I noticed this interesting comment by a "GWil":
GWil:Name one truly anarchical society! I am stating there is no such thing. A family consisting of a father, mother, and children is itself a form of government. When the father tells his children not to swim in the river, what is this but one party using coercion to force another party what he can or cannot do? If you believe that civilization would ever function sans some form of a protectionist body, you have misread human nature going back a dozen thousand years or so. I'm sure you'd argue that private security groups could take care and protect others' rights and liberties--but in order to do so these groups would need the power and authority to judge and prosecute the actions of the accused. This is nothing more than a state. It is your sanity, and not my imagination, that needs improvement. [Emphasis added.]
How many people do you guys think agree with him? I would submit that perhaps some majority actually does. This dovetails with my thesis that the state began as the extended family writ large, and that that's its ultimate basis even today.
On the other hand, I disagree with his characterization of a father telling his children to not swim in the river. I think it proves too much, in fact. For example, taking his characterization as true would mean that a girl who tells a guy to not call her again is also "one party using coercion to force another party what he can or cannot do". Likewise, employer-employee relationships would also be considered as coercive.
I think this highlights that "authority" is not a descriptive concept - it's a necessarily normative one. The descriptive counterpart to "authority" per se is the observation that one person considers another person to have "authority", or even that a person considers himself to have it. So the question of "authority" per se comes back to legitimacy.
That said, if a person like "GWil" would consider anarcho-capitalism to be a state, that's honestly fine by me. I don't think it would be one, so the only conclusion I could derive is that his definition of "state" is simply different from mine. But a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
The keyboard is mightier than the gun.
Non parit potestas ipsius auctoritatem.
Voluntaryism Forum
"A family consisting of a father, mother, and children is itself a form of government."
My response if I was debating him: Then I do not advocate an anarchist society. Only a Utopian would ever argue that we can have a society entirely devoid of any sort of force. Our disagreements arise, not from anyone's idiocy but merely from different definitions. I wish to minimize force as much as is possible and make it based around individual . I'm sure you would agree that simply because force is necessary in all societies does not mean that it is justified to let force be unleashed an unrestricted in a police state.
My feeling: Stop using emotional appeals and dodging what 'anarchists' are actually saying and address the issue
A lot of people will fall back onto such excuses when confronted with the idea of a stateless society. "Without X there would be chaos!! It's insane to imagine that people could live under Y conditions." You know, the same forumula that were given by the monarchic elites when reffering to a liberal democratic society a few centuries ago, and the same formula that almost all of the people during revolutionary times would say if talking about the kind of society we live in.
This is a really interesting point, but I'm not sure I agree (or maybe I'm misunderstanding). I mean, can't we look at the world and observe what we call "authority," regardless of normative claims of legitimacy?
they said we would have an unfair fun advantage
That seems to beg the question - what do you call "authority"?
Before I answer that, I just want to point out that any sort of problems that might exist in defining authority aren't isolated to a descriptive approach - the same questions can be raised against a normative treatment.
I'm still not going to define "authority" actually, because I don't think its useful to do so. I mean, if I say "the father has authority over his child" or "the employer has authority of the employees," you know exactly what I'm talking about. In either case, we can observe authority through rule giving and following.
Legitimacy can also be treated positively once we recognize that in many cases, legitimacy is a necessary condition of authority. So even though it's normative at its core, we can observe the emergence of real institutions (religion, law, language, ethics) that are legitimate in their own right, without having to appeal to the content of their legitimacy.
I consider it disingenuous for you to refuse to provide your definition of "authority", and I won't engage you further here until you do so.
Wow, ok. If I give a definition, are you going to pick it apart, asking for further definitions ad infinitum? Or, are you going to point out that some aspect of what we want to call "authority" is excluded by the definition?
Authority=legitimate power.
mikachusetts:Wow, ok. If I give a definition, are you going to pick it apart, asking for further definitions ad infinitum? Or, are you going to point out that some aspect of what we want to call "authority" is excluded by the definition?
