Debate: Be an Anarchist, Not a Minarchist

[Hugh Akston]

Debate: Be an Anarchist, Not a Minarchist

The fact that I wake up each morning, spit on my hands, and mentally hoist a black and yellow flag doesn't actually reveal very much about my practical politics—and there's no reason it should. At the risk of piling on an overly baroque series of adjectives, the most defensible form of libertarianism is incrementalist anarcho-capitalism. Revolutionary anarchism would likely impose large amounts of harm to people and property. Middling minarchism quickly sinks into intuitionist and irrational line drawing: Why should trash pickup be privatized but not policing? But the agorists—an even less well-known varietal of an already-rare hothouse ancap political philosophy—are on to something with their strategy of engaging in black market counter-economic activity to undermine the state without violently overthrowing it.

For these reasons, give me minarchism. Some things will always be subject to political consensus, but let's limit those to the few that are absolutely necessary. That isn't a clear line but a constantly shifting border that will always have to be negotiated. But one clear benefit of small government over anarchy is that it swaps out bull sessions about first principles for a conversation that most of us are already having, which is where and when to draw the boundary of governmental control over us. Everyone—even economic progressives such as Bernie Sanders and social conservatives such as Rick Santorum—believes there are limits to what the state should be allowed to do. That is precisely where libertarians can engage people to the right and left and make real progress toward a better, freer world.

[Warren]

Why should trash pickup be privatized but not policing?

Because whoever controls the biggest and most guns is the government even if you chose to call it something else. And enforcing the law is necessarily a government activity.

[lunchstealer]

Why should trash pickup be privatized but not policing?

Because whoever controls the biggest and most guns is the government even if you chose to call it something else. And enforcing the law is necessarily a government activity.

Yeah, there are perverse incentives and I'm still deeply skeptical that competing police forces don't end up beefing over turf and turn into protection rackets. It's bad enough when there's a government monopoly.

Private prisons seem to highlight a big problem, especially with for-profit-private rather than non-profit-private prisons. For profit prisons make money when you incarcerate more people, and lose money if they're running under capacity. Holding humane conditions loses money relative to absolute bare-bones facilities. Prison-running is just pretty much all externalities.

[Hugh Akston]

Why should trash pickup be privatized but not policing?

Because whoever controls the biggest and most guns is the government even if you chose to call it something else. And enforcing the law is necessarily a government activity.

Yeah, there are perverse incentives and I'm still deeply skeptical that competing police forces don't end up beefing over turf and turn into protection rackets. It's bad enough when there's a government monopoly.

Private prisons seem to highlight a big problem, especially with for-profit-private rather than non-profit-private prisons. For profit prisons make money when you incarcerate more people, and lose money if they're running under capacity. Holding humane conditions loses money relative to absolute bare-bones facilities. Prison-running is just pretty much all externalities.

Yep. Why, if prisons were run by the private sector, they might become inhumane snakepits full of violence, drugs, sexual assault, gangs, overused solitary confinement, exploited labor, and untreated mental illnesses run by indifferent guards and corrupt bureaucrats who lobby lawmakers to tighten the vice of the police state so that their union members can grow fatter and more numerous on the public teat.

Can you even imagine what such a world would be like?

[Mo]

Why should trash pickup be privatized but not policing?

Because whoever controls the biggest and most guns is the government even if you chose to call it something else. And enforcing the law is necessarily a government activity.

Yeah, there are perverse incentives and I'm still deeply skeptical that competing police forces don't end up beefing over turf and turn into protection rackets. It's bad enough when there's a government monopoly.

Private prisons seem to highlight a big problem, especially with for-profit-private rather than non-profit-private prisons. For profit prisons make money when you incarcerate more people, and lose money if they're running under capacity. Holding humane conditions loses money relative to absolute bare-bones facilities. Prison-running is just pretty much all externalities.

The problem is even public prisons have a large, politically powerful constituency that has an incentive to increase populations and recidivism.

[JasonL]

I don’t find most anarchist arguments very persuasive. These voluntary opt in arrangements presume too much good faith by bad actors. Most people arent shitty violent dicks because they wish they lived under different rules, they want to transgress the existing rules and not be subject to them. So yeah you need enforcement of a minimum set of rules with use of force in play. Blah blah blah yes that’s a government.

