And everyone following it when we have factions already not following it?

What? I'm saying if someone attacks you, you defend yourself. There are many historical instances of smaller defensive forces fucking over large powers

And very few of them winning without a larger force to back them.

That's also because we're generally talking about poor countries. Even with the backing they're still significantly outnumbered and outgunned

I've been reading this debate happening, I actually think @Grenade123 is factually and historically correct in his arguments, here. Any stateless society concept, be it Ancapistan or Commugrad, innately depends on the altruism - and participation of it's participants. Communism, in order to take root, historically requires a culling of dissenters and shit-stirrers, often the change-makers that bring about the regime in the first place. It's theoretical success depends on a complaint, productive society. Normally, the party involved in carrying out the culling has no reason to give up power, and even if they did, someone else would take that power away. This is why the promise of a Stateless Communist utopia ends in dictatorship.

In the creation of a stateless Capitalist society, it strikes me that a similar culling would be required to physically remove the dissenters from the equation, presumably by helicopter. From there, as Grenade points out, the power would reside, effectively, in the most powerful property owner. The existence of ANY 'stateless' society depends on nobody setting up a structure, or order of doing things. After all, the AnCap philosophy does not only depend on a commitment to the NAP but to anarchist principles as well. (1/3)

It is well worth acknowledging the levels of structure that govern daily life. Our Federal Government is the overarching 'state', with various alliances and accords potentially dictating to the state. Below that, in the United States, anyway, we have our State government that gives us rules and laws. Below that, we have the county government. One step lower, we have city government. And one step even lower than that, some of us have bylaws of homeowners associations that we're beholden to.

Let's say a community exists around a lake. In the common interest of preserving that lake, and the property value around it - they make an arrangement. They all agree to an accord that regulates what they're allowed to do near the lake. This accord may say that nobody is allowed to channel the lake off to another area, as theoretically they could do if they so chose. They are not allowed to dump trash in the lake. They are mutually allowed to cross into other member's portions of the lake. Guess what. They've just created a low form government. Breaking a stateless society is as easy as SOMEONE forming a state. (2/3)

Perhaps, given that the plan inherently calls for arbiters to be chosen to settle matters, and security firms to handle breaches of the NAP... Rather than creating a power vacuum that will inevitably be filled at random by what amounts to the highest bidder, it might be best to reclaim the State that exists, peacefully, for our own again. The United States is broken. It was originally supposed to be 50 individual states that operated under a common code addressing fundamental human rights - Life, Liberty, and ~~the pursuit of happiness~~ Property. Perhaps it's worth considering that a return to those principles, from where we are, so far from those cores, where government is actually a lot closer and a LOT more accountable, and the Federal government exists solely to defend borders, settle inter-state disputes, protect the constitutional rights of the individual from the State's tyranny, and properly organize the defense efforts of the states. We've strayed quite far from the original path, but even so it's worked remarkably well so far, here. (End)

- A Novel by Rye North

~~7/10 too many words~~

i generally agree with all of that, although i have concerns about decentralizing the US govt too much

I find arguments like this equivalent to "You're already a feminist, you just dont know it yet". When you're talking about voluntarism and ancaps, you arent talking about people who want there to be no rules between people, you're talking about people who want every level of that to be voluntary interaction between parties, with the threat of force acting as a deterrent for breaking the NAP. If you want to call that low-form government that's fine, but it doesnt break the concept of Ancapistan. You're just shifting the goalposts away. Ultimately the lake is still controlled through land ownership and concensus between land owners. There isnt a third party that demands the lake be used in a different manner, despite not living on or near the lake, and not actually being in ownership of it. Further, the "most powerful property owner" argument isnt really absolute. If you own 2 guns and everyone else owns 1, you're not going to take over the country all of a sudden, despite being the person with the largest arsenal. There's definitely a threshold, over which someone could start fucking things up for those around them, and I think this does bring us to the point where Ancaps will complain to minarchists/classical liberals/etc about upkeep despite that being a function of their system (and all other systems) as well.

