What's stopping the private militias from seizing power? I've been entertaining the idea of no government as I start to get into Austrian Literature (recommended by you all!). Also, what's stopping the militias from bickering/being destroyed by a larger, more centralized foreign force?
Must. contain. fist. of. death.
Seriously: what prevents McDonalds from destroying Burger King? What stops governments now from all-out war on every other government?
Answer: people are more rational than you might think.
Because they would risk their own destruction, and that wouldn't be profitable? I think...?
Self-interest. This questions comes up all of the time...
How would you fund a militia? How would you fund an invasion? Why would anyone invade a geographic area where there was no central command?
These questions are irrelevant, although I went through the same phase of trying to understand how it would work.
Wars are expensive. Governments can externalize the costs of war (taxation, inflation, debt), so the have incentives to go to war more often. Private businesses, on the other hand, must pay all the costs of war.
AnalyticalAnarchism.net - The Positive Political Economy of Anarchism
What's stopping the private militias from seizing power?
February 17 - 1600 - Giordano Bruno is burnt alive by the catholic church. Aquinas : "much more reason is there for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, to be not only excommunicated but even put to death."
Zach:What's stopping the private militias from seizing power? I've been entertaining the idea of no government as I start to get into Austrian Literature (recommended by you all!). Also, what's stopping the militias from bickering/being destroyed by a larger, more centralized foreign force?
The laws of economics.
But how does that legitimize the state? You may think your government protects you from the buggie men of anarchy, but what right does that give you to force your government onto other people?
Peace
There is really little incentive for militias to do anything but defend their homes. Militias when used offensively are a disaster, which is their strongest selling point to me. They desert and frag commanders and generally become uncooperative and usually band together to demand just compensation if they ARE to go a marching off. The militia has little incentive to go a viking because they are normal everyday people with arms, tehy are already busy engaged in their lives outside of any war. They have more desie to plow a feild or lay a brick than pillage a town or slaughter a neighbor. It takes a lot of conditioning (read: military training) to get a man used to the idea of killing as a everyday activity.
The state is a disease and Liberty is the both the victim and the only means to a lasting cure.
My question about anarchy and this isn't tongue-in-cheek.
in anarchy what stops everything from being exactly the same as it is now? powerful factions gain control of ever larger pieces of land until everyone is living under one of them. under anarchy the collectivists eventually win.
Byzantine:A natural elite (as opposed to the bottom-up elite imposed by democracy) will arise and enable the peaceful activities of intellectuals, artists and the merchant and trade classes.
Juan:The only difference is that your conservative sermon doesn't square with the facts.
Which one would that be, the division of labour?
"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows"
Bob Dylan
Byzantine: Juan:The only difference is that your conservative sermon doesn't square with the facts. From the Mises Institute to your local football team to the crew at your watering hole, human society is hierarchical. You'd have to live in a communist hellhole to find a flat society. And in that event, you still have hierarchs: the ones tasked with stamping down people of merit.
From the Mises Institute to your local football team to the crew at your watering hole, human society is hierarchical. You'd have to live in a communist hellhole to find a flat society. And in that event, you still have hierarchs: the ones tasked with stamping down people of merit.
You forgot the first kind of hierarchy: the family.
The fallacies of intellectual communism, a compilation - On the nature of power
GilesStratton:Which one would that be, the division of labour?
Juan:To recap : No such thing as 'natural elites' in the political realm. If you want to say that the best engineers belong to some abstract natural elite, fine, but as a social theory that's wholly irrelevant.
I get it, you just ignore the inconvenient facts.
Byzantine:Anarchy is not based on politics; it is based on markets.
A natural elite (as opposed to the bottom-up elite imposed by democracy) will arise and enable the peaceful activities of intellectuals, artists and the merchant and trade classes.
Byzantine: Leadership is a marketable commodity.
Leadership is a marketable commodity.
But what does that have to do with being a "natural elite". Leadership is a skill that can be learned.
auctionguy10: Byzantine: Leadership is a marketable commodity. But what does that have to do with being a "natural elite". Leadership is a skill that can be learned.
It is a skill that is most likely learned from parents, hence the skill of leadership will pass down from one generation to the next.
Byzantine: I use the term "natural" in the sense that it would be an organic elite arising from the transactions of a market-based society, unlike the current elite that would never have risen to such status without government externalities.
I use the term "natural" in the sense that it would be an organic elite arising from the transactions of a market-based society, unlike the current elite that would never have risen to such status without government externalities.
Ironically, your description of how "natural elites" arise (I.E. "from the transcations of a market-based society") is bottom up market democracy. Where you get the illusion that currently existing political democracy actually is bottom up is beyond me, considering that the democratic governments are still exclusive oligarchies in which the decision-making is entirely top-down in nature. Genuinely bottom-up decision-making (particularly by consumers) is actually an inherent part of market anarchism.
Byzantine: Brainpolice:Where you get the illusion that currently existing political democracy actually is bottom up is beyond me, Because morons elect morons. Does that help?
Brainpolice:Where you get the illusion that currently existing political democracy actually is bottom up is beyond me,
Because morons elect morons. Does that help?
