4 ms·

Not just anarchists, but also agree to follow a certain set of rules or laws that will be enforced by no one. Even the "ideal" he is putting forth isn't really

• pdonis 8y ago
  > anarchy means absolute freedom No, it doesn't. It means the absence of government. Nobody has absolute freedom; even in the absence of government, everyone has to deal with other people in some ways. > In a completely anarchistic system, I can't trust you and you can't trust me. This is simply false. Do you trust your friends? If so, would you stop trusting them if there were no government? There are plenty of ways for people in the absence of government to build trust relationships with each other. > We need an impartial third party to manage our interactions so that if one of us decides to screw the other, that person is appropriately admonished. And you think government, as it actually is instead of as it might be in somebody's idealized model, is such an impartial third party? Surely you jest.
  • bena 8y ago
    Yes it does. It is the very definition. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/anarchy https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/anarchy Absolute freedom. You do understand I'm talking about two strangers. Of course, you can build trust between people over time. But no one comes into a situation with trust. And if we can't start on a basis of trust, then we can't start. Knowing there are repercussions for breaking that trust allows us to treat. You're the one peddling a libertarian fiction novel as the-one-true-way and not even taking half a second to consider the actual ramifications. Or if "anarchy" is what you actually want. (Hint: it isn't)
    • pdonis 8y ago
      > It is the very definition You can't make reality be the way you want it to be by defining words. Nobody has absolute freedom in reality. > Knowing there are repercussions for breaking that trust allows us to treat. There are repercussions for breaking trust whether there is government or not. If your claim is that governments do better at enabling trust relationships to develop than a society without government (I'll stop saying "anarchy" since you keep quibbling about the definition of that term) would, then please show your work. From where I sit, governments have possibly done better in some respects, but those benefits, on net, are more than outweighed by the ways in which governments allow people in positions of power to abuse trust without paying any price.
      • bena 8y ago
        No, you can't, so I suggest you stop trying to do that. I'm using the common, accepted definitions. You're trying to define "thug" to mean "can't engage in productive endeavors" and "government" to include a coercive element. Neither is commonly accepted. I nobody has absolute freedom in reality, then by your admission, anarchy is impossible and what you want isn't anarchy. Yeah, if we agree on something and I break that agreement, the repercussion is you don't like me. Whoop de shit. I can fleece you as hard as I want until that point. Once you envision a body that will recover your property, you have envisioned a type of government. The problem is you have a very narrow definition of "government". You only see it as a bunch of people "in charge" in a central building making laws by fiat (even though that's pretty reductionist, but then again, you are). It's not always that. Even an ad hoc, informal system of rules and enforcement is a government.
        • pdonis 8y ago
          > I'm using the common, accepted definitions I strongly disagree, but at this point I don't think further argument will help. You and I are simply speaking different languages, and I don't have the time or the inclination to try to learn yours, and I get the idea you feel the same about mine.