This article explain why the author calls himself an anarchist, but not what he defines "anarchist" to mean. It is simply someone who opposes any form of state government? Even if the majority of the people want state government? If so, by what means would the author seek to impose anarchy against the will of people, and how would that be better than the problems of democracy that he rails against?
Nobody said anything about imposing anarchy on anyone. The author is postulating that government in all common forms has consistently failed in it's (implied) responsibility to function without inflicting undue hardship on the governed and in lieu of acceptably functional structured alternatives, a switch to pure anarchism may be the only way for the people to avoid said hardships at the hands of government.
Personally I think ditching a couple hundred years of (largely arbitrary) legislation, not to mention taxation, is pretty appealing. Admittedly not everyone in our society is mature enough to cope with a world where nobody's "in charge" and there are some fairly thorny issues surrounding stuff like infrastructure and personal security but several sound proposals (on paper anyway) to deal with these complications have been put forward over the years.
To my mind, there is nothing such as "anarchism" except what you see when you look around you, wherever you are. The strong dominate the weak, and when sufficiently organized, they are called "the government". You can't "switch" to anarchy because you can't escape it in the first place. Government is an emergent property of a self-organizing society.
Certainly you aren't the first person to postulate that and it's a very valid point, but what if you could get people to organize without coercion? Doesn't that at least sound appealing? Like something worth striving for?
I think the humans are hard-wired to view/organize each other into hierarchies. All social interaction is based on the currency of hierarchical standing to some degree. You can't even have a disagreement with someone without it being interpreted as a 'challenge' to their standing. So coercion isn't really the best way to explain why one person (strong) dominates another (weak). Yes, strength determines the outcome, but the reason for the entire dance is to establish the hierarchy.
I don't believe you can have any form of "anarchy" (or any other social system) where people do not struggle to form a hierarchy, because that's what it means to be human, for better or worse.
Except in unanimity, there is no "will of the people".
There are two parts to what states do: things that any individual can do, and things that only the state can do. Anarchy is just the limit of the observation that if one person doesn't have the right to do something, then two do not either.
Of course, this sidesteps a lot of questions, particularly about what "the right to do something" means and where it comes from.
In spite of the fact that Raymond is a hacker, I'm not sure that Hacker News is an appropriate venue for this discussion, though. :)
> ...and how would that be better than the problems of democracy that he rails against?
I can't speak for the author, but the general idea is that because anarchy ("no rule") precludes the monopoly on violence that exists in state systems, there is better hope of some force countervailing the worst paroxysms of the majority. Think an extreme form of checks and balances.
ESRs historical analysis is possibly one of the few things less compelling that the rest of achievements whether coding or writing. I couldn't bring myself to read his Oral Sex Guide, so perhaps I'm being unfair.
The year before, the Nazi Party couldn't round up more than about 45% of the vote; it's worth noting that these 90% numbers (both the later 1933 election after all the other parties were banned, and the referendum) came after the Nazis controlled pretty much everything. Reporting this as the logical and inevitable failure of the democratic process is like concluding the same thing when various pseudo-democracies around the world report 99% YES votes for their glorious leader ("we can do better"!).
The rest of it then meanders into the weeds of childish libertarian lunacy, standard territory for ESR.
So governments are dangerous and not to be blindly trusted. Agreed. That does not mean that we'll be better off with zero government. Human organizations do not scale beyond tens or hundreds without government. The root problem is the flawed nature of people, their "short-sightedness and moral blindness" as the author correctly points out.
Anyway, the author needs a lesson in logic and logical fallacy.
I myself am an anarchist at heart (in the vain of Tolstoy), but a realist in my brain.
Exactly. If you take the official government away, those with the desire and intelligence will find power, and are likely to do terrible things with it. Democracy at least delays this a little, if you can say nothing better for it.
His argument is basically that all governments can become corrupted, so we should have no government. The first part of his argument is obviously true, but is far from sufficient justification for his conclusion. It completely ignores all the good things that come from government (social services, police, military defense). It also ignores that the lack of government can also become corrupted. In places like Somalis, where there was effectively no government, pseudo-governments form (like the various warlords, the Islamic Courts Union, and Al-Shabaab).
