The Anarchy thread - Page 6

btw anarchist socialists and anarchist capitalists think the worst of each other

On September 04 2011 21:54 NighTLesS15 wrote: You can document this example and document that example of societies that had any form of anarchist ideals existed.. because they did. You can make statements of them doing well . . . in somalia and having better years of economic growth during this supposed state of anarchy... (btw i can't imagine the massive drought they are going through has ANY impact on their economic issues.. its quite clearly the government).. and you can pick apart certain parts of everyones arguments like you have been doing without actually defeating the argument just 1 or 2 points in a 10 to 12 point statement. No matter how you describe it or shape it in any type of anarchist system there will be someone who gets the biggest stick (metaphorically obvious if you can't tell) and they WILL take over. They will create a system which benefits them and their friends at the cost of others. If you don't see this, or think there is some way around it in our world today... well there is nothing anyone here can do and i suggest private help

"they WILL"? = blanket assumption (unlike states, which treat ppl equal?) conditions are really important, education, global conciseness, resources etc. im not saying anarchy can work worldwide tomorrow. i think anarchy will exist in the far future, long after a singularity between biology and technology, but thats just me

also "i suggest private help" = you sound like a douche

also obv documenting examples is good, but that doesnt make an argument for anarchy without examples (which i did give) impossible. thats what i was saying... citations, though good, are only hueristics. lack of examples does not mean lack of possibility. logic 101

On September 04 2011 21:54 NighTLesS15 wrote: No matter how you describe it or shape it in any type of anarchist system there will be someone who gets the biggest stick (metaphorically obvious if you can't tell) and they WILL take over. They will create a system which benefits them and their friends at the cost of others. If you don't see this, or think there is some way around it in our world today...

That being as it may, democratic capitalism swings full-grown trees around. Hardly any use picking up a stick in the firstplace.

Christiana is not a true anarchic society, its under constant state bullying among other regulations (such as no cars), its simply a small haven for hippies.

Its funny that you mentiong how on early civilizations they needed protection so they created the sate... you mean a state like Egypt? that had the biggest slave population i history, with ridiculous society structures and wealth distribution that made look a normal monarchy like fair and equal? that the awesome protection the people got?.

Of couse 6,000 BC societies were brutal... because people were brutal, obviously society its a reflection of the individual in a collective sense and so is the government

So human nature is so nasty that if we are left alone, we are going to throw stones at each other, and your solution is to give another flawed human a huge gun to keep peace?, who protects us from the guy with a gun?, at least when we were throwing stones we could defend ourselves, now we cant

That is the true philosophy why government will always fail and anarchy is the only solution, its because its simply irrational to empower humans to protect us from ourselves.

And fwiw, since state's police in mexico is well a criminal organization, the houses around my house simply pay for private police, it works MUCH better, and its a police you can directly fire and ask for results.

For the people claiming that some group will organize and take control of others (imposing a state on others) are aware that they are saying "The government is indeed evil and shouldnt exist, but it will find a way to keep existing". ?

That is exactly what you are trying to argue, if you disagree please elaborate how it isnt what you are saying, if you are aware that you are saying that, then i can discuss it too.

i was just talking about christiana cause there is very little coercion relatively, which is part of the recipe for anarchy

a democratically elected government is replaceable and it has no more power over its population than the majority of the population wants it to have. government isn't evil by default and it doesn't suddenly become evil by default just because you say it is. nobody is arguing in favour of dictatorships.

honestly though, I'd like to actually hear you state something about what kind of society you envision as an ideal. I've seen you cite lots of examples of why some governments are bad - and here you are correct, many governments are bad. furthermore, if you want to argue that the american government isn't replacable because people only have the choice between two nearly identical options, then that is a valid argument against the american electoral college, lobbyism and various other aspects of american democracy, but not against the principle of governments. but that's a little besides the point; what I want is for you to list properties of your ideal society. I'd like you to detail the following aspects, as in, how will the following be provided for various segments of the population:

1: security (what is to stop the richest and most powerful guy in town from killing that guy who insulted his honour, or even worse, to stop the more powerful town from pillaging/ransoming the neighbouring town?)
2: education (for example, in your ideal anarchic society, is education mandatory for children? can a parent choose to keep children away from school, to help them work in a farm, factory or mine? if not - who enforces this? this point is particularly important, so please don't dodge it; in a stateless society, what saves children who lack the ability to defend themselves from parents that are obviously unfit? )
3: health care (will any health care be provided for someone without the wealth to pay whatever a doctor charges?
4: transportation (should people be responsible themselves for building roads that lead to wherever they want to live? should these roads be maintained with toll, or how?)

