mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
To me as a former anarchist, it is an ideal to take into account, but it is not practical other in some adapted "lite" version.
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Are You a Candidate for Anarchism?
- Thread starter Secret Chief
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To me as a former anarchist, it is an ideal to take into account, but it is not practical other in some adapted "lite" version.
Secret Chief
Vetted Member
Did you live the life of an anarchist?
Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
There's something to be said about independent self reliant people.
I think I would like an anarchist system with some restraint and support thrown in to prevent it just enough from being out of control.
Anarchy as I see it is true freedom, unfettered and wild as nature is.
an anarchist
Your local loco.
So I read a chapter from my ancap book called “Law and Order”. It covers the theoretical creation of private defense insurance agencies (DIA) in a stateless free market society. This is what I’ll explain for starters. More chapters to read though!
First off, 2 things.
1. Economists universally agree that all monopolies are bad for the consumer.
2. The state has a monopoly on the production of security, law and order.
Think of all the non violent offenders in the U.S. prison system.
so with all things ancap, this is all theoretical.
In the absence of a state providing policemen and law, a new industry would arise. This is Defense Insurance Agencies. DIA’s would offer clientele protection, as well promise of legal protection, and restitution for any lost goods in the event of a crime. The client would pay a monthly premium, as well as agree to stipulations on his conduct. Criminal behavior may result in higher premiums or DIA’s refusing to cover an individual at all. Economic pressure would incentive peaceful interactions in this way.
Incentive is the key to the free market society. Competing defense agencies would all have the incentive to provide socially acceptable justice and law.
Okay I’ll try to be as concise and non confusing as possible, but I’m still learning this so bear with me
Hypothetical time
Let’s say Bob is covered by the DIA, Shield, and gets mugged and loses his bike. His DIA sends private defense agents to the scene, but unfortunately the mugger got away. The DIA would likely offer restitution for the lost good, and would proceed to investigate the case. Their investigation leads them to believe Terry was the culprit. Agents of the DIA confront Terry and demand he pay restitution for the value of the bike, as well as the cost of the investigation. Terry refuses, claiming he is innocent. Because the viability of a DIA is dependent on reputation in a market system in which there are competing DIAs, Shield would be incentivized to act in accordance to society’s preference of justice. So, they would not falsely prosecute Terry. Let’s say after cross referencing Terry’s testimony, Shield still believes him to be guilty. The DIA would likely get a neutral third party to arbitrate the case. these judicial third parties would likewise be competing with one another. They would be incentivized to arbitrate impartially and fairly. DIA’s reputation would be dependent on which judicial parties they associate with as well. So, if Terry is uninsured and refuses to cooperate, the DIA would be within their legal right to auction off Terry’s private property for restitution. The DIA would be incentivized to only do this if Terry is for sure guilty, as if they act in the wrong and wrongly punish an innocent man, this would damage their reputation and they would lose clientele as well as associations with reputable parties. If Terry had no means to pay, the DIA can put him in a privately owned work camp until restitution is paid. Work camps would be dependent on reputation as well, and would be incentivized to be humane, as to get business from various DIA’s.
Let’s say, however, Terry is covered by a DIA, Hammer Defense, and calls them to say he has been falsely accused. After their investigation, they conclude that he is not guilty. They share their findings with Shield, but they remain unconvinced. Both DIA’s would agree on a neutral third party to arbitrate the case.
Let’s say Terry and Bob were both covered by Shield. They would have both had to agree to standards of conduct when signing up for Shield, so Shield would be free to prosecute Terry and get restitution for his criminal behavior.
I can go on but I think I’ve said enough to illustrate how law would work in theory.
A key point is that there is no victimless crimes unlike the current system. Nobody would pay for protection against a victimless crime.
More chapters to read, but I felt law and order was a good start for this discussion. The next chapter is Defense and Security, which goes into detail on how exactly DIA’s would offer this. I’ll keep adding to this thread I think about the theoretical world of Ancapistan.
Feel free to attack this hypothetical
an anarchist
Your local loco.
Next chapter didn’t add too much. Just gonna flesh out my previous post really.
First off, individuals would generally be capable of defending themselves in ancapistan. DIA’s would incentivize customers with lower premiums if they could prove capable of defending themselves. Perhaps there would be lower premiums if the people are armed too, as there would be no state restriction on gun ownership.
A concern is that a DIA could build a secret army and enforce its rule the populace. As this would be of a major concern to the consumer, DIA’s would be incentivized to have regulations and third party inspections of their assets to reassure customers that no such army exists. Furthermore, if a DIA would attempt to fund a secret army, they would have to increase their premiums to get funds, which in turn would drive away customers towards competing DIAs.
