6 ms·

Why I Am An Anarchist

22 points by geoka9 16y ago

lukevdp 16y ago
Just because a government can possibly turn ugly, it doesn't mean that no government is better. The argument is akin to "beef can give you food poisoning, so we should eradicate all cows". Everyone hates paying taxes... But anarchy? Come on. The fabric of the society that has advanced so far in the last 300 years is built on, at the very least, property rights and stability
- face 16y ago
  I do not think he is arguing against property rights. I think that forms of anarchy allow for property rights and other individual liberties.
  - iskander 16y ago
    Can you explain more? How can property rights and individual liberties be secured without the police?
  - astine 16y ago
    In theory, but not practice. Hobbes particularly, makes the point that without government, property rights are largely unenforcible. The strong will out.
    - anamax 16y ago
      > In theory, but not practice. Hobbes particularly, makes the point that without government, property rights are largely unenforcible. The strong will out. Umm, the strong will out even with govt. In fact, govt will enforce the will of the strong. Consider how eminent domain works in the US. One of the seminal cases in the US involved GM wanting to build a plant where a bunch of poor people lived. The local govt took the land under eminent domain and basically gave it to GM. (It's the "poletown" case if you're looking for cites.) Yes, you get to vote, but as they say, democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting over what to have for dinner.
      - astine 16y ago
        At least that sheep has a vote. I dislike eminent domain abuse as much as anyone but there is a big difference between what property right abuse looks like now and what it would look like without a discernible and relatively incorrupt government.
        anamax 16y ago
        > there is a big difference between what property right abuse looks like now and what it would look like without a discernible and relatively incorrupt government. Those aren't the only possibilities. (And relatively incorrupt is optimistic. It isn't consistently corrupt.) Consider the sudan (no functioning govt) with zimbabwe (malevolent govt). It's not obvious that the sudan is worse. Also, remember that the effective genocides have had govt backing.
  - steveklabnik 16y ago
    ESR might not argue against property rights, because I'd bet he's an "anarcho"-capitalist. All other forms of anarchism don't believe in property, but ancaps do. This is why you'll often (well, in anarchist discussions, anyway) hear that "ancaps aren't anarchists."
  - lukevdp 16y ago
    I thought that as soon as you start introducing rights, you're talking about a libertarian
- naner 16y ago
  The argument is akin to "beef can give you food poisoning, so we should eradicate all cows". Or "beef can give you food poisoning, we shouldn't eat beef". Actually, it sounds like he is saying "beef always eventually leads to poisoning" so I don't know if your analogy holds up at all. Anarchy doesn't mean no authority, it just means the least amount of justifiable authority. People always associate Anarchy with chaos and lawlessness, which is not correct. We will never see an anarchy society in our lifetime, though. This is more an exercise in idealism. e.g. the only type of political system that is ethically justifiable is anarchy.
- steveklabnik 16y ago
  > The fabric of the society that has advanced so far in the last 300 years is built on, at the very least, property rights and stability And an anarchist would suggest that that's exactly why the problems that we have have manifested today. Anarchism is something that's hard to have an actual discussion on. The word has too much baggage. Anarchists are viewed as utopians, there's been a lot of inter-faction arguing, and politics are frankly boring. The modern anarchist movement hasn't been able to connect their message to anything that's relevant. As much as I dislike CrimeThinc, they make a really good points in "Your Politics are Boring as Fuck"[1]. Even if you don't think that ridding the world of rulers is a good thing, fundamentally, anarchism's message of truly caring for people still holds value. Groups like Food Not Bombs, Homes not Jails, and many cooperative organizations do a lot of good in the world. You might be surprised to find that even the Black Bloc isn't just a bunch of kids breaking things, though this is endlessly debated every time the G20 comes to town. 1: http://www.crimethinc.com/texts/selected/asfuck.php http://www.crimethinc.com/texts/selected/asfuck.php
  - iskander 16y ago
    >The modern anarchist movement hasn't been able to connect their message to anything that's relevant What is the message? I usually just hear unfocused discontent. Saying "Grrr evil government" makes for a fun sense of solidarity and good conversation as you try to screw that cute girl from your collective. It doesn't, however, lead many people to thinking up scalable alternatives to government. It seems to me that "Anarchism is something that's hard to have an actual discussion on" because most anarchists are either focused on (1) a perpetual oppositional stance to government (fun for them, but what's there to discuss?) or (2) creating or helping a small community. The second category is laudible but still offers almost nothing in the way of big-picture political solutions.
    - steveklabnik 16y ago
