Stop Me Before I Vote Again

(I foresee a long and noisy comment thread here.) It seems to me that the basic stance of anarchism is more or less identical to that of libertarianism, socialism, &c: a persistent optimism regarding human nature, or at least human nature as it would flower under some particular sociopolitical structure.

Where are the pessimists? Keeping their heads down, I suppose, or dedicated to Art for Art's sake or waiting for the Rapture.

http://www.google.com/search?q=anarchist+view+of+welfare+state

hapa, I'm looking through that google search and there's not much there.
Is this what you are pointing towards?

http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/19760725.htm

FB, try Sobran: http://www.sobran.com/reluctant.shtml

Thought experiment: you have just been exiled because of your advocacy of anarchism. Two countries are willing to accept you: Sweden and Somalia. Choose one.

OK, so I've read the Sobran's bit, and it basically comes down to:

"The essence of the state is its legal monopoly of force. But force is subhuman; in words I quote incessantly, Simone Weil defined it as “that which turns a person into a thing — either corpse or slave.” It may sometimes be a necessary evil, in self-defense or defense of the innocent, but nobody can have by right what the state claims: an exclusive privilege of using it."

The angle of this is a bit odd, but it basically comes down to a natural law, natural rights argument. I don't believe in natural rights. The only natural right, if you want to call it that, is the Hobbesian right to do anything you want and murder people in the state of nature.

The only concept of rights that makes sense to me is a positive law one: that "rights" are man made concepts, principles that we adopt as a matter of policy because following them has desirable consequences.

for me the less corrupt varieties of libertarianism are a thought experiment, like the rest. it could easily be that industrial civilization's hunger is ungovernable. it's unfair to single out anarchists of any stripe for not having that solution.

Chomsky's views on anarchism come closest to any kind of agreed corpus. He sees no problem with efforts to strengthen what benefits the state can and does provide, and doing so alongside efforts to create a non-pathological, stateless society.

In defense of IOZ, he's on record as a supporter of true universal healthcare, even it entails provision through some state mechanism.

I've wrestled with the problem of psychopaths and people for whom good faith is a last resort. I don't have a practicable answer, state or no state. The state gives the talented, ambitious ones something they can use. A stateless society, if there can be any such thing, gives them less scope, but relies on fortune to put them in check.

When it comes to the concept itself of a stateless society, I get lost. It depends on how one defines the state. I see it as the institutional expression of society. I can't imagine a society that does not create enduring institutions, which means something that will indeed be a state; although it might not be called that. Still, a state by any other name remains a state.

Chomsky is not really accepted as the anarchist core, because he clearly thinks a healthy run of democratic state socialism is the next order of business. Anarchy, in this classic but not accepted version, is an ideal to aim for, kind of like democracy and communism with a small "c."

In fact, there's the rub, isn't it. Communists demonstrated that excessive emphasis on near-term utopia is damned dangerous. Most of our practicing anarchists, many of whom are quite noce and helpful folks, have yet to abandon their own version of this counter-factual impatience/excessive dogmatism.

The ultimate fact, too, is that we have almost 7 billion human on this rock, and we need to find an agreed-upon and decent means of getting that number cut in half with a century or maybe (if dumb luck and unlikely new inventions emerge) two. We also need to put an end to war-making by individual nation-states.

Anarchy has precisely the same odds of facilitating these two transitions as does capitalism: zero.

"The only concept of rights that makes sense to me is a positive law one: that 'rights' are man made concepts, principles that we adopt ... because following them has desirable consequences."

having something to follow being itself a desirable consequence, to a social species.

Here're a couple of thought experiments:

1) Members of your family have just been killed by high tech NATO weaponry from the sky. On one of the empty shells is the message (conveniently printed in your native tongue) "Either weed the terrorists from your midst or we'll be back." Sweden won't take you. Do you head for training in Somalia?

2) You are an American citizen against the military actions being led by your country in scenario number one. Who do you vote for a week from Tuesday and does it have anything to do with your not being naive?

Sorry, I know this doesn't answer your question about the merits of anarchy, but I thought it my be a place to discuss some rational alternative. By the way: I can't wait 'til I turn eighteen so I can start murdering people.

I dated a guy who said he was an anarchist in college! He was a total idiot, but he had very attractive hair. I think mostly he just wanted to smoke pot without worrying about getting arrested, though, and had very few political positions (as such).

I've always wondered if many anarchists were history majors? Because writing one 12-page paper on the social structure of pre-1829 London -- before Peel created the police force -- would probably put the kibosh on any official attempt to demolish The State, no matter how awful it is.

Also, I agree with your suggestion about the issuing of federal safety regulations. I think the FDA is a toxic institution which is more or less operated by drug companies and the people who manufacture expensive medical machinery; but, then again, I have celiac disease and I rely on FDA-created standards for food-labeling, so that I don't, you know, eat a lot of the wrong thing and get super-sick.

It is for these reasons that I tend to associate anarchism, as well as libertarianism, with people who are experiencing a difficult and protracted adolescence. It's all perfectly normal, and nothing to be worried about.

i don't believe in anarchism as any sort of blueprint for society, to me it those blueprints' antithesis. ioz, if i'm not recalling incorrectly, has characterised anarchy most simply as 'skepticism towards authority'.

iniquities would exist in a stateless society, no one can deny that. but there's plenty the fuck of it around right now, we in effect export much of the mayhem inherent in our overpopulated, shorted out clusterfuck of a society to the third world, but i'd make a bet that on balance it'd be about even at worst. of course someone is bound to bring up, 'nookz', but the likelihood of a serious amount of nuclear detonation is again, probably the same on a couple-centuries timeline. and then there's an argument for nukes not developing without the gargantuan state apparatuses that produced them.

and of course that hypothetical 'no authority' state can't ever exist unless we get the population so far down that we wouldn't run into anyone, so again, to me anarchism is the necessary criticism and resistance to the encroachments of legitimized criminality, the state.

As Cornel West said back in the day, just because truth is merely historical doesn't make it meaningless. We have eyes and big brains and the capacity to keep records.

The zinger in the Dec of Ind was a hard-won breakthrough in the annals of social science and philosophy.

All people are born roughly equal in capacities, and are therefore equally real and valuable in moral and political terms.

No wonder the Founding Fuckers left that shit out of the Constitution, when they met in secret behind nailed-shut windows after Shay's Rebellion.

"There are bad people out there who kill people for nothing, slowly and torturously, in front of many other people, without being stopped by the onlookers, and who would do it again without a second thought."

Those people are few and far between. Having worked in the justice system, i've seen that the vast bulk of serious violent crime occurs between people who know each other. So you're just advocating cutting down all the trees because people get struck by lightning while near them.

The random crime for money gets all the attention in hypotheticals but it is quite rare relative to other motives

Skepticism towards authority is what essentially lies at the heart of anarchism, what does everyone find so controversial about this? Power and authority, in whatever form, must justify its existence (i.e parent to child) or its legitimacy may rightly be challenged. Juvenile? Hardly.

Stateless nations do indeed have institutions to nourish and protect their indigenous societies. They may seem to some to be anarchic in demanding the freedom to be self-determinant, but they nevertheless operate within a political framework that recognizes distinct and compelling laws to accomplish their definition of order. Working at times in tandem with others who view subverting the dominant order behind globalization as morally obligating, they are sometimes characterized as anarchist, though they are no more so than any other revolutionaries seeking a more equitable order.

If anarchism is protracted adolescence, then statism is protracted infancy.

What a pathetic post, to take on anarchism, something the poster knows nothing about, by referring only to one paragraph by IOZ, specifically to one line.

fledermas

I may have given the wrong impression there.

"The random crime for money gets all the attention in hypotheticals but it is quite rare relative to other motives"

The one I was referring to wasn't hypothetical, and the two people did know each other. It wasn't for money, but it wasn't exactly for nothing. It was over a plastic fake diamond earring that had gone missing. This guy gets most of the story right.

"So you're just advocating cutting down all the trees because people get struck by lightning while near them."

I'm advocating having a law against murder, police to enforce it and prisons to lock people up in. I don't see how that is analogous.

OK Marcus, let's hear it then. Why should I know anything about anarchism? Why is statism protracted infancy?

Anarchism is occasionally labeled — rather derisively, at times — as an "ideal" societal phenomenon (read: NOT reasonable, practical, or sane).

Perhaps, part of slapping the "anarchist" label on oneself is to make a clear statement: what we're currently doing (a perverse sense of capitalism and representative democracy) doesn't work for me. I'm not on board. I'm outside. I object.

Part of fixing a problem, I'm often told, is acknowledging that there is a problem. Perhaps this is a piece of how some anarchists see themselves.

"It wasn't for money, but it wasn't exactly for nothing. It was over a plastic fake diamond earring that had gone missing"

FB,

that's what lot of it is. Stupid abusive shit that makes no sense when looked at in retrospect. But people like this aren't like this with everyone, all the time. They make stupid decisions due to stress, usually financial and that just leads to all sorts of grandiose plans. It also exasperates whatever existing emotional problems they have

Jay, thanks for the explanation.

How is statism, by which one assumes you mean anybody who favors perpetuation of states in any form, infantile? Let's hear the verbalization of the one, marcus.

And, Matt, anarchism means "I'm against everything"? Then anarchism is nihilism? Or a refusal to say what you'd like, i.e. a refusal to answer the political question?

Anarchists piss me off with their refusal to cogitate such huge and obvious issues. That's where they are very much like libertarians, as FB says.

How do we stop an Adam Smith world of little capitalists from recreating corporate capitalism and its state war machine? We're not thinking about that.

How do you solve this world's problems by saying you're simply against everything, including all possible collectively managed endeavors? Same reply.

Michael Dawson,

Hello. Allow me to rotate/clarify my comment. I was offering only a piece of the label's appeal to some who use it. But yeah, part of it probably is a refusal to answer the political question... perhaps they simply don't like the question, and prefer to take flight from it's implications — a bunch of snappy rhetors, those anarchists.

It is worth considering that, perhaps, anarchists do exist to piss you off. Boat rockers. Those who wink at each other, "yeah, yeah, our "beliefs" aren't meant to be cogent, we are simply one weight on an impossibly complex scale. Aren't we coy. Let's wink at each other again, that was fun."

A clever (I think) note about labels:

The meaning of words can only be found by deferring to other words, right? And giant umbrellas like "socialist", "anarchist", "capitalist" or whatever, can be boiled down — or reduced, if you prefer — to rather straight forward definitions (not many words used = simple starting point).

Yet, once you start to peel into those layers, here comes the infinite deferral of meaning — clarity is not around the corner. So, ultimately, the label is only the outside, and for anarchists, perhaps that outer layer is decidedly porous.

I don't know anything about anarchists or anything, I'm just throwing some ideas around.

Good day sir, perhaps you'll write something in response? I'll check back.

Not having betters to tell one what to do and not having social organization, in any form, are two different things. And it is in the former sense that I would--if pressed reduce the political philosophy that makes sense to me to a word--consider my self an anarchist (analogous to, say, a Syndicalist).

But when present institutions get defended on the grounds of some supposed good they offer I always think of Mussolini's trains running on time. The price paid for these institutions (like Brecht's bank robber compared to a bank owner)--much greater than the actual good they, incidentally, offer--in human suffering and destruction of the environment is being ignored.*

And, finally, the most important reason I identify with what I understand to be "anarchism"--the principle that power is the driving force of politics (with the economy playing an instrumental role in this respect); that we need stop giving people power over other people for any reason and construct institutions on this basis.

*The "justice system" may lock up the odd violent psychopath (if the actual culprit is even the one who gets convicted) but the vast majority subject to state-mandated penitence (hence penitentiary) are there for being poor. And anyway punishing someone who is apparently suffering from mental illness is practically useless as well as depraved.

A quick (hopefully) word on regulation:

Regulation is coercive, not persuasive. The "good" of regulation being: IF these regulations (to ensure quality and safety) are not in place, "things" would not be as good/safe. I suppose, for many industries, this is probably extremely true — maybe the oil drilling mega-fuck-up in the Gulf is a good recent example.

However, as we might have learned from our parents, the effectiveness of coercion can be quite limited because, by definition, coercion gets you to do something you'd rather not be doing (for example: going to school, coming home at 9:30, etc.). The coercion goes away, so does the behavior, at least much of the time.

If an industry "needs" strict regulations — which, today, many clearly do — we would be well served to understand why they need it. Generally speaking, I suppose the SHORT TERM PROFIT FIRST AND ALWAYS mindset is what creates the need for regulation. Stupidity (once and a while OR chronic) and natural dangers will always exist, regulation doesn't stop them. I'm not saying regulatory bodies don't do "good" things, I'm just concerned about what causes their usefulness.

People have been nice to you, Fred. You don't deserve it. You've completely misstated a school of thought so broad as to cover a nearly infinite varieties of organization, and no organization at all, this to take a puerile and ill conceived swipe at the idea that people don't need bosses.

So - in the spirit of your original, but w/o your sublimated meanspiritedness (I prefer mine out in the open) - fuck you kindly. If you think that the answer to killing is a boss or group of bosses, that's your business. But, perhaps you can at least address how the insertion of a boss/enforcer magically transforms a community or society into a place or set of places less likely to have murder. What about vengeance - and this is all the boss/enforcer can do, even if he is remotely inclined - actually stop past acts, so that the murder and its effects are mitigated?

