In thinking about what she wrote, for example, I could explain why Medieval Iceland’s government failed: since they had a strong coupling of religion to government, when they converted to Christianity (which was done as a government decision, rather than by individuals one at a time), the tithes put too much energy into government, and enabled a handful of families to take over.

Thus, I concluded that chieftans should not have been priests as well–or rather, that the roles of chieftan and priest should have been completely independent of each othe.

Why? Men invented angels. ”

Unbelievably poor reasoning. Men invented styrofoam cups so according to your reasoning, men ARE styrofoam cups.

Why? Men invented angels. Hence the angelic character springs from inside men, not imposed from above by otherworldly forces – because there are no otherworldly forces. Its just us, here and now, acting with energy or sloth, self-interest or altruism, but in a way that is “Oh so human”.

That the State has evolved at all is merely an extension of family structure with the elders at the head and the younger below. Again “Oh so human”. Or “Oh so natural” like a wolfpack or herd of elephants – perfectly natural and to be expected.

That a certain percentage of any population shall be 2 standard deviations away from the norm – both in the good (saintly) and bad (evil) direction is to be expected – as variation is a biological necessity for survival of the species, as Darwin so correctly points out. That’s why juries should be a random sample of the population as a whole – because truth resides in the middle of the distribution, not at the tails. This is the essence of democracy: No individual knows Truth but the population as a whole does. In fact, this is the statistical justification for the doctrine of checks and balances. Note balance – toward the middle.

Hence, given the above, the proper role (OK: one of the proper roles) of the state is to ensure that the truth (or the Good or the Right) which is embodied in the collective wisdom of the people (and hence knowable) shall be freely expressed, exercised and made real. That is, that the tails shall not dominate the political discourse.

I kinda think that was what Madison was getting at through the lens of his reading of history and through the lens of his experience with royal totalitarianism by which Truth (or the Good of the Right) resides with the king as a consequence of the king’s unique and very private (we are not invited!) conversation with god.

So Madison was on the right track, was he not?

Different ways of non-violent resistance: refusing to pay taxes, ignoring the laws, refusing to go to jail and televising the use of force to bring someone to jail, protests, advocacy etc.

Different ways of violent resistance: I won’t really go there but the American Revolution did cost lives and they had far less cause to go to war than we currently do. Still, violence is last resort obviously.

Different ways of using the political process to gradually draw down the state: Constitutionalism, shifting the balance from Federal to State power which would de facto reduce the state in more libertarian states, establishment of a successful third party, nullification, changing the makeup of the Supreme Court etc.

There is nothing intrinsically impossible about the elimination of the State. No one knows how or even if it would play out but, again, there’s no need to worry about your question, “Anarchy cannot exist if we cannot eliminate “the state”, so, how do we eliminate “the state” ?”

Is the growth of government irreversible? Not completely. I mean we did repeal Prohibition and the Civil Aeronautics Board among other things so it would be theoretically possible to repeal other government accretions.

Just getting rid of the Personal Income Tax (introduced 1861) which represents around 45% of tax income and Corporate Tax Income (introduced 1909) which is 12% and Payroll tax (introduced 1935) which is 36% of all revenue would mean government would have to adjust to less than 10% of its current income.

Naturally though, debt financing through printing money will have to go too by ending the Federal Reserve and reverting to an audited gold standard.

It’s hard to say how less effective government enforcement would be if it were reduced to a tenth of its current size. That depends on the individuals in government and their propensity to use force but there would be quite a bit of momentum from contracting government were these repeals enacted.

I think that environment would be more amenable to individuals refusing en masse to pay their taxes or voting to abolish them completely but who knows.

Please excuse my intrusion into your conversation with Russ the Apostate.

Nice list, 1 thru 6 are concise assertions that nearly all can agree upon.

My attention is drawn to the pair, 7 and 8. Their utility to sway one’s strongly held convictions is questionable, but that is not what concerns me. It is, rather, with the thought that the relationship between the two, the negligible probability of successful anarchy and the near certainty that the state will emerge, or re-emerge, only to fail, eventually, may be mutually causal. If there is such a link, a perpetual motion “death loop”, that would be a an interesting phenomenon. If a mutual causal loop can be cogently posited, perhaps by one of the several agile minds I have seen at this site, it may lead to ideas that ultimately result in the attainment the mutual goals of the anarchist, the minarch, and the statist.

Just a thought.

cordially,
Don

In brief, I don’t think that this idea would be very popular, even practicable.

Inquisitor’s statement was “Law, order and defence are goods, hence a market and not socialism are the best way to furnish them.”

Now it does not follow that “a market and not socialism” are the best way to furnish goods solely from the fact that “Law, order and defence are goods” but it does follow praxeologically which is something he doesn’t need to prove on Mises.org.

“I didn’t bother to challenge the premise, which is that law, order, and defense are “Goods” and therefore subject to the time and value preferences of a “consumer” only in a completely free market, which is at the very least, debatable.”

