# Do away with borders
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [September 11, 2014, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238 "2014-09-11T21:15:29Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 8
### Author:  [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)
#### Post date: [September 18, 2014, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/141 "2014-09-18T12:57:24Z")
“Your comrades and superiors, who will remove your loot from you because you reside in a power hierarchy in which you have to suck ass or get beaten. Nice way of life if you’re completely desperate.”
Furthermore, you are an unpaid conscript in an underpaid army run by corrupt officers obeying the orders of a brutal and megalomaniac dictator who is in turn controlled by a variety of extreme right wing oligarchs and fanatical clerics. Anything you take in the course of battle must be declared and passed on up the hierarchy as you are expected to fight or die solely for the benefit of the glory of the state. You barely have boots that fit, your pay is thin gruel and you are expected to follow the most absurd and incompetent orders without regard to whether you live or die. The sergeant is gay and regularly rapes you in front of the other soldiers, who hold you down lest they be shot on trumped up charges of insubordination. You also live in constant fear of having your family tortured or deported if the state thinks you are disloyal.
But at least you don’t live in an anarchy. That would be awful.
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### Author:  [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)
#### Post date: [September 18, 2014, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/142 "2014-09-18T13:46:00Z")
> [@MrQwertyasd](#):
>
> I don’t care if 70 years of cold war propaganda gives you a paranoid phobia for a word, Mr McCarthy
We get it. You’re _controversial_. Thing is, words have meaning. “Comrade” has an unavoidable association with communism in this reality. Just because you want to pretend otherwise, doesn’t change that fact.
> [@MrQwertyasd](#):
>
> Jesus, if you think the US and allied military had nothing to do with those anarchies and more then then we’re talking about two different worlds and I can’t really answer you.
Even if that’s true, what does it have to do with anything being discussed in this thread?
> [@MrQwertyasd](#):
>
> “Your comrades and superiors, who will remove your loot from you because you reside in a power hierarchy in which you have to suck ass or get beaten. Nice way of life if you’re completely desperate.”
>
> Furthermore, you are an unpaid conscript in an underpaid army run by corrupt officers obeying the orders of a brutal and megalomaniac dictator who is in turn controlled by a variety of extreme right wing oligarchs and fanatical clerics. Anything you take in the course of battle must be declared and passed on up the hierarchy as you are expected to fight or die solely for the benefit of the glory of the state. You barely have boots that fit, your pay is thin gruel and you are expected to follow the most absurd and incompetent orders without regard to whether you live or die. The sergeant is gay and regularly rapes you in front of the other soldiers, who hold you down lest they be shot on trumped up charges of insubordination. You also live in constant fear of having your family tortured or deported if the state thinks you are disloyal.
>
> But at least you don’t live in an anarchy. That would be awful.
I see what this is. You’re playing some apocalyptic version of a D&D fantasy. Making up your own story as you go along. I’ve never indulged but I assume that’s how the game is played. Very well. Carry on then. No need for us to harsh your buzz with reality or facts.
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### Author:  [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)
#### Post date: [September 18, 2014, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/143 "2014-09-18T14:06:22Z")
> [@johnpost](#):
>
> not true.
>
> nice people will spontaneously behave themselves.
"_“Maybe Jesus was right when he said that the meek shall inherit the earth—but they inherit very small plots, about six feet by three.”_ "
–R.A.H.
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [September 18, 2014, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/144 "2014-09-18T14:35:47Z")
> [@MrQwertyasd](#):
>
> The sergeant is gay and regularly rapes you in front of the other soldiers, who hold you down lest they be shot on trumped up charges of insubordination.
_Really?_ Are there any other ugly prejudices you’d like to bring up?
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### Author:  [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)
#### Post date: [September 18, 2014, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/145 "2014-09-18T15:33:03Z")
> [@MrQwertyasd](#):
>
> “Your comrades and superiors, who will remove your loot from you because you reside in a power hierarchy in which you have to suck ass or get beaten. Nice way of life if you’re completely desperate.”
>
> Furthermore, you are an unpaid conscript in an underpaid army run by corrupt officers obeying the orders of a brutal and megalomaniac dictator who is in turn controlled by a variety of extreme right wing oligarchs and fanatical clerics.
No, it’s just me and some of my friends stopping by your house to help ourselves to whatever we fancy.
> [@](#):
>
> Anything you take in the course of battle must be declared and passed on up the hierarchy as you are expected to fight or die solely for the benefit of the glory of the state.
