As an anarchist, I feel as if it is my duty to spread the word about this to someone. I try to explain it to my "friends" (starting to reconsider), but I get responses like "but then that would be the apocalyps!" *high fives friends*, or "people would jus kil eachother! infact i would kil u!!!" *friends laugh*. My family is so close minded and blue pill it would endanger my relationship with them to talk about it. Actually some of my family members are publicly employed, so they feel a sense of gratitude to the government, even though the world would be different without governments and they would have had different opportunities.
What is anarcho-capitalism?
Anarcho-capitalism is the belief that there are two ethical principles. The first is related to anarchy, it is commonly known as the non-aggression principle.
"Though shalt not harm or coerce others"
This is related to anarchy. Why? Ask yourself: What do governments do? They harm and coerce others. Sure, they occasionally do a (debatably) good deed, for example giving money to a poor person, but how did they get that money? From taxing other people. If it's not obvious how that is coercion, try not paying your taxes as an experiment.
The second principle is property rights, which is the basic definition of capitalism.
"Thou shalt respect the property of others"
And digital/intellectual "property" is not property. You are respecting other peoples property by thinking the same thoughts as them, as you are not damaging or stealing it. Torrenting some movies, or having a similar idea to someone else's is not taking anything away from them.
Please post you thoughts/opinions in this thread. I'd like to hear them, and argue with most of you.
I feel forums are going to be a better medium for discussion of this topic than real life because blue pill people can get really stupid when you challenge their view of society, and when they feel threatened they use many tactics that I hope not to see here including: Not listening, claiming you are not listening when you have refuted their arguments, interrupting, calling groups of their beta friends to mock you, threatening to kill you (no joke), etc.
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I petition for a new pack structure: 1 Mythic Rare 3 Rares 5 Uncommons 7 Commons 1 Token/B. Land
But I also propose even distribution of number of cards in each rarity: Large set: 60 c, 60 u, 60 r, 60 m.
Probabilities of particular cards: Common 7/60, Uncommon 1/12, Rare 1/20, Mythic 1/60.
Anarchy doesn't work for a basic fundamental reason: governments provide better circumstances for success and protection. Tell me, why is it that every single time a government collapses, at least one other is built in its place? Even barbarian tribes had organization and hierarchy.
While the non-aggression principle is (at least superficially) a good ethical maxim, the problem that anarcho-capitalism fails to grapple with is that people are not always ethical. And once there is one single violation of the non-aggression principle, the whole thing collapses in on itself.
Because if the NAP is to be violated, then everyone needs the means to resist aggression. Suddenly everyone needs a private army, whoever has the largest private army annexes or co-opts the others, that person now has a monopoly on violence again, and you're back to what is a de facto if not de jure government!
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A limit of time is fixed for thee
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
I've listened to Stefan Molyneux and other podcasts from Freedomainradio as well, interesting stuff...
And digital/intellectual "property" is not property. You are respecting other peoples property by thinking the same thoughts as them, as you are not damaging or stealing it. Torrenting some movies, or having a similar idea to someone else's is not taking anything away from them.
Here's the problem...
If I own a tomato plant, would you not call it my "property"?
I'm sure you would.
So if the tomato plant is my property, I'm entitled to reap the tomato's from it am I not?
This ownership would also imply I am entitled to sell the tomato's off my tomato plant and keep the money from their sale.
If I craft a Chair from wood, it is my property is it not? I'm entitled to sit in it, and if I decide to rent it out to other people who need a place to sit, I am entitled to keep the money I make from it's rental.
If I make a movie, it is my property, like the chair I built, or the tomato plant I owned. The fruit it produces is "entertainment".
Since I own the movie (I made it), I can sell the "entertainment" from it to people who desire to be entertained, just like any other free market transaction, and keep the money as my profits.
This is in fact, the fruits of my labor.
Someone who would take my movie without my permission, and/or without paying me for that fruit it produces, is committing theft are they not?
They might as well be sneaking into my garden and picking my tomato's without payment or permission.
They are taking the fruits of my labor without just compensation.
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Thanks to Xenphire @ Inkfox for the amazing new sig
“Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by slight ligaments
are we bound to prosperity and ruin.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
I think that your first and second principle are in direct conflict of one another. Property ownership is an act of violence and coercion, and the links you provided attest to this.
1. The obvious: anarchy is absolutely ridiculous. If you think human beings behave in ****ty ways to one another with laws, just wait until you remove them.
2. We've learned from the Industrial Revolution that unrestricted capitalism doesn't work.
In fact, unregulated capitalism will inevitably lead to a market that is not free, as you'll have nothing to prevent monopolies from forming and destroying all competition.
(Or, y'know, enslaving everyone, because **** laws.)
I've listened to Stefan Molyneux and other podcasts from Freedomainradio as well, interesting stuff...
And digital/intellectual "property" is not property. You are respecting other peoples property by thinking the same thoughts as them, as you are not damaging or stealing it. Torrenting some movies, or having a similar idea to someone else's is not taking anything away from them.
Here's the problem...
If I own a tomato plant, would you not call it my "property"?
I'm sure you would.
So if the tomato plant is my property, I'm entitled to reap the tomato's from it am I not?
This ownership would also imply I am entitled to sell the tomato's off my tomato plant and keep the money from their sale.
If I craft a Chair from wood, it is my property is it not? I'm entitled to sit in it, and if I decide to rent it out to other people who need a place to sit, I am entitled to keep the money I make from it's rental.
