A common complaint about the idea of a stateless society is, “If there was no government, the bad people could just do anything they want!!!” This argument is 50% true, 50% false, and 100% silly.
It is partly true in that, yes, if there were no ruling class, bad people would sometimes still decide to do bad things. Just like they do now. I don’t mean to alarm anyone by stating the bleeding obvious here, but even with “government”—in fact, under every “government” ever—bad people still choose to do bad things. Aside from the horrendously bad things that people do when acting on behalf of “government,” common crooks still do bad things and “break the law.” The mere existence of a ruling class doesn’t make everyone be nice. Duh.
The reason the argument is partly false is because it implies that bad people could do bad things and there would be no adverse consequences to them if they do, if not for “government.” Such an assumption is incredibly juvenile. The implication is that if all cops, soldiers, bureaucrats and politics vanished today, it wouldn’t occur to anyone else to try to defend themselves from thieves and thugs, or to try to create any sort of deterrent to those who would victimize the innocent.
Incidentally, average armed citizens are already a deterrent to crime more often than the badge-wearing doughnut-eaters.
But consider the level of intellectual laziness that the argument requires. Setting aside self-defense, it basically implies that if whoever is “protecting” them right now stops doing so, then no one else ever will. It’s like saying that if the plumber you use today retires, no one will ever fix your plumbing ever again. Do they not notice how quickly people adapt to changes? Do they really think that all those millions and millions of people who want “government” protecting them would stop wanting protection if “government” didn’t exist? “Well darn, we wish we had some way to stop the bad guys, but without politicians bossing us around, we’re all just going to passively sit here being pouty, hoping someone saves our sorry asses.”
To proclaim that “the bad guys” could do whatever they want, and get away with it without suffering any adverse consequences, implies that: 1) you wouldn’t lift a finger, even to protect yourself from thugs and thieves; 2) you wouldn’t lift a finger to defend anyone else; 3) you think no one else, on their own or as an organized group, would bother to defend themselves or others from aggressors. And frankly, that’s just stupid.
This is a fine example of statists projecting their own immaturity onto others. They think like children in a classroom, who are at a loss for what to do, and get uncomfortable and scared, whenever the teacher isn’t in the room. The thought that they would have to figure stuff out and do stuff themselves is existentially disturbing to them. And they assume everyone else must be the same way. Why else would they think, even for a moment, that without politicians, no one else would create any deterrent to the thieves and thugs of the world?
And this applies to so many other fields of thought as well. When they whine about “muh roads,” do they really think that, if not for “government,” millions of people would just sit around wishing they had some way to travel somewhere, instead of doing something about it? Do they really think that all the people who vote for “government” to care for the poor wouldn’t actually do anything themselves for the poor without a ruling class forcing them to?
The scare-tactics are downright pathetic. From the left: “If not for welfare, millions will starve to death!” From the right: “If not for the military, terrorists would take over the world!” The truth is, if not for scared, immature, irresponsible, intellectually lazy state-worshipers who won’t give up the security blanket of authoritarianism, the world would be a drastically better place.
I believe most people just babble what they have been indoctrinated to respond with, when somebody argues against the state. All answers are conjured by sophists for the sole purpose of shutting up those who asks questions. Thestate is based on fear and people have been taught to fear having 100% responsibility for their own life. So they will defend the state no matter how many dead bodies the have to pretend they are not walking over
Good morning, Larken, thanks for being in the vanguard of the revolution.
Now if you'd just drop your crapitalust dogma and pick up the black flag we could get to utopia a little quicker.
Why do you figure the banksters are so hip on crapitalism when EVERYTHING ELSE they do to us is evil?
Anarcho-Crapitalism leaves the hierarchy in place just with a different capstone.
Thanks for your time.
FBA
Well, maybe that gives me the topic for my next Steemit article.
Excellent! I can't wait.
Rock on, Larken!
I don't think this is going to work out quite the way you think it will...
If not capitalism, who makes the decisions about how I spend my money?
There won't be any money.
If you get everything you need handed to you for free, wouldn't you feel like a bum if you sat around playing video games all day?
There is plenty of work to be done, and under my proposal NOBODY has an excuse not to contribute, and every incentive.
Good, opposing viewpoints keep my game sharp.
Care to take your shot here?
We'll have nesting issues at 6, but if we use the last reply button they should line up sequentially.
regarding there "not being any money" how are you going to stop people engaging in voluntary trade & settling on forms of money for mutual benefit?