[Dangerman]

If some anarcho security firm starts a private prison, I'll start an anarcho-private-prison-assault/rescue firm that takes a bond to make sure my clients never face kidnapping and slavery. I think it will be popular.

[Warren]

If some anarcho security firm starts a private prison, I'll start an anarcho-private-prison-assault/rescue firm that takes a bond to make sure my clients never face kidnapping and slavery. I think it will be popular.

Which reminds me. I find the problem of "rule of law" as it pertains to subjecting the whole population, rich and poor alike, to the same standards quite vexing. Right now I'm just focused on bumper to bumper judicial reform aimed at putting a stop to railroading the disenfranchised. Holding the well heeled to the rule of law, I'm not sure that's possible.

[nicole]

I thought KMW started out weak and got stronger, and the opposite was true for Gillespie. I was very sympathetic to him after the first round but KMW won me back over in the rebuttal and it was all downhill from there for minarchism. Of course neither of them argued the actual point like, at all...KMW a little I guess.

This was probably my favorite part, especially after the frustration of how pointless most of what went before was:

Political reactionaries, even revolutionaries, come in all ideological flavors. Your ends don't have to be extreme to justify extreme means, or vice versa. I have known plenty of anarchists who are perfectly happy to sit quietly and chat with their socialist buddies about whether anything can be done to tweak the wording of Chicago's asset forfeiture provisions to minimize harm to the city's least well-off. And I've seen shirt-grabbing shouting matches over which candidate should win the Republican primary between people who couldn't fit one thin dime in the gap between their policy goals or aesthetic preferences.

[Hugh Akston]

I don’t find most anarchist arguments very persuasive. These voluntary opt in arrangements presume too much good faith by bad actors. Most people arent shitty violent dicks because they wish they lived under different rules, they want to transgress the existing rules and not be subject to them. So yeah you need enforcement of a minimum set of rules with use of force in play. Blah blah blah yes that’s a government.

Are most people shitty violent dicks generally?

[Warren]

I don’t find most anarchist arguments very persuasive. These voluntary opt in arrangements presume too much good faith by bad actors. Most people arent shitty violent dicks because they wish they lived under different rules, they want to transgress the existing rules and not be subject to them. So yeah you need enforcement of a minimum set of rules with use of force in play. Blah blah blah yes that’s a government.

Are most people shitty violent dicks generally?

Oh no no no no
yes

[Eric the .5b]

Why should trash pickup be privatized but not policing?

Because whoever controls the biggest and most guns is the government even if you chose to call it something else. And enforcing the law is necessarily a government activity.

Team Warren.

And, bluntly, being a minarchist is fringe enough that it's effectively as far from political actuality/feasibility as being an anarchist. And an incremental anarchist is going to have to prioritize and shrug at some expressions of statism just as much as a minarchist.

So,, even if I picked my political stances based on which has an advantage, I see no advantage to going an-cap, and the name is confusable with current trendy forms of socialism.

ETA: Really, I see my political stances most of the time as trying to trying to steer away from ruin more than pursuing some libertopia and debating whether it should have a government.

[Shem]

Why should trash pickup be privatized but not policing?

Because whoever controls the biggest and most guns is the government even if you chose to call it something else. And enforcing the law is necessarily a government activity.

Yeah, there are perverse incentives and I'm still deeply skeptical that competing police forces don't end up beefing over turf and turn into protection rackets. It's bad enough when there's a government monopoly.

Private prisons seem to highlight a big problem, especially with for-profit-private rather than non-profit-private prisons. For profit prisons make money when you incarcerate more people, and lose money if they're running under capacity. Holding humane conditions loses money relative to absolute bare-bones facilities. Prison-running is just pretty much all externalities.

Yep. Why, if prisons were run by the private sector, they might become inhumane snakepits full of violence, drugs, sexual assault, gangs, overused solitary confinement, exploited labor, and untreated mental illnesses run by indifferent guards and corrupt bureaucrats who lobby lawmakers to tighten the vice of the police state so that their union members can grow fatter and more numerous on the public teat.