Also, a completely decentralized country is helpless in the face of an unfriendly organized one. Not sure how he missed that in his years of pondering.
Helpless in which ways? It depends what the unfriendly one's goal is and how strong-willed the decentralized people are. Anyway, it's fairly easy to organize (in time though?), the hard part is disorganizing again once the threat is taken care of. Undoing seems to usually be hard in most cases, especially when a transfer of power is involved.
I don't think many anarchists are against hierarchies at all, just in the cases of huge groups and where membership is required. If I don't want to have the US gov. rule over me, it's kind of hard for me to emigrate etc. and it's doubtful that somewhere else is all that better. If I don't like my job because of the manager or CEO, I can quit and get another job or start my own company.
I was thinking mostly militarily - complete decentralization makes it much easier for a coordinated enemy to pick your organization apart. There are a bunch of other disadvantages too.
If that were true then the US military should have easily destroyed Al Qaeda and the Taliban. There is plenty of information on 4th generation and asymmetric warfare on the net which will help you understand why.
Right, I was thinking about conventional wars and prevention of occupation/subjugation. They haven't been rooted out and killed, but they weren't able to stop the US from occupying their country. There are many things the US is not willing to do which less moral armies have done somewhat successfully in the past to root out guerillas, but that's all a different topic.
> Minarchism (sometimes called minimal statism, small government, or limited-government libertarianism) is a libertarian political ideology which maintains that the state's only legitimate function is the protection of individuals from aggression, theft, breach of contract, and fraud.
I doubt it's going to work. What is going to prevent state from becoming a totalitarian authority? The state is going to attract sociopaths and power crazy individuals.
Democracy is probably the system which can do the least damage.
A minarchist government would likely be a democracy.
It's merely that its functions would be constrained by its constitution---i.e. no socialized benefits apart from security from external threats, and internal violence.
As an Australian living in one of the most heavily taxed countries in the world with socialised health care, education etc, all I can say is that I love my very high standard of living and freedom from any real financial concerns related to health, education, housing etc. You can keep your minarchism.
I am reminded of a quote from an article[1] by Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down. It's not a nuanced response by any means, but it illustrates the consequences of a total lack of government authority.
"I spent some time in Somalia in 1997, a country with no government, and encourage anarchists longing for the experience to check it out. Don't carry with you anything of value."
1) Because a government can implement a genocide, a region with no government won't be subject to genocide. (See historical territorial annexations.)
2) Because the Wiemar Republic's constitution was based on the U.S. constitution and fell victim to fascism, all nation's whose constitutions were based on the U.S. constitution may fall victim to fascism.
3) Winston Churchill's defines democracy [as]..eight times better than any other.
4) Because "democracy" is eight times better than any other government, and democracy is vulnerable to morph into fascism, any form of government may morph into fascism.
5) Similarly, because Nazi Germany was fascist and committed genocide, all fascist governments will commit genocide.
There may be arguments for anarchism, but this one isn't very solid.
I see this kind of position as just another reactionary form of idealism. Just like Karl Marx reacted against class inequality, just as Ayn Rand reacted against communism, so anarchists react against bad things that happen under governments.
But if there is no central authority, who is to say that society won't degenerate into something worse? Left to its own devices, society is a system that makes no guarantees. It may cause an oligarchy of bloodthirsty warlords to arise, or worse. Ultimately forms of government will form one way or another. The only question is, what can we do to stop atrocities and increase welfare for everyone?
There are lots of conservatives and libertarians calling for smaller government. I can appreciate their point of view. I personally think that government has one role: to ensure the minimum expectations of its citizens. We want clean water, healthy food, functioning roads, safe infrastructure, a thriving economy, and so on. On a local level, we have zoning laws, licenses and other regulations. The idea is, if a group of intelligent citizens were exposed to the information, they would see why the decisions are made the way they were made. The government actions which should be checked are those that wouldn't pass this test. Thus, greater transparency and feedback is needed.
