Thanks, and you are right. But…in a way, any word is a kind of label—a sound affixed to a meaning. Sometimes, we must use labels as convenient shorthand.
I mean, even if I replaced "anarchism" with "voluntary order" or perhaps an even longer descriptive sentence, it would still ultimately be a kind of label.
But I see what you mean, of course. The big, common labels have a ton of baggage associated.
What I have also found for myself is that it is not my job to convince or persuade anyone -- against, or on-the-fence or otherwise. My job is to Grateful Dead my ideas through sharing. Put them out there and let people find me who agree and want to contribute in some fashion.
I've learned that most of the time, if someone seems triggered, disagreeing loudly or even using ad-hominem attacks, ie. acting in extremes, -- I have to ask myself, "if that's how you really feel, then what are you doing here?"
With tens of thousand of letter-agency employees assigned strictly to deride, ridicule, disrupt, discount ideas that are inconvenient, or do not serve the Empire, it isn't hard to spot a shill these days. Someone like that sticks out like a sore thumb when they are out of their element.
There is some value in engaging, though. Some arguments may be good, and that allows me to sharpen the blade of my ideas upon the whetstone of their objections.
And then, in general, engagement is good for building the kind of vibrant community we have here.
But you're certainly right that obvious bad actors can and should be ignored. And I also made this post so that when this issue comes up again, I can just link here rather than repeating myself for the nine millionth time!
"There is some value in engaging, though. Some arguments may be good, and that allows me to sharpen the blade of my ideas upon the whetstone of their objections." N I C E
Huemer refers only to people killed by their own governments. His figures don't include people killed by foreign governments, as in war.
Some people don't read as much as they'd prefer to read because books tend to be expensive. That expense can be avoided by using libraries. Many ebooks are free or very cheap. Used books can be bought at many online sites for a small fraction of their new price. Huemer has started keeping the prices of his books lower by self-publishing.
I'm surprised you received this comment. I didn't think it got through. It's part of a much longer comment that answers the question you asked me about my metatheory of justice, which identifies 4 pure theories. On reflection I'm glad this last part didn't get through. I'm concerned about posting some of my material online for reasons I'd prefer to explain privately. If there are any government agents reading this, be assured I have no intention of joining a revolution to overthrow the government.
It wasn't luck. I chose Hoppe from among four free market economists, none of whom are still at UNLV. But my sociology instructor was an avowed communist.
Yeah, my Chinese communist poli-sci professor actually said, "Capitalism is good for America, but there were too many people in China. They needed communism or too many of them would have fallen by the wayside."
And I was too young an ignorant to raise my hand and say, "You mean MORE would have starved than the 60 million who did? MORE would have eaten their neighbor's children to survive than actually did?"
I recommend you get The Problem of Political Authority. Huemer has a whole chapter on War and Societal Defense. He does mention guerrilla warfare, nonviolent resistance, the difficulty of conquering a stateless society, etc.
I believe I mentioned at least a couple in my original post, which I no longer have. I might have mentioned that it required cooperation between several governments to restrict use of CFCs to save the ozone layer. Also, it could require a massive space program to save Earth from a killer asteroid. Surely you can think of many other examples. It isn't clear how a world filled with many small anarchist societies could handle such problems.
Hoppe describes large, well-capitalized multinationals providing aggression insurance and the like. Perhaps similar entities would arise to serve other functions. There are already companies with more revenues than certain countries.
In a world without government, everyone is automatically ~ 40% richer. I think the free-rider problem may be overstated. I think humans—especially humans rendered wealthier by the absence of the government exsanguination machine—might contribute to a surprising amount of efforts. Saving the planet from a killer asteroid is probably one of them.
I found an error in a comment I posted on Feb 6 concerning Michael Huemer's book The Problem of Political Authority. The 5th paragraph begins “Political anarchism can be better defined as ...” “Political” should be replaced with “philosophical”.
On your original list of anarchist works, I hadn't read Hoppe's book or the essays by Puydt and Rothbard. I ordered Hoppe's book from Amazon—which I don't yet have time to read--and I downloaded and read both essays. Also, I downloaded and read Hoppe's intro to The Myth of National Defense. Thanks for pointing out those works. Incidentally, I knew both Rothbard and Hoppe many years ago when they lived in Las Vegas. Both taught at UNLV. I took microeconomics from Hoppe.
The following is a response to comments you made and questions you asked me on Feb 7. I'm also inclined to believe members of an anarchist society could defend themselves against a more powerful hostile invader. The US ultimately lost in Vietnam against a weaker guerrilla force, and nether Russia nor the US ultimately won in Afghanistan, to mention a couple of relevant examples. About 40 years ago a brother thought that a foreign power could conquer an anarchist society. I gave him a copy of Jarret Wallstein's SIL issue paper “Military Defense Without a State” and he changed his mind. Huemer's The Problem of Political Authority also gives reasons to believe an ancap society would be hard to conquer. However, I have a skeptical streak. I'm hard to completely convince. One reason is that most governments are said to have arisen by conquest. Originally all societies were stateless societies. Homo habilis has been called the first human species, having evolved perhaps 2 million years ago. Homo sapiens have been around about 300,000 years. The first government appeared in Sumer (Mesopotamia) about 6,500 years ago. Governments in Egypt and China weren't established until a little over 5,000 and 4,000 years ago, respectively. In my lifetime some primitive stateless societies have been known to exist--e.g., all hunter gatherer societies. Apparently, government agents tended to leave them alone because they had nothing worth stealing.
