without a state and administered low-cost or maybe even for free?
We don't know what might have happened without the state. This includes events in medicine and killings.


I think you may be engaging in archoexceptionalism (http://boredzhwazi.blogspot.com/2007/01/archoexceptionalism.html), the belief that state is magical. It's the belief that while it's wrong for people to murder, enslave, and steal, it's alright and even beneficial if done by a state.

But as I've said before, what's state but a group of people?

If it is wrong for a person to do X, then it is wrong for all people to do X.
If it is wrong for all people to do X, it is wrong for groups of people to do X.
State is a group of people. It is wrong for state to do X.

[...]

Statism requires archoexceptionalism.

Archoexceptionalism is irrational.

Statism is irrational.

You are wrong. You are assuming people to hold a belief that it's always wrong to murder, enslave, and steal, regardless of the circumstances or the consequences.

I do not hold such a belief, and I'd wager that many other people do not hold it either. So there is no cognitive dissonance. It is possible to believe that murder or theft are usually wrong but may be justified under certain conditions - and that the government meets those conditions.

It is possible for non-state entities to meet those conditions too. For example, I'm a utilitarian. I believe it is good to kill one person to save the lives of a hundred. It is good if the state does it, and it is equally good if anyone else does it. On the other hand, murder is wrong when it does not save lives - which is most of the time.

And there are many other ethical systems besides utilitarianism which are based on consequentialism - the idea that the morality of an action is to be judged by its consequences, so that any action can be moral if it has sufficiently good consequences.

[trivas7]

It is possible for non-state entities to meet those conditions too. For example, I'm a utilitarian. I believe it is good to kill one person to save the lives of a hundred. It is good if the state does it, and it is equally good if anyone else does it. On the other hand, murder is wrong when it does not save lives - which is most of the time.

How is utilitarianism consonant w/ the belief that violence is the basis of human interaction?

[Havet]

We don't know what might have happened without the state. This includes events in medicine and killings.

So because we don't know this means we shouldn't try it? Or that we have no sufficient evidence to believe that it might be better?


You are wrong. You are assuming people to hold a belief that it's always wrong to murder, enslave, and steal, regardless of the circumstances or the consequences.

I do not hold such a belief, and I'd wager that many other people do not hold it either. So there is no cognitive dissonance. It is possible to believe that murder or theft are usually wrong but may be justified under certain conditions - and that the government meets those conditions.

It is possible for non-state entities to meet those conditions too. For example, I'm a utilitarian. I believe it is good to kill one person to save the lives of a hundred. It is good if the state does it, and it is equally good if anyone else does it. On the other hand, murder is wrong when it does not save lives - which is most of the time.

And there are many other ethical systems besides utilitarianism which are based on consequentialism - the idea that the morality of an action is to be judged by its consequences, so that any action can be moral if it has sufficiently good consequences.

I'm assuming that people value the same EXACT action differently by two different parties. And thats not only on murder, its in every action the state currently engages in.

for example:

"No you cannot kill Peter, that's murder. But if he resists the IRS agents we're sending to his house we'll kill him."

No you cannot kill peter, that's murder, even if his murder will mean saving a thousand lives

then the same person turns around and says: but if he resists the IRS agents we're sending to his house (with which the money they collect will save a thousant lives), we'll kill him.

The same action is viewed differently just because its a person with a fine hat and different clothes.

So you see, if you want to debate utilitarianism, that's ok, but thats not my angle here, even between utilitarians and non-utilitarians there can be arcoexceptionalism

so i'll repeat myself

Statism requires archoexceptionalism.

Archoexceptionalism is irrational.

Statism is irrational.

[Dervish]

The "answers" are just as bad and provocative as the "arguments"...

[mikelepore]

You labor under the false assumption that it is the threat of violence that keeps the state in power. Clearly you haven't studied jujitsu.

To change that sentence around a bit:

It is the state's violence that keeps the institution of capitalist private property in power.

Try to take a bag of potato chips that legally belongs to a business, and do it in front of the cops. See if they will let you get away with it. Now, get the workers to take over a mine, refinery, mill, factory or railroad that legally belongs to a business, and see if the cops will let you get away with it.

Those two acts aren't the same thing, but they are a like in this one respect: once the cops say "you are under arrest", the only two possible outcomes for you are to go to jail or be killed. Defeating them is not one of the possibilities.

The workers might even occupy some plants - temporarily. But they will have to come out sometime, and the encirclement of thousands of troops with machine guns will have nothing else to do but wait.

The only possible way for the working class to socialize the property of the capitalists is first to have its delegation in a political party take control of the state.

Only people who use the political process to take control the state can declare the abolition of private ownership of the means of production.

[trivas7]

To change that sentence around a bit:

It is the state's violence that keeps the institution of capitalist private property in power.

This misses the point of the sentence.


Only people who use the political process to take control the state can declare the abolition of private ownership of the means of production.
It's a chimera to suppose that you can do away w/ private property and the free market by means of politics. It's only worked temporarily by totalitarian methods at huge costs to life and liberty.