I just came to put my 2 cent opinion in of health insurance is a scam. Recently, it was found my HR department had my FTE wrong and had me listed as a full time employee while I’m actually part time. My insurance for my family doubled per paycheck and I ended up having to select a cheaper plan. Meanwhile, I’m paying the bill for others who don’t. While working in the same healthcare system. I certainly don’t want some handout and the whole thing is stupid.
The whole thing is stupid. The way it works is stupid.
But focusing on the way it works plays into the whole lie, because it implies that there is a way that it could work—more efficiently, for example—that would be moral. But no such way exists. You being forced to pay for anyone else's health insurance—or for >anything< for >anyone< else—is fundamentally immoral. Anyone else being forced to do the same for you is fundamentally immoral.
Even the act of you being forced to pay the salary of someone who works for government—no matter what he does—falls into the same category. It is force being exerted upon you to take something from you and give it to someone else. No one has been able to make an argument explaining how that can be justified in terms of any moral first principles.
(But we can make arguments for why it would be okay to pay firemen, police, soldiers, judges voluntarily in consensual market transactions.)
Those are some very interesting thoughts—the kind that will roll around in my brain for a while. But at first blush…
I know this is going to sound hard to believe, given the environmental eschatology with which we're all infused daily, but in most ways, the environment is cleaner than it has been at any point since the industrial revolution really got rolling. The air and water were so much more polluted than they are now. Even when I was a kid, in the 1970s, I can remember smelling far worse air quality in NY and London [for example] than now, and that is borne out by statistics. Lots of water has been cleaned up. We are reforesting and now have more trees than we have in centuries.
The same is true with living standards and wealth. The bottom quintile today is wealthier than the middle quintile was in 1950. That is a huge leap. Yes, there is a small cohort in grinding poverty, but that exists at any time, in any society. And yes, things have gotten worse VERY recently, due to a combination of factors. But in the modern era in general, we have never been richer. And this applies worldwide. Over the last 20 years, people have streamed out of poverty across the globe.
I am not denying the existence of problems on the economic or environmental front. But statistically, humans have never been wealthier in all of our history, and things are cleaner than they have been in 150 years. So I am not sure how we can cite environment or economics as an excuse for……
……and here is where I get fuzzier on what you are saying. What are you saying? That because of these concerns, the redistributive system of government is morally good? That we should take, by force, from some and give to others because they are benefitting from pollution and structural economic inequalities?
The standard of living of everyone has risen dramatically. But there is indeed a tiny fraction (~.01 percent) of hyper wealthy who have gotten hyper-hyper wealthy recently. But a few things about that…
1. I do not believe they are getting hyper-hyper wealthy because of pollution. It is, I believe, due to the hyper-financialization of global economies and their ability to game the system. And much of that system-gaming is coming from their incestuous relationships with government. In other words, it is actual force that is helping them. Government force. The force that I am herein decrying.
2. Even if we were to stipulate to your description of the problem, I am not sure the solution is forced redistribution. That just continues the problem without fixing it, and adds a retributive-redistributive component.
3. Plus, the redistribution does not actually hurt the hyper-wealthy. It hurts the truck driver with four kids making 70K.
Please tell me if that makes sense, or if not, where you think I am off base. Thanks for chiming in!
"I'm from GenX and I have heard the phrase "the world needs ditch diggers too" is one of those things that got lost in the mire of Millennial and Gen Whatever's next. People can feel dignity in whatever job they have if they are made to feel like their contribution matters. If they have respect, there is no need for envy and resentment as such."
i would disagree with your pollution stats. it is not less, just different and in many cases more deadly. the drinking water, tap water, is in most places in this country full of harmful chemicals, improperly treated with many harmful chemical compounds untreated, not treatable or removable or even "looked" or tested for. clear cutting of old growth forests & planting trees in another area, especially those fast growth varieties for harvesting in a few years is not the same thing. lowering of standards to allow for higher chemical waste levels released into the surrounding waterways, groundsoil & air is not "cleaner" or better. just becoz you cant see it, smell it doesnt make it so. nor does gubment stats which are based on hypothetical models, based on selective fractions and bear no actual, real world, broad correlations, consequences or accountability.
with all the govt subsidy programs in existence & have been in existence for close to a century now why is your argument centered on your neighbor, the common man, the students, the few groups who get no subsidy, the so called "nonessential" that can with a penstroke lose everything worked for?
why do u give so much creedence to a financial system based on figment of imagination?
why do u think u "own" anything?
there is a lot of colonialist thinking in these discussions, hierarchal supremacy, divisive, systemic, top down.
redistribution would hurt everybody as long as we support a system of make believe numbers on a computer screen.
what systems in existence would you keep? especially since they are all govt supported, subsidized, reinforced & enforced & colossal failures across the board?
I would keep no government systems whatsoever. I am a market anarchist. I believe that agencies, cooperatively competing in a free and open market, would do a better job of providing the services that we normally associate with government.
My argument focuses on the most sympathetic forms of redistribution, rather than the more egregious forms that we all agree are terrible (corporate welfare, e.g.), to make the point that all forced redistribution is a moral crime, even if the recipient is a sympathetic character. Yes, of course, if I could get rid of one form of redistribution before another, I would focus on the less savory types. But if I just focused on those in this argument, many people would have the takeaway that if we just get rid of the bad kinds, all will be well. No. ALL forced redistribution is a moral crime. So I make the argument in the place where the egregious stuff is not there to confuse the issue.
ok. an example of forced redistribution i find unsavory….a private business creating a business sold to govt that the public are then legislated to be required to purchase.
one such example of a legislative attempt/conversation i witnessed was regarding portable defribillators. legislator was promoting requiring every business establishment to purchase or have one on the premises available & at the ready for use…which would require a trained operator also available. the legislator’s stated dilemma was how to legislate, regulate & enforce the training.
this was such a blatantly obvious cronyism, special interest, business money making scheme that would force many legitimate small business owners out…i found it unbelievably outrageous that such was even entertained on the statehouse floor.
another favorite example of mine is “insurance” & the requirement for.
I could personally do without the leftist rhetoric but the fundamental point is sound that the Jew usury system ruins the planet and lives of ordinary people so parasitic Jews can live in obscene yet classless luxury.
Welfare/entitlements is viewed as their charitable giving by those on the left. (They’re usually surprised when they hear the big meanies on the right outgive them by quite a bit when it comes to donations to actually charities on top of taxes.). I’m sure a lot of ppl on the right feel that way too which means a large portion of the population does not feel obligated to help those around them anymore because that’s somebody else’s job.
People receiving entitlements thru government no longer have to face that they’re receiving charity. They don’t have to go see actual humans/their neighbors/churches, whatever to receive. I’m not saying I think they should be ashamed but I think the way it’s done now gives people a sense of demand and entitlement. Gratitude, empowerment, motivation are the good things that come out of charity when it’s done right
Forgot to say that aside from perverting the human good that should/can come from receiving charity, it also steals the warmth, satisfaction, being moved, all of the good things that can be felt by giving to charity/serving others
100 percent! I have written about this too, though it has not been a recent focus. We could together list many different ways in which this is the case.
I at it at the feet of the destruction of the family and the possibility of being able to make a life on a single income. When women were able to raise their own children, children learned actual life skills, thrift, burden sharing, patience and delayed gratification which translate to the ability and will to help others in the family and community. The lack of time, will and people who could care for ill or aging relatives and neighbors and donate to charities who do such things because everyone is needed in the work force and all our money and tine is needed to cover what we need has broken what once was normal and moral. Lack of value and purpose and human connection and connection to God creates a void we fill we fill with stuff, noise and busyness.
Wow! I talk with a lot of people and hear a lot of the same categories of topics, opinions, etc. repeated. You outlook is a breath of fresh air in that it is certainly very different, and does not fit neatly into typical categories.
Obviously I could spend the next two days answering every interesting point you raised, and that is not possible. So I will just pick a couple.
First, a quick note—you did not sound like a total asshole with your point about dependent people not simply picking themselves up by their bootstraps and doing better. You are correct. I have neither an elitist attitude toward humanity nor a Pollyanna one. We're not the rabble the elite think we are, but there are a lot of pretty lame people too. Evil. Lazy. Blandly unthinking. Etc. It is what it is.
Second, is it possible that a lot of the problems you describe (spiritual and community collapse, etc.) are the result of too much affluence? Of having it too good? In general, bad things happen when things get too easy for humans. Maybe we are just finding that out now…
Third, this notion that the middle class has to pay off the current dependent class, lest they come for us in the night…that is very much like, as I understand it, a claim made by John Rawls. Nozick thoroughly fisks Rawls in "Anarchy, State and Utopia," and one of the things Nozick identifies is Rawls' contention that we must construct a society that lifts the condition of the "least well-off" among us, lest they decide to simply come and take it from the rest of us.
