Just a few years ago, I considered myself a libertarian leaning Republican. I truly believed that governmental power could be limited and used for beneficial purposes. I believed that there were some "honest politicians", and that bad law and policy could be changed from within. I believed that the U.S. military was a force for good, and that our troops should be praised for their "service."

If you would have told me after 9/11/2001, that by 2010 I'd be an individualist market anarchist, I'd have said you were insane.

All I can say now is, how absolutely stupid I was back then!

Perhaps I'm being too hard on myself. I was conditioned, since early childhood--that I live in "a free country", where we "live by the rule of law, not the rule of men." I was shamed into believing that our leaders have my best interest at heart when they send young men (and women) into foreign lands to blow up things, kill and hurt people, and then are expected to return to a "normal" civilian life after going through the traumas of combat.

I have since realized everything I've been taught about the US is a lie. The phrase "rule of law" is an empty phrase, since the law needs to be applied and interpreted by men (and women). Their interpretations all too often support the interests of those who get them their positions of power.

I believe that Smedley Butler (former USMC Major General) that War is a Racket for the profits of a few, at the expense of the rest of us.

(Online copy of War is a Racket: http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articl....

I have come to realize that the U.S. government (not the American people themselves), is an evil, not because it is American, but because it is a government--one that is founded upon the most evil lie--ie. the government rules with the consent of the people. Only in the American system has that lie been made plausible by the "democratic" trappings of voting and political debate.

The problem advocates of "limited government" have is simple--Who shall watch the watchmen? There are all sorts of claims about "The Constitution", "Checks and Balances", voting, etc. But, as we have seen--none of these have stopped the governmental power from growing enormously.

Indeed, it is probably because it is founded upon such a corrupt lie--that permitted such massive growth.

There are only two ways for humans to survive in this world with other people--via productive labor and trade, or by theft and fraud. German sociologist Max Oppenheimer called the former "productive means" and the latter "political means."

I want Constitutionalists, and limited government proponents (aka minarchists), to give me a plausible answer to this all too common scenario.

I will take for granted that people are, at a base level--extremely concerned with their self interest--(aka. they are "selfish"). People will steal and rob if it is profitable to do so. They will also cooperate when it is profitable to do so. I will also take for granted that people are, as a rule, the observer in the best position to determine what is in their own self-interest.

Supposedly, in order to prevent widespread theft and violence, we need to drum into the populace that violence is not the way to solve disputes. In order to do that, we need to agree to create a monopoly on the use of violence--aka a government.

But, as we have seen throughout history--governments routinely oppress people.
How can that be prevented?

The minarchists come up with all sorts of "checks and balances"--voting, separation of powers, bills of rights, jury trials, etc.

But that leaves the basic premise unresolved. It assumes that those in power are self-limiting. It assumes those in power will not abuse it for their own selfish ends. It further assumes that the greedy, selfish individuals themselves will not use the law to plunder their unknown fellow citizens.

Given that the government has the only legitimate right to use force, how long will it be before those in authority figure out that they can do whatever they want, and promise whatever they want, with virtually no repercussions? How long will "good men" remain good when they have the power to impose their will on others, for their own benefit, with virtually no threat of retribution?

What is to prevent, what sociologist Robert Michels termed "The Iron Law of Oligarchy" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of....

I can only conclude that there is no government system stable enough to prevent oligarchy. As I deem oligarchy an evil system, I cannot support any government. At a fundamental level, I believe in self rule (anarchy) as opposed to having others rule over me (oligarchy).

Those of you who want to "reform" government, "streamline" tax collection, and "improve" government service--leave me out of it. I don't believe you are any more competent in managing complex affairs than I am. And I don't believe any of you do-gooders are so perfect as to refrain from using your authority to further your own self-interest.

And that, is why I'm an anarchist.

Very simply, this is not the country we believe it is when we all say , " I love America. "

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Given that the government has the only legitimate right to use force...

This is either an incorrect premise, or incorrectly worded.

