Freedomain Radio

What are your views on secession as a way of achieving anarchy? I've never seen Stef talk about it and it is the third way between voting and FDR strategy of anarchism. Here is a sound strategy towards seceding. This was posted in the Mises forums by Live_Free_or_Die.

1) geographically organize at a county (or possibly state) level.  I would cite the free state project as a good idea, bad implementation based on the goal and number of people involved.  There is no good reason geographical organization should take more than one or two election cycles.  If it does the target region was poorly selected.

2) dismantle government to the greatest extent possible saving the biggest battles or confrontations likely to gain the attention of the fed or neighbors for last (ie privatizing an interstate highway through a county).  at a county level you can eliminate property taxes, public schools, local public roads, occupational licensing, permitting, zoning, law enforcement, etc.  If you think about it at a county level you can pretty much dismantle all of the offensive government intrusion and enforcement that people have to deal with on a day to day basis.  If you can't envision that all state law is enforced at a local level or the benefits of not having to pay local government or local agencies of state government in federal reserve notes i can spell it out.

3)  use the market advantage to allow capitalism to flourish again and become wealthy.  use this wealth to prepare for the larger battles and continue to spread the philosophy.  instead of just talking about the philosophy of liberty people in this geographical free zone are able to brag about how much more wealth per capita they have due to lack of local government.

Geographical organization is:

1.  Legal

2.  Requires no civil disobedience

3.  Is leading by example 

I don't think secession is a valid concept. The underlying principle is wrong.

I haven't studied the practicalities, but I think that underneath all the rhetoric, it's just a declaration of independence - "Your Union Sucks, But Our State Does Not" - so it's statism anyway.

Perhaps as an "intermediary" to anarchy, the idea is worth discussion, but I wouldn't bet too heavily on the continued success of dismantling the state by using the state. The solution to an over-sized state is not a bunch of smaller states.

Secession doesn't necessarily mean a smaller state separating from a larger state. You and 10 million people can secede and not form a state at all.

You just need to convince all of the people in that area to go along with the plan, and somehow fend off government forces in the process... glwt

I'm not much of a history buff, but I suspect that we have a few historical examples of how well secession turns out. ;-)

Regarding the Free State project: That has to be one of the highest concentrations of anti-government citizens in the U.S., but they regularly get jailed for smoking pot and planting gardens on public property, let alone for attempts at secession.

what are these historical examples?

I'm want to know FDR peoples' thoughts about secession coz I really can't see how doing libertarian branded charity will solve the problem. I've listened to a lot of podcasts and watched videos like "Outgrowing the State(910)" , "The Next Thing.." , "Practical Politics" , and "How (Not) to Achieve Freedom" and I still feel the strategy of "personal liberty leads to political liberty" and libertarian branded charity is a bit off. Stef says political libertarianism has always failed in the past but secession through geographical organization of radical libertarians is unprecedented. America has remained free market for about 100 years because it seceded. And that secession was only about taxes. How much better if there is anarchist sentiment.

I belive if one want's to dismantle a criminal organization by working with the system, it's probably better to test the idea on a small scale..

There's a book that attempts to explain why this hasn't worked for the last 1,000 years. How (Not) To Achieve Freedom

I have listened to the audiobook and while Stef might have made the small scale strategy sound ridiculous, I am not convinced of his argument. I believe what has failed in the last 500 years are attempts to takeover the whole of the criminal organization with either top-down or bottom-up strategy. Taking over a division and separating it from the criminal organization has few times been tried(and has succeeded as in the case of America). Secession into small states can make the state more manageable because the people vote on their feet. Look at Monaco, Lichenstein, Andorra, Switzerland and Singapore. The people living in them are not even libertarian yet the state is reluctant and slow to tyrannize. If we secede into a stateless society, good. If we secede into a small state first(so the masses can adjust), we can continue educating the population and begin dismantling what's left of the state apparatus. I do not see any empirical evidence against secession as far as my knowledge of history goes.

It's certainly an interesting idea, and it if you could keep the government from stopping you (always the problem) I think it could be a good step towards a stateless society. How many people would you need? Are there 10 million Anarco-Capitalists in america? even 1 million?

Dude Andorra is a terrible awfull place where the effects of big government are widespread. Srsly I was just there like last week. But thats just an oppinion.