Is it a better strategy to try to vote in candidates whose views include a significant reduction in the size of the government, a dismantling of our empire, a revision of the monetary system, and a reestablishment of the proper relationship between the states and the federal government or the worst possible candidates ever? By worst possible I mean those who want to expand the war into Yemen or Pakistan, believe in socialized medicine, want to increase funding for the Drug War, want to raise taxes, want to create more stimulus packages and perhaps some civilian public works program, don't want to focus on monetary policy, wants to ban certain types of speech, and in general expand the power of the government as much and as quickly as possible?
Does it make more sense to try to improve things through gradual reform and education or by intentionally pushing the system, both political and by extension monetary, into such dire straits that the system becomes discredited? From a strategic standpoint does it make more sense to vote for the Communists?
Would you like to live in Soviet Russia?
The point being that tyranny can last quite a while before it collapses in on itself. And it can do a lot of damage to a civilization in the meantime. See: North Korea. You might as well commit suicide, because that is what you will essentially be doing in a roundabout way.
Even if makes sense you would not want to share the responsibility for expanding the war into Yemen.
While it's certainly an interesting concept there's no telling what direction the country may go in, as the above posters have stated.
Just look at what the National Socialists did in Germany... Would you be able to function under such a regime for ten or twenty years, even if theoretically speaking it is unsustainable?
It's not a question of liking it, and the answer is of course not, the question is whether discrediting the state by purporting to support such regimes or at least not stopping them is in the end a better strategy then putting ones faith in the reform of political institutions.
@ the OP
That's crazy. You need La Boetie. There's no reason to think that increasing the power of government immediately will ultimately lead to its fall mediately. All government power rests on consent. The only way to defeat it lastingly is to create a public opinion favourable to libertarian ideals. Just look at Russian now, 30 years after the fall of communism. It's still a statist s*******.
Also, when things get bad, ppl don't necessarily attribute it to the current ruler. Prisoners in Stalin's Gulags wrote to him personally, because they thought he was a great leader who would pardon them since they were falsely accused of being enemies of the people. Also, most ppl think the current mess is because of the greed of speculators rather than credit expansion. Despotic governments are not necessarily unpopular.
And in the mean time you would be helping to make things worse. I suppose if I were an American and voting strategically in the last election, I would have voted for McCain. In spite of all of his tough talk, he wouldn't have been able to do much, certainly not nearly as much as Obama, since he is ineffective @ demagoguery and therefore less able to build public support for his various proposals. It should have been obvious that Obama was far more dangerous from a libertarian perspective since he has tremendous oratorical abilities and had so much hype.
In general, your proposals are crazy.
It's a complex issue, regardless of ideology. At present, I'm inclined to think that reformist "evolution" is the only feasible path in Western liberal democracies, as they're first-world countries that lack the widespread conditions of extreme poverty and extreme political authoritarianism, where violent revolution would be a far more viable option. So I'd vote socialist here in the U.S. and support the Naxalite insurgency in India. :)
The workmen desire to get as much, the master to give as little as possible...It is not difficult to foresee which of the two parties must force the other into a compliance with their terms. -Adam Smith
The basic, foundational idea here is not incorrect, but voting for the worst candidate, voting for a Hitler, Mao, or Stalin doesn't do any good for anyone. The answer does not rely in sabotaging the system, nor does it lay in trying to gradually change it or tone it down. The tyrannical system you would have imposed would last a long time, lead to more brainwashing, and, to be honest, I doubt many anarcho-capitalists would be able to survive it. However, recent history has proven that you don't even need to try reducing the government to have "small government" or the "inefficiency of the private sector" get blamed. This "damn the bourgeoisie!" attitude manifests itself so strongly in our schools, never before have I noticed it as strongly as this year in AP US History (the more "advanced" the class, the more deluded, I've noticed).
Why did the Articles of Confederation fail? The central government was not powerful enough and lacked the ability to tax.
What caused the Panic of 1819? The failure of the market economy and the lack of a central bank.
What caused the Panic of 1837? Andrew Jackson shutting down the second central bank!
What is the gold standard? A crown of thorns!
What was the Industrial Revolution? Clearly, it was the worst age in all of history. Everyone was poor, despite the increase of real wages. Everyone was starving, even though the population was increasing dramatically.
Why did the economy sink into depression during WWII and the New Deal? Because conservative influences made FDR change the policy, the free market cannot fix the economy!