I'm much more concerned about what I call “crucial global common goods”. I don't recall any anarchist addressing that problem.
Regarding your comment about the number of people slaughtered by governments, Huemer mentions that in the 20th century more than 4 ½ times as many people were killed by their own governments than were killed by private murders.
"Huemer mentions that in the 20th century more than 4 ½ times as many people were killed by their own governments than were killed by private murders."
—Obviously that does not include the 262 million that were democided. Do you recall what type of government killing he included in that figure?
I don't recall. The figures are in The Problem of Political Authority--a book you should get. I couldn't find the right page in a quick check of the index. Surely, the deaths include those of the Chinese Famine, the Holocaust, the Russian Revolution and subsequent purges, and the Armenian Genocide.
Good comments re: an anarchist society's ability to defend itself.
Obviously that becomes A TON easier if there are no governments anywhere. But that would lead us into Marxian-leftist territory ("pure communism won't come until the whole world is communist"). I don't want to go there.
I think it is possible. Asymmetry/guerrilla is one way. Also, I am substantially convinced by Harry Browne's point about how a large anarchist area would not be worth the trouble because you couldn't just topple the government and thus gain control of its military, and the whole hierarchical structure. You would have to pacify every square inch. That argument works less well for a small area, though.
Wow, great reading list! Where to start? Christopher, you and I have briefly discussed my work with Directed Fiction and the use of the imaginary country of Cascadia to examine/test different approaches to governance. I'm up to my eyeballs in my fiction book about the upcoming 2024 Presidential election, but I can't help turning this problem over in my mind (it's distracting!)
The first step in the Foresight process is Framing. There are several formal steps, but basically the fiction writer has carte blanche to imagine anything. How might a protagonist in a fictional story (say, the Prime Minister of Cascadia) seek to influence the constitution of the planet's newest country to
Word of warning, however. After the initial research question is framed, the rest of the exercise seeks to identify dependent variables (i.e. the existence of one variable cancels out the existence of the other - only a Republican or a Democrat will be elected president - not both at once).
I'm reluctant to even begin asking questions, because this is such a big topic. But that probably won't stop me from asking them anyway! How might a protagonist (say the first Prime Minister of the earth's newest country) influence events to achieve a condition of voluntary order (anarchism)?
Conversely, how might that same protagonist seek to influence Cascadia to achieve the diametric opposite condition?
If you think about that for 10 seconds, the mind starts to reel from the possibilities and permutations. Still, my work proves it can be done... it's just a really big project. One worth taking on, I think.
"How might a protagonist (say the first Prime Minister of the earth's newest country) influence events to achieve a condition of voluntary order (anarchism)?"
—Y'know, some people criticize my philosophy-heavy approach, saying that philosophy just doesn't work on some people, but rather leaves them cold.
And yet look at how revered the philosophy that underpinned the American founding is. Look at how popular Paine's "Common Sense" was (read or heard by 1/3 of colonials).
I think the PM of the hypothetical country begins with a statesmanlike exposition of and passionate advocacy for the philosophical principles that justify full anarchism.
If you don't mind, I think I'd like to write a post this weekend based on this conversation. (If I can find some extra time!)
As an author, I get to choose my Framing question. On the other hand, if I were employed as a consultant (to the government of Cascadia) I would facilitate a discussion with their various ministers, etc., to help them select their own Framing question.
I like the freedom and control I have as an author to explore issues in a way that interests me, rather than meeting a client's demands / expectations. However, with that said, I'd like to use your "philosophy-heavy approach" as a baseline. Then I will use the Directed Fiction techniques to compare your philosophy to a different philosophy (I may need some assistance with both of those tasks).
Please consider it a thought experiment. I think you will find it interesting.
I understand that what you want to address is how an ancap society could provide what a minarchist would describe as essential government services. The most problematic of such services are called “public goods”, said to be non-excludable and non-rivalrous; i,e., goods or services one person can use without preventing others from using them and without reducing their availability to others. Public goods are said to produce the free-rider problem because no one has to pay for them, which results in such goods being under-produced or over-consumed. The classic example addressed by anarchists is military defense. Both Michael Huemer and David Friedman say that's a serious problem. The more important a public good and the more people who can benefit from it without having to bear any of its costs, the more serious the problem becomes. What most concerns me can be called crucial global common goods. Recall that multi-national restrictions were placed on CFCs many years ago to save the ozone layer. Could such restrictions be enforced if there were no governments? Here's another problem: Suppose a huge asteroid were on a collision course with earth. Would it require a massive government space program to deal with it? I'm sure you can think of similar problems as can opponents of anarchism.
Concerning the books I recommended, the only ones you haven't read or started reading are Rothbard's The Anatomy of the State and Power and Market and Huemer's The Problem of Political Authority.
The Anatomy of the State is more about why we should do without the state. Power and Market is about the ancap alternative to government. The book has about 330 pages, but Rothbard spends many pages on why for both economic and moral reasons an ancap society is preferable to a statist society because of what the former wouldn't do that the latter would do. Rothbard's book is a more difficult read than Huemer's and its discussion of market alternatives to government services is more theoretical and abstract than Huemer's.