      If I had to sum up what I consider to be the message of anarchism, (and I've only been comfortable calling myself one fairly recently, though I've been studying it for over a year) it would be "The best way to build a society is by empowering individuals through understanding, cooperation, and support." > I usually just hear unfocused discontent. Yeah, this is the exact problem I'm talking about. It's absolutely true, there's a lot of that going around. A large part of the 'why' is that if you're an anarchist, you probably care about politics a lot. And you feel like you have answers. And then you see things like the absolute robbery of the American people via the bank bailout, and the most you see... is some harsh words. Nobody's even upset. A single dollar lost is a tragedy, a million is a statistic. It's easy to become angry when you have very strong feelings, feel that you have answers, and then are totally ignored by most people, while you watch them make the exact mistakes you were trying to warn them about. Not that any of that is an excuse; it's exactly why anarchism has continued to be marginalized. It's something that we'll have to collectively get over in order to move forward, and frankly, I'm not sure if it'll happen any time soon. > thinking up scalable alternatives to government. I think that one of the conclusion that you come to if you follow the anarchist line of thinking is that there is no _scalable_ alternative to government. Once you start building huge communities, the human element of humans is lost. To use the same saying twice in one post, one death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic; humans simply can't care for large numbers of other humans. Their humanity disappears. So the only way to move forward is to build a decentralized network of smaller communities, rather than yet bigger ones. The British empire fell because it was growing too large; the American one is following suit. I don't think, for example, nationalized health care can possibly work at the levels of population that America currently has. We're not only significantly larger, but much more spread out, which makes it even harder to care about what happens to those crazy people on the other coast. > fun for them, but what's there to discuss? It's true, there's not a lot to discuss amongst the rational, educated opponent, but here, where 'socialism' means 'The government takes my money and gives it to the black people,' we have a lot of educating to do. And once you get past the terminology, there are a lot of implementation questions. Since there have been relatively few anarchist societies[1], there are a lot of unanswered questions about how they'd be run. Then again, there's a lot of possible ways that a community could be built, and they're not all mutually exclusive. Just like different states have different laws, there are a lot of options for an anarchist community. > The second category is laudible but still offers almost nothing in the way of big-picture political solutions. True. I think that I've already covered that the bigger picture is a smaller picture, though. 1: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/List_of_anarchist_communities https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/List_of_anarc...
- geoka9 16y ago
  I like to consider myself an "anarcho-democrat" in the sense that I favor democracy and free market for all practical reasons, while recognizing that the state is a necessary evil, which needs to be distrusted, checked upon and controlled by the people as much as practically possible.
  - steveklabnik 16y ago
    https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Minarchism https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Minarchism
iterationx 16y ago
If there was no government then gangs would take over.
- pbourke 16y ago
  this was downvoted, but it is true. Look at Somalia.
  - raganwald 16y ago
    Exactly. Let's kill the farmer, that way we animals can run things for ourselves.
  - steveklabnik 16y ago
    First of all, Somalia is not a great example of anarchy. All anarchists recognize that there needs to be significant social change before anarchism could happen; just toppling a government without changing the people leads to very, very bad things.[1] Secondly, Somalia has done really well without government, depending on who you ask. There are studies that show [2] that it's only after the UN started screwing around and trying to impose a state that it stabilized into smaller, community-level governments. I'm no expert on Somalia, but you also have to recognize that when the institution of a state is recognized as the default condition, even a successful transition to anarchism would be talked about as 'failed.' 1: http://c4ss.org/content/2859 http://c4ss.org/content/2859 2: http://www.independent.org/publications/working_papers/article.asp?id=1861 http://www.independent.org/publications/working_papers/artic...
    - pbourke 16y ago
      I'm also not an expert on Somalia - thanks for pointing out that paper. > All anarchists recognize that there needs to be significant social change before anarchism could happen I would go further and point out that there needs to be significant physiological change before some kind of idealized anarchism could happen. Humans - no, primates - organize themselves into groups and leaders emerge. A multitude of small groups tends to lead to resource conflicts and enforced conformance within the groups. The irony of anarchism is that in almost all dimensions you are more free under a centralized government. Belong to a minority religion or sexuality? Have fun with that one in a society lacking strong laws protecting all individuals. Don't like where you're living? Have fun moving across the country. Got poisoned by a negligent food manufacturer? Too damn bad. There is always a tension between individuality and collectivity in governments. Like communism is the insane end of the scale for the latter, anarchism is the for former.
duncanj 16y ago
I was a little disturbed by the glib comparison between Nazi Germany and the IRS. Also, I think there are a lot of people who do not "suffer" under a redistributive welfare state, but rather suffer less than they would without the redistribution.
