Anarchism

[Jello Biafra]

Perhaps. In what way(s) do you mean?

a state aristocracy with inherited positions , and you have trouble with why that doesn't fit any definition of anarchy.
its basically feudalism.

A state? Where's the body that has a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence?

[Jello Biafra]

Good. Now that you know you can't define your term, we can move on.

I was taught and brought up with such a vocabulary. Neither Locke nor Nozick devoted a chapter in their seminal texts called "Why I Decided To Use This Word". "Naturalist" was adversial to "Positivist", Lockean v Hobbesian respectively. I don't know why Locke called it that. I know Hobbes called it Positivism as in the verb "to posit", but the definition Locke relied on beats me. Maybe he adopted it from St Thomas Aquinas? I have no idea. I'll get back to you when I time travel back to the late 17th century.

EDIT: Regardless, it never was an impediment to argument. It was a distraction you fell for. I'm going to keep defending natural rights and law under a different name. This hardly changes my course of debate.

Locke believed in natural rights because he felt that people in the state of nature still had them.

[Conscentia]

If you cannot even define it, then it does not refer to anything that exists and thus refers to something that does not exist.

Shall we use "individual" instead? I concede that I do not know how to properly define the "natural" in "natural rights".

If you wish.
Either "individual rights" are artificial and originate in law, or don't exist either.

[Conscentia]

Not at all. Sometimes the truth is a little stingy, that's all.

My opinion matters as much as yours, sir.

I didn't write that you dodged the question without any explanation. I gave an explanation on how your answer was not consistent, which you also apparently dodged. Could you maybe answer the questions I gave you in that paragraph, too?

You gave no such explanation.
I answered thy questions.

Whose definition of personal property are you using? Marx himself would disagree with your definition, by the way. You may not be a Marxist and appeals to authority aren't healthy, but still. Land can also be for personal use, as can the means of production. You're operating on a very strange definition of personal property. Regardless, it seems as if you do acquiesce to the fact that the body is the property of the person.

The term private property refers to capital or the means of production, while personal property refers to consumer and non-capital goods and services. As I understand it, this distinction is well accepted in socialist politics.

Individual rights are ungranted. Negative rights are ungranted. That's what makes them negative.

Do you own your organs?

There is no such thing as "negative rights". You're confusing negative liberty with rights, which are by definition a form of entitlement. Entitlements inherently empower the entitled. All entitlements are a form of positive liberty. Rights may protect an individual's negative liberties by empowering the individual as to allow him/her to better legally defend those liberties. Rights are granted by law.

My organs are the personal property of my person.

[Sociobiology]

a state aristocracy with inherited positions , and you have trouble with why that doesn't fit any definition of anarchy.
its basically feudalism.

A state? Where's the body that has a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence?

they have a police force that enforces their laws, laws created by a subset of the population who inherit their lawmaking position.
so that fulfills both the anarchist and the scientific definition of a state.

[Sociobiology]

except you have no prototype, if magic confuses you try the statement "perpetual motion machines can exist just look at my drawing of a battery that turns a motor that turns a generator which charges the battery!"

Not prototype, I meant blueprint. Slip of the fingers.

my friend has a blueprint for a lightsaber on his shop wall, that does not mean lightsabers work.

[Sociobiology]

There is no such thing as law that is not anthropogenic. There can be no such thing as a law without (an) human(s) to create it, and a community to recognise it.
Rights & property originate in law, and cannot exist without law.

Natural law is a social construct, so exists as long as there is a sentient, social creature.

No, that is not how social constructs work, they are created by sentient social creatures, but particular social constructs are in no way inherent in sentient social creatures. that is like saying every sentient social creature has opinions, therefor as long as sentient social creatures exist they will agree with MY opinion.

[Shaggai]

I didn't ask "do bears own themselves". I asked if they respected that right. My question was not "do nonhumans own themselves". My question was "why do you believe that this right is natural?" Hence the references to nonliving things.

I don't know, I have never studied bears in great detail.

It was a rhetorical question. Where do you find these laws, outside of humanity?