No, we are splitting whatever we take from you even-steven.
> [@](#):
>
> You barely have boots that fit, your pay is thin gruel and you are expected to follow the most absurd and incompetent orders without regard to whether you live or die. The sergeant is gay and regularly rapes you in front of the other soldiers, who hold you down lest they be shot on trumped up charges of insubordination. You also live in constant fear of having your family tortured or deported if the state thinks you are disloyal.
You don’t get the picture - it isn’t my full-time job to take anything I want from you - you are an anarchist, so you can’t produce enough to make it worthwhile. It is more of a hobby. I will be enlightened so I won’t kill you or burn your house or anything. I want you to continue to struggle along until you have enough to be worth stealing again.
You might be productive enough to move in on you and enslave you, but probably not. Slavery is not economically efficient - eventually you will figure out that you are operating a game preserve where you are the game, wise up, and form a real government for mutual protection. Until then, you can expect me at unexpected times to see if you have anything I want.
The rest of the time I will be occupying my slot in the archist society operating successfully next door. Nobody beats me, I don’t suck anyone’s ass, and my boots (they’re new - thanks for noticing) fit well and I eat well and make a more than comfortable living. And I sleep peacefully knowing that the police and military and courts that I pay taxes to support wil keep me safe from the anarchists.
Not that they are much of a threat. I knew some of those guys IRL in college, and they were no more threat than a bowling league - too busy arguing the fine points of neo-Trotsky-Mao-DeFarge-ism vs. syndicalism vs. some watery tart lobbing a scimitar at the leaders of the Spanish Revolution.
Regards,
Shodan
---
### Author:  [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)
#### Post date: [September 18, 2014, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/146 "2014-09-18T15:46:57Z")
> [@OurLordPeace](#):
>
> True, there’s not a great track record of resiliency.
Well, that’s one way of putting it. Likewise if you crash cars into a brick wall at forty miles an hour they don’t have a great track record of resiliency either.
> [@](#):
>
> Is that really due to the characteristics of anarchism, though?
Yes, it is. Anarchism can work, to some extent, up to the point where everybody in the society knows everybody else and is committed to ongoing good relations with them. Once it grows beyond that point, and strangers enter the mix, it falls apart.
That’s why the thing about how your mother cooks dinner for you is so silly. My mother cooked dinner for me and my dad and my brothers and sisters and occasionally for the whole extended family. She didn’t routinely cook dinner for total strangers just because.
Regards,
Shodan
---
### Author:  [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)
#### Post date: [September 18, 2014, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/147 "2014-09-18T18:55:35Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#):
>
> We get it. You’re _controversial_. Thing is, words have meaning. “Comrade” has an unavoidable association with communism in this reality. Just because you want to pretend otherwise, doesn’t change that fact.
>
> Even if that’s true, what does it have to do with anything being discussed in this thread?
>
> I see what this is. You’re playing some apocalyptic version of a D&D fantasy. Making up your own story as you go along. I’ve never indulged but I assume that’s how the game is played. Very well. Carry on then. No need for us to harsh your buzz with reality or facts.
Well, I was in my school D&D club, so I know the difference. Gamma World too - one of TSR’s best. When I mention orcs you can be assured I’m deriving my stuff from D&D, till then, not.
I’m a bit disappointed in the quality here.
**Despite wounds, Medal of Honor recipient killed up to 175 enemies, saved comrades**
> **[Despite wounds, Medal of Honor recipient killed up to 175 enemies, saved...](https://edition.cnn.com/2014/09/15/us/adkins-medal-of-honor/)**
>
> Bennie Adkins received the Medal of Honor for his actions in Vietnam’s A Shau Valley more than 48 years ago.
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### Author:  [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)
#### Post date: [September 18, 2014, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/148 "2014-09-18T19:00:47Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Slavery is not economically efficient
I’ll pass that on to Nike, they need info like that.
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### Author:  [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)
#### Post date: [September 18, 2014, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/149 "2014-09-18T19:11:47Z")
> [@MrQwertyasd](#):
>
> I’ll pass that on to Nike, they need info like that.
What are you on about here?