DIA’s would be integral in preventing the manifestation of a state. After that magic wand is waved, turning the world into ancapistan, DIA’s would be incentivized to band together in the event a state arises again. The reason being for their very survival and to protect their economic interests.
If only a country was ancapistan, and a foreign state tried to invade, again, DIA’s would be incentivized to band together to fight off an invasion. In a free market environment, in which innovation flourishes, there would be a varied, decentralized defense. Let’s not forget the civilian populace would generally be well armed and trained.
There would be no support for an invasion of ancapistan as well. As there is no state for foreign states to have grievances with, their grievances can only be against individuals. DIA’s would be willing to arbitrate cases that involve an individual and a foreign entity, providing a peaceful solution to any possible grievances.
Next chapter is on roads, so I’ll get back to you on how that would work in ancapistan
First off, individuals would generally be capable of defending themselves in ancapistan. DIA’s would incentivize customers with lower premiums if they could prove capable of defending themselves. Perhaps there would be lower premiums if the people are armed too, as there would be no state restriction on gun ownership.
A concern is that a DIA could build a secret army and enforce its rule the populace. As this would be of a major concern to the consumer, DIA’s would be incentivized to have regulations and third party inspections of their assets to reassure customers that no such army exists. Furthermore, if a DIA would attempt to fund a secret army, they would have to increase their premiums to get funds, which in turn would drive away customers towards competing DIAs.
DIA’s would be integral in preventing the manifestation of a state. After that magic wand is waved, turning the world into ancapistan, DIA’s would be incentivized to band together in the event a state arises again. The reason being for their very survival and to protect their economic interests.
If only a country was ancapistan, and a foreign state tried to invade, again, DIA’s would be incentivized to band together to fight off an invasion. In a free market environment, in which innovation flourishes, there would be a varied, decentralized defense. Let’s not forget the civilian populace would generally be well armed and trained.
There would be no support for an invasion of ancapistan as well. As there is no state for foreign states to have grievances with, their grievances can only be against individuals. DIA’s would be willing to arbitrate cases that involve an individual and a foreign entity, providing a peaceful solution to any possible grievances.
Next chapter is on roads, so I’ll get back to you on how that would work in ancapistan
an anarchist
Your local loco.
@mikkel_the_dane I gots to do more reading, but it’s a start.
an anarchist
Your local loco.
Oh ur already on this thread lol
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
What happens to those who can't pay for the insurance?
Now remember I am a skeptic, so my examples aren't nice!
I own some land and in a ditch I find a dead woman and a newborn baby. I inquire with the locals around me and all functional DIAs around me. She has no insurance and no relatives. I feed her to my pigs and kill the baby and feed it to the pigs too. That is good economics as long as I boil the meat long enough. And it is victimless crime, because there are no victims which have insurance to sue.
Your world only works for people with enough money.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
Second you assume full neutral third parties, but they could work together with the DIAs. And thus you need a fourth fully neutral party to check if the third neutral parry is neutral. Now to fight an foreign country the DIAs need to be an army, but they can't because the third neutral party won't allow or the DIAs are in fact an army to protect the country.
an anarchist
Your local loco.
So I’m reading a chapter called Poverty right now, I think that will educate me on the issue you raise that ancapistan is only good for people with money.
One thing I can tell you off the bat, though, is that it is assumed that there would generally be more wealth in ancapistan. As the free market is the supposed best generator of wealth, there would be more money and resources to go around. Charities would still exist too, and unhindered by the state. Mutual aid societies in America during the late 1800s early 1900s are a great example of this. They existed without being subsidized by the state for the most part, and offered a social safety net for the impoverished. The absence of a state does not mean there is no social safety net.
I don’t think it is out of the realm of possibility that there would be charitable organizations that provided defense insurance for the impoverished. Also, there would be an untapped market of people to protect for a DIA, I think. Let’s say DIA were to decide to cover an impoverished group of people, let’s say a poorer neighborhood that is not under any DIA jurisdiction. As the place becomes safer, more wealth would be created by the individuals. The DIA would eventually have a net profit due to the creation of wealth and they would have made.
Perhaps DIA’s would offer free insurance for those who don’t make enough income. They could make a profit by taxing that persons income. The DIA might team up with other organizations to help their customers find and sustain work. There would be incentive to do this.
It is impossible to predict how a truly free market would react to the many problems society faces, such as poverty. It’s ability to create solutions and wealth is thanks to the spontaneous nature of the free market. A state cannot hope to rival it in this capacity, as there is no pricing mechanism for the state to gauge customer preferences and adapt to them.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
So you have replaced the state with DIAs and now you have to have a mechanism so they don't form cartels and start overtaxing poor people. Remember they have the guns and need to be an army.
an anarchist
Your local loco.
