Of all my points, some have been successful and some haven’t. Of all your points, they haven’t. Thus it is theoretically impossible for you to make a successful argument.
Enjoy.
You mean all one of them (which didn’t so much fail as got conquered within two years of its establishment) ?
That adds up to zero all right.
So, on the one hand we have a big whack of archist states, some of which failed and some of which have lasted for hundreds of years and are ongoing today. On the other hand, we have one anarchist state that failed after less than two years. Based on that track record, it is not difficult to decide which model is workable.
Regards,
Shodan
Thankfully, most of the human race does not submit to such a pessimistic outlook in their endeavors. I cannot think of a single technological advance which wouldn’t have been abandoned by this logic.
Keep looking for the philosopher’s stone - you’re bound to find it sooner or later.
Regards,
Shodan
Can you either summarize your position, perhaps with examples, or point me at the post that best captures this dependancy on the factors distinguishing failed states from successful ones?
Edit: to be clear, I’m still interested in the initial question, i.e., can an anarchist society avoid recreating government? I’m taking “recreating” in a broad sense–if it might avoid recreating it from scratch only because it gets absorbed or conquered by another state, I don’t really consider that a relevant means for avoiding recreating government. I don’t see how the features of failed versus unfailed states pertains to this initial question: if failed states are subsumed by other states, we still have states.
I don’t know how you go about comparing different things, but here’s how I do it: I look at the differences, not the similarities. If America succeeded and Sparta (eventually) failed, I say, “They’re both states. So being a state cannot be a sufficient condition for success.” There is the assertion that it is a necessary condition. You are, of course, welcome to hold such a position. Then, as I have admitted for several pages, anarchy will be trivially impossible and there really is nothing to discuss. Meanwhile, I will be ignoring the similarities and focusing on the differences to hopefully one day have an amateur theory on what makes societies successful. It may be the existence of a government, but right now I don’t think the evidence is actually all that compelling.
So on the one hand we have a big whack of cave dwelling family units, some of which failed and some of which have lasted for as long as memory holds and are ongoing today. On the other hand, we have one guy who dared going outside and got mauled by a tiger after less than a day. Based on that track record, it’s not difficult to decide which model is workable.
How’s your cave ?
If you are going to try to convince me that there is no need for caves, and we can all just sleep on the ground because the tigers will leave us alone, you will have to forgive me if I respond “you go first”.
And if you can’t come up with even one example of someone sleeping without protection who did not get eaten by tigers, then yes, that is a pretty good reason to stick to some kind of housing structure. We can argue about what kind of housing we need, and how it should be decorated, but it’s gonna have to protect from the tigers.
Because tigers aren’t real good political theorists, and can’t be convinced to stop and read books before they eat you.
Regards,
Shodan
Two children so young that they’d had no “education or indoctrination whatsoever” would not play together or wait for any opportunity to renege, they’d lie where you put them and either gurgle or scream, depending if they were hungry, wet, or not.
Children old enough to play together have had literally years of learning from older humans and indoctrination by them.
Young creatures who are related play together in a rather trusting way that in no way indicates that they think the other is going to attack them at the least opportunity. Yes, they do take opportunities to gain advantage, but the ones they take are almost always limited to ones that they’ve learned are permitted. It’s fairly rare that they attempt to kill or maim one another.
Unsupervised children are often seen to feed baby siblings inappropriate foods out of a naive desire to share what they like with the baby, even though it’s dangerous for the baby, it’s meant to be kind and helpful. The children are usually either sorry or incredulous when told that grapes might choke a baby, or that honey can cause bad allergic reactions in one.
Little kids almost universally want to feed animals, at the zoo, they love watching babies get fed, they like to play pretend feed baby dolls, etc. If this were purely training and all their instincts were against it, this would not be the case…
Humans (non psychopath ones) have instinctive sympathetic reactions to seeing other humans’ emotions and enjoy eliciting good ones, because it feels good; don’t enjoy eliciting bad ones because it feels bad.
Part of the problem with these discussions is that anarchists and statists are discussing anarchy in different contexts. The statist usually wants the anarchist to defend how things would work if we suddenly switched to anarchy tomorrow. The problem is that I don’t know of any thoughtful anarchists who think it would be a good idea to suddenly eliminate the state and start an anarchist society tomorrow.
Typically, the idea is to “build a new society in the shell of the old”. I have also heard that anarchy requires evolution, not revolution. Obviously, things would go to hell if we eliminated government tomorrow. Part of the reason is that the society we live in stresses competition over cooperation, consumption over temperance, and selfishness over generosity. Both sides of these dichotomies are present in people, but only one side really has a chance to flourish in a capitalist system. Before anarchy can exist, the other, more communal, side of humanity needs to be strengthened.
So, we might not be able to institute anarchy tomorrow, but there are small steps we can take to create the type of society we want. Buying locally, helping your neighbors, volunteering in your community, creating local currencies…all of these things are steps in the right direction. Things that foster cooperation, temperance, and generosity over competition, consumption and selfishness. Only after the more communal side of people is allowed to develop can we start to think about a society with no rulers. But it seems like a worthy goal to me…
So, can an anarchist society exist without forming some type of government? I would say not the way people are conditioned at present day. However, I don’t think there is really such a thing as “human nature”…I think we are social beings who, from day one, are molded by our surroundings. So, “human nature” can change over time if we are able to make small changes in the values and incentives that shape us through our interactions. I can understand why people might think it is impossible to live without government, but I do not have such a static view of “human nature”.