The point is that slavery is an overall economically inefficient strategy. That doesn’t mean an individual or a company can’t leverage it to their own personal advantage, even if it’s a bad move for entire nations or economic blocs. It doesn’t even mean that it can’t exist for a long time even for entire nations or economic blocs (history being a guide here). It merely means that there are more efficient strategies for economics, even if they aren’t used or even if slavery can reap huge benefits for individuals or companies at the expense of the overall economic picture.
Playing the lottery is an overall losing strategy for making money. It’s a winning strategy if you have a winning ticket.
The existence of a winning ticket doesn’t contradict the notion that it’s still a bad money making strategy on average.
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### Author:  [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)
#### Post date: [September 18, 2014, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/150 "2014-09-18T19:30:56Z")
Let’s talk about your poor enslaved militia guy. Although your example was hyperbolic, it really is true that ragtag militias like this exist, that the grunt soldiers obey orders out of fear, that their main purpose is looting the civilians, that the grunts get a fraction of the loot while the bosses get the best of it.
So given all this, why are organized hierarchical militias/gangs like this routinely able to rob and murder unorganized villagers and farmers?
It’s _because_ the gangs are organized that makes them more effective at robbing and killing than they unorganized farmers. And if the farmers organize themselves into a self-defense force to stop the gangs, well, often they notice that the village next door has a lot of spare food lying around, so they might as well help themselves to their neighbor’s surplus value.
The history of the last 10,000 years since the invention of agriculture are filled with examples of small organized minorities exploiting, enslaving, looting or murdering unorganized people that outnumber them. Yes, that shows how hierarchical organization tends to the exploitative. That is true. But abolishing or forgoing such organization doesn’t work, because even if you and me and our neighbors aren’t interested in exploiting each other, some other assholes will be, and then you and me and our neighborhood will be screwed.
Democracy and self-government are a partial solution to this, but notice that democratic self-governed America also had legal chattel slavery. So you and me and our neighbors band together to protect ourselves, but those guys over there, well, they aren’t part of our protection pact, in fact we oblige them to work as slaves under literal threat of torture and murder.
Yes, the slaves would have been better off you you and I hadn’t organized ourselves to exploit them. But would you and I be better off? No, we’d end up as slaves ourselves. Better to be a slaveholder than a slave, in most people’s eyes. And for the people who’d rather be a slave than a slavemaster, well, there are people who are willing to make that happen.
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### Author:  [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)
#### Post date: [September 18, 2014, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/151 "2014-09-18T20:23:11Z")
Well I wasn’t thinking of a militia, which is civilian and they tend to have low STR, CON and DEX scores.
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### Author:  [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)
#### Post date: [September 18, 2014, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/152 "2014-09-18T20:26:39Z")
How many times do I have to read about how someone with a gun can take stuff from someone with no gun ? I think we can safely assume that one.
And then how many times does someone have to say that anarchists can organise ?
If you wish, you can look up anarchist bank robbers. Duh.
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### Author:  [@August\_West](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/August_West)
#### Post date: [September 18, 2014, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/153 "2014-09-18T20:36:48Z")
> [@Shodan](#):
>
> Good idea - I hereby declare all of your property an anarchy zone. So I and a few of my friends will be stopping in and helping ourselves to whatever is available. Who’s to stop us?
>
> Regards,
> Shodan
But the borders of his property are fuzzy, so you won’t know if you’re on his property or not. Therefore, you can’t take _his_ stuff because you won’t know for sure if it’s his!
QED
On the other hand, mail delivery is going to be a bitch.
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### Author:  [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)
#### Post date: [September 18, 2014, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/154 "2014-09-18T20:42:23Z")
Anarchists don’t have to be pushovers, in fact the whole stigma of anarchism is about it’s potential and notorious violence. I don’t get the repeated moaning about how easy it is to rob anarchists when history doesn’t show that.
> **[Bonnot Gang](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonnot_Gang)**
>
> The Bonnot Gang (La Bande à Bonnot) was a French criminal anarchist group that operated in France and Belgium during the late Belle Époque, from 1911 to 1912. Composed of individuals who identified with the emerging illegalist milieu, the gang used cutting-edge technology (including automobiles and repeating rifles) not yet available to the French police.
> Originally referred to by the press as simply "The Auto Bandits" as its members carried out the first motorized robberies and bank raids in ...
I might start arguing for the state soon anyway. Do you fancy doing the pro anarchist side for a while ?
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### Author:  [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)
#### Post date: [September 18, 2014, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/155 "2014-09-18T20:44:25Z")
> [@August\_West](#):
>
> But the borders of his property are fuzzy, so you won’t know if you’re on his property or not. Therefore, you can’t take _his_ stuff because you won’t know for sure if it’s his!
