Democracy is supposed to be this great fuckin thing where people get elected by their peers because they're the best ones for the job! But when was the last time you looked at an elected official and said, "yea that guy is fucking great. I am proud to have him represent me". I would wager your answer is never.

Year after year the only people elected to the most important and most powerful branch of our government (thats the congress for those of you who didn't take civics) are those least capable of performing the duty. How in the fuck does this shit happen?

Are Americans just too stupid to elect capable politicians? Are we too stupid to generate capable politicians? Or is it just that our representatives are just as terrible as always and the constant media barrage makes it more apparent?

If you were to ask me I would say anyone able to properly run the government is already succeeding for themselves in the private sector. Competence is not a requirement for government. That would be unfair. But as a result we are left with the dregs in charge of policy.

So either America is too stupid to generate a working government, in which case our current system of government is not suited to our population. Or the system does not attract the best and brightest to public service, in which case the system is flawed and should be amended or redesigned.

In our wildest dreams we hope for magical leaders that will work in the house and in the senate to fix all our problems. They eliminate the deficit, they make peace with the world, and they let the common man go about his day without interference. But in reality, the best we can hope for is a congressional deadlock to stall the spread of our hemorrhaging government.

This is really just a rant that I wanted to get out. You can take it seriously or not. But I would like to ask you if you think our Republic is beyond saving. If you do, what can we do to fix it? If not, what should be done?

Although if you welcome the idea of larger government and the decrease in individual freedoms that comes with that, then I don’t think you have much to fear.

8/24/2008 7:03:21 PM

Quote :

"Are Americans just too stupid to elect capable politicians? Are we too stupid to generate capable politicians?"

yes, and yes

8/24/2008 7:08:52 PM

8/24/2008 7:27:16 PM

I see our main problem being the fact that 98% of this is either red of blue.

8/24/2008 7:41:33 PM

Quote :

"In our wildest dreams we hope for magical leaders that will work in the house and in the senate to fix all our problems. They eliminate the deficit, they make peace with the world, and they let the common man go about his day without interference. But in reality, the best we can hope for is a congressional deadlock to stall the spread of our hemorrhaging government."

you mean our politicians are not super heroes who go to work every day in order to make the country a better place for all americans ? Politicians lie and do stuff for their own benefit? SHOCKING....

8/24/2008 8:10:21 PM

Blame it on this:

Congress is 50/50 99% of the time yet...

You need 2/3rds majority to override a veto or filibuster.

That is why nothing gets done, ever.

8/24/2008 11:43:42 PM

no, it's not that. nothing is often the best thing they do.

Quote :

"Are Americans just too stupid to elect capable politicians? Are we too stupid to generate capable politicians? Or is it just that our representatives are just as terrible as always and the constant media barrage makes it more apparent? "

yes

no

and yes.




the general population is really, REALLY DUMB. this is why we have a representative government--a pure democracy would be even worse (not to mention much more cumbersome). still, it isn't a magic bullet--i don't know of any way to keep stupid people from fucking things away, other than take away their freedom to do so...and things would be terrible under that approach, too.

[Edited on August 24, 2008 at 11:52 PM. Reason : asdfad]

8/24/2008 11:50:41 PM

i agree. our population is a bunch of subliterate retards. our politicians are tasked to represent us. therefore, by definition, they can't possibly be much better than the people whom they govern.

there are exceptions, of course, but they are few and far between.

8/25/2008 1:20:06 AM

exactly. it's not that there aren't people out there who are quite brilliant enough to do the job well--it's that they don't get elected and re-elected. that's not what the system rewards.


Perfect example--in all of the Presidential "debates", there is no real scholarly debate. For that matter, people rarely offer up any actual policy or nuanced, well-considered views. I mean, for almost every question they could be asked, the real answer SHOULD be "it depends..."

However, due to both time constraints (which could be overcome) and idiot electorate constraints (which probably can't), they have to answer the questions in 20-second talking points, and generally in fairly black and white terms.

8/25/2008 6:26:32 AM

Where's the beef?

8/25/2008 6:33:52 AM

"when was the last time you looked at an elected official and said...I am proud to have him represent me"

I like David Price well enough. Besides support legislation I like, he personally helped my fiancé get a passport back when they were so backed up they were taking many more months than they should and was going to potentially cost my fiancé a trip to Rome under scholarship if the passport thing couldn't get worked out in time. Dole's office couldn't help, as well as several other elected officials, but David Price made some calls and said if he comes to get he'd grant access to the congressional passport processing center in Washington. Granted driving to Washington one night and leaving for a flight to Rome a day or two later would have sucked, but still turning over something reserved for elected officials to help a constituent in need was a pretty nice thing to do I thought.

8/25/2008 6:46:04 AM

Fiancé? Were you engaged to a dude?

8/25/2008 7:58:33 AM

Quote :

"it's not that there aren't people out there who are quite brilliant enough to do the job well--it's that they are too capable for government work"

fixed it

8/25/2008 8:12:01 AM

Quote :

"Are Americans just too stupid to elect capable politicians? Are we too stupid to generate capable politicians? Or is it just that our representatives are just as terrible as always and the constant media barrage makes it more apparent?"

1) Yes, but this is true with just about every democratic state. After all, when you have the working masses selecting politicians, you're not necessarily going to get the most competent, just the most popular, for better or worst. We've elected a lot of yahoos, but just about every democratic state has.

