Anarchy Is the Solution to the Evil Idiocy of the State
L: Doug, you keep saying you’re an anarchist. I suspect most of our readers know that doesn’t mean you like to wear black army boots and throw Molotov cocktails at McDonald’s restaurants during WTO protests, but I’m not sure how many really know what it is you do mean. And since this is central to your world-view and hence touches on all your thinking as an investor and speculator, it seems useful to clear the air. Few may agree with us on this topic, but let’s talk about anarchy.
Doug: Sure. If people aren’t open-minded enough to even consider an alternative view, they’re their own worst problem, not my ideas. In point of fact, anarchism is the gentlest of all political systems. It contemplates no institutionalized coercion. It’s the watercourse way, where everything is allowed to rise or fall naturally to its own level. An anarchic system is necessarily one of free-market capitalism. Any services that are needed and wanted by people — like the police or the courts — would be provided by entrepreneurs, who’d do it for a profit.
Look, I’d be happy enough if the state — which is an instrument of pure coercion, even after you tart it up with the trappings of democracy, a constitution, and what-not — were limited to protecting you from coercion and absolutely nothing more. That would imply a police force to protect you from coercion within its bailiwick. A court system to allow you to adjudicate disputes without resorting to force. And some type of military to protect you from outside predators.
Unfortunately, the government today does everything but these functions — and when it does deign to protect, it does so very poorly. The police are increasingly ineffective at protecting you; they seem to specialize in enforcing arbitrary laws. The courts? They apply arbitrary laws, and you need to be wealthy to use them — although you’re likely to be impoverished by the time you get out of them. And the military hardly defends the country anymore — it’s all over the world creating enemies, generally, of the most backward foreigners.
In a free-market anarchy, the police would likely be subsidiaries of insurance companies, and courts would have to compete with each other based on the speed, fairness, and low cost of their decisions. The military presents a more complex problem, beyond our range here.
L: That’s a lot for most mainstream folks to swallow at once, Boss. On the other hand, the way I see it, it would be inconsistent with my libertarian principles to demand that anyone agree with me — but I don’t need to be helping those who would enslave me to make money anyway. That said, let’s try to ease into this…
Doug: So, let’s start with a definition. Many people think of anarchy as being chaos. They see riots and chaos on TV from some place in conflict and think, “What anarchy!”
L: That’s if the talking heads don’t tell them that what they are seeing is anarchy to begin with.
Doug: Right. But chaos and bomb throwing are not anarchy. Chaos is the actual opposite of anarchy. Anarchy is simply a form of political organization that does not put one ruler, or ruling body, over everyone in a society. Whether that’s actually possible is a separate matter. This is what it means. And I see it as an ideal to strive for.
L: I’m looking at Webster’s, and it says that anarchy is: A: Absence of government. B: A state of lawlessness or political disorder due to the absence of governmental authority. C: A utopian society of individuals who enjoy complete freedom without government. People might say you’re focusing only on C.
Doug: Look at the etymology. It comes from the Greek anarchos, meaning “having no ruler,” an-, not, and archos, ruler. Definition B has come into popular use, but that doesn’t make it right.
“Anarchy” is a word that’s been stolen and corrupted by the collectivists — like “liberal,” It used to be that a liberal was someone who believed in both social and economic freedom. Now a liberal is no better than a muddle-headed thief — someone who’s liberal only with other people’s money.
I refuse to let the bad guys control the intellectual battlefield by expropriating and ruining good words.
In any event, there’s no conflict whatsoever between anarchy and the rule of law, since there are private forms of law and governance. That’s what Common Law is all about. So the correct definition is a combination of A and C.
But I never said a truly free, anarchic society would be a utopia; it would simply be a society that emphasizes personal responsibility and doesn’t have any organized institutions of coercion. Perfect harmony is not an option for imperfect human beings. Social order, however, is possible without the state. In fact, the state is so dangerous because it necessarily draws the sociopaths — who like coercion — to itself.
