Anarcho-Capitalism & Why Libertarians are statists.

[Kelinfort]

You'd have to have a completely voluntary confederacy where everyone shares the same goals to achieve that end.

And in all likelyhood, if the member states of that confederacy were so equal-minded, there would only be a single state to begin with.

Which is why I never understood how anarchism of any kind is possible without a mass consensus, not to mention an adoption of the anti-aggression axiom by a majority of the populace.

[Personal Freedom]

This is feudalism or mine company towns. Pay us in script, provide all of our tools, and take all of the profit.

You pull sixteen tons and what do you get?
Another year older and deeper in debt.

[Death Metal]

Howsabout a Voluntary Society?

size limited which means they can't produce and maintain advanced technology.

Well, startup companies can create advanced technology with just a few like-minded people working together... with the tools that a technologically advanced state society already provides though.

Plus that startup's members will gladly eject someone from the group against the individual's will, which is not a voluntaryist society any because, as I mentioned before, voluntary association requires mutually voluntary disassociation.

[Death Metal]

And in all likelyhood, if the member states of that confederacy were so equal-minded, there would only be a single state to begin with.

Which is why I never understood how anarchism of any kind is possible without a mass consensus, not to mention an adoption of the anti-aggression axiom by a majority of the populace.

Well, a stateless consensus democracy is certainly possible, in very small scales, and require a degree of isolationism.

The anti-aggression axiom is a contradiction unto itself. A ban on force is itself a forceful act.

[Maqo]

The state is a monopoly on the initiation of force, despite what words one wishes to use to describe or justify it. The state can go out and enforce the law, but you cannot. The state can declare war, but you cannot, etc. In a voluntary society, the only crime IS the initiation of force (which entails a bunch of different actions, from murder to pollution, rape, etc) and using force to respond to it is called self defense, and is completely permitted.

If you allow people to enforce the law on their own, that is called 'angry mob rule' or 'vigilantism'. When we allow people to a) determine what was a crime, b) determine who was the perpetrator, and c) exact revenge/justice on their own terms, we have a very unstable system where innocent people can get killed 'in self defense'.
A state has separates the responsibility of these things to make the process as objective as possible. We define what are crimes in a book of law, and what conditions must be fulfilled for a crime to have occurred; we have dedicated professionals who will find the real perpetrators and give them a chance to defend themselves; and we have a system for determining just punishments.

I don't think a voluntary society can come up with a system as successful as the one above and still maintain that it is voluntary.
Also: avoiding taxation is only a victimless crime while everyone else pays their taxes. If everyone stopped paying taxes and suddenly we can't provide electricity, water, roads, police, military, fire dept, and people die, then there would be victims.

The state exists more or less to monopolize a lot of various industries (defense, production of law, roads, etc) and provide them to their jurisdictions, and taxation is the payment. On paper, this sounds great, but no one else is allowed to compete in these state-dominated markets and payment for these services is involuntary.

The state takes control of markets because structural differences in those markets compared to those for commodity goods& services means they cannot be provided efficiently by the free market, and provision by a private company will lead to harmful effects.
This typically occurs with: natural monopolies (ie roads or water, where realistically only one company will ever be able to serve a given location)
public goods (ie fire or military protection, where it is difficult or impossible to get customers to pay for what you are providing)
essential services (ie healthcare or education, where universal provision of these services is shown to have immense social and economic value)

The state has used some of the worst force in history before, all the moral goodness about this violent monopoly is either anecdotal or just meaningless.

Look! Everything bad that has ever happened has happened under a state! Nothing bad has ever happened under anarchy!
If people can be convinced to do bad things, it will happen no matter what model. Saying those things won't happen under anarchy is wanting some miracle to happen where everyone magically begins believing the same thing as you.

Pre-emptive striking involves initiating force where there is currently no force. In the context of war, then sure, pre-emptive striking could be used by a private or public voluntary army. Purely in organized self-defense, however.

Is it not organised self defense to pre-emptively take a monopoly on water supply to prevent a private company from abusing its potential power? Is it not organised self defense to agree to detain people who are behaving in an erratic way that is proven to have a high correlation with death and injury of innocents, even if they haven't yet hurt someone (? Is it

Economic coercion? The state embodies economic coercion. It's very existence is already a massive number of various markets monopolized, and it taxes and regulates, the subsidizes it's corporate donors. The state kills capitalism, and, if you're a socialist, oppresses the workers simultaneously. Voluntaryism cures this.

