I'm an anarchist because I believe there's no natural right to rule … because I believe the state lacks legitimacy … because I believe the state is unnecessary … because the state tips the scales in favor of privileged elites and against ordinary people … because the state tends to be destructive. It engages in war and plunder, and seems persistently to be involved in ratcheting up the level of violence and injustice across borders — which are, of course, themselves state creations … because the state restricts personal freedom — as a way of maintaining order, benefiting the privileged, preserving its own power, or subsidizing some people's moralizing preferences … and because I believe a stateless society would provide opportunities for people to explore diverse ways of living fulfilled, flourishing lives and to put the results of their exploration on display.I agree.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
QoTD
Gary Chartier:
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7 comments:
Nice sentiments, but I don't see human affairs rolling in the non-state direction.
Libertarianism/anarchy is an ersatz argument for meritocracy, and under such the non-achievers eventually band together to rob the achievers, and we're back to the warring state factions we have today.
I see the State as a mechanism that keeps the non-achievers from robbing the achievers. Not that is works all that well--witness the non achieving immigrants flooding in and looting this country--but I don't see a better mechanism for ordering affairs.
RSF,
Funny, we see it differently.
I used to see the state as a mechanism for robbing the achievers and giving to the non-achievers.
Now I see the state primarily as a mechanism for preserving the relative position of the politically connected, usually by screwing everyone else, preferably surreptitiously.
I think that the evidence strongly favors my new position over both my old position and your position. Indeed, I think we have deductive proof that my position is correct, as per my organizations discussion.
A state is a mechanism where the political achievers can rob the wealth achievers. As well as underachievers.
Under some limited circumstances, the political achievers ARE the wealth achievers, so we get RSF's situation. Traditional anglosphere societies (ie. 1648 to sometime in the late 20th century) had this sort of true in the broadest brush sense. Ie. Politics and wealth were both highly correlated with hardworking, educated, and socially ept white people. So if you half closed your eyes and glossed over all the details, it looked like the state protected the productive.
But there is no reason for the two groups to be the same, and indeed RSF points out that the system is going wrong.
Actually, now that I re-read my comment, I could speculate that the whole industrial revolution and modernization of the world is because the wealth creators gained political power for a while.
Part of this could be because the political systems were crude, and could not distinguish between the distinguished gentleman who inherited a set of mills, and the horrible upstart who went and built a new mill based on steam or some other grubby thing.
(Note: This is not a technological failing in the political system. Much earlier systems had a reliable method for distinguishing such things, called family titles. But the British had very few inherited nobility for historical reasons, and so the system lost resolution. And the Americas didn't have any.)
With the current finely tuned state this sort of "problem" is unlikely to recur.
I think it is both a mechanism for robbing the achievers and a mechanism for preserving the position of the politically connected. Who's money is it that the politically connected use to buy the votes of the under achievers?
I agree with rightsaidfred,it is an "I'd like to buy the world a coke" sentiment. In the initial onset of anarchy, it would be every man for himself, ultimately coalescing into tribal groups for conquest and protection.
We've seen the state break down many times in different places.
Eventually the individual coalesce into tribal groups for protection... and by eventually I mean within a day or two at most.
Dr. Pat + KX,
There are two paths that one can talk about here.
1. State collapse, followed by tribal formation.
2. State relinquishment. Just as now it's pretty clear that we don't need the state to be involved in communications...the anarchist position is that you can get to a point of not needing the state to be involved in schooling, picking substances that YOU can smoke, dispute arbitration, or security services.
This model is thoroughly different from the collapse scenario.
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