Ok, I understand your idealism.
But I'm not talking about any electoral system in particular. I'm just trying to point out how important is the "right to vote", even if someone doesn't want to do it.
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Discussion
I understand that point and I'm not saying governments shouldn't hold elections or should exclude anyone from them, I'm saying there should not be governments to begin with, no autocrats, no democracy, no despots, kings, queens, chairmen of the party, members of parliament, none of those.
To truly have any liberty at all, each individual (adult) needs sovereignty, the means to defend it, and voluntary association with other sovereign individuals.
But in the real world, if you're gonna have elections at all, they should be free, equal, secret and all the other aspects, or else it's not fair. Also don't exclude your political rivals and don't ignore what the people voted for.
I understand your point, and I share it... to a certain extent.
Do you really think a society like the one you described is possible?
I don't find how humans could accept living on it for a long term, to be honest.
Some people could build a leaderless society, but I'm afraid at certain point someone would stand up to rule the others, and even some other people will support him.
I think it's in our nature to govern and be governed.
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There’s a great book on the subject if you’re curious how a free society could function and sustain. It addresses all the common questions:
* Who will build the roads
* How would we have national defense without them turning and taking us over
* How would violent and non-violent crime be handled
* How would we avoid the tragedy of the commons
It blew my mind when I first read it. I changed from a reluctant minarchist to proud ancap.
https://freedomain.com/freedomain_books/practical-anarchy/full-text/
Thanks for the recommendation!
Let's see if it changes my skepticism... ☺️
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Btw, I'm not implying Anarchy wouldn't work, I'm saying that people wouldn't not want it massively.
People want to delegate things, don't want to do everything by themselves, too much hassle. It's 'easier' to delegate them.
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Would love to hear your thoughts if/when you read it!
This sounds like a false dichotomy, why is abolishing the state at odds with delegating things? I’m a software engineer, at my job the CTO delegates work to my manager who delegates work to me. They don’t threaten or bully me, they pay me voluntarily and in return I work voluntarily. We might be talking past each other due to differing definitions, but to me that’s anarchy. Rules without rulers, and un-coerced spontaneous self-organization.
I was referring to delegatig 'decision taking'.
I think (some) people prefer to obey other people. They don't want to take decisions and assume the consequences.
That's where a ruler comes appealing: there's someone to blame when things turn bad.
"Anarchy is such intense! Having to assume the consequences of every decision is not worth it."
That's not my personal sentiment, but I'm afraid a lot of people would be like that.
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You still haven't explained how this is relevant to whether anarchy will succeed. Is forced integration a given with you?
You can force authoritarism, but you can't force anarchism.
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Anarcho-capitalism is about bringing force back to its proper use. We absolutely can and will force anarchism onto ourselves. That is, forcibly get everyone else to stop forcing us to do things.
And anyone who decides they want to join that paradigm, the government does not have complete ultimate power over them. The freedom to vote with your feet is still a realistic option for some. They have a choice to make.
And further, anarchists have the right to physically remove people and systems that tend toward statism, crime, or consolidation of power, and they will use it. And still again, cooperation in a free market is so superior to state regulated markets, that entire decentralized stateless regions will tend to have sustainable economic advantages against the statist world, and will drive motivated individuals to join the prosperity.
So I'm afraid your intuition is lacking in details about this stuff.
"anarchists have the right to *physically remove people* and systems that tend toward statism, crime, or consolidation of power, and they will use it."
This is authoritarism, mate. This is consolidation of power by itself.
Oh, the irony...
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If you believe that defense of property is authoritarianism, then you can just fuck off with that hug emoji.
Who's talking about property?
It's getting pretty tired to talk with you when you imagine what I'm saying to fit your discourse.
The cool thing about anarchy is that it doesn't need to be adopted on a wide scale to succeed. It simply works with just one individual making the choice to have no one rule over them. People who are completely free come by their freedom the hardest, because they are also quite aware of the price of freedom which is self-responsibility.
Agree.
And that's why I say that many people don't wanting responsibility implies they prefer someone ruling them.
And that why I don't see Anarchy as a State replacement working out.
