Separating theory from practice
Ok, so another common objection I hear is something along the lines of “Oh anarchism is nice in theory, but it just wouldn’t work in the real world”. This is the same thing that you hear spoken of Communism and Socialism, however there actually are problems with the theory in these, which will be a topic for another post. Likewise, I would expect you to be able to show me why the theory of anarchism is wrong.
There is no good ‘theory’ in the world that holds up in light of clear evidence to the contrary. If it doesn’t work in practice, that just means it wasn’t a good theory in the first place. Communism is not “good in theory, bad in practice”, it is actually bad in theory too!
It’s really stupid when people tell me that I’m being impractical, it borders on madness when they fail to realise that their ’solution’ to the problem is to actually take what makes the problem bad, and exacerbate it. When people propose government solutions to “stop the monopolies occurring”, they fail to realise that they are actually converting this monopoly that is voluntary, into a coercive monopoly (government). This is just madness, you don’t solve a problem by doing more of that same problem. Nobody says “Murder is bad, so in order to stop it, we should do 100 murders”.
There is no possible way that any criticism of human nature can be applied to only anarchism, that same human nature exists within people who work for the government too. Apples with apples please guys. If people within anarchy are going to be evil bastards who go around killing and stealing, well then government will necessarily be governed by the same thing, which only magnifies the problem millions of times by the immense violent power of the state. People don’t just magically become ‘good people’ once they start working for the government.
If you’re going to attack anarchism, show why something would otherwise be possible with government, that is impossible without. Don’t just say “Oh but there’ll be random axe murderers in anarchy” when random axe murderers exist now.
Nobody says “Murder is bad, so in order to stop it, we should do 100 murders”
Have you ever heard of the Death Penalty, justified by its effect as a “deterrent?”
Anarchism cannot work except in a vacuum. An anarchistic region – I can’t call it a nation at that point – cannot compete or withstand centrally controlled Nations. The lack of central authority prevents this, as would the similar lack of control in a “true” democracy ala peloponnesian era Athens.
Hi Jonolan, I think that most statists, when they argue that the state should take control of things, they forget that the government is itself a monopoly. The point here is that nobody could claim to be “stopping monopolies” by “creating monopolies”. The use of the death penalty is still using murder, so it could not be claimed that the death penalty is not murder.
Now from what I’ve heard from a past teacher, the death penalty doesn’t actually work as a deterrent for crime anyway! But if you have a link to some kind of study, then go ahead, send me the link.
Regardless of whether it does work as a deterrent, it is an immoral solution anyway. So it clearly couldn’t be used anyway! To use the death penalty is to claim that one person can own another person, which is clearly wrong and illogical.
As for withstanding centrally controlled nations, I think you should see my post about Free Market National Defence.
Communism has never been tried either. C’mon, It’s not requisite to think of a Communist State when you envisage communism. The Pygmies were communist. It worked until they were pushed of the land.
(BTW, i blogrolled you. Egual time and all…and Happy New Years!)
Citizen J, maybe there doesn’t have to be a “state” as such in communism, but there will necessarily be some kind of central planning agency. This planning agency will fall victim to the problem of economic calculation because its exchanges are based on voluntary exchange. This is one of the problems that I can point to that discredit communism in theory, and not just in practice.
Happy New Years to you too
If exchanges are made in terms of absolute labor as value then they’ll be easily calculable without anything much more than a Standards Commission. Replace Economics with ergonomics and it works. That said, humans would have to be a little less inately inane for it to fly. It’s a theorhetical possible state to evolve into. Something to shoot for inbetween clonings of phosphorescent pigs.
Someone who commits an act that would diserve death penality already knows about all the deterents in the world.
It’s just that they’re confident they will get away with it.
Nobody shoots somebody else and says after the fact, “Oops… I forgot about the cops!”
If someone is sick enough to kill, that same person will probably not care about what old men wrote on pieces of paper.
I don’t think the death penality was even designed as a deterent, but rather, as a “compensation” tool.
Happy new year to all!
Folks, I was responding to the erroneous statement that Nobody says “Murder is bad, so in order to stop it, we should do 100 murders.” that was all.
That’s not what death penalty proponents say. What they say is that murderers should be killed. The death penalty does not inherently stop murders.
“Anarchism cannot work except in a vacuum. An anarchistic region – I can’t call it a nation at that point – cannot compete or withstand centrally controlled Nations.”
That’s your opinion. Do you have any evidence for this or are you just talking out of your ass? The Somalians kicked your ass.
“The lack of central authority prevents this, as would the similar lack of control in a “true” democracy ala peloponnesian era Athens.”
Central authority does not do anything except reverberate ruling class greed and stupidity throughout the lives of millions of people.
BTW Stephan, do you know about the Market Anarchist Carnival? Submitting entries would make your blog even more visible than it is now. I would also welcome you hosting a future edition, if you’d like.