When you can go into what was Walmart, or Amazon online, and get what you need for free why would you bother with barter?
You can, of course do as you please, this is a voluntary paradigm, but why would you reenslave yourself? That doesn't make sense.
It takes a tiny fraction of the people to keep our consumer goods flowing, even today, that won't change when everything is free because those that contribute nothing today will become productive, or be outed as bums.
Under my proposal bums are equal with ticks and mosquitoes, not many will mourn their demise.
how would you go into a store & get those things free? please explain because this sounds like the kind of utopian assumptions RBE/zeitgeist movement supporters suggest as a solution but they entirely ignore reality & questions such as how to solve the price calculation problem
voluntary trading things isnt slavery, slavery is being forced to obey someone against your will
We don't need the price calculation, we only reorder what is taken from the shelf.
If you can't get folks to take your products for free you are going to need to find a new line of work.
When you do your checkout at the store the computer algorithm knows to reorder what you have taken.
Most things will be ordered from the internet and delivered to your door.
Eventually local producers will cut long distribution lines.
I know it will be hard for you to imagine the world without an accounting department and an oligarch over that to satisfy your need to be controlled, but the reality is that next Tuesday the workers could just keep working, but stop paying, and EVERYTHING is free.
Right because in a natural state people needed these guys called "An Coms" to dictate what to do with what they were willing to produce!
The "crapitulism" you blame isn't even capitalism. These economic abuses and depravities have been made possible by the existence of the state, and amplified many times over by the existence of fraudulent central banks. Something Marx was found of because he thought men intervening would help mankind.
Let me explain something, if you have to employ preemptive force on order to control any situation, that is not Anarchism, it is in fact 'control'. And that is precisely what any form of Coms are seeking to do!
'Capital' in its truest form simply means something thats produced. Anarchism is a marriage and unification of man to the natural state of freedom he is entitled to. Producing something and maintaining his ability to relinquish it (use, exchange, give away etc) is a part of that freedom.
Your idea of Anarchism is silly, for it says "we're so Anarchy, that we have to delegate who can produce what". That is not Anarchism, and the Market that arrives with the state, experience, and realization of mankinds freedom that he was born entitled to does not need the belp of humans, as they would at best stifle growth, and more than likely engage into corruption.
Real 'capital' has always been a part of the natural state. Communism is a form of man-induced preemptive control, its not Anarchism.
Whoa, hold up.
My proposal is voluntary.
It either is accepted on its merits or it doesn't fly.
I have to sleep for night shifts but I will say this for now Angel (and I will catch up later) there's really not much to worry about concerning 'rent' and people not being able to afford these costs of living, since in a stateless societh people are free to live off the land and likewise provide for their own means of sustainability.
Theres more to say but hate poke typing on phone lol. Plus have to sleep. Bye for now. ;)
No problem Angel we can start over here with a much softer tone towards one another. Again my apologies for sounding harsh initially. It is the 'treatment' of the subject concerning 'An-Caps are not Anarchists but we Coms are' I see from An-Coms that often engenders those sharp and 'blasting' rebuttals. But I'm down for some friendly debate here :)
Now please do not take this the wrong way, but I do not have to read the books and philosophies of men to understand freedom, and the 'system' that nature has already established for us. (which is already expressed so much in the things I've already said in my previous responses) As well, being as busy as I already am in life, no I'm not going to read this book you recommend it in its entirety, although I'm down to hear some quotes from it and go from there if you'd like, as well as anything you'd like to put into your own words.
In the meantime saying that 'I think it is okay to set up big money, ruling elites' etc, is just an empty charge Angel. It doesn't mean anything, especially when I have proven through my arguments that the Market once liberated and the 'political state' removed would actually stop financial power monopolies from happening.
People use the 'power vacuum' argument because they've been conditioned to accept that "but in a state of Anarchy, some bad guy gets all the power and that leads us to tyranny" nonsense, that I too used to entertain and blindly repeat.
But I don't think I have to explain how it's actually far more impossible, since what I refer to as 'the Innocent, the Good, and the Free' are not going to sit passively by when some man and group of his 'wild banditos' have proven their intent to subjugate others. Said in another way, IF 'El Guapo' can even talk his people into leaving their own lives and lands and following him on his conquest, they're more than likely not going to get too far and find themselves 'strung up and hung'. Not to mention, 'El Guapo' is going to have to pay his 'followers' in 'real capital', and where's he gonna get that? If he's got it already, that means he's had to earn it, or that it's already precious and valuable, so why lose it for such risks when he can instead just enjoy the good life?