If I make a movie, it is my property, like the chair I built, or the tomato plant I owned. The fruit it produces is "entertainment".
Since I own the movie (I made it), I can sell the "entertainment" from it to people who desire to be entertained, just like any other free market transaction, and keep the money as my profits.
This is in fact, the fruits of my labor.
Someone who would take my movie without my permission, and/or without paying me for that fruit it produces, is committing theft are they not?
They might as well be sneaking into my garden and picking my tomato's without payment or permission.
They are taking the fruits of my labor without just compensation.
The movie you made is not property. The VHS/DVD that you manufactured and burned the movie into is your DVD. If I buy a blank DVD, it is my DVD, and if I burn your movie into it, then it is my DVD.
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I petition for a new pack structure: 1 Mythic Rare 3 Rares 5 Uncommons 7 Commons 1 Token/B. Land
But I also propose even distribution of number of cards in each rarity: Large set: 60 c, 60 u, 60 r, 60 m.
Probabilities of particular cards: Common 7/60, Uncommon 1/12, Rare 1/20, Mythic 1/60.
I've listened to Stefan Molyneux and other podcasts from Freedomainradio as well, interesting stuff...
And digital/intellectual "property" is not property. You are respecting other peoples property by thinking the same thoughts as them, as you are not damaging or stealing it. Torrenting some movies, or having a similar idea to someone else's is not taking anything away from them.
Here's the problem...
If I own a tomato plant, would you not call it my "property"?
I'm sure you would.
So if the tomato plant is my property, I'm entitled to reap the tomato's from it am I not?
This ownership would also imply I am entitled to sell the tomato's off my tomato plant and keep the money from their sale.
If I craft a Chair from wood, it is my property is it not? I'm entitled to sit in it, and if I decide to rent it out to other people who need a place to sit, I am entitled to keep the money I make from it's rental.
If I make a movie, it is my property, like the chair I built, or the tomato plant I owned. The fruit it produces is "entertainment".
Since I own the movie (I made it), I can sell the "entertainment" from it to people who desire to be entertained, just like any other free market transaction, and keep the money as my profits.
This is in fact, the fruits of my labor.
Someone who would take my movie without my permission, and/or without paying me for that fruit it produces, is committing theft are they not?
They might as well be sneaking into my garden and picking my tomato's without payment or permission.
They are taking the fruits of my labor without just compensation.
The movie you made is not property. The VHS/DVD that you manufactured and burned the movie into is your DVD. If I buy a blank DVD, it is my DVD, and if I burn your movie into it, then it is my DVD.
Not sure if serious, or just ignorant.
Figure it out, and then we can talk.
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Thanks to Xenphire @ Inkfox for the amazing new sig
“Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by slight ligaments
are we bound to prosperity and ruin.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
I'm trying to understand how a movie is like a tomato plant. Are you saying if I have a tomato plant just like yours, I am not allowed to grow tomatoes?
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I petition for a new pack structure: 1 Mythic Rare 3 Rares 5 Uncommons 7 Commons 1 Token/B. Land
But I also propose even distribution of number of cards in each rarity: Large set: 60 c, 60 u, 60 r, 60 m.
Probabilities of particular cards: Common 7/60, Uncommon 1/12, Rare 1/20, Mythic 1/60.
The non-aggression principle is often stated as an axiom (or in your case, a commandment), but it's really dependent on a formulation of what rights people possess, and therefore not a knock-down argument for any political philosophy.
And really, even if most everyone agrees on a package of natural rights, those rights need to be enforced in some way. And that capacity for force, IMO, is best centralized in a single, democratically accountable entity... i.e. a form of government. Maybe it's a failure of imagination on my part but "competitive providers of force" just screams "roving mercenary warbands" to me.
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Do I Contradict Myself? Very Well Then I Contradict Myself.
I'm trying to understand how a movie is like a tomato plant. Are you saying if I have a tomato plant just like yours, I am not allowed to grow tomatoes?
First, the DVD is not the fruit of my labor, the movie is. I likely bought the DVD's I used to distribute my movie from the same people you did. The DVD is the fruit of THEIR labor. Did you steal the DVD's you are using to burn said intellectual fruit?
Second, from where did you GET the movie to burn onto the DVD you own?
Where did that movie come from?
From me. From my mind, and from my labor. (and likely from the combined labor of everyone who helped me, which they likely did for pay or compensation)
And thus, like the tomato plant which I raised in my garden, I watered it, fertilized it, and gave it sunlight. The finished movie is the fruit blossomed from the plant. The DVD's I used, are simply akin to the produce truck I use to take the tomato's from my tomato plant to the market. If you use a produce truck to carry the tomato's you stole from me, this does not mean you have not stolen them.
They remain the fruit of my labor, and by taking said fruit without giving me the just compensation that fruit is worth, you have committed theft.
For even in the libertarian voluntary free market, each owns his labor, do they not? The NAP even declares that my labor is MINE, I own it, which is why slavery is unjust.
So by taking the movie without compensation, you have taken my labor without compensation.
I am pretty sure every anarchist, or anarcho-capitalist would agree that each laborer owns their labor, which is why they are allowed to sell their labor to others.
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Thanks to Xenphire @ Inkfox for the amazing new sig
“Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by slight ligaments
are we bound to prosperity and ruin.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
(Or, y'know, enslaving everyone, because **** laws.)
Enslaving someone makes you, by definition, their government.