What holds society together is not a bunch of strict laws and a brutal police force — it’s basically peer pressure, moral suasion, and social opprobrium. Look at a restaurant. The bills get paid not because anybody is afraid of the police, but for the three reasons I just mentioned.
L: I saw some of this in Argentina over the last few days. Here we are at your Harvest Celebration. Two hundred people, most of whom have never met before, a hundred miles from nowhere — I don’t know if the nearby town of Cafayate even has a cop, but if it does, he’s well hidden. For all anyone can see, it’s us, the grape vines, and the mountains.
And yet, there was order. The Estancia is private property. Your people organized things, and the guests went along with it and had a great time. Why? I don’t think many of them calculated the odds of getting killed if they tried to use violence to get everything they wanted, though a rational person making such a calculation would decide it wasn’t worth it.
Most people are brought up to be decent, and the people you tend to attract have a certain moral fiber. In other words, the event was governed by a culture of voluntary and honorable cooperation.
Doug: Just so. It’s like when people form lines at movie theaters or ski lifts. There doesn’t have to be a cop with a gun there to make everyone take turns. Everyone knows that if they take turns, it all works out better for everyone — and they are brought up to act that way, so they usually don’t even have to make that calculation.
A more obviously government-like example is Disneyworld, which is nothing less than a private city, complete with numerous rules that would be called laws if it were run by politicians instead of a corporation.
Why would anyone go along with rules that aren’t laws? Because they want to go to Disneyworld. They agree, and for the most part, they go along, and if they cause too much trouble, Disney kicks ‘em out — which they have every right to do as owners of their private property.
As Pareto’s Law indicates, there’s inevitably a bad element in most places. 80% of folks are truly decent, and 20% are perhaps problematical. And 20% of that 20% are bad apples. You have to have a culture that keeps them hiding under rocks, rather than rising to the top — as they wind up doing quite often in government.
The reaction of a person to the idea of a truly free society is an excellent moral litmus test. The more negative the reaction, the more likely you’re dealing with a sociopath.
L: What would you say to people who point out that when the government collapsed in Somalia a few years ago, bloodshed ensued, or that when the government disappeared from New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, ugly chaos did erupt?
Doug: It’s as you said: a cultural matter. If you have people who’ve been brought up to believe that the only limits on what you can or should do is the force exerted by the authorities, it’s no surprise that when the greater power disappears, they reach out to take whatever they want, by force.
That’s clearly the case in Somalia, but it’s also true of the people stranded in New Orleans, who were primarily those with no money to flee — in other words, the inhabitants of government housing projects. It’s not politically correct to point this out, but those people had, on average, a distinctly different culture from that of the average American.
Actually, ex-police states are the most dangerous places — like Russia in the early ‘90s, the Congo in the early ‘60s, or Haiti today, because they have a culture of repression that’s like a pressure cooker. When the lid comes off, it’s a mess.
L: I seem to recall a flood in West Virginia in recent years that wiped out half of a small town. Instead of raping and robbing each other, those not hurt helped the victims. They housed them, fed them, and even helped them build new houses. And no one made them do it. It wasn’t a case of better government — it was just their culture to do so.
Doug: And culture is a matter of education, which means that societies that function on voluntary cooperation, as in Cafayate, Disneyland, or the town you’re talking about in West Virginia, are possible.
There is nothing in human nature that makes it impossible to create a society of people who respect each other’s rights and follow accepted systems for working out differences, like getting in lines at movie theaters. There would still be criminals and sociopaths to deal with, as these occur in a standard distribution in every population — but the point is that the society doesn’t have to be built around an essentially criminal organization, the state.
L: And those sociopaths would be limited to whatever mischief they could wreak personally, instead of having access to the machinery of the state to multiply the harm they can do. But I think most people would balk at your characterization of the state as essentially criminal.
I know that’s a big topic people have written whole books about, but can you give us something brief to substantiate your view?