Okay so looking at these things, and to which I'm certain you'd agree, it's the same with this nonsense concerning the 'power-vacuum' argument but that has been turned into an economic one concerning monopolies. Nobody is going to be able to create these monopolies the way they do now for reasons I've already explained: such as there's no central banks to bring them about and continue subsidizing their existence on our backs to begin with. And so now, they'll be forced to risk their own 'real capital', that will already be limited since what they're able to produce must first be desired by other men, while facing endless possibilities of competition.
But not only will competition remove so many opportunities for 'monopoly', without the political state, nobody can write corrupt laws and enforce them by holding a gun to our head and compelling us to partake in something through the system of state sponsored extortion, meaning that if we see a company or corporation as 'uncouth' than we simply choose to 'opt out' and not pay for their services. That's the heart of Voluntaryism.
When I hear someone who remains terrified that somehow 'some big entity is going to take us over', I hear the exact same problem that has given birth to the forms of man-made governments that all the time enslave us to begin with, 'fear', followed by a 'need' to figure out 'how we can control it'.
The 'Market' will stop many of these problems before they're even allowed to take root my friend. We do not have to inspire humanity to 'take over corporations', as nobody will ever be all the time on-board with these solutions.
I believe that people can and will experience 'success' for those things they have been willing to put their hands to creating, learning, producing, and trading. But I really do not think we're going to see these 'big corporations' we have today, and the only reason they've gotten there to begin with, is because humanity has been foolish enough to employ the 'political state' to protect him, when all it does is write laws in favor of those to give us something for nothing, while charging us more debt and interest on these things and through the processes made possible by their corrupt central banks that they also write and pass laws for.
:)
Live off the land? Really?
I'm talking about taking over the corporations and running them just for those that work.
I'm game for any questions you got, feel free to butt into nearly any post of mine as most of them will be on this subject.
Ok, Shane, in case you missed it, what I tried to communicate was if somebody was gone a few days and wanted to ask a question they could pick nearly any of my posts to do it on.
Having a position contrary to Lord Shane's is not dissing.
For the record, I've been told that I am 50, but I couldn't honestly tell you.
I can tell you what I know about folks what point fingers at others, but I won't, it'll be funnier to watch you learn for yourself.
Blah, blah, the slave mentality is strong with this one.
Sorry, the parts that didn't make sense to me distracted me into tldr stupor.
If you have a question, or statement, can we try to limit them a little.
I'll be glad to address any I can understand.
Ok, sorry, Shane.
I gave that another read and did much better this time at understanding.
We agree on nature. No work, no eat.
But where we differ is that you think it is ok to set up a ruling elite, big money, and that letting this big money exploit the little money people is ok.
Or as I call it, crapitalism.
Unless you were willing to do the reading there isn't much point in continuing.
I've read the crapitalust books, Ayn Rand was long a favorite, but my eyes were opened by this book, never to be shut again.
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/624
Forgive my ignorance. But what does the Black Flag reference mean?
What is your argument against capitalism?
Maybe I define it too simply or loosely. But to me capitalism is just simply voluntary trading. Trading my time and skill for stuff I need. Or a piece of paper which I can trade for stuff I need.
If you are decrying the corruption, the waste, the consumerism, the programming the usury and the like. I join you. My dream is a demanding public that insists, by means of choosing where they spend their money, on companies being transparent, socially conscious and environmentally responsible. The only way that is going to happen is if people understand that they, because of their numbers have the power to insist upon it.
I don't really have any hope that the masses of people will wake up and insist that businesses behave. But that's probably a lot more likely than that they wake up and understand that they don't need rulers.
But what are you suggesting is the solution?
The black flag is typically carried by the anarcho-communists.
Wage slavery is my argument against crapitalism.
My suggestion is to keep working, but stop paying.
I got cut short,...
Money is an illusion created to benefit those that create the illusion.
Wouldn't you rather live in a world where we loved each other and didn't withold food from each other because we got to pay the light bill?
Imagine if anything you wanted was supplied to you free of charge, what would you be inspired to give back to the world in return?
Would you go to where the work is being done and chip in?
Crapitalism acrues to the rich, my proposal spreads it around a little more.
Think of the bankster's $500 trillion, divide it by seven billion.
Think you could have more crap with that distribution?
Maybe you could have more leisure instead.