Mad Mat posted an appropriate response to this.
Another appropriate response to this would be, "So what?" People enslave each other even when there are laws forbidding slavery and when there are contingents of armed men tasked specifically to stop such a thing from occurring. What the hell do you think is going to happen when you take those away?
The movie you made is not property. The VHS/DVD that you manufactured and burned the movie into is your DVD. If I buy a blank DVD, it is my DVD, and if I burn your movie into it, then it is my DVD.
While the non-aggression principle is (at least superficially) a good ethical maxim, the problem that anarcho-capitalism fails to grapple with is that people are not always ethical. And once there is one single violation of the non-aggression principle, the whole thing collapses in on itself.
It's not just that. It assumes that harm and coercion are easily (and without cost) quantified or even discerned. That we can actually agree on what they are.
It's not like there are laws. It is the beauty of anarchy that people can believe in anything they want to without being punished for it.
Anarcho-capitalism is yet another thought experiment that attempts to model an ideal society based on as few rules as possible. It ignores this way that the complexity of our current rules systems has a reason and that human beings and the environment they operate in and interact with does not conform well to simplistic models. At all.
Give an example? What you're saying is quite abstract.
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I petition for a new pack structure: 1 Mythic Rare 3 Rares 5 Uncommons 7 Commons 1 Token/B. Land
But I also propose even distribution of number of cards in each rarity: Large set: 60 c, 60 u, 60 r, 60 m.
Probabilities of particular cards: Common 7/60, Uncommon 1/12, Rare 1/20, Mythic 1/60.
As an anarchist, I feel as if it is my duty to spread the word about this to someone. I try to explain it to my "friends" (starting to reconsider), but I get responses like "but then that would be the apocalyps!" *high fives friends*, or "people would jus kil eachother! infact i would kil u!!!" *friends laugh*.
What is your counterargument to your friends' point? What would stop people from killing each other whenever they felt like it?
Anarcho-capitalism is the belief that there are two ethical principles. The first is related to anarchy, it is commonly known as the non-aggression principle.
"Though shalt not harm or coerce others"
[. . .]
"Thou shalt respect the property of others"
What makes these statements true? Is it just your personal belief, or can you prove to me that they're true?
Assuming these statements are true, why do you believe that everyone will follow them in an anarcho-capitalist society? "Stealing is wrong" is a true statement, but lots of people steal anyway.
I feel forums are going to be a better medium for discussion of this topic than real life because blue pill people can get really stupid when you challenge their view of society, and when they feel threatened they use many tactics that I hope not to see here including: Not listening, claiming you are not listening when you have refuted their arguments, interrupting, calling groups of their beta friends to mock you, threatening to kill you (no joke), etc.
It's not like there are laws. It is the beauty of anarchy that people can believe in anything they want to without being punished for it.
I believe that your shiny bauble is mine. Good thing anarchy doesn't advocate me being punished for it.
Actually, anarchy, according to the very links you provided, says it's fine for people to hurt me for that. Heck, they are allowed to initiate threats of violence against me even if I haven't taken or intend to take your bauble.
So, again, I ask, how do you reconcile that the two principles of anarchy are in direct conflict with one another?
I'm a minority, why should I believe in something that someone wrote in a book about a hypothetical reality whenever I know, from other people that look like me who lived in the past and some are still alive today, that some people will treat me like garbage and try to destroy my life for being "uppity." I have seen racism, I have seen other forms of evil from humanity. And I married a white woman, produced 2.5 kids, and continue to have relations with the same woman. I would be hanged for even looking at my wife in the right time and place. From a very, very basic security concern the government has kept me safe from certain sectarian violence groups with long histories of racism.
I am educated, safe, productive, married, working, and comfortable. You're asking me to completely change my way of life to commit towards an ideology because some people don't like the government? Then risk my family's life and my own personal safety from a nation that has had a long history of hating foreigners and people of color.
1. Show me where this has worked, specifically in the modern age
2. Where evidence is available, data on per capita violence is higher in places like the Wild West with a lack of government than modern New York City. I'm safer as a "colored" in the middle of modern NYC than I am walking around in some random western town.
What self interest do I have in this experiment, considering the past socio-cultural influence would consider me to flee to Canada if we would embark on such an experiment?
If you have failed to achieve min-anarchism, why should I trust you on anarchism? I'm all for a small area to try this out and to see if a city could live like that, beyond that it would take physical hard evidence of that nature to even begin to approach reforms towards that level.
I look at people that look like me, and thanks to the federal government our quality of life has gradually, gradually, gradually very much improved.
I hate to bring race into a point about this, but I just don't see people of color really embracing this philosophy en mass. Whether that's the tribes, who would just continue to be tribes. African Americans are largely sided to liberal, at the very least statists. Most Hispanics, black or white, aren't anarchist at all and with ideologies like Peronism quite the opposite. Whites are a more varied group, however most of the massive clusters are quite statist.
I just do not see anywhere you can justify embarking on a project without the necessary leadership coming from rich people to colonize a particular, peculiar place. However, when you consider city-states that run off of capitalist ends like those in the Middle East. We must take the basic axiom, that there will be fundamentalist natures within to their governance structure with Islam. And if we talk about city-states, one must comply that there would be Jewish, Christian, and other such states cropping up very quickly for safe havens.
Then we have to consider colonial history in the Americas... which basically meant these experiments didn't last and led to splintering and border conflict and inevitable conquest.