I think that among the steps we can take are to increase the efficiency of the feedback loop between the government, and websites publishing the data, experts analyzing the data and blogging, journalists publicizing the data, and the government understanding the public reaction directly or indirectly, more often than once every 4 years.
But what is going to keep us safe? Why do I feel safer in the United States today than I would have felt in the past? CULTURE. No matter how powerful the government is, it's only one part of the larger picture. The overall culture of the society is what causes it to be prone to one thing or another. It is far stronger than any government.
Our culture today is one that points out racism and discrimination where it exists, and tries to shame it out of the public policy. It is one that is permeated by greater knowledge and understanding, thanks to the internet, than any previous generation has had. I am a big believer in the power of tools to shape culture. (Look at facebook, etc.) And ultimately that is what causes real change (look at the middle east revolutions thanks to the new tools on the internet).
Finally, I would encourage everyone to watch the BBC documentary "A Century of the Self". It speaks about the PR industry and one Edward Burnays, nephew of Sigmund Freud, who ironically we know today thanks to Burnays. Propaganda, the tool of governments, was turned into an industry that helps corporations influence the public via images that appeal to our psychology. Commercials started to appeal to our inner drives. For Freud, the collective expression of our unconscious desires (for sex, power, etc.) was a dangerous thing. It would cause mass revolutions, mass violence. In today's United States, if we feel anger at something we go buy an ikea set or a new Nintendo Wii and feel much better. Video games, social media, and even the entire internet satisfies our desires for sex, information, and socializing without ever picking up a gun. It's a new world, but it's a safer world.
I view social media as an extension of PR, taking its first steps trying to insert itself into conversations. Personally I'm working on tools that I hope will help the world communicate in more authentic way...
I've never understood anarchism. As long as there are weapons capable of coercion, and groups of people willing to work together to coerce there will be 'government' of some sort or another. Well, at least in the long term. There could be several groups, without monopoly control (otherwise known as 'war'), but this isn't a stable state.
So as I see it, anarchism is only possible if everyone's an anarchist.
30 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 68.9 ms ] threadPersonally I think ditching a couple hundred years of (largely arbitrary) legislation, not to mention taxation, is pretty appealing. Admittedly not everyone in our society is mature enough to cope with a world where nobody's "in charge" and there are some fairly thorny issues surrounding stuff like infrastructure and personal security but several sound proposals (on paper anyway) to deal with these complications have been put forward over the years.
Additional light reading on the subject: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism http://www.infoshop.org/page/AnAnarchistFAQ
I don't believe you can have any form of "anarchy" (or any other social system) where people do not struggle to form a hierarchy, because that's what it means to be human, for better or worse.
There are two parts to what states do: things that any individual can do, and things that only the state can do. Anarchy is just the limit of the observation that if one person doesn't have the right to do something, then two do not either.
Of course, this sidesteps a lot of questions, particularly about what "the right to do something" means and where it comes from.
In spite of the fact that Raymond is a hacker, I'm not sure that Hacker News is an appropriate venue for this discussion, though. :)
I can't speak for the author, but the general idea is that because anarchy ("no rule") precludes the monopoly on violence that exists in state systems, there is better hope of some force countervailing the worst paroxysms of the majority. Think an extreme form of checks and balances.
The year before, the Nazi Party couldn't round up more than about 45% of the vote; it's worth noting that these 90% numbers (both the later 1933 election after all the other parties were banned, and the referendum) came after the Nazis controlled pretty much everything. Reporting this as the logical and inevitable failure of the democratic process is like concluding the same thing when various pseudo-democracies around the world report 99% YES votes for their glorious leader ("we can do better"!).
The rest of it then meanders into the weeds of childish libertarian lunacy, standard territory for ESR.
The second amendment is childish lunacy?
Anyway, the author needs a lesson in logic and logical fallacy.
I myself am an anarchist at heart (in the vain of Tolstoy), but a realist in my brain.
I don't think many anarchists are against hierarchies at all, just in the cases of huge groups and where membership is required. If I don't want to have the US gov. rule over me, it's kind of hard for me to emigrate etc. and it's doubtful that somewhere else is all that better. If I don't like my job because of the manager or CEO, I can quit and get another job or start my own company.