Huemer's The Problem of Political Authority contains about 360 pages. In the first half of the book, Huemer presents a convincing case for philosophical anarchism defined as “the view that there are no political obligations.” In the second half, Huemer makes a good but less powerful case for political anarchism defined as “the view that government should be abolished.”
Political anarchism can better be defined as the position that government agents have no special rights (as to rule private individuals) that private individuals lack, and the latter have no special obligations to obey the former. I think philosophical anarchism is misnamed for two reasons. First, as Huemer points out, philosophical anarchism is commonly accepted by philosophers, few of whom are political anarchists because they favor government on consequentialist grounds. Second, rights and obligations don't depend on politics: There can be both justice and injustice in an anarchist society. Forty years ago, I divided theories of justice into four “pure” theories. One of those theories I called the libertarian theory of justice, the view that all moral agents have equal rights and obligations. The opposing theory I called the authoritarian theory of justice, the view that rights and obligations are unequally distributed so that some agents have special rights others lack and that the others asymmetrically have special obligations to the former agents. As applied to politics, political authority is just the authoritarian theory of justice and philosophical anarchism is just the libertarian theory of justice. All that's necessary to be a philosophical anarchist is to believe in equal rights and obligations, a commonly professed view. That's one of two main reasons I'm a libertarian. The other has to do with logical consistency.
Although Huemer is a political anarchist, like David Friedman and unlike Murray Rothbard, he doesn't advocate the immediate abolition of government, since he believes current conditions are unfavorable to its success. Huemer devotes about 90 pages of the last half of his book to describe concrete practical ways an ancap society can provide essential services currently provided by government. I suspect you'd find Huemer's discussion of this topic more useful than Rothbard's.
PS: I did just find this at the end of a Rockwell book:
“Hans-Hermann Hoppe has edited a collection, The Myth of National Defense, which refutes the myth that an anarchist society could not adequately defend itself.”
I am eager to learn more about that! In "Democracy…" Hoppe certainly makes some of that case himself.
Yeah, when I hear people talk about thinkers and their books on this particular topic, I usually hear Rothbard mentioned more obliquely, and at least one person noted that he just wasn't as specific in his prescriptions for how it can work as Friedman et al.
I have added Huemer's. Thank you!
As to the rest, obviously that's a lot to talk about. I'll just hit a few random points.
A lot of the things I hear people cite as public goods aren't actually non-rivalrous and non-excludable. Like school, for example. "Public good" ends up being equated with "something I like."
Many years ago, when I first learned what a real public good is, I asked Stephen Moore (in a conversation we were having at an event) if he thought education was a public good. He said yes, and at that moment, I realized that our famous pundits might not be all that smart.
I recall Friedman's statement (in the "Machinery of Freedom") about defense being the toughest to pull off. I don't entirely disagree—I do think it would be the last issue to get fixed. But I also think that it is fixable, and as the amount and power of involuntary states declined, so too would the threat of large-scale conflict. (And regional/local conflict is much easier to envision getting handled by private/anarchic mechanisms.)
When it comes to things like stop signs and traffic lights, those really only have the free-rider problem because of the way they are provided currently. In an anarchic scenario, they would likely be provided by for-profit companies who owned the roads.
Lots more to say on all of this, and maybe we can continue to converse on it over time. But categorically, if any of these things are going to be problematic under an anarchic system, then those are problems I want to have. After millennia of the involuntary state…after governments slaughtered 250 million people in the name of the state, in a single century…the burden of proof is now on statists. I simply no longer accept that a condition of voluntary order "must absolutely and undeniably—any idiot knows—be worse than government." This claim is made by nearly everyone with zero actual evidence. I call BS. I am ready to prove them wrong.
I very much love taxonomies (as you can see here, https://christophercook.substack.com/p/what-kind-world-you-want and as you might see in the book I start releasing next week) and so naturally I love the fact that you taxonomized conceptions of justice. Briefly—what were the other two?
I think people need to cross a bridge. If you imagine being them (which I am pretty good at doing since I was thinking like them in 2019), all the scary and terrible things that were happening were way too scary and terrible for them to be able to even cross the bridge to imagining it otherwise. There was no WAY that these humans *arms to both sides, indicating that the world is on fire* were capable of not going batpoo crazy as soon as the caca do became a free for all. HAhahaha. But once they realize (that would be me) that this is being brought about by the system they are ALREADY IN , and that system is working against them on PURPOSE, they can cross the bridge. But before you cross the bridge, you have to go through a portal and have an existential crisis because you have just realized that the world has changed. And they sometimes are not ready to realize that. Some of them will never make it through the portal. We must exist together in different planes.
Murray Rothbard wrote several works that could appear on your list. Consider The Ethics of Liberty, Power and Market, and The Anatomy of the State. You should include The Constitution of No Authority by Lysander Spooner. My personal favorite is The Problem of Political Authority by Michael Huemer. There are also many lesser works, but that's enough for now.
I have read the Spooner work and I am partway through the Ethics of Liberty. Both are brilliant, of course.
But do these works specifically talk about how we can get by without the state—how we can accomplish roads, justice, security, etc.? Or are they more on the "why we should not have the state" end of things? (Certainly "The Constitution of No Authority" is more to the latter end.)