You are denying your own cultural inheritance bent on a scheme that someone thought up over a few decades. Government is a tool, much like the gun, and to prohibit government, like drugs, would just have government pop back up in a "black market government." Or otherwise known as clans or gangs.
Black market activity in the US, as well as what is called the darknet are all a shadow of what occurs in anarchy.
As for the historical portions, Blinking_Spirit studied Icelandic history and is a historian-philosopher. He had multiple arguments against Icelandic "anarchism." The "not so Wild West argument" we debunked fairly quickly over a Mises article with simple violence per capita statistics comparisons.
I'm very much interested in this debate, but I want something new. Talk about the actual content out of the Costa Rican Libertarian communes and what really have they achieved? I'm just not really seeing it outside of a small group of hippies that may not achieve results, or end up like the Kibbutz movement and go statist.
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Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.
Individualities may form communities, but it is institutions alone that can create a nation.
Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success.
Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.
I try to explain it to my "friends" (starting to reconsider), but I get responses like "but then that would be the apocalyps!" *high fives friends*, or "people would jus kil eachother! infact i would kil u!!!" *friends laugh*. My family is so close minded and blue pill it would endanger my relationship with them to talk about it.
And digital/intellectual "property" is not property. You are respecting other peoples property by thinking the same thoughts as them, as you are not damaging or stealing it. Torrenting some movies, or having a similar idea to someone else's is not taking anything away from them.
Okay, so what is property? That needs a positive definition too.
I feel forums are going to be a better medium for discussion of this topic than real life because blue pill people can get really stupid when you challenge their view of society, and when they feel threatened they use many tactics that I hope not to see here including: Not listening, claiming you are not listening when you have refuted their arguments, interrupting, calling groups of their beta friends to mock you, threatening to kill you (no joke), etc.
More well-poisoning. I could just as easily complain that anarchists (I'm sorry, I don't have a cute little dismissive term like "blue pill people") have committed exactly the same dialectic sins - hell, they've committed them in debates on this site. Yes, even the death threats. We come down on that like a ton of bricks, of course, but that didn't stop one or two guys from trying. I'm not going to make that complaint, though, because that behavior is those people's problem; it has no bearing whatsoever on anarchists in general or on you. I expect you to extend the same courtesy to non-anarchists.
And yes, I see you saying "I hope not to see here". That mitigates the poison not at all. The very act of mentioning these problems before arguments have even been made carries clear implications. If I were to say to you, "You are invited to my dinner party. I hope you don't steal my silverware", surely you'd see the backhanded accusation in that.
In short: superficially polite phrasing notwithstanding, you've clearly got a chip on your shoulder. You need to not.
The movie you made is not property. The VHS/DVD that you manufactured and burned the movie into is your DVD. If I buy a blank DVD, it is my DVD, and if I burn your movie into it, then it is my DVD.
If I buy an empty sack, it is my sack, and if I put your television set into it, it is still my sack. And yet my ownership of the sack does not magically translate to my owning everything that the sack contains; when I walk out of your house with your television in my sack, I have stolen from you. It is perfectly possible for a container owned by one person to contain property owned by another. So nothing about the fact that you own a CD precludes that CD containing another person's property - and if you do not have permission to possess it, containing that property illicitly.
Now, you probably want to say that a movie file is different in some important way from a television set. You may even be tempted to think I'm being stupid by not recognizing the differences on my own. But it's not our responsibility to flesh out your argument for you. Based on what you've said so far, we have no reason not to treat movie files and television sets identically. If you want us not to treat movie files and television sets identically, you should have established that distinction in the first place, rather than focus on this irrelevancy of container ownership.
It's not like there are laws. It is the beauty of anarchy that people can believe in anything they want to without being punished for it.
Here is another beautiful idea: "Human beings are immortal, and if they jump off high places they can fly gloriously through the air." Is the beauty of an idea persuasive reason to adopt it?
The "not so Wild West argument" we debunked fairly quickly over a Mises article with simple violence per capita statistics comparisons.
Ah, yes, that was fun. However, it's not abcabcabc339's argument. That Mises guy was a critical math failure, and the anarcho-capitalist users who repeated his argument here were too credulous to do any independent fact-checking (or, indeed, independent thinking), but we can hope abcabcabc339 will do better than they.
Why yes, I am doing a little backhanded well-poisoning of my own.
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
You know, I was going to bring up the necessity for traffic laws, because that's my usual go-to counter for people advocating a lawless society.
But then it really hit me that the argument is for anarcho-capitalism, as opposed to anarcho-communism. As in capitalism without any government.
Forget traffic laws, how the hell would roads work in an anarcho-capitalistic society?
One of the reasons society functions smoothly is specifically because the government owns things like roads and public utilities. Can you imagine having privatized roads? Or privatized electricity? Imagine having a different set of electrical lines for each provider of electricity.
Or maybe it wouldn't even go that far. Maybe someone would just patent electricity and decide it's theirs. Who knows.
I would love to hear the OP explain how anyone makes any claim to property in an anarchic society. It makes perfect sense in any society with a government. It also isn't a problem in an anarcho-communist society because no one makes any claims to property — and boy is it ever an indication of how backwards anarchy is when communism is actually more sensible than capitalism.
But how, exactly, does an anarchic system with notions of property and property ownership work? Can I just claim whatever I want? What if two people claim the same plot of land?