I will also humor you by stating what I think is the most ideal society - you may feel free to tell me how it is evil;

a transparent, non-corrupt, democratically elected government where local governance is encouraged as far as it is possible. I want the state to have the monopoly on excerting violence, and for this to happen, it must be a lot more powerful than any other group of people - save a major percentage of the entire population. I want the state to be responsible for providing security for the population, meaningful and relevant education so people become enabled to better their own situation, and so that children are not entirely cursed or blessed at birth. I want health care to be available to and provided for everyone. I want welfare to be in place so that in the event that someone fails to provide for himself, he is not forced to resort to theft / begging to eat, as one option harms everyone, and the other is utterly degrading and dehumanizing. I want to have a reasonably low wealth disparity, because it has been shown that societies with less wealth disparity perform better and provide better lives for their inhabitants.

But even with reasonably low wealth disparity, I still do not mind wealth beind a measure of success and something to strive for - I merely want to avoid both the desperately poor and ridiculously rich. This will be accomplished through a reasonably high and progressive tax rate. In my ideal society, politician's salaries will remain fairly low (not higher than the top 10% cutoff of the population as a whole), ensuring that politicians are motivated by desire to improve the country/world, rather than by desire for personal wealth and power - a competent politician will have skillsets that would be attractive for groups who could pay more. I also want a completely transparent economy, where income and taxes for the entire population is made public - this is important to combat corruption. I want sensible laws that have the support of the population, and reasonable punishments geared towards rehabilitation rather than vengeance.

I don't see how anything I mentioned is evil. but the funny part is, I live in a place remarkably similar to what I have just listed. and, what more is, it could not happen without a state actively encouraging and discouraging different types of behavior.. the longevity of this society, and its ability to self-replicate the better aspects, would be impossible without mandatory, state-provided education.. the fact of the matter is that the dumbest aspect I can find with norwegian society (internally) is the law against pot - and I've been smoking for 11 years without ever running into any problems with the law. essentially, my ideal society has been proven possible.

I agree w/ everything drone just said.

I also wanna add that unless someone cites sources about egypts slave population i call bs. Largest slave population ever is either china or rome or usa south depending on time and definition of slave.

On September 05 2011 15:55 Liquid`Drone wrote: a democratically elected government is replaceable and it has no more power over its population than the majority of the population wants it to have.

That doesn't take away the fact that it imposes itself upon people who want nothing to do to with it.

Now I should write a TLDR but I'm wasted -__

Drone owning this thread imo.

We need a thread about how government could be improved imo, and not just a thread on weather government is better/worse than no government.

On September 06 2011 21:17 brambolius wrote: Show nested quote + On September 05 2011 15:55 Liquid`Drone wrote: a democratically elected government is replaceable and it has no more power over its population than the majority of the population wants it to have. That doesn't take away the fact that it imposes itself upon people who want nothing to do to with it. Now I should write a TLDR but I'm wasted -__

said ppl would be free to leave the country as they wish.

On September 06 2011 21:36 Stroggoz wrote: Drone owning this thread imo. We need a thread about how government could be improved imo, and not just a thread on weather government is better/worse than no government.

There is a new social science, called "Political Economy" who uses economical models on political interactions to determine how to achieve microeconomical prescriptions. Basically, classical microeconomics tells us how things "should be", while Political Economy aims to understand the set of rules (institutions) to obtain optimal social efficiency (what has to happen for markets to work, etc)

It's still on its infancy, but it tries to explain stuff like the formation of property rights, democracy, electoral equilibriums, and a lot whole bunch of things that was mainly speculations (also known as sociology ). It also studies how to make policy enforcers and policy makers different. To do so, most is based that decisions are made by individuals under rational choices, and adds game theory aswell.

One of the concensus seems to be that "impersonal rules" are the ones that produce the better government. Impersonal rules means laws apply to everyone and are the same for everyone. Current papers work on what causes the impersonals rules to emerge, instead of bullies making the rules and having priviliges like basically the rest of human history and current undeveloped countries.