Doug: Well, it’s really not that complicated. We can probably agree that it’s wrong for me to point a gun at you and take all your money. Some people might feel sorry for me if I did that to buy medicine for my dying mother, but it’s still a crime, because it violates your human rights. And it’s still a crime if I ask someone else to do the same thing for me — and still a crime if a whole bunch of people vote to ask someone with a spiffy uniform and a badge to do the same thing.
It wouldn’t matter any more if a group of people calling themselves Congress went through some rituals that involved a leader putting some ink on some paper and said a violation of your rights was now “legal” than if a witch-doctor told a tribe’s warriors that it was okay to take slaves and sacrifice them to the gods. Laws are just a “civilized” man’s taboos.
L: Obamacare is a case of exactly this. Socialized medicine puts you and me in the position of the tribe’s sacrifice, because the mass of voters want free goodies at the expense of those who produce more than they do.
But to get back to the word “criminal” — you’re saying that the state is inherently criminal because it violates human rights. But does it have to be that way? Didn’t Ayn Rand have an idea for a kind of government that would not violate anyone’s rights?
Doug: I don’t think she ever came up with a detailed plan. I find it interesting that her “Galt’s Gulch” in Atlas Shrugged was clearly a private city. It was built on land owned by Midas Mulligan, and people who bought in agreed to his terms. There was no mention of police or elected officials. What Rand said was that a moral government could not violate anyone’s rights, and that meant raising revenues through user fees and other voluntary means — no taxes. That’s a great step in the right direction, but leaves a lot of unanswered questions as to how to do this.
Here’s the rub; imagine that the Quebecois decided unanimously that they really didn’t want to be part of Canada anymore but wanted to be an independent, French-speaking country. So they peacefully vote and take their marbles to play their own game. In doing so, they don’t violate anyone’s rights, so there is no moral way the government of Canada can stop them. They could use force, but that would violate the rights of the Quebecois, who would not be hurting anyone. And if the Quebecois could do this, so could Disneyworld, or your neighborhood — or you individually.
There’s no moral way to prevent peaceful secession — but if a state doesn’t prevent secession, it soon disintegrates. People always want to do things differently, and they would if the threat of force from the state didn’t stop them. Brute force — although gussied up with myth, propaganda, and red, white, and blue bunting — is what holds the state together. That force is ugly and corrupting.
No matter how benign a state might be, even one that found a way to fund all of its activities without resorting to force, it must still violate the fundamental human right of self-determination in order to preserve its own existence. That’s why the state is inherently a criminal organization — it must rely on force. Even the best of them are never based entirely on consent of the governed; there is coercion of the non-consenting minority. And there are always some who do not consent.
Democracy is no solution — it’s just 51% bossing the other 49% around. For God’s sake, Hitler was democratically elected. Democracy is just mob rule dressed up in a coat and tie.
You and I do not consent to Obamacare, but we’re forced to accept it. Of course socialized medicine is totally counterproductive, as we discussed in our conversation on health.
I suppose I can live with the idea of a state, as long as there were about seven billion of them in the world — and everybody had one. That would show that the whole idea of the state is just a scam, where everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else. But the only people who really benefit are the guys on top.
Doug Casey and Louis James
Whiskey & Gunpowder
April 14, 2010
ShareThis
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Ron Simon. Ron Simon said: Anarchy Is the Solution to the Evil Idiocy of the State: L: Doug, you keep saying you’re an anarchist. I suspect m… http://bit.ly/bTkKFL [...]
That all sounds good, but as a former municipal firefighter, I see problems. In centuries past, when fire fighting services were privately organized and run, there was competition between fire fighting organizations, to the point that if they encountered one another on the way to a fire, fights between competing agencies would break out, and properties would be lost because no one got there in time, with good order, to save anything. So private armies managed, commanded and paid by the most wealthy among us, who’s imperfects and self serving inclinations are amplified by the power of their wealth, present considerable danger to the general public. How would you suggest that problem be overcome.