Here is where I too say that I do not want to sound like a total asshole, but I will not be held hostage in that way. I am middle class. I have oppressed no one. And if people who have less than I are going to come for me in the night, I say let 'em come. I will be ready. So will my middle class neighbors, who work hard and oppress no one. I refuse to be held for ransom. I am already paying protection money to the mafias that call themselves my local, county, state, and national governments. I refuse to pay the Danegeld to a bunch of dependent wastrels. "Once you pay the Danegeld, you never get rid of the Dane." I would rather take my turn on watch and deal with it that way. I was perfectly happy to help the truly needy voluntarily. But if paying off a horde is what redistribution is all about, I want out.
Running out to a baseball game now, so all I can say to the rest is that I generally agree, and I think (as you would expect an anarchist to think) that removing involuntary governance will have a salutary effect on most of these social issues!
"As for the result of too much affluence being the issue. I don't really think there is a such thing as too much affluence unless it generates the corrupting force of greed. Affluence is good, greed is evil."
—I should have said "ease" rather than "affluence." There is a reasonable argument that we experience some character degradation when we have it too easy. Obviously I would rather have it easy and then try to maintain my character. But I fear there may be something to the theory in general.
At what point do you say screw the basement, I am not going? They have us at checkmate because if you allow them to put you in the basement, you will die, or if you resist in any way, they will murder you. Either choice renders you dead...their ultimate goal. How do we over come this? The only way is to neuter the globalists before they can get their way.
That will take the population waking up, I mean really waking up with a pitchfork in their hands before we can act. Don't know if that happens. We don't actually have to go to war, but send a message to these clowns that they will not get their way. If we do not resist, or at least make the attempt, we will be trampled by these cretins.
I have been thinking through some of this—specifically how to engineer a gradual change. I will start writing about it as soon as I get two free seconds to rub together.
Some changes sudden. Those are harder to predict.
If you had said that in 1986 that the USSR was going to collapse in five years, most people would have laughed at you. But I watched it happen with my own eyes. Indeed, by being a part of the crowd in Moscow, I participated.
The signs were in Poland earlier, but still, if you had said that the Pope, plus a few million Poles protecting peacefully, would set a chain reaction that would tear down the whole of the Iron Curtain, it would have sounded outlandish. Then it happened.
The Ceaucescus were in large and in charge one day. Five days later, they were dead.
Revolution can catch spread like grassfire. Peaceful, violent, or a combination thereof. It's hard to say. And it's harder to plan for. Indeed, violent revolution should not be planned for, for a whole host of reasons.
Keep waking people up as fast as you can. You don't have to get to everyone. You just have to get the Remnant to the point where their numbers are at critical mass, and they are really really awake!
If we stop paying tackiz that FUN'd our own demyze then we can stand our ground and not partake in whore i mean whar either. The problem is that most people wouldn't DARE to stop paying their tacks. and they would be scared as hell to even think about how to defend themselves when the miliscary came rolling down their street in tanks.
"Much of today’s society is powered by pure narcissism. People want to feel good about themselves. They want others to admire them. Like most animals, humans are wired to want to climb in status hierarchies, and social media, leftism, and various other forces have created a really easy hierarchy: Just do and say the next “correct” thing, and climb a rung. Call someone else a racist, fascist, or uncaring bastard and climb two rungs! "- taken from article
Politics is not my field or social studies, but I was thinking about ...an anarchist runs a red light, a car going through a greenlight swerves and hits and kills a child on the sidewalk. The anarchist didn't agree to or sign up for rules of the road. There are no law courts, no police. And the anarchist didn't literally kill anyone. But their actions set in motion events that led to the child's death. How will justice be served, who is to decide the case? The father taking justice in his own hands and kills the anarchist? Or maybe, no one saw the anarchist run the red light, so they blame and murder the driver that had to swerve to avoid the anarchist? I am not baiting you, just your post inspired these reflections and questions.
It is understand able that you ask. That said, all of these are standard questions that are answered in every vision of market anarchism that has yet been presented.
The roads would not be lawless. Right now, the roads are owned by government. They make the rules, base on the incentives that governments have. They, enforce those rules, and fund the roads, based on the enforcement mechanisms that governments have.
In a market-anarchic condition, the roads would be owned privately. (Now, with transponder tech, that is easier than ever.) In most cases, larger companies would own many miles of roads in a region. They would have a market incentive to make their roads safe (and better than competitors) and they would fund them most likely using transponder tech. They could also use banishment as one of their enforcement techniques (drunk-drive on our road and you cannot drive on them anymore).
In a market-anarchic condition, security, justice, adjudication of disputes/torts, etc. would be accomplished by private agencies rather than by a single monopoly provider. I know that raises questions, but all those questions are answered within the literature on the subject. Not only can it work; it is going to work better.
Anarchism is not a free-for-all. Harm will still exist, requiring protective force, which will also still exist. It will simply come from entities other than a single involuntary monopolist (government).
Thanks for your reply. But that didn’t address the moral case I outlined. Further, what happens when the rules change at a private boundary, like power plugs that don’t switch from one brand to another? I’m not being contentious, but I would rather have universal consistent rules then competing variations some areas of human coexistence.
"Further, what happens when the rules change at a private boundary, like power plugs that don’t switch from one brand to another? I’m not being contentious, but I would rather have universal consistent rules then competing variations some areas of human coexistence."
—Most such standards came from private entities working together—often through private organizations like the National Association of Manufacturers. The size of beds, bricks, and boards were all standardized (after a period of chaos) privately.
Similarly, the government didn't say that USB-C cables would be the standard. They became the standard organically, through an emergent-order/market process.
Speaking of which, I still have a bunch of Mini USB male cables. You want 'em? 🤣
"But that didn’t address the moral case I outlined."
—
Well, it did partially answer it, and I thought you would extrapolate at least hints of the rest. It is difficult to answer in such a way that totally accounts for all possible objections—especially since market anarchism, like any concept worth its salt, cannot be explained and fully justified in two minutes. But briefly…
The father will, unless he's an idiot, be a customer of one or more agencies that provide aggression insurance, adjudication of tortious action, etc. according to a set of codes, standards, and rules established by the agency. One or more of those agencies will take action against the driver on behalf of their customer.
The driver will of course have his own agency. His agency and the father's may have somewhat different procedures, but they will have contractually prearranged courts, joint procedures, and a court of final appeal. They will adjudicate the matter according to contractural prearrangement.
(Note that the differences in legal codes from agency to agency will be harmonized and reconciled in these inter-agency cases, slowly, organically producing a form of common law.)
The driver will also be liable to the owner of the roads for violating the rules of the road. The road owner may further subrogate, upon the driver, any liabilities they may incur int he incident.
All of this is pretty easy peasy. All of these sorts of systems exist now, and are widely used, but there is a system atop them that imposes itself. Things would still work in the absence of that imposed super-authority.
Punishment would likely go back to the more ancient ways—restitution for harms done, rather than pointless incarceration. (Crazed psychopaths would have to be incapacitated through some form of incarceration, yes. But that also happens now, and the psychopaths don't recognize the legitimacy of the system that incapacitates them now, any more than they would if they were incarcerated by Acme Aggression Insurance and Security Co.)
Thanks for taking the time, Christopher. Again, I am a lay person, and it is far afield from what I study. I have still have trouble visualizing a libertarian utopia rather I see thousands of tribal camps with their own laws, and a few individuals that live alone in caves.
Thank you for asking questions (and for doing so without slinging insults, which is shockingly common when this subject comes up). It is worth it for me to take the time for anyone who asks earnestly, and who isn't a zillion miles off.
Two quick points:
No libertarian or anarchist I know, or ever heard of, is suggesting that utopia is possible. That is, in some cases, an intentional strawman erected to make it easier to lampoon anarcho-libertarian ideas.
In other cases (and I assume that this applies to you), there is some psychology at work_something I cannot quite figure out—that causes people to assume we are talking about "utopia." I just don't get why. If you can help me with that, I would appreciate it!
As for what the chaos you envision, that is really only because you have not studied what libertarian anarchists are actually talking about. In the absence of said knowledge, the only thing that fills in the gaps is a lifetime of indoctrination, and 7,000 years of statist propaganda instructing the little people that the only thing standing between us and chaos is our betters/overlords. And we'd better give them our money and our obedience; otherwise, we're so rotten that we're just going to descend into Hobbesian chaos without them.