Whatever.
We workers already make all the goods, why are we buying them back from the people that do nothing but lord their ill gotten power over us?
As far as I know no one "created" money, it was a natural and useful economic innovation which allowed for the division-of-labor.
You make it seem like an either/or thing--as if we can either work for money or love each other (how am I supposed to love strangers I don't even know?), which is a false dichotomy.
Nothing is 'free'.
How do you define "work"? I once talked to a 'communist' (a useless university intellectual living fat, at least in part, off of tax-dollars provided by people who work in the 'crapitalist' system, LOL) who claimed that the 'workers' were being 'exploited' by capitalism and the profit motive, and I asked him to tell me, in the situation of a grocery-store chain/corporation, who was the "exploiter" and who the "exploitee"...it was fun to see him wrap himself into a pretzel trying to draw the line between the two! Maybe you can do better?
Communists seem to have no clue about economic incentives and how humans respond to them...and when I look at welfare recipients who get 'free' shit, I don't exactly see them out there trying to make the world a better place...when I look at 'free' schools I don't see excellence...when I look at every human attempt to create a communist utopia I see the 10's of MILLIONS of bodies piled up by the likes of the USSR, East Bloc, Red China, and N. Korea (but I suppose these aren't examples of 'real' communism)...I see lots of 'communists' (i.e., spoiled Westerners living lives of capitalist-provided comfort) online, but very few working communes in real life where people work for each other simply out of brotherly love...
What I do see is a lot of people whining about how awful capitalism is while benefiting from the fruits of it, and a lot of jealousy directed at people whom society deems are worth more relative to the 'communists' in the West who are better off than 90% of the rest of the world.
If I own a mechanic shop and if I expect it to survive I have to make triple what the mechanic gets paid from the mechanic's labor.
If I do nothing else this is what has to happen in a successful business.
If I extrapolate to corporations and thousands of shareholders who do nothing but get paid from the value that the worker creates but doesn't get paid in wages have I made the exploitation more clear to you?
By following crapitalistic models we get what we have.
Extreme poverty outside the gated communities.
Starving children outside full warehouses.
War, because there are trillions to be made.
$10 an hour because the rocafellas need to accumulate another quadrillion dollars.
I could go on, but I prefer to build the future and not be controlled by the past.
The distribution system that is Walmart/target/Costco can be used to distribute goods whether those goods are accounted for in crapitalust paradise or a worker paradise.
Which do you prefer?
Free stuff or wage slavery?
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emma-goldman-there-is-no-communism-in-russia
I would love to live in a world where I could have as much electricity as I wanted without having to pay for it. I'm getting the biggest kick out of using a Harbor Freight 45 watt solar power kit to run a small boat fridge to keep my beer cold. I had to pay for it, but it works without relying on the grid. Whoopee!
But seriously. How could we have everything we wanted free of charge in the world we live in today without having an institution like a government to take by force from some to distribute to others. That makes it immoral doesn't it?
I really respect Jacques Fresco. I like a lot of visions that the Venus project describes. What I like most about it is that it is proposed to be completely voluntary. I like science. And I hope a day comes that I can trust it and those who make money doing it. Sadly, today it's difficult to know which scientists to trust and which ones are simply authoritarian, politicians in disguise.
I love the Star Trek model where money doesn't exist. I hope someday we get there. But meanwhile, back here on earth. We might best spend our time trying to get the corruption of government out of capitalism and try a truly free market for a change.
You can't reform crapitalism, at it's very core is enslavement of the have nots by the haves.
We can flip the switch on any day with a little prior planning.
Everybody that worked today goes to work tomorrow.
If you didn't work today then go with somebody that did.
If you can't work, then don't.
If you won't work look out crossing the street.
It is really that simple.
Here is book that can give you more details.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/624/624-h/624-h.htm
I hope you take the time.
Good post Lark! I wrote something very similar on facebook not too long ago concerning the 'security blanky' lol. Keep it up! ;)
I'm brand new to steemit but as soon as I figure out how to I'll go ahead and 'up vote it' as I've heard something about this.
Also, for yourself and anyone else feel free to join another pro-V facebook group "VAL Society". (for Voluntary Anarchist Libertarian Society) And have fun posting away there!
facebook.com/groups/FreePeopleForVALSociety
This is where most people are stuck, great article Larken
I like this post. I ran out of upvote juice (20 limit) so I can only comment. Great job by the way.
Though I agree with what you've said here, I'll relay some arguments I've heard over the years to get your thoughts.
