[PsychoVision]

I speak of anarchy in the sense that there is zero government, everything being privatized.

The difference between anarchy and classic liberalism is that classic liberalism has very little government. Anarchy in its purest form has none.

*Edit* Now that I think about it, if you wanted to build a road, what if someone's land is blocking the way? In America, the 5th Amendment allows the government to take land to make roads.

[Cookie Monster]

If anarchy means fluctuous, circumstantial and temporal formation of power structures it is achievable, albeit very difficult. If it means the total absence of all instutions of power, it would not be possible and in fact contradictionary as any vacuum of power has a tendecy to attract new power relations.

[DanDaMan]

The only concern that an anarchist would have in Medieval Iceland or Celtic Ireland is that you were forced to belong to a governing body.

Those "anarchist's", it would seem, are idiots.
Were they before the invention of the dictionary?

[El Gilroy]

Anarchy outside utopia is most viable as a parallel society next to an organised state, with neither trying to interfere with the other's affairs.

Imo.

[DubiousDan]

You people are not talking about Anarchism. Anarchy can mean a simple governmental breakdown. Anarchism is a political philosophy. Anarchism rejects coercion. Civilization exists by coercion. Without destroying civilization, you cannot attain Anarchism. That doesn’t mean what the uninformed thinks that it means. To destroy civilization, all you have to do is destroy slavery in all its myriad forms. Civilization rests on slavery, and without slavery, it doesn’t exist.
Anarchism is the oldest social system and the most enduring. Civilization is new in terms of Human existence, it came after agriculture. Agriculture created a surplus. Civilization exists to take the harvest from the Harvester and give it to the Elites. All else is lies.

[hannigaholic]

Sounds just like classic liberalism - is there any difference?

Classical liberalism is more like minarchist libertarianism than actual anarchism. Classical liberals still wanted a state, but they wanted it to be very small.

[William_H_Dougherty]

Anarchy as a Utopia?

It would be more of a dystopia to me. While I'm all in favour of less gov't and less taxes, I still think a gov't and some taxation is necessary: we need police, we need a military, we should have public teachers, we should have public roads and street lights...

Anarchy might be an "ideal" and/or "extreme" form of libertarianism, but me thinks you would be replacing an oppressive state with even more oppressive individuals.

Sad, but the reality is we need to pay people to protect ourselves from psychopaths and the fair number of amoral people/organizations out there. Is organized crime going to disappear without the State? Are foreign states going to allow us access to our own resources or will they move in to pluder them?

- WHD

[BurrsWogdon]

Civilization rests on slavery, and without slavery, it doesn’t exist.

Slavery in terms of submission? What if it is voluntary? Maybe it rests on restraint.

Agriculture created a surplus. Civilization exists to take the harvest from the Harvester and give it to the Elites.

I think one individual who was elite to another could, and did, take a harvest before there was any surplus. Maybe efficiency in the taking simply evolved with efficiency of the harvesting, regardless of the character of civilization.

Indeed it's not the same, but most good deeds are done simply because we socially learn that we should do them and that they will be reciprocated.

How did the first individual learn it, I wonder? Could it be encoded? A survival mechanism? A physiological need?

[PsychoVision]

It would be more of a dystopia to me. While I'm all in favour of less gov't and less taxes, I still think a gov't and some taxation is necessary: we need police, we need a military, we should have public teachers, we should have public roads and street lights...

Obviously, I didn't come to this debate prepared enough. I'm going to catch up on some reading, and then I'll bring up this topic again sometime in the future.

But I do recommend that you guys read Deschooling Society. It explores educational alternatives to institutional schools, such as going back to guilds, apprenticeships, private schools, etc.

Although I do agree that children should not be around dangerous equipment, the "exploitation" part could be avoided by prosecuting those who force children into certain jobs, such as working in sweatshops, instead of forcing children to not work altogether. Current child labor laws and educational laws prevent people with skills from passing them on to apprentices. Instead, children have to learn in an institutional school, with a curriculum that is the same for every student, that has some subjects that will not help the student in his/her career. The master, on the other hand, could teach the apprentice everything he/she needs to know to flourish in his/her career. It would eliminate the need for taxes for educational funds.

As for the police, military, roads, street lights, i explained earlier how we could fund police protection. Military protection would work the same as police protection, but there would be the problem of free riders who take advantage of those who pay for military protection. That is a problem that I do not have the answer to. But as far as roads and street lights, whoever built the road would charge a toll for its users, in order to raise money to maintain it. But there is a problem: if your land was surrounded by other people's land, you couldn't go between two people's land without trespassing on one land, unless there was space between the two lands. What if the owner of the land wouldn't sell their land to make a road?

Those are the two problems I have to solve if I am to convince anyone that anarchy is the way to go.

