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Wednesday, November 5, 2014 - 4:37pmSanction this postReply
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That was an exceptionally well argued piece, Joe!  It was a pleasure to sanction.

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The ideal [under anarchy] is that these [defence] agencies will get along and not use violence against each other. But if that's the assumption you need to make in order to argue that government is unnecessary, everything that follows is pure delusion. Why not just assume that nobody will use force, and remove the need for the protection agencies themselves?

Brilliant observation!

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...Government, when viewed as a method instead of as a group of people, is ... a solution.

I really like that because it frames government as a human invention that is applied to achieve a purpose.  And that is so important in this context because the alternative, the government as a group who are always bad, or always good, misses the point and ends up as an argument not unlike the identity politics of the Progressives that seek to divide people into 'good' and 'bad' groups for propoganda purposes and use emotionalism instead of reason.  When we identify the proper purpose of government it gives us the standard by which we measure the usefullness of a given structure, or the success or failure of a given application.  It gives us some of the intellectual tools needed to change government.  The anarchists, by demonizing "government" as such, throw away those tools.

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...a protection agency that has gone rogue. The clients have no control over the organization, and no way to change its policies except by quitting and joining another agency. But this method of control only works if the rogue agency allows them to leave. If not, then it becomes a kind of dictatorship. The ruling class make all of the decisions, and the 'clients' are mere serfs.

Well said.  Those anarchists who point at all the bad governments through history, and how they have made people into serfs are making a bad argument, not unlike pointing that early medicine once butchered people, doing more harm than good, so all medicine should be thrown out.

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The whole discussion of protection agencies is based on the assumption that rights can and will be violated unless they are protected by someone.  Assuming from the start that the right to walk away is unlike other rights and won't need protection leaves the entire anarchic ideal in shambles.  It begs the question.  It assumes that which it is trying to prove.  It assumes that protection agencies will not violate those rights in order to prove that protection agencies will not violate those rights.

 

Impeccable logic.  A joy to read.  

 

The anarchist's basic fallacy is in using "free enterprise" as a context within which they claim that competition will only let the desirable agencies survive and thus justice will, they claim, become a product of competition... the flaw is that for there to be "free enterprise" there must already be something that is suppressing the initiation of force as a means of competition - that is what "free" means in this context.

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...disagreements over the use of force can lead to additional violence, and is the function that gives rise to government. And it can only work when an organization spanning the entire relevant populace (like in a geographic region) is created. 

Absolutely - this is what I call the needed monopoly of a set of laws over a given jurisdiction.  The purpose of government is to provide the best possible environment for individual rights, and to do that there must be a definition of the acts that violate those rights - laws.  And those laws must be created (legislative function) and enforced (administrative) and adjudicated.  (And they must be known in advance, stable over time, understandable, and objectively constructed.) 



Post 1

Thursday, November 6, 2014 - 9:48pmSanction this postReply
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"...the use of force can lead to conflicts. This is because judgment of the appropriateness of any use of force is not automatic and universal. People can legitimately disagree on whether someone is guilty or innocent. People can legitimately disagree on the how severe a punishment should be in any particular situation. If force can only be used when there is universal agreement, we would be left defenseless against criminals and criminal agencies."

 

In a case two defense agencies are representing clients on different sides of a dispute, they would have to sit down and work things out so both parties get a fair hearing. In a stateless society, defense agencies would have to develop established procedures for this situation, given how common it would end up being. An agency would also have far more to gain in terms of profit by adhering to such a procedure than by going to war over every dispute. Fighting a war costs a lot money, which charging/taxing more of clients/citizens, which it's a lot harder to do when everyone has a right to secede whenever they want.

 

There would also likely be customary procedures in place, which agencies would follow for purposes of expediency.

 

"A government provides a solution to this problem."

 

Except when the government itself is the aggressor. In that case, its citizens have no recourse, leading to income taxes, limitations on free trade, mass surveillance, concentration camps, and genocide.

 

"The clients have no control over the organization, and no way to change its policies except by quitting and joining another agency. But this method of control only works if the rogue agency allows them to leave. If not, then it becomes a kind of dictatorship."

 

Statists will also argue that we need food safety regulations, because otherwise people will be eating poison. The proper response is that people should be free to take whatever risks they choose. This same response applies to the protection of rights.

 

I will acknowledge that the two issues are different in one respect. It is true that the legal system has a role in preventing fraud, and this can extend to punishing companies that commit fraud by selling products that genuinely harm customers. Obviously this argument wouldn't apply to competing rights protection agencies. However, I would still argue that it is a risk people should be free to take, and that people are better off having even the nominal freedom to secede if they mistrust an agency's policies, than being forced to rely on the good graces of a monopoly state, and having no recourse whatsoever if the government becomes a dictatorship and decides to throw them in a concentration camp. Also, it's likely that insurance policies would exist to provide for emergency protection in case someone's defense agency did become a dictatorship and try to prevent them from leaving, is that became enough of a problem.

