Blessings of Slavery: a free market vs. collectivization teaching tool

[Travis Retriever]

That would mainly be the weasels I was referring to.

OK.
Then maybe I might have read to much into your post.
If I did, then my apologies/bad.

[Lord T Hawkeye]

Yah, times of crisis, they're the ones coming asking that you hand over the reigns and they'll make peace...with a heavy price in the fine print.

I'm unsure if this idea could actually work though I'd be thrilled to find it it can but seriously, you guys need to change the name.  Anarchy and capitalism in the same term?  Forget it.  I can hear the brains closing up tight from here.

[Travis Retriever]

Yah, times of crisis, they're the ones coming asking that you hand over the reigns and they'll make peace...with a heavy price in the fine print.

I'm unsure if this idea could actually work though I'd be thrilled to find it it can

It's all about the legitimacy.
Also, considering that a free society tends to grow the fastest economically (and therefore scientifically and technologically), and that war destroys real wealth, I'd say those are two more points on our side.

but seriously, you guys need to change the name.  Anarchy and capitalism in the same term?  Forget it.  I can hear the brains closing up tight from here.

LOL!
Yeah, the term "Anarcho-Capitalism" IS a major turn off to many, including many free market anarchists such as Dale Everett (Author of Anarchyinyourhead), who calls himself a free market anarchist or agorist in order to avoid the stigma that comes from the word "capitalism".
Many also call themselves Agorists or Anti-Statists (I'm one of them by the way:  Check out my youtube profile to see).

[Travis Retriever]

I suppose I'll end this off by saying that I highly suggest you read this book:
http://www.ruwart.com/Healing/ Healing Our World: The Other Piece of the Puzzle by Dr. Mary J. Ruwart (The free online edition)
if you haven't already.

She explains the idea of how deal with crime in a society firmly based on the N.A.P. (Non aggression principle) in a way that minimizes the amount of non consent and aggression (with a great deal of sources to back her claims up).

For those unfamiliar with her, yes, she is part of the anarcho-capitalist wing of the LP (source: Wikipedia); but don't let that stop you.
It is my favorite book of all time and has been even before I become an anarcho capitalist myself. What's more, I know the later edition is on Shane's top ten list as well (source:  http://www.shanekillian.com/blog/index.php?/archives/132-Book-Smart.html ).

[Lord T Hawkeye]

Is it kinda like how Japan is said to have a low crime rate simply because their society is so disapproving of it?  Had a friend tell me how if you were caught stealing a bike in Japan, it would be considered so shameful, you might as well pack up and leave town.

[Travis Retriever]

Is it kinda like how Japan is said to have a low crime rate simply because their society is so disapproving of it?

Not really.  She's got something a bit more intricate in mind.

I recommend just reading the book, or at least the chapters that focus on that point that I linked to earlier in the discussion.
It's awesome.  Even if you don't agree with her on her points, it will most certainly get you thinking.

[Travis Retriever]

Also, at the risk of dragging this out farther than what is deemed necessary:

Many anarchists (Or at least me and the ones I associate with ) wouldn't object to the idea of using force in defense of an initiation of force, or to get the initiator to pay restitution to the harmed party (much like some minarchists. ).  
The main point of disapproval (at least for the market anarchists I associate with; e.g. Ladyattis) is directed to the monopoly on the institutions that are typically considered responsible for the administration of justice (aka:  The State):  courts, police, defense, legislators and prisons.
The idea is that if monopolies are bad for most other very important institutions and services like education and health care, as well as for the goods/services deemed less necessary like, say, widgets, then why should these most important institutions regarding justice get that special monopoly privilege?
It's special pleading.

[Lord T Hawkeye]

So, would they approve of a system where the government as it is stays except taxes are eliminated (if they want more money, they have to convince the people they deserve it) and there's no rule in place saying that a competing government can't try to muscle in on them if they're not doing a good job?

What gets me is if there's no pre-existing rule of law, where do these governments get their legitimacy from?  Also, who's doing the hiring/firing of them?

[Travis Retriever]

Again it would be emergent, so I can't say. :\  It would likely vary from community to community (from what I've heard).
Also if you mean violent overthrow when you say, "muscle in" then no.  I mean unless you consider what happens when a person builds a better, cheaper and more effective mousetrap the way Rockefeller did to be "muscling in" then yes.

[yt]<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/PkAE6_R7Nls&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/PkAE6_R7Nls&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>[/yt] (video posted assuming that by "pre-existing rule of law" you mean "protection/securing of rights")

The short answer, is, as I've already said, is by their emergence; just like when a private institution for, say, delivering goods emerges establishes its legitimacy; and by the fact that people are willing to voluntarily into the business for a good or service they value more than their money, absent the initiation of force, fraud and/or duress.  Just like you said, or at least hinted at, in the first post of your Top 10 favorite collectivist arguments thread.
Finally, last time I checked (I could be wrong, as history isn't my best subject), but wasn't it the creation of law (the U.S. Constitution) the method by which our own state was established?
So why does law have to be pre-existing?

