Freedomain Radio

After watching quiet some videos of freedomain radio i agree with a lot of the points why statism failed. And even i do see some of the good points of anarchy. But the reason why it wouldnt work is that in the past there was anarchy. If it really worked out, why are we stuck with statism now. The definition of the state by steff is that it has a monopoly of violence. In a stateless society i would expect that survival of the fittest would occur. Which would mean that the people with the biggest guns would survive. And either kill the people who resists and or force you to take part of a new form of state.

I think it happened in the past numerous times, but the Indians/native Americans are probably the best example. I think that was a society that you could call an anarchy because there wasnt really a state or a monopoly of violence going on there. But then the colonists of Europe came in and forced them to take part of their culture, their religion, their language. And so the people with the bigger guns made a state and forced the weaker people to either assimilate, leave their motherland or get killed. There are so many empires in the past (most i even never heard of) that its ridiculous.

Its just dominate or be dominated. The question is not if but when an anarchy falls. And i dont really like to lose from the big guys with the big guns and have the chance that my country transforms into a state like Nord-Korea, China, Zimbabwe. So i would say that i am more than happy to be in a state like this then have to chance to go back to a totalitarian regime.

To get protected against violence and protect your properties and go on, there are people needed with guns. And if you need to protect yourself, you need the biggest gun in the world. So in some way you have to work together and let some people protect the others, while other people can get to work and do other stuff while dont have to worry about protection. Then still there are people that have bigger guns or more deadly guns or they are better trained or just have a bigger army. And there has to be some people with the biggest guns, always. So they have the monopoly of violence and so they are the state.

GDIT origional post got lost. . .

Welcome to the forum, a lot of your questions / points have been covered in podcasts, so keep watching! Maybe someone can link you to specific podcasts.

The main point i wanted to make is that tribalism isn't a good representation of anarchism. Tribalism tends to be very coercive, and hard to escape when born into, they tend to have leaders which word is law, and can be very violent and savage. 

Well, first of all, if your immediate impression of anarchism is something like "darwinism", you don't really understand anarchism.

No one here, obviously, supports survival of the fittest, aka "might makes right", this is the ideology of statism. This is exactly what we intent to oppose. Consider your actual argument for a moment. Even theists don't argue that if you eliminate religion, people will replace it with a religion that's even worse. Why does no one argue that? Because it's a stupid argument. We've never had anarchy, just as we've never had a large atheist population, we simply don't know and have to reason to believe that it would degrade back into statism or religion. In fact, we see the opposite trend, in places with atheist majorities or at least a large minority, religion does not rise from the dead, it always fades away as you'd expect all other failed ideologies to do. Statism is best thought of as a theory, specifically the idea that violence can be used to create virtue in society, and this theory is simply wrong. Why should we expect that humanity must believe this? We ourselves, everyone here, understands that statism is incorrect. If it's possible for us, why would it be impossible for others? Seems arrogant to me. Whether or not it's going to be easy and quick, ridding the world of statism, isn't actually the question. What matters is that it IS possible, because we've done it in our own lives.

The Native Americans might not be a great example for "anarchy". Statism just occurs on a local level, where there is a domination of the women and children by the older males, not at all free at the level of the tribe. Above that, on the scale of tribes interacting with each other, it would seem like a very anarchistic society, in that free trade flourishes and no single tribe ever grows to dominate the others. However, the anarchy here exists only on that scale, and if you peer down any closer, it fades away, as we can see the coercion involved in teaching young people that "respect for the elders" and loyalty to the tribe is the greatest virtue.

Also, I don't understand how you go from "there will always be violent people dominating society" to "therefore we should actively support institutions of violence". That just doesn't logically follow. I'd say that even if it were true that governments are inevitable, we should remain opposed to them, because if we convinced enough people of this, governments could never grow to any serious size. There would possibly still be the violent people stealing from us, sure, but if no one believes that this is virtuous, there isn't much the violent people can do.

Waster:

So in some way you have to work together and let some people protect the others, while other people can get to work and do other stuff while dont have to worry about protection. Then still there are people that have bigger guns or more deadly guns or they are better trained or just have a bigger army. And there has to be some people with the biggest guns, always. So they have the monopoly of violence and so they are the state.

I would question your assumption that having the biggest guns is what leads to a monopoly on violence.  There's a more important factor than the guns because in a voluntary society, it wouldnt't be difficult to keep someone with the biggest guns at bay.  The moment someone inside the society started to try using the guns for violent threats, people would freak out and stop paying them and/or ostracize them.  And protecting against outside forces is also not very difficult.  Afghanistan, one of the poorest countries in the world is holding it's own against several of the richest and most powerful.  Imagine how much easier it would be for a thriving, technology driven voluntary society that the rest of the world relies on.

The problem is, there are certain situations where people won't think anything of the violent threats made against them.  And those situations are what the state thrives on.

But the reason why it wouldnt work is that in the past there was anarchy. If it really worked out, why are we stuck with statism now.

Two words: violence and information.

In the past, the ruling class actually did have a monopoly on both violence and information. "The times, they are a changin'", though.

In the past, people participated in their own enslavement because the purveyors of propaganda told them that kings rule due to divine right, and the people believed it, having no other sources of information. And this worked very well for a long time.

Then Gutenberg came along, and all of a sudden control of information became a lot more difficult. And a lot of people managed to at least temporarily escape their self-enslavement in this period (e.g American Revolution, which was really a secession). The ruling class couldn't get the djinni back in the bottle again, so they became a lot more sophisticated. That is why government schools came into being, for example.

Well now we have an invention fully as important as what Gutenberg invented, the Internet. Simultaneously with that we have the re-invention of homeschooling. All of a sudden, the ruling class's grip on information is (or soon will be) completely destroyed. Imagine having something like freedomainradio back in the Roman Empire. You can't. The state no longer has a monopoly on information!

On the violence front, we have a similar case. The ruling class used to steal from the peasants, take some of that stolen money to keep a praetorian guard fat and happy. The guard kept the peasants down if any of them managed to escape the information blockade that generated self-enslavement.

This came to an end around the time of the American Revolution; a bunch of farmers with squirrel rifles kicked the largest army in the world on its butt (with significant help from the French of course). Since that time it's only gotten better. Any of us can now go down to the gunshop and buy the same technology the praetorian guard has, and it is not difficult to become a much better marksman then they are. The state no longer has a monopoly on violence!

Not only that; the state can't even keep its praetorian guard properly propagandized. Half of them or more, sympathize with the people it is their job to keep down.

We may still be stuck with statism, but it is in its death throes. It's a dinosaur, and it is going down for the count.

BTW, on this "bigger gun" argument? That is entirely irrelevant. A good rifle in everyone's hands is all that is needed; tyrants are then easily killed. We don't have to go toe-to-toe with the Army; only idiots would do something like that.

Fortunately for the future, the explosion of information technology drives liberty much more than it drives statism.  It is only linearly hard to encrypt, but it is exponentially hard to decrypt -- project the implications out a few decades, and statism doesn't stand a snowball's chance in hell.

A classic short story on the subject:  http://kuoi.com/~kamikaze/Text/simoleon.html

And a description of the basic idea (crypto-anarchism): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto-anarchism