What frightens you more, anarchy or abusive authority?

@LittleMathYou,

Well, nothing says insecurity more than total anarchy. I would rather have most of my government be corrupt than have an anarchistic system. At least in the corrupt government, you have some level of predictability.

Max Sterner supposed that the individual is always sovereign and that anything that interfered with sole the nature of individuality was unjustifiable, ranging from law and government to family, ethics, and law. But contrary to common conception, being anarchistic does not necessarily entail being anti-organizational or having some authoritative control over the mass assembled. Peter Kropotkin is a good example of an anarcho-socialist who envisioned a perfect society built on effective commune structure balanced by communal/individual needs. So in some ways, being in total anarchy inevitable leads to some sort of organization which asserts some level of authority, whether that is implicitly or explicitly implied in terms of your social contract (i.e. natural con., constitution, rights, etc). But instead of corruption (which is judged corrupt based on laws which make it so), you would have an undefined system in which anything goes, justice and injustice included.

But then if you were to suppose that instead of total anarchy, you would rather have people (supposedly corrupt since they are abusing the power they have), you have a much better chance of actually combating the injustice. As history has shown, the existence of even the slightest rights, whether that be via constitution or inalienable rights derived by some ethical standpoint, have a much better and much more predictable outcome (hopefully for the better). The English and their civil war, the American revolutionary war, etc., these are instances in which revolt against injustice occurs within a given legal framework with laws and common conceptions of right and wrong that can be invoked if needed. In an anarchist environment (in the raw sense) I don't think you would have that particular luxury.

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@LittleMathYou,

LittleMathYou;135701 wrote:

What would make you feel more insecure, total anarchy or power abuse on the part of those "in charge" and are suppose to take protect society.

Its the difference between people running with guns in the street and cops who take you to prison (Or worse) for no real reason.

In total anarchy, who would make the guns? Who would make the ammo? If it were possible for there to exist an "every man for himself" kind of world, then the capacity for harm would be greatly diminished, as would the capacity for help. In this sense I would feel more secure than with a largely tyrannical government, they would have the capacity for harm and for help, but they would be doing harm on a very large scale.

I think some form of governance, or at least some form of social contract, is inevitable with the current world population. If humanity was more spread out then anarchy may be possible, perhaps in a post-nuclear scenario.

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@LittleMathYou,

LittleMathYou;135701 wrote:

What would make you feel more insecure, total anarchy or power abuse on the part of those "in charge" and are suppose to take protect society.

Its the difference between people running with guns in the street and cops who take you to prison (Or worse) for no real reason.

Both are equally frightening in my eyes.

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@LittleMathYou,

A corrupt Government scares me more than Anarchy. You are granted the possibility to establish order, and fight for your values with Anarchy. Fighting a corrupt government? Fairly futile. The very fact it is organized gives it much more potential for cruelty.

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@LittleMathYou,

LittleMathYou;135701 wrote:

What would make you feel more insecure, total anarchy or power abuse on the part of those "in charge" and are suppose to take protect society.

Its the difference between people running with guns in the street and cops who take you to prison (Or worse) for no real reason.

Anarchy does not stand a chance because people abhore anarchy, and no one stands a chance against the state...

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@LittleMathYou,

Both are equally as dangerous; anarchy is less correlative to our experience in society. Although I would have to say that in America the larger threat lies more in abusive authority.

---------- Post added 03-15-2010 at 12:35 AM ----------

Scottydamion;135715 wrote:

In total anarchy, who would make the guns? Who would make the ammo? If it were possible for there to exist an "every man for himself" kind of world, then the capacity for harm would be greatly diminished, as would the capacity for help. In this sense I would feel more secure than with a largely tyrannical government, they would have the capacity for harm and for help, but they would be doing harm on a very large scale.=QUOTE]

This encapsulates my opinion even though I just wrote the last post. Well said *Scottydamion*

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@StochasticBeauty,

I think there are some problems with the connotation of the concept "total anarchy". Most people prefer to envision a sort of Mad Max-ish post apocalyptic nightmare when there hear 'anarchy'.