No one has a "legitimate" right to initiate force.
Everyone has the right to defensive force.

No human-construct (such as a government) can logically possess a right which human-beings themselves do not possess. Those that claim so are lying.

Bezzle,

How about if I put it this way:

"Government agents, and their supporters claim that their use of force is, by tradition, considered to be legitimate."

Because they claim this "right", and are willing to kill people who disagree, the vast majority of the population comply with their demands.

Divine Right of Kings.

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Very simply, this is not the country we believe it is when we all say , " I love America. "

The United States of America & 'America' were/are/may-again-be unambiguously defined as Two Separate Things.

'America' was once the denotation for a whole Hemisphere of the Earth unbounded by the constraints of Organized Government; and thus a place where People could define Themselves and Their way of Life generally without much in the manner of Social or Legal restraints.

The Ideal of a vast uncharted land full of Unfettered Individual Possibility has survived, but, ultimately; the Conquest was only a long drawn out capitulation to many of the very same Social and Legal coercions and restrictions from which the Original Seekers of Personal Liberty had fled in migrating to America.

America was once a seclusion, and an indeterminate place of nurturing; of the innate pre-existing disposition of the Individual that repudiates Tyranny and arbitrary impositions.

For a few; it might still be so. Wealth hath It's privileges...

Maybe one day it will come to pass for All of Those who would leave the despotism and hierarchy of Social Orders behind Them.

The Truth is that America existed within the People Who sought it.
It Was Not -& It Is Not- truly ANY Place on this Earth.

Individuals might have/may Invoke/Embody the viewpoint or philosophy or faith of America; but It is not to be found on any inch of soil.
America is Temporal, Personal; It Exists Solely within the Minds of Living Persons...

Elliott_wave, I'd say you've got it figured out! (I'd say Bezzle is correct also, though perhaps nit-picking a tad. It's hard to sweep away all the mental dust-bunnies with one pass.)

There was an interesting link over at Lew Rockwell's site: Murray Rothbard's Favorite Books.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/gordon/gordon....

I've only read a few of them. Some seem a bit silly. (I could have happily lived out my entire existence without reading Portnoy's Complaint.) But once you get down to the political and economic favorites--well, it appears Murray and I are wrapped around each other like a couple of snakes.

I am forever boring people on this forum by quoting Nock--someone here called him a "crypto-anarchist" some time ago. In Our Enemy, the State he does a thorough job of damning the whole institution to hell. Plus the quality of the writing knocks your socks off--making Nock quite a bit more accessible than Spencer.

As an aside, Memoirs of a Superfluous Man would be much enjoyed by the misogynists who frequent this forum. Neither Nock nor the gentlemen on TF have ever met any "Willa Cather" type women.

Anarchism is much misunderstood. There is properly not much more to it than advocating the removal outside force (the legal and policing agencies of Nock's "conqueror and confiscator") so that communities can self-organize.

Advocating anarchy comes down to acknowledging that the State is something that comes into existence through conquest and confiscation, and that it is not a "system of government" but rather a system for the continuous exploitation of the conquered people it battens upon. It dispenses neither social nor economic justice because it's whole purpose is to do just the opposite--to secure by force a system of social and economic injustice on behalf of its beneficiaries (the conquerors).

More importantly (it seems to me), advocating anarchy involves understanding that humans can and will, and historically have, done a fine job of governing themselves in the absence of the State. Without the State, there is still "government."

Anarchy is not the overthrow of all forms of law, tradition, and authority--just the State.

If you look at the effect of the State system on the people's character, you can see that it is uniformly bad. It systematically degrades individual character, sets up injurious traditions, and undermines the traditional authority bestowed by experience, competence, and character.

Where the State system is absent, "government" based on experience, competence, and character naturally takes hold. People are naturally inclined to respect what is good, and do it (pretty much).

I really feel that the best way to turn people really bad is to impose a State system upon them, since it acts as the most powerful deterrent possible to things like character, competence, and honesty.