Can you even imagine what such a world would be like?

...The current one?

[Warren]

[tr0g]

Theoretical debates on what we call ourselves! My favorite part of libertarianism! More seriously, as long as we're generally working towards less state interference and towards more individual rights and liberty I'm good with it.

[JD]

I really want to write a longer piece on this, but I don't know when I'll have the time. Philosophically, I am an anarchist: I believe that the existence of government is inherently unjustifiable and contrary to human rights. Practically, I'm a minarchist, because you have to work within the world of the possible, and that is, to a large degree, what's possible now; it doesn't look like we're going to get rid of governments any time soon, so we might as well make them as small and as good as possible.

Government is force, by its very nature; if it did not use force it would not be what we call a government. Accepting the existence of government means accepting the use of force as a way of dealing with issues, which I thought we were generally against. I do agree that sometimes it's difficult to solve issues any other way, but that doesn't make government good, it makes it dangerously seductive, because when all you have is a hammer, etc. And when you look at the history of how governments actually behave, I am skeptical of the idea that they solve any problems than they cause.

I do want to pick a nit with something, though -

Because whoever controls the biggest and most guns is the government even if you chose to call it something else.

Not really, because a government asserts a monopoly on the use of force in (usually) a geographically distinct area, while a Hypothetical Most-Heavily-Armed Group doesn't necessarily do so. To use an example, a government pretty much always asserts that it could legitimately make you get a license for your dog, even if it doesn't currently require dog licenses, but a HMHAG doesn't necessarily make any such assertion.

[Warren]

Not really, because a government asserts a monopoly on the use of force in (usually) a geographically distinct area, while a Hypothetical Most-Heavily-Armed Group doesn't necessarily do so. To use an example, a government pretty much always asserts that it could legitimately make you get a license for your dog, even if it doesn't currently require dog licenses, but a HMHAG doesn't necessarily make any such assertion.

Totally not getting you. If the local war lord decides dog licenses are to be a thing he can do that. Generally, local groups don't bother with bureaucracy. The people with the power to take your shit are ipso facto the government. It is desirable to have that group answerable to something other than their own short term interests, like elections e.g.

So property for instance.
"This is Fred's car". Who says so? Fred says so, and Fred's friends and neighbors support his claim. But Sam says it's his car. Sam takes the car. Whose car is it? How is that claim asserted? What is done about theft?
Private police forces are a non starter to my mind because they will instantly figure out that if they can enforce the law, they can make the law, and they can get paid a lot more.
I believe a central government with the biggest militia that answers to the civilian authority is necessary for free markets and property to exist.

[nicole]

Not really, because a government asserts a monopoly on the use of force in (usually) a geographically distinct area, while a Hypothetical Most-Heavily-Armed Group doesn't necessarily do so. To use an example, a government pretty much always asserts that it could legitimately make you get a license for your dog, even if it doesn't currently require dog licenses, but a HMHAG doesn't necessarily make any such assertion.

Totally not getting you. If the local war lord decides dog licenses are to be a thing he can do that. Generally, local groups don't bother with bureaucracy. The people with the power to take your shit are ipso facto the government. It is desirable to have that group answerable to something other than their own short term interests, like elections e.g.

So property for instance.
"This is Fred's car". Who says so? Fred says so, and Fred's friends and neighbors support his claim. But Sam says it's his car. Sam takes the car. Whose car is it? How is that claim asserted? What is done about theft?
Private police forces are a non starter to my mind because they will instantly figure out that if they can enforce the law, they can make the law, and they can get paid a lot more.
I believe a central government with the biggest militia that answers to the civilian authority is necessary for free markets and property to exist.

Of course, this also happened with the public police force.

[Warren]

Not really, because a government asserts a monopoly on the use of force in (usually) a geographically distinct area, while a Hypothetical Most-Heavily-Armed Group doesn't necessarily do so. To use an example, a government pretty much always asserts that it could legitimately make you get a license for your dog, even if it doesn't currently require dog licenses, but a HMHAG doesn't necessarily make any such assertion.