Quite possibly. But who are "we"?
mikachusetts:Authority=legitimate power.
Thank you. However, I'm surprised you agree with me that "legitimacy" is a necessary concept for "authority". It seemed like you were arguing otherwise.
Now then, let me ask you: how do you think legitimacy can be observed in the world?
"We" is you and me and anyone else who feels inclined to join the conversation. Sometimes we might agree and hold a common value, so to say "we want" isn't a problem there.
And I totally agree that legitimacy is a necessary concept for authority, sorry for the confusion. I just don't think that we need to fully indulge in the normative side of things.
Legitimacy, in the abstract, can't be observed. But if something holds legitimacy as a precondition, and that something can be observed, then we can deduce legitimacy from there. In the case of authority, we can observe acts of power that would not be feasible otherwise, therefore, they are legitimate.
I agree with GWil, and to add to it, I think that the "self" is equivalent to a "state".
mikachusetts:"We" is you and me and anyone else who feels inclined to join the conversation. Sometimes we might agree and hold a common value, so to say "we want" isn't a problem there.
I, for one, didn't think we had arrived at the point where we agree on a definition for "authority". So I did see a problem with you saying "we want".
mikachusetts:And I totally agree that legitimacy is a necessary concept for authority, sorry for the confusion. I just don't think that we need to fully indulge in the normative side of things.
How is legitimacy per se not normative?
mikachusetts:Legitimacy, in the abstract, can't be observed. But if something holds legitimacy as a precondition, and that something can be observed, then we can deduce legitimacy from there. In the case of authority, we can observe acts of power that would not be feasible otherwise, therefore, they are legitimate.
Would you say that a thief can be observed to have authority (i.e. legitimate power) over his victim?
Jackson LaRose:I agree with GWil, and to add to it, I think that the "self" is equivalent to a "state".
So then what isn't equivalent to a "state", in your view?
Atman
Singularity
Tao
Absolute Zero
Enjoy your performative contradictions - I suspect they'll be with you for a long, long time.
"If I can't comprehend something, it must be false! Also, the computer is cheating again!"
...
Do I need to repeat myself?
About what, your belief in my performative contradiction? No, I got it.
I don't think you do, but then again, it's not really up to me whether you do...
Then please, explain.
Why should I, when it seems that you'll just feel insulted and then try to insult me in return?
OK, then don't.
Right. Let me know when you decide to act differently.
"GWil" is confusing two separate issues - what people do and what they ought to do. The difficult part is that it is very difficult to say what people ought to do except on the basis of what they do. This is because what it is to be human (what humans ought to do) is defined by what humans do.
To reason about the issue in less majestical terms, let's look to the animal kingdom. Let's say there is a massive oil tanker spill covering many square miles of open ocean and there is a flock of birds headed across this spill. At some point, the birds will have to stop and rest on the water before continuing on. When they land, they will be mired in the oil and most of them - maybe all of them - will die.
We can say that "the birds ought not to fly over the oil slick" - but what can this possibly means since they're doing it anyway? In general, we can only make normative statements about animal behavior based on the nature of the animal species, that is, by investigating the principles by which the animal species operates and considering whether a particular animal's behavior conforms with these principles. A rabid dog clearly acts in a manner contrary to its own nature. It is ill and it "ought" to be acting differently.
When we apply this same process of reasoning to human beings, the quandary remains. If I see you doing something "contrary" to your own nature, you are also a data point that this sort of behavior should be considered PART OF human nature.
There is no doubt that there is a moral double-standard between parent and child but there is equally little doubt that this is part of human nature. The coercive aspects of parenting play a causal role in their children's survival. Consider a parent giving an infant an enema (not pleasant even to infants) who does not want it. Such behavior to an adult peer would be a severe and grotesque tort but it seems perfectly natural to me that an parent would induce its infant child to undergo an enema if it was medically necessary.