ryandvm 16y ago
My take on the article is that the author is basically advocating less powerful central government. What he fails to recognize in the article are that strong state and local governments are part of the balance that the Constitution put in place and they work quite well. Indeed, not only is strong local governance a good preventative measure against the unlikely military coup, it works for all kinds of things. Want socialized healthcare? No reason your state can't do it. Don't want a national war on drugs? California is about find out if one is actually constitutional. When you have states with economies that are larger than most countries, there is no reason to be bumping so many responsibilities up to the federal level.
swombat 16y ago
A pretty poor argument for gun ownership... If this was the case, then personal handguns should be made illegal, and assault weapons should be available to all with appropriate training. Handguns aren't going to do much if the US government decides to ethnically cleanse a state.
- pavel_lishin 16y ago
  I don't think assault weapons would do much, either. Don't bring a machine gun to a tank fight.
  - swombat 16y ago
    Machine guns are pretty handy for guerilla warfare. Tanks, not so much.
    - pavel_lishin 16y ago
      That was just an example. Others include: * helicopters * jet airplanes * satellites * artillery * light armored vehicles * unmanned drones etc. As a side note, I fucking hate HN's formatting.
      - trafficlight 16y ago
        The US military has all of those things and yet the Iraqi resistance still put up a good fight.
        semanticist 16y ago
        Because the coalition forces in Iraq aren't engaged in ethnic cleansing. If they weren't worried about killing civilians and looking bad on the news, they could probably level most of the country.
      - swombat 16y ago
        With or without all those weapons, an ethnic cleansing operation becomes markedly more difficult when the local population all have assault weapons and training in how to use them...
mithaler 16y ago
I don't know about 1934, but this is what the ballot looked like in 1938. http://danariely.com/2010/10/05/hitler-nudge/ http://danariely.com/2010/10/05/hitler-nudge/ In any case, he doesn't answer the central question that arguing for anarchy inevitably provokes: once we take away the power monopoly of government, what's to stop someone from seizing power by force and being far worse than any government that preceded them? The problem with the Hitler example is that that's pretty much exactly what Hitler did. Weimar Germany was far from a model of sane government; it felt powerless after the war, it was crippled economically and it lacked real leadership. The spirit of nationalism that had made Germany such a powerful force before WWI had been broken by its defeat, and Hitler took power by stepping in to fill the void that it left. In other words, the Hitler example is exactly what a sane government prevents. The problem there wasn't the fact that there was a government in power; it was that there wasn't one. Anarchy was the problem, not the solution.
seles 16y ago
Another problem with democracy: lets say there are 9 people and there are some dishes that need washing, one could propose a vote to make Bob always do the dishes every time for ever. If everyone votes in their best interest then Bob is screwed. Obviously this is not fair and people would hopefully have the sense not to do this, but you can't count on people to be "fair" or even know what fair is. This dilemma already exists, one examples is welfare. Now you may agree or disagree that welfare is good or bad, but surely there is some degree of welfare that is too much, and it will reach this limit eventually if it already hasn't. I liked the quote: "...democracy is a terrible form of government, but eight times better than any other." -Winston Churchill I do not agree that anarchy is the solution, although democracy has it's flaws, it does indeed seem eight times better than anything else... Or at least anything that could practically be done. I think the ideal solution would be to create a very basic set of laws that guarantees individual rights. And make any form of new laws impossible. But how practical is this idea? The only way I can see it happening is if some rich dude buys an island and puts investment in it to get its economic foundation going. Yes I know crazy idea.
- zimbu668 16y ago
  People have advocated man made islands that would reside outside the territory of any nation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasteading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasteading) Sealand is an interesting example, some sort of British military base on a platform in the North Sea was claimed and declared an independent country, with little recognition by any established countries (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand)
- tlots 16y ago
  It is interesting to draw a parallel between the philosophical idea of utilitarianism and democracy. Particularly in the sense that what is best for the 'greater good' is not always ethical. Example: Take down a plane full of people to save a building full of people?
- nooneelse 16y ago
  Welfare systems don't come with peoples names in the legislation, like "Bob always does the dishes". They are based on other properties which any citizen might sometime have. So they are more like, "the person who has least recently done the dishes (provided they are not now sick or injured) does the dishes." Welfare is not an example of the kind of democratic fairness dilemma that you raise with the Bob-always-does-the-dishes solution.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
deleted 16y ago
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james2vegas 16y ago
s/anarchist/(anarcho-capitalist|right libertarian|Libertarian)/