2) No, its just that in the United States, if you're competent and capable, then there are plenty of other options available to you. While being a Congressman is an honor, there are plenty of other tracks that are equally as impressive.

3) I'd say we have a mixed bag: some real idiots and some really sharp folks with a whole lot of mediocrity in between. To be fair, at least at the Federal level, we do have a lot of high quality bureaucrats, and a lot of the folks who rise to the top leadership positions are usually pretty sharp, even if some of them have some seriously warped views of the world.

8/25/2008 9:53:20 AM

Quote :

"Are Americans just too stupid to elect capable politicians?"

Bullshit. Our problem isn't how what we're voting, it's how we're voting. The fact is, if you elect someone for a 6-year term, they're not going to give much of a flying flip about their constituents by the end. It gives them more time to focus on their job, but it really just gives them more time to focus on bickering and politics.

If our president could just be ousted out of office when his approval ratings fell, then we would have a much better and transparent executive branch. But think about the last 4 years with Bush and no possibility for re-election.

8/25/2008 9:58:38 AM

Quote :

"How in the fuck does this shit happen? "

Quote :

"When the people discover that they can vote themselves funds from the public treasury, that will be the end of the Republic."

8/25/2008 10:08:50 AM

We should pay them more. Yes, it would suck to pay our current congress more, but raising the incentive should attract better talent, and reduce the possibility of corruption.

8/25/2008 10:13:11 AM

term limits

8/25/2008 10:17:06 AM

Quote :

"We should pay them more. Yes, it would suck to pay our current congress more, but raising the incentive should attract better talent, and reduce the possibility of corruption."

I don't think pay will ultimately make a difference. Unless you start paying them millions, then there are going to be plenty of alternative and probably easier competing paths to make a hundred thousand bucks or so. The people who become Congressmen are people who do it for other motivations; the "competent" ones people seek could probably make the money without the trouble of trying to get elected.

8/25/2008 10:27:09 AM

Quote :

"Unless you start paying them millions"

Yes, but that's what I would suggest.

8/25/2008 10:38:00 AM

Quote :

"We should pay them more. Yes, it would suck to pay our current congress more, but raising the incentive should attract better talent, and reduce the possibility of corruption."

Actually, I've been thinking that we should pay our congress critters on the same pay scale for enlisted soldiers, and yes that would include congressional barracks and free meals from giant cans, but it would cut down on our costs I think significantly. And I'm well aware of the idea that paying them more would theoretically reduce corruption, but looking around I think we can agree it's not working too well. So to address that, when you are a congress critter, in addition to being payed like our enlisted, you will also have your entire personal finances subject to public record for the time that you are in congress. Any gifts, donations, etc to you over a nominal value (say $500) are confiscated and donated to charity, accepting any favors that give the impression of a conflict of interests (wined and dined by <big evil company> ) get their value deducted from your pay, and if you can't afford it, you will be billed (interest free) by the government until such time as you can pay it back. In addition, if you stop working in congress, you can never be reelected to congress (does not apply if you are voted out).

Essentially, while you are a congress critter, you will be forced to live on only enlisted pay, and your financials will be heavily scrutinized to ensure that happens. You are given great power over the common man, and in exchange for that, your life will be the business of the common man until such time as you no longer have that power.

Sure this doesn't prevent Evil Corp. from promising a big mansion after you retire in exchange for a Evil Corp. sponsored law, but it does mean that a) you have to retire before you can claim it and b) Evil Corp. then has to bribe a whole new set of congress critters to keep the law on the books. After a while, even Evil Corp. will stop wanting to buy mansions.

[Edited on August 25, 2008 at 10:50 AM. Reason : no smilely]

8/25/2008 10:50:06 AM

Obviously it takes quite a bit of money to be elected (in most cases), A good chunk of which comes from donors affiliated with that politician's party or from the party itself.

Once in congress it seems a majority of the Congressmen/women just become puppets to whomever is calling the shots from within their party rather than making decisions based on their own beliefs or better yet what the politician's constituents tell them. Lets face it most of our Congresspeople dont even read the bills they are voting on, they just look to what the party tells them to do.

I think this contributes to the gridlock, having more than two options in parties would help a whole lot.

8/25/2008 11:28:37 AM

Its a vicious and self-perpetuating cycle.

Democracy breeds waste and destruction in government, rather than restraint. Even if a politician knows better, it is politically much more profitable to seem like a vigorous and conscientious leader than to keep ones nose out of what doesn't concern one and not break things. Politicians have no incentive to care about the consequences of their actions, because they can profit (politically and economically) in the short run and will most likely be out of office when the bill finally comes due.

The things governments do to seem effective to the ignorant unwashed masses, enourages the masses to become ever more ignorant, lazy, unproductive and irresponsible. Systematic punishment, in the form of highly progressive taxation, discourages, thrift, industry, foresight, planning, responsibility, productivity and all the other characteristics that civilizations require to persist. Subsidies, handouts and transfers encourage and reward inefficiency, waste, shortsightedness, irresponsibility. sloth, indolence, recklessness, ignorance, broken families, delinquency and produces a self-perpetuating slide towards the infantilization and barbarization of society. The further this slide progresses the more people clamor for the measures that drive it.

The consequences are all around us. Crime and delinquency are many times worse and more frequent than they were a century ago. Families are in shambles. Broken homes are the norm. Incomes have alternated between stagnation, barely perceptible growth and actual decline for the last several decades. Government has run rampant. Trillions are wasted, creeping police-statism and socialism are the norm.