The thing about that is that we don't have any empirical reason to believe that might be the case. Most anarchist philosophers (Goldman, De Cleyre, etc.) envisioned a much more peaceful environment that was ordered by natural law.

The idea of anarchy doesn't scare me at all, but this of course would be a biased sentiment since I am so familiar with the corruption of government and not familiar at all with any REAL environment of anarchy.

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@Rwa001,

Rwa001;139811 wrote:

I think there are some problems with the connotation of the concept "total anarchy". Most people prefer to envision a sort of Mad Max-ish post apocalyptic nightmare when there hear 'anarchy'.

The thing about that is that we don't have any empirical reason to believe that might be the case. Most anarchist philosophers (Goldman, De Cleyre, etc.) envisioned a much more peaceful environment that was ordered by natural law.

The idea of anarchy doesn't scare me at all, but this of course would be a biased sentiment since I am so familiar with the corruption of government and not familiar at all with any REAL environment of anarchy.

Just look at capitalism...As an economy it rejects or subverts every form of government...

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@Fido,

Are you saying that capitalism is a representation of an anarchistic society? Capitalism isn't kept in check by the natural law that anarchists advocate. In an anarchist system, everyone is expected to treat others fairly and be treated fairly by others. To fail to do so would have negative results, whereas in our current system it rarely does. Which brings me to my next point: government facilitates capitalism. In our current system, corporations have much greater capacity to subvert and undermine the government and consumers than consumers have the capacity to respond.

Basically, the current state of capitalism is tolerated and tacitly approved of by the government and consumers. In a truly anarchist society, our sort of relationship between consumer and producer would be impossible.

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@Rwa001,

Rwa001;139853 wrote:

Basically, the current state of capitalism is tolerated and tacitly approved of by the government and consumers. In a truly anarchist society, our sort of relationship between consumer and producer would be impossible.

Have you actually ever taken a course in economics? As much as I do not agree with anarchy your statements on capitalism pretty much fail.

The only reason why capitalism is failing currently is due to government hands manipulating it. In a true free market businesses will regulate themselves because of competition. The government gets involved and destroys the ability for businesses to compete, leaving just one or two large corporations that gouge their customers. The inefficiency of the market currently is a government induced problem.

Free markets will be effected by the consumer. The consumer has all the power in a totally free market, because you have options. Having options businesses are forced to compete for your money. This means they have high incentive to keep you happy. But a single business with no competition doesn't care about you because they know you have no alternative. They can charge what ever they want and the quality can be low, and you have no choice.

It is called government induced monopolies and they happen all the time and people think it is great but it is not. It is bad for consumers. The only way we could fix capitalism is to not allow the government to get involved in how corporations run. But the problem is, they have lied to you and make you think that if government didn't get involved then it would be an anarchy economy.

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@Krumple,

While admittedly my explanation of economics is fail-worthy (mostly because I was discussing capitalism from our current, disturbing point of view), you seem to be agreeing with me. At least, I think so. Was your original post about capitalism meant to be an example of why anarchy is a bad thing? Because it would seem from your explanation that capitalism free from government is a good thing.

While some anarchists argue for a more communistic approach to anarchy, a real, true, state-of-nature anarchy would be completely free market. Which is something it seems you're arguing in favor of.

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@Fido,

Fido;135765 wrote:

Anarchy does not stand a chance because people abhore anarchy, and no one stands a chance against the state...

Anarchy would make the jump to Feudal within an hour of its inception.

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@Rwa001,

Rwa001;139865 wrote:

While admittedly my explanation of economics is fail-worthy (mostly because I was discussing capitalism from our current, disturbing point of view), you seem to be agreeing with me. At least, I think so. Was your original post about capitalism meant to be an example of why anarchy is a bad thing? Because it would seem from your explanation that capitalism free from government is a good thing.

While some anarchists argue for a more communistic approach to anarchy, a real, true, state-of-nature anarchy would be completely free market. Which is something it seems you're arguing in favor of.