I believe that Smedley Butler (former USMC Major General) that War is a Racket for the profits of a few, at the expense of the rest of us

Smedley Butler may not have been what people think. He testified before the
McCormack-Dickstein committee and said there was a business plot to depose FDR in a coup.

When the KGB files were opened in the 1990s, we learned Samuel Dickstein (D-NY) was a Soviet Agent. Code name CROOK. The 11 term congressman was getting $1,250 a month from Stalin during the Great Depression.

What Butler testified to was off the wall and no one could confirm it.

It's my opinion Smedley was either a dupe or part of the Dickstein/NKVD operation. His rhetoric about business is classic chekisty material. The Soviets pumped that crap into America from John Reed until the collapse of their empire.

<== Staunch, lifelong anarcho-capitalist

I subscribe fully to the non-aggression/self-ownership principle

wikipedia wrote..

The basic axiom of libertarian political theory holds that every man is a self owner, having absolute jurisdiction over his own body. In effect, this means that no one else may justly invade, or aggress against, another's person. It follows then that each person justly owns whatever previously unowned resources he appropriates or "mixes his labor with".

America succeeded for so long because of it's ability to exploit the natural resources, the ability for freedom seeking men to move away from men who wish to control, and the ability of men to make decisions based upon logic and common sense.

Now, our natural resources are in decline, there's no place left to escape from control by others, and the inclusion of women into decision making processes to account for emotions, feelings, and fairness.

Before I am accused of being a misogynist, I freely admit that a "male only" decision making business and political system doesn't work either. And I have no proposal nor have I read a proposal, that solves the problem.

Elliot wave must be a male, for his "rant" in support of anarchy, is the rant of a male frustrated by the status quo, and something no female would consider. Group co-operative effort is a female based management system.

As I repeatedly maintain, because of my molecular biology background, that man is mammal, and most mammals are not co-operative group dynamics, but alpha males with harems of females. Our genetic heritage has not bred out of us this instinctual urge, and thus, is a major driver of the angst and anger present in our society.

It's interesting to note that matriarchal societies in the animal kingdom do progress to large colonies, but not of males, but of alpha females, neuters, and males that are bred for one reason, sex.....

I bring up the genetics argument because anarchy doesn't work either. The need to self associate with like minded individuals is intense, and begins at an early age. Anarchy is an unstable equilibrium, and within short order there will coalesce into groups once again.

It is this tension, the need to balance the genetic desires of the individuals, with the group desires to grow and prosper, that causes man to try to circumvent the problems with rules and laws.

On the contrary, Pablo, I think your premise on anarchy is incorrect. I tend to think of anarchy as the stable equilibrium and oligarchy (tyranny) as the unstable equilibrium. Most of human history has been spent in anarchy. Even the early forays into civilization itself were anarchic. There is little evidence of government in the early city-'states' of the fertile crescent, the Harappan civilization, or Caral in Peru. Even the Minoans had no government for the first 1500 years of their civilization.

Government creates a completely parasitic class that once established will inexorably draw the worst dregs of society who wish to wield authority over others (directly or indirectly). This parasitic class will grow and demand to consume more and more until there is nothing left to consume at which point the government and often the civilization implode. The classic example here is of course the Western Roman Empire.

I suggest that the main proponent of civilization is high culture and the values that culture hold.

Whether modern competition for resources may complicate efforts at peaceful anarchy is something to consider.

Cheapbastud, you are clearly correct when you say that, "Most of human history has been spent in anarchy."

I think Pablo is not quite getting that that the State is a bit of an anomaly, from the standpoint of human history.

What I'm getting from Pablo's statement that, "Group co-operative effort is a female based management system," is that he is somehow equating the State with group cooperative effort. Historically, this is not at all true: The State invariably arises from conquest and confiscation. It is imposed on societies that, before, were engaged in group cooperative effort--and it's more or less axiomatic that these societies were pretty successful, since otherwise they would have nothing much worth stealing--little or no surplus for the conquerors to absorb by setting up a system of continual exploitation.

