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> But the state still has a legal monopoly on violence. Absolutely! That's why drive-bys are illegal! HEINOUS.

by saraid216 14y ago

dmix 14y ago
> I'm not sure what your point is?
- anigbrowl 14y ago
  His point (and mine) is that a free market in retributive violence is a bad thing because it tends to affect people besides the intended targets. I have lived in neighborhoods where drive-bys were common and found myself staring down a gun barrel of someone who happened to be be looking for someone else. The town where I grew up in a different country also had a string of long-running feuds between particular families. The thing about feuds is that they tend to go on and on despite the seeming futility of tit-for-tat violence. So I suggest to you that mutual delegation of the police power to the state is a Good Thing. I don't see the state as some sort of external imposition upon people who were living in some anarcho-primitivist state of harmony. That idealistic view is a bunch of bullshit, much like hippies' habit of blaming technology for our ills.
  - dmix 14y ago
    I wasn't taking a position, merely pointing out that that comment was inflammatory and not a constructive argument. Thanks for clarifying. I lean anarcho-capitalist and I also don’t believe private courts/security is (entirely) practical. After I read: http://www.amazon.com/Anarchy-State-Utopia-Robert-Nozick/dp/0465097200/ http://www.amazon.com/Anarchy-State-Utopia-Robert-Nozick/dp/... TLDR: Protective agencies (judges/police) would be competing against each other. That competitive nature combined with their intended role of protecting us (and themselves) would lead to "an endless series of acts of retaliation and exactions of compensations". In addition, Nozick demonstrates why the nature of both of the businesses would already create natural monopolies in each local juridiction.
    - saraid216 14y ago
      Anarcho-capitalist models and their variations tend to last more because they're simple and attractive than because they have a strong foundation. They're compelling in an idealistic way because they derive from logical principles. But that strength is their weakness: because they derive from idealized premises, they often find themselves making extremely large compromises to stay viable as they approach reality. To wit, Nozickian protective agencies as you have summarized it here capably describe statism: in other words, in walking away from the current model, you have arrived at it again... but without its good parts, like the American concept of power separation or its Bill of Rights. There is reason that various police forces have political friction when coming into contact with other jurisdictions, after all, whether it's horizontal (police of California cooperating with the police in Nevada) or vertical (police of California cooperating with the FBI). The thing that smooths this friction is, well... the federal state. It doesn't do this mechanistically, but through its existence as an ideal: an appeal to "we're all American, after all" does wonders. The very act of cooperation becomes an affirmation of that ideal.
      - dmix 14y ago
        Indeed, these are essentially arguments for minarchy. But that's very very far from the current large state(-capitaism) we currently live in today. Minus courts/police, that still leaves ~95% of state power going to other places. Which is why I don't bother defending "markets for security" as other ancaps might. Extreme ideologues are a waste of time. But I still believe in strong property and self-defence rights.
        saraid216 14y ago
        > Indeed, these are essentially arguments for minarchy. Minarchy is basically, "Well, you won this one argument, but I still believe!" It's like "Yes, I concede that the Earth does indeed revolve around the sun, but the Bible is still inerrant and literal!" > But I still believe in strong property and self-defence rights. I do not. At best, I consider property and self-defense rights to be derived from some more fundamental right. (I've actually stopped using rights at all in my political philosophizing; they're surprisingly limited as an idea.) For instance, self-defense might be derived from a right to life; one might claim that threatening another's right to life necessarily sacrifices your own such right: ergo self-defense. Which gets into the whole "inalienable" bit because that's pretty alienating. Mostly, I just say that property should be protected if and only if it would support some more fundamental right.

> But the state still has a legal monopoly on violence. Absolutely! That's why drive-bys are illegal! HEINOUS.

dmix 14y ago

> I'm not sure what your point is?

anigbrowl 14y ago
His point (and mine) is that a free market in retributive violence is a bad thing because it tends to affect people besides the intended targets. I have lived in neighborhoods where drive-bys were common and found myself staring down a gun barrel of someone who happened to be be looking for someone else. The town where I grew up in a different country also had a string of long-running feuds between particular families. The thing about feuds is that they tend to go on and on despite the seeming futility of tit-for-tat violence. So I suggest to you that mutual delegation of the police power to the state is a Good Thing. I don't see the state as some sort of external imposition upon people who were living in some anarcho-primitivist state of harmony. That idealistic view is a bunch of bullshit, much like hippies' habit of blaming technology for our ills.
- dmix 14y ago
  I wasn't taking a position, merely pointing out that that comment was inflammatory and not a constructive argument. Thanks for clarifying. I lean anarcho-capitalist and I also don’t believe private courts/security is (entirely) practical. After I read: http://www.amazon.com/Anarchy-State-Utopia-Robert-Nozick/dp/0465097200/ http://www.amazon.com/Anarchy-State-Utopia-Robert-Nozick/dp/... TLDR: Protective agencies (judges/police) would be competing against each other. That competitive nature combined with their intended role of protecting us (and themselves) would lead to "an endless series of acts of retaliation and exactions of compensations". In addition, Nozick demonstrates why the nature of both of the businesses would already create natural monopolies in each local juridiction.
  - saraid216 14y ago
    Anarcho-capitalist models and their variations tend to last more because they're simple and attractive than because they have a strong foundation. They're compelling in an idealistic way because they derive from logical principles. But that strength is their weakness: because they derive from idealized premises, they often find themselves making extremely large compromises to stay viable as they approach reality. To wit, Nozickian protective agencies as you have summarized it here capably describe statism: in other words, in walking away from the current model, you have arrived at it again... but without its good parts, like the American concept of power separation or its Bill of Rights. There is reason that various police forces have political friction when coming into contact with other jurisdictions, after all, whether it's horizontal (police of California cooperating with the police in Nevada) or vertical (police of California cooperating with the FBI). The thing that smooths this friction is, well... the federal state. It doesn't do this mechanistically, but through its existence as an ideal: an appeal to "we're all American, after all" does wonders. The very act of cooperation becomes an affirmation of that ideal.
    - dmix 14y ago
      Indeed, these are essentially arguments for minarchy. But that's very very far from the current large state(-capitaism) we currently live in today. Minus courts/police, that still leaves ~95% of state power going to other places. Which is why I don't bother defending "markets for security" as other ancaps might. Extreme ideologues are a waste of time. But I still believe in strong property and self-defence rights.
      - saraid216 14y ago
        > Indeed, these are essentially arguments for minarchy. Minarchy is basically, "Well, you won this one argument, but I still believe!" It's like "Yes, I concede that the Earth does indeed revolve around the sun, but the Bible is still inerrant and literal!" > But I still believe in strong property and self-defence rights. I do not. At best, I consider property and self-defense rights to be derived from some more fundamental right. (I've actually stopped using rights at all in my political philosophizing; they're surprisingly limited as an idea.) For instance, self-defense might be derived from a right to life; one might claim that threatening another's right to life necessarily sacrifices your own such right: ergo self-defense. Which gets into the whole "inalienable" bit because that's pretty alienating. Mostly, I just say that property should be protected if and only if it would support some more fundamental right.