Against Anarchism

[Peter]

Shayne wrote:

I accept the facts, including the fact that you would have made a good SS man.

end quote

If George is a Rational Anarchist, then in comparison, you are an irrational hobbit.

Tone it down. More will be accomplished if you leave your emotional tone behind.

Peter

[sjw]

Shayne wrote:

I accept the facts, including the fact that you would have made a good SS man.

end quote

If George is a Rational Anarchist, then in comparison, you are an irrational hobbit.

Tone it down. More will be accomplished if you leave your emotional tone behind.

Peter

George lets you get away with your viciousness, so you like him better. That is unsurprising. All wicked people prefer that moral arguments are "toned down", you are no different.

Shayne

[sjw]

Lincoln was wrong about a great many things, but he was right about this:

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." --Abraham Lincoln

It is the likes of people who stand by government no matter what it does that are at the root of the problem. Government cannot have the moral blank check that Pete Taylor wants to hand it.

Shayne

[Selene]

Adam wrote:

Posters who refuse to use the quote function...11,000,000

I had to look twice. That is plus 11,000,000! Thanks, Adam.

Peter

Posters who refuse to use the quote function...-11,000,000

Time to get those reading glasses Peter.

[George H. Smith]

In a letter to Madison (p. 413) written around the same time, Jefferson divides societies into three basic "forms," one of which is society "without government, as among our Indians." Although a bit uncertain about the matter, Jefferson suggests that this may be the best form for a free society, better even than a society with a limited government, but he also believes that societies without government are "inconsistent with any great degree of population."

I suppose all these Indian tribes also had chiefs, i. e. each tribe was organized in a hierarchical structure.

But as for anarchists, aren't they opposed to hierarchical structures as such? (I'm a layperson, but this always been an association I've had with anarchism).

The only thing that anarchists have in common is their opposition to the institution of government. As I mentioned in a previous post, different political traditions have generated different types of anarchism, and libertarian anarchists have very little in common with anarchists in other schools of thought.

I don't know enough about Native American culture to answer your question about hierarchical structures. When Jefferson said that Indians lived in societies without government, he meant that there was no coercive mechanism to compel conformity. Public opinion --- by which Jefferson meant disapproval and ostracism by other members of tribal communities -- was sufficient. However, as Jefferson noted, the effectiveness of public opinion decreases as the population increases.

One interesting use of the term "anarchy" is how it was applied by Enlightenment historians and philosophes to the European Middle Ages. Edward Gibbon sometimes spoke of "feudal anarchy", and this was a common practice among his contemporaries.

"Feudal anarchy" referred to the absence of a sovereign power, i.e., a government with supreme authority over a given territory, a government that enforced a single system of laws. Instead, a system of legal pluralism operated for centuries, as manifested in canon (i.e., church) law, royal law, manorial law, mercantile law, urban law, and so forth.

For a brilliant and sympathetic study of this system of legal pluralism, see Law and Revolution: The Formation of the Western Legal Tradition (Harvard 1983), by the distinguished legal historian Harold J. Berman. Legal pluralism is also the focus of Randy Barnett's important book, The Structure of Liberty: Justice and the Rule of Law (Oxford, 1998).

Although Randy is an anarcho-capitalist, I don't believe he ever uses the words "anarchy" and "anarchism" when explaining the nature and benefits of a "polycentric constitutional order" in his book. This is probably because Randy understands how misleading the label "anarchism" can be in this context. I alluded to this problem in my thread "Thoughts on Rand, Government, and Anarchism" when I pointed out that Rothbardian anarchism occupies a "fuzzy" place in the history of anarchism, just as Rand's ideal government, which lacks the power to tax, resides in the "Twilight Zone" of traditional theories of limited government.

According to the Wiki article on Individualist Anarchism :

In the mid-1950s Rothbard wrote an article under a pseudonym, saying that "we are not anarchists...but not archists either...Perhaps, then, we could call ourselves by a new name: nonarchist," concerned with differentiating himself from communist and socialistic economic views of other anarchists (including the individualist anarchists of the 19th century).[123] However, Rothbard later chose the term "anarcho-capitalism" for his philosophy and referred to himself as an anarchist.

Rothbard was keenly aware of how misleading it could be to classify his views as a species of anarchism; but he also knew that it would be even more misleading to classify his defense of competing justice agencies as a type of government ("archism'). He settled on the label "anarcho-capitalism."