The state controls the markets to save the people from the coercion the market can cause. Eg, if a private company had a monopoly on water provision, can you imagine the consequences?

[Occupied Deutschland]

Which is why I never understood how anarchism of any kind is possible without a mass consensus, not to mention an adoption of the anti-aggression axiom by a majority of the populace.

Well, a stateless consensus democracy is certainly possible, in very small scales, and require a degree of isolationism.

The anti-aggression axiom is a contradiction unto itself. A ban on force is itself a forceful act.

Hence why the Non-Aggression Principle is a principle and not the Non-Aggression Law.

Saying 'Hurting others is generally bad' is to force as me saying 'You don't seem to understand the Non-Aggression Principle' is to flaming. Rather far removed.

[Death Metal]

Well, a stateless consensus democracy is certainly possible, in very small scales, and require a degree of isolationism.

The anti-aggression axiom is a contradiction unto itself. A ban on force is itself a forceful act.

Hence why the Non-Aggression Principle is a principle and not the Non-Aggression Law.

Yet in anarchist theory, would be enforced as a law.

Hence the contradiction.

[Maqo]

Hence why the Non-Aggression Principle is a principle and not the Non-Aggression Law.

Saying 'Hurting others is generally bad' is to force as me saying 'You don't seem to understand the Non-Aggression Principle' is to flaming. Rather far removed.

"Hurting others is generally bad, except when you think they did something bad to you first then go for your life. Also you can never hurt anyone through inaction. And the only way you can hurt someone is by using physical force. Except for when they take your stuff when you're not there, or walk across ground that you planted your magical flag on first. Or fraud, which is completely non-aggressive but we're going to prevent anyway because we know that its bad even though our non-aggression and voluntarist principles can't possibly lead to that conclusion."

[Margno]

And in all likelyhood, if the member states of that confederacy were so equal-minded, there would only be a single state to begin with.

Which is why I never understood how anarchism of any kind is possible without a mass consensus, not to mention an adoption of the anti-aggression axiom by a majority of the populace.

It's not, as far as I know. At least, everyone in the anarchist society itself needs to be an anarchist. Their neighbors needn't be, they just need to not invade them.
Kinda like how a majority of people in a democracy really need to democrats, or it doesn't work properly.

[Zottistan]

Firstly, I'm not an anarchist. Not my mess.

Secondly, statehood is not chatacterized by a monopoly on the initiation of force. It's characterized by the possession of a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. That's the definition of a state.

Legitimate use of violence is the same thing. You're getting knitpicky in word choices. The use of violence, when initiated against non-violence, is the initiation of force. Aggression. That is the state.

"Legitimate use of force" = force recognized as legitimate by the society over which the force is practiced. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legitimation#Power_and_influence

"Initiation of force" = using force without provocation/not in self defense.

The two mean very different things. I am not being nitpicky, I am using words according to what they actually mean. And using words according to what they actually mean, voluntaryism is not anarchism, because it has a state.

[Arkolon]

Well, a stateless consensus democracy is certainly possible, in very small scales, and require a degree of isolationism.

The anti-aggression axiom is a contradiction unto itself. A ban on force is itself a forceful act.

Hence why the Non-Aggression Principle is a principle and not the Non-Aggression Law.

Saying 'Hurting others is generally bad' is to force as me saying 'You don't seem to understand the Non-Aggression Principle' is to flaming. Rather far removed.

Not to mention that the NAP would be a collection of rules in an anarchist society, because "initiation of force" is too legislatively vague.

[Maqo]

Hence why the Non-Aggression Principle is a principle and not the Non-Aggression Law.

Saying 'Hurting others is generally bad' is to force as me saying 'You don't seem to understand the Non-Aggression Principle' is to flaming. Rather far removed.

Not to mention that the NAP would be a collection of rules in an anarchist society, because "initiation of force" is too legislatively vague.

The other day you get very angry with me for suggesting that there would be codified rules/laws in any voluntarist/anarchist society.
What do you propose should happen if some portion (any number, but lets say less than half for the moment) disagree with a new legislated interpretation of the NAP in the society they live in?

[Liberaxia]

Well, a stateless consensus democracy is certainly possible, in very small scales, and require a degree of isolationism.

The anti-aggression axiom is a contradiction unto itself. A ban on force is itself a forceful act.

Hence why the Non-Aggression Principle is a principle and not the Non-Aggression Law.