There is also a moral double-standard between the State and the citizenry. To an extent, this moral double-standard must have a basis in human nature just as the parent's double-standard with respect to the child does. It is an arbitrary distinction to count non-State order as "natural" and State order as "artificial" and "unnatural."
But, at the same time, much of the State order is like the misguided flock of birds flying towards the oil slick. We can clearly see the harm that will come to the individuals and the group as a whole as a result and there does not appear to be any purpose being served by this harm. It appears to be pure, blind waste based on ignorance and miscalculation.
If we are going to develop meaningful, normative prescriptions against the State order, then we're goign to have to be less arbitrary in separating what is unnatural about the State order from what is natural about it. This is the flaw in the natural law approach... the derivation of human nature is arbitrary, it includes the elements of human history and human behavior that lead to a certain picture of human nature in which the State order appears unnatural but choosing different elements of human history and behavior gives a picture in which the State order is perfectly natural.
I think we need an even bigger picture that can subsume both views, a picture that takes into account all of human behavior without exception and makes it possible to offer normative prescriptions against the State order without the need to claim that the State qua State is "unnatural." Such a claim is contentious and easily ignored (by simply noting the widespread and persistent existence of States) and unnecessary to making the case for many specific changes to the status quo which would result in a healthier social order.
Clayton -
I was being too optimistic then.
Its not not normative, I mean, it is normative. I agree with you there (actually I think its more complicated, but its not important here). All I'm saying is that we can discuss normative concepts positively by recognizing that things like legitimacy, regardless of the grounds that justify it, is a precondition for real worlds things.
No. The concept "thief" essentially contains the concept of illegitimate power, while the action of taking may or may not be ok. In other words, the difference between taking something and stealing something is the difference between having or not having authority.
mikachusetts:Its not not normative, I mean, it is normative. I agree with you there (actually I think its more complicated, but its not important here). All I'm saying is that we can discuss normative concepts positively by recognizing that things like legitimacy, regardless of the grounds that justify it, is a precondition for real worlds things.
I fail to see how legitimacy is a fact of an object, event, situation, etc. aside from the fact that a person thinks something is legitimate (or not).
mikachusetts:No. The concept "thief" essentially contains the concept of illegitimate power, while the action of taking may or may not be ok. In other words, the difference between taking something and stealing something is the difference between having or not having authority.
Okay. I guess my question to you at this point is, what do you think makes power legitimate? That is, under what conditions do you think it's legitimate?
Etienne de la Boetie talked about how a government necessarily depends on popular support because they do not have the numbers or raw power to actually subjugate the entire population. An illegitimate government cannot last without either gaining legitimacy or coming up with the man power to maintain the kind of force needed to demand property from its citizens.
So without knowing exactly what makes something legitimate, and without even knowing what legitimacy looks like, we can observe institutions that could not exist otherwise and deduce that they must in fact be legitimate.
I don't really know, to be honest.
mikachusetts:Etienne de la Boetie talked about how a government necessarily depends on popular support because they do not have the numbers or raw power to actually subjugate the entire population. An illegitimate government cannot last without either gaining legitimacy or coming up with the man power to maintain the kind of force needed to demand property from its citizens. So without knowing exactly what makes something legitimate, and without even knowing what legitimacy looks like, we can observe institutions that could not exist otherwise and deduce that they must in fact be legitimate.
I think "illegitimate government" means "a government which is at least widely considered illegitimate by the people who live under it". The same thing applies to "legitimate government". Otherwise, I don't see any difference between what you're putting forth and the notion of "might makes right".
Let's say you're walking down a street and a man walks up to you. He points a gun at you and demands you to give him your money. You comply and he walks off. Would you say that his exercise of power was legitimate because you went along with it?
mikachusetts:Okay. I guess my question to you at this point is, what do you think makes power legitimate? That is, under what conditions do you think it's legitimate? I don't really know, to be honest.