We won't wake up from that slave-mentality dream until we realize that they're no better than us, and that we're not nearly so bad as they say.
the problem i see with your market anarchy concerning roadways is what i see at play now...a bunch of self interested lil tyrants.
standards have been established, written & agreed to internationally for everything under the sun. and changed to meet industry demands without public consent & often without general public knowledge.
one of the most important agreements in the unification doc was no restriction or tariff of trade cross borders & traveling on common conveyance routes such as rivers etc.
public commons ought not be privatized or owned privately. never, in practicality, has it ever been demonstrated that private does it better, more efficient or more cost effective in real world, tangible, clealy evident results on the receiving or user end.
The answer is simple my friend, the government has stolen my money to protect it from me. And with it and from others like me, they have hired some stupid human he will die to protect it. But sign up a million people who want their stolen money back. I will enlist.
We're probably never getting that money back. But if a million more people have the revolution that you and I have had, we will eventually get to the point where we do not let them take any more of it!
How can you interface with the outside world w/o some form of government. I’d rather not disband the military right now either. I liked your argument though. I just don’t see how to get around having one. I consider my ideal version of one a necessary evil.
When you say interface with the outside world, what do you mean? Do you mean talk with people in other countries? If so—the vast majority of international communication occurs without government. People talk with each other, and businesses cooperate, every day. What exactly do we need government for, other than to talk to other governments? It's a racket they are running. It has nothing to do with normal human interaction. If someone in another country wants to talk with me, or to talk with my business, they can.
What is it that governments do, exactly?
Government: "You need us to talk to other governments."
Normal humans: "No we don't. YOU need us to keep converting our labor into tax money that you are taking from us. You need us to pay you to talk to your similarly thieving counterparts in other governments. You need us; we do not need you."
Government: "You need us to defend you from other nations."
Normal humans: "No we don't. We need you to defend us from other GOVERNMENTS. The actual humans of other nations have no interest in going to war with us, and no ability to wage such a war if they did. War is not a people thing; it is a government thing."
Government is not the solution to war. It is the cause of it.
Of course, I am not being Pollyanna here. I know that the problem of foreign governments remains, just as the problem of ours does. But we must start from the understanding of the truth and move from there. Governments are the problem. We cannot keep saying we have no choice but to allow them to keep being the solution to a problem of which they themselves are the cause.
Fortunately, defense can happen in the absence of involuntary government. One good description of aspects of this is in Chapter 12 here:
I am going to write this up formally at some point, but very briefly…
It would not be easier for a foreign power to invade a region that is in a condition of consensual order (anarchism). It would be much, much harder. Now, all they have to do is defeat a government's military and raise their flag over the capital. At that point, they have gained control of an entire hierarchical system that monitors, taxes, and controls the whole population. Bang, the whole country is theirs. Now imagine a region where no one obeys anyone. They are well armed, and they pay large, well-capitalized private protection and aggression-insurance agencies for security. The invading power would have to defeat all those agencies AND pacify every square inch of the region and keep it pacified. They would be shot from every window. Farm girls would lure their soldiers into bed and then slit their throats. It would never end. You think we had a tough time in Vietnam? Or we, the Russians, and Alexander the Great had a tough time in Afghanistan? Asymmetric warfare defeats large powers. Now imagine asymmetric warfare in a wealthy anarchist region of people who believe that their freedom from dominion is an absolute birthright.
I will read the links you posted. ..Just wanted to do a quick response at the moment. By interface, yes I meant deal with other governments formally. Just because we not interested in having a government here won’t mean other governments aren’t interested in us. Even if it’s in a non conquering let’s set up trade sort of way. Idk it’s all so easily corruptible and corrupting these positions of any type of international or national power. I want to go back and see exactly how long it took us to completely disregard George Washington’s extremely sage advice in his farewell address about staying out of foreign affairs/meddling. I don’t know that it’s possible. You will be dragged in by hook or by crook by your own government or a foreign one. So yes I agree it’s a vector for evil, but I haven’t gotten to not having one at all just yet
Realistically, we are not going to go from where we are now to worldwide anarchy/consensual order, nor even to a consensual order spread cross an entire continent all at once. It will most likely be gradual.
I don't think it is worth worrying about the concern you have expressed. Systems will arise at every step of the way that will fit that moment for that stage in the process.
Did you ever read any of Neal Stephenson's fiction—specifically "The Diamond Age" or "Snow Crash"? In those, and especially in the former, he paints a very plausible picture of what it might eventually look like, including a global joint economic/legal/customary "Protocol" system.
This, I salute for several reasons obviously. But one I really appreciated reading, because it happens all the time, and it is rarely called out. The defaulting into "well, no other systems work!" or however they want to word it. That's the ultimate snare - just because one cannot, in their current state of consciousness, conceive of a solution / new idea, does not mean it doesn't exist. That type of shit (i believe they call it "contempt prior to investigation") will forever keep people in the dark. Once we're willing to consider the fact that we do NOT know everything and possibilities are not limited and just because we haven't seen something done before, doesn't mean it can be, I think we'd be moving in a positive direction, and very quickly.
You know that to whatever extent I have a reputation here, it is in part for answering (almost) everyone, and for being polite and calm in discussions. I do it because it makes for better discussions, and because it is the right thing to do.
But it takes a fair amount of restraint on my part not to scream at some people, JUST BECAUSE YOU LACK THE IMAGINATION TO ENVISION A THING DOES NOT MEAN THAT THING CANNOT BE!
The lack of imagination really does get old. That is one reason why I have been focusing on trying to show people the fundamental problem with what we have now—to get them to WANT to imagine something better, or at least to read the works of those who already have.
But then, when they heap smug disdain on me (because they lack the vision to see beyond what is), it is super-extra frustrating. And the less they know, the more insulting they get. (Fortunately, most people do not do this.)
I did not know that that is called "contempt prior to investigation"—thank you for hipping me to that. Now I can use that official term to call them out for it, and still be polite about it 🤣🤣
bahahah yes — its an interesting phrase but it fucks everyone (contempt prior to investigation) I feel your frustration on this I really do. It’ll shift soon, there seems to be a fuckery threshold that is elevated beyond normal levels happening right now
—It's funny…just about five minutes ago, I suddenly became overwhelmed with a thought-feeling: Where we want to be seems so far off, and yet we don't realize that the path we're on is leading right there! We're further down that path than we realize.
oh wow. that is a golden thought-feeling right there broheem. no lie. I am gonna hang onto that. It has been an interesting start of the day so far, and for this I am grateful. Thank you.
IMO the state does not rise from a moral argument, but in response to the social and technological characteristics of the system:
Military defence in technologically advanced societies - a centralised entity (the state) is a good way to organise defence spending in a technologically advanced society. I really do mean defence here, as opposed to ‘defence’ (furthering national interests through military means abroad). Concession: maybe a federated structure could accomplish the same. No real world examples of this to my knowledge.
Rule of law - that is to say, preventing the forming of private militias and keeping the coercive functions of society within one, democratically controlled entity. If we dissolved the state, how might large corporations such as Walmart, Apple, Eron behave? Just look to regions with weak states: they hire private militias to defend and further their interests. In this situation you haven’t removed the coercive forces in society, but simply displaced them to undemocratic, unaccountable structures.
That is exactly where I was prior to beginning study of the field. The idea of market anarchism is not the removal of government in favor of a total absence of the kinds of structures that produce social order. It is that the same market forces that meet all other needs in a free market (shoes and bubblegum and 4x8 plywood sheathing) will rise to meet the production of security, justice, and infrastructure as well. And that it will do it far more efficiently than government, just as it does everything else far more efficiently than government.
For here, understanding exactly how that might work, and answering all the objections that spring to mind, simply takes reading the people who have thought it through.
If you are genuinely anarcho-curious, I am happy to try to answer discrete questions. That is part of what I am here for! Though the most effective way would really be to dive in and just start reading. There is a good reading list at the end of this post: https://christophercook.substack.com/p/no-way-i-can-convince-you-anarchism
See also natural monopolies such as mains water systems, where there are no competing companies to choose between. - the mismanagement of infrastructure and capital by British water companies is well documented in this regard.
Additionally, how do you solve the Pareto distribution of wealth? Markets cease to function as effective decision making structures when inequality is extreme, favouring the production of luxury items over basic necessities.
I AM pro crypto anarchy. Central bank power is abstract and therefore unaccountable. Buy BTC and smash the existing financial system, sounds good to me. But for the reasons mentioned above, I am absolutely pro democratic state governance, as flawed as it may be.