Start there, asshole.

I think I made it fairly clear that the main benefit that I see is incapacitation.

I explicitly stated that the "state doesn't prevent murder."

Maybe you could start by actually reading the post that you are so eager to lambast.

Whatever one thinks of it, this author criticized anarchism without knowing anything about it. There is, by definition, no "central" text. For starters, I would suggest reading reading Emma Goldman's autobiography, for there one can see the lived conflict with liberalism and socialism.

getting into a free for all
defining the word anarchism is ...anarchic

i have a fairly straight forward definition
of the state as a histortical development
connected to the emergence of socieities with antagonistic classes

tribal outfits have no states
but do have institutions

obviously many arnarchists have bigger game in their sights
then just the class cloven society based on exploitation of class by class
alas i can go no further then that
Clio gives me no guidance
and my imagination has proven faulty on occasion

Here's some good reading for you:

An Anarchist FAQ:
http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/index.html

If you're going to criticize something, you should make the effort to do a lot more reading than a small, mostly incoherent paragraph on IOZ's blog. The above Anarchist FAQ contains a very substantial defence and explanation of anachism as a philosophy. It also contains a very informed critique of state capitalism... part of the anarchist's critique is that capitalism and the state are not inseparable, hence if you want to get rid of one, i.e., capitalism, it requires getting rid of the most important coercive mechanism by which capitalism's exploitations and inequities are perpetuated, i.e., the State.

Contrary to the bullshit and wonderful liberal theory of government and the State (i.e., John Locke, "social contract") that you learn in political science courses in university, the anarchist's view of the State is that in reality, it operates very different from the theory, and that on the whole, it is more harmful than helpful to the goals of human development and freedom.

I'm not saying I completely buy the anarchist's case for the abolition of the state (at least, not at this time - I don't have a very positive view of human nature. I think human nature has a long way to go before we can entertain the notion of an anarchist society) but I think anarchism offers a very important critique of the State and how it's primary function is to serve the interests of the elites. It's not just that the State has a tendency to get hijacked by elites; rather, it is that the State IS the elites. And it is ludicrous to think you can ever achieve any kind of sustainable, democratic freedom - political or economic - if you continue to operate within the institution of the State.

I really have to wonder though: have any of these anarchists ever had any remotely personal experience with murderers? Y'know, bona fide psychopaths? I have. There are bad people out there who kill people for nothing, slowly and torturously, in front of many other people, without being stopped by the onlookers, and who would do it again without a second thought.

Right.. and did it ever occur to you what the result would be if such a psychopath/sociopath/power-hungry political and moral degenerate rises to the most powerful position within the State, where he can use the engines of the State to cause far more death, destruction, mass-murder, torture than he would otherwise? See for example Henry Kissenger, Dick Cheney, and the vast gallery of mass-murdering sociopaths that have paraded onto corridors of power of the American state.

See this excellent piece by Arthur Silber for more on this:

The State and Full Spectrum Dominance, Abroad and At Home

http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2008/09/state-and-full-spectrum-dominance.html

To quote some of the more penetrating insights from that piece:

Although I admit that the outcome in a stateless society will be bad, because not only are people not angels, but many of them are irredeemably vicious in the extreme, I conjecture that the outcome in a society under a state will be worse, indeed much worse, because, first, the most vicious people in society will tend to gain control of the state (Hayek 1944, 134-52; Bailey 1988; Higgs 2004, 33-56) and, second, by virtue of this control over the state’s powerful engines of death and destruction, they will wreak vastly more harm than they ever could have caused outside the state (Higgs 2004, 101-05). It is unfortunate that some individuals commit crimes, but it is stunningly worse when such criminally inclined individuals wield state powers.

...

With regard to large-scale death and destruction, no person, group, or private organization can even begin to compare to the state, which is easily the greatest instrument of destruction known to man. All nonstate threats to life, liberty, and property appear to be relatively petty, and therefore can be dealt with. Only states can pose truly massive threats, and sooner or later the horrors with which they menace mankind invariably come to pass.

The lesson of the precautionary principle is plain: because people are vile and corruptible, the state, which holds by far the greatest potential for harm and tends to be captured by the worst of the worst, is much too risky for anyone to justify its continuation. To tolerate it is not simply to play with fire, but to chance the total destruction of the human race.

...

[E]verything that makes life without a state undesirable makes life with a state even more undesirable. The idea that the anti-social tendencies that afflict people in every society can be cured or even ameliorated by giving a few persons great discretionary power over all the others is, upon serious reflection, seen to be a wildly mistaken notion. Perhaps it is needless to add that the structural checks and balances on which Madison relied to restrain the government’s abuses have proven to be increasingly unavailing and, bearing in mind the expansive claims and actions under the present U.S. regime, are now almost wholly superseded by a form of executive caesarism in which the departments of government that were designed to check and balance each other have instead coalesced in a mutually supportive design to plunder the people and reduce them to absolute domination by the state.

"Right.. and did it ever occur to you what the result would be if such a psychopath/sociopath/power-hungry political and moral degenerate rises to the most powerful position within the State, where he can use the engines of the State to cause far more death, destruction, mass-murder, torture than he would otherwise? See for example Henry Kissenger, Dick Cheney, and the vast gallery of mass-murdering sociopaths that have paraded onto corridors of power of the American state."

That did actually occur to me, and it is what I was referring to with the "Yes, the state murders people too" bit. My preferred solution is the continued development of international law and somewhere down the road, international governance.

Also, does the existence of the state necessarily engender imperialist behaviour? I don't think so.

HV, apparently unwittingly, charmingly replicates another common anarchist habit: treating an assertion of a very highly debatable interpretation as an uncontroversial tenet.

Saying the state is "the most important coercive mechanism by which capitalism's exploitations and inequities are perpetuated" is tendentious and far from obviously true. Capitalism is the profit-seeking use of money to entice and coerce desired forms of behavior. The vast majority of such acts occur in the private economy. It also certainly doesn't take much imagining to interpret most of what happens in the controversial aspect of the state as just another class of profit-seeking purchases.

So, this is not a proper means of rescuing anarchists from their own evasions. Citing one's own most controversial claims is not a strong method of proving one's case.

Meanwhile, what's up with the bile, Jack Crow? FB asks a reasonable question in reasonable terms.

...and Silber's interpretation is also tendentious in the extreme, as it elides the question of class domination of the State.

States have flavors.

Except, not to anarchists, who are forced by their own denials to equate them all, past, present, and future.

"When you're through playing nice,
we'll be here for you."

Yer pals,
Emma Goldman
Mikhail Bakunin

See also:
http://www.infoshop.org/page/Basics
...for the basics of what anarchism is and isn't...

and also:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gEvxw9XKzo
...for my new Favorite Protest Song Of All Time...

...and get a goddamn' grip, Bethune. I think you're the one being immature here.

And see also this section of the Anarchist FAQ for more on the standard argument used against anachists, i.e., human nature is terrible and so we need the State.

A.2.15 What about "human nature"?

http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secA2.html#seca215

That whole section about how anarchism deals with the problem of human nature is quite good, and well worth reading fully but to reiterate the point about rulers of the state and psychopaths I made above, let me quote this paragraph:

As for the charge the anarchists demand too much of "human nature," it is often non anarchists who make the greatest claims on it. For "while our opponents seem to admit there is a kind of salt of the earth -- the rulers, the employers, the leaders -- who, happily enough, prevent those bad men -- the ruled, the exploited, the led -- from becoming still worse than they are" we anarchists "maintain that both rulers and ruled are spoiled by authority" and "both exploiters and exploited are spoiled by exploitation." So "there is [a] difference, and a very important one. We admit the imperfections of human nature, but we make no exception for the rulers. They make it, although sometimes unconsciously, and because we make no such exception, they say that we are dreamers." [Peter Kropotkin, Op. Cit., p. 83] If human nature is so bad, then giving some people power over others and hoping this will lead to justice and freedom is hopelessly utopian.

Useless origin post. I'm pretty sure the "IOZ tagline" is a quote from someone who is an IOZ regular, not a quote from IOZ. Aside from that, it doesn't even treat anything, though it neatly attacks The Scarecrow.

I'd guess Jack's so-called "bile" comes from the practice of pretending to be fly-fishing for trout in a vodka-clear spring creek, while throwing hunks of menhaden at dogfish.

Saying the state is "the most important coercive mechanism by which capitalism's exploitations and inequities are perpetuated" is tendentious and far from obviously true. Capitalism is the profit-seeking use of money to entice and coerce desired forms of behavior. The vast majority of such acts occur in the private economy. It also certainly doesn't take much imagining to interpret most of what happens in the controversial aspect of the state as just another class of profit-seeking purchases.

This is just silly. The "private economy" cannot function without the coercive mechanisms of the State, i.e., the law, the policy, notions of private property, massive favours and state subsidies to certain favoured elites in the "private economy", etc. The idea that the State doesn't serve the interests of the capitalist ruling class in the so-called private economy is incredibly naive, and completely opposite to repeated demonstrations in the real world of precisely that.

For the most recent example of that, see the massive trillion dollar bailout of the banks and the financial elites by the State. There is no distinction between the State and the "private economy" when the capitalist ruling class is in trouble, and needs bailouts and subsidies from the State, or needs the police an the to crack-down on labour. Again, see the entire history of labour in state capitalist economies to see how the State has repeatedly favoured capital the ruling class over ordinary people and labour.

Well Oxtrot my good man, by all means, educate me so that I may be of use.

Differentiate this scarecrow from the real thing for me.

I don't think it's bile MD, Jack just called FB on his bullshit. Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to call you on yours:

"How do you solve this world's problems by saying you're simply against everything, including all possible collectively managed endeavors? Same reply."-MD

What the fuck are you on about? This may be the straw-man you've constructed to wail against in this thread but he in no way resembles your target. Where anarchists have been quite explicit in their opposition to illegitimate authority in all of its forms, their detractors have tossed up some variation of the nonsense you've posted above. What I've always found peculiar about those exhibiting this reflex is their disciplined refusal to see that A does not equal B.

FB my half-assed question stands. doest thou hope to deflect blame for long-term unsustainability from centralized administration on the basis that it achieves its own blinkered goals more efficiently than does any stateless alternative?

Michael, RE: Jack Crow's comment

While his comment was perhaps a bit over-the-top (it's his usual style, from what I've read of his blog), I partially agree with him, in that FB's post came off as smarmily dismissive of an entire philosophy that many smart people have put a lot of thought into. Of course that doesn't make it automatically correct, but I think it deserves better.

The stereotype of anarchists/libertarians as stoners is alive and well, but it would be nice to remember that it IS a stereotype.

"Where anarchists have been quite explicit in their opposition to illegitimate authority in all of its forms"

Don't anarchists think that all authority is illegitimate?

hapa,

uh, I'm not really sure what to make of your question. Maybe you could rephrase it

Deflect blame from who? What blinkered goals? What do you mean by long term unsustainability?

ps. USA murder rate is ~16,000 year. 'additional deaths' estimates in current US military operations vary, but at their most conservative what would you say, 100,000 as a low number? keeping in mind that it is THE STATE that INSURES a rich-world-outlier murder rate in this country by preventing localities from banning firearms, the most effective homicide preventive measure known.

How are you going to ban firearms with no laws and no monopoly on violence? Please tell me how an anarchist society goes about banning firearms.

re: war deaths. Like I have already stated, international relations are currently in a lawless state. In order to reign in killing by armies I advocate international law and governance, like a UN monopoly on the legitimate use of military force.

ok. i am saying that for all the good it does (and costs it shaves) centralized administration has choked: unable to shift gears back down when faced with undeniable evidence that its generally progressive policies create long-term EXTINCTION-LEVEL risks. i am asking how holding relatively powerless anarchists accountable changes the risk presented by hierarchical intransigence (AFAICT due to impossible political promises).

uh, I'm still not seeing what you're trying to get at here.

The state isn't doing a good job of dealing with global warming? Is that what you are getting at? What are these extinction level risks?

FB i don't understand where you got the idea that horizontal organization has no rules or adjudication structures. even small low-key collectives have guiding principles that can lead to penalties or expulsion.

So coercively imposed rules are compatible with anarchism if they are decided upon collectively at a low enough level? How is the right of the group to exercise coercion over the individual legitimate? How are the principles decided upon collectively and how are they enforced? How is the resulting system not what Al calls " a state by any other name"?

global warming is the biggest. others include fresh water management, ocean health... hmm these are global, ok you've already talked about lawless conditions, though i'm inclined to disagree that law is ever intended as a universal instrument, if you know what i mean, whether it's bankruptcy or state-sponsored killing. it's all who you know....

inside US borders, the health care situation is ridiculous, with laws institutionalizing extortion. 'gun rights' are there with that. we can both name a wide variety of other market distortions, as it were; as if the market were separate from the distortions.

ok 2nd try to clarify: what exactly do you think anarchists have to answer for, other than a perfectly averagely inadequate utopian vision?

One of the main things that bother me about this post and about people who criticize anarchism is their smug, smarmy condescending, dismissive attitude.. as in, aren't anarchists naive simpletons who have a utopian view of human nature and society, etc.

As I've tried to demonstrate with some of my posts above, it is the defenders of the State and of the liberal democratic view of government and the State who are stunningly naive, and who seem to have very bizarre, utopian views of human nature and of the nature of the State despite REPEATED demonstrations in the REAL WORLD that the State and its various institutions primarily serve the interests of the capital ruling class and elites.

