That most prolific writer in history, Anonymous, keeps posting comments on my blog, this time on anarchy:
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The problem with the anarchy view: aren't you assuming that people will decide not to take advantage of each other?
***I assume people will attempt to take advantageous of others at all times and at all places. It is only when there is a State that their desire to do so is possible.***
How do you stop people from cheating and taking advantage of someone?
***By not offering him powers, sought and unsought, necessary to effect his evil plans. Do not pledge allegiance to a state. We have the problem of people cheating and taking advantage of others now, on an unspeakable scale, usually by state actors on behalf of supra-national actors. The question is why do you state-faithers accept cheating and taking advantage now?***
Humans need rules for society to function properly.
***Of course, that is why we have rules for chess, skiiing, and Lex Mercatoria, things that matter, rules that endure. But States never effect lasting rules, only passing rules for as long as a group of villains can abuse others and go on, and then skedaddle to Bolivia, or some other refuge. As the USA crumbles for its lawlessness, the Bush family buys 100,000 acres in Paraguay. The rules of chess have outlasted 1000 of your regimes.***
How do you keep the strong from taking advantage of the weak?
***By not consenting to be governed, but not offering unsought powers.***
I understand that government has its problems too, but I think that the anarchic view is Utopian, too idealistic, and is unlikely to be achieved in reality.
***Too late: almost all human interaction is on an anarchic level. People cooperate enough to send a love one away to be destroyed so Dick Cheney can have more $#!+, vote for someone who has hopes contrary to their own, take out a loan. But all of those, although some are significant, amount to almost nothing in the measure of a life lived. The utopian view is that a state can help people.***
I think there will always be people who will band together to pursue their common interests, and compete with other groups of people.
***Of course. No question there. The only question is if one voluntarily submits and then leads an inauthentic life. A hint at what could be is Hong Kong, which has the entire range of good to wickedness, in the usual proportions, but there is no state apparatus to grant anyone enough power to abuse others. Just no leverage there... so there is peace and prosperity. You have nothing to show with a state, where anarchy has peace and prosperity wherever it is, and it is all around us.***
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1 comments:
"The utopian view is that a state can help people." Well said, John. Violence is the basis of the state, and an entity with violence at its core cannot help some without hurting others, for it is in the nature of the state to exert force and coercion in all it's dealing. That is why, for example, the state cannot provide "health care" (in the true sense of the word) but instead delivers a system of deadly scapels and chemical attacks in the body.
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