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You enforce the social contract socially: by refusing to deal with people who do not respect it. In an anarchy, everyone has that option; and therefore people w

You enforce the social contract socially: by refusing to deal with people who do not respect it. In an anarchy, everyone has that option; and therefore people who do not respect the social contract quickly find themselves ostracized and powerless. What if people don't want your particular kind of social contract? What one sees of anarchists on the street in 2018, is that they not only ostracize, they do much worse. They enact power over those they disagree with using vandalism and violence. Over social media, they engage in toxic speculations and lies. As it plays out today, it seems to be a philosophy indistinguishable in its effects from, "Two wrongs make a right, so long as it's for us, the chosen people."

pdonis 8y ago
> What if people don't want your particular kind of social contract? That's what having many different communities, each of which can choose its own particular social contract, is for. > What one sees of anarchists on the street in 2018, is that they not only ostracize, they do much worse. I'm not sure I would call such people "anarchists" in the sense that, for example, David Friedman is an "anarchist" (at least in books like The Machinery Of Freedom). If "anarchist" just means somebody who claims they should be able to do whatever they want, then that's not the kind of anarchist I'm talking about. I'm talking about someone who understands that, even in the absence of government, there are still huge benefits to be gained from social cooperation, and that people therefore have strong incentives to regulate their own actions to facilitate social cooperation. The only real difference is that, in the absence of government, all such cooperation is voluntary; nobody can be forced to cooperate with someone else if they don't want to. Which, note carefully, means that just taking someone's stuff without their consent, the vandalism and violence you describe, is not voluntary social cooperation. And citizens of a functioning anarchy will resist it, with force if necessary. I've already said, in response to other posters, that a functioning anarchy of this sort would be very, very difficult to get to from our current state. But that's not a criticism of anarchy; it's a criticism of our current state, and of us humans for letting ourselves get into this state, where we have all kinds of problems with governments violating our rights but we can't just stop having them because nobody really understands how to do voluntary social cooperation without a government.

pdonis 8y ago

> What if people don't want your particular kind of social contract? That's what having many different communities, each of which can choose its own particular social contract, is for. > What one sees of anarchists on the street in 2018, is that they not only ostracize, they do much worse. I'm not sure I would call such people "anarchists" in the sense that, for example, David Friedman is an "anarchist" (at least in books like The Machinery Of Freedom). If "anarchist" just means somebody who claims they should be able to do whatever they want, then that's not the kind of anarchist I'm talking about. I'm talking about someone who understands that, even in the absence of government, there are still huge benefits to be gained from social cooperation, and that people therefore have strong incentives to regulate their own actions to facilitate social cooperation. The only real difference is that, in the absence of government, all such cooperation is voluntary; nobody can be forced to cooperate with someone else if they don't want to. Which, note carefully, means that just taking someone's stuff without their consent, the vandalism and violence you describe, is not voluntary social cooperation. And citizens of a functioning anarchy will resist it, with force if necessary. I've already said, in response to other posters, that a functioning anarchy of this sort would be very, very difficult to get to from our current state. But that's not a criticism of anarchy; it's a criticism of our current state, and of us humans for letting ourselves get into this state, where we have all kinds of problems with governments violating our rights but we can't just stop having them because nobody really understands how to do voluntary social cooperation without a government.