22 points by geoka9 16y ago

Just because a government can possibly turn ugly, it doesn't mean that no government is better. The argument is akin to "beef can give you food poisoning, so we should eradicate all cows". Everyone hates paying taxes... But anarchy? Come on. The fabric of the society that has advanced so far in the last 300 years is built on, at the very least, property rights and stability

face 16y ago
I do not think he is arguing against property rights. I think that forms of anarchy allow for property rights and other individual liberties.
- iskander 16y ago
  Can you explain more? How can property rights and individual liberties be secured without the police?
- astine 16y ago
  In theory, but not practice. Hobbes particularly, makes the point that without government, property rights are largely unenforcible. The strong will out.
  - anamax 16y ago
    > In theory, but not practice. Hobbes particularly, makes the point that without government, property rights are largely unenforcible. The strong will out. Umm, the strong will out even with govt. In fact, govt will enforce the will of the strong. Consider how eminent domain works in the US. One of the seminal cases in the US involved GM wanting to build a plant where a bunch of poor people lived. The local govt took the land under eminent domain and basically gave it to GM. (It's the "poletown" case if you're looking for cites.) Yes, you get to vote, but as they say, democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting over what to have for dinner.
    - astine 16y ago
      At least that sheep has a vote. I dislike eminent domain abuse as much as anyone but there is a big difference between what property right abuse looks like now and what it would look like without a discernible and relatively incorrupt government.
      - anamax 16y ago
        > there is a big difference between what property right abuse looks like now and what it would look like without a discernible and relatively incorrupt government. Those aren't the only possibilities. (And relatively incorrupt is optimistic. It isn't consistently corrupt.) Consider the sudan (no functioning govt) with zimbabwe (malevolent govt). It's not obvious that the sudan is worse. Also, remember that the effective genocides have had govt backing.
- steveklabnik 16y ago
  ESR might not argue against property rights, because I'd bet he's an "anarcho"-capitalist. All other forms of anarchism don't believe in property, but ancaps do. This is why you'll often (well, in anarchist discussions, anyway) hear that "ancaps aren't anarchists."
- lukevdp 16y ago
  I thought that as soon as you start introducing rights, you're talking about a libertarian
naner 16y ago
The argument is akin to "beef can give you food poisoning, so we should eradicate all cows". Or "beef can give you food poisoning, we shouldn't eat beef". Actually, it sounds like he is saying "beef always eventually leads to poisoning" so I don't know if your analogy holds up at all. Anarchy doesn't mean no authority, it just means the least amount of justifiable authority. People always associate Anarchy with chaos and lawlessness, which is not correct. We will never see an anarchy society in our lifetime, though. This is more an exercise in idealism. e.g. the only type of political system that is ethically justifiable is anarchy.
steveklabnik 16y ago
> The fabric of the society that has advanced so far in the last 300 years is built on, at the very least, property rights and stability And an anarchist would suggest that that's exactly why the problems that we have have manifested today. Anarchism is something that's hard to have an actual discussion on. The word has too much baggage. Anarchists are viewed as utopians, there's been a lot of inter-faction arguing, and politics are frankly boring. The modern anarchist movement hasn't been able to connect their message to anything that's relevant. As much as I dislike CrimeThinc, they make a really good points in "Your Politics are Boring as Fuck"[1]. Even if you don't think that ridding the world of rulers is a good thing, fundamentally, anarchism's message of truly caring for people still holds value. Groups like Food Not Bombs, Homes not Jails, and many cooperative organizations do a lot of good in the world. You might be surprised to find that even the Black Bloc isn't just a bunch of kids breaking things, though this is endlessly debated every time the G20 comes to town. 1: http://www.crimethinc.com/texts/selected/asfuck.php http://www.crimethinc.com/texts/selected/asfuck.php
