Topic: How long would it take for Anarchy to start working? - page 11. (Read 16391 times)

Real competition for power (or rather struggle) always leads to its monopolization while ineffectively and wastefully spending resources and human lives, with the winner usually extinguishing all substantial resistance afterwards. Do you really think anything has considerably changed since Ancient Rome?

If the entities in power don't recognize this (let's assume this) and turn to looting their citizens, they usually wind up as they ended in 1789 in France, as an example. So in the end the power is monopolized by those who are not only able to grab it in the first place, but also able to hold it long enough, which is impossible without becoming a "benevolent protector"

No one is arguing in favor of creating nation-states.
They already exist.
Everywhere.
Almost the entire habitable surface of this planet is divided among such nation-states.  Arguing in their favor would make as much sense as arguing in favor of death -- it already happens, and coming to a consensus that "death ain't no good" won't decrease its scope by a single soul.

Thanks for your reply. I think I see your point.

Quite a scary conclusion (bolded) you're reaching there. We are reduced to hoping, that the entities in power recognize this and indeed turn into benevolent protectors. Also there are other factors, besides external threats, which might turn them towards looting their citizens, like greed, corruption, lust for power & wealth etc.

While I agree, that the monopolization of power is most profitable (for those in power), I would imagine that better cost-effectiveness (if that would be what we're really after) would be achieved through competition.

Very simple really, just a few words. Because it becomes profitable. When you don't have a monopoly of power you have to compete with someone else for it, and so you are predetermined by your position (liable to failure) to strip everyone around you of everything they may happen to have. Almost the same happens when warfare begins (external competition for power), government begins plundering their own population in an effort to retain the power with any means available. When nothing threatens the monopoly of power, it becomes profitable in the long run to turn into "benevolent protectors"

I think no one here idealizes state...

I have often wondered about what motivates people to support the existence of the state. Not in a "it is necessary, but I would welcome it if it wasn't" way, but in a "I don't want it to be unnecessary" sort of way. As I search for the answer, over and over again I find this:


REAL LIFE.

The assumption, that the bearer of said opinions knows what is REAL. What real life looks like. What human nature really is. They know these things. Here come the generalizations, but I feel that it's mostly the same type of personality. Someone, who views himself as a rational realist, assessing the cold hard facts of how human nature works and how life really works and not turning away from the harsh truths. Unlike those starry eyed dreamers and idealists. It's a way of "one-upmanship", a way to feel superior and validated. Hey, I'm not judging, we all do these things in various ways

What strikes me as weird about this stance is the refusal to acknowledge a blatant problem in this approach: if it is true and life is nasty, brutish and short and human nature is selfish, violent and treacherous, how is the creation of an institution with the legal monopoly of initiating force not going to make things any worse? The selfish and treacherous people you need protecting against will suddenly turn into benevolent protectors, as soon as you give them a monopoly on force?? I don't see any evidence to support that. I do see lots of evidence pointing to the contrary direction: that said monopoly on force tends to attract the sort of people who are the most dangerous to others when in power, it corrupts them further and even corrupts the occasional honest idealist finding themselves there.

I have already answered almost the same assertion in my previous post... If you don't believe me, Google is your friend, go search for the Laffer Curve. I'm afraid that "in a free society" you will often have to give everything you possess and sometimes even your life. I have a strong feeling that anarchy proponents here have never seen what real life may look like...

I don't deem it purposeful to answer seriously to posts that are nothing more than sheer trolling. You missed the real culprit here

Your taxes are used in a myriad other ways (pensions, health service, utilities, roads, etc), it is strange that you forget to mention such things or just hope that I would miss them. It is suicidal for any government to tax more than 50% of your total income (actually the optimal number is far below this). You would lose incentive to work if they would require more under normal conditions...

Right? Are you kidding?