[Liberaxia]

a state aristocracy with inherited positions , and you have trouble with why that doesn't fit any definition of anarchy.
its basically feudalism.

A state? Where's the body that has a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence?

Tell me again why we need to use Weber's definition?

[United Dependencies]

“If the state did not exist would it be necessary to invent it?”
-Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia

Those who debate this question can usually be broken into two factions: The anarchists, who argue that the state is both an immoral and unnecessary feature of human existence and those often called “statist” who disagree with that view. While it would be possible to define all the features of modern living which have come about as a result of state action, I will instead attempt to address the anarchist directly. In that sense I posit that the state exists because there is no feasible alternative. That is to say that the anarchist can propose no alternative solution that does not itself revert back to a state, or that it results in a standard of living so far removed from the current one enjoyed by the residents of western nations that would be senseless to return to. This essay will show this by examining the theoretical anarchist society, by showing the inability of individuals to voluntarily provide many services in modern society, and by confronting the examples given of anarchist success on a mass scale.

Before any arguments are made, I should define some essential terms. While the definition of the state can be rather varied, for this essay, however, I shall rely somewhat on the most commonly used definition provided by Max Weber. For this essay, the state shall be defined as a compulsory organization overseeing a certain territory that maintains a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. Anarchism and anarchy are, due to the varied and numerous nature of theorist and writers with views ranging from communist anarchism to capitalist anarchism to primitivism, somewhat more difficult to define. Critiquing each and every form of anarchism would require numerous essays and writings. Instead, I shall simply state that anarchy and anarchism is a state of living where individuals are free to live under the government of their choosing (or none at all if they wish).

I shall begin, then, with the theoretical anarchist society: life begins in a Lockean state of nature. Man is born free and nature provides all he needs to survive. The individual is able to take the goods that nature has provided, mix them with his own labor and consume the fruits of this labor as he sees fit. Furthermore, this individual may trade the fruits of his labor or his talents and abilities with any person for other goods or services without restriction. The state of nature and the natural laws which are envisioned as governing them do not provide for every eventuality though. In his book Anarchy, State, and Utopia, Nozick (paraphrasing Locke) notes that “men who judge in their own case will always give themselves the benefit of the doubt and assume that they are in the right. They will overestimate the amount of harm or damage they have suffered, and passions will lead them to attempt to punish others more than proportionately and to exact excessive compensation.” (Nozick 1999) While natural law and principles of non-aggression may provide the individual with the ability to seek compensation for injury done unto themselves and their property, it does not account for individuals who believe that compensation was wrongly or disproportionately exacted. Furthermore, natural law provides no recourse for the individual whose rights are infringed by one who is simply stronger than he.

To deal with this last issue, the individual may join with his family, friends, neighbors, and others in what the anarchist call a “voluntary defense organization”. In such an organization, the infringement of the rights of one member is responded to by all or some of the other members. While this may alleviate the problem of one strong individual overpowering a weaker one, this form of defense provides issues in its own right. Within these organizations, inconveniences arise from the fact that individual must: (1) respond when the call is given to provide assistance, and (2) respond no matter who gives the call for assistance. (Nozick 1999). The self-defense organization can find itself responding to constant calls from paranoid or easily irritated members as well as from individuals who may falsely call the organization either by accident or with the intention of violating the rights of others. Beyond this, members of the organization may find themselves in conflict with other members, which may necessitate a time consuming compromise and/or the risk of infighting and the fracturing of the group into subgroups. As a result, self-defense organizations and their members may resort to specialization and may contract the defense of their rights out to a third party. Such a party may take the form of a private firm as envisioned by anarchist-capitalist, a co-op as envisioned by less market oriented anarchist, or it may take some other form. In any event, such organizations (which we shall call Personal Defense Associations [PDAs]) would likely prove attractive due to their ability to resolve problems that confront the individual and the self-defense organization. Being a third party to most disputes, PDAs would be in a position to resolve the issue of partiality amongst individuals seeking compensation. Thanks to the division of labor, the PDA can also devote its time to unraveling issues of individual members claiming to have their rights infringed as well as members incorrectly claiming an infringement of their rights.

