Anarchism

[trillobyite]

Before I start I just want to clarify something: I DO NOT support domination of the economy by government. I'm not a Libertarian, but I'm certainly no big government radical. I can see why you would think me so because I began by ranting against anarchism, but I am not. I think that handles half the points you make against me...you describe how government mingling in the economy creates flaws, but I'm not saying it doesn't, I'm saying that's not enough to justify the total abolition of government in daily life, anarchism. I sternly don't believe people have the capability to create a capitalistic utopia without somecentral organization to monitor the economy, but not that such an organization should dictate economic policy.

The problem with this is, where do you draw the cutoff? How many units of suffering have to be present before a government crosses the line? This is ultimately a silly way of thinking.
A silly way of thinking it may be, but it is the principle behind every controversy in the American legal system to date- safety vs freedom. There is no right answer and there is no cutoff, because every person is bound to have a differing opinion. Some would be willing to have public executions, others to abolish life sentences. In a democracy, the moderate voices of the majority will be heard and there will be a compromise between freedom vs safety, enough to reasonably satisfy most people. Without a government this equilibrium would not exist.

Actually anarchism, or at least Anarcho-Capitalism, suggests that safety should be provided by the market. IE, you can buy a gun, or the services of a security force, as opposed to our present system which finances itself by taxes (and currently if people are unwilling to pay taxes uses a gun to extract the money from them). Ultimately the conception of chaos as a result of Anarchy is quite silly. Everyone has the power to harm. Right now I could go to my attic, get a rifle, walk outside and shoot someone. I don't though, firstly because I have no desire to, and secondly because the result of that would be something I wouldn't enjoy.
I'm confused here...something you wouldn't enjoy? Isn't that the consequences, such as imprisonment, or execution, the very punishments handed out by the government, deterring you? For every important man to have a security force (and just as well use it as an army to attack others) seems much more silly to me than government-administered punishments.

Now, doesn't it hold that in a society which still allowed for self-defense and still allowed for others to come to your defense, the incentive to not behave violently would still be there? Doesn't it also hold that people who can't plan ahead far enough to see disincentives and who have an overwhelming desire to hurt others do so now? Freedom is the starting point of all human beings, freedom is just taken away when doing so limits harm, such as when it limits criminals from further criminality. The idea and ideal behind at least an Anarcho-Capitalist system of defense is that no more freedom than neccessary is taken away.
Obviously not even the strongest of government can abolish the crime of those who can't plan ahead far enough to see disincentives. But private security forces don't seem a better alternative to laws. Corruption and ambition will have a much more powerful hold without laws engineered specifically to stop crime. In Ancient Europe the entire nobility was descendants of those with more cunning than others, those who destroyed others, and if such a lord were to wrong someone defenseless, that person would be no match for his men. Though that example is 1000 years old, anyone crafty enough to use a security force and guns to gain power can wrong others with impunity as easily as a corrupt government can, if not more, because the former would not have to provide justification.

This isn't neccessarily the case. Usually what's "given" to peasents, who represent 90% of the population in feudalistic systems, is their lives in exchange for having to give 90% of their crops to lords. Hardly a satisfactory or even customer oriented exchange. The very ideas about property back then represented the inequities of the political system.
That's not true. Maybe indirectly, but not directly. Peasants could leave the land and stop farming if they wanted, but then they would be bound to no lord, killed if setting foot in any lord's territory (including the one from who he just fled), and were just fodder for highway bandits. But lords weren't forcing peasants to work in exchange for their lives, it was that they could use the land to serve the church and kingdom with ridiculously high taxes, and then the rest for subsistence. I'm not pro-feudalism or pro-dictatorship, just as I wouldnt support a 90% income tax rate.

The point I'm trying to make though, is not that feudalism was wonderful, for God's sakes, no. But Look at it this way- feudalism was a political system that arose from the chaos of anarchy, from the rise of bandits and private armies and power-seekers. Though capitalism was not the economic system, the history is inherent in human nature; without any ruling empire or organization, people WILL come to either lead curelly or follow blindly, and armies, warlords, and then unfair government-controlled hubs will follow. Government is not essentially positive, but the most brutal forms of government, in the form of gangs in Somalia and in the form of feudal lords in Europe, take hold from chaos.

There is no "normal" for you to compare against.
America? Canada? UK...?

It sounds to me like your only objection to treating somalia as a political problem is the complexity and ever-changing nature of the power dynamics. Rule of the gun is just the first step towards rule by fear, it's just that, at least in somalia, the political force never establishes itself to the point for the people to acclimatize themselves to the system.
Yeah you have a point there. But refer to my earlier argument...those brutal political systems arise from the fact that no benevolent central authority exists to control the situation. They are seeds of anarchy.

Ok. Good luck on your exams.
Thanks...like I said I'm very busy, so if anything I said is ambiguous or just sounds really stupid at first glance, I can probably clear it up later...I'll try to respond to your response as soon as I can next time.