Daily Archives: 31 May 2013

Can Anarchy be feasible to set up in a particular world?

Curt Doolittle, The Propertarian Institute….

I’ll try to do give the the best answer that is available to us today.

1) If we define anarchy as the absence of RULES (MORALS AND NORMS), then no – without morals and norms humans cannot cooperate.
2) If we define anarchy as the absence of LAWS and JUDGES then no. Without contracts and the common law support of contracts, then no, not in any meaningful sense.
3) If we define anarchy as the absence of GOVERNMENT (meaning group of people who coordinate investments in commons then possibly anarchy can exist, but under very constrained and simple conditions. Realistically it would be very hard for these people to compete economically with people from other groups.
4) If we define anarchy as the absence of LAW MAKERS then almost certainly. The common law alone is sufficient for law making.
5) If we define anarchy as the absence of an abstract corporation we call the ‘STATE’, then absolutely certainly. In fact, when people complain about government they generally are complaining about the behavior of individuals in a monopoly (government) who are insulated from competition, and whose members also for a bureaucracy that is insulated from competition, and who, as members of a bureaucracy, pursue their own interests.

Human societies employ at least these five sets of institutions and by and large, the first three are necessary, and the second two are not. The question is whether in practice a group could compete effectively without the abstract state and the ability to issue commands (we call them laws, but that’s just a way of trying to give commands the legitimacy of natural laws to what are just political ‘commands’.)

So, a homogenous body of people who are not very different in character, belief, genetics, status, and wealth can quite easily create anarchy by writing a constitution with just one a half a dozen rules in it, and then hopefully finding judges that will rule according to those rules and no others.

A government lf laws then, is quite possible. A government of men isn’t necessary. And it’s what our founding fathers were trying to prevent.

Didn’t work well though. Civil war and all that….