However, just as issues arose from the joint defense of rights, so to do they arise when individuals begin contracting the defense of their rights out. While it is imminently possible that all the individuals in a given area may choose the exact same PDA, it is equally possible that they might join another. In such a situation, it is inevitable that an individual defended by one PDA will claim that an individual defended by a different PDA has infringed on his rights. It is possible that both agencies will reach the same decision, but what happens if the decisions differ? We turn again to Nozick who identifies three general outcomes:

1. The two agencies engage in battle. The superior agency is almost always(or always) the victor. Being intelligent consumers and wishing to have the best protection possible, the clients of the loser will begin doing business with the winner.
2. The agencies have their power centered in certain areas. Closer to one area, one PDA will generally win and closer to the other the second PDA wins with a level of gradient existing between the two. Clients of both agencies will either move themselves or their allegiances such that they are within the protection of the one that will most likely win where they live.
3. Agencies within one area are evenly matched with both PDAs winning and losing equally. War being costly and destructive, the PDAs will most likely move to establish either a series of rules or a third power that oversees conflicts between them (Nozick 1999)

In the first two instances, one PDA will come to dominate a specific geographical area. In the last scenario a confederation of PDAs guided either by negotiated rules or a separate third party dominates a certain geographical area. All that remains for the PDAs in question to resolve is the issue of individuals belonging to no PDA.
Within any of the above societies, individuals are still free to choose how their rights will be defended. They may prefer acting purely as an individual or remaining within their local self-defense organization. In question is what happens when an individual (whether in a self-defense organization or not) claims that his rights have been infringed by someone who is under the protection of a PDA. It may well be that the PDA would allow non-members to collect compensation from members; however, we must keep in mind the original problem of partiality associated with individuals and self-defense organizations. Even if we assume that the non-members in question are completely correct, the threat of mis-enforcement can still arise in the minds of the population at large. The PDA could allow such individuals to enforce their claims and then check to see if said claims had been correctly enforced. Nozick notes that the victim of such enforcement might not just lose money, but could be seriously injured or even killed as a result of this retaliation. The fear of such retaliation (even if it was done correctly) would almost surely be enough to drive people to PDAs which can promise to deal with such injurious or fatal behavior. The result then would be that PDAs would most likely require non-members to follow a procedure to punish members or themselves face punishment. That is to say that the PDAs, in defending the rights of their clients not to be attacked, imprisoned, or fined against their will, would set up procedures by which independents can punish their clients. The result of this system is to create a moral quandary. The PDA can defend its members against the individual; the individual, however, is hampered from defending himself against the PDA member as easily. If we assume that the PDA(s) in question is mindful of this moral quandary and committed to preventing anyone’s rights from being infringed, then the PDA(s) will most likely offer protection to the individuals while only charging them the cost they would have bore defending themselves.

Having reached a situation where the basic issues of defense of rights have been resolved, let us now see where our man born in the state of nature has ended up. No matter what area he chooses to live in and no matter what his decision is regarding choosing to associate with a PDA, a self-defense organization, or no one at all, the individual will find that the ability to use force has been completely controlled by an organization (or group of organizations acting under the guidance of rules or a third party). From the state of nature and as the result of completely voluntary actions, we find organizations or confederations of organizations that dominate certain geographical areas and have the ability to dictate the use of force to all residents within their area. In essence, we have a state.

[United Dependencies]

continued from above

I shall turn now from the story of the state of nature to one of a generic street in a generic town. A streetlight would certainly be a helpful tool for the residents of this street. It would light their way at night and the increased visibility could deter criminals from being able to travel undetected at night. Every year, the local council sends out a call for donations to help build lights on streets such as this and others in the town, and every year the council does not collect anywhere near enough money to fund their planned program of building streetlights. What happens is that streetlights are public goods and subject to the problem of “free riders”. The individuals who live on this street either have no interest in a streetlight and don’t contribute or are interested in a streetlight but are expecting others who want the streetlight more than they do to be able to cover the costs. The end result is that everyone on the street ends up waiting for someone else to cover the costs of building the streetlight. Now, under the existence of a state, with its requisite ability to tax people, whether they like it or not, all the residents of the street would pay their taxes timely and the local council would use the fund to build the light. Consider however, that public goods are not limited solely to streetlights. Goods like clean air and military defense are also considered non-rivalrous and non-excludable. These goods cannot be guaranteed to reach the public without an entity that can bind the populous to certain actions like paying taxes.