But would it be worse? That's the fear side of things I see. Pragmatic thinkers I know are convinced "bad things" would increase without government. They want to see evidence and proof this isn't the case. They want to see it working somewhere before they advocate for it.
Some argue the result of this would just be "government." I get that we use a different definition of government than they do (a monopoly on the use of force within a geographic region), but I think there's a deeper problem than that. Again, they want to see voluntary solutions working on a large scale (like in cities with millions of people packed together in a small place) before they will agree removing government is a good idea and effective solutions do exist which don't require violence. How can we show these pragmatic thinkers who desire empirical evidence that our ideas and philosophy actually lead to a better world?
Edit: and I'm also familiar with the "But who will pick the cotton?" response. For some people, that's unconvincing.
In the 20th century alone, over 100 million people were killed by democide. These are real people with real families and real friends. Are we going to ignore those millions of people that governments have killed because "we just need the right people in charge"? Or are we going to say that perhaps the system is the problem?
Considering the mountains of bodies governments have piled up, the burden of proof should fall on the state, and I think we just need to convince them of that.
I've used the democide argument again and again, but it often falls on deaf ears, unfortunately. I guess they assume things like that would still happen without government or maybe something worse? I dunno. Steven Pinker's book, The Better Angles of Our Nature, argues for the Hobbesian Leviathan using deaths per 100k as a metric, but others critique his work to say his "anarchist" societies were nothing but. I recently read The Origins of Virtue and I think that makes a better argument that government does just break everything it touches.
One death is a tragedy, a thousand deaths are a statistic to be reported in the news and forgotten three days later.
A well armed society is a polite society. Harry Browne
Indeed, but many would argue a society which requires everyone cary lethal technology in order to interact peacefully is not a very advanced society from a moral perspective. Maybe they are right, maybe they are wrong. It is an argument though.
Baah, the violent will not last long in a world where nobody complains of their demise.
If you've been to other countries you know they do just fine without calling for help.
Vigilante neighbors that come running towards the screaming does wonders for pacifying a neighborhood.
In a world without thugs to run it reputation is everything.
This is why so many criminals are coming north, they got nothing coming back home.
Our's go down there for their second chance.
Great post as always, Larken. By the time I found your videos online, I had already completed a 20-year journey from small-government libertarian to anarchist, but the easy, compact way you present everything really crystallized it for me, and now I try to do the same.
One of the remaining hurdles for me is that statists are reluctant to see any flaw in themselves. Not as people, but as statists. They will acknowledge that, yes, I have my faults, like everyone else, yada, yada. But when confronted with their intellectual cowardice, laziness, reluctance to think their own positions through, or anything that challenges them on a philosophical level, that's when they throw their most intense verbal tantrums. When confronted in any way about things like consistency, principles, and ethics, statists will, as always, resort to any number of logical fallacies: projection, moving the goalposts, circular reasoning, arguing from authority, etc.
I just began martial arts instruction under a teacher whose teacher studied under Bruce Lee. Literally, just one lesson so far. I can tell it will be a long process, requiring much practice, but I'm confident in my capability to progress. The same goes with statist logical fallacies. It's not enough just to read about them, and identify them in conversation. It takes practice to point them out and refute them on the spot, rather than figuring out an hour later what I should have said.
I see the articles and videos that you (and others such as Sterlin Lujan, Amanda Rachwitz, and any other writer who quickly gets to the core of the issue) as anarchist martial arts instruction. With enough practice, perhaps the millions of debates we all get into will yield better results. All in all, I'm likewise confident in our ability to make progress.
Hopefully sooner rather than later.
Cheers.
Sorry for the shameless plug, but have a look at my stuff too. I only write until I've made my point, whether that's 500 words or 50.
State sanctioned terrorism appears much more palatable than the possibility of any other form. Let's vote for mandated coercion.
now thats a comment i never expected to read, very interesting.
lol, you don't expect sarcasm in comments to Larken's posts?
lol, ime just a naive old coffin dodger ( true story )
If you please, do not join government and leader. There are several forms of government and in each there are good and bad leaders.
There are ZERO forms of political "government" that are legitimate or moral. They vary in the level of destruction they create, but none of them are valid.
Sure... I've heard of personal services where you can pay people to beat you nicely.
much like decentralisation in banking and logistics, I agree the new age of technological interconnection will also enable decentralised policing. After all the best security has always been community based! Thanks for the post!