Lolwhat it's already working
As a State replacement?
May I ask where in the world?
Once again... the individual.
Bye.
Once again, the original discussion was about anarchy replacing the State.
But keep diverting it if you are looking for attention.
Where two gather, there is an anarchist community. Where 1000 gather, there is an anarchist town. We see these already popping up. Do you really think people are always going to be evenly distributed?
Look, I think anarchy is good and have a lot of benefits in local and distributed communities.
I just don't see how it can replace completely a State over millions of individuals.
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Nice! Tragedy of the commons is actually caused by government, ironically. The government is the entity that distorts and perverts perceptions of the homesteading principle.
How will those groups of people rule over the individualists who wish not to be ruled? You do not explain the mechanism.
For Anarchy replacing the State successfully it's the other way around:
- how will the anarchists force the people who want to be ruled to accept their responsibility?
That's what nobody explain:
How do you manage hierarchical groups of people inside an anarchist state, without ruling over them?
You're using weird words but you manage them foremost with enforcement of property rights. Property rights include the right to exclude people from your property and exclude them from your voluntary associations so long as the others in your association all consent to that governance. This may be done via a contract and delegating a little responsibility (via a valid, consensual contract) to exclude people who would be dangerous to the community. To enforce property rights you also have the ability to use force against aggressors onto your property, such as surrounding governments. Everyone has an incentive to keep governments out, so they likely pool resources together into defense firms to give overwhelming force against such aggression if it tries to seize control of the land or impose its supposed edicts on anarchist land. These defense firms will operate on a market for insurance that responds to real time signals, both price signals and other threat detection systems, to keep everyone safe from attacks.
Ok I thought you were genuinely asking but I see what you're doing. Anarchy doesn't use force except in as much as it defends property rights. The people who choose to live in governments will not aggress against our property the vast majority of the time, and as long as they don't, there's no force maintaining the system whatsoever. It's just peaceful trade and building things. The surrounding governments, if they be reasonably peaceful, will find it more beneficial to trade with us than to force us to live like them.
Mate, I'm not talking about 'communities', I'm talking about States.
But you keep changing the discourse back to communities, agin and again.
If you think a State could function as a community you are absolutely clueless.
What the hell are you talking about? A state is a centralized entity with a monopoly on the legitimate use of force/ultimate decision making in conflicts, over a given geographical region. I interpreted your question to be about replacing the state full of people under it with a decentralized collection of people living in anarchy over a large geographical region, forming some sort of defense that you claim can't exist. A community, with a mechanism for defense. I proceeded to explain the most basic form of that defense. This method of defense is the replacement for the state. You literally posed the question of how anarchy REPLACES the state. Not becomes the state. Anarchy is just a peaceful interaction and organization of a community of people, by definition.
If you're trying to attain victory by definition, you're not very good at it. This is second rate sophistry at best.
At first I thought you didn't understand me or I didn't explain myself properly, so I tried to center the debate.
I'm sure now that you don't want to understand anything. You just have a well learnt discourse that you repeat again and again, even when the conversation is not about it.
You're so tiresome.
If the conversation wasn't about what I was talking about, that's because you were not clear. At all. And you fucking know it. Waste of my time. Goodbye.
Agree with you except that the mere existence of government practically negates all concern over the "fairness" of their elections. There will be forced exclusion, and the votes will be used as a flimsy justification for coercion every single time. Your ideal for how voting should work is needless as it can never happen so long as there is coercion. Your ultimate solution is the real one; a fair democracy is the idealistic utopian thinking.
I have a hard time making up my mind on this one. I don't want to vote(and don't vote) because I do not want to force my will upon others. So I don't vote in state or federal elections. I also think those games are so rigged with Gerrymandering and other fuckery that it's a waste of time.
I've started talking to local poloticians however. That feels like it's worth my time. I talk about bitcoin. They make fun of me like people did 500,000 blocks ago.
Then, when they see me again, they get discombobulated. I can see it on their face.
Oh that's that crazy guy who told us to buy bitcoin with our tresury when bitcoin was $75,000.
Talking to local suits is much more fun than voting. I might start voting in local elections, but it seems icky.