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I never said it was a perfect system or that we are morally pure, but it is the best one we have come up with so far. It has improved the human condition greatl

I never said it was a perfect system or that we are morally pure, but it is the best one we have come up with so far. It has improved the human condition greatly, albeit in fits and starts. Western liberal states broadly have greater civil rights and have reduced poverty more than any other type of system in history. Your ideal (I think, you aren't very clear) of enlightened anarchism doesn't exist in any human society. Any short period of anarchy that has happened has been a shit show (i.e. France throughout the 1790s) that gets resolved by the most power hungry and murderous psychopaths possible.

anonym29 1y ago
How many dead children is "the best one we have come up with so far" worth? >Western liberal states broadly have greater civil rights and have reduced poverty more than any other type of system in history Except that of China, whom by embracing markets and capitalism, lifted more people out of poverty than the entire populations of the United States and Western Europe combined. Make no mistake: Western liberalism isn't what lifts people out of poverty, capitalism does. It doesn't matter whether the capitalism is practiced by western liberal democracies or repressive authoritarian surveillance states - where capitalism goes, widespread increases in human wealth and quality of life follow. That people could confuse this cause-effect relationship merely because western liberalism adopted capitalism earlier than the more authoritarian laggards only further proves "that government which governs least, governs best". Less government = more freedom = less poverty. More government = less freedom = more poverty. Also, you're cherry-picking convenient examples while ignoring the inconvenient examples (Zapatistas, Rojava, various indigenous societies). The 1790s weren't even anarchist - they had revolutionary governments. The Terror was conducted BY a government, not in an absence of government. Anarchist societies can maintain order and capitalism can create wealth under any political system. Individuals can murder, but states are the only entities to have ever committed genocide. The question isn't whether states do good things sometimes - it's whether any amount of good can justify establishing the prerequisite conditions for genocide to occur. Is any amount of poverty reduction worth creating and maintaining the machinery that made Auschwitz possible, especially in a world where that poverty reduction doesn't actually require the existence of that machinery to begin with? Keeping the state around for the stated purpose of reducing poverty is like keeping a loaded gun in a daycare to open juice boxes. Sure you can do it that way, but you also do not need the gun to do that, and having the gun there just introduces massive unnecessary risks.
- arrosenberg 1y ago
  You keep skating by the fact that anarchist societies don’t exist and can’t exist, so it’s hard to take the rest of your diatribe seriously.
  - anonym29 1y ago
    I literally gave examples of functioning anarchist societies above. I'll offer them again, since you seemed to ignore them the first time I mentioned them: Zapatistas, Rojava, various indigenous societies. Willfully ignoring them doesn't mean they don't exist.
    - arrosenberg 1y ago
      Ok fair enough, I didn't read closely. Rojava and the Zapatistas both prove my point rather than refute it. The former is entirely dependent on US hegemony to keep them somewhat independent, otherwise they'd be absorbed by Turkey or Iran, and the Zapatistas exist within a much larger state as an insurgent paramilitary group. If the cartels disappeared tomorrow, the Mexican state would quickly reabsorb their territory and the Zapatistas would look more like FARC than an independent polity. Given those examples, I think most people, myself included, would opt for the stability and moral ambiguity of the western liberal state.
      - anonym29 1y ago
        First of all, I want to say thank you. I really appreciate that, for as different as our views may be, you're continuing to read and seriously consider the points I am raising, and respond in good faith, even after I allowed the heat of the moment to get to me when I called you a statist. Thank you for having the grace and civility to continue, and I'm sorry for allowing my emotions to provocatively shape my language towards you earlier. You're a good civil debate partner. Back to the discussion at hand: The main threat Rojava faced was ISIS, with Turkey becoming the primary threat after ISIS's defeat. But this only further strengthens my argument - these stateless societies exist under constant threat from states, not from internal collapse. The Mexican state is essentially semi-complicit with, and deeply infiltrated by the cartels. There is nothing stopping either the cartels or the Mexican state from attempting to steamroll through Chiapas, besides the will of the people who live there to function autonomously (and the will to assert that right to peaceful existence through force, if necessary). The Zapatistas have maintained their autonomy for 30 years not through state protection but through community self-defense. If anything, they prove that people can resist both state and non-state violence without becoming a state themselves. Your observation that these societies exist under threat from states actually reinforces my point. States don't tolerate alternatives because functioning anarchist societies expose the lie that states are necessary. Of course states and their allies try to crush them - the very existence of these functioning anarchist societies is a threat to state legitimacy You're welcome to prefer a western liberal state, and I don't refute that most people would. That said, not everyone even has the luxury of choice in the first place. Many Zapatista communities have even seen dramatic improvements in healthcare, education, and women's rights compared to their state-governed neighbors. For these people, the comparison isn't between "the stability and moral ambiguity of the western liberal state" or not, it's between "state-governed oppression & poverty" and "relative prosperity through autonomy". But I'm glad we can agree that functional, rights-respecting societies can exist without states. Once we acknowledge that, the question in my mind becomes: what level of genocide risk are we willing to accept across all states for the benefits you see some states providing? We can't cherry-pick Sweden while ignoring Syria - the collective sum of their outputs is the toll we pay for the existence of the state itself.