Drone, anarchy (id rather say free society here tbh) is completely democratic that's the whole point. (if done right)

i think noam chomsky has the best "ideal (anarchist) society" just wikiquote him if your interested. the guy is freaking brilliant. >50 honorary degrees + doctorate + a billion written books = #1 cited person alive!

his free society focuses on justifying coercion rather than completely eliminating it. its all about accountability.

you should also check out platos story of the ring of gyges. i think democratic "parties" like in the US (no real difference, false dichotomy of options) and modern corporations basically have rings of gyges. (a ring that destroys all accountability).

On September 05 2011 16:19 palak wrote: I agree w/ everything drone just said. I also wanna add that unless someone cites sources about egypts slave population i call bs. Largest slave population ever is either china or rome or usa south depending on time and definition of slave.

population % wise obv.

Drones wall of text attack was super effective so ill read later when im feeling in the mood to debate

For the people claiming that some group will organize and take control of others (imposing a state on others) are aware that they are saying "The government is indeed evil and shouldnt exist, but it will find a way to keep existing". ?

Nope, because there are different kinds of governments with varying degrees of democracy.

An armed gang taking over is obviously worse option than the oppressive state we now have.

Drone, anarchy (id rather say free society here tbh) is completely democratic that's the whole point. (if done right) i think noam chomsky has the best "ideal (anarchist) society" just wikiquote him if your interested. the guy is freaking brilliant. >50 honorary degrees + doctorate + a billion written books = #1 cited person alive!

Noam Chomsky is not awfully exact on the structure of a better world, he is rather with Rudolph Rocker in the "let's not make a blue brint for a new world" -school. Sure I respect him as the greatest thinker alive but on this issue he is really of no help.



Sort of anarchist view (federalist anarcho-syndicalism afaik) http://infoshop.org/page/AnAnarchistFAQ section I. Probably close to what old syndicalist Chomsky would advocate.

Classical anarchist communist view from Kropotkin can be found it "Conquest of Bread"

Those of course have nothing to do with Baal's anarchist capitalism, and I'd also like to hear anarchist capitalist society briefly described.

On September 02 2011 18:42 Baalim wrote: Show nested quote + On September 02 2011 07:56 gororokgororok wrote: I knew this thread was made by Baal. If you like anarchy so much why not live in Somalia? If you like government so much why not move to North Korea? do you see how stupid my argument is? well so is yours.

Well my goverment gives me the chance to study and even if you dont work you'll still get like 950E a month to sustain a living, in N Korea I would have to work non stop and still be hungry

Obviously my argument is stupid, but it wasn't meant as a serious argument because I feel discussing this is pointless. I like to live in a country where things are regulated and where the goverment support the lower social classes.
There you have it, If you like anarchy then you should live in a country where the goverment has minimum regulations. (such as somalia !!! )

Actually maybe you should like organize all the anarchists out there and fight for your own free country somewhere in mexico. Then you can all live there and be happy about how anarchistic you all are.

Probably doomed to fail since some native indians will probably conquer it fairly easily since there is no goverment and therefore probably no army. (or in your case, drug lords)

I don't mind your theory and I'm happy we all have different opinions about it, but in this _current_ world there is simply no room for anarchy, and I fail to see how that is going to happen any time soon.
I would just let it go if I were you.

On September 06 2011 23:53 Baalim wrote: Show nested quote + On September 05 2011 16:19 palak wrote: I agree w/ everything drone just said. I also wanna add that unless someone cites sources about egypts slave population i call bs. Largest slave population ever is either china or rome or usa south depending on time and definition of slave. population % wise obv.

In that case I doubt it's Egypt.