Law, order and defense are means to satisfy certain wants in humans e.g. security. Therefore they are goods by definition.

“However, before I go, let’s solve the logic problem correctly: “Therefore, anarchists belief in a free market is good.”

Therefore, it follows:

Wildberry believes in free markets. Jordan believes in free markets. Wildberry and Jordan should be able to put their heads together and reach some common ground on where we might start the process of making our mutual markets more free.

Thus endith the logic lesson.”

Those things don’t really follow logically but I don’t really have any substantial objections to what you say. If we were able to reduce government to the size most minarchists desire, I’d be quite a bit happier no doubt.

Let me start from there and see if we can build up a system of assertions from what has been said on this post.
1. Free markets are the best way to provide all goods and services.
2. To the extent that government intervenes in the operations of a free market, those markets become less free.
3. There is sufficient historical evidence to posit that once a government emerges, it continues to expand the scope of interventionism, thus making markets increasingly less free.
4. This pattern does not continue forever undisturbed, in that history records that catastrophic collapse of very large governmental structures is also common.
5. Such historical moments of governmental collapse are inevitably followed by the emergence of alternative governmental regimes that repeat this cycle, perhaps with variations on the themes.
6. These cycles seem to operate on a time scale of centuries, as history shows many similar patterns along these lines throughout the world over millennia.
7. Although not theoretically impossible, history has never produced a lasting example of an anarchistic state of social organization which has persisted under modern conditions. (i.e. excluding primitive examples of non-advanced economies)
8. Therefore, if the emergence of a State is inevitable, then an objective of an enlightened people with regard to a system of self-governance might be to develop a design in which negative interventions upon the free market can continually be corrected by a non-violent political process.

I’m just wondering, does this hold up?

And so, I have no idea how many legal societies might emerge under panarchy, or what their memberships might be. Nor can I guarantee that each society would have side-agreements with its competitors in order to manage disputes between members of competing societies.

But since it is in one’s self-interest to avoid war, generally speaking, it’s a good bet that most societies will try to compromise where needed. And in the absence of compromise, a member of X can always do his best to avoid or shun a member of Y, if X and Y have failed to reach a compromise.

At first glance, one might expect a proliferation of laws that each person would have to learn — those of his society and all of its side-agreements — but a free market isn’t going to encourage a plethora of laws for any society. In some cases, X and Y might agree to observe the laws of Z where there is a dispute between members of X and Y.

But it would be a mistake to imply that the low GDP per capita or low life expectancy is somehow due to anarchy. A proper look at the economy of any country must go beyond superficial conclusions based on static figures and must look to changes in an economy.

An entertaining look at life expectancy over time in various countries can be found at the following TED Talk:

http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen.html

This is why a longitudinal examination of Somalia vis-a-vis its cohorts is necessary. Indeed, this analysis shows an improvement in life expectancy, increasing industrialization and increasing living standards under anarchy versus similar countries.

But yes, I definitely recommend his “Man, Economy and State” for that lucidity you describe. Make no mistake though, Rothbard believed that a society without a State was not only possible, but preferable. Any other conclusion is dishonest.

At that point the State would have to rely on unpaid police to enforce its dictates e.g. accepting legal tender and following its laws. It’s reasonable to expect, though, that the police, tax collectors, and politicians and others living on taxpayer largesse would be nearly annihilated if they did not receive pay.

Indeed, just about all policemen would rather work for a private company providing security versus working without pay for the state. The result might be that laws would become mostly unenforceable (who will enforce them?) and that would be a fairly close approximation of anarchy.

Ultimately though, individuals in society will have to refuse to follow the orders of the State as a matter of principle to get to anarchy. This is much easier if the State is de-clawed.

No one is saying that an outlook “ensures how reality must be”. Rather, there are some facts of reality for which we conform our minds which then ensure how some other aspect of reality must be.

“Note that there are people who operate instinctively as when recoiling from a fire, rather than those who have reasoned in terms of intentions.”

Is this meant to inform us? “Human Action” covers such cases in the section entitled “On the Serviceableness of Instincts”

“How we determine the form of behavior of an individual can only be determined by reality, i.e., by what is falsifiable. ”

So here you say reality is what is falsifiable, something I called you out for before. It was wrong then and it is still wrong now.

“However “humans act” is not inherently an empirical statement about the world, but a metaphysical orientation.”

Nope. It’s not either or but rather both. As Mises stated “Economics does not follow the procedure of logic and mathematics. It does not present an integrated system of pure aprioristic ratiocination severed from any reference to reality.”

“He might add, that once people believe that no falsification is required, they are in no position to criticize statements about the world by others because there is evidence to the contrary.”

Nope. Just because Austrians proceed praxeologically does not somehow take away our ability to criticize statements made by others using contrary evidence.

“Is sum, praxeology holds over empirical methods, but its statements about the world remain falsifiable”

Nope. Praxeology is not divorced from reality which is necessarily observed and so a statement about the world that humans act is not falsifiable. There are some distinctions you should be drawing but I’ll leave that up to you.