I don't think you can know there, because legitimacy is normative, a.k.a. subjective. It comes from within, not from outside.
So with that said, what do you yourself think makes power legitimate?
The difference between this and my example is that governments hold significantly less potential force against their citizens than an armed robber against his single victim. Imagine if that armed robber walked into a banquet hall of 1500 people and asked them to each hand over whatever money they had, because he had the authority to demand so. If they didn't, he would ask again later, and maybe eventually use force to take it from them. If the majority of people complied, how else could we describe the situation besides recognizing that he held legitimate power?
And when I say legitimate, I don't mean in some real cosmice sense, I mean as far as the parties involved are concerned. So yeah, its subjective, but subjective things can become intersubjectively verifiable. For example, "better off" is a subjective concept, but we also know that both parties are better off ex ante in an exchange. So if an exchange occurs, suddenly we can talk about so and so being better off without being caught up in the subjectivity of what being "better off" really means.
Conventions and actual or perceived utility probably drives popular opinion to grant legitimacy, as well as some aspect of rational inquiry which ends up in conventions and utilitarianism.
I think the quote in the op is a very common mindset. I think it is rooted in a misunderstanding of anarchy and a lack of depth in the understanding of authority and coercion. He is right in saying that a parent telling their child not swim is a form of coercion, but by trying to associate that sort of interaction or relationship, with the relationship between the state and individual, he is misrepresenting state coercion. I would argue that the family can be a good example of anarchy. How each individual within the family, once the children are of a responsible age, can go about their business to accomplish their goals, without a constant coercive force guiding them and assisting them. Of course that depends on the type of parents and family environment, but that just brings me back to the first point of it realy being a bad analogy.
The real miscalculation of human nature is that by setting up a monopoly on authority and coercion that it will not be corrupted and an even worse scenario will be the result. Government adds to the problem that is human nature (in that context) and does not solve it.
He obviously lacks the ability to foresee a police and justice system without a state monopoly over those services. To say that it is nothing more than a state is non nonsensical and a bad argument or point. He firstly lays out a character of the state by loosely defining his perception or misunderstanding of anarchism as being an aspect of the current state. Then he goes on to label this characteristic as nothing more than the state, when it is only one aspect of the state anyway.
Etienne de la Boetie talked about how a government necessarily depends on popular support because they do not have the numbers or raw power to actually subjugate the entire population.
Boetie also hinted at the power of sociopathy and I think that plays a key role in the power of the State. An ordinary man in a struggle with another ordinary man who is trying to rob him has a statistically even chance of winning. Given some home-turf advantages (such as knowing the layout of his own home, neighborhood, having family, friends and neighbors nearby, etc.) the victim may actually be at a slight advantage to the aggressor, even if the aggressor had the element of surprise. But an ordinary man in a struggle against a sociopathic man stands little chance. The difference is in the physiology and psychology of the two men. It is like a household dog getting in a fight with a timber wolf - he doesn't stand a chance.
When you're in a fight-or-flight situation, a cascade of physiological effects happen to you. Your consciousness goes into tunnel-vision focus on the threat, your outer limbs become weak and shaky as your brain re-routes blood from the limbs to your core to increase your chances of surviving wounds to your extremities, your heart rate goes up to near tachycardia, your breathing becomes shallow and rapid. For the sociopath who is a practiced murderer, none of these reactions happen. He retains normal situational awareness of his surroundings, he retains his usual strength and composure and his vital signs remain in their normal working range. To get an idea what I'm talking about, watch the movie No Country for Old Men. Javier Bardem well delivers his role as the cold-blooded sociopathic killer Anton Chigurh.
The sociopath retains his composure for the simple reason that he's practiced at killing. The sociopath experiences no more of a moral crisis in killing a human being than does the experienced hunter in killing a buck. Sure, there is the exhiliration of success when the quarry has been killed but this is the same kind of excitement you experience when making a basket during a brisk game of basketball.