I have read that Spooner title. Brilliant! I have yet to read the others.
Do those others provide a blueprint for how things could function without the state? That’s what we really need for this particular list, more than arguments for why the state should not exist…
Two more I forgot about, Hoppe's 'What Must Be Done' which is more aligned with what you are looking for (and another quick read, my copy is 35 pgs) and Keith Knight's 'Voluntaryist Handbook' which is a collection of approx 50 essays/articles/etc from various writers, which may or may not be exactly what you are looking for.
"How should anarcho-capitalists engage the modern state? Hans-Hermann Hoppe dissects the nature of the modern democratic state and suggests strategies for enacting a bottom-up libertarian revolution in ideology and civil government.
Hoppe begins by examining the nature of the state as “a monopolist of defense and the provision and enforcement of law and order.” Like all state-mandated monopolies, the monopoly of law enforcement also leads to higher prices and lower quality of services. Why is this state of affairs tolerated? The modern democratic states, much more than the monarchies and princely estates of old, are seen as moral and necessary despite ample evidence to the contrary.
In the minds of most modern citizens of democratic states, law and order is what the state says it is, and this has led to a long period of centralization and power consolidation by those states.
How can the libertarian fight back against this trend? Hoppe offers a program that can pave the way for a new libertarian society."
Ancap manifesto offers ideas/suggestions if memory serves. The rest more are just making a case against the state. Part of my reason for listing them, which I forgot on my first comment, is all are quick reads, which I would think would be helpful for introductory books. Nock's is approx 200 pgs, Rothbard"s and Rockwell's both under 100.
And for you or anyone interested, last year did a month of audio books (one a day minimum) from a mises audiobook podcast feed. Whole list in the link, about 40 or so on there.
I did just find this at the end of the Rockwell book:
“Hans-Hermann Hoppe has edited a collection, The Myth of National Defense, which refutes the myth that an anarchist society could not adequately defend itself.”
"Ancap manifesto offers ideas/suggestions if memory serves."
—I just looked and it's only the last few pages, and mostly it just cites Rothbard. I am hoping to find ones to give people that really cram it in—especially for newbies.
I do very much need to read the Nock book myself, and also Oppenheimer's "The State."
its basically a historical argument that the externalities of capitalism necessitated the growth of the state and socialism. i found the argument very convincing but I doubt that means much to you. it is considered a classic book and work of research. i am not a socialist nor do i think the book makes anything other than a historical argument. but its a book that made the thought of advocating a free market- libertarian or anarchist ideology impossible for me.
yeah of course not. And its not really a take at all. The argument is historical that capitalism created social problems that necessitated socialism and a growing state. Most people use the book to defend socialism but I think there are a lot of other alternatives like distributivism that I find more appealing. there are other ways of mitigating the negative externatities of free trade, markets, the market cycle, etc. I was just wondering as you mentioned there is a certain bottom level information someone must have to engage in a convo. Im not interested in saying what should or should not belong in that corpus, but to criticise socialism this is a pretty important text to have dealt with.
In this particular list, I am not looking to criticize socialism or even to argue for why we should not have the state. I am only looking for arguments as to how anarchism can actually work if instantiated in the real world. How we can accomplish the aims of justice, security, infrastructure, etc. Or how this has been actually done at some point in history (Brehon Ireland, the Hanseatic League, Harappa, etc.)
This is why I do my best to avoid easy-to-ingest labels in my work.
Labels tend to limit discussion since they invite conclusion based on prior experience with said label.
And once someone has concluded, no new information can penetrate that conclusion even when it is obvious and right in someone's face.
Keep up the great work. It is definitely cut out for you.
Thanks, and you are right. But…in a way, any word is a kind of label—a sound affixed to a meaning. Sometimes, we must use labels as convenient shorthand.
I mean, even if I replaced "anarchism" with "voluntary order" or perhaps an even longer descriptive sentence, it would still ultimately be a kind of label.
But I see what you mean, of course. The big, common labels have a ton of baggage associated.
What I have also found for myself is that it is not my job to convince or persuade anyone -- against, or on-the-fence or otherwise. My job is to Grateful Dead my ideas through sharing. Put them out there and let people find me who agree and want to contribute in some fashion.
I've learned that most of the time, if someone seems triggered, disagreeing loudly or even using ad-hominem attacks, ie. acting in extremes, -- I have to ask myself, "if that's how you really feel, then what are you doing here?"
With tens of thousand of letter-agency employees assigned strictly to deride, ridicule, disrupt, discount ideas that are inconvenient, or do not serve the Empire, it isn't hard to spot a shill these days. Someone like that sticks out like a sore thumb when they are out of their element.
Your content is a magnet for that kind of thing.
Ohhh, that's a very interesting notion. I hadn't thought of that…
Yup -- you don't owe anybody anything.
Especially your time and attention.
Every moment spent engaging a bad actor is a moment that your important work waits.
You can usually tell if someone is sincere or if they're just there to kick your ass.
True.
There is some value in engaging, though. Some arguments may be good, and that allows me to sharpen the blade of my ideas upon the whetstone of their objections.
And then, in general, engagement is good for building the kind of vibrant community we have here.
But you're certainly right that obvious bad actors can and should be ignored. And I also made this post so that when this issue comes up again, I can just link here rather than repeating myself for the nine millionth time!