[DubiousDan]

Slavery in terms of submission? What if it is voluntary? Maybe it rests on restraint.

In which nation on Earth is compliance with the law voluntary?

I think one individual who was elite to another could, and did, take a harvest before there was any surplus. Maybe efficiency in the taking simply evolved with efficiency of the harvesting, regardless of the character of civilization.

Yes, many things happened even before the arrival of man. I was discussing the purpose of civilization. In the Kingdom of If every man is king. Before civilization, man worked less to meet his needs then after. You might Google Chayanov’s Rule if you are in doubt on the issue.
Yes, social organization could result in a win win situation. However, that is not the nature of civilization. Civilization is achieved by military dominance and is maintained by military dominance. The surplus from social organization is consumed by the requirements of military supremacy. Social evolution in civilization is by warfare or the threat of warfare. The dominant social orders are those who are best able to wage war.

[BurrsWogdon]

In which nation on Earth is compliance with the law voluntary?

I must be looking at it obtusely. Are you saying that the existence of a mechanism for corrective coercion precludes any possibility of someone voluntarily complying with a law or entering voluntarily into a lawful contract? I would think voluntary compliance (restraint) happens every day in many countries. Are people not engaging in murder universally only because of corrective measures in place?

Yes, many things happened even before the arrival of man. I was discussing the purpose of civilization. In the Kingdom of If every man is king. Before civilization, man worked less to meet his needs then after. You might Google Chayanov’s Rule if you are in doubt on the issue.
Yes, social organization could result in a win win situation. However, that is not the nature of civilization. Civilization is achieved by military dominance and is maintained by military dominance. The surplus from social organization is consumed by the requirements of military supremacy. Social evolution in civilization is by warfare or the threat of warfare. The dominant social orders are those who are best able to wage war.

That is very interesting. Thank you. My immediate response is that it doesn't necessarily translate to the "transfer to elites". I certainly see validity in your point. Something I'll have to think about.

[DubiousDan]

I must be looking at it obtusely. Are you saying that the existence of a mechanism for corrective coercion precludes any possibility of someone voluntarily complying with a law or entering voluntarily into a lawful contract? I would think voluntary compliance (restraint) happens every day in many countries. Are people not engaging in murder universally only because of corrective measures in place?

No, that’s not what I’m saying. The fact that you are creating an argument to rebut something I didn’t say might explain why your argument is meaningless to me. Then again, it might not.

That is very interesting. Thank you. My immediate response is that it doesn't necessarily translate to the "transfer to elites". I certainly see validity in your point. Something I'll have to think about.

You are welcome. Yes, and thank you.

I’m a bit puzzled as to why the “transfer to elites” is in quotation marks.

Civilization exists to take the harvest from the Harvester and give it to the Elites.

Do you know of a civilized social order that doesn’t, or didn’t, practice the above?

[BurrsWogdon]

Civilization rests on slavery

Slavery in terms of submission? What if it is voluntary? Maybe it rests on restraint.

In which nation on Earth is compliance with the law voluntary?

Are you saying that the existence of a mechanism for corrective coercion precludes any possibility of someone voluntarily complying with a law or entering voluntarily into a lawful contract?

No, that’s not what I’m saying.

If voluntary compliance happens all the time it would seem that civilization can rest on it as well. Restraint. That's all I am suggesting. I suppose that could still be categorized as slavery, but it's not exactly equivalent.

Do you know of a civilized social order that doesn’t, or didn’t, practice the above?

Well, it does seem to be most common, but Chayanov's subsistence farmers existed in some semblance of civilization prior to Stalin demanding surplus didn't they? Perhaps Native Americans as well. If say the patriarch in one of those subsistence families consumed more proportionally, that alone might qualify him as an elite in that context. In that unit. Perhaps he bred just to increase his margin, but I think other drives are at work there, and he would have to sacrifice long before his margin benefited. Even monkeys have been observed to allocate according to specialized skills or characteristics. If it is done at the basic unit, civilization wouldn't be a necessary instrument to that design. The marginal allocation could be fundamental but abuses develop as the dynamic is projected onto a larger unit or as efficiency evolves.

It's just a thought. I don't have any classical education on the subject; I know I risk exposing my grievous ignorance of conventional paradigms.

[astuc]

Anarchy is the best approach to social structure. In community everyone can take on any roll they are capable of. Everyone is a police person, childcare provider, trades person etc. all roles are filled from within the community according to the need and ability. Sickness, death and natural phenomenon are enough of a problem to prevent utopia. Without government at least we would only have to worry about ourselves and not support the class structure.

[Northern-Anarchist-X]

Anarchy associated with anarchists. Hah. Unfortunately there's more than one meaning to the word ...

Anarchists don't generally propose a utopia. An alternative society looks utopian and impossible to us because we are on our knees ...

Both in theory and in practice anarchist ideas can/do work.