Further, the implication that Ancapistan has to be brought about by revolution is false. There are already a multitude of nonviolent attempts to create libertarian sectors (seasteading was a big one that didnt seem to go anywhere, but AFAIK Free State is still trucking), and really Ancapistan is just a couple steps further than that (I just dont prefer it, as I would rather choose what the state looks like and do upkeep from there. I'm also not opposed to some very limited state functions beyond the usual "monopoly on force")

I mean, the fact that the concept of the state exists in every great civilization seems to be a testament to the fact that hierarchal states will always develop, and that the lack of that hierarchal structure is a vacuum and a condition of non-development. Feudalism developed in both Europe and in Asia. Democracy developed in various forms in Ancient Athens and again in Ancient Rome. Hell, even tribes historically have Chiefs or Elders. None of these things were formed from the eternal abyss of pre-history. Concepts of property, and punishment for theft of said property can be rather safely assumed to have been the root of the development of civilization.

My argument is less of a 'You're already a Statist, you just don't know it yet', and more of a means of pointing out that the development of -a- state is the natural order of things. That first phase towards more liberal societies does not begin with a liberal first step. Generally it takes the form of a monarchy, or a dictatorship. At some point, it becomes bloody revolution, as it has historically. No state dies peacefully. Given these points, it strikes me as a rather gory path to push for a reset to the evolution of civilization that Anarchy explicitly demands.

[For Citation, see Code of Ur-Nammu]

How does it work for anarchy to exist is there is no longer any common sense... like anything goes?

it's going to be either idiocracy or the orville: majority rule

For anarchy to work on a world scale, everyone would need to be part of the same cult

Which is also one reason why socialism and communism doesn’t work.

that, and the fact that socialism and communism are inherently flawed, stupid and evil.

in theory they sound nice, in practice they don't work

This is why those ideologies thrive in an environment where it doesn't matter if it doesn't work (academics etc)

they don't even sound nice in theory.

what's nice about "it does not matter how hard you work you will never get rewarded for it"?

and "it does not matter what you *want* to do, because you have a responsibility to do whatever will most help our society"

one could go on for hours with all the things that do not even sound good in theory.

then again... once we have replicators and phasers i'm fine with it 😄

well it sounds nice when you put it "Everyone who works will be able to afford everything they need, and not live in poverty

sugarcoat it

Yeah, it looks really good on first glance, you realize it's unfeasible with just a little bit of thought, and then you're thankful it's so unfeasible after thinking more about the implications of living under communism.

But I'd argue that the whole 'stateless society' concept is why communism 1. is deceptively attractive to people who think it's not ultimately authoritarian, and 2. the main reason it ends in dictatorship. It's why Social Democracy, admittedly, works a fair bit better than communism-minded socialism.

Social Democracy is generally the same as communism minded socialism

You just exchanged the means of production,
With the means of sustainance,


Basically,
Instead of redistributing resources,
You redistribute money to pay for those resources.

It's an enhanced form of statism, as opposed to a freefall of anarchy that leads to harsh totalitarian statism

Basically it cuts out the middleman. I'm not saying it's good, I'm just saying it's slightly more stable.

~~STATISM, MORE LIKE SATANISM~~

~~My brain's too non-focused to weigh in, just making a funny, carry on~~

It's pretty stable as far as systems go.
Most people (Especially younger people) who say they're communist have in mind the stateless, or at least kind of libertarian concept of it. Not Stalinism.
There are a few stalinists out there though. They vary from stupid to malicious. Seem to be in the minority from what i can tell, as least in north america.

I think i can safely call people who want political prisoners and gulags to be a thing 'malicious'

I dunno

Just call them political tenants and political residents and it sounds a lot better

The holocaust did happen but Israel is really milking it for international support

The African Slave Trade existed in Africa before American the AA's are milking it in America.

Inconvenient facts.