So for example FB makes this rather stunningly stupid and moronic comment:

"My preferred solution is the continued development of international law and somewhere down the road, international governance."

Now is this person completely blind to how "international law" operates in the real world? Why the fuck do you think Saddam Hussein was hanged while war-criminals of the likes of Tony Blair, Condoleeza Rice, Dick Cheney are walking around free, some of the parading on Western and American talk-shows to peddle their books?

Here's a hint: in the real world, there is no "international law". There is power, and those elites and states who have it impose their will onto others, and get away with mass-murder, genocide, torture. Those who don't have power.. are hanged, their States smashed and destroyed, their people bombed and slaughtered with impunity, etc.

In the real world, there is no "international governing body", and heaven-forbid there should ever be one. There is only the UN, which is a hapless, powerless body that serves the interests of the most powerful states on the world.

And given how governments and States on a domestic, national level repeatedly serve the interests of their own elites and their ruling class, it should be no surprise whatsoever that the same dynamics operate on the international scale. Notwithstanding the burgeoise obsession with The Vote and how it is The Important Democratic Franchise and You Must Vote or Die!, in reality, ordinary people, and most certainly the poor and the marginalized, have almost zero ability to influence the domestic political and economical arrangements within their own states, democratic or not. It is stunningly stupid to then pine for some sort of "international government" or international State with its even more unreachable vast machinery of bureaucracy and coercive mechanisms of force and violence that will most certainly serve the interests of the most powerful and of dominant states first the foremost, and by extension, of the most powerful and dominant elites within those states.

I repeat: who are the real naive fools and utopians?

ok piece by piece.

"So coercively imposed rules are compatible with anarchism if they are decided upon collectively at a low enough level?"

i know a good joke. a kid grows up in a bar. the kid asks, "can i have a drink?" and her mother the bartender says, "omg how much of your barf do you expect me to clean up?"

another way to say that is that adults are not children, and collectives reach decisions at... a somewhat painful pace... but as i was trying to hint to you earlier, only sociopaths believe humans are purely individuals, w/o obligations or support.

also STOP TALKING ABOUT MONOLITHIC 'ANARCHISM.' i mean i know who you're thinking of but it's diverse, including religious flavors.

"How is the right of the group to exercise coercion over the individual legitimate?"

simply put, adults make informed promises and there is recourse. i'm not the right person to give examples on a large scale, except to say that lawsuits are a great equalizer in a big crowd.

"How are the principles decided upon collectively and how are they enforced?"

can't answer this right now.

"How is the resulting system not what Al calls 'a state by any other name'?"

as underlying cultural assumptions multiply, things can get ugly. generally my understanding is that a cellular structure allows people to find a suitable arrangement w/in a larger, longer-term contractual framework (of frameworks).

i'm not up on my flat utopian lit tho. most anarchists are honest thinkers who recognize economic life will remain 'mixed' while the general public bathes in luxuriant learned helplessness & unaccountability.

Have you ever considered the fact that pacificism, such as that preached by Gandhi or MLK (regardless of whether or not they realized it) it necessarily anarchistic, as State power rests always on coercion?

Have you ever noticed that Democracy has an identical hierarchy to the Church, to monarchies, to all mafias? Oh, but Daddy isn't powerful enough, we need even more concentrated power, we need the U.N. OMG global goodness they'll protect us. Really? Under what interests, the goodness of their hearts, not personal powerquests? And how does the the UN enforce its rules (against war?), but by the means which any state has ever enforced anything i.e. violence?

If you want to have a society explicitly based on violence, coercion, from top to bottom, it is you who needs to do the explaining, not the anarchist, just as I don't need to disprove every religion in the world to not believe in any of them.

It's a funny thing, ya'll standard leftists always preach against the death penalty, because for one thing, "OMG what if you get the wrong guy!" Well, what if you lock the wrong guy in a cage, you sick fuck! Oh, what, maybe if he gets a pro bono lawyer and a friendly appeals court he might get out in 20 years, 20 years in a fucking cage, that's justice? How many innocent ones can be executed by "accident" along the "sociopathic killers" our impotent Liberal asks.....well I ask how many innocent ones should spend 20 years, or their life, or even one hour in a cage, beside the "real killers," because of your fear-mongering, which is identical in every way to that of Bushian terrormongering. I say none, no cages, and I'll take the consequences, for myself, my mother, my children. If there is one innocent in the whole gulag, let them all go free. Would you go to the cage innocently yet acceptingly, knowing that you were just collateral damage in the War on Ted Bundy?

And the millions, the vast majority of those imprisoned, who go to the cage because of drugs or petty "theft"? Well our Liberal may not think they should go there....but they do go there, and only under the holy guidance of the State.

And Sweden? Fuck Sweden. Do you know what the drug laws are like in Sweden? I doubt many swedophiles have a clue, doubt they've ever met a Swede. (Note the problems in Somalia are caused by its Statist invaders, and that it has done quite well in its anarchist history, despite what CNN tells you. And I'd choose Somalia over Sweden any day, as someone condescendingly asked...any day...and I've already left the Empire and lived in a series of "dangerous" countries, and never once yearned for the FBI or the FDA or the Swedish volleyball team.)

The State has given us:

Hiroshima

Aushwitz

Napoleon

Agent Orange

....ad infinitum. And all of these things are specically and exclusively the product of statism. But wait! Democracy! Hitler saved the Economy! Napoleon's Civil Code! The Children!

You can preach all of your self-righteous bleeding heart liberalisms, but if you think the State is anything but the security apparatus of the rich, that it's purpose is anything other than, as Madison said, "to protect the opulent minority from the minority," then you are a pathetic clown and a guardian of that which you pretend to oppose. Democrats are smarter than Republicans because they understand that the peasants will work harder and revolt less if they are given a few presents, that a starving slave can't do much, while the Republicans want to kill the golden goose. All liberal Statists (an explicitly religious denomination) are Democrats, even if they hee and haw against the Donkeys, and actually believe their own nonsense, you are just nudging the donks over a bit when they get too rowdy with the goose.

"Also, does the existence of the state necessarily engender imperialist behaviour? I don't think so." Of course it does! "international law"? What the hell are you talking about? How is that any different? If everyone in world outside of the US died tomorrow, the US government would be a global government...would that make them any better? This is the rationale of the gambling addict: double or nothing, double or nothing again! The Federal is better than the state, the World is better than the Federal...how? You are perpetuating the landbaron, the pharaoh, the king. You are repeating those lies with newer terms, and under even vaster and more horrific conditions. Who created the UN, wasn't it these very same nations that it would supposedly monitor? What depraved naivete. How is a government that controls 6 billion people better than one that controls the 300 million in the US or the 1.3 billion in China? You're going in the wrong direction. Govern yourself!

If you do one thing, look at your talk about "insane murderers," and compare that to terrorist propaganda. It's precisely the same thing. If we put a camera in every home, in every room, we could stop a lot of child-molestation. Do you want to do that, is that worth it, would you give up all privacy to protect millions of innocent children from such vicious acts....I guess not....but you would have all of your lives structured around a State, the product of our labor taken from us under threat of the cage, and all the other restrictions that come along, so that we can fund a police force to get the tiny percentage of crazy killers in the world.

There are worse fates than death. Prison, loss of personal sovereignty, sacrifice of one's life to an imaginary Being (God, Social Contract, whathaveyou). If you promote that which locks millions in cages (think about that, not as some liberal talking point, but actual humans, actual lifeforms, locked up like no other lifeform we know of has ever been locked up) and the wars, and the all of the other monstrosities that corporatism/Statism (they are the same thing)engender, then you are already dead, so you have nothing to fear.

Nietzsche:

"SOMEWHERE there are still peoples and herds, but not with us, my
brethren: here there are states.
A state? What is that? Well! open now your ears unto me, for now
will I say unto you my word concerning the death of peoples.
A state, is called the coldest of all cold monsters. Coldly lieth it
also; and this lie creepeth from its mouth: "I, the state, am the
people."
It is a lie! Creators were they who created peoples, and hung a
faith and a love over them: thus they served life.
Destroyers, are they who lay snares for many, and call it the state:
they hang a sword and a hundred cravings over them.
Where there is still a people, there the state is not understood,
but hated as the evil eye, and as sin against laws and customs.
This sign I give unto you: every people speaketh its language of
good and evil: this its neighbour understandeth not. Its language hath
it devised for itself in laws and customs.
But the state lieth in all languages of good and evil; and
whatever it saith it lieth; and whatever it hath it hath stolen.
False is everything in it; with stolen teeth it biteth, the biting
one. False are even its bowels.
Confusion of language of good and evil; this sign I give unto you as
the sign of the state. Verily, the will to death, indicateth this
sign! Verily, it beckoneth unto the preachers of death!
Many too many are born: for the superfluous ones was the state
devised!
See just how it enticeth them to it, the many-too-many! How it
swalloweth and cheweth and recheweth them!
"On earth there is nothing greater than I: it is I who am the
regulating finger of God."- thus roareth the monster. And not only the
long-eared and short-sighted fall upon their knees!
Ah! even in your ears, ye great souls, it whispereth its gloomy
lies! Ah! it findeth out the rich hearts which willingly lavish
themselves!
Yea, it findeth you out too, ye conquerors of the old God! Weary
ye became of the conflict, and now your weariness serveth the new
idol!
Heroes and honourable ones, it would fain set up around it, the
new idol! Gladly it basketh in the sunshine of good consciences,-
the cold monster!
Everything will it give you, if ye worship it, the new idol: thus it
purchaseth the lustre of your virtue, and the glance of your proud
eyes.
It seeketh to allure by means of you, the many-too-many! Yea, a
hellish artifice hath here been devised, a death-horse jingling with
the trappings of divine honours!
Yea, a dying for many hath here been devised, which glorifieth
itself as life: verily, a hearty service unto all preachers of death!
The state, I call it, where all are poison-drinkers, the good and
the bad: the state, where all lose themselves, the good and the bad:
the state, where the slow suicide of all- is called "life."
Just see these superfluous ones! They steal the works of the
inventors and the treasures of the wise. Culture, they call their
theft- and everything becometh sickness and trouble unto them!
Just see these superfluous ones! Sick are they always; they vomit
their bile and call it a newspaper. They devour one another, and
cannot even digest themselves.
Just see these superfluous ones! Wealth they acquire and become
poorer thereby. Power they seek for, and above all, the lever of
power, much money- these impotent ones!
See them clamber, these nimble apes! They clamber over one
another, and thus scuffle into the mud and the abyss.
Towards the throne they all strive: it is their madness- as if
happiness sat on the throne! Ofttimes sitteth filth on the throne.-
and ofttimes also the throne on filth.
Madmen they all seem to me, and clambering apes, and too eager.
Badly smelleth their idol to me, the cold monster: badly they all
smell to me, these idolaters.
My brethren, will ye suffocate in the fumes of their maws and
appetites! Better break the windows and jump into the open air!
Do go out of the way of the bad odour! Withdraw from the idolatry of
the superfluous!
Do go out of the way of the bad odour! Withdraw from the steam of
these human sacrifices!
Open still remaineth the earth for great souls. Empty are still many
sites for lone ones and twain ones, around which floateth the odour of
tranquil seas.
Open still remaineth a free life for great souls. Verily, he who
possesseth little is so much the less possessed: blessed be moderate
poverty!
There, where the state ceaseth- there only commenceth the man who is
not superfluous: there commenceth the song of the necessary ones,
the single and irreplaceable melody.
There, where the state ceaseth- pray look thither, my brethren! Do
ye not see it, the rainbow and the bridges of the Superman?-

Thus spake Zarathustra."

The problem of psychopaths is a difficult one, and a stateless society would not have the mechanisms that the state uses to stop them from murdering people. That would be a problem. Our state imprisons many murderers, and that is a good thing. The problem is that the state empowers a few psychopaths to vastly amplify their ability to murder other human beings. In a stateless society, Henry Kissinger might be able to murder 100 people in his lifetime, assuming that the intelligence and cunning that allowed him to rise to a position of power would, in a stateless society, allow him to murder people undetected, or escape the wrath of his victims' friends and relatives.

Compare 100 people to the number murdered by Kissinger using the resources of the state. By amplifying the power of psychopaths who are able to control state resources, the state allows a single psychopath to murder many more people than could be murdered by thousands of psychopaths running around loose in a stateless society. I don't know how many murderers are in prison, but let's make an educated guess based on statistics from the BOP.

http://www.bop.gov/news/quick.jsp

The total number of federal prison inmates as of 9/25/10 is 209,714. Of those, 5364 (2.8%) were convicted of Homicide, Aggravated Assault, and Kidnapping Offenses. Let's forget that not all of them are murderers, and then extrapolate and assume that 2.8% of our 2 million prisoners (including state prisons, jails, etc.) are murderers. It's probably not that high, but let's be generous and double it, so we have .028 * 2,000,000 * 2 = 112,000 murderers in prison in the US. If they were all free and each murdered 100 people in their lifetime (probably an excessive estimate since most murderers are not exceptionally intelligent or cunning, unlike state-enabled murderers, that would be 11.2 million murders committed in the entire lifetimes of all of these 112,000 murderers. Kissinger murdered at least 4 million just in Vietnam (only one of his murder sprees), and he's only one of many state-enabled murderers. In this worst-case scenario, eliminating the state does not increase the number of murders.