No alternative is possible so long as people regard democracy as a legitimate form of goverment; so long as people maintain that any crime is justified - provided the perpetrators outnumber the victims; so long as people believe that one may rightfully vote away the rights of one's neighbors; so long as people believe that being permitted to choose a new master once in a period of years makes them something besides a slave; so long as people believe that having the same amount of say in robbing, murdering and enslaving their fellows, as their fellows have in robbing, murdering, and enslaving them, makes a "free country" "the best country on Earth" and other such nonsense.

In short, fuck democracy. A society based on the strict protection of private-property rights (incompatible with democracy) is necessary to reverse the decivilization that is currently underway and reintroduce a trend towards an ever more civilized society.

8/25/2008 3:58:23 PM

uh, ok.

how do you propose we govern so that we trample fewer rights than we do with our form of democracy?

8/26/2008 3:14:16 AM

Megaloman proposes that we don't really govern at all.

Apparently he's never read "Lord of the Flies," a number of psychological studies dealing with the subject, or any world history.

But then again, hey, maybe it's a lot better living in no-government Somalia than it is in the damned democratic United States.

I know the points you'd make against those assertions, Megaloman, but then you basically know what I'm going to say back to them and so on for quite a while, and I'm too impatient and drunk to go through the whole song and dance right now. Let's just settle on me being a pseudofascist parrot of statist propaganda and you being an irrelevant dingbat anarchist, shall we?

8/26/2008 4:49:45 AM

Quote :

"Fiancé? Were you engaged to a dude?"

Yes, I'll be getting married in CA or MA early next year.

8/26/2008 6:23:00 AM

Quote :

"Megaloman proposes that we don't really govern at all."

Actually no, I'm for more government. There should be at least 300 million governments in the United States alone.

I'm for self-government under a regime of private property and voluntary contract.

This is the only system that can be justified on moral and ethical grounds. If I don't have the right to tax my neighbor, or to regulate his private conduct or to pass "laws" of my own devising and enforce them upon him as binding, and if you don't have that right, then together we still don't have the right to "delegate" those illegitimate and userparatory powers to a third party and demand that he trample down the rights of my neighbor. Powers that no one has can't be delegated to a "representative" government. People may associate voluntarily for mutual protection, but as soon as they start compelling someone to pay for protection who does not want it, who believes they could get better protection from another source, or who believes that paying for "protection" should involve being "protected" from more than just his "protectors", then such an association becomes nothing more than a criminal racket.

Since the ethical argument is never enough nowadays, I guess I should point out that the state can't be justified on utilitarian grounds either. Only strict adherence to property rights allows rational economic calculation to occur and allows each individual the fullest latitude to satisfy their most urgent desires. Some of them will fail, certainly, but at least everyone will have the opportunity. Governments, when they try to provide any good or service, are simply shooting in the dark, and its inconceivable they will settle on an optimal or near-optimal solution to any problem.

Mises pointed out the fundamental flaw with socialism in the 1920s. Without private property in the factors of production there can be no trade in capital goods. Without trade, no prices. Without prices, no cost accounting. The socialist government, even if it earnestly tries to provide for its citizens, simply doesn't have the tools to know whether or not it's even coming close to doing so. The same criticism applies to any program of a "limited" Government in a "mixed" economy.

Take security and law enforcement for example. Even if a government faithfully tries to protect its citizens from private criminals, its bureaucrats are still left with the problem of how to provide security and how much is required. Security is not an all or nothing affair. It can be provided in an infinite number of degrees. Trying to provide the same security as the President gets to everyone would take more cops than there are people and likely require more than the entire US GDP. In a market system, more security services will be purchased until their marginal cost starts to exceed their marginal benefit in reduced losses to crime, violence etc... A government does not have to convince its "customers" that its services are worth voluntarily giving up money for. It can simply decide unilaterally what services to provide and how much money to take to provide them. Governments are not subject to the profit and loss tests that a market firm would face, and so any decisions regarding how to provide a service and how much to provide are entirely arbitrary and irrational. Under a government, security will always either be either underprovided or overprovided. Either more security would be worth the cost and failing to provide it leaves people unnecessarily vulnerable to criminal predation, or security has long since passed the point where it is worthwhile to keep providing more and the cost of security now vastly exceeds the losses that it prevents. In various parts of our country and for various people, you can find instances of both these situations.

Furthermore, the incentives created by such an arrangement are at direct odds with the "customer"'s interests. Because of the disutility of labor, bureaucrats will strive to maximize their expenditures and minimize the amount of product or service they actually provide. It's easier to harass motorists than to do actual police work, so that's what you see government cops doing. Meanwhile they argue that they're undermanned and underfunded, and that's why they're doing such a piss-poor job of protecting us.

Quote :

"Apparently he's never read "Lord of the Flies," a number of psychological studies dealing with the subject, or any world history."

Apparently you've never read any Austrian economics, game theory or (since fiction now apparently constitutes an argument) The Peace War, The Ungoverned and Marooned in Real Time by Vernor Vinge.

[Edited on August 26, 2008 at 10:54 AM. Reason : ']

[Edited on August 26, 2008 at 11:01 AM. Reason : ']

8/26/2008 10:47:40 AM

Quote :

"Yes, I'll be getting married in CA or MA early next year."