As for the "hiring and firing" I can't say for sure, but probably the people seeking/using/paying for the services of law, dispute resolution, and so on.
Instead of being a public good with a tragedy of the commons effect, you'd probably get better, more efficient "rationing" via the prices emergent in the market for those goods/services.

Finally, here's a cartoon and essay to consider.
No, it's not part of any formal argument, so much as food for thought.  I've posted both the comic and the entire essay here for convenience.



Anarchy Isn't The Answer
by Dale Everett
November 28th, 2008
"In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a massive super computer is asked for a simple answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything. It spends 7 and a half million years to determine that the answer is 42. Of course, the realization is quickly made that a simple answer to an extremely complex question, or more accurately many difficult questions, is ridiculous on its face. The real answers to all the big problems are not easy, however badly we may desire them to be.

A lot of irrational beliefs have been fostered and perpetuated by barbaric civilizations in their desperate quest for answers. Virgins have been thrown into volcanoes to appease angry volcano gods. Rain dances have been performed to water dried up crops. People pray to various gods to heal a sick loved one. I happen to be an atheist. If I tell a person his prayers won't work because his god doesn't exist, it's not so I can give him a new god to pray to instead. The point is encouraging him to abandon the simplistic answer to a very difficult problem so he can face the cold hard reality. There are many realistic cures for cancer being pursued with varying degrees of success, but they can be painful, time-consuming, expensive, and don't always work. If he pursues these and his loved one gets better, his god will get the credit. If not, he will make excuses. Perhaps his faith wasn't strong enough! Through an atheist's eyes, his prayers had little to do with his loved one getting better except perhaps from a placebo effect.

We look to governments in much the same way we look to gods, to offer us easy answers. Similarly, when things work, we give governments credit. When they don't, we make excuses. We still have crime, war, car accidents, poverty, sickness, and death, despite the fix-all of authoritarian monopolistic governments, and sometimes because of. Instead, governments are forgiven for these massive failures and we continue to insist they have some crucial role to play.

I don't present anarchy as an alternative fix-all solution just as atheism is not a cure for cancer. If I tell you that your prayers are doing nothing to heal a sick loved one, that doesn't mean I have a cure for their cancer. It just means I'm encouraging you to seek any one of many possible treatments that have some basis in reality. Otherwise your efforts are futile at best, and possibly even harmful if they're delaying you from pursuing real solutions.

The answers to the difficult problems aren't simplistic. We can't simply pass the buck to gods and governments and expect them to get resolved. It's a hard pill that we each must swallow if we're to evolve our societies. Our irrational beliefs provide comforting delusions not easily given up. This is true of notions of gods, mysticism, and paternalistic governments.

When someone asks me something like how anarchy will prevent crime, the question sounds absurd. The question has it's origins in an incorrect presumption that our governments are preventing crime. Instead, police spend most of their time creating and enforcing false crimes like making plant possession illegal, and writing tickets to predominantly innocent people to pay their own salaries. Meanwhile, the false sense of security they provide to true believers prevents them from taking measures that would actually make them safer like fortifying their homes, getting sufficient insurance, and arming themselves for self protection. Anarchy won't prevent crime, but preventing the crimes perpetrated by governments would certainly be a good start in the right direction.

As an anarchist, I will confidently tell you that violent authoritarian models of government are not answers at all. They don't solve life's many complex problems. It doesn't mean I have a simple solution to offer in their place. The answer many will not want to hear is that there is no superior government to offer, just as there are no new gods with healing powers to replace those whose existence I have denied. The unpleasant but truthful response is to shatter the comforting delusions so we can start the hard but inevitable march toward finding real solutions to the problems life throws at us.

Just like religions, governments comfort us with fantasies. They claim we need them to protect us from crime, but they're the greatest perpetrators of crime. Governments take more money from us on a regular basis than thieves would ever manage to steal in their absence. Police are locking up innocent people for victimless crimes, sometimes killing them in the line of duty or torturing them with tasers while their government status protects them from the repercussions of their actions. The supposedly free country of the U.S. locks up a larger percentage of the population than any country in history. The exorbitantly expensive war in Iraq is killing our loved ones as well as countless Iraqis, all the while fueling anger that makes us more likely targets for terrorism. Right now the massive bailout is taking money from our economy and giving it to favored elite in the name of helping us. They're swiping more wealth from the poor and middle class in one fell swoop than all the welfare they've ever offered throughout history [This part I've italicized I disagree with, but I don't think it destroys the main point of his essay.  I just wanted to point that out.], and handing it over to their wealthy supporters. They'll amputate our legs and then offer us a free wheelchair to show how badly we need them. Authoritarian governments haven't reduced crime. They've simply claimed a monopoly on it.