Like all ancient population statistics, estimating the number of slaves in ancient Egypt is based more on guesswork than on knowledge. In pharaonic times their part in the population may have been greatest during the expansionary stage of the New Kingdom empire, when whole populations were enslaved at times. Thutmose III for instance is reported to have returned from a campaign in Canaan with almost 90,000 prisoners. Given the small size of armies - generally thousands rather than tens of thousands of soldiers - most of these prisoners must have been civilians. The Egyptians may have preferred to make slaves of the able bodied soldiers of defeated enemy armies than of the inhabitants of captured cities, the majority of whom were children and women. During antiquity there was a preponderance of male slaves, who were often more valued than the females for the hard labour they could perform. But the most cherished - and expensive - were generally those who had special or rare skills. Compared with the vast empires of the Persians, Macedonians or Romans the Egyptian conquests in Africa and the Middle East were not very extensive. The subjugated populations were correspondingly small. Once these territories were 'pacified', the number of prisoners of war that could be enslaved was limited. The temples, above all those of Amen, enjoyed unprecedented prosperity during the New Kingdom. Except during the Amarna episode, they were generously endowed with land and people to work it. They must have owned hundreds of thousands of slaves. John Madden of the University College of Galway thinks that in Roman times perhaps 10% of the Egyptian population was enslaved, with their density varying greatly throughout the country [29], as opposed to the Roman heartland where about every third inhabitant was a slave

http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/timelines/topics/slavery.htm

The slave population was at least equal to that of freedmen (non citizens), and has been estimated at anywhere from 25 to 40% of the population of the city as a whole. One such estimate suggests that the slave population in Rome circa 1 AD, may have been as much as 300,000 to 350,000 of the 900,000 total inhabitants. In outlying provinces, the numbers are certainly far less substantial, dropping to between an estimated 2 and 10% of the total. Still though, in some places such as Pergamum on the western coast of present day Turkey, the slave population may have been around 40,000 people or 1/3 of the cities total population. At the height of the Empire in the mid second century AD, some have estimated that the total slave population may have approached 10 million people, or approximately 1/6 of the population as a whole.

http://www.unrv.com/culture/roman-slavery.php

The best statistic that we have refers to Roman Egypt, in which slaves made up only 7% of the total population.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_antiquity

If you mean as in God King where the entire population outside of the royals were slaves then I'd have to think China>Egypt since it had the same setup

It has been estimated that at the beginning of the pharaonic period the population count was about one million, and that at time of the Roman conquest about 5 million people lived in Egypt, give or take a million or so [2]. The sizes of the dips during the Intermediate Periods are arbitrary.

if you look at the chart on the side it estimates the new kingdom population at between 2 and 6 million. http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/people/index.html

Meanwhile China under Qin Shi Huang had the same slave peasant mentality had 20 million

20 million in 221 B.C. during the Qin Dynasty; and

http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/china/qt/030409Chinapop.htm

The Qin Dynasty and its slaves With the transition from a period of rising and falling of states and small kingdoms to the first unified empire, the slavery system also became more firmly established. Qin China marks the beginning of imperial China, with a centralized and bureaucratic government based on the beliefs of Legalism. The First Emperor - Qin Shi Huangdi - launched attacks against the other six kingdoms that survived the Warring States period and absorbed their territories to create a unified empire. In order to keep feudalism at bay and impose a centralized, non-hereditary aristocratic system, Qin Shi Huangdi made the nobles of other kingdoms his slaves for they were the most threatening enemies of his system. The labor force who worked on his great mausoleum was comprised of 1:2 ratios of Han people and slaves brought from other regions. Origins of enslaved workers in the Qin dynasty were quite diverse, ranging from Han people to Ryukyuans and Japanese. IV. Expansion of slavery during the Han dynasty Chinese slavery did not originate during the former Han dynasty (206 BCE.- CE 25), but it expanded rapidly at that time. Slaves probably then achieved their greatest numbers in proportion to the total population, and the period is the first in which it is possible to suppose, on the basis of historical texts, that slavery had an important place in Chinese economy. The customs of slavery and slave trade of Qin China lasted into Han society, although it was briefly Wang Mang abolished slave trade in 9 C.E. The inaugural edict of Wang Mang, CE 9, in stating the evils of slavery, claimed the following:

http://www.zum.de/whkmla/sp/0910/hersheys/hersheys5.html#iii

However by actual percent population of real slaves and not just peasants that were practically slaves China never had many by population ratio

It has been studied thoroughly in ancient Han China (206 BC–AD 25), where perhaps 5 percent of the population was enslaved.

http://www.britannica.com/blackhistory/article-24156

note, this isn't really meant for a derail debate...is just for random historical info

On September 07 2011 07:15 gororokgororok wrote: I like to live in a country where things are regulated and where the goverment support the lower social classes.

Those "lower social classes" are working their asses off for other peoples profit. You do realize this, right ?