Another issue within economics is externalities which are “A side effect or consequence of an industrial or commercial activity that affects other parties without this being reflected in the cost of the goods or services involved.” (Oxford Dictionaries 2014). Externalities can be either positive or negative. A negative externality would be a factory which produces goods but a byproduct of that production is waste which the factory dumps in a river. The factory sits upstream of a town and as a result the water of the town residents is no longer safe to drink. A regular state would have a multitude of options with which to address this issue. The state could tax the factory to pay for water treatment, could forbid the factory from polluting, or (if the state is a libertarian one) could define the water rights for the town and the factory and then allow the factory and town to settle their own dispute. The anarchist government, being unable to use force (physical or otherwise) could only hope that the town and the factory reach a non-violent agreement.

A positive externality could include such things as the education of students. Education can be considered a contract between a school and a student. A student, once educated, can be a boon to his or her society. An educated student could, for example, make discoveries that advance fields to benefit the entire populous (like medicine). In the case of positive externalities, the state can use the tax it has collected to subsidize or even nationalize the education system to ensure that more individuals can become educated and thus increase the chances for overall benefits like medical discoveries. For instance, Louis Pasteur was both publicly educated (being from a poor family) and worked at the public university in Strasbourg (Wikipedia 2014). Perhaps in a society lacking a state, someone like Louis Pasteur could have chosen to go to a private school and ended up making the same discoveries, but it certainly seems that it would be less likely considering his state of impoverishment.

(I would encourage those who are interested in learning more about the economic failures of anarchism to read the post of sociobiology in this thread as well as his other post relating to anarchism)

[United Dependencies]

continued from above

Life experiences have shown that, modern life requires much more than the provision for the defense of our individual rights. Military defense, resolution of pollution, and benefits like medicine and education have all been provided or helped along by the state and its ability to tax citizens. The anarchist society, lacking any mechanism to forcefully collect revenues, could not hope to meet the same level of success in meeting the standard of living currently enjoyed in western society.
The “successes” of anarchist mass society, if they can be considered as such, have disrupted civil societies and resulted in mass human carnage.

One of the main such examples is Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War. Lasting three short years, rule by the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) in Catalonia was marred by heavy violence. In the territories the CNT controlled, anarchists were known to round up those suspected of being anti-anarchist and execute them after circumventing the local courts. The anarchists were noted for either destroying or seizing the property of the church and then killing the clergy as well (Caplan n.d.). Of significant note, is the fact that the anarchist of Catalonia not only did not remove the state apparatus that controlled Catalonia, but made use of it to further their own causes of both removing suspected enemies and controlling the industries within Catalonia (Bolloten 1991).

Another example of anarchist success occurred within the territory known as Free Ukraine. While there is dispute as to when exactly the non-government started in this territory, the window of its existence is possibly as long as 3 years and as short as 8 months. The first point of concern is that this “anarchism” was instituted from above by an army largely under the direction of one man, Nestor Makhno. Secondly, much like the Anarchist in Spain, this “army” was frequently involved in the massacres of communities of Mennonites and other non-native Ukrainians (Letkemann n.d.). This army, acting essentially as a xenophobic lynch mob, is a far cry from the “self-defense organizations” promised by the anarchist. Even if we forgive the violence committed by Makhno’s forces, one can really wonder how long the area would have continued to remain anarchist considering there was an army under the control of mostly one man.