Supplanter

Oh. Incidentally, do you prefer Mac or PC?

8/26/2008 11:07:06 AM

good luck supplanter. I hope you have better judgement in your spouse than your political candidate.(edwards)

8/26/2008 12:00:32 PM

Quote :

"There should be at least 300 million governments in the United States alone. I'm for self-government under a regime of private property and voluntary contract."

So under this self-government system, I'm curious: when does it kick in? I mean, are you an autonomous entity with full sovereignty over your actions as soon as you come out of the womb? Do you become your own government sometime later in life? If so, who decides when that happens? Doesn't any decision a Dictatorship of the Parents?

You're big on the nebulous, intangible ethics argument. It allows you to create a lovely quagmire. What you're not so big on is explaining:

1) How contracts would be enforced in a truly self-governing way
2) How 300 million self-governments would not coalesce into a much smaller number of conventional governments

These are the two chief points that never get covered satisfactorily.

I've always found a lot of similarity between your anarchism and Communism. Not in the particulars, sure, but they're both arguments with compelling ethical grounds (feeding, clothing, and housing everybody seems pretty ethical to most people, anyway). They both require overwhelming conformity to the system because even a small number of noncomformists will break it. Neither one provides a really satisfactory explanation of how to get there, and neither one has ever worked like it was supposed to. This is because people are generally not idealogical crusaders like communists and anarcho-capitalists or whatever you call yourself. Given the opportunity, many if not most people will try to get:

1) More money
2) More power

And once they've succeeded, the system has basically failed.

Your ethics argument might as well be, "The only system that can be justified on moral and ethical grounds is one where everyone is always nice to each other and never hurts each other and always helps each other voluntarily out of good will." Even if it's true it's completely impractical.

Quote :

"Some of them will fail, certainly, but at least everyone will have the opportunity."

Or, if you're Somalia or Afghanistan in the early 90's, most of them will fail despite the opportunity. Even adjusted for the low levels of technology available in those countries, the absence of unifying government didn't mean everyone was getting a chance to "satisfy their most urgent desires." What it meant was that a bunch of smaller governments coalesced, caused the same utilitarian problems you described, and also killed everybody while they were at it.

Quote :

"Apparently you've never read any Austrian economics, game theory or (since fiction now apparently constitutes an argument) The Peace War, The Ungoverned and Marooned in Real Time by Vernor Vinge."

I haven't read a lot of Austrian economists, no, but given that Austria does not have self-government and does not run around the world encouraging it to everybody, I'm guessing that either there are some statist Austrian economists or that they aren't particularly well-respected in their own country.

Game theory comes into play from time to time in political science, in the capacity of how it relates to governments. Strangely it did not seem to turn me or my classmates into anarcho-capitalists.

As for Vinge, the only thing I've read from him is his assertion that the human race is going to be eradicated by a "superhuman intelligence" by 2023. Fifteen years doesn't really seem like enough time to dismantle a large, entrenched system of government in the United States. Here's the plan: you fly out west and blow up Skynet, and I'll try to find John Connor just in case you fail.

8/26/2008 12:39:49 PM

^^^PC

^^For the record I'm an Obama supporter and have been since long before any of the personal failings of John Edwards came to light which has no bearing on my political ideals.

8/26/2008 5:01:59 PM

Quote :

" “Democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess (liberal gifts)from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, and is always followed by a dictatorship.”"

Fuck democracy.

8/26/2008 10:06:51 PM

Quote :

"1) How contracts would be enforced in a truly self-governing way"

I think the particulars could vary quite a lot from situation to situation. However the basic anarchist thesis is that two individuals, A and B, are capable of negotiating and faithfully carrying out contracts with one another. The statist thesis, as put forward by Hobbes, is that no contract is possible between A and B unless there is an authority, C, lording over them both and enforcing compliance.

The problem with Hobbes' argument is that the "social contract" which enables C to enforce contracts would have to arise in a state of nature, where, Hobbes argues, binding contracts cannot arise. The "social contract" is therefore its own logical prerequisite, a rank absurdity.

An empirical refutation of the Hobbesian thesis also exists. Even the most ardent statist cannot escape the simple fact that any government is going to exhibit a certain level of corruption. This corruption usually takes the form of some kind of quid pro quo - access to or preferential treatment by political power in exchange for money, votes, contracts for legal services etc...

This corruption therefore represents at least a tacit or implied contract between two parties under the most adverse of possible conditions, namely:

The contract cannot be openly discussed.
The contract cannot be written down.
The contract is completely non-enforceable
The contract is illegal and will be severely punished if it can be proven to exist.
The contract represents a huge scoop to the media if discovered.
The contract represents a huge career boost to any government enforcer who can discover it.

The fact that government corruption persists despite these barriers proves that contracts can be created and fulfilled in a state of anarchy. Without these impediments to overcome, contracts should be easier to enforce and much less likely to be broken.

Quote :

"2) How 300 million self-governments would not coalesce into a much smaller number of conventional governments"

Atomistic individualism is pretty retarded. Very few people are going to find total self-sufficiency very appealing. Most people will see the benefit of joining together in associations, contracting with commercial firms or otherwise harnessing the power of specialization, division of labor and trade to improve their lives. As long as enough voluntary and/or commercial agencies of governance exist to prevent any one from attaining monopoly power and being able to compel participation, exclude competition or claim dominion over people by force, then ultimate sovereignty would still reside with each individual. Even if you subscribe to "Al's Protection Racket" you are sovereign so long as you retain the ability to terminate your relationship with Al, initiate a relationship with a new "government", or with no "government", or start your own new "government".

