@Pangloss,
Pangloss wrote:It's nice to see the "anarchists" demanding an end to law, while at the same time they so very much enjoy the safeties provided them by the state and its evil laws.
No anarchist demands an end to law. They demand an end to law that perpetuates traditional and unnatural stratification of society and the empowerment of the state and its beneficiaries.
Quote:There may be a difference, in theory. In reality, I don't see how you could keep your "anarchy" from degenerating into this "omniarchy", without rule (rule includes laws, whether written or implied). This utopian idea of a functional society without rule just has not, and will not exist. Why? Because the strong will conquer the weak, without some type of law and system for enforcement to prevent it from happening. If you think otherwise, then you hold an unrealistically optimistic (naive) view of human nature.
Strength is relative. The stronger a person is, the greater the number of people who are "weaker" than the person who presumably have understood the moral argument that they are an end to themselves. All of these individuals who now understand that their ends are no longer subservient to the ends of another will enhance their position through their collective might.
Quote:No, I just have some knowledge of history. The recorded actions of warring, self-interested humankind throughout the last few millennia support my pessimistic, realistic view of human nature. There are some terrifically interesting works of literature that outline your utopian view, but they are fantasy.
First off, your knowledge of history should tune you into the fact that human history is the story of dynamic social relations. The study of human history tells us how societies have formed around the economic needs and provisions of the individual who form them and provides us with a chance to predict how economic needs will change in the future. You undoubtedly have seen the correlation between the productive powers provided by technology and the greater liberation of the individuals possessing this technology. Human history points towards anarchism.
I am also an anarchist despite the fact, actually because of the fact, that people will be self-serving.
Society is made up of a complex collection of interdependent, specialized individuals laboring to provide the means for the ends of others in return for the means to provide for their own ends. The more complex this interdependent system becomes the more obsolete the state will become, and the more beneficial anarchistic systems of laws will become.
Quote:
Some of the earlier, smaller native American communities were quite egalitarian, and as you describe. But, these were very small communities that soon gave way to larger agricultural-based societies, where rule of law was commonplace. Something which you describe could not exist in the modern world without the state's protection. Power politics work against these communities.
And of course the division of labor and market relations work against power politics.
William wrote:Your discourse on this subject has been fascinating and enlightening. IMO, you are both right. I agree with lakeshoredrive in that laws, mandates, rules and power should evolve to guiding principles all can live by. As pangloss iterates it cannot exist or attempt to exist unless all are involved as history has violently noted. The strong will overpower the weak. No doubt about it. Our focus, IMO, needs to be on eliminating the catalyst that spurs power, greed and control and that is objective value. As long as we place value on objects for exchange, there will always be bloodshed. Always, as our number one objective is to amass as much as we can, that up until the present, has define an individuals worth, his status and the worship he receives.
William, while I agree that it is important for us to abandon greed and the rat race, I tend to think that this is only a factor for our growth as individuals, not as a society.
It is indeed the necessity of exchange that is key to the advent of an anarchistic society.
There is simply no way to enforce morality; if it is enforced it simply isn't morality. Therefore morality must be accepted. Now, we are all quite sure that counting on people to simply accept morality is a fool's game, so we come to a situation where people must benefit from being moral.
This is where exchange comes in. I have posted this quote many times, but the more people who read it the better, as it completely sums up the nature of peaceful society:
"... liberal social theory proves that each single man sees in all others, first of all, only means to the realization of their purposes, while he himself is to all others a means to the realization of their purposes; that finally, by this reciprocal action, in which each is simultaneously means and end, the highest aim of social life is obtained - the achievement of a better existence for everyone. As society is only possible if everyone, while living his own life, at the same time helps others to live; if every individual is simultaneously means and end; if each individual's well-being is simultaneously the condition necessary to the well-being of others, it is evident that the contrast between I and thou, means and end, automatically is overcome."
Individuals, through specialization within a divided labor force, produce enough economic value to provide incentive to trade and grow as a whole, rather than to compete violently against each other. Again Mises:
"The greater productivity of work under the division of labour is a unifying influence. It leads men to regard each other as comrades in a joint struggle for welfare, rather than as competitors in a struggle for existence. It makes friends out of enemies, peace out of war, society out of individuals."