Tariffs are good, patents are just, everyone deserves a "good enough" wage, everyone deserves "decent" hours, no one should own "that" much, no one should be deprived of this, deprived of that, no one should have to work for anything pleasant. Those who have earned that much have no right to keep it to themselves!
Fine then, I say to their ilk! Fine! Do you wish to be free of our influence? Do you wish to try and legislate your way out of reality? That is fine then, I will stay out of your ballot box. Do not expect my compliance, you will not get it. Bloat your government up, it will eventually burst. Those armed with the full philosophy of liberty, we will continue on naturally. The heavier big government gets, the more people will be willing to shrug the weight of the State off their shoulders. And they will be accepted with open arms. We can only succeed by letting the nature of the State take its course.
My personal Anarcho-Capitalist flag. The symbol in the center stands for "harmony" and "protection"-- I'm hoping to illustrate the bond between order/justice and anarchy.
What about supporting the worst possible candidates, with your vote, and supporting secessionist movements at the same time? And is secession a more realistic strategy than focusing on reforming the federal government?
CrazyCoot: What about supporting the worst possible candidates, with your vote, and supporting secessionist movements at the same time? And is secession a more realistic strategy than focusing on reforming the federal government?
I'd consider that morally inconsistent, anyway. You would still be forcing Ideology X on people. It gives the statists a reason to blame and disparage anarcho-capitalists. Anarchists are insulted and misrepresented enough as it is.
Secession and non-compliance are the ONLY viable strategies.
CrazyCoot: And is secession a more realistic strategy than focusing on reforming the federal government?
And is secession a more realistic strategy than focusing on reforming the federal government?
Much more realistic.
Well, is there any hope without a certain lack of moral clarity from time to time? And I'm being serious.
No individual or group can always be angels, but without moral consistency, we are surely doomed.
True, although it seems as though society is like a woman who likes bad boys and we're the nice guy whose willing to pick her up after a bad date.
You reasoning sound very similar to some writings by Karl Marx when he reasoned that since the coming of Communism would be inevitable once Capitalism collapsed on itself an advisable course of action would have been to put Capitalism into "overdrive" to bring about its inevitable downfall faster.
I do not agree: there are only two things that can bring down a government of any kind. The first is foreign military intervention. Think the French revolutionary armies overrunning Europe and imposing governments of their choice, often very different from the previous ones. The second is a mixture of loss of popular support and mounting desperation. Think the Persians overthrowing the Shah in spite of his brutal police regime. Otherwise a government can keep going pretty much forever, no matter how brutal, ineffective and bankrupt is.
The present system is a good representation of this. No present government has the trust of the majority of its "citizens"; no present government enjoys widespread popular support. What is saving their members from a hasty flight abroad or the firing squad is the fact that people still aren't desperate. They are more depressed than angry and governments are determined to keep them there or bamboozle them with the sales season or cheap TV sport shows. And should that fail you can always go to war with China...
Kakugo: I do not agree: there are only two things that can bring down a government of any kind. The first is foreign military intervention. Think the French revolutionary armies overrunning Europe and imposing governments of their choice, often very different from the previous ones. The second is a mixture of loss of popular support and mounting desperation. Think the Persians overthrowing the Shah in spite of his brutal police regime. Otherwise a government can keep going pretty much forever, no matter how brutal, ineffective and bankrupt is. The present system is a good representation of this. No present government has the trust of the majority of its "citizens"; no present government enjoys widespread popular support. What is saving their members from a hasty flight abroad or the firing squad is the fact that people still aren't desperate. They are more depressed than angry and governments are determined to keep them there or bamboozle them with the sales season or cheap TV sport shows. And should that fail you can always go to war with China...
Desperation is not enough. I think that for the overthrow of a government to happen there must also exist an alternative government-in-waiting which is deemed by the populace to be more legitimate than the current government. (Or there must exist the idea among the populace that a legitimate government is impossible if we are talking about an ancap overthrow.)
There is no need for a government in waiting. The French Revolution is again a good case: there was no opposition party ready to seize power. The fact that in little more than ten years their form of government changed continuously before arriving to the Napoleonic Empire is good proof. France had simply grown tired of the Ancien Regime and nobody missed the Bourbons. Apart from a handful of enthusiastic Republicans (most of whom either met an untimely death or were later exiled/marginalized) the new governments were made up by determined violent types like Bonaparte and shrewd opportunists like Talleyrand, all persons ready to seize the occasion, not "opposition party" types.