Quote :

"They both require overwhelming conformity to the system because even a small number of noncomformists will break it."

Not really, no. People of varying tastes, temperaments and political, ethical, legal or economic persuasions would probably tend to segregate themselves into small, relatively homogeneous communities that would enable the larger society to peacefully accommodate an enormous amount of diversity.

Quote :

"Neither one provides a really satisfactory explanation of how to get there"

That's certainly true of communism. All that's required to create private property anarchy is to initiate a process of Balkanization and then carry that on down to the level of communities and even families and individuals. States have split before and will split again, you can count on that as a historical given.

Quote :

"people are generally not idealogical crusaders"

There's pretty much no chance of turning a large country like the US anarchist in the forseeable future. However, that doesn't mean that it couldn't work on a smaller scale or in virgin territory, say, the asteroid belt...

Quote :

"Your ethics argument might as well be, "The only system that can be justified on moral and ethical grounds is one where everyone is always nice to each other and never hurts each other and always helps each other voluntarily out of good will." Even if it's true it's completely impractical."

Look, we all know that as long as there are people there's going to be a certain amount of sociopathy, criminality, violence, etc... However, steps can be taken to reduce their prevalence and to mitigate the consequences. A good place to start would be to have a system that isn't based on legitimized, institutional sociopathy, criminality and violence.

Quote :

"Or, if you're Somalia or Afghanistan in the early 90's, most of them will fail despite the opportunity. "

Of course, because the people in those countries were fat, happy and safe under their former, socialist, governments.

Quote :

"What it meant was that a bunch of smaller governments coalesced, caused the same utilitarian problems you described, and also killed everybody while they were at it."

You're citing a type of anarchy that happened by an accident of history, in backwards and violent cultures, where statelessness exists only because there are too many statists fighting over the vacant monopolist position.

I'm talking about a form of anarchy that, if it ever happens, will happen in an advanced, liberal, humane society and will be brought about by a committed rejection of statism.

Its an apples to hand grenades comparison.

Quote :

"As for Vinge, the only thing I've read from him is his assertion that the human race is going to be eradicated by a "superhuman intelligence" by 2023."

Vinge is a singularitarian, and that aspect of his futurism and fiction is highly suspect, though interesting nonetheless. However, much of his fiction involves scenarios which sidestep or avoid the singularity altogether. The Realtime series is one example of such, and contains fictional anarcho-capitalist societies. Since you're trotting out fiction to bolster your case, so can I. Another interesting work of anarcho-capitalist fiction is Snowcrash by Neal Stephenson.

8/27/2008 5:41:29 AM

I wasn't joking when I asked whether two year olds were self-governments. It seems like a relevant question, given that people are not fully mentally developed for about a quarter of their lives. I'd also like to expand the question to include the mentally handicapped. Is a two year old, an alzhiemers patient, or a profound retard capable of voluntarily signing a contract? Do they get to govern themselves, or does someone else ultimately have to govern them?

Quote :

"The fact that government corruption persists despite these barriers proves that contracts can be created and fulfilled in a state of anarchy."

How you draw this conclusion from your premises is beyond me. Even with government "corruption contracts," the presence of enforcers is a critical part of the dynamic. The contract is held together by mutual fear that if one violates the deal, it becomes substantially more likely their participation in it will come to light, thereby causing them to be "severely punished."

It's a slightly more perverse way for outside authority to enforce contracts, but it all boils down to the same thing.

Quote :

"Atomistic individualism is pretty retarded."

Quote :

"[user]Megaloman[/user]: There should be at least 300 million governments in the United States alone."

Really I think that's enough said on that point. I didn't ask how they'd avoid coalescing into associations and guilds, I asked how they'd avoid coalescing into larger, conventional governments. And, apparently, even you think they can't:

Quote :

"As long as enough voluntary and/or commercial agencies of governance exist to prevent any one from attaining monopoly power and being able to compel participation, exclude competition or claim dominion over people by force, then ultimate sovereignty would still reside with each individual."

Because it seems pretty goddamn likely that some agency is going to attain a monopoly sooner or later, and use force liberally. I only say this because it's happened constantly throughout the whole of human history, right down to the first settlements in Mesopotamia and beyond.

Brutality would quickly become a feature of these "protection rackets," if psychology is to be believed. Seems that whenever outside restraints are taken off even ordinary people, they get pretty barbaric. So when someone wrongs you and you call upon your racket to get recompense, what do you go for? Money or torture? You, specifically, probably go for money. But a lot of people, for a lot of wrongs, are going to start hopping up and down asking for torture, and by the way can I watch? If you don't believe me, I invite you to ask ten random people what they'd like to see happen to child molesters. There will be those companies that extract monetary compensation, which of course gets increasingly difficult when someone doesn't have money, but this will be the service they advertise. And then there will be the guy with the rack and the iron maiden.

So sooner or later a protection monopoly will form in some part of the country, probably because it's the most efficient and brutal game in town, and before you know it, the region isn't just "Al's Protection Racket Territory," it's Al-bania.

Quote :

"People of varying tastes, temperaments and political, ethical, legal or economic persuasions would probably tend to segregate themselves into small, relatively homogeneous communities that would enable the larger society to peacefully accommodate an enormous amount of diversity."