This is not a bad label, all things considered. Notice how it places primary emphasis on "capitalism" and uses "anarcho" to quality this noun. The implication is clear: free market capitalism is primary, and "anarcho" means that property rights will not be enforced by a sovereign government, i.e., a government that excludes competitors by coercive means. Rothbard advocate legal pluralism instead as a method of enforcement.

Critics of Rothbard should keep his emphasis on legal pluralism in mind, because this -- and this alone -- is what fundamentally distinguishes Rothbard's anarcho-capitalism from Rand's minarchism. When Rothbard wished to give historical precedents, he frequently gave examples like this (from Power and Market, p. 5):

The fairs of Champagne and the great marts of international trade in the Middle Ages enjoyed freely competitive courts, and people could patronize those that they deemed most accurate and efficient.

I will have more to say on this later....

Ghs

[sjw]

Michael,

I do have some thoughts on how to precisely address the issue of rights and children, perhaps I'll write something someday, but I do not believe we need to do that in order to understand what rights normal adults have.

Shayne

[sjw]

George,

Are you going to respond to this?: http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=10330&view=findpost&p=130045

Shayne

[George H. Smith]

I'm not interested in winning a debate. I would merely like you to post or repost your answer. Please do that and I will then comment on your answer.

Ghs

I don't see that anything I said was unclear at all. I said we should tack the word "government" onto the right solution, and I said the reason we should do that is because that is the word that refers to the entity that enforces the law of the land. "The law of the land" is an abstraction referring to an unlimited number of different legal systems, for which I say we should substitute Natural Law in place of what has formerly been there. In different times this "law of the land" has been many things: rule by tribal chief, rule by dictator, rule by monarch, rule by religion, rule by democracy, rule by representative, etc. At no point did any of these people say when they were changing out one "law of the land" for another did they consider throwing the word "government" into the trash bin. I say it should be rule by Natural Law.

Shayne

You asked me to comment on this, but I don't want to spend much time on it until I get a few more posts up on my thread, "Thoughts on Rand, Government, and Anarchism." Later today, I will be posting an explanation, based on the background I have already given, of why the minarchist/anarchist debate in modern libertarianism has focused almost exclusively on the coercive monopoly feature of government.

I will make some general comments now, but you will not like what I am going to say. I know this because of your reactions to similar comments by me on the "Overgrown Teenagers" thread. Assuming your position has not changed since then, your "refutation" of anarchism consists in showing that a "government" based on universal consent is possible, and you insist, for reasons I have never understood, that no anarchist can consistently admit this possibility.

It is obvious, however, that if, as you state above, you have decided to "tack the word 'government' onto the right solution," then any institution involved in the "right solution" will necessarily be a "government," by definition. You have thus ruled out any anarchistic "right solution" beforehand through a linguistic coup. Though you may have reasons for wanting to use the word "government" as you do, your usage has no relevance to the substance of the anarchism/minarchism debate, as this debate has manifested itself for over forty years.

Another problem that arose on the "overgrown teenagers" thread has to do with your conception of "law." You use the term "law" in a very idiosyncratic way. You correctly point out that a landowner may dictate the conditions that must be agreed upon by those who wish to use his land. You then call such rules "laws," and from there you argue that homeowners associations qualify as "governments."

In the final analysis, your approach leads to the conclusion that every property owner qualifies as a "government" over his own property, regardless of the type of property involved. This is so because every property owner can determine the conditions, or rules, that others must agree to before he will permit them to use his property.

These are the major issues that I said earlier that I didn't want to get involved in again. I don't want to debate the particulars with you, because your arguments, as I noted above, depend on your idiosyncratic use of certain words; and I have nothing to gain by attempting to translate your meanings into the conventional meanings of political philosophy. And I daresay that few if any other political philosophers would want to get bogged down in such debates either.

You don't seem to want advice from me, but I will give you some anyway. Your interest in propriety communities is admirable, but to use this notion as a club with which to beat anarchists on the head leads nowhere, given that the notion of proprietary communities has long been a recurring theme in anarchist literature. I honestly cannot figure out why you insist on linking all this stuff to some grand refutation of Rothbardian anarchism. If you want to smash Rothbardian anarchists, then begin with their actual positions and argument and go from there.

Ghs

[sjw]

I will make some general comments now, but you will not like what I am going to say. I know this because of your reactions to similar comments by me on the "Overgrown Teenagers" thread.

Sigh... More and more and more ad hominem. Why can you not stop? Just deal with the ideas. Either something is true or false, and that's all that matters George, not your emotional feelings about who will like what for what reasons. Seriously. Knock it off.