- iskander 16y ago
  >The modern anarchist movement hasn't been able to connect their message to anything that's relevant What is the message? I usually just hear unfocused discontent. Saying "Grrr evil government" makes for a fun sense of solidarity and good conversation as you try to screw that cute girl from your collective. It doesn't, however, lead many people to thinking up scalable alternatives to government. It seems to me that "Anarchism is something that's hard to have an actual discussion on" because most anarchists are either focused on (1) a perpetual oppositional stance to government (fun for them, but what's there to discuss?) or (2) creating or helping a small community. The second category is laudible but still offers almost nothing in the way of big-picture political solutions.
  - steveklabnik 16y ago
    If I had to sum up what I consider to be the message of anarchism, (and I've only been comfortable calling myself one fairly recently, though I've been studying it for over a year) it would be "The best way to build a society is by empowering individuals through understanding, cooperation, and support." > I usually just hear unfocused discontent. Yeah, this is the exact problem I'm talking about. It's absolutely true, there's a lot of that going around. A large part of the 'why' is that if you're an anarchist, you probably care about politics a lot. And you feel like you have answers. And then you see things like the absolute robbery of the American people via the bank bailout, and the most you see... is some harsh words. Nobody's even upset. A single dollar lost is a tragedy, a million is a statistic. It's easy to become angry when you have very strong feelings, feel that you have answers, and then are totally ignored by most people, while you watch them make the exact mistakes you were trying to warn them about. Not that any of that is an excuse; it's exactly why anarchism has continued to be marginalized. It's something that we'll have to collectively get over in order to move forward, and frankly, I'm not sure if it'll happen any time soon. > thinking up scalable alternatives to government. I think that one of the conclusion that you come to if you follow the anarchist line of thinking is that there is no _scalable_ alternative to government. Once you start building huge communities, the human element of humans is lost. To use the same saying twice in one post, one death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic; humans simply can't care for large numbers of other humans. Their humanity disappears. So the only way to move forward is to build a decentralized network of smaller communities, rather than yet bigger ones. The British empire fell because it was growing too large; the American one is following suit. I don't think, for example, nationalized health care can possibly work at the levels of population that America currently has. We're not only significantly larger, but much more spread out, which makes it even harder to care about what happens to those crazy people on the other coast. > fun for them, but what's there to discuss? It's true, there's not a lot to discuss amongst the rational, educated opponent, but here, where 'socialism' means 'The government takes my money and gives it to the black people,' we have a lot of educating to do. And once you get past the terminology, there are a lot of implementation questions. Since there have been relatively few anarchist societies[1], there are a lot of unanswered questions about how they'd be run. Then again, there's a lot of possible ways that a community could be built, and they're not all mutually exclusive. Just like different states have different laws, there are a lot of options for an anarchist community. > The second category is laudible but still offers almost nothing in the way of big-picture political solutions. True. I think that I've already covered that the bigger picture is a smaller picture, though. 1: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/List_of_anarchist_communities https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/List_of_anarc...
geoka9 16y ago
I like to consider myself an "anarcho-democrat" in the sense that I favor democracy and free market for all practical reasons, while recognizing that the state is a necessary evil, which needs to be distrusted, checked upon and controlled by the people as much as practically possible.
- steveklabnik 16y ago
  https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Minarchism https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Minarchism