"If outsiders do need to get involved, they need a way of determining which use of force was inappropriate, and what the appropriate response to it should be.... And this requires that principles/rules/laws are decided upon (legislative) and that those policies are applied to specific cases (judicial)."

The NAP covers the legislative part of that. The judicial system could take multiple different forms. A system of common judges would be one example. I guess the biggest issue would be deciding who is qualified to be a judge and who isn't, which would require some sort of agreement among the various agencies.

"This is the same problem as the first problem, that disagreements over the use of force can lead to additional violence, and is the function that gives rise to government. And it can only work when an organization spanning the entire relevant populace (like in a geographic region) is created. And this creates a dilemma for anarchism."

Here's a question: Let's say that some sort of organization exists which is analogous to a government. Now let's say that someone decides to start a defense agency which exists outside the government. They only enforce their laws on consenting clients, they do not initiate force against anyone outside the agency, and if someone has a grievance against someone under the protection of the government or a rival agency, they don't make an arrest until they have a warrant from a judge.Meanwhile, the judicial system is altered so that judges are appointed based on mutual agreement among all existing rights protection agencies, including the government (Or, to be more practical, an established system which in amenable to all existing agencies), all defense agencies are given the right to petition for a judge to be removed from the bench in response to a particular grievance, and all affected parties are allowed an equal voice in this process. All legitimate existing defense agencies are also allowed to participate in the process of establishing and (If necessary) modifying the procedure established for appointing judges, and are also given an equal voice.Now, keep in mind, any rational person will choose to seek a peaceful process, and the government would have a right to refuse to negotiate with anyone who is not willing to negotiate in good faith. In this case, it is an objective fact that the agency being excluded from the process has acted in a manner which has abdicated their right to participate.I would consider this to be a system which is morally superior to the existing one. I would also consider it equivalent to anarchy.



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Post 2

Friday, November 7, 2014 - 11:19amSanction this postReply
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In a case two defense agencies are representing clients on different sides of a dispute, they would have to sit down and work things out so both parties get a fair hearing. 

But that isn't so.  They don't have to sit down and work things out.  One or both can choose to use force.  You say that they wouldn't because it wouldn't be in their interest to do so.  But they may not know that, they may not care, and there will be times when it will be in their interest - in the sense that they can get away with it.  As Joe says, your assumption that defense agencies will sit down and work things out is an assumption that can be applied to people - we could say that individuals will sit down and work things out and that would mean we don't need defence agencies.  

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You point out that government is often the aggressor (initiates force).  That's true.  In the issue of the initiation of force versus the respect of individual rights there are four possible types of actions: Private party actions to violate rights, private parties actions respecting rights, governments actions respecting rights, and government actions violating rights.  This points out that it is the nature of the act, not the actor that should be our focus.

 

Anarchy is a self-made blindness to the use of government to protect rights, and a blindness to the fact that government can't be thrown out for long since warring factions that will arise in the absence of a government will soon lead to a monopoly on the violation of rights by the strongest group of thugs.  A proper government is the only hope.

 

You really need to read Joe's article again and try to answer his arguments more carefully.

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I would still argue that it [the right to take whatever risks they want] is a risk people should be free to take, and that people are better off having even the nominal freedom to secede if they mistrust an agency's policies, than being forced to rely on the good graces of a monopoly state, and having no recourse whatsoever if the government becomes a dictatorship and decides to throw them in a concentration camp. Also, it's likely that insurance policies would exist to provide for emergency protection in case someone's defense agency did become a dictatorship and try to prevent them from leaving, is that became enough of a problem.

 

Who grants and provides the right to secede from a defense agency?  There is no magical Anarchy Fairy that will make defense agencies protect rights if they happen to think they might profit from violating them, nor will that magical fairy protect an individual's right to walk away from a defense agency.  With anarchy there is no market free of the use of force, so competition will include the use of force, so anarchy can't bring justice any more often than it brings injustice.

 

Again, if there is a government based upon individual rights, then we want there to be a monopoly of those rights, and those laws.  To say otherwise is to repudiate the very concept of rights.  Just as there is but one set of natural rights, there should be but one set of laws.  And if they aren't enforced, they aren't useful, and it is rights that aren't protected.

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The NAP covers the legislative part of that. The judicial system could take multiple different forms. A system of common judges would be one example. I guess the biggest issue would be deciding who is qualified to be a judge and who isn't, which would require some sort of agreement among the various agencies.