I hoped you would read and understand what I had written about the doublespeak you are using again here. But, it seems, to no avail. Why should I ever search for an exit if I am in my own right? So, minority under your rule would just have to walk away somewhere. Is this what you mean by an undisputed right of exit? And you have the right to emigrate, so government doesn't claim you as its property, either publicly or implicitly (I'm not speaking about slave states here for evident reasons). Your point is void...

Yes, laws are needed to defend you from such psychopaths as well. And to defend them in some degree from lawlessness and outrage. That's why we need codified law as well as trials and lawyers. Even if we don't need written laws to do things with other people, we need law when we do things to other people...

Oh sorry, it was actually in another thread, I got mixed up.  Here it is

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.3846210


Highways between towns, assuming there is enough traffic to justify it, could be funded in various ways.  Maybe the big transportation companies could do it to ensure their goods get where they want.  Another example of profits exceeding maintenance costs.  They could be funded by advertising.  Or the big roads themselves could be some form of toll road if nothing else.    These are just a few things that I can think of.  I'm not in the business of roads so there is probably some idea that I am not even thinking of.  

I think road maintenance is probably a lot cheaper without all the state bureaucracy costs.  And the fact that it is a monopoly so let's face it, those road guys don't have to put too much effort in like any public service department.  

I don't know about where you live but here they dig up perfectly good roads and repave them just to make sure they use their budget for the year so that the budget isn't cut the next year.  This is what happens when you have perverse incentives.  

It's very simple really. I just don't believe that in the situation you describe here you will actually have that option of free choosing between a thousand agencies. In some weaker states, you often have to pay local criminal gangs besides officially established taxes so that they would just leave you alone. Your situation could be even worse than that if it ever came to reality, because you might actually end up paying many "agencies" ab invito...

What are you going to do with them, provided they don't get to killing anybody? Should they be shot in sight, put to jail, sent to reservations or left alone really? Would you have to use violence towards thieves, for example? In short, will there be a judiciary, penitentiary and law enforcing systems, or you would rather stick to lynch law alone without official trial according to the established order?

What prevents them from being controlled through threats of social ostracism right now? Do states explicitly prohibit ostracism or make you keep connections with bad guys? Unless you provide strong evidence confirming your position, I would think there is nothing that would constrain my desire to stay away from the dregs of society. And don't say that those bad guys are government themselves (this would make your argument circular)...

I'm just going to leave this here:

http://www.silentconspiracy.net/2013/11/how-to-fix-society/

The party feeling discord makes it public that the persons in question aren't putting in their fair share.  People respond accordingly; if they care, the persons get a bad rep, and if they don't care, the persons don't.  If you get a bad rep, it gets harder to function around people.  If you get a good rep, it gets easier.

i didn't read why you think toll roads wouldn't be everywhere.

and also, who builds the highways between towns/cities? the businesses too? so the amount they want to contribute is voluntary? someone's going to feel like a party is not paying their fair share, and there would be dischord. how would that get settled?

i don't get how you got to the "costs are so small compared to the profits they make." road maintenance is probably not cheap.

ancient tribal groups were anarchistic, and they killed/dominated each other until there was one ruler. great nations came as a result.

If you had the power to help that, you'd be an anarchist   You don't get the state without the corruption, sorry.  It's either or.

On mobile so can't embed sorry.
http://youtu.be/NKERC6F7mSM

Whitest kids you know - anarchy.

I think anarchy is not the answer, I think a change of the people that we have in govt from millionaires to actual politics, sciences and social science majors in the office.... People who actually have a clue instead of puppets being fingered by corporate interests.

And anything over 15% in taxes is ridiculous.

Well, I've been looking at the wars of the past few decades fought by the big powers, who have the biggest armies and biggest budgets ever and it looks to me like the big guys are consistently losing to small, ragtag, well-armed people of these countries.

There's a famous quote a Japanese military person remarked about the possibility of invading America in WW2.  He said it wasn't worth it because there would be a gun behind every blade of grass.  That it would be impossible to hold.  I'm paraphrasing but it was something like that.