Forget traffic laws, how the hell would roads work in an anarcho-capitalistic society?[/quotes]
One of the reasons society functions smoothly is specifically because the government owns things like roads and public utilities. Can you imagine having privatized roads? Or privatized electricity? Imagine having a different set of electrical lines for each provider of electricity.
Ah yes, it's the gool ol' "But without government, who will build the roads?" argument.
Perhaps the intended question is, "Who will pay for the roads?" And the answer is, "Whoever uses them." It is likely that local roads will be jointly owned by people that live on a street, who will arrange maintenance; arterials, where there is more opportunity for competition, are more likely to be owned by businesses that will compete for drivers and will collect money via per-use fees (more likely transponders than toll booths -- think modern technology!) or subscriptions.
Last May in Portland, a bunch of people got fed up with the poor service the government provided with the roads. Potholes were littered everywhere. They took matters into their own hands and pooled their money to get a paving company to repair the potholes. Of course, the city of Portland decided that only the governments can build the roads and kept the citizens from trying to repair the roads due to lack of permits.
This is a good example of why "Who will build the roads" is a bad argument against a stateless society. The city clearly did not care about the roads, but the individuals that actually used those roads did. It wasn't until the people decided to get someone else other than the government to fix the roads that got the city to use its monopoly on force to shut down the paving.
This is why a representative government with term limits on most offices sounds so appealing.
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"If you're Havengul problems I feel bad for you son, I got 99 problems and a Lich ain't one." - FSM
"In a world where money talks, silence is horrifying."
Forget traffic laws, how the hell would roads work in an anarcho-capitalistic society?[/quotes]
One of the reasons society functions smoothly is specifically because the government owns things like roads and public utilities. Can you imagine having privatized roads? Or privatized electricity? Imagine having a different set of electrical lines for each provider of electricity.
Ah yes, it's the gool ol' "But without government, who will build the roads?" argument.
Perhaps the intended question is, "Who will pay for the roads?" And the answer is, "Whoever uses them." It is likely that local roads will be jointly owned by people that live on a street, who will arrange maintenance; arterials, where there is more opportunity for competition, are more likely to be owned by businesses that will compete for drivers and will collect money via per-use fees (more likely transponders than toll booths -- think modern technology!) or subscriptions.
Last May in Portland, a bunch of people got fed up with the poor service the government provided with the roads. Potholes were littered everywhere. They took matters into their own hands and pooled their money to get a paving company to repair the potholes. Of course, the city of Portland decided that only the governments can build the roads and kept the citizens from trying to repair the roads due to lack of permits.
This is a good example of why "Who will build the roads" is a bad argument against a stateless society. The city clearly did not care about the roads, but the individuals that actually used those roads did. It wasn't until the people decided to get someone else other than the government to fix the roads that got the city to use its monopoly on force to shut down the paving.
However, it's still easy to see looking back through history that anarchy and pure capitalism do not create optimal circumstances for success. Originally, a system similar to that is already what existed; there was once no governments and no real society, just tribes or random groups, and even then you can see having an organized group is better. And it was a very violent history with little in terms of technological progress. Over time, continuing to this day, people continue to develop a higher functioning form of government because having a government or organized society helps stop people from killing each other and allows the specialization of workers to create industrial scale production of things ranging from food to technology for the average person. Do you think humanity would have the capability to go to the moon without working together in an organized way on a large scale?
Ah yes, it's the gool ol' "But without government, who will build the roads?" argument.
No, I don't give a crap about who will build the roads. I'm asking who will own the roads.
Can you imagine the ridiculousness that would result from privatized roads? Imagine competing road companies demanding that you pick a service provider.
Which is assuming that anyone gets a monopoly on roads and it's not just a fragmented multitude snatching up property wherever they can find because there's no government to regulate who has which property because **** laws.
Forget traffic laws, how the hell would roads work in an anarcho-capitalistic society?
One of the reasons society functions smoothly is specifically because the government owns things like roads and public utilities. Can you imagine having privatized roads? Or privatized electricity? Imagine having a different set of electrical lines for each provider of electricity.
We do actually have privatized roads already. But yeah, there's the "natural monopoly" issue with these things. Not to mention the difficulty securing property rights and limiting usage to just paying customers, without some serious muscle. With that comes the natural tendency of humans to abuse power and...
But how, exactly, does an anarchic system with notions of property and property ownership work? Can I just claim whatever I want? What if two people claim the same plot of land?
The most credible ideas I've heard presented (i.e. the ones that didn't blather on about for-profit courts, good God) also require many other conditions, like pervasive systems of transparency/accountability, post-scarcity decentralized production, and so on. Of course, the context was a sci-fi wonderland so that should tell us something about contemporary advocates for this sort of thing.
Can you imagine the ridiculousness that would result from privatized roads? Imagine competing road companies demanding that you pick a service provider.
Which is assuming that anyone gets a monopoly on roads and it's not just a fragmented multitude snatching up property wherever they can find because there's no government to regulate who has which property because **** laws.
I imagine it might play out like telecoms are today: de facto monopolies as the biggest players carve up areas to mutually avoid competition. So (e.g.) New England would be Transit Unlimited, Inc. territory, but the Midwest is RoadCorp...
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Do I Contradict Myself? Very Well Then I Contradict Myself.
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What is anarcho-capitalism?
Anarcho-capitalism is the belief that there are two ethical principles. The first is related to anarchy, it is commonly known as the non-aggression principle.