> Minarchism (sometimes called minimal statism, small government, or limited-government libertarianism) is a libertarian political ideology which maintains that the state's only legitimate function is the protection of individuals from aggression, theft, breach of contract, and fraud.
Democracy is probably the system which can do the least damage.
It's merely that its functions would be constrained by its constitution---i.e. no socialized benefits apart from security from external threats, and internal violence.
"I spent some time in Somalia in 1997, a country with no government, and encourage anarchists longing for the experience to check it out. Don't carry with you anything of value."
[1] http://www.salon.com/news/politics/feature/2000/08/09/bowden
1) Because a government can implement a genocide, a region with no government won't be subject to genocide. (See historical territorial annexations.)
2) Because the Wiemar Republic's constitution was based on the U.S. constitution and fell victim to fascism, all nation's whose constitutions were based on the U.S. constitution may fall victim to fascism.
3) Winston Churchill's defines democracy [as]..eight times better than any other.
4) Because "democracy" is eight times better than any other government, and democracy is vulnerable to morph into fascism, any form of government may morph into fascism.
5) Similarly, because Nazi Germany was fascist and committed genocide, all fascist governments will commit genocide.
There may be arguments for anarchism, but this one isn't very solid.
But if there is no central authority, who is to say that society won't degenerate into something worse? Left to its own devices, society is a system that makes no guarantees. It may cause an oligarchy of bloodthirsty warlords to arise, or worse. Ultimately forms of government will form one way or another. The only question is, what can we do to stop atrocities and increase welfare for everyone?
There are lots of conservatives and libertarians calling for smaller government. I can appreciate their point of view. I personally think that government has one role: to ensure the minimum expectations of its citizens. We want clean water, healthy food, functioning roads, safe infrastructure, a thriving economy, and so on. On a local level, we have zoning laws, licenses and other regulations. The idea is, if a group of intelligent citizens were exposed to the information, they would see why the decisions are made the way they were made. The government actions which should be checked are those that wouldn't pass this test. Thus, greater transparency and feedback is needed.
A representative democracy is slow to change and fix its problems. We elect some people and then regret it when they can't do everything they promised. Still, I am happy that Obama started http://data.gov and http://recovery.gov and published http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/TransparencyandOp...
I think that among the steps we can take are to increase the efficiency of the feedback loop between the government, and websites publishing the data, experts analyzing the data and blogging, journalists publicizing the data, and the government understanding the public reaction directly or indirectly, more often than once every 4 years.
But what is going to keep us safe? Why do I feel safer in the United States today than I would have felt in the past? CULTURE. No matter how powerful the government is, it's only one part of the larger picture. The overall culture of the society is what causes it to be prone to one thing or another. It is far stronger than any government.
Our culture today is one that points out racism and discrimination where it exists, and tries to shame it out of the public policy. It is one that is permeated by greater knowledge and understanding, thanks to the internet, than any previous generation has had. I am a big believer in the power of tools to shape culture. (Look at facebook, etc.) And ultimately that is what causes real change (look at the middle east revolutions thanks to the new tools on the internet).
Finally, I would encourage everyone to watch the BBC documentary "A Century of the Self". It speaks about the PR industry and one Edward Burnays, nephew of Sigmund Freud, who ironically we know today thanks to Burnays. Propaganda, the tool of governments, was turned into an industry that helps corporations influence the public via images that appeal to our psychology. Commercials started to appeal to our inner drives. For Freud, the collective expression of our unconscious desires (for sex, power, etc.) was a dangerous thing. It would cause mass revolutions, mass violence. In today's United States, if we feel anger at something we go buy an ikea set or a new Nintendo Wii and feel much better. Video games, social media, and even the entire internet satisfies our desires for sex, information, and socializing without ever picking up a gun. It's a new world, but it's a safer world.
I view social media as an extension of PR, taking its first steps trying to insert itself into conversations. Personally I'm working on tools that I hope will help the world communicate in more authentic way...
So as I see it, anarchism is only possible if everyone's an anarchist.