Totally not getting you. If the local war lord decides dog licenses are to be a thing he can do that. Generally, local groups don't bother with bureaucracy. The people with the power to take your shit are ipso facto the government. It is desirable to have that group answerable to something other than their own short term interests, like elections e.g.

So property for instance.
"This is Fred's car". Who says so? Fred says so, and Fred's friends and neighbors support his claim. But Sam says it's his car. Sam takes the car. Whose car is it? How is that claim asserted? What is done about theft?
Private police forces are a non starter to my mind because they will instantly figure out that if they can enforce the law, they can make the law, and they can get paid a lot more.
I believe a central government with the biggest militia that answers to the civilian authority is necessary for free markets and property to exist.

Of course, this also happened with the public police force.

I has. But it relies on isolation and lax supervision by the central authorities. Something that is unlikely to persist and increasingly difficult in the digital age.

[Hugh Akston]

Not really, because a government asserts a monopoly on the use of force in (usually) a geographically distinct area, while a Hypothetical Most-Heavily-Armed Group doesn't necessarily do so. To use an example, a government pretty much always asserts that it could legitimately make you get a license for your dog, even if it doesn't currently require dog licenses, but a HMHAG doesn't necessarily make any such assertion.

Totally not getting you. If the local war lord decides dog licenses are to be a thing he can do that. Generally, local groups don't bother with bureaucracy. The people with the power to take your shit are ipso facto the government. It is desirable to have that group answerable to something other than their own short term interests, like elections e.g.

So property for instance.
"This is Fred's car". Who says so? Fred says so, and Fred's friends and neighbors support his claim. But Sam says it's his car. Sam takes the car. Whose car is it? How is that claim asserted? What is done about theft?
Private police forces are a non starter to my mind because they will instantly figure out that if they can enforce the law, they can make the law, and they can get paid a lot more.
I believe a central government with the biggest militia that answers to the civilian authority is necessary for free markets and property to exist.

Of course, this also happened with the public police force.

I has. But it relies on isolation and lax supervision by the central authorities. Something that is unlikely to persist and increasingly difficult in the digital age.

Police agencies are political groups, and trying to hold one of their officers accountable for bad actions is a political decision. Prosecutors aren't super inclined to go after the people they work with every day and whose support they need to maintain and advance their career when there are plenty of people with mismatched curtains to go after who don't have the wherewithal to defend themselves.

[JD]

Not really, because a government asserts a monopoly on the use of force in (usually) a geographically distinct area, while a Hypothetical Most-Heavily-Armed Group doesn't necessarily do so. To use an example, a government pretty much always asserts that it could legitimately make you get a license for your dog, even if it doesn't currently require dog licenses, but a HMHAG doesn't necessarily make any such assertion.

Totally not getting you. If the local war lord decides dog licenses are to be a thing he can do that.

Then he is a warlord/government, but he is pretty obviously a de facto government then. You originally said "whoever controls the biggest and most guns is the government even if you chose to call it something else", but one can imagine a scenario in which the Wolf Family has 10,000 members and is generally speaking the richest, most numerous, most heavily armed family in the area, but they would not claim the authority that they should or even could tell the River Family that they needed to license their dogs, or get permission to get married, or that every time a River Family member died they needed to give 10% of the inheritance to the Wolf Family.

[Warren]

Not really, because a government asserts a monopoly on the use of force in (usually) a geographically distinct area, while a Hypothetical Most-Heavily-Armed Group doesn't necessarily do so. To use an example, a government pretty much always asserts that it could legitimately make you get a license for your dog, even if it doesn't currently require dog licenses, but a HMHAG doesn't necessarily make any such assertion.

Totally not getting you. If the local war lord decides dog licenses are to be a thing he can do that.

Then he is a warlord/government, but he is pretty obviously a de facto government then. You originally said "whoever controls the biggest and most guns is the government even if you chose to call it something else", but one can imagine a scenario in which the Wolf Family has 10,000 members and is generally speaking the richest, most numerous, most heavily armed family in the area, but they would not claim the authority that they should or even could tell the River Family that they needed to license their dogs, or get permission to get married, or that every time a River Family member died they needed to give 10% of the inheritance to the Wolf Family.