Before societies were successful enough to continuously produce surplus wealth, any group interested in conquest engaged in wars of extermination. They just wanted the land base; the people who happened to be living there were of no use to them, so they didn't leave them alive to enslave under a systematic occupation. Administrative overhead costs were too high to justify setting up a State, in view of the small production of surplus wealth.

During the long period of human history that pre-dated State systems, there seem to have been quite a variety of basically cooperative systems. I'm not enough of a historian to know whether they tended to be matriarchal. From what little I know of the Iroquois Confederation, there seems to have been considerable equality between the sexes, and pretty nearly equal involvement in "government," despite apparently rigid sexual roles.

A lot of people seem to think that many prehistoric societies leaned towards matriarchy, but I don't think anyone knows for sure.

Whatever the social organization of "most mammals," I don't think human history bears out the notion that humans would naturally form groups of one-male-with-harem, like horses, or alpha-female-with-mate-and-a-bunch-of-other-females, like wolves, or female-only groups, like elephants. That's just not what humans did.

The idea that women favor the State system, and men favor anarchy is just weird. Women seem to have generally fared far better in "anarchic" traditional societies. (Men too, as far as that goes.)

The notion that the State represents "cooperative effort" is also just weird. There's nothing cooperative about the State. It's just a structure for systematic exploitation, imposed through violence by an outside conqueror.

Pablo also seems to believe that a State system is something that arises from, "The need to self associate with like minded individuals [which] is intense, and begins at an early age." Actually, if you define anarchy as when human communitites self-organize without interference, then anarchic systems are what arise from this intense "need to self associate with like minded individuals."

There seems to be considerable confusion in terms going on in this discussion.

Anarchies are unstable and cannot last. The only two forms of government that are stable are rule by oligarchy, or rule by law, republic. All others are just disguised versions of those two or passing phases. And if you want my honest opinion republic is more unstable than oligarchy as the natural instinct of many, many human beings is to cower before the mighty and seek its protection instead of seeking to remain free.

There are certain things that require an umpire. That would be the ideal reason for government. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_....

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Before societies were successful enough to continuously produce surplus wealth, any group interested in conquest engaged in wars of extermination. They just wanted the land base; the people who happened to be living there were of no use to them, so they didn't leave them alive to enslave under a systematic occupation. Administrative overhead costs were too high to justify setting up a State, in view of the small production of surplus wealth.

Sharon, yes, every one of the early dominator states that I can think of formed in just such a manner. For example, pseudo-nomadic upper-Egyptians conquered and subsequently ruled and taxed the richer lower-Egyptians of the Nile delta region setting up one the first true states in the world.

I also do not view anarchy as some kind of lone-wolf existence as Pablo inplied.

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The only two forms of government that are stable are rule by oligarchy, or rule by law, republic.

This is what the JBS promotes but I disagree. I see no evidence that a republic has any stability associated with it. The SPQR was almost from inception a mafia state.

There is nothing about anarchy which necessitates chaos. Chaotic anarchy is merely statist propaganda.

The alleged problem of the tragedy of the commons under an anarchist model can deal with the commons as well as any supposed state of laws. After all, every state is made up of the same (sometimes) insanely irrational humans that populate the nonarchist society.

Germany was a constitutional republic in 1934.

...not to stable.

There are no stable systems, no "once and for all" solutions, but only an never-ending arms race between the mass of humanity and their would-be exploiters. All economic and political systems - however apparently benign in form and intention - are eventually subverted.

Eventually, the resulting oligarchies are always undermined by their own lack of restraint, leading to social disequilibrium, or when the complexity of the unrepresentative systems they create collapse under their own weight. At any rate, that has been what has happened historically. History is punctuated by such discontinuities. These are sometimes small - like changes of regime, and sometimes huge - the collapse of civilizations.

