The only thing I don't get with anarchy is how we would protect ourselves against crime. I am absolutely for a reformation of society, but with no state or state-like-entity there is no one to defend people against strong, ruthless individuals and organisations.
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What would we do about violent psychopaths?
We'd stop giving them armies.
The amount of people who would be ruthless and criminal in a society where individual freedom was paramount would be very, very, very small. The vast majority of people are peaceful and capable of existing together. Their will always be conflict no matter what societal system is employed. A vast majority of the violence and hatred you see now is a product of the state. This fuels division in the population and props the current system up. If the state was gone most of the violence would leave with it. Communities would become established and people who were violent or aggressive would not be accepted by the communities and be outsiders. Eventually they would come around on their own to accept the ideas or have to adapt to being outsiders.
I agree. The vast majority just want to be left alone to go about their business unharassed. They would not dream of extorting or perpetrating violence against their fellow man if the state wasn't there to do it in their name
I found this little experiment helped me shake off worries of "so many evil people". I started asking everyone I came in contact with, "What would you do if the government was gone overnight?". There wasn't a single person who said I would go on a killing and looting spree lol. Most people gave a positive response like " yeah no more taxes"..... You do run into the usual issues, muh pension and muh roads, but at least they were positive about the concept.
Try it out where you live. It would be interesting to see the results. I do live in The Democratic Peoples Republic of Canada-stan, I don't know if that would have any bearing on different results or not.
I believe the result would be the same everywhere. People are inherently benevolent, and in their personal lives, most live by the non-aggression principle. Laws don't make people good but obeying 'bad' laws can certainly make people act in a way contrary to their principles and better judgment.
I do agree that this sounds reasonable, but I can't help but think about drug cartels and mafias that exist in our world. Why would malevolent organizations like these not form in an anarchy? And how would we deal with organizations like these without organizing ourselves? And once we organize ourselves... we are no longer really in an anarchy?
I really don't understand how an anarchy is supposed to work. Society and organization seems like a natural biproduct of evolution to me...
Most of the gangs, mafias, and cartels are state enterprises. No state leads to no CIA, MI5, MI6, and so on. Those are your (tax funded) drug cartels, mafias, and gangs. Anarchism wouldn't provide the economic fuel for these people. Banking would look nothing like it does now, money could become sound again and not fiat , and voluntary commerce would be factors choking out that behavior.
I hope you are right and that I am wrong about humanity and human nature. I like your view more than I like my own, but I can't help but suspect that humans are to greedy and to scared of each others differences not to form groups based on ethnicity, religion, ruthlessness towards others in pursuit of power and money and so on. Groups that would eventually lead to organizations and states. Hope I am wrong though.
I was struggling with the concept because i was stuck with the concept that the system had to be so perfect it was Utopian. There will always be conflict no matter what. The amount of conflict would be reduced so dramatically. If people experience true freedom it would be hard for the vast amount of the population to even consider a hierarchal structure of living ever again. Remember good ideas don't require force.