It is obvious, however, that if, as you state above, you have decided to "tack the word 'government' onto the right solution," then any institution involved in the "right solution" will necessarily be a "government," by definition. You have thus ruled out any anarchistic "right solution" beforehand through a linguistic coup.

Actually, you are the one claiming through linguistic coup. You claim that since so and so said such and such was anarchism, that there is no longer any reason to examine the sensibility of using that term. I on the other hand have a lengthy argument (see the essay) that specifies the reasons why I choose the term "government" to refer to the institution(s) that enforce the law of the land.

Though you may have reasons for wanting to use the word "government" as you do, your usage has no relevance to the substance of the anarchism/minarchism debate, as this debate has manifested itself for over forty years.

First things first. Much of the substance of the debate has been anarchists arguing with totalitarian minarchists like Pete Taylor. I'll deal with the likes of him later, maybe, but when someone blatantly rejects the ethics of liberty, it is hard to consider that person worthy of arguing with. I think it's best to start with people who either take the ethics seriously, or at least allege to, which is why I am taking on the anarchists first.

Another problem that arose on the "overgrown teenagers" thread has to do with your conception of "law." You use the term "law" in a very idiosyncratic way.

Throughout all of human history human beings have been using "law" in an idiosyncratic way -- they've been ramming unjust rules down everyone's throats. You shouldn't be complaining when I design a system of law that is based on actual consent.

I honestly cannot figure out why you insist on linking all this stuff to some grand refutation of Rothbardian anarchism. If you want to smash Rothbardian anarchists, then begin with their actual positions and argument and go from there.

If I had wanted to refute Rothbard I would have done so, but he's just one of many variants. I wish to deal with all individualist/market anarchists in fundamental terms, not just Rothbard.

Shayne

[sjw]

Regarding Rothbardian anarchism, if people in a given city-state (per my definition) don't want it, and I wouldn't want the institutions of justice engaged in profit-seeking (except on the smallest possible scale: the individual employee), then there's no justification for forcing it upon them. So it is clear that Rothbardian anarchism is just a possible variation, it is not a fundamental ideal. Go ahead and have your Rothbardian city-state if that's what you and your associates want, we'll see how it all turns out for you.

Shayne

[George H. Smith]

I will make some general comments now, but you will not like what I am going to say. I know this because of your reactions to similar comments by me on the "Overgrown Teenagers" thread.

Sigh... More and more and more ad hominem. Why can you not stop? Just deal with the ideas. Either something is true or false, and that's all that matters George, not your emotional feelings about who will like what for what reasons. Seriously. Knock it off.

Knock what off? I said that you would not like what I have to say, given your negative reactions when I said the same things on another thread. Where is the "ad hominem" here? What do you mean by this expression? I didn't even criticize you in the quoted passage. If you responded negatively a month ago, why would I not assume that you would react the same way now to the same points? And was my prediction wrong?

This sort of off-the-wall response by you, which has no connection with anything I said, makes it impossible to carry on a reasonable discussion with you. I see no point in even making the attempt any longer.

Ghs

[sjw]

which has no connection with anything I said, makes it impossible to carry on a reasonable discussion with you.

Uh huh. Speaking of no connections with what I said, if you want to address what I said on that thread then do it on that thread. This thread is about the essay I wrote, and your remarks here have no connection to that.

Shayne

[George H. Smith]

It is obvious, however, that if, as you state above, you have decided to "tack the word 'government' onto the right solution," then any institution involved in the "right solution" will necessarily be a "government," by definition. You have thus ruled out any anarchistic "right solution" beforehand through a linguistic coup.

Actually, you are the one claiming through linguistic coup. You claim that since so and so said such and such was anarchism, that there is no longer any reason to examine the sensibility of using that term. I on the other hand have a lengthy argument (see the essay) that specifies the reasons why I choose the term "government" to refer to the institution(s) that enforce the law of the land.

I have said that your characterization of anarchism should describe some anarchists, somewhere. But what you presented was a weird caricature spun out of your own head. If what you depicted is truly anarchism, then the rest of your argument is unnecessary, because I agree with you at the outset that "anarchism" is absurd. So we have nothing to argue about. You win, hands down. Congratulations!

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

which has no connection with anything I said, makes it impossible to carry on a reasonable discussion with you.

Uh huh. Speaking of no connections with what I said, if you want to address what I said on that thread then do it on that thread. This thread is about the essay I wrote, and your remarks here have no connection to that.

Shayne

You specifically asked me to respond one of your posts on this thread. If you don't want me to respond on this thread, then don't ask me to.

