Topic: Closest thing to a libertarian utopia (Read 3672 times)

Um... No.

Theocracy is a religious organization acting as the state. See: Vatican City.

Going to the priest as a judge != Theocracy.

Somalia is closest to a theocracy than to anarchism.

I dont think anarchism is totally imposible, but I think it is very unprobable.

Maybe in the future, when education becomes universal and transportation is open to everyone, that day law will not be be necessary and anarchism could be posible.

But you can force a country to be anarchist and reject religion; thats is stupid and utopical.

I think Josell is beyond help. Isn't he guy guy who was blathering on about creationism?

Hawker is a good example of an ignorant idiot. No knowledge about Somalia or Libertarianism; free to talk all the garbage he likes

Somalia is such a horribly flawed argument that I don't even know where to begin. First of all, I guess, the best idea would probably be some context.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realise that you can't compare a East African nation which has been at constant civil war with would-be governments for the past two decades with a thriving developed state, so let's start by drawing our comparison between Somalia now and Somalia in 1991 when it had a state.

What's changed? Well according to this article, much has changed. This table is sourced with data from the BBC article linked:

Index	1991	2011
Life Expectancy	46 years	50 years
Death Rate	19	16
GDP per capita	$210	$600
Infant Mortality	116/1000	109/1000
Access to Safe Water	35%	29%
Adult Literacy	24%	38%

Aside from the drop in access to safe water which is clearly a bad thing, I would say that Somalia has actually improved in its stateless condition. The average citizen is three times wealthier than he was in 1991, even accounting for inflation, he is twice as wealthy. He will live four years longer than he would have in 1991, he is 50% more likely to be able to read and write than he was in 1991. These are not signs of a country on the decline.

Here are some other choice quotes about Somalia from the article:

1. "Common sense dictates that security and stability are the necessary preconditions to economic development.

Since 26 January 1991, most of Somalia has had neither, yet the economy has not only been resilient, some sectors have shown remarkable growth."

2. "now someone can make a mobile call from anywhere in the country.

There are nine networks to choose from and they offer services from texting to mobile internet access."

Peter Little, in his 2003 book 'Somalia', notes that "there are still fees to be paid to greedy faction leaders and militia at ports and roadblocks, but levels of taxation and trade restrictions are considerably below what they were pre-1991".

Amoud University, set up in 1997, now employs 45 teachers, has 1,000 students and a library of over 100,000 books. It is respected as one of the best Universities in the Horn of Africa.

This table is produced from data from the Independent Institute's paper, comparing Somalia amongst 42 sub-Saharan countries. Statistic is a rank so higher is better (bold indicates improvement, or top 50% on a new measure):

Index	2005	1990
Life Expectancy	18	37
Death Rate (per 1000)	17	37
Child Malnutrition	20a	N/A
Telephone Main Lines (per 1000)	8	29b
Mobile Cellphones (per 1000)	16	N/A
Internet Users (per 1000)	11	N/A
Households with TV	27c	N/A
DPT Immunisation %	41	38d
Measles Immunisation %	42	38d
Access to Sanitation	24	N/A
Access to Clean Water	41	N/A
Tuberculosis Cases (per 1000)	31	40

a. Ranking out of 36
b. Ranking out of 41
c. Ranking out of 40
d. Ranking out of 39

Somalia does have private defense firms, you call them out as an extortion racket because they charge for their services? Last I checked, the government don't work for free. They have a working currency and a (primitive) legal system. The biggest issue with Somalia is inherent mistrust of the outside, their laws only extend to Somali citizens, so their chances of globalising are a flat zero. This is not consistent with libertarianism at all.

Having said that, there must be something the Somalians like about not having a state, or they wouldn't have successfully opposed every single one that tried to set itself up on their land in the past twenty years.

When you stop trying to compare imperfect anarchism with a perfect state, your arguments might make sense and have coherence. All forms of sociopolitical structure are imperfect, compare relevant shining beacons of the state like Kenya, Ethiopia, Rwanda and DR Congo with Somalia. Compare pre-1991 Somalia with Somalia.

I would recommend that people actually take the time to understand the situation there before jumping for joy when they find an 'anarcho-capitalist' state which happens to be performing in a less-than-stellar manner.

You presume that those with property can protect themselves and those without property cannot.  For how can you protect property aside from by projecting force onto those that wish to take it?

Hahaha.  Good on you, then.  Carry on. 

If you hit every straw man with a Wikipedia article, either they shut up or actually learn what's going on. win/win.

I don't even know why you guys bother correcting this guy.  The irony is earlier today I just wrote a post about how I constantly get straw-manned when I talk about Somalia.  It gets really old and really irritating after a while. 

I'm not ordering you, I'm refusing to continue this conversation until you do a little research on what you're talking about. Also, I think you mean 'coercion'. cohesion means 'sticking together'.

Thats is cohesion! If you are an anarchist, and you are giving orders, that is against your idiology.

Have you read that wikipedia article yet?

righr, there are standards, however, if someone chooce them, that person would be a leader by definition. If society make those standards, then society would be over the individual.

Standards != Laws.

However, if someone dont want food, only he will die. In social issues, however, many people are involved and affected, and therefore, we need standards in those cases.

Ahh... No bigger thugs, to push people around, so, no justice, eh?

keep in mind that that whole 'can't force' thing cuts both ways, up to and including food, shelter, and clothing. Someone who refuses arbitration would be very far up shit creek, with no paddles.

arbitration need arbitrators; even they have to have a law for reference. If a killer would not be recurring to arbitration, and if there is no law nor police, no one can force them. So, no justice.

You know 'dystopia', but not 'arbitration'?

...interesting schooling you've had.

So anarchists promote landowner (and therefore slavery, because every one have their own laws in that dystopia)

If someone kill other in disney, there would not be police nor judgment? There would be government involven... Sorry, your example is wrong.

I had a nice long post typed, and then I saw this. /thread.