I'm sorry, but that makes no sense.  Why would everyone agree to NAP?  And how does that happen - do we all answer some kind of call to go to a meeting in our neighborhood and shake hands?  And if it isn't an enforceable agreement then it is just a kind of intellectual masturbation.  If it is enforceable, it is a call for a centralized authority of some sort.  Either it can enforce its rules or it can't in which case it doesn't answer the problem.  The ABC Progressive Defence Agency won't accept any judge that isn't in favor of forceful redistribution of wealth. While the Libertarian Defence Agency of New York won't have any part of that.  Agreement?  No way.  And when a judge, any judge, makes a ruling, there is no ability to enforce it but to use force - and there we go, the use force by one faction against another.

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Here's a question: Let's say that some sort of organization exists which is analogous to a government. Now let's say that someone decides to start a defense agency which exists outside the government. They only enforce their laws on consenting clients, they do not initiate force against anyone outside the agency...

 

If the agency has its own laws, and they can enforce them on anyone, then people can find themselves subject to rights violations.  Why advocate for a system that encourages the 'legitimazation' of laws that violate rights?  What you are advocating here is identical to an organization that arises to enforce Sharia law on all who join up.  Voluntary Sharia is far, far better than involuntary, but why would you want it?  And how do you enforce the voluntary nature of the membership?  You can't without a government that has at least some laws and some powers of enforcement that span the entire geographic area and include the Sharia organization and its members.  If you don't have that you will have forced Sharia arising and you will have no way to stop it.  If you do have that, you don't have anarchy.

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Meanwhile, the judicial system is altered so that judges are appointed based on mutual agreement among all existing rights protection agencies, including the government (Or, to be more practical, an established system which in amenable to all existing agencies), all defense agencies are given the right to petition for a judge to be removed from the bench in response to a particular grievance, and all affected parties are allowed an equal voice in this process. 

Who alters it and how is it altered?  Is it done by our current legislative/constitutional organization?  What is the remaining structure if not a monopoly of law that forces all of the new "judicial system" elements to adhere to the new agreement?  What if some of them just go their own way and don't abide by the "mutual agreement" - if there is no enforcement it doesn't work.  You say all defence agencies are given a right.... given by who?  Enforced by who?  This is a fantasy game where floating abstractions - ideas untethered from reality - pop up like endless Whack-A-Mole non-explanations.

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Now, keep in mind, any rational person will choose to seek a peaceful process, and the government would have a right to refuse to negotiate with anyone who is not willing to negotiate in good faith.

In the real world we have to deal with terrorists, with people like Hitler, Stalin, Po Pot, as well as with the garden variety armed robbers and thieves.  Saying that government would have a right to refuse to negotiate with anyone not willing to negotiate in good faith hardly addresses real world problems.  And where does this government get this "right" of refusal?  Governments don't have natural rights - only individuals do - so it must be a legal right.  What is the structure that includes both the government and those it refuses to negotiate with, and that defines and maintains that legal right?  Who decides what good faith is in any particular case?

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If you are a rational person, you will sit down and think about these issues and realize that even if you don't agree with the logic that anarchy could never work, that you will see that it would be immeasurably easier and more likely that a government could be built and maintained that did a far superior job of protecting individual rights than any of the convoluted anarchy schemes - and protecting individual rights is the purpose behind the entire discussion.



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Post 3

Saturday, November 8, 2014 - 3:50amSanction this postReply
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as long as Homo Sapiens Sapiens is inherently prone to violence (which it's been even before the species was split from their ancestral species) it doesn't much matter whether it's benign agencies under a concept called anarchy who are making the rules or whether it's a government of any flavour of your preference calling the shots (pun intended) ... as long as an individual requires force to protect itself against initiation of force by other individuals there's no way around 'the cave and the club' - just a matter of degree of violence and mind-games required to 'hold the cave' ...

an argument could be made that mankind qua mankind requires, and actually fares better under, a nanny-state as most HomoSaSa seem incapable of even imagining life without such a nanny to keep their hands out of other peoples pockets, minds, lives ;)

let's hope evolution can breed this nasty strain out of mankind or it's doomed to self-destruction ... and rightly so - no such destructive species should be called 'the pinnacle of life on earth'

PS before the 'death-worshipper' arguments start flying: I can and do imagine life capable of living without any force required - first they'd have to lose that stupid fear of losing their miserable little life and second find better ways to upkeep that life on their own - fully completely independently ... that's a life worth defining, not the endless discussions of minarchists vs. anarchists, statists vs. progressives, or whatever is the latest fad to justify the use of force ... they are all the same



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