"Though shalt not harm or coerce others"
This is related to anarchy. Why? Ask yourself: What do governments do? They harm and coerce others. Sure, they occasionally do a (debatably) good deed, for example giving money to a poor person, but how did they get that money? From taxing other people. If it's not obvious how that is coercion, try not paying your taxes as an experiment.
The second principle is property rights, which is the basic definition of capitalism.
"Thou shalt respect the property of others"
And digital/intellectual "property" is not property. You are respecting other peoples property by thinking the same thoughts as them, as you are not damaging or stealing it. Torrenting some movies, or having a similar idea to someone else's is not taking anything away from them.
Other questions about AC: http://www.ozarkia.net/bill/anarchism/faq.html
About the structure of society in a world without government: http://freedomainradio.com/FreeBooks.aspx Scroll down to Practical Anarchy.
Please post you thoughts/opinions in this thread. I'd like to hear them, and argue with most of you.
I feel forums are going to be a better medium for discussion of this topic than real life because blue pill people can get really stupid when you challenge their view of society, and when they feel threatened they use many tactics that I hope not to see here including: Not listening, claiming you are not listening when you have refuted their arguments, interrupting, calling groups of their beta friends to mock you, threatening to kill you (no joke), etc.
But I also propose even distribution of number of cards in each rarity: Large set: 60 c, 60 u, 60 r, 60 m.
Probabilities of particular cards: Common 7/60, Uncommon 1/12, Rare 1/20, Mythic 1/60.
Because if the NAP is to be violated, then everyone needs the means to resist aggression. Suddenly everyone needs a private army, whoever has the largest private army annexes or co-opts the others, that person now has a monopoly on violence again, and you're back to what is a de facto if not de jure government!
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
Here's the problem...
If I own a tomato plant, would you not call it my "property"?
I'm sure you would.
So if the tomato plant is my property, I'm entitled to reap the tomato's from it am I not?
This ownership would also imply I am entitled to sell the tomato's off my tomato plant and keep the money from their sale.
If I craft a Chair from wood, it is my property is it not? I'm entitled to sit in it, and if I decide to rent it out to other people who need a place to sit, I am entitled to keep the money I make from it's rental.
If I make a movie, it is my property, like the chair I built, or the tomato plant I owned. The fruit it produces is "entertainment".
Since I own the movie (I made it), I can sell the "entertainment" from it to people who desire to be entertained, just like any other free market transaction, and keep the money as my profits.
This is in fact, the fruits of my labor.
Someone who would take my movie without my permission, and/or without paying me for that fruit it produces, is committing theft are they not?
They might as well be sneaking into my garden and picking my tomato's without payment or permission.
They are taking the fruits of my labor without just compensation.
Thanks to Xenphire @ Inkfox for the amazing new sig
“Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by slight ligaments
are we bound to prosperity and ruin.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
1. The obvious: anarchy is absolutely ridiculous. If you think human beings behave in ****ty ways to one another with laws, just wait until you remove them.
2. We've learned from the Industrial Revolution that unrestricted capitalism doesn't work.
In fact, unregulated capitalism will inevitably lead to a market that is not free, as you'll have nothing to prevent monopolies from forming and destroying all competition.
(Or, y'know, enslaving everyone, because **** laws.)
And as though everything that preceded it weren't enough, you just had to tack on that can of worms, didn't you?
The movie you made is not property. The VHS/DVD that you manufactured and burned the movie into is your DVD. If I buy a blank DVD, it is my DVD, and if I burn your movie into it, then it is my DVD.
But I also propose even distribution of number of cards in each rarity: Large set: 60 c, 60 u, 60 r, 60 m.
Probabilities of particular cards: Common 7/60, Uncommon 1/12, Rare 1/20, Mythic 1/60.
Enslaving someone makes you, by definition, their government.
But I also propose even distribution of number of cards in each rarity: Large set: 60 c, 60 u, 60 r, 60 m.
Probabilities of particular cards: Common 7/60, Uncommon 1/12, Rare 1/20, Mythic 1/60.
Not sure if serious, or just ignorant.
Figure it out, and then we can talk.
Thanks to Xenphire @ Inkfox for the amazing new sig
“Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by slight ligaments
are we bound to prosperity and ruin.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Let's keep it civil please.
I'm trying to understand how a movie is like a tomato plant. Are you saying if I have a tomato plant just like yours, I am not allowed to grow tomatoes?
But I also propose even distribution of number of cards in each rarity: Large set: 60 c, 60 u, 60 r, 60 m.
Probabilities of particular cards: Common 7/60, Uncommon 1/12, Rare 1/20, Mythic 1/60.
And really, even if most everyone agrees on a package of natural rights, those rights need to be enforced in some way. And that capacity for force, IMO, is best centralized in a single, democratically accountable entity... i.e. a form of government. Maybe it's a failure of imagination on my part but "competitive providers of force" just screams "roving mercenary warbands" to me.
Very Well Then I Contradict Myself.
First, the DVD is not the fruit of my labor, the movie is. I likely bought the DVD's I used to distribute my movie from the same people you did. The DVD is the fruit of THEIR labor. Did you steal the DVD's you are using to burn said intellectual fruit?
Second, from where did you GET the movie to burn onto the DVD you own?
Where did that movie come from?
From me. From my mind, and from my labor. (and likely from the combined labor of everyone who helped me, which they likely did for pay or compensation)
And thus, like the tomato plant which I raised in my garden, I watered it, fertilized it, and gave it sunlight. The finished movie is the fruit blossomed from the plant. The DVD's I used, are simply akin to the produce truck I use to take the tomato's from my tomato plant to the market. If you use a produce truck to carry the tomato's you stole from me, this does not mean you have not stolen them.