Maybe that's how it would start. But your system allows for a fairly narrow range of "political, ethical, legal, or economic persuasions." The only variation I can see, in fact, is exactly to what extent they think anarcho-capitalism is the greatest thing ever.

But when you've got communities of democrats, theocrats, fascists, communists -- well then, you've got a conventional, if small, government. And all of them, sooner or later, are going to want to spread.

Quote :

"All that's required to create private property anarchy is to initiate a process of Balkanization and then carry that on down to the level of communities and even families and individuals. States have split before and will split again, you can count on that as a historical given."

They have split and they have joined up. At the moment we happen to be in a period where splitting is more prominent in most of the world, but then that's counterbalanced by things happening with the European Union.

But I digress. The whole process you propose involves a massive reconditioning of the American people to believe that it is desirable. I don't know if you've noticed, but people barely take Libertarians seriously, and you're about three crazy clicks past that. Communism has the same problem. You can't just start forcing "equality" or self government on people unless most of them want it. That is the way in which you're similar to the communists.

Quote :

"Of course, because the people in those countries were fat, happy and safe under their former, socialist, governments."

No, but they were less starving, miserable, and dead. It's a sliding scale.

Quote :

"You're citing a type of anarchy that happened by an accident of history, in backwards and violent cultures...I'm talking about a form of anarchy that, if it ever happens, will happen in an advanced, liberal, humane society"

So if anarchy isn't for everybody, its alternative -- statism -- must be for some people, since of course you can't pull off the anarchy until you've met certain qualifications as a society. So what plateau is it that a civilization must achieve before it can safely abandon the lunacy of the state and move on into the shining happiness of anarchy?

8/27/2008 2:29:05 PM

I don't have as much time to participate in rambling internet debates as I used to, so it's taken me a few days to put together a response to your last post GrumpyGOP, but here it is.

Quote :

"I wasn't joking when I asked whether two year olds were self-governments."

Of course not. Nothing can change the fundamental necessity of the family. The relationship between parent and child isn't a case of unjust imposition of hierarchy it's simply a fact of life. Market anarchists such as myself aren't against hierarchy, we aren't against authority, we're against arbitrary and coercive authority. There's an extent to which parental authority is arbitrary, since you can't choose your parents. However, their authority still derives from their real and completely non-arbitrary relationship to the child, namely, that they conceived and bore it and are taking care of it until it can care for itself. This is not to say that the authority of a parent over a child is unlimited or absolute, we should still evolve social conventions and institutions to protect children from potential abuse by their parents.

The actual transfer of sovereignty can occur in one of three ways. The child can claim and exercise their sovereignty by leaving home and striking out on their own. The child can have sovereignty thrust upon them by being given the boot, and having to fend for themselves. Or a negotiated transfer of sovereignty can take place, such as upon reaching an agreed upon age of majority. This can happen at various ages or even in stages. There's a huge variety in the standards that have been employed throughout the ages. In colonial America, a boy was supposed to earn his keep by the age of 7. Today, parents routinely support their children well into their early 20s. In other countries, it's not uncommon for young men to live at home until they're 30, or even longer.

Quote :

"Even with government "corruption contracts," the presence of enforcers is a critical part of the dynamic. The contract is held together by mutual fear that if one violates the deal, it becomes substantially more likely their participation in it will come to light, thereby causing them to be "severely punished.""

I think its more likely that the contract is held together by a desire not to jeopardize potentially profitable future contracts between the same parties.

Neither party can rat out the other because they're both implicated if that happens.

Quote :

"Seems that whenever outside restraints are taken off even ordinary people, they get pretty barbaric."

That's just the thing, private property anarchy isn't about removing all outside restraints, its about applying them consistently. If it's not OK for some people, to plunder, murder and enslave others, then it's not OK for anyone, whether calling themselves government or by any other name, to do so.

In practice, this would be enforced through ostracism and, should that fail, voluntary, competitive, non-monopolistic agencies of defensive violence.

It might be said by some that organized ostracism would be impractical on a large scale. How do you get millions of people to shun and exclude someone who may never have done anything to them? As an example, look at the credit bureaus, who enforce the payment of debts by maintaining data on people's creditworthiness. How can the credit bureaus force millions of creditors, landlords, and employers to punish delinquents for nonpayment by passing them over for credit, housing, jobs, etc...? They don't have to. It's simply in a lot of people best interest to refuse to deal with individuals who have demonstrated that they're a bad risk. Even those who assent to do business with them will likely charge much higher rates or require large security deposits or otherwise make things difficult for the offender in some way.

As spendthrift, delinquent debtors are bad risks so too are criminals; only more so.

If, as you make out to be inevitable, some powerful, respected security firm transforms into little more than a protection racket and starts shaking people down for money, they had better hope the media and courts in the anarchist society are not astute enough to notice, because they would rather quickly be faced with a hopeless situation. They better not rely on banking and credit. If they want to borrow money, which even the most successful businesses frequently do, they can forget it. If they have anything in the bank then their bank might conclude that it's safer to go with the courts and the rest of society than to protect a single customer and risk the consequences of associating with known criminals. Likewise, the power company, the water company, the ISP, the sewer company and the gas company that the rogue firm contracts with might feel threatened or simply see the writing on the wall and decide to terminate their relationships with the would-be extortionists. Does the firm want to buy weapons? Fat chance of that, what reputable arms firm is going to want the liability they'd open themselves up to by selling to known criminals? Few people seek out a career in crime, so the firm would have a hard time finding or retaining employees. Defections would mount. Sitting in their boardroom, in the dark, with their assets frozen, no access to data networks, shut off from commercial life, deserted by their employees, its hard to imagine the leadership of this firm being a threat to anyone, and that's before they've tangled with the defensive security agencies of their victims.