The U.S. healthcare system isn't anywhere close to a free market. It is only so in comparison to Canada, Britain, etc. But in reality, it is massively distorted by government interference, government-encumbered third-party payers, etc. An actual free market in healthcare would likely perform far better, have lower costs, etc. That is the general rule, when markets are freed up.
Are so-called natural monopolies an exception to that rule? I am not convinced. I strongly suspect that humans beings would find a way to get water delivered without government oversight. (There is a lot of libertarian literature on this topic.)
I am not sure that it is possible, or desirable, to "solve" the Pareto distribution of anything. Pareto distributions are a fact of life. Attempts to solve them require MASSIVE amounts of force, and the attempts fail anyway. (In 1950, the USSR apparently [according to a note in "The Road to Serfdom"] had GREATER income inequality than the U.S. And when I was in the USSR in 1991, my Russian friends definitely confirmed the existence of major class distinctions.) The force fails, and is undesirable to begin with.
My working approach is based on the view that government inevitably ends up making the rich, the powerful, the connected MORE rich, powerful and connected, not less, and on the prediction that more government will make it more so. Corporations, corporate personhood, special treatment, carveouts, corporate welfare, requiring people to buy or foot the bill for certain products (vaccine, e.g.), Section 230, etc. etc. all redound to the benefit of the rich. Take that away and there will still be rich people, and there will still be a Pareto distribution, but they will have fewer advantages, and less ability to impose anything on anyone else, not more.
That is the moral consideration—not whether one person has more than another, but whether one person is initiating force on another. The force has to get dealt with. The inequality does not.
I am glad you are pro-crypto and anti-central banking.
I do hear your points about regulatory capture, and understand that if you are from the US (which I guess you are?) they must be felt more acutely.
My perspective is more decentralised decision making = more democratic governance = better outcomes. Norway is an interesting example, with its distributed economy, originally based on community level lumber export enterprises, exporting via the fjord system, leading to highly democratic systems and excellent decisions. The democratic strength came before the oil money, and not after as some believe.
Note that whilst the markets can be decentralised, they don’t have to be (inequality centralises them). Also markets are not the only way to be decentralised.
In short, I believe in the power of effective governance to create positive outcomes. I do understand that this feels sorely missing at times. Governing the commons is an interesting book, I don’t know if you’ve come across it? Interesting melding of anarchic governance with legitimate authority, taken from actual field research and not pure abstract theory.
I have not heard of that book, no. And yep, I am in America.
I think, based on what little I know so far, that if I had to pick between the system they have working in Norway and that in Switzerland, I would take the Swiss'. They have a highly decentralized political system with very engaging democratic systems. I would need to study up more, but thus far, what I know looks better than most. (Also, though Norway looks good on paper economically in some ways, IIUC, their purchasing power parity isn't great.)
There are definitely some systems that are preferable to others, and there are probably systems that, though I might think anarchism would be preferable, would nonetheless be quite tolerable.
However, I remain an anarchist for moral reason (I do not believe any involuntary governance is morally permissible) and consequentialist reasons (I believe, though I cannot yet prove dispositively), that anarchism would work better. I also believe, and I think history has adequately demonstrated, that even a tolerably limited government cannot be kept limited for too long. A generation at best.
I would still go further, because I do not believe that limited government can ever be kept limited. But I would rather live in the world you envision than what we have now, or anything even close to what we have now!
Yeah, I hear you. (though I do not know the movie :-)
It is an interesting tactical question. What goal to shoot for? An intermediate step that is more palatable? Or the ultimate ideal. There are arguments for both.
More people would find what you describe more cogent and palatable, and closer to the opening of their Overton Windows. But there is also the risk of getting there and then staying there, rather than going further. And then, of course, staying there too long means getting right back to where we are now—a process I am convinced is inevitable if there is any involuntary government whatsoever.
But I am practical, and I will take whatever I can get. This is likely going to be a generational project, so let's get it started and see where it goes. And different people arguing on slightly different angles, but with the same overall goal, can only help.
This wouldn't even be relevant if energy and healthcare prices were where they should be, with welfare programs dropping the price to nothing for those needing it. Nobody would bat an eye if a few bucks were taken out to help someone else's healthcare because everyone's GDP would be well over 5-6 thousand. That's only in a world where energy costs are kept low. However, me and economics don't vibe very well: excited to hear your thoughts.
It is true that there are various factors holding us back from super-wealth. Another big one is the American Social Security system. If the same amount of money that is forcibly extracted from paychecks in payroll taxes were invested in indexed stock accounts over a working lifetime, EVERYONE would retire with several million in the bank at least. Even in the worst of times, the stock market is a net gainer over the course of a working lifetime. 5–10%. This is basic math and financial analysis that anyone can do, and it is a crime that the SS system continues to impoverish everyone. (But then, all of government is a crime.)
But setting that aside, you did not make an argument for why forced redistribution is not a moral evil. You simply said that if we were wealthier, we wouldn't notice. That is not moral ground I would like to have to defend. Do you want to take a stab at an actual moral argument instead? (EDIT: That sounded sarcastic, but it was no meant so. I am genuinely interested to see if anyone has an actual argument that makes forcible redistribution morally defensible.)
Also, something else just occurred to me. If we were to get wealthier, calls would increase for greater percentage levels of redistribution. "We're so wealthy—the rich can afford to have 85% of everything they have taken from them to equalize outcomes a little better."
It would never stop. We know this because
a) Distaste for the Gini coefficient is hard-wired into the human brain,
b) we keep seeing the definition of poverty changed. It becomes less and less about standard of living or absolute wealth (both of which have risen dramatically for everyone) and more and more about >>relative<< poverty. (This is largely because of a).) As a result, as we get wealthier, people whose wealth and standard of living are upper-middle-class now would simply be defined as "the poor" after 50 years of the kinds of wealth increases we're talking about.
You're doing an excellent job raising awareness of the folly of government! Many think that there's 'no choice'. We're programmed to think that without government, there'd be chaos.
If you think voting them out is the answer or that we get the government we vote for, remember that Republicans ran for years promising to repeal Obamacare. But when the Republicans had the power to do it, they simply didn't..
It's complicated. The mass media reported in 2017 that Dodd-Frank was repealed; today Dodd-Frank is bigger than it was then (over 2,000 pages). The Civil Aeronautics Board was dissolved in 1985. But it was replaced by several new agencies, each of which is bigger and more powerful than the CAB was.
So the true, short answer is: No, not really. The so-called "Era of Deregulation" never happened, not even close. Only more overregulation happened.
"No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth!"
In regards to the "democracy" argument, you are entirely correct, but may i add some spice to the dish?
"Elections" are scripted. There is no representation for taxation. Also, taxation is theft. It's all guns and locked basements if you disagree.
Right. IOW, it's an even bigger scam than people think!
I just came to put my 2 cent opinion in of health insurance is a scam. Recently, it was found my HR department had my FTE wrong and had me listed as a full time employee while I’m actually part time. My insurance for my family doubled per paycheck and I ended up having to select a cheaper plan. Meanwhile, I’m paying the bill for others who don’t. While working in the same healthcare system. I certainly don’t want some handout and the whole thing is stupid.
The whole thing is stupid. The way it works is stupid.
But focusing on the way it works plays into the whole lie, because it implies that there is a way that it could work—more efficiently, for example—that would be moral. But no such way exists. You being forced to pay for anyone else's health insurance—or for >anything< for >anyone< else—is fundamentally immoral. Anyone else being forced to do the same for you is fundamentally immoral.
Even the act of you being forced to pay the salary of someone who works for government—no matter what he does—falls into the same category. It is force being exerted upon you to take something from you and give it to someone else. No one has been able to make an argument explaining how that can be justified in terms of any moral first principles.
(But we can make arguments for why it would be okay to pay firemen, police, soldiers, judges voluntarily in consensual market transactions.)
Those are some very interesting thoughts—the kind that will roll around in my brain for a while. But at first blush…
I know this is going to sound hard to believe, given the environmental eschatology with which we're all infused daily, but in most ways, the environment is cleaner than it has been at any point since the industrial revolution really got rolling. The air and water were so much more polluted than they are now. Even when I was a kid, in the 1970s, I can remember smelling far worse air quality in NY and London [for example] than now, and that is borne out by statistics. Lots of water has been cleaned up. We are reforesting and now have more trees than we have in centuries.