The collective power of all the DIA’s would constitute an army. If a geographical region (ancapistan) has an existential threat (foreign invasion), would not all the DIA’s be incentivized to pool their resources together? The defense would surely take a different form, it is impossible to know what exactly it would look like. It would be multifaceted, as the free market would spontaneously provide solutions to the threat of an invading army. By themselves, however, I don’t think a DIA would have a standing army. Perhaps a DIA that is very successful and has national business would have enough resources that if they were to pool it altogether, it would be an army. But it wouldn’t be a standing army I think. Perhaps.
an anarchist
Your local loco.
An important difference, however, is that there is only one state, while on the contrary there would be a large selection of DIA’s competing with each other. Individuals can freely choose which ones they do business with, while a state forces you to do business.
PoetPhilosopher
Veteran Member
Anarchism only seems to work when the amount of trouble that comes from not having rules and leaders, is less than the trouble caused by the rules and leaders.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
You really haven't answer. Consider DIAs as a collection of groups of people, who make money. Now they don't want to be outcompeted, so it makes sense for them to divide a country into pieces where they control each a part and then they defend against outside/upcoming DIAs. In effect it makes sense for self-interest as to profit to "freeze" the field and then get more profit out of it, because you have no outside competition.
Here is the problem in the end. What is in my self-interest might not be in yours and if I am in a group of people who control in effect the police, the courts and the army, why should I worry about your interests as such, if you can't do anything about it.
You are doing the following. You observe a problem and consider that you can find a solution, but maybe the problem is more complex than make all humans into a case of profit.
Here is a quote and an old one: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? "Who will guard the guards themselves?" in english.
Let me be honest. You assume that self-interest means I will treat you in fair manner. But that is not a given and if you make a self-regulation system, where you assume it will self-regulate in a manner that is fair for all and not just good for the self-regulating group.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
No, because you have no mechanism that guards against a cartel in the end. The control function you assume rests on self-interest in making money, but that can be bought with money.
Your idea is noble. We should all act to the benefit of us all by acting in our own interest. It will not work, because humans don't function that way in practice. If it was the case, we would already be there, because then nobody would act against the benefit of us, but that is not how evolution works in humans.
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True, but authoritarianism only seems to work when the amount of trouble that comes from having rules and leaders, is less than the trouble caused by not having rules and leaders.
The problem is that "total anarchy" has as its opposite "total authoritarianism" rather than any sort of normal governmental "flavor." Which makes saying stuff like that essentially meaningless. Which one is better?
ALL types of government could be essentially placed within the anarchism-authoritarianism spectrum.
My specific favorite government type is direct democracy. That would be quite far on the anarchism side. And i believe rules should be replaced by convention whenever possible. That's still a long way from let's say, all society crumbling down and people looting the place. But i call myself an anarchist. Or an anarcho-communist.
I think representative democracy is too close to an oligarchy.
Though i do admit: Direct democracy or any other anarchistic type has never been successfully implemented on a national scale. It happens commonly in family units / tribes / communes but when you bring millions of people together, it tends to be much less viable, currently at least.
Some / most anarchistic political ideologies tend to have utopistic elements, which while ideal, might not be practical with our current level of technological and societal development. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't strive for it.
amorphous_constellation
Well-Known Member
What is your view of the term 'individual.' I ask this because the conservative talkers love, absolutely love, to use the term constantly. I, of the libertarian bent, am finding that to be more and more incoherent, the more that I think about it. The term, in face-value reading, does not belong to the right or the left, it is term that, when you think of it, only achieves maximal coherency when used by libertarians
amorphous_constellation
Well-Known Member
To answer the op's question, for many years I believed that the state made optimal decisions, or optimal views were promoted by party leaders. That is evident in my earlier posts as well. But more and more, I have slowly tempered these views, and come to find that the individual path is apparently the basis of my particular country's founding.
That doesn't mean that the concept of individual empowerment isn't fraught with many issues. At worst, it can fail worse that any other system, but at best, at best it can fly higher than any other system. If the individual is educated, if the person knows enough about philosophy and morality, if the person knows about limitation and potential, then this person doesn't need someone telling them what to do. Ever other argument seems to indicate that man needs control, because he cannot learn and act well without it
And maybe in the current situation, people do need regulation: because maybe they don't really know how to think well, and act well. But that doesn't mean that they can't learn to act and think well.
That doesn't mean that the concept of individual empowerment isn't fraught with many issues. At worst, it can fail worse that any other system, but at best, at best it can fly higher than any other system. If the individual is educated, if the person knows enough about philosophy and morality, if the person knows about limitation and potential, then this person doesn't need someone telling them what to do. Ever other argument seems to indicate that man needs control, because he cannot learn and act well without it
And maybe in the current situation, people do need regulation: because maybe they don't really know how to think well, and act well. But that doesn't mean that they can't learn to act and think well.
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