I personally believe that the Spirit inspired words of Jeremiah are proven by every human example to be profoundly true:
(Jeremiah 10:23) 23 ”I well know, O Jehovah, that to earthling man his way does not belong. It does not belong to man who is walking even to direct his step.”
sir-
I’m still waiting for a libertarian/anarchist to explain how libertarianism handles negative externalities. If I ever get a convincing explanation, I will gladly pronounce myself a convert. Imagine that i am a shrimper in the Gulf of Mexico and my livelihood (and a large chunk of the Gulf itself) has been destroyed by chemical runoff from the thousands of farms that drain into the Mississippi and its tributaries. Who do I see about this? What recourse do I have other than the patently absurd-i.e. a multi state nuisance suit naming as defendants 50,000 farmers- all unknown to me at a cost I could never afford.
Any of you libertarians out there want to take a serious swing at an answer?
JM
Count me as one who had the misconception that anarchy always meant lawlessness and chaos. Your discussion on anarchy was intriguing and well reasoned enough for me to understand. Anarchy would certainly be a viable option to consider in light of the oppression and criminal activities of our local, state, and federal governments. At least I wouldn’t need to move to a deserted island or mountain top to escape government. Thanks for this thought-provoking piece.
Anarchy is similar to pure communism, pure socialism and many other pure ism’s in that all would work in a perfect world. Unfortunately we live in an imperfect world dealing with imperfect humans. In the article examples were used where people who without the benefit of proper education ran during times of upheaval. What about the true sociopaths such as someone like Bernie Madoff who followed all of society’s rules except for deciding to defraud everyone he did business with. Just because a person is not pointing a gun at you dosnt mean they aren’t doing any harm. What about factories that if it were not for regulations on how much pollution they can discharge would gladly pour hazardous chemicals down a drain because thats the cheapest way to get rid of it. They arent trying to hurt anyone they are just trying to make more money. No one is 100% good. Many times the people we need to be 100% good are not. I recently read Freakonomics and the author had quite a little to say about the honesty of the average person. It would be nice to live in a place where there were no laws, I just dont think mankind has evolved enough to do this. Perhaps a hand picked group but even then problems will arise.
A brilliant, succinctly definition and defense of anarchism, Doug.
I just read an answer today for the gentlemen who think our government is saving us from the externalities of free capitalists: Kevin Carson’s analysis of the recent mining disaster in West Virginia, “Corporate Welfare Queen Kills 25″ at http://c4ss.org/content/2228. And your example of Harvest Celebration would fit right into Stefan Molyneux’s _Everyday_Anarchy_, http://www.freedomainradio.com.....archy.aspx, which provides further examples of people living quite peaceful lives without having a gun thrust in their faces.
Anarchy would be a welcome alternative to living through the “Bootlegger & the Baptist” and other con games we’ve all been subjected to for many years now.
There’s no star on our flag for the District of Columbia and I don’t think the world would shed a tear if we brought about Federal Anarchy Now and liquidate title to that land back to the future residents Commonwealth of Virginia.
Each state capitol can take a turn as host. Utah can become a theocracy, California a unicorn-rainbowtopia, Nevada…
In response to other posts:
One way of dealing with externalities such as the shrimper faces would be to recognize private property rights even in the Gulf of Mexico.
A second way would be to incorporate cities and townships with real productive corporations, like DisneyWorld. You could live in Starbuckville, Walmartown, HewlettPackardLand, etc. They collect the garbage, sweep the streets, we live among brands and ads 24/7.
Being a shareholder in a voluntarily constituted corporation would be better than being coerced state servants who get to elect their masters every few years.
Wow, were you talking about 1%ers? Bad Bikers or Bankers and Politicians?
Sometimes it is also called mass madness or 99% crazy.
Anarchy is coming, no doubt.
The shrimper and the farmer had a fight, the lawyers and the bureaucrats won.
It is all in the Word.