The same is true with living standards and wealth. The bottom quintile today is wealthier than the middle quintile was in 1950. That is a huge leap. Yes, there is a small cohort in grinding poverty, but that exists at any time, in any society. And yes, things have gotten worse VERY recently, due to a combination of factors. But in the modern era in general, we have never been richer. And this applies worldwide. Over the last 20 years, people have streamed out of poverty across the globe.
I am not denying the existence of problems on the economic or environmental front. But statistically, humans have never been wealthier in all of our history, and things are cleaner than they have been in 150 years. So I am not sure how we can cite environment or economics as an excuse for……
……and here is where I get fuzzier on what you are saying. What are you saying? That because of these concerns, the redistributive system of government is morally good? That we should take, by force, from some and give to others because they are benefitting from pollution and structural economic inequalities?
The standard of living of everyone has risen dramatically. But there is indeed a tiny fraction (~.01 percent) of hyper wealthy who have gotten hyper-hyper wealthy recently. But a few things about that…
1. I do not believe they are getting hyper-hyper wealthy because of pollution. It is, I believe, due to the hyper-financialization of global economies and their ability to game the system. And much of that system-gaming is coming from their incestuous relationships with government. In other words, it is actual force that is helping them. Government force. The force that I am herein decrying.
2. Even if we were to stipulate to your description of the problem, I am not sure the solution is forced redistribution. That just continues the problem without fixing it, and adds a retributive-redistributive component.
3. Plus, the redistribution does not actually hurt the hyper-wealthy. It hurts the truck driver with four kids making 70K.
Please tell me if that makes sense, or if not, where you think I am off base. Thanks for chiming in!
"I'm from GenX and I have heard the phrase "the world needs ditch diggers too" is one of those things that got lost in the mire of Millennial and Gen Whatever's next. People can feel dignity in whatever job they have if they are made to feel like their contribution matters. If they have respect, there is no need for envy and resentment as such."
—yep. Whatever you do, do your best and be proud.
i would disagree with your pollution stats. it is not less, just different and in many cases more deadly. the drinking water, tap water, is in most places in this country full of harmful chemicals, improperly treated with many harmful chemical compounds untreated, not treatable or removable or even "looked" or tested for. clear cutting of old growth forests & planting trees in another area, especially those fast growth varieties for harvesting in a few years is not the same thing. lowering of standards to allow for higher chemical waste levels released into the surrounding waterways, groundsoil & air is not "cleaner" or better. just becoz you cant see it, smell it doesnt make it so. nor does gubment stats which are based on hypothetical models, based on selective fractions and bear no actual, real world, broad correlations, consequences or accountability.
with all the govt subsidy programs in existence & have been in existence for close to a century now why is your argument centered on your neighbor, the common man, the students, the few groups who get no subsidy, the so called "nonessential" that can with a penstroke lose everything worked for?
why do u give so much creedence to a financial system based on figment of imagination?
why do u think u "own" anything?
there is a lot of colonialist thinking in these discussions, hierarchal supremacy, divisive, systemic, top down.
redistribution would hurt everybody as long as we support a system of make believe numbers on a computer screen.
what systems in existence would you keep? especially since they are all govt supported, subsidized, reinforced & enforced & colossal failures across the board?
I would keep no government systems whatsoever. I am a market anarchist. I believe that agencies, cooperatively competing in a free and open market, would do a better job of providing the services that we normally associate with government.
I do not support forced redistribution of any kind. By contrast, I do very much support private mechanisms of helping each other: https://underthrow.substack.com/p/can-we-have-welfare-without-the-threat
My argument focuses on the most sympathetic forms of redistribution, rather than the more egregious forms that we all agree are terrible (corporate welfare, e.g.), to make the point that all forced redistribution is a moral crime, even if the recipient is a sympathetic character. Yes, of course, if I could get rid of one form of redistribution before another, I would focus on the less savory types. But if I just focused on those in this argument, many people would have the takeaway that if we just get rid of the bad kinds, all will be well. No. ALL forced redistribution is a moral crime. So I make the argument in the place where the egregious stuff is not there to confuse the issue.
ok. an example of forced redistribution i find unsavory….a private business creating a business sold to govt that the public are then legislated to be required to purchase.
one such example of a legislative attempt/conversation i witnessed was regarding portable defribillators. legislator was promoting requiring every business establishment to purchase or have one on the premises available & at the ready for use…which would require a trained operator also available. the legislator’s stated dilemma was how to legislate, regulate & enforce the training.
this was such a blatantly obvious cronyism, special interest, business money making scheme that would force many legitimate small business owners out…i found it unbelievably outrageous that such was even entertained on the statehouse floor.
another favorite example of mine is “insurance” & the requirement for.
are you familiar with ALEC?
I could personally do without the leftist rhetoric but the fundamental point is sound that the Jew usury system ruins the planet and lives of ordinary people so parasitic Jews can live in obscene yet classless luxury.
Wham you just owned the Jewbatarian,
Welfare/entitlements is viewed as their charitable giving by those on the left. (They’re usually surprised when they hear the big meanies on the right outgive them by quite a bit when it comes to donations to actually charities on top of taxes.). I’m sure a lot of ppl on the right feel that way too which means a large portion of the population does not feel obligated to help those around them anymore because that’s somebody else’s job.
People receiving entitlements thru government no longer have to face that they’re receiving charity. They don’t have to go see actual humans/their neighbors/churches, whatever to receive. I’m not saying I think they should be ashamed but I think the way it’s done now gives people a sense of demand and entitlement. Gratitude, empowerment, motivation are the good things that come out of charity when it’s done right
Well and rightly said in every regard.
Forgot to say that aside from perverting the human good that should/can come from receiving charity, it also steals the warmth, satisfaction, being moved, all of the good things that can be felt by giving to charity/serving others
100 percent! I have written about this too, though it has not been a recent focus. We could together list many different ways in which this is the case.
I at it at the feet of the destruction of the family and the possibility of being able to make a life on a single income. When women were able to raise their own children, children learned actual life skills, thrift, burden sharing, patience and delayed gratification which translate to the ability and will to help others in the family and community. The lack of time, will and people who could care for ill or aging relatives and neighbors and donate to charities who do such things because everyone is needed in the work force and all our money and tine is needed to cover what we need has broken what once was normal and moral. Lack of value and purpose and human connection and connection to God creates a void we fill we fill with stuff, noise and busyness.
https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
Wow! I talk with a lot of people and hear a lot of the same categories of topics, opinions, etc. repeated. You outlook is a breath of fresh air in that it is certainly very different, and does not fit neatly into typical categories.
Obviously I could spend the next two days answering every interesting point you raised, and that is not possible. So I will just pick a couple.
First, a quick note—you did not sound like a total asshole with your point about dependent people not simply picking themselves up by their bootstraps and doing better. You are correct. I have neither an elitist attitude toward humanity nor a Pollyanna one. We're not the rabble the elite think we are, but there are a lot of pretty lame people too. Evil. Lazy. Blandly unthinking. Etc. It is what it is.
Second, is it possible that a lot of the problems you describe (spiritual and community collapse, etc.) are the result of too much affluence? Of having it too good? In general, bad things happen when things get too easy for humans. Maybe we are just finding that out now…
Third, this notion that the middle class has to pay off the current dependent class, lest they come for us in the night…that is very much like, as I understand it, a claim made by John Rawls. Nozick thoroughly fisks Rawls in "Anarchy, State and Utopia," and one of the things Nozick identifies is Rawls' contention that we must construct a society that lifts the condition of the "least well-off" among us, lest they decide to simply come and take it from the rest of us.
Here is where I too say that I do not want to sound like a total asshole, but I will not be held hostage in that way. I am middle class. I have oppressed no one. And if people who have less than I are going to come for me in the night, I say let 'em come. I will be ready. So will my middle class neighbors, who work hard and oppress no one. I refuse to be held for ransom. I am already paying protection money to the mafias that call themselves my local, county, state, and national governments. I refuse to pay the Danegeld to a bunch of dependent wastrels. "Once you pay the Danegeld, you never get rid of the Dane." I would rather take my turn on watch and deal with it that way. I was perfectly happy to help the truly needy voluntarily. But if paying off a horde is what redistribution is all about, I want out.
Running out to a baseball game now, so all I can say to the rest is that I generally agree, and I think (as you would expect an anarchist to think) that removing involuntary governance will have a salutary effect on most of these social issues!
"As for the result of too much affluence being the issue. I don't really think there is a such thing as too much affluence unless it generates the corrupting force of greed. Affluence is good, greed is evil."