In this sense, the sociopath really is a kind of "superman", that is, he can take on a wildly disproportionate number of foes. A small army of sociopaths could take on immense numbers of ordinary soldiers. It is my view that this is precisely what the elite core of intelligence/military-black-ops units are - they form a small cadre of remorseless, highly-experienced, prolific killers. It is not their training or even their equipment that makes them so deadly, it is their complete willingness to kill without hesitation. The ring of "special ops" soldiers surrounding this core cadre serve the all-important role of (unknowingly) lending legitimacy to the murdering sociopaths in the core. Special ops soldiers are the most dedicated and disciplined people in the military. They are typically outstanding role models of all the virtues. A tiny number of them will be selected to "move on" to special activities and "black ops" roles - those are the sociopaths.
Now, pit those sociopaths against not trained soldiers, but millions, billions of obedient slaves.
This is how the world is really run. This is why you have to pay taxes. Depressing, sure, but just remember that you can't possibly escape your prison as long as you're blind to the walls and fences. Seeing them is the first step to breaking out.
mikachusetts:The difference between this and my example is that governments hold significantly less potential force against their citizens than an armed robber against his single victim. Imagine if that armed robber walked into a banquet hall of 1500 people and asked them to each hand over whatever money they had, because he had the authority to demand so. If they didn't, he would ask again later, and maybe eventually use force to take it from them. If the majority of people complied, how else could we describe the situation besides recognizing that he held legitimate power?
My hang-up is over your use of words like "recognizing" in this context. Such words to me imply facts about the world. If you mean "recognizing that those people believed that he held legitimate power", why not just say that? Or do words like "recognizing" convey different meanings to you in this context from those they convey to me?
mikachusetts:And when I say legitimate, I don't mean in some real cosmice sense, I mean as far as the parties involved are concerned. So yeah, its subjective, but subjective things can become intersubjectively verifiable. For example, "better off" is a subjective concept, but we also know that both parties are better off ex ante [I think you mean ex post here] in an exchange. So if an exchange occurs, suddenly we can talk about so and so being better off without being caught up in the subjectivity of what being "better off" really means.
Again, I would say that we don't know that both parties are better off ex post in an exchange. We only know that both parties believe that they are each better off. Indeed, I think that's the only thing we can know there (if anything at all).
mikachusetts:Conventions and actual or perceived utility probably drives popular opinion to grant legitimacy, as well as some aspect of rational inquiry which ends up in conventions and utilitarianism.
So if "popular opinion" is "driven" to grant legitimacy to something, you yourself necessarily find it to be legitimate as well? Or what?
@Clayton
From what I've read, hardly all sociopaths/psychopaths are practiced at killing. And they're hardly immune from the physiological effects of fight-or-flight situations. Different psychopaths have different goals, just like non-psychopaths. To treat them as all being like Hannibal Lector or Michael Myers is highly inaccurate. (Plus those are fictional characters anyway, as is Anton Chigurh.)
Great video though. In my opinion, it gives the lie to the notion that the world is run - at least entirely - by murderous psychopaths. So I think the far greater danger is the "chain of obedience" - all the people are willing to listen to and obey "authority" simply because it "is" "authority".
It is ex ante, i.e. according to the value scales of the two parties a split-second before the exchange occurs.
But if they saw themselves as being better off ex ante, why would they enter into an exchange at all?
Ex ante refers to the moment of valuation, i.e. that prior to the exchange. Those engaging in voluntary exchange are better off as a result of the exchange according to the value scales ex ante. E.g. At this moment Smith values an apple more than an orange, Jones values an orange more than an apple. If they were to enter into exchange of an apple for an orange, each party would necessarily benefit due to each actor's valuation of these goods ex ante.
Of course, the concept of the value scale is merely employed for the interpretation of action and cannot be described apart from action - but as in this example it is useful for the formulation of theory.
Thanks for the clarification! I stand corrected.
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