This argument assumes that a stateless society would not develop a way of dealing with psychopaths, which is not necessarily a good assumption. People find ways to fix problems, and if we had a problem with psychopaths murdering people in a stateless society, I expect that we would handle it in a way that causes far less harm than our present system of immensely powerful governments stealing resources from everyone and giving them to those who already have the most. The greedy hoarders who control government resources are the worse elements of society... psychopaths or near-psychopaths with the intelligence and animal cunning to fight their way to the top of a corrupt system. In a stateless society, they would not have access the amplifying power of the state.

I only skimmed the comments, but so far I've seen a lot of good responses against Fred. The truth is that your post was a straight strawman with an almost comicbook understanding of the theories of anarchy. Several people posted links to the anarchist-FAQ, I suggest you read it before making such a post again.
I notice that you seem to think that anarchy means a society of no government and no laws in which people feed and attack each other. Anarchy means no state and no laws of state. There are rules, rights and wrongs, and things that are opposed. Anarchy is a just government of direct democracy, socialist economy, and of true free association among people.
You say that you have asked how anarchists would deal with a murder. There is no clear answer because we are talking about direct democracy. The people would have to deal with it directly and make that decision themselves. I have my ideas, but they are just mine.
You talk about vigilanties, but what do you mean by that? Do you mean a small group enforcing their own sense of justice as judge, jury, and executioner? Do you mean people acting in their self-defense outside of a state by bringing the person before a body appointed by the people to find the truth? When does the vigilante become the militia, the civil defense force, or the police? Is that transition only when a state declares them such?
You also talk about how murder will still exist. I know there are utopians who think all problems would disappear if their view of the world was enacted. These people are, of course, wrong. I do think that much of our crime is related to the classist nature of our society and the economic disparity that exists. Creating a society which is politically, socially, and economically egalitarian would remove most of this violent crime. Sure there will still be psychopaths and other damaged people, but the rest of society can figure out how to deal with that. I will also add that the psychopaths run the governments. The U.S. has killed around 8 million people since the end of the World War 2. If there is an increase of murder here, I don't think it will ethically out weigh the end of our imperial wars.
You also question about what would take the place of the FDA. You make the strawman of the belief in the market force. This isn't even wrong, unless you were just talking about anarcho-capitalists. Anarchy demands that the people control the means of production with all products being produced for the people. There is no profit nor capitalist elite. Those require the power of state and law to exist. No profit and no profiteer removes the pressure to dillute, posion, or push the ineffective. If the people are concerned, they can have a scientist examine the food or medicine and produce a report. Corrective actions can then be taken by the people. The FDA exists as a minor overseer because the capitalist pushed unsafe food and drugs. The same with the USDA. The capitalists made sure they are mostly ineffective. Remove the capitalism and you remove the problems of the capitalist.
One last point I would like to make is why attack a group that is essentially powerless when those who actually wield power are commiting such massive acts of violence? Is it easier to attack a powerless segment of the far left then the true sources of evil that plots wars, impoverishs the people, and crushs the working class? If you must, think of anarchists as the gadfly of the state, always pushing, questioning, and fighting its wrongs. Even if you dislike our theories accept us as that.

Who will replace the FDA? In a stateless society we would all deeply mourn the absence of an organization that uses stolen resources to promote the idea that poisons are good for us to eat and drink. Hopefully some Good Samaritan would step up to the plate and perform this vital function.

In a stateless society, I would expect most people to eat real food instead of mass-produced cattle feed in which poisons can be concealed. In a stateless society, producers of toxic waste such as flouride (a toxic byproduct of chemical processes which used to be difficult to dispose of) might dump it in the water, but without the resources of the state, they would probably have trouble convincing everyone that they were doing a good thing.

FB, I'll take your question as offered in good faith, but how on earth did you expect to have it answered satisfactorily in the comments section of a blog post?

Can you imagine a monarchist asking Locke or Rousseau to tell him why this "republic" business wasn't a mess of crazy juvenile claptrap in 100 words or less?

If you're seriously interested, in addition to what was reco'd above, I'd suggest Peter Marshall's "Demanding the Impossible". A truly great work on the subject and great introduction to it.

If you're not willing to spend so much time, there are several brief intro's that are good: Colin Ward's "Intro to Anarchism", Cris Sartwell's "Against the State, David Graeber's "Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology".

In addition to what others have offered above, I'd suggest other remedies for extreme anti-social behavior: exile or treatment. In a truly voluntary society with free movement among persons, the dangerously pathological could be expelled (Eskimo societies used to do this with their murderers).

Barring that, the use of physical coercion in self-defense is consistent with anarchist principles (with the exception of anarchist pacifists). Personally, I'd be fine with a well-guarded treatment facility. If people could be rehabilitated, they could certainly leave. If they were incurable, they'd still be entitled to as decent a life as possible within the walls. Punishing people who are mentally ill makes no sense and has no moral justification.

But I think these type of people are exceedingly rare and would be even more so in a society that was more equal and self-managed. Added bonus: they'd never be able to rise to power as they do now. As previous commenters have pointed out, building a state which has the capacity to do infinitely more violence, in order to control the miniscule psychopath population is like swatting a fly with a sledgehammer. And as Kropotkin pointed out, penal institutions make crime worse. The cure is much worse than the disease.

Anarchism doesn't require a belief in innate human goodness. On the contrary, it recognizes how depraved humans can be given certain conditions. Those conditions namely being huge power differentials among persons. Which is why you don't give them things like nuclear weapons, large standing professional armies, sprawling prison systems, unaccountable power, most of the wealth of society, etc. Believing in states or, in turn, super-states (int'l law), even as a least-worst option, is the much more utopian perspective. Devolving social control into fewer and fewer hands will only lead to more chaos and social pathology.

Fred:

"I think I made it fairly clear that the main benefit that I see is incapacitation.

I explicitly stated that the "state doesn't prevent murder."

Maybe you could start by actually reading the post that you are so eager to lambast."

I did read it. And cut right to tired, core argument, which you kindly validated above.

By incapacitation, you suggest that the primary purpose of the "the State," with regard to personal violence, is vengeance.

Setting aside for the moment that government has not yet proven capable of retaining an original purpose, or remaining within its intended confines, you seem to suggest that this "incapacitation" justifies the concentration of power.

But, if incapacitation - as a response to the effect of an action, the action itself and its consequences not being subject to time reversal, or to the negation of causality - is a benefit, how exactly so?

How does the concentration of resources on the capture and incapacitation of offenders mitigate the effects of the actions their prior conduct?

Let's try an example that doesn't directly involve murder: Assume a man dumps one hundred gallons of benzene into a local river. How does locking him up - incapacitation - undo, remedy or mitigate the poisoning of a waterway?

How do the labor and resources expended on imprisonment change the course of time so that the original act loses causality?

If incapacitation is important - so much so as to be a primary benefit of the concentration of power - what does it actually accomplish?

Are you suggesting that playing the warden to past offenders so alters human character that future offenders will no longer act?

Are you suggesting that playing the warden (or sanctioned monopoly killer) to past offenders reduces the impact of their actions?

Are you suggesting that this incapacitation authority does anything to alter the material conditions which produce offenders, as well as those which follow from their actions?

Because, if not, it looks like you are willing to have a group of people with a whole lot of power (power which they have historically used to increase their influence, and access to resources) on the off chance that the authority to "incapacitate" will by some unstated magical power have an enduring benefit beyond vengeance.

And while I have no particular argument against vengeance, it seems to me that I'd rather leave it to small groups and individuals, than to the property defining, power protecting, cabal supporting, war producing, corporation chartering state...

Recall Hobbes's point of "war of all against all." How can anarchy work given what the nature of man has been shown to be since history started being written down? Hey, maybe that is problem! Before there was history with its tissue of lies and distortions man may have been better. But good enough to live without crime and war? Don't think so. And the chance that there will ever be a test run of anarchy (in the way the term is being discussed here) is zero, in my opinion.

So, what is an anarchist? The question is like "what is a socialist" in that, in a state-burdened world and a capitalist-driven world, to be a socialist or anarchist is to be an unfulfilled dreamer or a fugitive.

Jesus Jack, are you really that thick?

INCAPACITATION

It means stopping someone from repeating a crime. The aim is not punishment. How many times do I have to state this? The aim is basically the same as this, from another comment:

"Personally, I'd be fine with a well-guarded treatment facility. If people could be rehabilitated, they could certainly leave. If they were incurable, they'd still be entitled to as decent a life as possible within the walls. Punishing people who are mentally ill makes no sense and has no moral justification."

You utterly failed to cut to the core of the argument.

"How does the concentration of resources on the capture and incapacitation of offenders mitigate the effects of the actions their prior conduct?"

DUDE, how clear can I make it? I've already explicitly disavowed that Idea, but you just keep charging the windmill. Whatever.

The only sense in which it mitigates crime is by locking up people who are likely to reoffend.

OK, and for the non-murder crimes:

I focussed on incapacitation because people committing murder are usually not exactly in terms of costs and benefits, so deterrence is irrelevant a lot of the time.

When it comes to other non-violent crimes, I think that there is some deterrent effect. Do you really think that having a law against dumping benzene and punishment for it has no effect at all on how often it would happen?

Are you saying that the cost of doing anything, anytime, about any crime outweighs any potential benefit, and that we should therefore allow all of the behaviour that is currently illegal?

Good luck with that.

"In addition to what others have offered above, I'd suggest other remedies for extreme anti-social behavior: exile or treatment. In a truly voluntary society with free movement among persons, the dangerously pathological could be expelled (Eskimo societies used to do this with their murderers)."

Yeah, but those rely on coercion, so the society in question could not be strictly voluntary. You have to force the person into treatment or exile.

How is this coercion organized? Do you just discuss it amongst the community, then round up a posse to deal with the person? That's what I meant by the "ad hoc vigilante justice" comment.

Would you have rules that govern when a person can be forced into exile? If so, how are those rules decided upon?

I think that you can see where I'm going with this. You end up with a state by another name, exercising a monopoly on legitimate force.

"does the existence of the state necessarily engender imperialist behaviour? I don't think so"
lots between this comment and that one back up there
but i haven't yet read all the in betweens

this is a key question

different social structures organizations and institutions
drive different state actions
the use of imperial motive with regard to our prsent yankee state prolly is best seen as a metaphor
just as our republic wasn't roman neither is our empire

the drives of multinational corporations today
are the raison d'/etre of the yankee armada and yankee crusades
making the globe safe for free flying MNCs

an era of exclusionary franchises by great powers over pre capitalist chunks
of the globe are gone obviously
in fact classic victortian great power rivalry has fallen on meager times
the hyper power centered global for the moment leaves uncle basically un challenged by any other power ..outside that power's margin

if one wants a comparison there were intervals when Rome in its imperial glory faced only broken rivals on its margins and of course
tribal hordes and restive captive nations

-------------

to answer fb
the state as i see it has one duty
preserve the class power
of the exploiting class internally

however this never seems to suffice
we get expansion and we get domination
the liquidation of nations and the oppression of nations
state based nations tend to get conquered
rules taxed and regulated
whereas tribal nations get liquidated
settled on gobbled up not just vanquished

occupiers and settlers ??
the range over time ...

colony to corporation
uncle and its delightful mimi me give us quite up to date examples of the range of action

"Personally, I'd be fine with a well-guarded treatment facility."

How would that be organized under anarchist principles?

"But I think these type of people are exceedingly rare and would be even more so in a society that was more equal and self-managed. Added bonus: they'd never be able to rise to power as they do now. As previous commenters have pointed out, building a state which has the capacity to do infinitely more violence, in order to control the miniscule psychopath population is like swatting a fly with a sledgehammer."

But you would still have some. The existence of complete psychopaths is not the sole reason for the existence of a state, but it is a useful sort of at-the-limit example for discussion how the exercise of legitimate force is limited and organized in a society.

"Anarchism doesn't require a belief in innate human goodness. On the contrary, it recognizes how depraved humans can be given certain conditions. Those conditions namely being huge power differentials among persons"

Which exist with or without a state.

"And as Kropotkin pointed out, penal institutions make crime worse. The cure is much worse than the disease."

Is it really though? I see that asserted in this comment thread, but I don't see much evidence to support the claim.

"Believing in states or, in turn, super-states (int'l law), even as a least-worst option, is the much more utopian perspective. Devolving social control into fewer and fewer hands will only lead to more chaos and social pathology."

Obviously I disagree, but it's not like it can be proven either way.

Thomas,

"Several people posted links to the anarchist-FAQ, I suggest you read it before making such a post again."

I did try reading it. I got about one paragraph in before running into bald assertions that I completely disagree with, for reasons that I have explained here, and which I have not seen a decent rebuttal to yet.

"There are rules, rights and wrongs, and things that are opposed. Anarchy is a just government of direct democracy, socialist economy, and of true free association among people. "

"things that are opposed" how? Can you be a bit more explicit about that?

"You talk about vigilanties, but what do you mean by that? Do you mean a small group enforcing their own sense of justice as judge, jury, and executioner?"

Yes, if you mean executioner in a figurative sense. That seems to be the preferred solution of many people around here, and it is, in my opinion, clearly a terrible one. Mob justice. Great.