No, it doesn't help. In political democracy, the actual meaningful decision-making power is still held by an exclusive oligarchy. There is nothing bottom-up about it, policies are still set from the top-down by an elite and only certain moneyed interest groups have direct access to meaningful patronage with them. It doesn't matter if people elect them, the people don't actually have meaningful decision-making power. Why you fail to see this and insist on acting as if the current system is somehow actually representative of the masses is beyond me. I think the problem is that you tend to approach currently existing democracies as if they actually function as a means of public control and scrutiny. They don't.
A public education system that Leaves No Child Behind, regardless of the fact that many of them are stupid and violent?
The public education system is run by bureaucracies. There is nothing bottom-up about it.
Democratic government that asserts that every idiot with a pulse deserves a say?
Are you ignorant enough to actually think the people do have a meaningful say? Seriously, you should know better.
Tenured professors who say rap is music just like Bach is music?
What does this have to do with anything (other than your personal preferance for music, which is irrelevant)?
I mean, really, where could I possibly get the idea that the currently existing political democracy is actually bottom up.
Because you should very well know that public control in a so-called democracy is illusory! Democracy is just an ideological tenet to achieve legitimacy by fooling the people into thinking that they are in control of things. Unfortunately, you've actually bought into the bullshit that it actually is publicly controlled, only you approach it from the perspective of a conservative hatred for the commoners. Come on, you should know better than to accept the assumption that the public actually controls things in our political systems. Just because a political system has elections and a small elite of so-called representatives doesn't mean that people have any meaningful decision-making power over policy.
Byzantine: Brainpolice:Why you fail to see this and insist on acting as if the current system is somehow actually representative of the masses is beyond me. The current system exists because the masses want it. If they didn't, we would have a different system. Recall that virtually all the ruling monarchies were overthrown by democratic majorities.
Brainpolice:Why you fail to see this and insist on acting as if the current system is somehow actually representative of the masses is beyond me.
The current system exists because the masses want it. If they didn't, we would have a different system. Recall that virtually all the ruling monarchies were overthrown by democratic majorities.
That claim is nonsense, and if true, legitimizes all states under libertarian reasoning (it's voluntary - RIGHT?).
Surely you are not so ignorant as to not realize that political systems take on a life of their own, isolated from the will of their subjects? No state system is actually representative of the public in any accurate sense, even if it gives itself a "democratic" flavoring. All state systems, including so-called democracies, are ultimately controlled by oligarchies. I am not represented by democacy, and neither are those who think they are. Those who actually control the democracies (oligarchies, not "the people" as such), for all intents and purposes, can make whatever decisions they like once in power, regaurdless of the public. The public does not implicitly endorse whatever the state does just because the state calls itself a "democracy" and offers slim pickins from what it originally stole to the commoners as bait.
You need to redirect your hatred towards the state, not towards the fleeced masses.
Brainpolice:That claim is nonsense, and if true, legitimizes all states under libertarian reasoning (it's voluntary - RIGHT?).
I don't believe it is nonsense, and I don't think your conclusion is correct.
Byzantine is saying, if I understand him correctly, that the masses haven't revolted, and in fact, keep voting. It's not that it voluntary, it's majority. If people wanted anarchism in the majority, we would probably have it. The notion of the slavemaster on top by force or command, is a fallacy. The slavemaster is on top, because people do not recognize that they are slaves. They call him President or Prime Minister or King or Director or such. But he is there because at one point recently, even today, people want him there.
BP, are you going to admit you've not read de La Boetie, or that you you have selective memory?
liberty student: Brainpolice:That claim is nonsense, and if true, legitimizes all states under libertarian reasoning (it's voluntary - RIGHT?). I don't believe it is nonsense, and I don't think your conclusion is correct. Byzantine is saying, if I understand him correctly, that the masses haven't revolted, and in fact, keep voting. It's not that it voluntary, it's majority. If people wanted anarchism in the majority, we would probably have it. The notion of the slavemaster on top by force or command, is a fallacy. The slavemaster is on top, because people do not recognize that they are slaves. They call him President or Prime Minister or King or Director or such. But he is there because at one point recently, even today, people want him there.
I hardly see how either one of them must be exclusively correct, given the examples of both in our state (i.e. both "The citizens are not to blame for Slavery being perpetuated" & "The citizens are to blame for not realizing Slavery is being perpetuated"). Additionally, both points helps clarify required strategy in the broader picture.
"Look at me, I'm quoting another user to show how wrong I think they are, out of arrogance of my own position. Wait, this is my own quote, oh shi-" ~ Nitroadict
GilesStratton: BP, are you going to admit you've not read de La Boetie, or that you you have selective memory?
I have read La Boetie. I think some of you are putting your own spin on him in the process of interpretation, because by no means do I conclude from reading La Boetie that the masses are actually represented by their political systems, the conclusion is that political systems are partially dependant on civil obedience, which is partially dependant on the perpetuation of ideology. These are two different matters entirely. It by no means necessarily follows from the fact that people are civily obedient that they actually purposefully or ideologically support the political system as a whole, or that the political system is genuinely representative of their demands and preferances. Clearly, voluntary market mechanisms are what genuinely reflect a society's demands, not political systems. Political systems are chunky one-size-fits-all schemes, even in so-called "democracy".