Both of these examples that are held up as anarchist success suffer from heavy violence and a short rule. Perhaps the violence and short length can be explained by the fact that they occurred during times of civil war and civil strife. After all, humans are subject to the same passions regardless of their political beliefs. However, this still leaves us without any sort of idea of how exactly the anarchist society would truly function. A time frame of only months two less than five years hardly gives any idea of how anarchist societies would play out in the long run. The heavy violence of war also makes it difficult to determine how effective anarchist criminal justice organizations would have been.
Frankly, the anarchist seems to be long on visions and promises but short on positive results. The anarchist promises a society of liberty, free from the violence and coercion of the state. Experience has shown us that anarchists are just as willing to engage in violence and coercion to impose their own will. Their theories have been shown to collapse back into a state when followed to their logical conclusion. Their examples of success seem to be nothing more than violent societies that can last no longer than five years. It would not at all be prudent to gamble the modern developed world on such theory. Where the anarchist theories fail we either return to a state or we devolve into Hobbes state of war, an existence that Hobbes describes as “man against man” that is “nasty, poor, brutish, and short” and it is this life that the anarchist could see us return to under the guise of hopelessly deluded idealism.

Works Cited
Bolloten, Burnett. The Spanish Civil War: Revolution and counter-revolution. University of North Carolina Press, 1991.
Caplan, Bryan. " The Anarcho-Statists of Spain: An Historical, Economic, and Philosophical Analysis of Spanish Anarchism ." n.d. http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/bcaplan/spain.htm (accessed August 3, 2014).
Letkemann, Peter. ""Mennonite Victims of Revolution, Anarchy, Civil War, Disease and Famine, 1917-1923"." n.d.
Nozick, Robert. Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Oxford: Basic Books, Inc, 1999.
Oxford Dictionaries. 2014. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/de ... xternality (accessed August 3, 2014).
Wikipedia. Louis Pasteur. July 30, 2014. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Pasteur (accessed August 3, 2014).

With thanks to TCT for his help
Caninope for advice
and Neo Art for letting me borrow some from his work.

[Arkolon]

Your essay was interesting, but trailed off to become irrelevant after a short while. You copied out the Nozickian arguments from ASU (I'm fairly sure ASU was a book, not an essay, that came out in 1974, not 1999) with a deontological mindset, and then suddenly used consequentialist logic to back the rest up. Up until the point about street lights, I do agree with you-- well, I agree with Nozick, at least. When you begin talking about taxation, which the Nozickian minimal state does not have (aside from a land value tax which could be in accordance with the Lockean proviso), it is then that I took it all far less seriously. I hope you didn't waste too much time on it, though. If you're sending it in somewhere, don't. You blended two schools of libertarianism (both worlds apart) in order to conclude at a justification of a modern, taxing state-- which, by the way, Nozick addresses in Chapter Nine of Anarchy, State, and Utopia (titled "Demoktesis"), showing how the modern democratic state is incompatible with libertarianism and is a form of forceful slavery. Judging by what you wrote, I doubt you took the time to read the parts of ASU that argue against your claims.

[United Dependencies]

Your essay was interesting, but trailed off to become irrelevant after a short while. You copied out the Nozickian arguments from ASU (I'm fairly sure ASU was a book, not an essay, that came out in 1974, not 1999) with a deontological mindset, and then suddenly used consequentialist logic to back the rest up. Up until the point about street lights, I do agree with you-- well, I agree with Nozick, at least. When you begin talking about taxation, which the Nozickian minimal state does not have (aside from a land value tax which could be in accordance with the Lockean proviso), it is then that I took it all far less seriously. I hope you didn't waste too much time on it, though. If you're sending it in somewhere, don't. You blended two schools of libertarianism (both worlds apart) in order to conclude at a justification of a modern, taxing state-- which, by the way, Nozick addresses in Chapter Nine of Anarchy, State, and Utopia (titled "Demoktesis"), showing how the modern democratic state is incompatible with libertarianism and is a form of forceful slavery. Judging by what you wrote, I doubt you took the time to read the parts of ASU that argue against your claims.

I will instead attempt to address the anarchist directly. In that sense I posit that the state exists because there is no feasible alternative. That is to say that the anarchist can propose no alternative solution that does not itself revert back to a state, or that it results in a standard of living so far removed from the current one enjoyed by the residents of western nations that would be senseless to return to.

I never set out to prove the state. I set out to prove the anarchist incorrect. I combined two schools of thought because I sought to address anarchism from both the deontological and the consequentialist point of view.

edit: furthermore, that you admit your agreement with Nozick would show that you agree that any anarchy would simply end up in a state (minimal that it may be).