"Creating a society which is politically, socially, and economically egalitarian would remove most of this violent crime."

but it wouldn't remove all of it

"Sure there will still be psychopaths and other damaged people, but the rest of society can figure out how to deal with that"

I think that it is kind of important to have an idea about how this would actually work according to anarchist principles, however malleable.

"elides the question of class domination of the State."
often a folly of anarcho-moralists

------

fb
i think u might aim a bit more specifically
at anarchic "solutions "
to our modern social organization

to abstractly pose challenges to the good life left unresolved by anarch chefs recipes for our better future becomes endless eh ??...

tribal society has existed for what ??
...30 thousand years ??

what does the latest reconstruction say ??

and they still exist

authority and the state are not one
legit authority is a co out distnction obviously
how might that differe from good gubmint democratically guided gubmint

---------

that we have bropwning state machines seems a reform issue to me
i can imagine green states more easily
then none waring states eh ??

----------
by a marxist definition tribes are stateless societies
they establish conclusively
if various chhallenges are posed
as basic tasks to be resolved by institutions
challenges that emerge directly from
the functions of household level activity
including murder
well we can see these fall easily within stateless society's compass of competence

----

btw fb i love the fact you found a can of worms this site really grooves on
to galvinize
our herd of one off
proprietary slaughterers
of dirty nite crawler meme spills
still requires picking one that can quickly morph into a chaotic chorus
of moral stridency
where these folks are most comfortable
singing along and against
and doin dozens on

fb
i think gangs and cults
make a far better counter example then
psycho paths and chiold moelster film directors even though here such personaloized vivid household level hauntings and witch hunts seem de rigour if large out pourings are wanted

"Creating a society which is politically, socially, and economically egalitarian would remove most of this violent crime."

it wouldn't be crime it would be tribal war

we have a lot of history here
non state society in interface with state society

failed states like somalia spontaneously
develop clan war type formations
armed and supported as much as
disarmed and destroyed by state society
interveners

russia in the mid 90's looks like
pre stateless society
teeetering on the edge of disolution
the integration of sub elements breaking down
into anarchy in the naughty sense

a loiting is a bauetiful moment
but it soon self organizes into gangs and pigeons
all this is
quite different from revolutionary society
which is of course the pre figuration beloved of anarchos

the blush of catalonia '36
that enchants anarchos eh ??

as much as their
radical good hearted fool's alamo
kronstadt
fills their eye with bloody fury

"btw fb i love the fact you found a can of worms this site really grooves on"

what can I say? sometimes you gotta take a shit in the pool

tribal society because of its scale has odd souls with sharp anti social edges to deal with but not waves of crime or serial killers

the warring of tribes may well sublate murderous tendencies eh ??

the people in arms is indeed antithetical to the state
the means of force are generalized eh ??
a militia in the end must become secondary to a compact state directed force
or the shay's rebellion whisky rebellion dorrs war etc stuff gets hairy

unions in fact challenged the state structure sufficiently on occasion to require federal troops eh ??

we see the edges of state power often but the state if it retains the ultimate gun barrel ..

lebanon to me is wildly instructive
the hezzy are lovely
and yet if their meme packet could be
any more antoithetical to anarcho secular boho stylings i can't see how

roundhead outcomes require round heads
not lumpen cavaliers

"i think u might aim a bit more specifically
at anarchic "solutions "
to our modern social organization

to abstractly pose challenges to the good life left unresolved by anarch chefs recipes for our better future becomes endless eh ??..."

Positive liberty concerns are still second order at this point. We haven't even gotten past the basic first-order problems of negative liberty.

I'm not thick, Fredward.

I'm just naming your "incapacitation" for what it is, namely vengeance. Since no punishment and no law can undo past deeds, all that any subsequent action can accomplish is after-the-fact punishment. You may not wish to use the terms "vengeance" and "punishment," but that is exactly what your Leviathan power can accomplish. Certainly, an "incapacitated" offender might have his range of options reduced, if not outright abrogated if the state's operators wish to kill, but to do so you must - get this - punish him.

To "incapacitate" your state has to punish. It has to hurt, injure, detain, control or otherwise obstruct the ability or capacity of a person to act.

This is vengeance - since it seeks to do its harm as a response to a particular action or set of actions. It is an a posteriori reaction. Something has to occur, for the authority to know it, and react to it.

Your entire moral order, then, depends upon this will to punish.

"When it comes to other non-violent crimes, I think that there is some deterrent effect. Do you really think that having a law against dumping benzene and punishment for it has no effect at all on how often it would happen?"

Of course you believe in magic. You already demonstrated as much when you argued that the law can do anything on its own. Laws are justification, only. They have no power. As in, literally.

All power resides with persons, and with their ability to use resources and other persons to accomplish some end or ends.

The law they use to justify or sanction their deeds (before or after the action itself) is just that - an excuse for what they already wish to do.

A law banning firearms, or benzene dumping, accomplishes nothing. Put it in an envelope, where no one can see it - and you have exactly nothing.

But, for believers in magic, the law is a great excuse to pretend that Society, or Jeebus, or the Commonwealth, or the Republic or any other artificial and very mystical fiction sanctions, justifies or validates whatever the user of the law currently desires.

The law does not deter. The punishment - and knowledge of it - does. Scribble a law in a piece of paper, scribble also the prescribed punishment. Seal them away where no eyes can see them.

What exactly will these words deter?

Nothing.

Because it is the violence, the imprisonment, the suffering which deters, and then only barely.

Or the country with the highest incarceration rate wouldn't also have one of the worst "crime" problems...

When somebody says, "How can you have no government, no cops...what about rape!" I say this:

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/10/03/2010-10-03_raped_by_judge_and_justice_system.html

Government is a giant rape machine. For every rape they prevent, they commit 1000, without penalty. Murder and robbery as well, of course. And the multiple of 1000 may be too generous.

Well, you really seem determined not to see the point about incapacitation. Nowhere do I deny that it involves punishment, which the loss of freedom obviously is. The loss of freedom is a punishment and it is inevitable with incapacitation. But that's not the aim, and that's why, like one earlier poster mentioned, you would want to make incarceration as comfortable as possible, while still separating that person from society. I don't advocate anything that would make incarceration any more painful than it already is by its inherent nature, because punishment is not the point in such where you are dealing with someone who is basically insane. I am however willing to make that trade-off to protect other members of society.

On deterrence: I don't think that believing the existence of incentives and their efficacy is akin to believing in magic.

When I'm referring to the rule of law, I am including the use of force to back it up in the very concept. That is the standard way in which it is conceived. Without force, you don't have "law". I assumed that that went without saying.

If you believe that all laws are utterly useless, and that people categorically do not respond to incentives as a matter of empirical fact, then I don't see how much further we can go with this.

oh, and by punishment I don't necessarily mean incarceration

Nietzsche:

my my
that old boy
quite the innate superiority sort
we are born equally free but not equal eh ??

some of us deserve to be slaves

marcus you are like garfield the cat
drawling way at opie

http://s.ecrater.com/stores/41425/4728cfaf6770c_41425n.jpg

I don't care what word you use to cover your desire. Call it "aim" if that gives you a good feeling. Your aims remain unrelated to their outcomes. Your intentions, to their deserts. I'm discussing the actual consequence. Your justifying beliefs, your aims, your meanings have no value. I'll treat with your consequences, Fred.

Call it what you want, if you need to feel skippy about it.

But to incapacitate you must punish. You want an organization devoted to punishment. Man up, at least, and name your monster for what it is.

OK fine, incapacitation is not aimed at applying punishment, but deterrence is, and I support that, so yes, I will man up and say that I do want an organization the applies punishment.

Is it a panacea? No. Is it on balance better than any of the alternatives that have been offered here? I think so.

I should emphasize that punishment would be a means of deterrence, rather than some sort of righting of the moral scales.

One of the most hilarious things about the Liberal Statist is that he is so often an "atheist," or at least against "organized religion," when his beliefs are intellectually on par with the craziest Catholic or Muslim and are in every way a religion themselves.

As the Catholic never wonders why he was so lucky to have been raised in the one-true-religion, our hapless Liberal never realizes that he believes in Democracy because that's what the authorities told him to believe him, that had he been raised in a monarchy he'd be preaching the benevolence and necessity of the King and His dungeons to preserve Order. Of course he may have a few quibbles with individuals in power or with certain laws, like a Catholic who masturbates and doesn't feel bad about it, but he's still a Catholic.

But the Government really exists, I can see the Capitol and the judges and cops and sweet Obama! Yes, and the Church exists too, I can see its cathedrals and bishops and priests and Pope. And it's all based on lies, lies written in Bible/Constitution, the lie of sin/crime, dogma/law, penance/penal code, and the great lies which justify it all, the Will of God/Will of the People(all of them together) and as an individual all you have is the vote/prayer to give you the illusion of volition.

And that's why the discourse which results from trying to get the Statist to peek outside of their cage is on par with trying to get a Creationist to consider evolution.

Fred's counterparts say this:

"I read one paragraph of the Origin of Species, and I saw things I didn't believe in, so I stopped!"

And once you give a small group of people a monopoly on so-called deterrent violence, be it incarceration, the taking of labor and wealth, or physical force - how do you restrain them?

And how do you limit the scope of deterrence? By violence? Given in authority to whom, if not your already constituted monopolistic power? Do you have another body of constituted powers set aside simply to watch the first? What about them, then?

How do you qualify those aims you mentioned above? If you want a leviathan which must use punish in order to deter, or incapacitate, how do you determine what is within its power and what is not?

How do you assign it resources and personnel, in order to fulfill its allegedly deterrent or protective mission? How do you limit its ability to acquire and use persons and resources, once you grant it the sanction?

How do you define its resource acquiring powers in relation to its primary objectives? How do you keep the power it needs in order to gain and hold resources and personnel from becoming a means to capture more goods, services and people?

How do you separate its punitive functions from the persons who hold its offices or ranks of power? How do you keep its punitive power from being used to buttress and reinforce its self-maintenance ones?

In short - how do you keep your special new kind of deterring government from becoming what all governments become, the private enrichment organizations of unscrupulous and dangerous men?

Further -

What structures and institutions will you use to inculcate belief in the rightness and sanction you have given to your punitive deterring authority?

How will you teach these beliefs? Enforce them? What will you do with deviants who do not or cannot accept the justifications you offer for the sanction of monopolized violence?

To what fictional authority will you appeal? God? Society? The future? Human perfection? Justice?

How will you handle insurrectionary elements in your governed society, Fred? What will you do with zealots who believe more strongly than you intended, after a childhood and adolescence of learning and believing the justifications you have taught them in order to have a population which is remotely governable by your punitive deterring authority?

Will you appeal to their self-interest? How will you define it? What happens if their self-interest differs, or worse - deviates, from the social course for which your educational, moral, institutional and religious system as so long prepared them? How do you teach them that their self-interest is identical with that of the punitive deterring order?

In other words, Fred - how do you handle all those anti-statist, left-libertarian, syndicalist and anarchist critiques you failed to mention, consider or treat with in your original field of burning straw men?

a long time later the waiter came back, "sorry sir we're out of cream, would you like your coffee without *milk*, instead?"

Who suggested anarchism is a prophylactic for nefarious human desires and acts?

Only Fred Bethune has suggested that this is anarchism's goal.

Only Fred.

As long as we're playing a game of insult the other, I'll offer this:

Fred's bitching about anarchism is actually Fred complaining that anarchism has no use for capitalism's "economists."

OOOOPS.

No wonder he's pissed.

Part 2:

"...no use for..." in my comment above actually means "no ready market for."

And the core is what Jack said:

Your entire moral order, then, depends upon this will to punish.

Statists fear others and want to control them. Through force and punishment.

At least in capitalist states, "economists" can make a nice living reading tea leaves, erroneously.

"treat with in your original field of burning straw men?"

Hey now, take a look at what I've been arguing, even in my original post. You're against having enforced laws against murder. I've been arguing against your position, not a straw man.

Despite your heated entrance (ok, maybe partially because of it), I'm really glad that you are here arguing this. Unlike a lot of the other commenters you actually have a clear, coherent position that makes sense as a statement of anarchist beliefs. It's also the same as the one that I brought up in the original post, regarding that quote fro IOZ. I disagree with it, but that's what I asked for, and you do make what seems to be the most compelling case for it..

"And once you give a small group of people a monopoly on so-called deterrent violence, be it incarceration, the taking of labor and wealth, or physical force - how do you restrain them?"

Well, more laws obviously. Who polices the police? Other police, ideally who actually have an incentive to investigate them, unlike under the current system.

"How do you assign it resources and personnel, in order to fulfill its allegedly deterrent or protective mission? How do you limit its ability to acquire and use persons and resources, once you grant it the sanction?"

You allocate it from the government budget, as decided by another branch of government. Obviously rent-seeking and mission creep is a problem within any bureaucracy or organization where you are allocating resources.

"How do you separate its punitive functions from the persons who hold its offices or ranks of power? How do you keep its punitive power from being used to buttress and reinforce its self-maintenance ones?"

Well, that's the whole idea with the rule of law, right? On the political side, you want to design a system where the unchecked power exercised by any individual agent is minimized.

"In short - how do you keep your special new kind of deterring government from becoming what all governments become, the private enrichment organizations of unscrupulous and dangerous men?"