iterationx 16y ago

If there was no government then gangs would take over.

pbourke 16y ago
this was downvoted, but it is true. Look at Somalia.
- raganwald 16y ago
  Exactly. Let's kill the farmer, that way we animals can run things for ourselves.
- steveklabnik 16y ago
  First of all, Somalia is not a great example of anarchy. All anarchists recognize that there needs to be significant social change before anarchism could happen; just toppling a government without changing the people leads to very, very bad things.[1] Secondly, Somalia has done really well without government, depending on who you ask. There are studies that show [2] that it's only after the UN started screwing around and trying to impose a state that it stabilized into smaller, community-level governments. I'm no expert on Somalia, but you also have to recognize that when the institution of a state is recognized as the default condition, even a successful transition to anarchism would be talked about as 'failed.' 1: http://c4ss.org/content/2859 http://c4ss.org/content/2859 2: http://www.independent.org/publications/working_papers/article.asp?id=1861 http://www.independent.org/publications/working_papers/artic...
  - pbourke 16y ago
    I'm also not an expert on Somalia - thanks for pointing out that paper. > All anarchists recognize that there needs to be significant social change before anarchism could happen I would go further and point out that there needs to be significant physiological change before some kind of idealized anarchism could happen. Humans - no, primates - organize themselves into groups and leaders emerge. A multitude of small groups tends to lead to resource conflicts and enforced conformance within the groups. The irony of anarchism is that in almost all dimensions you are more free under a centralized government. Belong to a minority religion or sexuality? Have fun with that one in a society lacking strong laws protecting all individuals. Don't like where you're living? Have fun moving across the country. Got poisoned by a negligent food manufacturer? Too damn bad. There is always a tension between individuality and collectivity in governments. Like communism is the insane end of the scale for the latter, anarchism is the for former.

duncanj 16y ago

I was a little disturbed by the glib comparison between Nazi Germany and the IRS. Also, I think there are a lot of people who do not "suffer" under a redistributive welfare state, but rather suffer less than they would without the redistribution.

ryandvm 16y ago

My take on the article is that the author is basically advocating less powerful central government. What he fails to recognize in the article are that strong state and local governments are part of the balance that the Constitution put in place and they work quite well. Indeed, not only is strong local governance a good preventative measure against the unlikely military coup, it works for all kinds of things. Want socialized healthcare? No reason your state can't do it. Don't want a national war on drugs? California is about find out if one is actually constitutional. When you have states with economies that are larger than most countries, there is no reason to be bumping so many responsibilities up to the federal level.