Midas-
Thank you for your thoughtful response. However, I still don’t see a solution here. Yes, if private property rights were recognized, e.g. in the Gulf, i might have a right of action against the farmers who are damaging my property. However, the insuperable problem is identifying and obtaining relief for the violation of my rights. Even if private rights are validated, I’m still in the impossible position of trying to identify and sue 50,000 farmers scattered from Minnesota to Louisiana–an obviously impossible task
Sadly, I still see no solution other than preemptive regulation to prevent the damage before it occurs. The tragedy of the commons has presented an insoluble problem to every pure free market theory I’ve ever seen or heard of.
j
Here’s the rub. Your definition of “anarchy” is virtually identical to Marx’s definition of the final stage of communism where government is no longer necessary and gets abolished.
Anarchy is no more possible than communism (both utopian ideologies) because the only absence of government is where human beings do not exist. Put two people on a planet all by themselves and a government is formed instantly. It may be a simple totalitarian dictatorship where the strong one tells the weak one what to do, and its level of benevolence can vary from tyranny to cuddly protection, but it still is what it is. We are social creatures, and calling them laws or rules, or presidents or chiefs is semantics. We form government inherently simply be being because of our social nature. I shouldn’t need to draw on popular examples of history to prove this self evident truth.
We instituted the American federal government to PROTECT freedoms we already have (not the least of which are property rights), not to grant, create, or establish them. The federal government is no longer restrained by the chains of the Constitution, and has become a tyranny. We are no longer free to pursue our own happiness, but are forced at the point of a gun to pursue the Federal government’s version of happiness as slaves or at least bonded serfs who have half our crops stolen by lords in their castles.
Modern liberals are more properly described as leftist totalitarians, or even monarchists in their pursuit of making every slave bend their backs to the will of the Lords, and their benevolent definition of communal happiness. And, that is where we are. That is what our government has been perverted into. The Republic is dead.
Anarchy is not even close to the answer. Restoring the republic, and putting the federal government back in the chains of the Constitution IS the only answer, and the only way to restore our ability to pursue our own definition of happiness without being forced to pursue someone else’s definition of happiness as a slave.
Remember, we institute government to PROTECT the rights we have inherently as human beings. If it starts doing more than that it has become a tyranny, no matter how great its motives sound.
Speaktopower,
You speak to me, too. Thanks
Doug is every bit as self-serving and dishonest as the government he constantly rails against. I am just about done reading his BS, especially when it is presented as a dialogue with his obsequious employee who is dutifully buying in to Doug’s real estate development in Argentina. It’s part of his plan to prepare for TEOTWAKI. BTW, every time I write something critical it never appears on this page.
Anarchism is Utopian? Mr Casey alluded to this, but he might have made if more clear for many of his readers…
I suggest that economic censure is far more powerful than imprisonment.
http://www.FreedomainRadio.com
[...] Courtesy, Whiskey & Gunpowder [...]
Speak to Power…very well done, indeed. How about a submission sent to http://www.thetexasring.com?
Dave, let me assure everyone again that responses are not censored. In theory we don’t put up with foul language and/or personal attacks, but every once in a while I get a reader response I think qualifies as both. The difficulty is the necessity to set the spam filter high enough to prevent tens of thousands of computer-generated responses. One of my ongoing frustrations is how frequently my replies don’t post. It helps to keep replies short.
A brilliant, succinctly definition and defense of anarchism, Doug.
I just read an answer today for the gentlemen who think our government is saving us from the externalities of free capitalists: Kevin Carson’s analysis of the recent mining disaster in West Virginia, “Corporate Welfare Queen Kills 25″ at http://c4ss.org/content/2228. And your example of Harvest Celebration would fit right into Stefan Molyneux’s _Everyday_Anarchy_, http://www.freedomainradio.com.....archy.aspx, which provides further examples of people living quite peaceful lives without having a gun thrust in their faces.