—I should have said "ease" rather than "affluence." There is a reasonable argument that we experience some character degradation when we have it too easy. Obviously I would rather have it easy and then try to maintain my character. But I fear there may be something to the theory in general.
"I've never heard of John Rawls or Nozick. I'll check them out to see what you mean more clearly."
—Nozick is a classic, but hard to read. After I read Nozick destroy Rawls, I never read Rawls.
At what point do you say screw the basement, I am not going? They have us at checkmate because if you allow them to put you in the basement, you will die, or if you resist in any way, they will murder you. Either choice renders you dead...their ultimate goal. How do we over come this? The only way is to neuter the globalists before they can get their way.
That will take the population waking up, I mean really waking up with a pitchfork in their hands before we can act. Don't know if that happens. We don't actually have to go to war, but send a message to these clowns that they will not get their way. If we do not resist, or at least make the attempt, we will be trampled by these cretins.
It is hard to predict/plan.
Some changes are gradual.
I have been thinking through some of this—specifically how to engineer a gradual change. I will start writing about it as soon as I get two free seconds to rub together.
Some changes sudden. Those are harder to predict.
If you had said that in 1986 that the USSR was going to collapse in five years, most people would have laughed at you. But I watched it happen with my own eyes. Indeed, by being a part of the crowd in Moscow, I participated.
The signs were in Poland earlier, but still, if you had said that the Pope, plus a few million Poles protecting peacefully, would set a chain reaction that would tear down the whole of the Iron Curtain, it would have sounded outlandish. Then it happened.
The Ceaucescus were in large and in charge one day. Five days later, they were dead.
Revolution can catch spread like grassfire. Peaceful, violent, or a combination thereof. It's hard to say. And it's harder to plan for. Indeed, violent revolution should not be planned for, for a whole host of reasons.
Keep waking people up as fast as you can. You don't have to get to everyone. You just have to get the Remnant to the point where their numbers are at critical mass, and they are really really awake!
we have a choice about going to whar.
If we stop paying tackiz that FUN'd our own demyze then we can stand our ground and not partake in whore i mean whar either. The problem is that most people wouldn't DARE to stop paying their tacks. and they would be scared as hell to even think about how to defend themselves when the miliscary came rolling down their street in tanks.
"Much of today’s society is powered by pure narcissism. People want to feel good about themselves. They want others to admire them. Like most animals, humans are wired to want to climb in status hierarchies, and social media, leftism, and various other forces have created a really easy hierarchy: Just do and say the next “correct” thing, and climb a rung. Call someone else a racist, fascist, or uncaring bastard and climb two rungs! "- taken from article
Bravo dude!
Thank you, JJ :-)
Great article Christopher you are kicking the pot over! Surely there is a much better program then the awful one we have now.
It is the program that says that no program may be forcibly imposed without explicit, transparent, ongoing consent.
And voting ≠ consent.
I like that .
Hey Christopher,
Politics is not my field or social studies, but I was thinking about ...an anarchist runs a red light, a car going through a greenlight swerves and hits and kills a child on the sidewalk. The anarchist didn't agree to or sign up for rules of the road. There are no law courts, no police. And the anarchist didn't literally kill anyone. But their actions set in motion events that led to the child's death. How will justice be served, who is to decide the case? The father taking justice in his own hands and kills the anarchist? Or maybe, no one saw the anarchist run the red light, so they blame and murder the driver that had to swerve to avoid the anarchist? I am not baiting you, just your post inspired these reflections and questions.
It is understand able that you ask. That said, all of these are standard questions that are answered in every vision of market anarchism that has yet been presented.
The roads would not be lawless. Right now, the roads are owned by government. They make the rules, base on the incentives that governments have. They, enforce those rules, and fund the roads, based on the enforcement mechanisms that governments have.
In a market-anarchic condition, the roads would be owned privately. (Now, with transponder tech, that is easier than ever.) In most cases, larger companies would own many miles of roads in a region. They would have a market incentive to make their roads safe (and better than competitors) and they would fund them most likely using transponder tech. They could also use banishment as one of their enforcement techniques (drunk-drive on our road and you cannot drive on them anymore).
In a market-anarchic condition, security, justice, adjudication of disputes/torts, etc. would be accomplished by private agencies rather than by a single monopoly provider. I know that raises questions, but all those questions are answered within the literature on the subject. Not only can it work; it is going to work better.
Anarchism is not a free-for-all. Harm will still exist, requiring protective force, which will also still exist. It will simply come from entities other than a single involuntary monopolist (government).
Thanks for your reply. But that didn’t address the moral case I outlined. Further, what happens when the rules change at a private boundary, like power plugs that don’t switch from one brand to another? I’m not being contentious, but I would rather have universal consistent rules then competing variations some areas of human coexistence.
"Further, what happens when the rules change at a private boundary, like power plugs that don’t switch from one brand to another? I’m not being contentious, but I would rather have universal consistent rules then competing variations some areas of human coexistence."
—Most such standards came from private entities working together—often through private organizations like the National Association of Manufacturers. The size of beds, bricks, and boards were all standardized (after a period of chaos) privately.
Similarly, the government didn't say that USB-C cables would be the standard. They became the standard organically, through an emergent-order/market process.
Speaking of which, I still have a bunch of Mini USB male cables. You want 'em? 🤣
"But that didn’t address the moral case I outlined."
—
Well, it did partially answer it, and I thought you would extrapolate at least hints of the rest. It is difficult to answer in such a way that totally accounts for all possible objections—especially since market anarchism, like any concept worth its salt, cannot be explained and fully justified in two minutes. But briefly…
The father will, unless he's an idiot, be a customer of one or more agencies that provide aggression insurance, adjudication of tortious action, etc. according to a set of codes, standards, and rules established by the agency. One or more of those agencies will take action against the driver on behalf of their customer.
The driver will of course have his own agency. His agency and the father's may have somewhat different procedures, but they will have contractually prearranged courts, joint procedures, and a court of final appeal. They will adjudicate the matter according to contractural prearrangement.
(Note that the differences in legal codes from agency to agency will be harmonized and reconciled in these inter-agency cases, slowly, organically producing a form of common law.)
The driver will also be liable to the owner of the roads for violating the rules of the road. The road owner may further subrogate, upon the driver, any liabilities they may incur int he incident.
All of this is pretty easy peasy. All of these sorts of systems exist now, and are widely used, but there is a system atop them that imposes itself. Things would still work in the absence of that imposed super-authority.
Punishment would likely go back to the more ancient ways—restitution for harms done, rather than pointless incarceration. (Crazed psychopaths would have to be incapacitated through some form of incarceration, yes. But that also happens now, and the psychopaths don't recognize the legitimacy of the system that incapacitates them now, any more than they would if they were incarcerated by Acme Aggression Insurance and Security Co.)
Better?
Thanks for taking the time, Christopher. Again, I am a lay person, and it is far afield from what I study. I have still have trouble visualizing a libertarian utopia rather I see thousands of tribal camps with their own laws, and a few individuals that live alone in caves.
Thank you for asking questions (and for doing so without slinging insults, which is shockingly common when this subject comes up). It is worth it for me to take the time for anyone who asks earnestly, and who isn't a zillion miles off.
Two quick points:
No libertarian or anarchist I know, or ever heard of, is suggesting that utopia is possible. That is, in some cases, an intentional strawman erected to make it easier to lampoon anarcho-libertarian ideas.
In other cases (and I assume that this applies to you), there is some psychology at work_something I cannot quite figure out—that causes people to assume we are talking about "utopia." I just don't get why. If you can help me with that, I would appreciate it!
As for what the chaos you envision, that is really only because you have not studied what libertarian anarchists are actually talking about. In the absence of said knowledge, the only thing that fills in the gaps is a lifetime of indoctrination, and 7,000 years of statist propaganda instructing the little people that the only thing standing between us and chaos is our betters/overlords. And we'd better give them our money and our obedience; otherwise, we're so rotten that we're just going to descend into Hobbesian chaos without them.
We won't wake up from that slave-mentality dream until we realize that they're no better than us, and that we're not nearly so bad as they say.
the problem i see with your market anarchy concerning roadways is what i see at play now...a bunch of self interested lil tyrants.
standards have been established, written & agreed to internationally for everything under the sun. and changed to meet industry demands without public consent & often without general public knowledge.
one of the most important agreements in the unification doc was no restriction or tariff of trade cross borders & traveling on common conveyance routes such as rivers etc.
public commons ought not be privatized or owned privately. never, in practicality, has it ever been demonstrated that private does it better, more efficient or more cost effective in real world, tangible, clealy evident results on the receiving or user end.
feudal lordship, plantation owners...good grief.
no thanks.