swombat 16y ago

A pretty poor argument for gun ownership... If this was the case, then personal handguns should be made illegal, and assault weapons should be available to all with appropriate training. Handguns aren't going to do much if the US government decides to ethnically cleanse a state.

pavel_lishin 16y ago
I don't think assault weapons would do much, either. Don't bring a machine gun to a tank fight.
- swombat 16y ago
  Machine guns are pretty handy for guerilla warfare. Tanks, not so much.
  - pavel_lishin 16y ago
    That was just an example. Others include: * helicopters * jet airplanes * satellites * artillery * light armored vehicles * unmanned drones etc. As a side note, I fucking hate HN's formatting.
    - trafficlight 16y ago
      The US military has all of those things and yet the Iraqi resistance still put up a good fight.
      - semanticist 16y ago
        Because the coalition forces in Iraq aren't engaged in ethnic cleansing. If they weren't worried about killing civilians and looking bad on the news, they could probably level most of the country.
    - swombat 16y ago
      With or without all those weapons, an ethnic cleansing operation becomes markedly more difficult when the local population all have assault weapons and training in how to use them...

mithaler 16y ago

I don't know about 1934, but this is what the ballot looked like in 1938. http://danariely.com/2010/10/05/hitler-nudge/ http://danariely.com/2010/10/05/hitler-nudge/ In any case, he doesn't answer the central question that arguing for anarchy inevitably provokes: once we take away the power monopoly of government, what's to stop someone from seizing power by force and being far worse than any government that preceded them? The problem with the Hitler example is that that's pretty much exactly what Hitler did. Weimar Germany was far from a model of sane government; it felt powerless after the war, it was crippled economically and it lacked real leadership. The spirit of nationalism that had made Germany such a powerful force before WWI had been broken by its defeat, and Hitler took power by stepping in to fill the void that it left. In other words, the Hitler example is exactly what a sane government prevents. The problem there wasn't the fact that there was a government in power; it was that there wasn't one. Anarchy was the problem, not the solution.

seles 16y ago

Another problem with democracy: lets say there are 9 people and there are some dishes that need washing, one could propose a vote to make Bob always do the dishes every time for ever. If everyone votes in their best interest then Bob is screwed. Obviously this is not fair and people would hopefully have the sense not to do this, but you can't count on people to be "fair" or even know what fair is. This dilemma already exists, one examples is welfare. Now you may agree or disagree that welfare is good or bad, but surely there is some degree of welfare that is too much, and it will reach this limit eventually if it already hasn't. I liked the quote: "...democracy is a terrible form of government, but eight times better than any other." -Winston Churchill I do not agree that anarchy is the solution, although democracy has it's flaws, it does indeed seem eight times better than anything else... Or at least anything that could practically be done. I think the ideal solution would be to create a very basic set of laws that guarantees individual rights. And make any form of new laws impossible. But how practical is this idea? The only way I can see it happening is if some rich dude buys an island and puts investment in it to get its economic foundation going. Yes I know crazy idea.

zimbu668 16y ago
People have advocated man made islands that would reside outside the territory of any nation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasteading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasteading) Sealand is an interesting example, some sort of British military base on a platform in the North Sea was claimed and declared an independent country, with little recognition by any established countries (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand)
tlots 16y ago
It is interesting to draw a parallel between the philosophical idea of utilitarianism and democracy. Particularly in the sense that what is best for the 'greater good' is not always ethical. Example: Take down a plane full of people to save a building full of people?
nooneelse 16y ago
Welfare systems don't come with peoples names in the legislation, like "Bob always does the dishes". They are based on other properties which any citizen might sometime have. So they are more like, "the person who has least recently done the dishes (provided they are not now sick or injured) does the dishes." Welfare is not an example of the kind of democratic fairness dilemma that you raise with the Bob-always-does-the-dishes solution.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

james2vegas 16y ago

s/anarchist/(anarcho-capitalist|right libertarian|Libertarian)/