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RE: Social Equilibrium

in #anarchism7 years ago (edited)

I would love to live in a world that had no need of state enforcement, but how would such a world deal with highly functional sociopaths and psychopaths? They are around and it seems in such a world, if they were violent, scary and crafty they could cause a lot of disruption. A local armed militia could be one response but it seems like it could quickly escalate and move in the direction of feudal "states"?

Local violent responses that restore social equilibrium do not sound at all like justice. I know justice is elusive but is it secondary in your example to social equilibrium? Also, is not getting fined for DUI and warned by the local police not a mechanism to restore the equilibrium? I can imagine it would be less likely to result in a revenge attack than by destroying someone's car. I doubt whether the destruction of the car is the end point where equilibrium is restored in your example in any case.

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Given human history, why would you ever imagine that "justice" via authoritarian "political" action is going to be more moral or effective? Imagining that some people have an EXEMPTION from morality--which the belief in "government" necessarily includes--is a sure-fire way to make sure that justice does NOT happen. At least when normal people decide for themselves when to use physical force, they might do it in a moral, just way. Every "government" is an aggressor that uses immoral violent aggression.

In my experience most people who get fined for DUI simply continue to do what they're doing. My husband has worked with people who have been caught multiple times and still continue to drink and drive, without a licence in some cases. I think that looking into why they feel the need to keep drinking or taking drugs in the first place would be the better way to work at stopping them doing it than fining them after the fact. I believe our high drug and alcohol use had a lot to with living in a system that is trapping us into lifestyles we aren't coping with.

A recent example is a drug addict who worked for my husband on his shift. When he took on the work she was doing drugs, but made some recovery while working for him. He treats his workers with respect. Then she got changed to the other manager's shift and to put it mildly he is a nasty piece of work. She was recently caught stealing as she was back on the drugs.

I feel the example @larkenrose used in this article of localised violent response would in reality have been a last resort response in a community. It is more in the nature of people to have approached the drunk when sober and emphasised their concerns first and if that had no affect then someone might reach the violent point.

As for sociopaths and psychopaths, in localised communities they would have been found out and dealt with many moons ago and no, it's not a nice thing to have to deal with and the way to deal with it wouldn't have been nice. Our communities have been torn apart now and even if they hadn't been we daren't do anything to protect ourselves now for fear of reprisal from "authorities".