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Anarchies are unstable and cannot last. The only two forms of government that are stable are rule by oligarchy, or rule by law, republic.

This is just speculation without any evidence whatsoever.

If you believe in freedom, true freedom--no government (monopoly on force) is necessary for your "protection" because you associate with others who share your views and have little to fear from them. The other threats you feel capable of dealing with on your own, or you can contract for protection.

The first step in crushing the spirit of freedom in a person is cultivating fear. That is what all of these defenses of the modern slave system amount to--rationalization of fear. Accepting uncritically the idea that the state exists for your "protection" is tantamount to expressing gratitude to the man who intentionally breaks your leg, simply because he gives you a crutch to walk on.

The idea that "rule by law" has any meaning other than what the lawmakers want, is the biggest sticking point on educating people about the reality of the system we live in.

This discussion isn't going anywhere unless we agree to definitions of: the State, government, and anarchy.

I like Nock's definitions, in which he makes a careful distinction between "government" and "the State."

Traditional communities, such as the Iroquois Confederation--and every other human community of the past and present that is/was unconquered--had "government." They often governed themselves by consensus, and personal and group conduct was governed by tradition. Rules of conduct were traditional and enforced by the group as a whole, through what Nock calls "social power."

I'm defining "anarchy" as the condition in which a community is self-organizing and self-governing, without interference.

History seems to indicate that most such societies are pretty stable until and unless they are conquered and a State system is imposed on them.

The State system is historically pretty unstable, since "conquest and confiscation" is inherently an extractive model and results in over-extraction and over-exploitation of both human and natural resources.

Traditional societies (what I'm calling "anarchies") are familiar with both human and environmental limits, and don't try to overpass these limits. Such cultures do sometimes disappear (or relocate) because of climate changes. The Cliff Dwellers supposedly vacated the premises because of a very long period of drought.

I've mentioned in several other posts that the State system is fairly new to human history. It only began to spread widely during the past 500 years--and most of that period represents a kind of rapid emergence. At this point, it's been imposed on nearly everyone, nearly everywhere. But it's an anomaly in human history--and the invariable collapse of such systems (some give them a lifespan of about 300 years) shows them to be unstable.

Cheapbastud:

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Sharon, yes, every one of the early dominator states that I can think of formed in just such a manner. For example, pseudo-nomadic upper-Egyptians conquered and subsequently ruled and taxed the richer lower-Egyptians of the Nile delta region setting up one the first true states in the world.

I also do not view anarchy as some kind of lone-wolf existence as Pablo inplied.

Nock went to quite a bit of trouble to show that the origin of every single State system originated in conquest and confiscation, and that it could not possibly have originated in any other way.

Pablo's "lone-wolf" society appears to have never existed as a form of human social organization. Humans are no more likely to turn into little matriarchal goups, like elephants who are visited occasionally by a male, than they are likely to turn into horses (stallion with harem). We should probably stick to discussions about what biology shows about human organization, rather than brining the wolves, elephants, and horses into it.

Nock also went to quite a bit of trouble to show that the present government of the US originated in conquest and confiscation, like every other State system. He also carefully defined the bases of a State system and offered considerable clarity on how to undo it.

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I like Nock's definitions, in which he makes a careful distinction between "government" and "the State."

Then Nock is an idiot if he has done so, because there is no distinction.

Bezzle,

Before you criticize and condemn those who essentially agree with you, read what he has to say. Nock's Our Enemy, The State is essential reading today. It was written in 1935, and its ideas have held up very well.

PDF for Albert Nock's Our Enemy, The State
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=we....

We can speak, in general terms of "governance" separate from the idea of a coercive monopoly on violence--aka so-called "corporate governance."

What the typical citizen-slave cannot seem to fathom is that people will invent their own rules and customs to get along, without any need for armed gunmen calling themselves "police" to "keep order".

The police "keep order" to protect the slave-masters (aka. politicians and private elites). They are not there to protect YOU and ME.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._D....

bilge