"There is some value in engaging, though. Some arguments may be good, and that allows me to sharpen the blade of my ideas upon the whetstone of their objections." N I C E
Huemer refers only to people killed by their own governments. His figures don't include people killed by foreign governments, as in war.
Some people don't read as much as they'd prefer to read because books tend to be expensive. That expense can be avoided by using libraries. Many ebooks are free or very cheap. Used books can be bought at many online sites for a small fraction of their new price. Huemer has started keeping the prices of his books lower by self-publishing.
For me, it's time. I like audiobooks because I can drive, wash the dishes, etc. while reading/listening to them.
Good point.
I'm surprised you received this comment. I didn't think it got through. It's part of a much longer comment that answers the question you asked me about my metatheory of justice, which identifies 4 pure theories. On reflection I'm glad this last part didn't get through. I'm concerned about posting some of my material online for reasons I'd prefer to explain privately. If there are any government agents reading this, be assured I have no intention of joining a revolution to overthrow the government.
Same here. Revolutions are not the answer.
It wasn't luck. I chose Hoppe from among four free market economists, none of whom are still at UNLV. But my sociology instructor was an avowed communist.
Yeah, my Chinese communist poli-sci professor actually said, "Capitalism is good for America, but there were too many people in China. They needed communism or too many of them would have fallen by the wayside."
And I was too young an ignorant to raise my hand and say, "You mean MORE would have starved than the 60 million who did? MORE would have eaten their neighbor's children to survive than actually did?"
I recommend you get The Problem of Political Authority. Huemer has a whole chapter on War and Societal Defense. He does mention guerrilla warfare, nonviolent resistance, the difficulty of conquering a stateless society, etc.
I believe I mentioned at least a couple in my original post, which I no longer have. I might have mentioned that it required cooperation between several governments to restrict use of CFCs to save the ozone layer. Also, it could require a massive space program to save Earth from a killer asteroid. Surely you can think of many other examples. It isn't clear how a world filled with many small anarchist societies could handle such problems.
Hoppe describes large, well-capitalized multinationals providing aggression insurance and the like. Perhaps similar entities would arise to serve other functions. There are already companies with more revenues than certain countries.
In a world without government, everyone is automatically ~ 40% richer. I think the free-rider problem may be overstated. I think humans—especially humans rendered wealthier by the absence of the government exsanguination machine—might contribute to a surprising amount of efforts. Saving the planet from a killer asteroid is probably one of them.
I found an error in a comment I posted on Feb 6 concerning Michael Huemer's book The Problem of Political Authority. The 5th paragraph begins “Political anarchism can be better defined as ...” “Political” should be replaced with “philosophical”.
On your original list of anarchist works, I hadn't read Hoppe's book or the essays by Puydt and Rothbard. I ordered Hoppe's book from Amazon—which I don't yet have time to read--and I downloaded and read both essays. Also, I downloaded and read Hoppe's intro to The Myth of National Defense. Thanks for pointing out those works. Incidentally, I knew both Rothbard and Hoppe many years ago when they lived in Las Vegas. Both taught at UNLV. I took microeconomics from Hoppe.
The following is a response to comments you made and questions you asked me on Feb 7. I'm also inclined to believe members of an anarchist society could defend themselves against a more powerful hostile invader. The US ultimately lost in Vietnam against a weaker guerrilla force, and nether Russia nor the US ultimately won in Afghanistan, to mention a couple of relevant examples. About 40 years ago a brother thought that a foreign power could conquer an anarchist society. I gave him a copy of Jarret Wallstein's SIL issue paper “Military Defense Without a State” and he changed his mind. Huemer's The Problem of Political Authority also gives reasons to believe an ancap society would be hard to conquer. However, I have a skeptical streak. I'm hard to completely convince. One reason is that most governments are said to have arisen by conquest. Originally all societies were stateless societies. Homo habilis has been called the first human species, having evolved perhaps 2 million years ago. Homo sapiens have been around about 300,000 years. The first government appeared in Sumer (Mesopotamia) about 6,500 years ago. Governments in Egypt and China weren't established until a little over 5,000 and 4,000 years ago, respectively. In my lifetime some primitive stateless societies have been known to exist--e.g., all hunter gatherer societies. Apparently, government agents tended to leave them alone because they had nothing worth stealing.
I'm much more concerned about what I call “crucial global common goods”. I don't recall any anarchist addressing that problem.
Regarding your comment about the number of people slaughtered by governments, Huemer mentions that in the 20th century more than 4 ½ times as many people were killed by their own governments than were killed by private murders.
"Huemer mentions that in the 20th century more than 4 ½ times as many people were killed by their own governments than were killed by private murders."
—Obviously that does not include the 262 million that were democided. Do you recall what type of government killing he included in that figure?
I don't recall. The figures are in The Problem of Political Authority--a book you should get. I couldn't find the right page in a quick check of the index. Surely, the deaths include those of the Chinese Famine, the Holocaust, the Russian Revolution and subsequent purges, and the Armenian Genocide.
Yeah, now that I actually stop to think, there are more private mur ders than I at first surmised. The figure does make sense.
(And I will get that book eventually. Sooner if there is an audio version.)
"I'm much more concerned about what I call “crucial global common goods”. I don't recall any anarchist addressing that problem."