Ah gotcha. Nit picked.

[Shem]

Not really, because a government asserts a monopoly on the use of force in (usually) a geographically distinct area, while a Hypothetical Most-Heavily-Armed Group doesn't necessarily do so. To use an example, a government pretty much always asserts that it could legitimately make you get a license for your dog, even if it doesn't currently require dog licenses, but a HMHAG doesn't necessarily make any such assertion.

Totally not getting you. If the local war lord decides dog licenses are to be a thing he can do that.

Then he is a warlord/government, but he is pretty obviously a de facto government then. You originally said "whoever controls the biggest and most guns is the government even if you chose to call it something else", but one can imagine a scenario in which the Wolf Family has 10,000 members and is generally speaking the richest, most numerous, most heavily armed family in the area, but they would not claim the authority that they should or even could tell the River Family that they needed to license their dogs, or get permission to get married, or that every time a River Family member died they needed to give 10% of the inheritance to the Wolf Family.

How is that different than countries? Presumably on Wolf land, you're living by Wolf laws, just like if you're living on US land, you're living on US laws. And the US doesn't assert any control over Canada, any more than the Wolfs assert control over the Rivers. You're basically arguing that tiny city-states are the key to enduring liberty, when 1500 years of Italian history would suggest pretty much exactly the opposite.

[Warren]

Not really, because a government asserts a monopoly on the use of force in (usually) a geographically distinct area, while a Hypothetical Most-Heavily-Armed Group doesn't necessarily do so. To use an example, a government pretty much always asserts that it could legitimately make you get a license for your dog, even if it doesn't currently require dog licenses, but a HMHAG doesn't necessarily make any such assertion.

Totally not getting you. If the local war lord decides dog licenses are to be a thing he can do that.

Then he is a warlord/government, but he is pretty obviously a de facto government then. You originally said "whoever controls the biggest and most guns is the government even if you chose to call it something else", but one can imagine a scenario in which the Wolf Family has 10,000 members and is generally speaking the richest, most numerous, most heavily armed family in the area, but they would not claim the authority that they should or even could tell the River Family that they needed to license their dogs, or get permission to get married, or that every time a River Family member died they needed to give 10% of the inheritance to the Wolf Family.

How is that different than countries? Presumably on Wolf land, you're living by Wolf laws, just like if you're living on US land, you're living on US laws. And the US doesn't assert any control over Canada, any more than the Wolfs assert control over the Rivers. You're basically arguing that tiny city-states are the key to enduring liberty, when 1500 years of Italian history would suggest pretty much exactly the opposite.

No, I think his point is that you may be in a position to set the law of the land and chose not to.

[Shem]

Not really, because a government asserts a monopoly on the use of force in (usually) a geographically distinct area, while a Hypothetical Most-Heavily-Armed Group doesn't necessarily do so. To use an example, a government pretty much always asserts that it could legitimately make you get a license for your dog, even if it doesn't currently require dog licenses, but a HMHAG doesn't necessarily make any such assertion.

Totally not getting you. If the local war lord decides dog licenses are to be a thing he can do that.

Then he is a warlord/government, but he is pretty obviously a de facto government then. You originally said "whoever controls the biggest and most guns is the government even if you chose to call it something else", but one can imagine a scenario in which the Wolf Family has 10,000 members and is generally speaking the richest, most numerous, most heavily armed family in the area, but they would not claim the authority that they should or even could tell the River Family that they needed to license their dogs, or get permission to get married, or that every time a River Family member died they needed to give 10% of the inheritance to the Wolf Family.

How is that different than countries? Presumably on Wolf land, you're living by Wolf laws, just like if you're living on US land, you're living on US laws. And the US doesn't assert any control over Canada, any more than the Wolfs assert control over the Rivers. You're basically arguing that tiny city-states are the key to enduring liberty, when 1500 years of Italian history would suggest pretty much exactly the opposite.

No, I think his point is that you may be in a position to set the law of the land and chose not to.

But you are setting the law of the land. Your land. How do you think city-states arise?