Quote :

"But when you've got communities of democrats, theocrats, fascists, communists -- well then, you've got a conventional, if small, government. And all of them, sooner or later, are going to want to spread."

Yeah well, after the American and French revolutions you still had a boatload of monarchies kicking around. As always, they each wanted to expand. However with the moral foundation of monarchy torn to shreds, the form of government that had dominated the European stage more or less without competition since the fall of the Roman Republic, and which, out of purely practical considerations, might still dominate today, was swept aside and completely replaced in little more than a century and a half. Today the only western monarchies that survive are monarchies in name only.

Ideas matter. If even a sizable minority of the population can be convinced to categorically reject statism and resist its imposition on unwilling victims, then it would become unworkable. The institutions would crumble or be forced to reform, preserving the old forms only as a meaningless ceremonial vestige.

Quote :

"You can't just start forcing "equality" or self government on people unless most of them want it."

I actually wouldn't mind if islands of statism remained in an anarcho-capitalist world, or even if the area and population of the statist zones greatly exceeded those of the anarchist regions. As long as the statist areas are each small enough that moving out of one mini-state to another, or to an ungoverned area, is relatively easy, then the effect would still coarsely approximate that of pure anarcho-capitalist competition in the provision of government services. Small states simply can't get away with a lot of the shit that large ones can. It's possible that many people, maybe even most people, will always prefer to remain subject rather than sovereign. I have neither the right, nor, as you have pointed out, the ability to force people to prefer freedom to bondage. My concern is primarily with my ability to seek after my own freedom. As long as there exist some free areas, my desire to live in an anarcho-capitalist society can be satisfied.

Few statists can argue against a system of small states in favor of large ones. Unless you're willing to take statism to its logical conclusion and advocate a unitary world government, there's no objective, non-arbitrary distinction you can make between a world of 200 odd states and a world of many thousands of small states, or even more... If you're willing to tolerate an anarchy of dozens or hundreds of sovereign states, subject to no common master, existing in a state of anarchy vis a vis one another, then any argument you make against an anarchy of thousands or tens of thousands of states is going to be weak.

[Edited on August 30, 2008 at 10:20 AM. Reason : clarity and typos]

8/30/2008 10:08:25 AM

Quote :

"So what plateau is it that a civilization must achieve before it can safely abandon the lunacy of the state and move on into the shining happiness of anarchy?"

You misunderstand my point. Its not that Somalia isn't ready for anarchy, clearly, they were, it's been their stable equilibrium condition for the last 17 years. I'm just saying that using Somali anarcho-tribalism as a representative example of a stateless society is as disingenuous as using, say, Hamas Palestine as a representative example of a democratic society. There are social, cultural and historical factors at work that go far beyond the political system in use.

Also, In a number of fundamental ways, anarchy can't be avoided. Very few statists are willing to take statism to its logical conclusion and advocate one world government. However, If Hobbes is right, and no peace, no cooperation is possible between individuals A and B unless some authority X stands ready to bludgeon them both into submission, then there can likewise be no peace between authorities X and Y unless a final authority Z governs the entire world. History proves Hobbes full of shit. While war is relatively common between independent nations, so too is peace. The US, for example, has been at peace with the majority of the Western World for over 60 years now. In fact, we can, for economic reasons, expect an anarchy of sovereign individuals to be much more peaceful and cooperative than an anarchy of sovereign states.

The rulers of a state can derive great benefit from belligerency. War provides perhaps the best excuse to assume unprecedented domestic powers. Every war the US has ever been involved in has seen enormous expansion of government power, much of which has never been relinquished, even after the cessation of hostilities. Furthermore, war offers the leaders of a state enormous opportunities for graft and corruption that can personally enrich them and their privileged friends at the expense of the entire nation. Halliburton springs to mind. While war is a great boon to a statist leader, he bears little or none of the cost because he can simply offload the expense onto taxpayers, volunteer soldiers, and in many cases, conscripts. A rich and powerful individual, even one as rich as say, Warren Buffet, would not not have this ability to tax, to conscript, or to compel, by force, low paid volunteer warriors, hired during a time of peace, to put themselves in mortal peril for peanuts. A powerful individual would have to bear the full cost of belligerency himself. A statist leader can reap the benefits of war without bearing the costs. Statists will thus tend to greatly over-produce war.

The choice, therefore is not one between anarchy and statism. It is one between peaceful, individualist anarchism and violent statist anarchism. It's not a question of whether or not we're going to have anarchy, its a question of which form of anarchy to strive for, and statism is a particularly piss-poor form of anarchy.

Getting back to the case of Somalia, while they have no state, they do have a society that is tolerant of and even encourages violence. Read Infidel the autobiography of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali woman who's movie Submission led to the murder of director Theo Van Gogh by a muslim extremist. She explains how a primitive, tribal society combined with Islam leads to some truly barbaric behaviors.