Why doesn't the rain come when we do the dance? We all have a sense that governments are horribly off in some way or another but can't quite put our fingers on it so we keep doing all the same rituals to try and fix it. Democrat and Republican candidates get more alike each election, but voters keep thinking that if they just get their guys in there, the "good guys", and get the "bad guys" out, it will make things better. The truth is they're all bad guys and the inherently corrupt system makes them that way. The vote they recently had was a ritual designed to reinforce and validate an irrational belief that authoritarian monopolies can be in any way accountable to the people.

Governments continue to fail us because we've put our faith in something that makes no sense. We've consolidated power but we haven't consolidated morality. We handed our teeth and our testicles over to governments, attempting to delegate solving all the really difficult problems. People have faith that it will act on their behalf, but there's no logic backing that faith. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. In our desperation for simple answers, we have perpetuated an irrational belief that the only way society can function peacefully is if one organization has all of the power. Many call it a monopoly on violence as if that's a good and necessary thing! They insist that governments be monopolistic over a region and that means they have to exercise violence or the threat thereof to maintain those monopolies, usually against innocent people. In essence, they claim government can only work if it's a criminal organization. The exact opposite is in fact the case. The checks and balances that the founding fathers tried to institute are nothing more than internal checks and balances of a criminal organization on itself. There is no way to watch the watchers. Effective checks and balances can exist only to the extent that we manage to distribute power back out to sovereign individuals.

To those with a continued religious faith in the state, I say the authoritarian but also benevolent government you want is a paradox. It does not exist and cannot be created no matter how badly you desire it. Just as atheism is only a solution to futile mysticism, anarchy is only a solution to one problem, but one which is quite pervasive– the irrational belief that an organization which is inherently criminal can also be benevolent. Anarchy is not an answer in itself. It's simply a rejection of the false answer.

There are many paths and many solutions to the difficult problems. There are many ways for us to work together without enslaving all of humanity under tyrannical mob bosses. There are many ways to fight crime without becoming criminals ourselves. There are many ways to help the poor without becoming thieves. In fact, there would be a lot less poor if governments stopped pillaging the economy. If someone doesn't amputate your legs, you won't need them to provide a wheelchair. Problems are solved by many people with expertise in different areas all focusing on what they're good at. The ultimate checks and balances are the result of a truly free market of individuals working together. I'm skilled in many areas, but there are far more areas where I lack expertise. I have no idea how to make shoes and yet I am wearing nice shoes which government didn't provide.

So anarchy isn't the answer. However, it is the beginning of finding real answers. Anarchy is merely a rejection of falsities. The anarchist has chosen to abandon childish fantasies and face reality, and in so doing is better equipped for pooling his skills in a mutually voluntary fashion with other awakened individuals toward finding real solutions. Realizing that the magic bullet solution we've been pursuing is irrational and hopeless is only the first step, but it's an absolutely crucial step if we're to make progress toward real freedom, peace, and prosperity."

Also, another good video from ladyattis I finally found:

[yt]2f9566Z0jDM[/yt]

PS: Another good (recent) one from Ladyattis:

[yt]ZO9HvIzgGfU[/yt]

[Travis Retriever]

My bad.  It seems I forgot about this bit:

Isn't this basically the "Love it or leave it" argument and wasn't it stated that you could defend any system with it, even a tyranny?

No, because, as I (poorly) stated, with "register", you would likely be able buy court/police/defense from another person or organization if the other didn't suit your needs or choose your leaders (if you wanted any to begin with) individually.  Anarchic Iceland used a method similiar to this according to ConfederalSocialist's video on it.  So I'm a bit surprised they didn't last longer than they did.
Finally, how is what I said any different from the Minimal Statist point of view of state powers, which use the exact same, or damn near close of a justification?
The only difference, is that there would likely be far more choices than a measly 50.

Although, to be fair, and since I meantioned him, when watching ConfederalSocialist's videos, he seemed to use that love-it-or-leave-it idea a lot (which is part of where I got it, along with his video on Anarchic Ireland), and it bothered the fuck out of me for the same reasons it did you, or anyone else.

[Travis Retriever]

Anyways, that's all I have to say about Anarcho-Capitalism and Agorism at the moment.

@Lord T. Hawkeye:  In one of your first posts here you said that your friends think you should have spiked hair and look like a punk or whatever.
I wonder what they'd think of me.  

Here's the real tester: If such a society were invaded, would it be able to fend it off and more important, while remaining anarcho-capitalist when the smoke cleared?

http://mises.org/daily/4021 ("Foreign Aggression" by Morris and Linda Tannehill)

Also:  [yt]VIs5r3ujBmw[/yt]

If I haven't said so already, check out Ladyattis's videos on Anarchy/Anti-Statism.
He's awesome.