It does seem problematic to provide examples if everyone thinks, like you, that venturing outside the cave is sheer madness!!!1 and even positing that there might be some solutions to be found to address the tiger issue (e.g. this here sharpened rock) is laughable on its face. They’re tigers, man ! They’ll always be more numerous and more dangerous than men, we’re doomed, doooooomed if we leave the cave !
Look, I’m actually not of the opinion that anarchy is workable, at least not on the scale of a nation (though I wouldn’t automatically dismiss a federation of umpteen micro-communes, especially given modern communications).
But your argument that “we’ve never seen it work because it’s never really been tried therefore it cannot possibly work” is, pardon my French, thoroughly retarded.
By your rationale we should never have tried horse domestication, republic, vox populi, emancipation of slaves, professional militaries, women’s vote, seafaring, not stoning homosexuals on sight, rule of law… after all, they’d all been tried by failed states before, OMG ! And Roanoke was conclusive proof that colonizing the New World was nothing but a pipe dream ! And… yeah, you should have gotten the point by now.
When come back, bring better argument.
Not as far as I can tell - an example is exactly what we need.
The burden of proof remains with those who suggest anarchy is viable.
I can think of lots of reasons why it wouldn’t work. Maybe I am wrong. That’s fine - show me where it has.
But when some snake oil salesman comes to me claiming Laetrile can cure cancer, and can’t point to even one instance where it has, and if the active ingredient in Laetrile is cyanide, then I look for a bit more by way of evidence before I will sign up.
You claim horses can be domesticated. Great, let’s see you ride one. If you can, we can talk about adopting that on a wider scale.
You claim an anarchy can be successful. Great - let’s see you ride one.
Regards,
Shodan
This does seem a bit short sighted to me. Pretty much any advancement in human history would seem impossible by these standards. It seemed impossible for man to walk on the moon…until it happened.
Parallel universes seem impossible, but I am not about to speculate what we might know 100,000 years from now. And just saying, “fine…go exist in a paralell universe” doesn’t seem to add much to the conversation…
I must politely dissent from this. I don’t think that any thoughtful statist demands that the anarchic society arise magically overnight.
We (both sides) often use that phrasing as a simplified short-cut. “If such a society magically arose tomorrow…” But we all know that it would take time to found and to form, and that, if it did “magically” arise, it would arise with a history back-formed. It’s just a way of saying, “If we suddenly made contact with an undiscovered anarchic society in a lost city in the Himalayas” or Barsoom, or whatever. It isn’t part of the actual debate.
The challenge, then, would be to provide a roadmap. What specific incremental stages would be proposed, to lead from here to there? What do we do first?
(For example, the United States may already have taken the first step by elevating the Senate’s Filibuster to a standard practice. Laws are now harder to pass, and judges are harder to confirm in office, than ever before.)
Another interesting question: are all of the small, incremental steps desirable and admirable in themselves? Or are there “penalty” stages, which, in themselves are ugly, but which are necessary to advance the full project? Does the sweet pill have a bitter coating?
If anarchists could provide a roadmap, and if every single stage upon it is admirable, it seems the project would have a decent chance.
As a good old-fashioned Hubert Humphrey liberal, I have no objection to “social engineering.” I believe that one of the legitimate functions of education is to try to train people, from early youth, to be better citizens.
On the other hand, this makes me think of the Soviet Union attempting to create a “New Soviet Man,” a socially-engineered citizen that was ready for full communism. I’m not sure… I don’t know how much human nature can be tweaked…
“If the government simply dissolved the people. And elected another?” Bertolt Brecht.
See? I was typing faster than I was reading. Even if these small steps don’t lead to a dramatic change in society, they’re good ones, and so even a statist has no grave objections to them. I’ll walk a ways down this path with you, even if our steps may separate later!
I agree…to a degree… Human nature has, I think, already dramatically changed in the industrial age (in the industrialized countries.) Education really does better the individual.
However, I still have concerns regarding rogue individuals, and violent criminality. I think that even the most advanced and humanistic anarchistic society will have a need for a jail…
I don’t think states are necessary for success axiomatically. I don’t even think that word “success” is relevant; it brings in moral/ethical issues that aren’t part of this particular discussion. Rather, I think the evidence points to the fact that states outcompete anarchic societies. Do you think that’s a trivial position? Do you think it’s wrong? Do you think that the features of those states that outcompete anarchic societies pertains somehow?
The facts (all facts are trivial) are that no anarchistic society has outperformed most states. But I would appreciate a larger sample size before I would use this as evidence. If I polled one person to find out the political leanings of my office, I’d be laughed out of high school statistics class. Then the position that states just do outcompete anarchies must rest on assumptions and assertions—which is fine, all arguments do.
Since I do not have such evidence either, I am attempting to settle for the next best thing: what evidence do I have about that which distinguishes successful states from unsuccessful ones? If I notice some qualities, can these qualities exist without the trappings of the state?
I know of no better way to handle such a massively counterfactual question.
I did not introduce the notion of “effective” governments in the thread, but once it was entered, I felt the door was open to go further.
I’m struck by the parallels between this thread and the thread How would evolution proceed without predators? Replace predators with states and you get the same debate: that it didn’t happen, couldn’t happen, and if it could would swiftly revert to the status quo. 
Apex predators can’t imagine non-predatory existence… who knew?
I agree with you. I think anarchy as a concept is largely a word game played by malcontents and n’er-do-wells who just want to shake things up for its own sake.