That's one end that the state gets used towards, but it is hardly an exhaustive account of everything that a state does. I can't say that I necessarily could eliminate corruption, but I think that you are throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

Oxtrot

I'm pissed? Really?

I'm having a ball here. And I actually do share your goal of seeing economists rendered useless and unemployed.

Fred: "You're against having enforced laws against murder. I've been arguing against your position, not a straw man."

*

No. You are still setting scarecrows afire. I am attempting to argue to you that the assertion of law has no bearing on the deterrence or punishment you see fit to derive from the belief in it.

Assume for a moment that a man strikes my son. Assume that he flees the scene of his assault, and that I did not capture him in the act.

No law on the planet can compel me to seek vengeance. No law on the planet can restrain me in the seeking of it. Only the actual, physical force of other persons can do so. And those persons do not exist in a vacuum. In the case of a solitary pursuit to stop me from revenge, they at least need to eat and build up a caloric reserve. Should they wish to prevent me from seeking vengeance, they will have to coordinate.

They will need a reliable set of resources, and a supply chain, in order to maintain a more or less permanent capacity to compel or restrain me, and others, from seeking any vengeance they do not sanction.

My argument, such as I have implied it, and when not simply poking at holes in your assumptions and argument, is this: if there will be vengeance, what would you prefer? Would you prefer a single man, equipped to handle the satisfaction of his singular desire? Or a more or less permanent punishment organization, one which has enough of a reserve of material and staff that its power, in relation to and over others, will become an object of competition and capture, since this power to compel can be used for a multitude of purpose, intended or not, as is common to most every human tool?

Fred, you seem mighty angry at anarchists. Angry dismissal is the tenor of your remarks from the origin post through the comment just above. If you're happy and having fun, your chosen words are hiding your actual stance.

Might be interesting to see you admit your actual stance. Sisyphean of me to expect that though, I'll bet. And I'm not a betting man.

"Might be interesting to see you admit your actual stance"

Huh? I've been steadily explaining my stance throughout this thread.

Fred: "Despite your heated entrance (ok, maybe partially because of it), I'm really glad that you are here arguing this. Unlike a lot of the other commenters you actually have a clear, coherent position that makes sense as a statement of anarchist beliefs. It's also the same as the one that I brought up in the original post, regarding that quote fro IOZ. I disagree with it, but that's what I asked for, and you do make what seems to be the most compelling case for it.."

It was "heated" because you wrote this:

"Since it is difficult to find any central text that all anarchists agree upon, I'm just going to start with a very basic anarchist view as found in IOZ's tagline:"

This is false. How I see social relations differs greatly from that of an agorist, such as the very thoughtful Kevin Carson. There is no basic anarchist view of the sort you proposed. If anything unites us, it's a mere rejection of the state. Which is not dissimilar to the condition of atheists, who share only a single condition, the rejection of deity. How we proceed from that rejection varies according to time and temperament.

Because I do not believe in bull shit, I called you on yours. That's all.

That out of the way, I am an asshole. I've lived long enough to arrogate to myself a willingness to offend if the alternative is a creeping obsequy, or evasive language. That's my problem, not yours. If I degrade my own case, by my temperament, I will have to live with it.

"My argument, such as I have implied it, and when not simply poking at holes in your assumptions and argument, is this: if there will be vengeance, what would you prefer? Would you prefer a single man, equipped to handle the satisfaction of his singular desire? Or a more or less permanent punishment organization, one which has enough of a reserve of material and staff that its power, in relation to and over others, will become an object of competition and capture, since this power to compel can be used for a multitude of purpose, intended or not, as is common to most every human tool?"

OK. I prefer the second. Do you prefer the first? The first is what I meant by "ad hoc vigilante justice" in my original post. How is that a scarecrow argument?

"If anything unites us, it's a mere rejection of the state. "

That's really all I'm going on here: the direct consequences of the rejection of the state, and rejection of anything that is a state in function, even if it is called another name.

Fred,

The word "vigilante" is weighted, no? It suggests, precisely, that one example is in it for the vengeance, why its counter example is ennobled by a higher purpose.

Let us counter in fact what I proposed:

A single person with the desire to seek vengeance, and armed or kitted out to such an extent that he may accomplish it.

Compared to, a more or less permanent group of persons whose sole purpose it is to punish, having set aside not only the resources to maintain this permanent capacity, but also the ability to replenish those persons and resources as needed.

You think the former is more likely to engender chaos, to exert disproportionate violence on others, to steal, to assault or to otherwise degrade another person or people's existence?

Whack-a-mole:

Huh? I've been steadily explaining my stance throughout this thread.

That would be this stance, I take it:

I'm a liberal statist, and I am an authoritarian and totalitarian, and I want to jail and oppress those who would minimize or do away with the central government.

Feel free to correct my errors of assumption.

Fred: "That's really all I'm going on here: the direct consequences of the rejection of the state, and rejection of anything that is a state in function, even if it is called another name."

The state is a fiction, Fred. That's what the rejection entails. Accepting, only, that the concept "State" is a covering hex - that it conceals a more basic reality: people clubbing together to get advantage over others, regardless of goal or aim. What one does with that rejection will vary. I think you seem to be operating on an assumption that the rejection itself necessities a mandatory set of follow up beliefs.

That's just not the case. What I do with my refusal to believe the fiction of the State does not entirely resemble what blog friend JRB (ladypoverty) does with his rejection. We share a starting point, not necessarily a set of goals.

Damn it: "...necessitates..."

"I'm a liberal statist, and I am an authoritarian and totalitarian, and I want to jail and oppress those who would minimize or do away with the central government."

Yep, it's a shocker all right. I'm not a libertarian.

How absurd!

Whack-a-mole!

Perhaps, Fred - we can come at this from another direction.

What is a "failed state?"

It is a group of people with some measure of violent retributive authority who have lost or are losing the capacity to replenish the self-maintenance resources, and have therefore lost or are losing their ability to control the persons and territory over which they formerly had power.

You cannot separate the self-propagation of "the state" from its punitive powers. It is those punitive powers which give the ruling club, and its competing factions, the ability to take labor and resources from others, in order to maintain themselves in power.

"The state" must always punish, and always have the capacity to punish, and always have the ability to fund its capacity to punish, or it loses adherence, and adherents. It begins to fail.

This is why, I think, power invariably comes to have what I have called elsewhere the "stable form." No matter what you intend for your government, its factions and members will at some point along its life cycle, and in often flaunting spite of the so-called rule of law, abandon those functions which limit their ability to maintain their power and their access to resources.

FB says:

“So coercively imposed rules are compatible with anarchism if they are decided upon collectively at a low enough level? How is the right of the group to exercise coercion over the individual legitimate? How are the principles decided upon collectively and how are they enforced? How is the resulting system not what Al calls " a state by any other name"

FB, these are all good questions, are you asking them in good faith? What I mean is that if you were really interested in these questions, you would get some experience with an anarchist community. That is the only way you figure out these questions you are asking.

Try the Quakers. They take anyone, even Episcopalians, and you don’t even ever have to speak (and maybe that is why liberals can never be anarchists).

P.S. Dude, FB, really. You keep using the fact that you have no experience of anarchist practice to assert that it is impossible. It’s like me saying “How do you raise a baby? They need to be fed, clothed, and I do not see any magical way to provide food and clothing, etc. to the baby! Therefore raising babies must be impossible!” It’s ridiculous.

Solar Hero

Fred's counterparts say this:

"I read one paragraph of the Origin of Species, and I saw things I didn't believe in, so I stopped!"

Yeah Fred, we call it philosophy. It usually starts with some assertions that are contrary to common sense, but then – by reading it – you get the argument or you don’t. You’re not even trying.

And BTW: Although I love the hating going on right now, one difference I hold with a lot of SMBIVA’s posters is that I don’t despise liberals. In fact, I even like fundamentalist Christians, you know, I’ve got this weird belief that people should be able to believe whatever they want. Doesn’t stop me from pointing out inconsistencies, especially when a belief contravenes a desired outcome. Hell, I get paid $100/hr to point these things out, and I’m giving it to you all free, free!

SHero

"Yeah Fred, we call it philosophy. It usually starts with some assertions that are contrary to common sense, but then – by reading it – you get the argument or you don’t. You’re not even trying."

Yeah, I'm aware of philosophy -- political philosophy, even. I've read a book or two, but I don't want to get too crazy now with the assertions of personal authority from experience, so I'll leave it at that.

"get some experience with an anarchist community. That is the only way you figure out these questions you are asking."

oddly i dreamed last night that i suggested the same. there must a somewhat-durable collectivish group somewhere nearby that would enjoy smart company.

"If anything unites us, it's a mere rejection of the state. Which is not dissimilar to the condition of atheists, who share only a single condition, the rejection of deity"
delicious irony in this eh ??

the state and the god head
two figments of the collective mind

both on the same tumbril
bound
for the same chopping block

craftky hume suggested to anarchists the state relies if not on broad consent
at least on elite opinion

"NOTHING appears more surprizing to those, who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few; and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers. When we enquire by what means this wonder is effected, we shall find, that, as FORCE is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion. It is therefore, on opinion only that government is founded; and this maxim extends to the most despotic and most military governments, as well as to the most free and most popular. The soldan of EGYPT, or the emperor of ROME, might drive his harmless subjects, like brute beasts, against their sentiments and inclination: But he must, at least, have led his mamalukes, or prætorian bands, like men, by their opinion "

imagine if this concentrated elite
with its concise set of contradictory interets
were to be burst asunder
without a succeeding elite reimposing rule by solidarity of exploiting class interests

problem commonly noticed here
by Clio's fan club:

the revolutionary society
in the process of self organization
at some point or sequence of points
bumps up against emergent laws of action by these dastardly
heterogenious horde-multitude of human souls

to outlaw reflextive authority
ie hierarchy is quickly seen to outlaw
sufficient efficiency and effectiveness
for social survival in a encircling world of class states

"The idea that the State doesn't serve the interests of the capitalist ruling class in the so-called private economy is incredibly naive, and completely opposite to repeated demonstrations in the real world of precisely that."

HV, that supports my point, not yours, which was that the state is the prime mover of capitalism.

"Fuck Sweden?," meanwhile? So, you're willing to forgo changing the USA, for instance, to that model because you can't do smack there? That's some lovely stuff, and, yes, quite illustrative of anarchism in action. Childish.

In any event, FB, IOZ has embraced Chomsky and Proudhon, so I think the conclusion here is just that anarchism is like Marxism or musical genres: 80 percent junk and 20 percent gems.

I'll hang my hat on Chomsky's peg any day of the week, and it is certainly healthy to retain strong skepticism of any state. The question is whether one preserves the ability to assess institutional contexts and realistic paths to a better future.

The question is whether one preserves the ability to assess institutional contexts and realistic paths to a better future.

Huh?

Is it the question because anarchism is scary and therefore preserving the state must be assumed?

it is the QUESTION because if it is NOT a question it is sardonic and everyone knows instinctively to direct wiseasses the long way around when they ask for directions.

Say it ain't so, hapa!

A similarly ill-informed dude who protested the Merton Center with a sign saying "Peace is not the same as anarchy!" dropped the "But, in this anarchist utopia, who'll stop the Charlie Mansons?" line on me recently. Seriously, in this statist utopia, who'll stop a trite argument defending the status quo injustice system from repeatedly offending? You can't incapacitate it, it'll just pop out of somebody else's poor mouth - think of the children! One can but hope threads like this are helping keep the streets safe from maniacs.

I'm'a take my anarchy and finish my coffee and leave the juvenile utopianism to you, Fred. Good luck with that beneficent world government, amigo!

"You utterly failed to cut to the core of the argument."

Ah yes. So the core of the argument would be that "states" are very narrowly defined as any collective body which has a monopoly on violence. Nevermind that anarchists do not define the state as such. Then when they advocate a solution to a social problem which would require some minimal amount of coercion, such as exile or mandatory treatment for the criminally insane, you can ridicule them for resorting to state formations!

You silly anarchists! Don't you see how you contradict yourselves within the narrow set of terms I allow! You fools!

Similarly with: "Don't anarchists think that all authority is illegitimate?" No, they don't.

So the key here is to define anarchist beliefs and associated terms so narrowly that it is impossible to have a reasonable or rational anarchism. Then dismiss it all as a bunch of hogwash. Well played, sir!

Josh, I use the basic Weberian definition of the state. I don't think that it is especially narrow, or incompatible with the word "state" as it is used by anarchists

The Weberian definition differs from mine substantially. I consider the Weberian monopoly a small part—a significant part to be sure, but not the whole story.

It's interesting (in a disturbing way) that the rulers of the state don't confine their understanding of their monopoly to violence alone, but also to social welfare. Food Not Bombs comes in for harassment all the time. They're as kind and gentle as can be. Hostility towards them, towards the Friends, towards any peaceful meliorists brings the fury of the state.

This a major digression, and barely topical, but as no one has successfully asserted a monopoly on legitimate discourse...

I like the general lefty response to the state's asserted monopoly on direct control and delegation of legitimate social welfare. It's the easiest monopoly to break, and the one area in which you can safely say that capability equates to intent. Perhaps pursuing it is the best way past the logjams of anarchists versus reds, too.

IT'S ANARCHY IN HERE!

"The question is whether one preserves the ability to assess institutional contexts and realistic paths to a better future.

Huh?"