anonym29 1y ago

How many dead children is "the best one we have come up with so far" worth? >Western liberal states broadly have greater civil rights and have reduced poverty more than any other type of system in history Except that of China, whom by embracing markets and capitalism, lifted more people out of poverty than the entire populations of the United States and Western Europe combined. Make no mistake: Western liberalism isn't what lifts people out of poverty, capitalism does. It doesn't matter whether the capitalism is practiced by western liberal democracies or repressive authoritarian surveillance states - where capitalism goes, widespread increases in human wealth and quality of life follow. That people could confuse this cause-effect relationship merely because western liberalism adopted capitalism earlier than the more authoritarian laggards only further proves "that government which governs least, governs best". Less government = more freedom = less poverty. More government = less freedom = more poverty. Also, you're cherry-picking convenient examples while ignoring the inconvenient examples (Zapatistas, Rojava, various indigenous societies). The 1790s weren't even anarchist - they had revolutionary governments. The Terror was conducted BY a government, not in an absence of government. Anarchist societies can maintain order and capitalism can create wealth under any political system. Individuals can murder, but states are the only entities to have ever committed genocide. The question isn't whether states do good things sometimes - it's whether any amount of good can justify establishing the prerequisite conditions for genocide to occur. Is any amount of poverty reduction worth creating and maintaining the machinery that made Auschwitz possible, especially in a world where that poverty reduction doesn't actually require the existence of that machinery to begin with? Keeping the state around for the stated purpose of reducing poverty is like keeping a loaded gun in a daycare to open juice boxes. Sure you can do it that way, but you also do not need the gun to do that, and having the gun there just introduces massive unnecessary risks.

arrosenberg 1y ago
You keep skating by the fact that anarchist societies don’t exist and can’t exist, so it’s hard to take the rest of your diatribe seriously.
- anonym29 1y ago
  I literally gave examples of functioning anarchist societies above. I'll offer them again, since you seemed to ignore them the first time I mentioned them: Zapatistas, Rojava, various indigenous societies. Willfully ignoring them doesn't mean they don't exist.
  - arrosenberg 1y ago
    Ok fair enough, I didn't read closely. Rojava and the Zapatistas both prove my point rather than refute it. The former is entirely dependent on US hegemony to keep them somewhat independent, otherwise they'd be absorbed by Turkey or Iran, and the Zapatistas exist within a much larger state as an insurgent paramilitary group. If the cartels disappeared tomorrow, the Mexican state would quickly reabsorb their territory and the Zapatistas would look more like FARC than an independent polity. Given those examples, I think most people, myself included, would opt for the stability and moral ambiguity of the western liberal state.
    - anonym29 1y ago
      First of all, I want to say thank you. I really appreciate that, for as different as our views may be, you're continuing to read and seriously consider the points I am raising, and respond in good faith, even after I allowed the heat of the moment to get to me when I called you a statist. Thank you for having the grace and civility to continue, and I'm sorry for allowing my emotions to provocatively shape my language towards you earlier. You're a good civil debate partner. Back to the discussion at hand: The main threat Rojava faced was ISIS, with Turkey becoming the primary threat after ISIS's defeat. But this only further strengthens my argument - these stateless societies exist under constant threat from states, not from internal collapse. The Mexican state is essentially semi-complicit with, and deeply infiltrated by the cartels. There is nothing stopping either the cartels or the Mexican state from attempting to steamroll through Chiapas, besides the will of the people who live there to function autonomously (and the will to assert that right to peaceful existence through force, if necessary). The Zapatistas have maintained their autonomy for 30 years not through state protection but through community self-defense. If anything, they prove that people can resist both state and non-state violence without becoming a state themselves. Your observation that these societies exist under threat from states actually reinforces my point. States don't tolerate alternatives because functioning anarchist societies expose the lie that states are necessary. Of course states and their allies try to crush them - the very existence of these functioning anarchist societies is a threat to state legitimacy You're welcome to prefer a western liberal state, and I don't refute that most people would. That said, not everyone even has the luxury of choice in the first place. Many Zapatista communities have even seen dramatic improvements in healthcare, education, and women's rights compared to their state-governed neighbors. For these people, the comparison isn't between "the stability and moral ambiguity of the western liberal state" or not, it's between "state-governed oppression & poverty" and "relative prosperity through autonomy". But I'm glad we can agree that functional, rights-respecting societies can exist without states. Once we acknowledge that, the question in my mind becomes: what level of genocide risk are we willing to accept across all states for the benefits you see some states providing? We can't cherry-pick Sweden while ignoring Syria - the collective sum of their outputs is the toll we pay for the existence of the state itself.