The force be with you - true answer
Thank you? Can it be the REAL Force, from the 1977–83 movies, and not the updated version from the 90s, or the totally woke version from Disney+?
The answer is simple my friend, the government has stolen my money to protect it from me. And with it and from others like me, they have hired some stupid human he will die to protect it. But sign up a million people who want their stolen money back. I will enlist.
We're probably never getting that money back. But if a million more people have the revolution that you and I have had, we will eventually get to the point where we do not let them take any more of it!
How can you interface with the outside world w/o some form of government. I’d rather not disband the military right now either. I liked your argument though. I just don’t see how to get around having one. I consider my ideal version of one a necessary evil.
When you say interface with the outside world, what do you mean? Do you mean talk with people in other countries? If so—the vast majority of international communication occurs without government. People talk with each other, and businesses cooperate, every day. What exactly do we need government for, other than to talk to other governments? It's a racket they are running. It has nothing to do with normal human interaction. If someone in another country wants to talk with me, or to talk with my business, they can.
What is it that governments do, exactly?
Government: "You need us to talk to other governments."
Normal humans: "No we don't. YOU need us to keep converting our labor into tax money that you are taking from us. You need us to pay you to talk to your similarly thieving counterparts in other governments. You need us; we do not need you."
Government: "You need us to defend you from other nations."
Normal humans: "No we don't. We need you to defend us from other GOVERNMENTS. The actual humans of other nations have no interest in going to war with us, and no ability to wage such a war if they did. War is not a people thing; it is a government thing."
Government is not the solution to war. It is the cause of it.
Of course, I am not being Pollyanna here. I know that the problem of foreign governments remains, just as the problem of ours does. But we must start from the understanding of the truth and move from there. Governments are the problem. We cannot keep saying we have no choice but to allow them to keep being the solution to a problem of which they themselves are the cause.
Fortunately, defense can happen in the absence of involuntary government. One good description of aspects of this is in Chapter 12 here:
https://ia801508.us.archive.org/14/items/911-material/Pdfs/Democracy%20The%20God%20That%20Failed.pdf
Also, some other things to note…
I am going to write this up formally at some point, but very briefly…
It would not be easier for a foreign power to invade a region that is in a condition of consensual order (anarchism). It would be much, much harder. Now, all they have to do is defeat a government's military and raise their flag over the capital. At that point, they have gained control of an entire hierarchical system that monitors, taxes, and controls the whole population. Bang, the whole country is theirs. Now imagine a region where no one obeys anyone. They are well armed, and they pay large, well-capitalized private protection and aggression-insurance agencies for security. The invading power would have to defeat all those agencies AND pacify every square inch of the region and keep it pacified. They would be shot from every window. Farm girls would lure their soldiers into bed and then slit their throats. It would never end. You think we had a tough time in Vietnam? Or we, the Russians, and Alexander the Great had a tough time in Afghanistan? Asymmetric warfare defeats large powers. Now imagine asymmetric warfare in a wealthy anarchist region of people who believe that their freedom from dominion is an absolute birthright.
Other thoughts here:
https://christophercook.substack.com/p/people-allowed-own-nuclear-weapons
https://christophercook.substack.com/p/do-you-hate-ivan-russian-does-he-hate-you
https://christophercook.substack.com/p/what-if-not-fought-french-indian-war
I will read the links you posted. ..Just wanted to do a quick response at the moment. By interface, yes I meant deal with other governments formally. Just because we not interested in having a government here won’t mean other governments aren’t interested in us. Even if it’s in a non conquering let’s set up trade sort of way. Idk it’s all so easily corruptible and corrupting these positions of any type of international or national power. I want to go back and see exactly how long it took us to completely disregard George Washington’s extremely sage advice in his farewell address about staying out of foreign affairs/meddling. I don’t know that it’s possible. You will be dragged in by hook or by crook by your own government or a foreign one. So yes I agree it’s a vector for evil, but I haven’t gotten to not having one at all just yet
I totally get it.
Realistically, we are not going to go from where we are now to worldwide anarchy/consensual order, nor even to a consensual order spread cross an entire continent all at once. It will most likely be gradual.
I don't think it is worth worrying about the concern you have expressed. Systems will arise at every step of the way that will fit that moment for that stage in the process.
Did you ever read any of Neal Stephenson's fiction—specifically "The Diamond Age" or "Snow Crash"? In those, and especially in the former, he paints a very plausible picture of what it might eventually look like, including a global joint economic/legal/customary "Protocol" system.
Also, in Article IV of my constitution, I describe something that might eventually fit the bill: https://christophercook.substack.com/p/human-constitution
I have not. I’ll look into them and add them to my list most likely:). I love how deeply ppl are thinking about this
Yeah, me too!
This, I salute for several reasons obviously. But one I really appreciated reading, because it happens all the time, and it is rarely called out. The defaulting into "well, no other systems work!" or however they want to word it. That's the ultimate snare - just because one cannot, in their current state of consciousness, conceive of a solution / new idea, does not mean it doesn't exist. That type of shit (i believe they call it "contempt prior to investigation") will forever keep people in the dark. Once we're willing to consider the fact that we do NOT know everything and possibilities are not limited and just because we haven't seen something done before, doesn't mean it can be, I think we'd be moving in a positive direction, and very quickly.
OMG, you totally nail it.
You know that to whatever extent I have a reputation here, it is in part for answering (almost) everyone, and for being polite and calm in discussions. I do it because it makes for better discussions, and because it is the right thing to do.
But it takes a fair amount of restraint on my part not to scream at some people, JUST BECAUSE YOU LACK THE IMAGINATION TO ENVISION A THING DOES NOT MEAN THAT THING CANNOT BE!
The lack of imagination really does get old. That is one reason why I have been focusing on trying to show people the fundamental problem with what we have now—to get them to WANT to imagine something better, or at least to read the works of those who already have.
But then, when they heap smug disdain on me (because they lack the vision to see beyond what is), it is super-extra frustrating. And the less they know, the more insulting they get. (Fortunately, most people do not do this.)
I did not know that that is called "contempt prior to investigation"—thank you for hipping me to that. Now I can use that official term to call them out for it, and still be polite about it 🤣🤣
bahahah yes — its an interesting phrase but it fucks everyone (contempt prior to investigation) I feel your frustration on this I really do. It’ll shift soon, there seems to be a fuckery threshold that is elevated beyond normal levels happening right now
🤣
"It’ll shift soon"
—It's funny…just about five minutes ago, I suddenly became overwhelmed with a thought-feeling: Where we want to be seems so far off, and yet we don't realize that the path we're on is leading right there! We're further down that path than we realize.
oh wow. that is a golden thought-feeling right there broheem. no lie. I am gonna hang onto that. It has been an interesting start of the day so far, and for this I am grateful. Thank you.
Life is filled with good news and bad news. We must do our best!
IMO the state does not rise from a moral argument, but in response to the social and technological characteristics of the system:
Military defence in technologically advanced societies - a centralised entity (the state) is a good way to organise defence spending in a technologically advanced society. I really do mean defence here, as opposed to ‘defence’ (furthering national interests through military means abroad). Concession: maybe a federated structure could accomplish the same. No real world examples of this to my knowledge.
Rule of law - that is to say, preventing the forming of private militias and keeping the coercive functions of society within one, democratically controlled entity. If we dissolved the state, how might large corporations such as Walmart, Apple, Eron behave? Just look to regions with weak states: they hire private militias to defend and further their interests. In this situation you haven’t removed the coercive forces in society, but simply displaced them to undemocratic, unaccountable structures.
As to your last graf…
That is exactly where I was prior to beginning study of the field. The idea of market anarchism is not the removal of government in favor of a total absence of the kinds of structures that produce social order. It is that the same market forces that meet all other needs in a free market (shoes and bubblegum and 4x8 plywood sheathing) will rise to meet the production of security, justice, and infrastructure as well. And that it will do it far more efficiently than government, just as it does everything else far more efficiently than government.
For here, understanding exactly how that might work, and answering all the objections that spring to mind, simply takes reading the people who have thought it through.
If you are genuinely anarcho-curious, I am happy to try to answer discrete questions. That is part of what I am here for! Though the most effective way would really be to dive in and just start reading. There is a good reading list at the end of this post: https://christophercook.substack.com/p/no-way-i-can-convince-you-anarchism
I’m afraid that, as far as I’m aware, the statement that markets are always more efficient is provably false. Happy to hear a counter point.