In other words, Oxy, how exactly does one oppose the state as the state?

Libertarians come close.

Anarchists want the state to shut down, correct? How does one accomplish that? Do tell? Wait until there's a mass movement against the existence of government? In a society where the government is the main protection against capitalists, even as it also their main weapon?

And then there poverty/population and war. How does one imagine decent outcomes there without strong states?

I'm sad that this is the level of discussion at which the left comes out to play.

Correction: And then there poverty/population and war. How does one imagine decent outcomes there without a strong global state?

I perhaps missed your reply, Fred, when I asked:

"You think the former is more likely to engender chaos, to exert disproportionate violence on others, to steal, to assault or to otherwise degrade another person or people's existence?"

In other words, Oxy, how exactly does one oppose the state as the state?

I find it amusing that you are playing coy on this one.

You don't know how?

Maybe you've been an adult too long. Maybe you grew up in a totalitarian household where your imagination was stifled from an early age, and your compliance assured with physical violence and emotional/psychological abuse?

Such people have a bizarre inability to imagine themselves having any autonomy.

Most of the rest of us humans understand autonomy intuitively, as a matter of survival instinct. Maybe your life is too comfortable.

i must say now we're at entry 237
u anarchist hornets
might try to persuade rather then bombard

i didn't see fb closing his mind
i saw u hotttentots
spear chucking
and baying at the red harvest moon
i admire super cranky mojo
but only against the class enemy

"I'm sad that this is the level of discussion at which the left comes out to play."

the left ???

i admire super cranky mojo
but only against the class enemy

Can't say I care much about "class" warring, Marxy Paine!

Amusing that Bethune comes out of the box spewing bullshit and provocation, and you chasten those who bristle at Bethune's bullshit.

Is this some kind of union-analog among armchair economists? A guild, perhaps?

Fred stopped responding when given what he wanted.

"A single person with the desire to seek vengeance, and armed or kitted out to such an extent that he may accomplish it.

Compared to, a more or less permanent group of persons whose sole purpose it is to punish, having set aside not only the resources to maintain this permanent capacity, but also the ability to replenish those persons and resources as needed.

You think the former is more likely to engender chaos, to exert disproportionate violence on others, to steal, to assault or to otherwise degrade another person or people's existence?"

I think the correct contrast to a monopoly on violence exercised by a designated subset of the population would be a group of people (a city, a nation, whatever) who all reserve the right to exercise force however they individually see fit, rather than a singular person.

I think that the scenario with the punitive arm of government would actually entail less violence, coercion, injustice and chaos than the every-man-for-himself scenario.

So you get to tell me how to ask my questions now, too? You weren't content telling me what I believed?

There's one group of people

You are comparing 2 policies

One allows single people (all of them) to exercise force for vengeance

The second allows a certain subset of the population to exercise that force.

You want me to decide between the potential damage done by the whole group of agents in scenario 2, but only one single person in scenario one, despite the policy applying to everyone. I'm saying that the proper comparison is to everyone exercising vengeance as they see fit, not just one person.

You really don't see the problem there?

The present system clearly has all the advantages in the full spectrum of what humans can do, socially.

Get that through your thick head!

It just needs a bit of tinkering. Cops are our friends, not our enemies!

************

Well, it's keen that FB and op are channeling Glenn Greenwald today. I dig it.

I get it, Fred. You want to ask questions and have them answered on your terms, but won't do it for others. Not all that surprising.

Since I'm not you - I'll attempt to address your dodge:

I am not comparing policies. I am comparing order of magnitude.

Ok, I think that a society made up of ""single [people] with the desire to seek vengeance, and armed or kitted out to such an extent that he may accomplish it." would "engender chaos, to exert disproportionate violence on others, to steal, to assault or to otherwise degrade another person or people's existence" to a level that is an order of magnitude worse than in one where you have "a more or less permanent group of persons whose sole purpose it is to punish, having set aside not only the resources to maintain this permanent capacity, but also the ability to replenish those persons and resources as needed."

I prefer the latter.

Does that work for you?

Given the choice between being flayed alive, and being drawn & quartered, FB chooses to go out in fours rather than filets.

FB, permit me to suggest that you actually asked a question too friendly to anarchism. Crime is caused by class, not state repression. State repression, which anarchists always exaggerate, is the failed cure, not the disease.

Equalize wealth and crime shrivels. Abolish the state and it runs rampant, except in some far-distance nirvana.

Now, enough of this crapola!

Dawson, do you know anything about anarchism? Nearly all anarchists would agree that crime is caused by class and state repression both.

What is it with you people? (I mean, I know from IOZ's joint that Dawson's just an anti-anarchist troll, but FB? C'mon bro!) The internet at your fingertips and you can't be bothered to google for ten seconds to find basic answers to your questions. Preferring instead to throw out straw men and the most cliched stereotypes of anarchist thought. (anarchy = chaos and mob rule, anarchists are against all authority and organization, some random quote IOZ posted, "I met this street punk with a Circle A on his jacket and THAT guy was an idiot.", etc.)

Wikipedia, Anarchist FAQ, Anarchy Archives. Not to mention, y'know, books. It's all there. Don't you pride yourselves on being thoughtful people? Aren't you in the habit of looking things up when you have a question about them? Isn't that sort of basic inquiry type stuff?

This is a true display of how disheveled the left is in this empire.

Meanwhile, permit me to reply to "josh."

Fuck you, josh with a capital.

I know more about anarchism than you do. I'd wager my life on that.

In fact, this is one of the great hoaxes of anarchism -- insisting that nobody knows you, while refusing to be known by any particular answers to any particular questions.

Bottom line: The greatest anarchist in human history is Noam Chomsky.

When was the last time Chomsky professed his own anarchism?

That's right: Decades ago. For a reason. Because of actual anarchists.

Grow the fuck up.

(credits)

'"states" are very narrowly defined as any collective body which has a monopoly on violence'
Modern states. Pre-modern states have to live with all sorts of private violence, feuds, duels and so on. And lots of modern states fail to exercise the monopoly they claim with the result that people have to resort to something else.
Absence of state or a weak state does not equal a situation in which anything goes.
This is not an anarchist argument (I'm not one), just an objection an inaccurate statement.

"Can't say I care much about "class" warring"
quintessential oxy

buyer beware !!!!

"anti-anarchist troll"
sign me up !!!!
but only to this extent
its a veil for
some coven of nasty swaning
self lovers
the attacks on the reality of the corporate dominated state
though attacks over generalized
made abstract universal and timeles
are at the moment while we have such a state
fraternal
chomsky comes to mind
and kropotkin

btw
mao was an anarchist before a marxist
as was this humble convert
anarchism is a the benignh sunny
quixotic face of petite bourgois ego revolt
that if it doesn't morph becomes hyde like nihilism

nothing big about rejecting
"the state "
per se

the jehovah witnesses
have essentially the chomsky take on "the state"

they however lack a sense of their own celestial hierarchy
as menace to liberation

Al,

"The Weberian definition differs from mine substantially. I consider the Weberian monopoly a small part—a significant part to be sure, but not the whole story."

i think that most people would just distinguish between the (Weberian) state proper, and the welfare state, which seems to be what you're describing.

FB, yeah, that occurred to me after I posted. I'm trying to puzzle something out and often wind up thinking out loud.

Still digressing, or redigressing, I'm absorbed by the de facto monopoly on social welfare. The state's rulers make some noises about requiring the population at large to take responsibility for it. But the rulers also act to thwart autonomous efforts. I think that could fall under the Weberian rubric, with an extended interpretation, i.e. the ability to provide basic needs equates to the ability to field a forceful challenge. Their concern seems excessive to me. It could be vindictive irrationality. Or it could be a genuine alarm.

Much of this discussion -- maybe all of it -- turns on the speculative question of what a stateless society would or could be like. The anti-anarchists are convinced it would be a howling wilderness of rage and terror. The various strains of anarchist thought (to the extent that I understand anarchist thought, which is not very great) seem to agree that it would or could be quite nice, under at least some political/cultural circumstances, or at any rate a big improvement on state society.

Both, or course, are speculations. What examples do we have of stateless societies?

There's Somalia, as one commenter suggested early on. But that's a bit problematic. Somalia's predicament arises largely from the malign activity of other states.

There are still examples of so-called "pre-state" societies in the world, and we know about others from history. They mostly don't seem so bad. But there's no internet, no antibiotics, no anaesthesia for surgery -- lots of stuff that most of us would rather not do without. So it isn't clear what they demonstrate, though they do tend to refute the anti-anarchist howling-wilderness theory.

People sometimes cite the anarchist areas in revolutionary Spain, or even the Paris Commune, but those histories tend to bolster Owen's point: how could a stateless society maintain itself in a world of states.

Anarchists might reply -- and if they did, it would be a telling point -- that we also have no existence proof for a benign state; every state we know about is a vehicle of oppression and exploitation.

They might also reply -- and I would sympathize if they did -- that neither side actually has any road map for the future. Neither anarchists nor anti-anarchists can establish with any certainty answers to any of the how-would-you questions that have dogged this discussion.

So on balance it seems like a reasonable position that you attack the concrete actual enemy. The actually existing state is unquestionably a menace. This is surely something that most of us can agree on, anarchist or not.

Speculation about future society has begun to seem a rather idle pursuit to me. I feel pretty sure that if the species manages to get itself to some better kind of social organization than we have now, it won't look much like any of our fantasies. Among Clio's many charming qualities is her predilection for surprises.

“State repression, which anarchists always exaggerate, is the failed cure, not the disease.”

This is the crux of the disagreement here, but instead of making the slightest attempt to demonstrate or argue your position, you’re content just asserting it—because, well, because apparently you just know more than we do and we should just shut our “childish” mouths and listen to the sensible adult in the room.

Seriously, Dawson, this display of paternalistic condescension is exactly what so many people find offputting about “the left.” Just because they’re not running to embrace your preferred brand of authoritarianism doesn’t mean they’re idiots.

Al brings up a good point about the state’s attempts to thwart autonomous welfare. I think this is a perfect illustration of the idea that the state—any state—is first and foremost about controlling people. Welfare is a secondary concern, if that.

"have no existence proof for a benign state; every state we know about is a vehicle of oppression and exploitation"

of course not !!!
there are none
once one defines the state as the consolidated power of one class over another or many others

why else call the class successor state
a dictatorship of the proles
the withering away stage clearly follows a protracted interval of prole class dictatorship
all states are nasty

the prole state so long as it doesn't
is just "our state " not their state

we self proclaimed lenin ites
strive to smash this state
and erect a the workers state
at some point
morph into a burger state of some sort

what distinguishes us is not our statism
but our partyism

marvelous garble there at the end
of that last comment...even by my standards

i'll not correct it however
given its intrinsic lack of importance
whether the prole state morphs
into yet another burger state
-- ala all so far --
or finds ways past present burger choices in the ever forking road to socialism
only to "mes up " further down the road

sum of past thread comments
insured to be long and garbled enough to ignore in good conscience :

getting into a free for all
defining the word anarchism is ...anarchic

i have a fairly straight forward definition
of the state as a histortical development
connected to the emergence of socieities with antagonistic classes

tribal outfits have no states
but do have institutions

obviously many arnarchists have bigger game in their sights
then just the class cloven society based on exploitation of class by class
alas i can go no further then that
Clio gives me no guidance
and my imagination has proven faulty on occasion
"does the existence of the state necessarily engender imperialist behaviour? I don't think so"
lots between this comment and that one back up there
but i haven't yet read all the in betweens

this is a key question

different social structures organizations and institutions
drive different state actions
the use of imperial motive with regard to our prsent yankee state prolly is best seen as a metaphor
just as our republic wasn't roman neither is our empire

the drives of multinational corporations today
are the raison d'/etre of the yankee armada and yankee crusades
making the globe safe for free flying MNCs

an era of exclusionary franchises by great powers over pre capitalist chunks
of the globe are gone obviously
in fact classic victortian great power rivalry has fallen on meager times
the hyper power centered global for the moment leaves uncle basically un challenged by any other power ..outside that power's margin

if one wants a comparison there were intervals when Rome in its imperial glory faced only broken rivals on its margins and of course
tribal hordes and restive captive nations

-------------

to answer fb
the state as i see it has one duty
preserve the class power
of the exploiting class internally

however this never seems to suffice
we get expansion and we get domination
the liquidation of nations and the oppression of nations
state based nations tend to get conquered
rules taxed and regulated
whereas tribal nations get liquidated
settled on gobbled up not just vanquished

occupiers and settlers ??
the range over time ...

colony to corporation
uncle and its delightful mimi me give us quite up to date examples of the range of action

"elides the question of class domination of the State."
often a folly of anarcho-moralists

------

fb
i think u might aim a bit more specifically
at anarchic "solutions "
to our modern social organization

to abstractly pose challenges to the good life left unresolved by anarch chefs recipes for our better future becomes endless eh ??...

tribal society has existed for what ??
...30 thousand years ??

what does the latest reconstruction say ??

and they still exist

authority and the state are not one
legit authority is a co out distnction obviously
how might that differe from good gubmint democratically guided gubmint

---------

that we have bropwning state machines seems a reform issue to me
i can imagine green states more easily
then none waring states eh ??