They remain the fruit of my labor, and by taking said fruit without giving me the just compensation that fruit is worth, you have committed theft.
For even in the libertarian voluntary free market, each owns his labor, do they not? The NAP even declares that my labor is MINE, I own it, which is why slavery is unjust.
So by taking the movie without compensation, you have taken my labor without compensation.
I am pretty sure every anarchist, or anarcho-capitalist would agree that each laborer owns their labor, which is why they are allowed to sell their labor to others.
Thanks to Xenphire @ Inkfox for the amazing new sig
“Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by slight ligaments
are we bound to prosperity and ruin.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Mad Mat posted an appropriate response to this.
Another appropriate response to this would be, "So what?" People enslave each other even when there are laws forbidding slavery and when there are contingents of armed men tasked specifically to stop such a thing from occurring. What the hell do you think is going to happen when you take those away?
For whatever reason you wish.
Sure, why not?
It's not like there are laws. It is the beauty of anarchy that people can believe in anything they want to without being punished for it.
Give an example? What you're saying is quite abstract.
But I also propose even distribution of number of cards in each rarity: Large set: 60 c, 60 u, 60 r, 60 m.
Probabilities of particular cards: Common 7/60, Uncommon 1/12, Rare 1/20, Mythic 1/60.
What is your counterargument to your friends' point? What would stop people from killing each other whenever they felt like it?
What makes these statements true? Is it just your personal belief, or can you prove to me that they're true?
Assuming these statements are true, why do you believe that everyone will follow them in an anarcho-capitalist society? "Stealing is wrong" is a true statement, but lots of people steal anyway.
I'm listening. Educate me.
Actually, anarchy, according to the very links you provided, says it's fine for people to hurt me for that. Heck, they are allowed to initiate threats of violence against me even if I haven't taken or intend to take your bauble.
So, again, I ask, how do you reconcile that the two principles of anarchy are in direct conflict with one another?
I am educated, safe, productive, married, working, and comfortable. You're asking me to completely change my way of life to commit towards an ideology because some people don't like the government? Then risk my family's life and my own personal safety from a nation that has had a long history of hating foreigners and people of color.
1. Show me where this has worked, specifically in the modern age
2. Where evidence is available, data on per capita violence is higher in places like the Wild West with a lack of government than modern New York City. I'm safer as a "colored" in the middle of modern NYC than I am walking around in some random western town.
What self interest do I have in this experiment, considering the past socio-cultural influence would consider me to flee to Canada if we would embark on such an experiment?
If you have failed to achieve min-anarchism, why should I trust you on anarchism? I'm all for a small area to try this out and to see if a city could live like that, beyond that it would take physical hard evidence of that nature to even begin to approach reforms towards that level.
I look at people that look like me, and thanks to the federal government our quality of life has gradually, gradually, gradually very much improved.
I hate to bring race into a point about this, but I just don't see people of color really embracing this philosophy en mass. Whether that's the tribes, who would just continue to be tribes. African Americans are largely sided to liberal, at the very least statists. Most Hispanics, black or white, aren't anarchist at all and with ideologies like Peronism quite the opposite. Whites are a more varied group, however most of the massive clusters are quite statist.
I just do not see anywhere you can justify embarking on a project without the necessary leadership coming from rich people to colonize a particular, peculiar place. However, when you consider city-states that run off of capitalist ends like those in the Middle East. We must take the basic axiom, that there will be fundamentalist natures within to their governance structure with Islam. And if we talk about city-states, one must comply that there would be Jewish, Christian, and other such states cropping up very quickly for safe havens.
Then we have to consider colonial history in the Americas... which basically meant these experiments didn't last and led to splintering and border conflict and inevitable conquest.
You are denying your own cultural inheritance bent on a scheme that someone thought up over a few decades. Government is a tool, much like the gun, and to prohibit government, like drugs, would just have government pop back up in a "black market government." Or otherwise known as clans or gangs.
Black market activity in the US, as well as what is called the darknet are all a shadow of what occurs in anarchy.
As for the historical portions, Blinking_Spirit studied Icelandic history and is a historian-philosopher. He had multiple arguments against Icelandic "anarchism." The "not so Wild West argument" we debunked fairly quickly over a Mises article with simple violence per capita statistics comparisons.
I'm very much interested in this debate, but I want something new. Talk about the actual content out of the Costa Rican Libertarian communes and what really have they achieved? I'm just not really seeing it outside of a small group of hippies that may not achieve results, or end up like the Kibbutz movement and go statist.
Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.
Individualities may form communities, but it is institutions alone that can create a nation.
Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success.
Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.
Ookay, not a good beginning. As an anarchist, "duty" is a word that you probably want to avoid.
Textbook poisoning the well. " Let's keep this civil, please."
Define "harm" and "coercion". Hint: be very, very careful.
Okay, so what is property? That needs a positive definition too.
More well-poisoning. I could just as easily complain that anarchists (I'm sorry, I don't have a cute little dismissive term like "blue pill people") have committed exactly the same dialectic sins - hell, they've committed them in debates on this site. Yes, even the death threats. We come down on that like a ton of bricks, of course, but that didn't stop one or two guys from trying. I'm not going to make that complaint, though, because that behavior is those people's problem; it has no bearing whatsoever on anarchists in general or on you. I expect you to extend the same courtesy to non-anarchists.