Example: US has a market based health care approach with far higher per capita spend, and worse outcomes - https://www.bmj.com/content/383/bmj.p2340#:~:text=News-,US%20spends%20more%20than%20twice%20as%20much%20on%20health%20as,for%20worse%20outcomes%2C%20finds%20report&text=The%20Commonwealth%20Fund%2C%20which%20supports,on%20excess%20US%20health%20spending.
See also natural monopolies such as mains water systems, where there are no competing companies to choose between. - the mismanagement of infrastructure and capital by British water companies is well documented in this regard.
Additionally, how do you solve the Pareto distribution of wealth? Markets cease to function as effective decision making structures when inequality is extreme, favouring the production of luxury items over basic necessities.
I AM pro crypto anarchy. Central bank power is abstract and therefore unaccountable. Buy BTC and smash the existing financial system, sounds good to me. But for the reasons mentioned above, I am absolutely pro democratic state governance, as flawed as it may be.
Thank you for some interesting thoughts.
The U.S. healthcare system isn't anywhere close to a free market. It is only so in comparison to Canada, Britain, etc. But in reality, it is massively distorted by government interference, government-encumbered third-party payers, etc. An actual free market in healthcare would likely perform far better, have lower costs, etc. That is the general rule, when markets are freed up.
Are so-called natural monopolies an exception to that rule? I am not convinced. I strongly suspect that humans beings would find a way to get water delivered without government oversight. (There is a lot of libertarian literature on this topic.)
I am not sure that it is possible, or desirable, to "solve" the Pareto distribution of anything. Pareto distributions are a fact of life. Attempts to solve them require MASSIVE amounts of force, and the attempts fail anyway. (In 1950, the USSR apparently [according to a note in "The Road to Serfdom"] had GREATER income inequality than the U.S. And when I was in the USSR in 1991, my Russian friends definitely confirmed the existence of major class distinctions.) The force fails, and is undesirable to begin with.
My working approach is based on the view that government inevitably ends up making the rich, the powerful, the connected MORE rich, powerful and connected, not less, and on the prediction that more government will make it more so. Corporations, corporate personhood, special treatment, carveouts, corporate welfare, requiring people to buy or foot the bill for certain products (vaccine, e.g.), Section 230, etc. etc. all redound to the benefit of the rich. Take that away and there will still be rich people, and there will still be a Pareto distribution, but they will have fewer advantages, and less ability to impose anything on anyone else, not more.
That is the moral consideration—not whether one person has more than another, but whether one person is initiating force on another. The force has to get dealt with. The inequality does not.
I am glad you are pro-crypto and anti-central banking.
I do hear your points about regulatory capture, and understand that if you are from the US (which I guess you are?) they must be felt more acutely.
My perspective is more decentralised decision making = more democratic governance = better outcomes. Norway is an interesting example, with its distributed economy, originally based on community level lumber export enterprises, exporting via the fjord system, leading to highly democratic systems and excellent decisions. The democratic strength came before the oil money, and not after as some believe.
Note that whilst the markets can be decentralised, they don’t have to be (inequality centralises them). Also markets are not the only way to be decentralised.
In short, I believe in the power of effective governance to create positive outcomes. I do understand that this feels sorely missing at times. Governing the commons is an interesting book, I don’t know if you’ve come across it? Interesting melding of anarchic governance with legitimate authority, taken from actual field research and not pure abstract theory.
I have not heard of that book, no. And yep, I am in America.
I think, based on what little I know so far, that if I had to pick between the system they have working in Norway and that in Switzerland, I would take the Swiss'. They have a highly decentralized political system with very engaging democratic systems. I would need to study up more, but thus far, what I know looks better than most. (Also, though Norway looks good on paper economically in some ways, IIUC, their purchasing power parity isn't great.)
There are definitely some systems that are preferable to others, and there are probably systems that, though I might think anarchism would be preferable, would nonetheless be quite tolerable.
However, I remain an anarchist for moral reason (I do not believe any involuntary governance is morally permissible) and consequentialist reasons (I believe, though I cannot yet prove dispositively), that anarchism would work better. I also believe, and I think history has adequately demonstrated, that even a tolerably limited government cannot be kept limited for too long. A generation at best.
"Concession: maybe a federated structure could accomplish the same. No real world examples of this to my knowledge."
—The best examples of which I am aware are here: https://christophercook.substack.com/p/building-island-3-historical-examples-anarchism
Somalia not so much, but definitely the Hanseatic League. And it lasted a long time.
Great article!
Thanks! Let's keep rolling.
Hey, we all need to pull together to get out of this mess! I gave y'all a shout here in this article:
https://lizlasorte.substack.com/p/a-modest-proposal-when-the-war-drums?r=76q58
Good stuff.
I would still go further, because I do not believe that limited government can ever be kept limited. But I would rather live in the world you envision than what we have now, or anything even close to what we have now!
Remember the movie, What About Bob? It's baby steps...
Yeah, I hear you. (though I do not know the movie :-)
It is an interesting tactical question. What goal to shoot for? An intermediate step that is more palatable? Or the ultimate ideal. There are arguments for both.
More people would find what you describe more cogent and palatable, and closer to the opening of their Overton Windows. But there is also the risk of getting there and then staying there, rather than going further. And then, of course, staying there too long means getting right back to where we are now—a process I am convinced is inevitable if there is any involuntary government whatsoever.
But I am practical, and I will take whatever I can get. This is likely going to be a generational project, so let's get it started and see where it goes. And different people arguing on slightly different angles, but with the same overall goal, can only help.
Agreed. And, "What about Bob" will take your mind off of all this mess for a moment, plus it's funny and set in the beautiful lake region of NH.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103241/
Very engaging. Making me think. Thanks
That's the plan. Keep thinking, and keep the questions coming!
This wouldn't even be relevant if energy and healthcare prices were where they should be, with welfare programs dropping the price to nothing for those needing it. Nobody would bat an eye if a few bucks were taken out to help someone else's healthcare because everyone's GDP would be well over 5-6 thousand. That's only in a world where energy costs are kept low. However, me and economics don't vibe very well: excited to hear your thoughts.
It is true that there are various factors holding us back from super-wealth. Another big one is the American Social Security system. If the same amount of money that is forcibly extracted from paychecks in payroll taxes were invested in indexed stock accounts over a working lifetime, EVERYONE would retire with several million in the bank at least. Even in the worst of times, the stock market is a net gainer over the course of a working lifetime. 5–10%. This is basic math and financial analysis that anyone can do, and it is a crime that the SS system continues to impoverish everyone. (But then, all of government is a crime.)
But setting that aside, you did not make an argument for why forced redistribution is not a moral evil. You simply said that if we were wealthier, we wouldn't notice. That is not moral ground I would like to have to defend. Do you want to take a stab at an actual moral argument instead? (EDIT: That sounded sarcastic, but it was no meant so. I am genuinely interested to see if anyone has an actual argument that makes forcible redistribution morally defensible.)
Also, something else just occurred to me. If we were to get wealthier, calls would increase for greater percentage levels of redistribution. "We're so wealthy—the rich can afford to have 85% of everything they have taken from them to equalize outcomes a little better."
It would never stop. We know this because
a) Distaste for the Gini coefficient is hard-wired into the human brain,
b) we keep seeing the definition of poverty changed. It becomes less and less about standard of living or absolute wealth (both of which have risen dramatically for everyone) and more and more about >>relative<< poverty. (This is largely because of a).) As a result, as we get wealthier, people whose wealth and standard of living are upper-middle-class now would simply be defined as "the poor" after 50 years of the kinds of wealth increases we're talking about.
So that's no good either.
I wish more people were anarcho-curious!
It is my job to make them so. I can use all the help I can get!
You're doing an excellent job raising awareness of the folly of government! Many think that there's 'no choice'. We're programmed to think that without government, there'd be chaos.
Thank you, and yes, exactly—it is programming!
Send more subs my way so I can keep doing this :-)
If you think voting them out is the answer or that we get the government we vote for, remember that Republicans ran for years promising to repeal Obamacare. But when the Republicans had the power to do it, they simply didn't..
Are there any major programs that have ever been repealed?
It's complicated. The mass media reported in 2017 that Dodd-Frank was repealed; today Dodd-Frank is bigger than it was then (over 2,000 pages). The Civil Aeronautics Board was dissolved in 1985. But it was replaced by several new agencies, each of which is bigger and more powerful than the CAB was.
So the true, short answer is: No, not really. The so-called "Era of Deregulation" never happened, not even close. Only more overregulation happened.
"No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth!"
Ronald Reagan
If Reagan had 40 more years to think about things, he would have become a minarchist at least…!