----------
by a marxist definition tribes are stateless societies
they establish conclusively
if various chhallenges are posed
as basic tasks to be resolved by institutions
challenges that emerge directly from
the functions of household level activity
including murder
well we can see these fall easily within stateless society's compass of competence

----

btw fb i love the fact you found a can of worms this site really grooves on
to galvinize
our herd of one off
proprietary slaughterers
of dirty nite crawler meme spills
still requires picking one that can quickly morph into a chaotic chorus
of moral stridency
where these folks are most comfortable
singing along and against
and doin dozens on

Posted by op | October 18, 2010 9:03 AM

Posted on October 18, 2010 09:03

op:
fb
i think gangs and cults
make a far better counter example then
psycho paths and chiold moelster film directors even though here such personaloized vivid household level hauntings and witch hunts seem de rigour if large out pourings are wanted

Posted by op | October 18, 2010 9:06 AM

Posted on October 18, 2010 09:06

op:
"Creating a society which is politically, socially, and economically egalitarian would remove most of this violent crime."

it wouldn't be crime it would be tribal war

Posted by op | October 18, 2010 9:08 AM

Posted on October 18, 2010 09:08

op:
we have a lot of history here
non state society in interface with state society

failed states like somalia spontaneously
develop clan war type formations
armed and supported as much as
disarmed and destroyed by state society
interveners

russia in the mid 90's looks like
pre stateless society
teeetering on the edge of disolution
the integration of sub elements breaking down
into anarchy in the naughty sense

a loiting is a bauetiful moment
but it soon self organizes into gangs and pigeons
all this is
quite different from revolutionary society
which is of course the pre figuration beloved of anarchos

the blush of catalonia '36
that enchants anarchos eh ??

as much as their
radical good hearted fool's alamo
kronstadt
fills their eye with bloody fury

tribal society because of its scale has odd souls with sharp anti social edges to deal with but not waves of crime or serial killers

the warring of tribes may well sublate murderous tendencies eh ??

the people in arms is indeed antithetical to the state
the means of force are generalized eh ??
a militia in the end must become secondary to a compact state directed force
or the shay's rebellion whisky rebellion dorrs war etc stuff gets hairy

unions in fact challenged the state structure sufficiently on occasion to require federal troops eh ??

we see the edges of state power often but the state if it retains the ultimate gun barrel ..

lebanon to me is wildly instructive
the hezzy are lovely
and yet if their meme packet could be
any more antoithetical to anarcho secular boho stylings i can't see how

roundhead outcomes require round heads
not lumpen cavaliers

Nietzsche:

my my
that old boy
quite the innate superiority sort
we are born equally free but not equal eh ??

some of us deserve to be slaves

marcus you are like garfield the cat
drawling way at opie

http://s.ecrater.com/stores/41425/4728cfaf6770c_41425n.jpg

"If anything unites us, it's a mere rejection of the state. Which is not dissimilar to the condition of atheists, who share only a single condition, the rejection of deity"
delicious irony in this eh ??

the state and the god head
two figments of the collective mind

both on the same tumbril
bound
for the same chopping block

craftky hume suggested to anarchists the state relies if not on broad consent
at least on elite opinion

"NOTHING appears more surprizing to those, who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few; and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers. When we enquire by what means this wonder is effected, we shall find, that, as FORCE is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion. It is therefore, on opinion only that government is founded; and this maxim extends to the most despotic and most military governments, as well as to the most free and most popular. The soldan of EGYPT, or the emperor of ROME, might drive his harmless subjects, like brute beasts, against their sentiments and inclination: But he must, at least, have led his mamalukes, or prætorian bands, like men, by their opinion "

imagine if this concentrated elite
with its concise set of contradictory interets
were to be burst asunder
without a succeeding elite reimposing rule by solidarity of exploiting class interests

problem commonly noticed here
by Clio's fan club:

the revolutionary society
in the process of self organization
at some point or sequence of points
bumps up against emergent laws of action by these dastardly
heterogenious horde-multitude of human souls

to outlaw reflextive authority
ie hierarchy is quickly seen to outlaw
sufficient efficiency and effectiveness
for social survival in a encircling world of class states
i must say now we're at entry 237
u anarchist hornets
might try to persuade rather then bombard

i didn't see fb closing his mind
i saw u hotttentots
spear chucking
and baying at the red harvest moon
i admire super cranky mojo
but only against the class enemy

Posted by op | October 18, 2010 8:48 PM

Posted on October 18, 2010 20:48

op:
"I'm sad that this is the level of discussion at which the left comes out to play."

the left ???

"Can't say I care much about "class" warring"
quintessential oxy

buyer beware !!!!

Posted by op | October 19, 2010 7:54 AM

Posted on October 19, 2010 07:54

op:
"anti-anarchist troll"
sign me up !!!!
but only to this extent
its a veil for
some coven of nasty swaning
self lovers
the attacks on the reality of the corporate dominated state
though attacks over generalized
made abstract universal and timeles
are at the moment while we have such a state
fraternal
chomsky comes to mind
and kropotkin

btw
mao was an anarchist before a marxist
as was this humble convert
anarchism is a the benignh sunny
quixotic face of petite bourgois ego revolt
that if it doesn't morph becomes hyde like nihilism

nothing big about rejecting
"the state "
per se

the jehovah witnesses
have essentially the chomsky take on "the state"

they however lack a sense of their own celestial hierarchy
as menace to liberation

fb /moray Al

the welfare state is defined by its robust transfer system
this is based ultimately
on the taxing power
ie complusory transfer
which is indeed legitimate force
in one of its purely civic forms

our anarcho lawyerites might prefer to notice the force of a court of some sort
an older civic form for state action
roughly at the level of the simple market place

While op and FB pinch-hit for Greenwald, MD pinch-hits for Chomsky.

Appeal to authority!

Revere the experts, you anarchist dunces! -- for they knew more than MD, op and FB. The trio tells us so, that they fear their own authority, and need others to tell them how to live!

Sad, seeing adults behaving as 8-year-olds.

I'm telling Mommy!

You really don't see the problem there?

It's horrible!

The State kills more than one person can kill.

FB sees this:

Anarchism = a nation of Carl Panzrams.

Google that name, FB. See your reflection in the mirror.

I've got the bit between my teeth on something, and I'm going to run with it a bit.

Regardless of the definition, our state claims a monopoly on legitimacy itself. In fact, our state's rulers legitimize us. We are not granting them any kind of meaningful consent. We're hectored into making poor choices. This is fundamentally opposed to republicanism, the notional source of their own legitimacy, and one of the reasons I don't vote.

PS to op --

My quarrel with "class" warfare is caused by my feeling the same confusion over "class" that you, FB and MD state regarding over "anarchy."

I'm pretty sure that the Glossy Karl Squad would desire a fast dispatch of the GKS-identified "anarchists" much as Our Saintly Noble Obama and the Brave Donkeycongress are dispatching dastardly furriners 'round the planet.

The POWER OF THE STATE, motherfucker!

"The actually existing state is unquestionably a menace. This is surely something that most of us can agree on, anarchist or not."

I don't think so, MJS, for two reasons.

First of all, the post office, driver's licensing, kindergarten teaching, and minimum wages laws are all part of the state. Those things are not most people's enemy, despite anarchists attempts to paint schooling as repression.

Which brings me to the second point: "Opposing the state" is something entirely different than opposing the Pentagon, which is also different than opposing particular wars. "Opposing the state" means opposing government, all government.

Meanwhile, Joe, buddy, this is a debate inside the left, not an appeal to the masses. And you can call us socialist patricians, just like we can call you anarchists double-secret patricians. Chiding people to "oppose the state" -- go on out in the streets and see how down-to-earth people think that is.

Finally, here's a question for all y'all anarchos:

How does big business marketing fit into your claim that the state is the main enemy? What's the anarchist explanation of that $2 trillion/year endeavor?

Oxy, are you kidding? We skeptics want you anarchists jailed or offed? Jesus, dude, get a grip!

We're debating analysis and strategy for the left, as friends and allies.

Shit, I thought you thought I worship Noam Chomsky. He is an anarchist, though he has basically stopped talking about that, almost certainly because he has learned that it is indeed a question for the future, after we figure out how we're going to survive long enough to get to it. I want him gone? Not hardly.

What we need is more pragmatism and less posing, whether we're Marxists or anarchists or Keynesians or some fusion of the three.

"Get a grip" is not substantive, but I realize that you have to work with what you have, rhetorically -- which is asymptotically approaching zilch.

oh horrible. someone has accused leftie anarchists of not caring about private institutional power. horrible & dishonest & dumb.

md

bare with me here
i'm an unreconstructed marxist

--my authority figure ???--

"the post office, driver's licensing, kindergarten teaching, and minimum wages laws are all part of the state"

yes our state
but i think u may be
conflating functions arrogated to itself
by the modern burger state
with the state's essential functions
qua state
ie those that are sustaining
the class structure

arrogating to itself
collective activities
that exist in some form or other where appropriate
in all society with or without classes

----------------------
"How does big business marketing fit into your claim that the state is the main enemy?"

nice point
the classes are each others main enemies
in class society

since one class may control the state
the state is the class
that dominant class exploits
in that society's main enemy

one can glance at the inevitability of class antagonisms
for classes not directly involved
in an exploitative relationship

in ours those are the petite burgers
the home base
for fascists liberals social democrats and .........anarchists alike

oxy when losing a trick tips over the table

hell even when flustered in mid play ....
he tips over tables

naughty naughty oxy ****

i know you pride yourself on forensic skills
but skills don't replace substantive strength

**** btw
parent child dialectics get us no where

hapa "private institutional power"
in our case the contemporary corporation

some anarchos get to hierarchy
as the main enemy
.....eventually
but as they clarify their target they begin to lose their trump card ...and become nihilists

i know you pride yourself on forensic skills
but skills don't replace substantive strength

Nay, good sir knave. My pride is only in being the best CF Oxtrot we have and know. That, and in spotting charlatans (cough cough Greenwald cough cough). Neither seems a prideful endeavor, neither seems to advance a state of hubris-grace symbiotic perspective.

I'm trying to help yinz/y'all/youse see the thing, though. Rhetorical flourishes held in abeyance for the sake of advancing the Spirit of Competition. It's not competition when it's one-sided.

http://pezcandy.blogspot.com/2010/10/more-impasse-solutions-via-national.html

op: a final non-eugenical cure for hierarchical thinking? weren't basketball players wearing an armband for that last year?

oxy as self cherishing egotist :

"My pride is only in being the best CF Oxtrot we have and know"
btw
apropos
Greenwald
i find him
a tedious complex of contradictory provisional motives and partial insights

pale unreliable
strutting pampered
self important
and yet
ceaselessly
a hawker of worn wares

post enlightenment pygmy

at once craven and rash

Note, op, that CF Oxtrot is not my real name. With a little imagination, I suppose one might understand what "the best CF Oxtrot" actually means.

The Freudian slant is amusing, but not entirely accurate. Ego? Superego? Id? Or just a fictional construct compiled from encounters with various people in my lifetime?

In any case... Greenwald? Who dares criticize the supposed legal authority of Our Constitutional Lawyer, anyway? At his present rate, Greenwald will soon replace Alan Dershowitz as the nation's favorite media-friendly lawyer who will say anything for a dime.

"Speculation about future society has begun to seem a rather idle pursuit to me. I feel pretty sure that if the species manages to get itself to some better kind of social organization than we have now, it won't look much like any of our fantasies. Among Clio's many charming qualities is her predilection for surprises."

The rub.

But, this small mouthed variety of anarchist has grown genuinely tired of New Trotsky's trotting out old objections to futures they imagine, and then impute to their anarchist opponents.

I don't propose a stateless future. I propose enmity to the State we have, and to the idea that a future state, or a better state, or a state where men magically discover their better angels can follow if only we tweak the current one well enough...

No anarchist led resistance has ever avoided alliance with the state. Beyond that, it's only theory, as flawed as anything found among the worst marxist dogmatics, and certainly as authoritarian, given the tendency of anarchist groups to decide ahead of the curve which "direct action" best suits the masses without consulting with anyone.

Is every action or decision which doesn't poll and seek consensus from all [however many] billion persons "authoritarian"?

"confusion over "class" "
oxy

why not reject the substance of this word class
out of hand
anarcho nominalism

like maggie my love rejected similar
social abstractions

http://www.presidentsrus.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/reagan-thatcher.jpg

http://www.infoshop.org/library/images/9/95/Max2vraipourweb4.jpg

max stirner might be a better patron saint for
our oxy maroon

and maybe
our 'as the crow flakes ' too

why not reject the substance of this word class
out of hand
anarcho nominalism

It would suit me fine, but sadly there's a whole lot of people who believe the word is durable and instructive on the issue of social power.

Most of 'em probably haven't read Paul Fussell's book by the same name and if they did, they probably hated it.

PS to op --

I like how you suggest I need a role model or patron saint. Yes, thinking for myself is hard work, and I'm clearly not up to the task.

Thank gawd-amighty Glossy Karl and Naomi Klein and Noam Chomsky can do my thinking for me. What a country!

Pipe down.

oxy i'm glad you missed
the irony of that comment
iconphobic that you are

there's a goethe quote
on u think for yourselfers
some where

my glued up post 60 synaptics
have occluded its retrieval

i'd hate to have u consider yourself
an incidental social construction

Put the pipe down? There's a piper down? The effluent pipe points downward?

Those stalkers are clever gits.