And yes, I see you saying "I hope not to see here". That mitigates the poison not at all. The very act of mentioning these problems before arguments have even been made carries clear implications. If I were to say to you, "You are invited to my dinner party. I hope you don't steal my silverware", surely you'd see the backhanded accusation in that.
In short: superficially polite phrasing notwithstanding, you've clearly got a chip on your shoulder. You need to not.
If I buy an empty sack, it is my sack, and if I put your television set into it, it is still my sack. And yet my ownership of the sack does not magically translate to my owning everything that the sack contains; when I walk out of your house with your television in my sack, I have stolen from you. It is perfectly possible for a container owned by one person to contain property owned by another. So nothing about the fact that you own a CD precludes that CD containing another person's property - and if you do not have permission to possess it, containing that property illicitly.
Now, you probably want to say that a movie file is different in some important way from a television set. You may even be tempted to think I'm being stupid by not recognizing the differences on my own. But it's not our responsibility to flesh out your argument for you. Based on what you've said so far, we have no reason not to treat movie files and television sets identically. If you want us not to treat movie files and television sets identically, you should have established that distinction in the first place, rather than focus on this irrelevancy of container ownership.
Here is another beautiful idea: "Human beings are immortal, and if they jump off high places they can fly gloriously through the air." Is the beauty of an idea persuasive reason to adopt it?
Ah, yes, that was fun. However, it's not abcabcabc339's argument. That Mises guy was a critical math failure, and the anarcho-capitalist users who repeated his argument here were too credulous to do any independent fact-checking (or, indeed, independent thinking), but we can hope abcabcabc339 will do better than they.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
But then it really hit me that the argument is for anarcho-capitalism, as opposed to anarcho-communism. As in capitalism without any government.
Forget traffic laws, how the hell would roads work in an anarcho-capitalistic society?
One of the reasons society functions smoothly is specifically because the government owns things like roads and public utilities. Can you imagine having privatized roads? Or privatized electricity? Imagine having a different set of electrical lines for each provider of electricity.
Or maybe it wouldn't even go that far. Maybe someone would just patent electricity and decide it's theirs. Who knows.
I would love to hear the OP explain how anyone makes any claim to property in an anarchic society. It makes perfect sense in any society with a government. It also isn't a problem in an anarcho-communist society because no one makes any claims to property — and boy is it ever an indication of how backwards anarchy is when communism is actually more sensible than capitalism.
But how, exactly, does an anarchic system with notions of property and property ownership work? Can I just claim whatever I want? What if two people claim the same plot of land?
Ah yes, it's the gool ol' "But without government, who will build the roads?" argument.
Perhaps the intended question is, "Who will pay for the roads?" And the answer is, "Whoever uses them." It is likely that local roads will be jointly owned by people that live on a street, who will arrange maintenance; arterials, where there is more opportunity for competition, are more likely to be owned by businesses that will compete for drivers and will collect money via per-use fees (more likely transponders than toll booths -- think modern technology!) or subscriptions.
Last May in Portland, a bunch of people got fed up with the poor service the government provided with the roads. Potholes were littered everywhere. They took matters into their own hands and pooled their money to get a paving company to repair the potholes. Of course, the city of Portland decided that only the governments can build the roads and kept the citizens from trying to repair the roads due to lack of permits.
This is a good example of why "Who will build the roads" is a bad argument against a stateless society. The city clearly did not care about the roads, but the individuals that actually used those roads did. It wasn't until the people decided to get someone else other than the government to fix the roads that got the city to use its monopoly on force to shut down the paving.
This is why a representative government with term limits on most offices sounds so appealing.
"In a world where money talks, silence is horrifying."
Ashcoat Bear of Limited
However, it's still easy to see looking back through history that anarchy and pure capitalism do not create optimal circumstances for success. Originally, a system similar to that is already what existed; there was once no governments and no real society, just tribes or random groups, and even then you can see having an organized group is better. And it was a very violent history with little in terms of technological progress. Over time, continuing to this day, people continue to develop a higher functioning form of government because having a government or organized society helps stop people from killing each other and allows the specialization of workers to create industrial scale production of things ranging from food to technology for the average person. Do you think humanity would have the capability to go to the moon without working together in an organized way on a large scale?
No, I don't give a crap about who will build the roads. I'm asking who will own the roads.
Can you imagine the ridiculousness that would result from privatized roads? Imagine competing road companies demanding that you pick a service provider.
Which is assuming that anyone gets a monopoly on roads and it's not just a fragmented multitude snatching up property wherever they can find because there's no government to regulate who has which property because **** laws.
We do actually have privatized roads already. But yeah, there's the "natural monopoly" issue with these things. Not to mention the difficulty securing property rights and limiting usage to just paying customers, without some serious muscle. With that comes the natural tendency of humans to abuse power and...
The most credible ideas I've heard presented (i.e. the ones that didn't blather on about for-profit courts, good God) also require many other conditions, like pervasive systems of transparency/accountability, post-scarcity decentralized production, and so on. Of course, the context was a sci-fi wonderland so that should tell us something about contemporary advocates for this sort of thing.
EDIT:
I imagine it might play out like telecoms are today: de facto monopolies as the biggest players carve up areas to mutually avoid competition. So (e.g.) New England would be Transit Unlimited, Inc. territory, but the Midwest is RoadCorp...
Very Well Then I Contradict Myself.