I have no plans to read your article. Why would I waste my time doing this, when it is obvious by page 2 that your refutation concerns a position that I have never heard of and don't care about. I am interested in the type of anarchism that has actually been espoused by anarchists. Should you ever write a critique of that viewpoint, let me know, and I will happily read your article.

Ghs

[sjw]

I have no plans to read your essay. Why would I waste my time doing this, when it is obvious by page 2

I addressed your objection.

If you don't want to read it that's fine, but don't then dogmatically pretend to know what I'm talking about. You haven't a clue.

Shayne

[George H. Smith]

I have no plans to read your essay. Why would I waste my time doing this, when it is obvious by page 2

I addressed your objection.

If you don't want to read it that's fine, but don't then dogmatically pretend to know what I'm talking about. You haven't a clue.

Shayne

I agree that I don't presently have a clue what you are talking about. I can live with this. What concens me is the likelihood that I won't have a clue what you are talking about even after I read your article.

Okay, enough of this amusing chit-chat. I have another post to write for my own thread.

Ghs

[sjw]

I have no plans to read your essay. Why would I waste my time doing this, when it is obvious by page 2

I addressed your objection.

If you don't want to read it that's fine, but don't then dogmatically pretend to know what I'm talking about. You haven't a clue.

Shayne

I agree that I don't presently have a clue what you are talking about. I can live with this. What concens me is the likelihood that I won't have a clue what you are talking about even after I read your article.

Okay, enough of this amusing chit-chat. I have another post to write for my own thread.

Ghs

So it's settled. All you have to offer is ad hominem.

Shayne

[George H. Smith]

So it's settled. All you have to offer is ad hominem.

Sad but true. Your refutation of a type of anarchism that no one has ever defended proved so devastating as to leave me no idea of how to respond by rational means.

You have shattered my reputation as a leading anarchist theoretician. A reputation that took decades to build, a reputation that survived public debates with John Hospers, Tibor Machan, and others -- even two debates with Phil Coates! -- gone, all gone. My life is over. I don't think I shall ever be able to recover. The only happiness I can hope for now is to launch ad hominem attacks against Shayne Wissler.

Yes, it is settled.....

Ghs

[Peter]

George wrote to “Practical(ly) an Anarchist”:

This sort of off-the-wall response by you, which has no connection with anything I said, makes it impossible to carry on a reasonable discussion with you. I see no point in even making the attempt any longer . . . because I agree with you at the outset that "anarchism" is absurd. So we have nothing to argue about.

end quote

I thought George had something in the works when he wrote his parody. We are still waiting to see the schematics.

What could people work for to establish a *just government?*

Not anarchy, for a *just anarchic society* as George has concluded, is a shadow – a lack of just government leads to gangs, brutality, and dictatorships. It always has, every time. I defy any anarchist, rational, practical or whomever, to get the concept off the drawing board. As George H. Smith has mentioned, anarchism is the albatross around the neck of Libertarianism. A mention of anarchy as a viable form of social contract, brings on derision. Anarchism is irrational. Anarchists are portrayed as cross-eyed, bomb throwing, mad hatters. Is that prejudice speaking or is it a rational assessment?

What could people work for to establish a *just limited government?*

Limited government, as known up until now, has various offshoots. Limited constitutional government since the universal denial of the divine rights of kings has lead to a stronger actuality of individual rights up until around the 1900’s, with the ups and downs expected of any human endeavor. Since then, limited constitutional governments have all resulted in a lessening of individual liberties up until this very day. We sell our freedom for a promise of security, imposed fairness, and the majority’s religious morality.

Different variations have been tried that sound promising on paper. Some frequent headlines of a free press in societies under limited government are;

For Parliaments: “Vote of no confidence! New government sworn in.”

And for the United States, “approval rating for President dips below the 50 percent range,” “change is in the wind,” and “landslide victory!”

But the inexorable loss of liberty continues.

Some schemes I know of to establish a *just government* are “renewable contracts for government voted upon every twenty years,” as with Jefferson’s periodically dipping the social contract into the blood of tyrants and of its citizens.

Another scheme is governments as voluntary *social insurance* though I can’t figure out how that would work. It sounds too much like anarchy, or hiring competing, private security firms for insurance, which will inevitably lead to warfare and a loss of liberty.

What can work to establish a *just government?*

Nothing envisioned up until now has worked better than the American Constitution, but it needs improvement. I can imagine George, saying that is too easy a solution and here we go again.