—Like oceans and air and the like?
Good comments re: an anarchist society's ability to defend itself.
Obviously that becomes A TON easier if there are no governments anywhere. But that would lead us into Marxian-leftist territory ("pure communism won't come until the whole world is communist"). I don't want to go there.
I think it is possible. Asymmetry/guerrilla is one way. Also, I am substantially convinced by Harry Browne's point about how a large anarchist area would not be worth the trouble because you couldn't just topple the government and thus gain control of its military, and the whole hierarchical structure. You would have to pacify every square inch. That argument works less well for a small area, though.
Is Heumer's point ion that front similar?
"I knew both Rothbard and Hoppe many years ago when they lived in Las Vegas. Both taught at UNLV. I took microeconomics from Hoppe."
—Lucky! Way better than my commie poli-sci professor at U-Mass :-)
Wow, great reading list! Where to start? Christopher, you and I have briefly discussed my work with Directed Fiction and the use of the imaginary country of Cascadia to examine/test different approaches to governance. I'm up to my eyeballs in my fiction book about the upcoming 2024 Presidential election, but I can't help turning this problem over in my mind (it's distracting!)
The first step in the Foresight process is Framing. There are several formal steps, but basically the fiction writer has carte blanche to imagine anything. How might a protagonist in a fictional story (say, the Prime Minister of Cascadia) seek to influence the constitution of the planet's newest country to
Word of warning, however. After the initial research question is framed, the rest of the exercise seeks to identify dependent variables (i.e. the existence of one variable cancels out the existence of the other - only a Republican or a Democrat will be elected president - not both at once).
I'm reluctant to even begin asking questions, because this is such a big topic. But that probably won't stop me from asking them anyway! How might a protagonist (say the first Prime Minister of the earth's newest country) influence events to achieve a condition of voluntary order (anarchism)?
Conversely, how might that same protagonist seek to influence Cascadia to achieve the diametric opposite condition?
If you think about that for 10 seconds, the mind starts to reel from the possibilities and permutations. Still, my work proves it can be done... it's just a really big project. One worth taking on, I think.
"How might a protagonist (say the first Prime Minister of the earth's newest country) influence events to achieve a condition of voluntary order (anarchism)?"
—Y'know, some people criticize my philosophy-heavy approach, saying that philosophy just doesn't work on some people, but rather leaves them cold.
And yet look at how revered the philosophy that underpinned the American founding is. Look at how popular Paine's "Common Sense" was (read or heard by 1/3 of colonials).
I think the PM of the hypothetical country begins with a statesmanlike exposition of and passionate advocacy for the philosophical principles that justify full anarchism.
If you don't mind, I think I'd like to write a post this weekend based on this conversation. (If I can find some extra time!)
As an author, I get to choose my Framing question. On the other hand, if I were employed as a consultant (to the government of Cascadia) I would facilitate a discussion with their various ministers, etc., to help them select their own Framing question.
I like the freedom and control I have as an author to explore issues in a way that interests me, rather than meeting a client's demands / expectations. However, with that said, I'd like to use your "philosophy-heavy approach" as a baseline. Then I will use the Directed Fiction techniques to compare your philosophy to a different philosophy (I may need some assistance with both of those tasks).
Please consider it a thought experiment. I think you will find it interesting.
Yeah, sounds great!
This is probably the best distillation of that philosophy: https://christophercook.substack.com/p/human-constitution
Or the chart here: https://christophercook.substack.com/p/is-any-government-morally-permissible
My recommendation:
Foundations of Private Property Society Theory: Anarchism for the Civilized Person https://a.co/d/hCp5HMb
it it pretty solid on how it can/would be done?
It’s a primer but addresses the main critiques
Thanks!
adding now!
I understand that what you want to address is how an ancap society could provide what a minarchist would describe as essential government services. The most problematic of such services are called “public goods”, said to be non-excludable and non-rivalrous; i,e., goods or services one person can use without preventing others from using them and without reducing their availability to others. Public goods are said to produce the free-rider problem because no one has to pay for them, which results in such goods being under-produced or over-consumed. The classic example addressed by anarchists is military defense. Both Michael Huemer and David Friedman say that's a serious problem. The more important a public good and the more people who can benefit from it without having to bear any of its costs, the more serious the problem becomes. What most concerns me can be called crucial global common goods. Recall that multi-national restrictions were placed on CFCs many years ago to save the ozone layer. Could such restrictions be enforced if there were no governments? Here's another problem: Suppose a huge asteroid were on a collision course with earth. Would it require a massive government space program to deal with it? I'm sure you can think of similar problems as can opponents of anarchism.
Concerning the books I recommended, the only ones you haven't read or started reading are Rothbard's The Anatomy of the State and Power and Market and Huemer's The Problem of Political Authority.
The Anatomy of the State is more about why we should do without the state. Power and Market is about the ancap alternative to government. The book has about 330 pages, but Rothbard spends many pages on why for both economic and moral reasons an ancap society is preferable to a statist society because of what the former wouldn't do that the latter would do. Rothbard's book is a more difficult read than Huemer's and its discussion of market alternatives to government services is more theoretical and abstract than Huemer's.
