Thread: From Limited Government to Anarchy in Ten Easy Steps

I have seen that there are some limited government advocates on the forums so I thought I would put up some material on how anarchism is not only a pragmatically a better system but also morally a better system then limited government. There are ten papers / lectures which could be considered some of the most effective arguments against minarchism [ limited government ]. Of course there are more but these papers are good for the laymen and are not too technical in theory.

1. Lysander Spooner - No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority
2. Roderick Long - Market Anarchism as Constitutionalism
3. Roderick Long - Libertarian Anarchism: Ten Objections
4. Murray N Rothbard - The Public System III: Police, Law and Courts
5. David Friedman - Police, Courts and Laws on the Market
6. Hans-Hoppe - Private Production of Defense
7. Gustave De Molinari - Production of Security
8. Robert Murphy - Chaos Theory
9. Hans-Hoppe - Fallacies of the Public Goods Theory and the Production of Security
10. Alfred Cuzan - Do We Ever Really Get Out of Anarchy?

There is much more material on the subject, though if one were to read these articles I feel they would have a good amount of their questions or complaints about how anarchism would work answered. If there are questions concerning more detail or something that is not covered in this list, then please feel free to ask me. There are several works that deal with the whole workings of anarchist society and I would be happy to provide full text books on the subject for those who are interest. Happy reading.

I've thought of anarchy to be just as oversimplistic a concept as communism. Organized groups with authority are prone to greater survival for the majority of their members, and that's why they tend to last longer and are far more common. It's just a matter of finding the ideal balance between the risks of freedom and the limitations security for a given society if you want to see a long-lasting and peaceful existence.

Well I think the important thing is to shrink the size of government. Right now it is just so massive. I am all up for debating on how far we should go with removing government but clearly we need to make the first steps of shrinking it. Even people who support a strong government, has to be disgusted with what we have today. It is just way over done and they are in everything.

Originally Posted by Alric

Well I think the important thing is to shrink the size of government. Right now it is just so massive. I am all up for debating on how far we should go with removing government but clearly we need to make the first steps of shrinking it. Even people who support a strong government, has to be disgusted with what we have today. It is just way over done and they are in everything.

That is a good point. I'm not trying to have the perfect be the enemy of the good. Merely saying that there is an inconsistency in minarchism [ limited government ]

Originally Posted by Daniel Danciu

I've thought of anarchy to be just as oversimplistic a concept as communism. Organized groups with authority are prone to greater survival for the majority of their members, and that's why they tend to last longer and are far more common. It's just a matter of finding the ideal balance between the risks of freedom and the limitations security for a given society if you want to see a long-lasting and peaceful existence.

Well Communism is an economic order, not necessarily a political theory. That is why there is:

Anarcho-Socialism / Anarcho-Communism
Anarcho-Primitivism
Anarcho-Syndicalism
Anarcho-Capitalism

Anarchy is the system of political philosophy while Communism is an economic order.
Hence
A political order [ Anarcho ] - A Economic Order [ Capitalism / Socialism / etc ]

Also anarchists are not against order. Anarchist are against involuntary coercive order. As an anarchist, you can trade with anyone you wish, consort with any one you wish and do anything you wish as long as you don't violate the non-aggression principle

Originally Posted by Laughing Man

Also anarchists are not against order. Anarchist are against involuntary coercive order. As an anarchist, you can trade with anyone you wish, consort with any one you wish and do anything you wish as long as you don't violate the non-aggression principle

And who's going to stop me if I do?

Originally Posted by Black_Eagle

And who's going me if I do?

Who's going me? Do you mean who is going to protect you?

Originally Posted by Laughing Man

Who's going me? Do you mean who is going to protect you?

Read again.

Originally Posted by Black_Eagle

And who's going to stop me if I do?

Who is going to stop you from committing a crime? Well the person who you are coercing could, a person could cry out help and a good samaritan could help. There can also be private police enforcement. This is all covered in one of the papers I gave. Murray Rothbard's Public Sector III: Police, Laws and Court systems.

The #1 problem with anarchy is that it can't possibly exist for very long. The vacuum gets filled almost immediately. If the U.S. government announced at sunrise that they are quitting all operations permanently, there would be a thousand gangs fighting to control the country before lunch. World history is full of stories of gangs fighting to become governments. One of them always pulls it off. Remember that there were humans before there were governments, and anarchy never could last. If you think private police are the answer, imagine hundreds of those departments at war with each other. There has to be a central government. It needs to be very limited, but it has to be there.

They could, but they are not obligated to. But it doesn't matter, because I like killing people in the dead of night. Afterword, I just move on to the next town and continue killing. Who comes after me? Investigators? But I thought this was anarchy.

If there is private law enforcement, then that's not really anarchy. Because anarchy is a state without any authoritative entity. If there was private law enforcement, it would be more like the feudal system.

Anarchy describes a state without authority. Thing is, having no authority is impossible in the case of humans. In anarchy, whoever decides to take authority over another, has authority over another unless the person decides to fight back.

It's like this: Imagine our government as a large living tent. This tent covers many other smaller living tents. All of the tents can grow, but when a smaller tent displeases the large tent, the large tent kills the small tent. With anarchy, you're just taking away the large tent that is the government, leaving all the other small tents to grow. Eventually, one of the small tents will grow as big as the large tent. And who's going to stop it? The smaller tents could unite and kill the large tent, but that would just start the whole race all over again.

You simply cannot remove all the tents. Human nature forbids it.


EDIT:

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

The #1 problem with anarchy is that it can't possibly exist for very long. The vacuum gets filled almost immediately. If the U.S. government announced at sunrise that they are quitting all operations permanently, there would be a thousand gangs fighting to control the country before lunch. World history is full of stories of gangs fighting to become governments. One of them always pulls it off. Remember that there were humans before there were governments, and anarchy never could last. If you think private police are the answer, imagine hundreds of those departments at war with each other. There has to be a central government. It needs to be very limited, but it has to be there.

Exactly.

Here's a nice video for laughing man: http://www.wimp.com/thegovernment/

Arguably every form of government currently existing is only a temporary form since the world doesn't stagnate, but anarchy is logically by far the quickest.

EDIT 2: Heh, this reminds me of the Armored Core games where the plot is based around corporations fighting for resources, landmass, and manpower. You play a mercenary who is hired by these corporations. Everybody's lives are shitty, but apparently the world is better than it was before the corporations came.

Originally Posted by Laughing Man

Who is going to stop you from committing a crime? Well the person who you are coercing could, a person could cry out help and a good samaritan could help. There can also be private police enforcement. This is all covered in one of the papers I gave. Murray Rothbard's Public Sector III: Police, Laws and Court systems.

There is no such thing as "private" "law enforcement" in a supposedly anarchist system. The very fact that you used the word "law enforcement" to describe anarchy is contradictory. By the way, if there is an entity running around and making people obey the laws, then that by definition IS the government. So, therefore, private law enforcement cannot exist in anarchy.