Yeah, I don't see anarchy as a possibility, because people are horrible at self governing. You have to have government at a certain level. I say the government should only handle court cases and uphold three laws. You only need three laws and that is it. Everything in life falls into these three laws. Court cases would be handled to determine if someone or some business violated a persons rights contained in these three laws. That is it. There shouldn't be any congress, no new laws are needed. Just courts.

Your right to life.
Your right to your property.
Your right to liberty. (freedom to do what ever you want as long as it does not violate anyone else's life, or property or their liberty.)

If you investigate every single law out there, they fall into one or more of these three above. So it is redundant to have a congress to make new laws. There is no need for new laws.

So what follows is a free market and the free market will ultimately be controlled by the consumers. If a company makes a crappy product or provides a low level of service, people will have a choice to go to somewhere that provides the quality or service they want. Prices of goods would be cheaper, and quality would be higher. It is a win win.

I don't like anarchy, but I equally don't like large government that thinks they need to make fifteen hundred new laws every year. Or that they deserve to be paid two hundred thousand dollars a year to tell others what they can do with their own life.

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@Krumple,

Then I think you and I are in agreement. I also favor small government, but only because anarchy is impossible in present society. Anarchy, in its philosophical form, is natural, comfortable, and ideal. But it requires 90% of the world to have that similar, if not identical, philosophy. Anarchists would agree with your three fundamental laws, and they would be enforced by the universal idea of "if you wrong someone, all of us are going to have a problem with you."

That's why my answer to the thread is that abusive authority is much more frightening than true anarchy.

As for the feudalism thing, that would probably be true in current practical application. But if the circumstances were ideal, then it would be impossible for anyone in an anarchist society to claim that sort of power. One main part of anarchy is that you only own that which you control. If this were followed then it would be impossible for a single individual or family unit to control enough of anything to garner power.

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@LittleMathYou,

What scares me most is a world run by corporate giants, using computer simulations to control us through our human weaknesses.
Consider the love/hate Wal-mart phenomena, I hate what wal-mart has done to small town America yet I just love to get more stuff at wal-mart.
I must admit I am as guilty as anyone when it comes to surrendering to my weakness
Where might all of this lead? That really scares me

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@wayne,

wayne;139879 wrote:

What scares me most is a world run by corporate giants, using computer simulations to control us through our human weaknesses.
Consider the love/hate Wal-mart phenomena, I hate what wal-mart has done to small town America yet I just love to get more stuff at wal-mart.
I must admit I am as guilty as anyone when it comes to surrendering to my weakness
Where might all of this lead? That really scares me

I would much rather lose ma and pa businesses to corporations like Walmart than to have banks that prey on their own customers to legally steal their money by shifting around their funds so they over draft their accounts.

I would much rather have a walmart then a bank that tax payers have to bail out which in turn give million dollar bonuses to their upper level management.

In a free market the market will get rid of inefficiencies and this is a good thing. Banks should have been allowed to go bankrupt and go away. GM should have not been propped up, it should have been allowed to fail. The reason GM failed was because it could not produce a high quality product anymore because the cost of running in the US has become too expensive.

You can't make a high quality product if you have to have thousands of certificates, licenses and provide health benefits for all of your employees. This is why foreign companies can produce higher quality products because they don't have as many restrictions or over head that US companies do.

People want quality but they also want cost efficiency. If something is over priced and low quality they will look for an alternative.

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@LittleMathYou,

LittleMathYou;135701 wrote:

What would make you feel more insecure, total anarchy or power abuse on the part of those "in charge" and are suppose to take protect society.

Its the difference between people running with guns in the street and cops who take you to prison (Or worse) for no real reason.

Abusive power.
Isn't the problem with anarchy that it allows for abusive power?
Anarchy without abusive power is freedom.

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@LittleMathYou,

LittleMathYou;135701 wrote:

What would make you feel more insecure, total anarchy or power abuse on the part of those "in charge" and are suppose to take protect society.

Its the difference between people running with guns in the street and cops who take you to prison (Or worse) for no real reason.

Feral Man is scarier than formal machien.

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@sometime sun,

Anarchy is not a bad system, It is a society without the initiation of force.
Problem is most people confuse Anarchy with Anomie.

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What frightens you more, anarchy or abusive authority?

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