Huemer's The Problem of Political Authority contains about 360 pages. In the first half of the book, Huemer presents a convincing case for philosophical anarchism defined as “the view that there are no political obligations.” In the second half, Huemer makes a good but less powerful case for political anarchism defined as “the view that government should be abolished.”
Political anarchism can better be defined as the position that government agents have no special rights (as to rule private individuals) that private individuals lack, and the latter have no special obligations to obey the former. I think philosophical anarchism is misnamed for two reasons. First, as Huemer points out, philosophical anarchism is commonly accepted by philosophers, few of whom are political anarchists because they favor government on consequentialist grounds. Second, rights and obligations don't depend on politics: There can be both justice and injustice in an anarchist society. Forty years ago, I divided theories of justice into four “pure” theories. One of those theories I called the libertarian theory of justice, the view that all moral agents have equal rights and obligations. The opposing theory I called the authoritarian theory of justice, the view that rights and obligations are unequally distributed so that some agents have special rights others lack and that the others asymmetrically have special obligations to the former agents. As applied to politics, political authority is just the authoritarian theory of justice and philosophical anarchism is just the libertarian theory of justice. All that's necessary to be a philosophical anarchist is to believe in equal rights and obligations, a commonly professed view. That's one of two main reasons I'm a libertarian. The other has to do with logical consistency.
Although Huemer is a political anarchist, like David Friedman and unlike Murray Rothbard, he doesn't advocate the immediate abolition of government, since he believes current conditions are unfavorable to its success. Huemer devotes about 90 pages of the last half of his book to describe concrete practical ways an ancap society can provide essential services currently provided by government. I suspect you'd find Huemer's discussion of this topic more useful than Rothbard's.
PS: I did just find this at the end of a Rockwell book:
“Hans-Hermann Hoppe has edited a collection, The Myth of National Defense, which refutes the myth that an anarchist society could not adequately defend itself.”
I am eager to learn more about that! In "Democracy…" Hoppe certainly makes some of that case himself.
https://mises.org/library/myth-national-defense
Yeah, when I hear people talk about thinkers and their books on this particular topic, I usually hear Rothbard mentioned more obliquely, and at least one person noted that he just wasn't as specific in his prescriptions for how it can work as Friedman et al.
I have added Huemer's. Thank you!
As to the rest, obviously that's a lot to talk about. I'll just hit a few random points.
A lot of the things I hear people cite as public goods aren't actually non-rivalrous and non-excludable. Like school, for example. "Public good" ends up being equated with "something I like."
Many years ago, when I first learned what a real public good is, I asked Stephen Moore (in a conversation we were having at an event) if he thought education was a public good. He said yes, and at that moment, I realized that our famous pundits might not be all that smart.
I recall Friedman's statement (in the "Machinery of Freedom") about defense being the toughest to pull off. I don't entirely disagree—I do think it would be the last issue to get fixed. But I also think that it is fixable, and as the amount and power of involuntary states declined, so too would the threat of large-scale conflict. (And regional/local conflict is much easier to envision getting handled by private/anarchic mechanisms.)
When it comes to things like stop signs and traffic lights, those really only have the free-rider problem because of the way they are provided currently. In an anarchic scenario, they would likely be provided by for-profit companies who owned the roads.
Lots more to say on all of this, and maybe we can continue to converse on it over time. But categorically, if any of these things are going to be problematic under an anarchic system, then those are problems I want to have. After millennia of the involuntary state…after governments slaughtered 250 million people in the name of the state, in a single century…the burden of proof is now on statists. I simply no longer accept that a condition of voluntary order "must absolutely and undeniably—any idiot knows—be worse than government." This claim is made by nearly everyone with zero actual evidence. I call BS. I am ready to prove them wrong.
I very much love taxonomies (as you can see here, https://christophercook.substack.com/p/what-kind-world-you-want and as you might see in the book I start releasing next week) and so naturally I love the fact that you taxonomized conceptions of justice. Briefly—what were the other two?
I encourage those who actually seek to become well informed to read the anti-Federalist papers.
Doing so, with the now available benifit of hindsight, shows quite conclusively that the Federalist were tragically wrong.
I have been meaning to do that! (I just downloaded an audio version for car-listening.)
When I was reading the Federalist Papers (before I was fully anarchist), I started to sense it. This is the piece I wrote from back in those days: https://christophercook.substack.com/p/the-federalist-papers-were-brilliant-but
I think people need to cross a bridge. If you imagine being them (which I am pretty good at doing since I was thinking like them in 2019), all the scary and terrible things that were happening were way too scary and terrible for them to be able to even cross the bridge to imagining it otherwise. There was no WAY that these humans *arms to both sides, indicating that the world is on fire* were capable of not going batpoo crazy as soon as the caca do became a free for all. HAhahaha. But once they realize (that would be me) that this is being brought about by the system they are ALREADY IN , and that system is working against them on PURPOSE, they can cross the bridge. But before you cross the bridge, you have to go through a portal and have an existential crisis because you have just realized that the world has changed. And they sometimes are not ready to realize that. Some of them will never make it through the portal. We must exist together in different planes.
Yeah, I think that's it. The existential crisis may differ marginally from person to person, but something needs to happen.
For someone on the classical right, it might be two fold:
1. The people running the show aren't who I thought they were.
2. We cannot ever get back to some sort of analogue of the Founders' "original vision" with any amount of voting or other actions within the system.
