Political Theory

Re: Do States "Exist" In a Meaningful Sense?

Chris_Bacon — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 22:39:07 GMT

I was going to say, then let's draw the line at human, but that would be a bit speciesist of me; so let's draw the line at 'sentient life'. But I do agree completely with you about the idea that nations are arbitrary. In fact, if you were to look at how national boundries have been created, it's often through the use of force and aggression - so in that respect their formation is immoral.

I remember hearing from a US soldier that we have more in common with the people in Iraq, than we do with our politicians.

Re: Do States "Exist" In a Meaningful Sense?

EmperorNero — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 22:30:24 GMT

Aren't states just local monopolies on printing money?

Re: Do States "Exist" In a Meaningful Sense?

Clayton — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 21:39:50 GMT

Right on, Eric. Political boundaries represent the extents to which the central gang of thieves publicly aggrandizes its territorial ambitions. Look at all the border disputes around the world, e.g. Kashmir. Each government insists it controls the territority in dispute. How embarrassing.

Clayton -

Re: Do States "Exist" In a Meaningful Sense?

Eric080 — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 21:18:59 GMT

There's a bit of that element going on, Chris_Bacon. I don't deny the existence of things like "ideas" or 'facts", although perhaps those could be reduced to physical things in a materialist metaphysic (I'm not committed to physicalism per se). I think what I'm getting at is that the concept of America or any other nation is arbitrary and left up to us as individuals to decide whether we recognize it or not. Like I was saying, why does America start and end at certain geographical latitudes and longitudes? I realize we have to draw the line somewhere, but I think we'd be better off realizing that spontaneous order spills over national fiat boundaries. I have more in common with somebody from Windsor, Ontario than I do in Brownsville, Texas. And then you can go on from there and say that concepts like "Windsor" and "Brownsville" are equally arbitrary, but like I said, we draw the line at some point

Re: Do States "Exist" In a Meaningful Sense?

Chris_Bacon — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 20:37:37 GMT

I think your argument comes down to, 'Is there anything non-physical?', or perhaps, 'Is the state physical?'; something along those lines anyway. But, I think you're right - geographically anyway.

Re: Do Nations "Exist" In a Meaningful Sense?

xahrx — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 20:17:02 GMT

I think his broader point is your thinking, at some point, shifts and what used to make perfect sense looks like insanity now. Same thing happened to me when I finally grasped the idea of spontaneous order to the point where I started analizing/thinking in those terms. Now the idea of imposed or top down order seems odd, I don't "get it" anymore, as they say. I see no difference between language and the market, both social phenomena that arise from interaction.

Re: Do Nations "Exist" In a Meaningful Sense?

Eric080 — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 19:22:06 GMT

Gotcha. It's fixed now. Libertarians are picky about language

Re: Do Nations "Exist" In a Meaningful Sense?

Marko — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 19:00:55 GMT

You are conflating terms. There are stateless nations and states other than nation-states.

Re: Do Nations "Exist" In a Meaningful Sense?

Eric080 — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 18:56:16 GMT

Thanks for the link, Vaduka. I did read that when it came out and I read it again; good stuff!

Re: Do Nations "Exist" In a Meaningful Sense?

vaduka — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 18:34:07 GMT

I suggest you read the daily article named "The Chimera of the Group Mind".

http://mises.org/daily/4722

Re: Do Nations "Exist" In a Meaningful Sense?

BramElias — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 18:05:43 GMT

I agree with you, after you've read enough libertarian stuff you experience a sort of gestalt switch. Although I don't see the government as a company, more like a criminal organisation.

Do States "Exist" In a Meaningful Sense?

Eric080 — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 17:32:22 GMT

I've been thinking a bit about what separates anarchists from statists, and this thought came across my mind. When I was a statist, I still thought things through the scope of nation-states. When I looked at the globe, I saw the boundaries on political maps as actually representing "countries." Now that I'm an anarchist, I see things a bit differently.

I kind of see the globe in terms of a physical map now. I don't see much of a difference between Juarez and El Paso besides an artificial line in the sand. I really noticed how insane this was when I thought about how you can cram 350 million people into a democracy. Why stop there? Why not include Ottawa or Vancouver or Baja California?

In other words, when I think of politics, all I see now is a group of people in Washington DC and around the area commonly referred to as "The United States of America" (TACRTATUSOA) thinks there is a line that marks off where TACRTATUSOA ends and the areas commonly referred to as "Canada" and "Mexico" begin. When watching footage in Iraq, I don't see "the United States military" anymore, I see a bunch of people in uniforms invading the home of people not in uniform. I don't distinguish between what this military force is doing and what a private military force may do; the only relevant distinction for me is the way in which they were funded. Same with the police. All I see is people in suits telling others what to do.

Being an anarcho-capitalist really helped me open my eyes to what was going on. I see law, security, and judicial services as products now rather than solely the domain of government. "Government" is a company, but it's just a coercive monopoly to me now. So now I don't see national boundaries or national agencies as anything other than what they are. The air of presupposed legitimacy isn't there for me anymore.

Anybody agree? I apologize if this is tl;dr, I tried to shorten it