Saying 'Hurting others is generally bad' is to force as me saying 'You don't seem to understand the Non-Aggression Principle' is to flaming. Rather far removed.

The NAP is empty. No one believes in aggression.

[Arkolon]

Not to mention that the NAP would be a collection of rules in an anarchist society, because "initiation of force" is too legislatively vague.

The other day you get very angry with me for suggesting that there would be codified rules/laws in any voluntarist/anarchist society.
What do you propose should happen if some portion (any number, but lets say less than half for the moment) disagree with a new legislated interpretation of the NAP in the society they live in?

I got angry because you assumed tacit consent and that these laws would apply to all, regardless of consent. That's pretty much anathema to the whole purpose of voluntaryism in the first place. If I assumed consent, what could stop me?

Could you give me a concrete, realistic example of what you mean there? By realistic I mean not everyone will be up in arms to the "you can't kill people" legislation, or something like that.

[Occupied Deutschland]

Hence why the Non-Aggression Principle is a principle and not the Non-Aggression Law.

Saying 'Hurting others is generally bad' is to force as me saying 'You don't seem to understand the Non-Aggression Principle' is to flaming. Rather far removed.

The NAP is empty. No one believes in aggression.

Of course they do, they just couch it in the most comforting justifications they can find.

[Liberaxia]

The other day you get very angry with me for suggesting that there would be codified rules/laws in any voluntarist/anarchist society.
What do you propose should happen if some portion (any number, but lets say less than half for the moment) disagree with a new legislated interpretation of the NAP in the society they live in?

I got angry because you assumed tacit consent and that these laws would apply to all, regardless of consent. That's pretty much anathema to the whole purpose of voluntaryism in the first place. If I assumed consent, what could stop me?

Could you give me a concrete, realistic example of what you mean there? By realistic I mean not everyone will be up in arms to the "you can't kill people" legislation, or something like that.

The laws must apply to everyone otherwise it's not law.

[Liberaxia]

The NAP is empty. No one believes in aggression.

Of course they do, they just couch it in the most comforting justifications they can find.

Rubbish. Commies see capitalism as aggression.

[Arkolon]

I got angry because you assumed tacit consent and that these laws would apply to all, regardless of consent. That's pretty much anathema to the whole purpose of voluntaryism in the first place. If I assumed consent, what could stop me?

Could you give me a concrete, realistic example of what you mean there? By realistic I mean not everyone will be up in arms to the "you can't kill people" legislation, or something like that.

The laws must apply to everyone otherwise it's not law.

Err, no? Russian laws don't apply to me. Does that not make Russian law law?

[Liberaxia]

The laws must apply to everyone otherwise it's not law.

Err, no? Russian laws don't apply to me. Does that not make Russian law law?

In their jurisdiction it applies to you. Also see universal jurisdiction (something that I support).

[Occupied Deutschland]

Of course they do, they just couch it in the most comforting justifications they can find.

Rubbish. Commies see capitalism as aggression.

And Commies are often just fine with aggression being used in order to expropriate the ill-gotten capital of the bourgeois.

They just justify it. As Capitalists justify the maintenance of the property system.

[Liberaxia]

Rubbish. Commies see capitalism as aggression.

And Commies are often just fine with aggression being used in order to expropriate the ill-gotten capital of the bourgeois.

They just justify it. As Capitalists justify the maintenance of the property system.

They don't zee that as aggression!!!!

[Arkolon]

And Commies are often just fine with aggression being used in order to expropriate the ill-gotten capital of the bourgeois.

They just justify it. As Capitalists justify the maintenance of the property system.

They don't zee that as aggression!!!!

Come on, Lib, even Marxists don't see violent revolution as peaceful.

[Liberaxia]

They don't zee that as aggression!!!!

Come on, Lib, even Marxists don't see violent revolution as peaceful.

¬∀(¬Peaceful=Aggression)
On the other hand, many peaceful things are taken by libertarians to be aggressive.

[Freethinking Anarchists]

They don't zee that as aggression!!!!

Come on, Lib, even Marxists don't see violent revolution as peaceful.

Do note the difference between a Marxist and an Anarchist in Communist terms...anarchists can fit into a voluntary society. Marxists cannot.

[Arkolon]

Come on, Lib, even Marxists don't see violent revolution as peaceful.

¬∀(¬Peaceful=Aggression)
On the other hand, many peaceful things are taken by libertarians to be aggressive.

Such as?