George Costanza just wrote to Shine Whistler, “I am interested in the type of anarchism that has actually been espoused by anarchists . . . Okay, enough of this amusing chit-chat. I have another post to write for my own thread”

So nothing real, George? I call upon George H. Smith to ante up. Your history of anarchic literature is as interesting as Icelandic Sagas but it is an exercise in futility, without the kicker. What will work? Empty your pockets. Show me the beef, or as Ayn would say, show me a pork chop!

Peter Taylor

Edited March 29, 2011 by Peter Taylor

[sjw]

I thought George had something in the works when he wrote his parody. We are still waiting to see the schematics.

So nothing real, George? I call upon George H. Smith to ante up.

Evidently, the only weapons he has left are derision. Evidently, I have removed all other rhetorical weapons from him.

Shayne

[Brant Gaede]

By focusing on government or its lack, anarchism and minarchism, instead of individual rights, any debate or argument will eventually devolve into a turf war. It is entirely incongruous because you can't get there--an ideal polity--from here that way. It's really all individual rights, critical and honest thinking, education. That's where the action should be. No system can reform human beings. The system eventually conforms to how people are, though it can mess them up badly first and then continue to mess them up consequently.

--Brant

Edited March 29, 2011 by Brant Gaede

[sjw]

By focusing on government or its lack, anarchism and minarchism, instead of individual rights, any debate or argument will eventually devolve into a turf war. It is entirely incongruous because you can't get there--an ideal polity--from here that way. It's really all individual rights, critical and honest thinking, education. That's where the action should be. No system can reform human beings. The system eventually conforms to how people are, though it can mess them up badly first and then continue to mess them up consequently.

--Brant

You are absolutely right that the fundamental has to be education, honest thinking, etc. about individual rights. But this debate is not "instead of individual rights", it's "as a consequence of individual rights." The anarchist/minarchist debate is about what the ideals of liberty mean in the real world.

You can't just sit on the fence. Either government of a certain kind is valid or anarchism is. It can't be both. It can't not matter.

Shayne

[George H. Smith]

So nothing real, George? I call upon George H. Smith to ante up. Your history of anarchic literature is as interesting as Icelandic Sagas but it is an exercise in futility, without the kicker. What will work? Empty your pockets. Show me the beef, or as Ayn would say, show me a pork chop!

We went through this stuff a little over a year ago, shortly after I became active again on OL. You are as confused now as you were then. Read our earlier exchanges if you can't remember my points.

I have made no effort to give historical precedents of anarchistic societies, and I have no intention of doing so. I therefore have no idea what you are talking about when you refer to my "history of anarchic" literature. Such a history would be completely irrelevant to the points I have been making or will be making. I cited Jefferson's views on the anarchistic nature of Indian tribes to illustrate Jefferson's own opinions of societies without government.

One last thing: I don't appreciate the misrepresentation of my views regarding anarchism in your post. You have strung together snippets of things I said here and there, wrenching many of them from their context and then connecting them with ellipses. You have also paraphrased some of my comments in a highly inaccurate manner. The result is that you have me saying things I never said. I am not talking about mistaken interpretations here; I am talking about falsifying quotations, in effect.

We are going to have a very serious problem if you continue to do this. Specifically, I will pester Michael to get you booted off OL. I don't mind dealing with your philosophical nonsense, but I will not tolerate having you gerrymander my quoted remarks in such a way as to seriously distort or (in some cases) reverse my intended meaning. I might even tolerate this to some extent if readers had some way of checking my original posts, but you don't even give them this option.

Ghs

[sjw]

We are going to have a very serious problem if you continue to do this. Specifically, I will pester Michael to get you booted off OL. I don't mind dealing with your philosophical nonsense, but I will not tolerate having you gerrymander my quoted remarks in such a way as to seriously distort or (in some cases) reverse my intended meaning. I might even tolerate this to some extent if readers had some way of checking my original posts, but you don't even give them this option.

Ghs

Well, at least something gets you pissed off at the totalitarian minarchist (not that I blame you, I hate being misquoted too).

Shayne

[George H. Smith]

I thought George had something in the works when he wrote his parody. We are still waiting to see the schematics.

So nothing real, George? I call upon George H. Smith to ante up.

Evidently, the only weapons he has left are derision. Evidently, I have removed all other rhetorical weapons from him.

Shayne

I was driven to the dialogue form because you didn't understand the problem when I expressed it in the standard format. Then you wanted a third formulation. I thought about doing it as a coloring book, but since stick figures are the only people I can draw, there would not have been much to color in.

Ghs