[Arkolon]

Positive commons: everyone owns the land equally, accumulating property would be theft. Proudhon's logic. Negative: nobody owns the land, and can thus be accumulated freely in accordance with the entitlement theory/Lockean proviso. Lockean/Nozickian logic.

Neither of which are correct. Nobody owns the land, and the land can be accumulated.

So it's negative.

That doesn't give people a right to the land.

Correct. They has a right to accumulate that land, not a right to the land.

I can claim a piece of land, and if I'm uncontested in that claim, we can say it's mine. If a guy buys it off me, it's his. If a guy swindles me out of it, it's his. If a guy kills me and takes it, it's his. Without a legal system, ownership doesn't come with rights.

Nobody owns the land, and thus it can be accumulated freely through noncoercive and coercive means alike, because ownership doesn't come with rights or privileges without a legal system supporting them. Stirnerite logic.

The use of coercion would conflict with the whole notion of self-ownership. If there is self-ownership, then coercion cannot be justified.

So, instead, formulate an argument against natural property rights. The backing behind it relies on the positive-negative distinction above. Now that it's your turn, tell me how land, or property in general, belongs to the positive class? If it doesn't, and you agree with me, land can be naturally accumulated.

Land can be naturally accumulated, yes. The logic in the jump from this to natural rights eludes me.

A natural right to accumulate and defend property, yes.

In a micro-society, without a legal framework, people cannot claim land?

In a micro-society, without a legal framework, people can claim land. And they can take it off others.

Only in accordance with the principle of justice in transfer of holdings. Else it would conflict with self-ownership.

[Arkolon]

Your essay was interesting, but trailed off to become irrelevant after a short while. You copied out the Nozickian arguments from ASU (I'm fairly sure ASU was a book, not an essay, that came out in 1974, not 1999) with a deontological mindset, and then suddenly used consequentialist logic to back the rest up. Up until the point about street lights, I do agree with you-- well, I agree with Nozick, at least. When you begin talking about taxation, which the Nozickian minimal state does not have (aside from a land value tax which could be in accordance with the Lockean proviso), it is then that I took it all far less seriously. I hope you didn't waste too much time on it, though. If you're sending it in somewhere, don't. You blended two schools of libertarianism (both worlds apart) in order to conclude at a justification of a modern, taxing state-- which, by the way, Nozick addresses in Chapter Nine of Anarchy, State, and Utopia (titled "Demoktesis"), showing how the modern democratic state is incompatible with libertarianism and is a form of forceful slavery. Judging by what you wrote, I doubt you took the time to read the parts of ASU that argue against your claims.

I will instead attempt to address the anarchist directly. In that sense I posit that the state exists because there is no feasible alternative. That is to say that the anarchist can propose no alternative solution that does not itself revert back to a state, or that it results in a standard of living so far removed from the current one enjoyed by the residents of western nations that would be senseless to return to.

I never set out to prove the state. I set out to prove the anarchist incorrect. I combined two schools of thought because I sought to address anarchism from both the deontological and the consequentialist point of view.

edit: furthermore, that you admit your agreement with Nozick would show that you agree that any anarchy would simply end up in a state (minimal that it may be).

Is this directed at me? You use Nozick very often, and I am the site's most voiced Nozickian and Robert Nozick fanboy. My flag was Robert Nozick himself for quite some time. I've never been an anarchist, and I've never even pretended to be one either. I'm a deontological minarchist. I side with the anarchists in this thread because the arguments are consequentialist, and I reply with deontological counterarguments. With slight modifications, of course: I have to make sure I keep the counterarguments justify the Nozickian minimal state, else I would contradict what I actually believe in.

[Arkolon]

edit: furthermore, that you admit your agreement with Nozick would show that you agree that any anarchy would simply end up in a state (minimal that it may be).

Yes, of course. This doesn't justify the modern democratic state we have today, though.