It all comes back to ideas. If the people disdain violence and criminality and value freedom and justice they will have a relatively peaceful society. If they accept violence and criminality, and value oppression and submission they will have a violent and oppressive society. In either case, however, statism will lead to more violence and criminality than anarchism. I wouldn't leave the west for Somalia, but I would rather live in stateless Somalia than under the socialist regime of Said Barre, who was deposed in 1991. In fact, since they threw off their government, the Somalis have made a lot of real progress.

http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1880

Quote :

"In conducting research for a new study comparing Somalia’s economy relative to 42 other African countries, my coauthors and I examined 13 different measures, including life expectancy, immunization and disease rates, access to various telecommunications, and access to water/sanitation. In 2005, Somalia ranked in the top 50 percent in six of our 13 measures, and ranked near the bottom in only three: infant mortality, immunization rates, and access to improved water sources. This compares favorably with circumstances in 1990, when Somalia last had a government and was ranked in the bottom 50 percent for all seven of the measures for which we had that year’s data: death rate, infant mortality, life expectancy, main telephone lines, tuberculosis, and immunization for measles and DTP. Furthermore, we have found that during the last years of Somalia’s government, 1985 to 1990, their performance was deteriorating compared to other African nations as their relative ranking fell in five of these measures. Since their government’s collapse, Somalia has seen its relative ranking improve in four of these measures and deteriorate in only one: infant mortality."

Quote :

"Perhaps most impressive is Somalia’s change in life expectancy. During the last five years of government rule, life expectancy fell by two years but since state collapse, it actually has increased by five years."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/18/world/africa/18somalia.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Quote :

"Somalis are legendary businesspeople, and even during the darkest days of civil war, they managed to turn a profit. The central government officially collapsed in 1991, and Mogadishu soon became the ultimate example of deregulation. Gutsy entrepreneurs, including some women, opened their own hospitals, schools (typically $10 a month per student), telephone companies, power plants and ports. There was even privatized mail delivery."

http://www.awdalnews.com/wmview.php?ArtID=6661

Quote :

"SOMALIA does not spring to mind as a good place to do business, but in telecoms at least it has something to teach the world. A call from a Somali mobile phone is generally cheaper and clearer than a call from anywhere else in Africa. The trick is the lack of regulation. Somalia has had no government since 1991. It was cut off for a while, but then private mobile companies moved in and found that the collapsed state provided a curious competitive advantage. No government means no state telecoms company to worry about, no corrupt ministry officials to pay off (there is no ministry), and the freedom to choose the best-value equipment. Taxes, payable to a tentative local authority or strongman, are seldom more than 5%, security is another 5% (more in Mogadishu), and customs duties are next to nothing. There is no need to pay for licences, or to pay to put up masts. It is a vivid illustration of the way in which governments, for all their lip service to extending communications, can often be more of a hindrance than a help. "

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0207/feature3/fulltext.html

Quote :

"There seemed every reason to expect that Somalia, abandoned by the outside world, would sink into a morass of starvation and war. That has not happened. Instead, like plants sprouting after a forest fire, Somalis have managed to survive and build on their own, in some respects with more success than developing nations on the receiving end of international aid and advice. In the northwestern city of Hargeysa, in the congested Sheikh Nur community for returned refugees, the Ismail family invested their meager resources in a water tap to supply the entire neighborhood. Abdi Ismail not only garners a weekly profit of $20 but also points out: "We are contributing to rebuilding Somaliland." Some Somali businessmen engaged in more ambitious enterprises say they have succeeded, at least initially, because of the total lack of oversight and regulation. "We have been through some hard times," admits telecommunications tycoon Abdirizak Ido, "but the worst was when we had a government. Once there was no government, there was opportunity! "I can say that we have a more efficient communications system than neighboring countries like Ethiopia and Kenya," says Ido, the founder of Nationlink, one of Somalia's ten fiercely competitive telephone companies. "In Mogadishu you get landline service eight hours after you order it—for ten dollars a month." (Cell service is instantaneous.) Local calls are free, and international calls cost 60 cents to a dollar a minute, even from remote villages linked to a phone center by shortwave radio. With the phone service as pump primer, other businesses have been flourishing in Mogadishu and elsewhere. Gaalkacyo, a desert town in the center of the country, has streetlights, thanks to Abdirizak Osman, a local entrepreneur who branched out from phones to electrical generators, not only lighting the town but also supplying free power to the hospital. Abdul Dini, one of the Nationlink partners (though he and Ido belong to different sub-clans), rattles off his growing list of subsidiaries: A spaghetti factory in Mogadishu (one legacy of a half century of Italian occupation is the Somali avidity for pasta), a plastics factory, a mineral-water plant, a bakery. Mogadishu has two fiercely competing cable TV companies, and a (pirated) copy of Black Hawk Down was playing in one of the city's cinemas within days of its nationwide release in the U.S. "

[Edited on August 30, 2008 at 10:13 AM. Reason : clarity and typos]

8/30/2008 10:09:12 AM

I'm always amazed that being a US legislator is a full time job. We've got more laws than we need now, why are they making new ones?

Remember when congress and the gov't. shut down outside of "essential services"? Why the fuck are they doing anything other than essential service? Did you notice any diffences in how shit was going? I didn't. Gridlock is your friend, government shutdowns are the best possible outcome of two party pissing contests, and the government that governs least governs best.

8/30/2008 10:20:00 AM