For someone on the left, it would probably be more like,
1. The people running the show aren't who I thought they were.
2. The people on my side are BAT-SPIT crazy!
Murray Rothbard wrote several works that could appear on your list. Consider The Ethics of Liberty, Power and Market, and The Anatomy of the State. You should include The Constitution of No Authority by Lysander Spooner. My personal favorite is The Problem of Political Authority by Michael Huemer. There are also many lesser works, but that's enough for now.
I have read the Spooner work and I am partway through the Ethics of Liberty. Both are brilliant, of course.
But do these works specifically talk about how we can get by without the state—how we can accomplish roads, justice, security, etc.? Or are they more on the "why we should not have the state" end of things? (Certainly "The Constitution of No Authority" is more to the latter end.)
Our Enemy the State by Jay Nock
Ancap Manifesto by Rockwell
Anatomy of the State by Rothbard
Constitution No Authority (or whatever its proper title is) by Spooner
Not that I needed convincing by time I read these, but these were some of the most powerful cases against the state IMO
I have read that Spooner title. Brilliant! I have yet to read the others.
Do those others provide a blueprint for how things could function without the state? That’s what we really need for this particular list, more than arguments for why the state should not exist…
Two more I forgot about, Hoppe's 'What Must Be Done' which is more aligned with what you are looking for (and another quick read, my copy is 35 pgs) and Keith Knight's 'Voluntaryist Handbook' which is a collection of approx 50 essays/articles/etc from various writers, which may or may not be exactly what you are looking for.
Question on Hoppe's 'What Must Be Done'—is it similar in content to "Democracy: The God That Failed"? (If you've read that.)
It may seem like I am being picky, but please don't let that obscure how grateful I am for your efforts/suggestions!
Little rusty on what all God That Failed covered, but somewhat similar, maybe adding on to it, like almost a part 2 for lack of a better term.
This is the summary from Mises.org:
"How should anarcho-capitalists engage the modern state? Hans-Hermann Hoppe dissects the nature of the modern democratic state and suggests strategies for enacting a bottom-up libertarian revolution in ideology and civil government.
Hoppe begins by examining the nature of the state as “a monopolist of defense and the provision and enforcement of law and order.” Like all state-mandated monopolies, the monopoly of law enforcement also leads to higher prices and lower quality of services. Why is this state of affairs tolerated? The modern democratic states, much more than the monarchies and princely estates of old, are seen as moral and necessary despite ample evidence to the contrary.
In the minds of most modern citizens of democratic states, law and order is what the state says it is, and this has led to a long period of centralization and power consolidation by those states.
How can the libertarian fight back against this trend? Hoppe offers a program that can pave the way for a new libertarian society."
Sounds quite similar. I also read another of Hoppe's that was essentially a summarized restatement of "Democracy…"
Ancap manifesto offers ideas/suggestions if memory serves. The rest more are just making a case against the state. Part of my reason for listing them, which I forgot on my first comment, is all are quick reads, which I would think would be helpful for introductory books. Nock's is approx 200 pgs, Rothbard"s and Rockwell's both under 100.
And for you or anyone interested, last year did a month of audio books (one a day minimum) from a mises audiobook podcast feed. Whole list in the link, about 40 or so on there.
https://thetruthaddict.substack.com/p/mission-accomplished
I did just find this at the end of the Rockwell book:
“Hans-Hermann Hoppe has edited a collection, The Myth of National Defense, which refutes the myth that an anarchist society could not adequately defend itself.”
That sounds good!
https://mises.org/library/myth-national-defense
That one is one my list for next audio book binge
"Ancap manifesto offers ideas/suggestions if memory serves."
—I just looked and it's only the last few pages, and mostly it just cites Rothbard. I am hoping to find ones to give people that really cram it in—especially for newbies.
I do very much need to read the Nock book myself, and also Oppenheimer's "The State."
You listened to that much in a month? I bow low to you, sir. That is stunning!
it was tough but worth it.
You must know all things now!
Maybe a thing or two :)
what do you think of a book like "the great transformation" by karl polanyi?
I don’t know it…
its basically a historical argument that the externalities of capitalism necessitated the growth of the state and socialism. i found the argument very convincing but I doubt that means much to you. it is considered a classic book and work of research. i am not a socialist nor do i think the book makes anything other than a historical argument. but its a book that made the thought of advocating a free market- libertarian or anarchist ideology impossible for me.
Very interesting. It would not go in this list, of course, but it sounds like an interesting third-way take.
yeah of course not. And its not really a take at all. The argument is historical that capitalism created social problems that necessitated socialism and a growing state. Most people use the book to defend socialism but I think there are a lot of other alternatives like distributivism that I find more appealing. there are other ways of mitigating the negative externatities of free trade, markets, the market cycle, etc. I was just wondering as you mentioned there is a certain bottom level information someone must have to engage in a convo. Im not interested in saying what should or should not belong in that corpus, but to criticise socialism this is a pretty important text to have dealt with.
Indeed.
In this particular list, I am not looking to criticize socialism or even to argue for why we should not have the state. I am only looking for arguments as to how anarchism can actually work if instantiated in the real world. How we can accomplish the aims of justice, security, infrastructure, etc. Or how this has been actually done at some point in history (Brehon Ireland, the Hanseatic League, Harappa, etc.)