Anarchism is Utopian? Mr Casey alluded to this, but he might have made if more clear for many of his readers…
I suggest that economic censure is far more powerful than imprisonment.
http://www.FreedomainRadio.com
Anarchism is Utopian? Mr Casey alluded to this, but he might have made if more clear for many of his readers…
I suggest that economic censure is far more powerful than imprisonment.
http://www.FreedomainRadio.com
This is a partial question type answer to jay moses and his shrimping disaster from the farms above him in the river flow. Jay, just how could those farmers have gotten so much of those poisonous fertilizers had not the corrupt corporate government we use in this country today had not funneled so many of our resources to those industries? How would they have done that had they not been ‘educated’ in our public indoctrination systems (schools) which do anything but teach children to ask the question “why” and never encourage independent thought at all? How could that situation have even developed at all if we had a citizenry that did not believe it was up to a chain of command authority to do for us instead of us do for us? So many questions in that one that when you finish those questions, you can have your answer. Oh wait, you’d have to be an independent minded person who believes in the power of the individual to search for the answer. Or else, you could sit around and wait for someone else to prove you right or wrong. In which case, we would all know you are a statist because taking that route would be something an anarchist would be unwilling to do on any front. Very short and incomplete comment/questionanswer thing, but that’s just how it should be. I hate people who insist on being spoonfed knowledge anyway. They are too lazy to appreciate the work and learn nothing at all.
You’re exactly right, William. Thanks for the link you provided. Now, for you, Mr. Casey, you need to shut up, and go to Dr. David Barton’s website to learn FACTUAL information. If you’re still so arrogant and narcissistic, then just go back and crawl into the hole from which you came. BTW, dude, who cares WHAT you are – an anarchist or whatever? According to your stupid, super-inflated egotistical remarks in the above article, you’re just an EXTREMELY OPINIONATED SOCIALIST “BAG OF HOT AIR” WHO LOVES TO HEAR YOURSELF TALK! You’re YOUR “own worst problem – NOT us! For instance, you contradict yourself throughout this “interview”. You tout capitalism; yet you demoniize Tea Partiers (GREAT PEOPLE) and Republicans (Pro-God, pro-America conservatives) who constantly DEFEND CAPITALISM. Re: your brief analysis of Any Rand’s ATLAS SHRUGGED, YOU’RE the one who “leaves out a lot of unsnswered quesitons. BLAH! BLAH! BLAH…you need to adhere to that which you know re: investments; and leave the subjects of GOD, TEA PARTIERS, and the few honest politicians with character (conservatives) up to those who are MORE LEARNED AND WHO HAVE HAD REAL LIFE EXPERIENCES in many aspects of life that you obviously haven’t. You say the Republicans are short on “social justice”. Informed Americans and others around the world know “social justice” is nothing more than just a code term for the so-called “Pro-Choice” unborn baby murderers. In the future, pease try to subdue your super-inflated ego, your gross misinformation, your sordid opinions about that which you really don’t know; and do your best to come up with something of interest to anyone but YOURSELF. Sure our current “government” is “rotten to the core”. For the most part, liberal/socialist democrats and RINO’S represent no one but themselves, ignore our rule of law in every way possible, force legislation upon us American citizens against our will, are guilty of many deals involving bribery, allow rampant voter fraud, etc., etc. Now , though, thanks to the educated and patriotic conservatives who will have control of the House and the control freakish dems lost the power of cloture, giving the Republicans the right to filibuster, I pray to God that the horrible “change” and “transformation” that’s been a total disaster for almost two years now will end; and I plead with all TRUE American citizens who “are called by God’s name, shall humble ourselves, and pray, and seek His face, and turn from our wicked ways; then He will hear from heaven, and will forgive our sins, and will heal our land”. II Chronicles 7:14 (paraphrased)
Have any of the true believers in anarchy here ever travelled to some of the most impoverished countries in the world? Anarchy in much more form exists there and tends to breed a demise. In theory much like communism on the other end of the spectrum, the theories are valid. But realistically that’s all they will be “theories”. Nobody would trade any goods in a free market anarchist society. Makes for a good pipe dream