>
> QED
>
> On the other hand, mail delivery is going to be a bitch.
See ?
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### Author:  [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)
#### Post date: [September 18, 2014, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/156 "2014-09-18T20:48:13Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Good idea - I hereby declare all of your property an anarchy zone. So I and a few of my friends will be stopping in and helping ourselves to whatever is available. Who’s to stop us?
Good solid voluntary organization and expropriation. You just passed anarchist 101. Congrats!
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### Author:  [@The\_Joker\_and\_the\_Thief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Joker_and_the_Thief)
#### Post date: [September 19, 2014, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/157 "2014-09-19T02:21:24Z")
> [@MrQwertyasd](#):
>
> How many times do I have to read about how someone with a gun can take stuff from someone with no gun ? I think we can safely assume that one.
> And then how many times does someone have to say that anarchists can organise ?
> If you wish, you can look up anarchist bank robbers. Duh.
So you agree that we’re all coming–dozens of us dopers, in fact–to take your stuff. How is this not a problem? You can keep saying that, but anarchists aren’t going to come save your ass if you’re on the ropes. Communal anarchists aren’t a police force and probably don’t care about your problems.
> [@MrQwertyasd](#):
>
> Anarchists don’t have to be pushovers, in fact the whole stigma of anarchism is about it’s potential and notorious violence. I don’t get the repeated moaning about how easy it is to rob anarchists when history doesn’t show that.
> [Bonnot Gang - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonnot_Gang)
>
> I might start arguing for the state soon anyway. Do you fancy doing the pro anarchist side for a while ?
Well I’m not going to steal from criminals. I’m going to steal from suckers like you.
No thanks, I like arguing on the right side.
> [@MrQwertyasd](#):
>
> See ?
He was being sarcastic.
> [@MrQwertyasd](#):
>
> Good solid voluntary organization and expropriation. You just passed anarchist 101. Congrats!
People have been forming voluntary associations for millennia. Churches, political parties, corporations, non-profits, etc. Are all voluntary. And governments may not be voluntary, but the vast majority of people would choose to be part of one.
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### Author:  [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)
#### Post date: [September 19, 2014, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/158 "2014-09-19T18:34:51Z")
“Good solid voluntary organization and expropriation. You just passed anarchist 101. Congrats!”
“People have been forming voluntary associations for millennia. Churches, political parties, corporations, non-profits, etc. Are all voluntary. And governments may not be voluntary, but the vast majority of people would choose to be part of one.”
You don’t even know when you’ve advocated anarchist action yourself. You literally don’t know when you’ve lost. Narcissism is irrational and involuntary so there’s nothing I can say here.
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### Author:  [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)
#### Post date: [September 19, 2014, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/159 "2014-09-19T18:50:49Z")
Forming a group to compel other people to do what I want is anarchy 101? Then the term has no meaning.
Regards,
Shodan
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [September 19, 2014, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/160 "2014-09-19T19:18:02Z")
Like all smart people, I get my knowledge of world affairs from [Cracked.com](http://Cracked.com). (Note to the OP - That was a joke.)
Here’s a [recent article](http://www.cracked.com/article_21422_5-survival-lessons-from-inside-real-world-dystopia.html) from somebody who lived in a country where the government temporarily collapsed. It gives a realistic perspective on how things “work” in an real world anarchy.
> [@](#):
>
> This was the case during both of Egypt’s revolutions – there were stretches of time where the cops just … gave up and left. As you can imagine, this was like surprise Christmas for any criminals or aspiring criminals out there. At that point, the populace was able to step in and dispense some good old-fashioned frontier justice, which in reality tends to look a lot like a crowd beating a man to death or a mob lynching a pair of alleged thieves.
>
> As Cairo resident Adam told us: “Picture a thief tied to a lamppost. He has been beaten to within an inch of his life. There is euphoria around him; his captors are celebrating their swift imposition of justice. Some are taking pictures with their phones.”
>
> Were those guys actually guilty? Who knows – an angry mob of revolutionaries full of pent-up rage is subject to even less oversight than the corrupt Egyptian cops who were unjustly pummeling them in the first place. As Adam put it, “They gradually become enforcers of a ‘law’ that is essentially a result of their own opinions and sometimes mood.”
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