[Arkolon]

I was taught and brought up with such a vocabulary. Neither Locke nor Nozick devoted a chapter in their seminal texts called "Why I Decided To Use This Word". "Naturalist" was adversial to "Positivist", Lockean v Hobbesian respectively. I don't know why Locke called it that. I know Hobbes called it Positivism as in the verb "to posit", but the definition Locke relied on beats me. Maybe he adopted it from St Thomas Aquinas? I have no idea. I'll get back to you when I time travel back to the late 17th century.

EDIT: Regardless, it never was an impediment to argument. It was a distraction you fell for. I'm going to keep defending natural rights and law under a different name. This hardly changes my course of debate.

Locke believed in natural rights because he felt that people in the state of nature still had them.

What do you mean by "still" had them?

[United Dependencies]

Is this directed at me? You use Nozick very often, and I am the site's most voiced Nozickian and Robert Nozick fanboy. My flag was Robert Nozick himself for quite some time. I've never been an anarchist, and I've never even pretended to be one either. I'm a deontological minarchist. I side with the anarchists in this thread because the arguments are consequentialist, and I reply with deontological counterarguments. With slight modifications, of course: I have to make sure I keep the counterarguments justify the Nozickian minimal state, else I would contradict what I actually believe in.

edit: furthermore, that you admit your agreement with Nozick would show that you agree that any anarchy would simply end up in a state (minimal that it may be).

Yes, of course. This doesn't justify the modern democratic state we have today, though.

Well if you're not an anarchist then I'm not directing the piece at you.

[United Dependencies]

(I'm fairly sure ASU was a book, not an essay, that came out in 1974, not 1999)

One final thing: You are correct that I mischaracterized it as an essay when it was actually a book, but I correctly cited the 1999 edition.

[Arkolon]

Is this directed at me? You use Nozick very often, and I am the site's most voiced Nozickian and Robert Nozick fanboy. My flag was Robert Nozick himself for quite some time. I've never been an anarchist, and I've never even pretended to be one either. I'm a deontological minarchist. I side with the anarchists in this thread because the arguments are consequentialist, and I reply with deontological counterarguments. With slight modifications, of course: I have to make sure I keep the counterarguments justify the Nozickian minimal state, else I would contradict what I actually believe in.

Yes, of course. This doesn't justify the modern democratic state we have today, though.

Well if you're not an anarchist then I'm not directing the piece at you.

The rest of my vacation will be much more peaceful knowing that I needn't chop your three-post essay up into little bits and answer every single other sentence. A nice addition to the thread, nevertheless, but the conclusion does drift off to defend public education (which you won't find many Nozickians advocating) and, to a lesser extent, public roads and infrastructure-- all supported by a taxing, consequentialist state apparatus. From a Nozickian point of view, this is the issue I have with your essay.

[Arkolon]

(I'm fairly sure ASU was a book, not an essay, that came out in 1974, not 1999)

One final thing: You are correct that I mischaracterized it as an essay when it was actually a book, but I correctly cited the 1999 edition.

I have a 2013 edition, but I wouldn't say ""Anarchy, State, and Utopia" (Nozick, R. 2013)". I'd say 1974. Maybe that's just personal preference. Hardly matters, anyway.

[The Liberated Territories]

I need to get muh hands on ASU somehow, and finally banish the anarchists to the hellworlds which they sprang!

[Sociobiology]

edit: furthermore, that you admit your agreement with Nozick would show that you agree that any anarchy would simply end up in a state (minimal that it may be).

Yes, of course. This doesn't justify the modern democratic state we have today, though.

that out of everything that we know works, modern democratic states are the most preferable, is what justifies them.

[Jello Biafra]

A state? Where's the body that has a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence?

they have a police force that enforces their laws, laws created by a subset of the population who inherit their lawmaking position.
so that fulfills both the anarchist and the scientific definition of a state.

I'm not sure where the police force is mentioned in the article I linked. Iceland from 930-1262 is different from Iceland today.
Further, the mere existence of a police force is not in and of itself a sufficient characteristic of a state. The police force (or other government-run agencies) must be the only ones allowed to enforce laws within the territory. If they are only one of many different groups who can enforce law, there is no monopoly, and therefore no state.