Here is a wonderful video demonstrating the possibilities of a voluntary society. See V for Voluntary for more videos by Niels.
Source link: http://archive.mises.org/15473/how-could-a-voluntary-society-function/
How Could A Voluntary Society Function?
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A voluntary society can work in many ways. The question becomes: What form of social cooperation will people voluntarily choose and why? What can bind people together almost universally within a society? No amount of science without an understanding of religion can provide that impetus. A chalkboard version of a voluntary society can be made more realistic by recognizing that humans are spiritual beings in addition to being physical and intellectual beings.
This and “George Ought to Help” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGMQZEIXBMs) are two great ways to introduce someone to Anarcho-Capitalism/Voluntaryism.
Yeah right! Communism would have worked too if everyone did the right by one another and believed in the system.
No, it would not.
Even with good intentions and a universal desire not to harm others, no society can coordinate production and consumption without prices.
Communism (and all forms of statist violence, actually) deprives producers and consumers of vital economic information, regardless of what they believe or intend.
Gil, stfu. Seriously
Iceland worked great for 300 years with no government.
Ireland for nearly 1000 years.
And there are other historical examples. And before you get to the “population really tiny” spiel, at its peak, Ireland had over 1.5 million people, and what “turned” it was Cromwell butchering 215 thousand Irish.
In summary: stfu.
I have an honest question about this, and if you can provide me with a satisfactory answer, I’ll be very thankful.
If one reads the articles published on this site, one will often see the argument that the less state there is, the more competition there will be (given that “monopolies are the result of government interference in the market”). Following, competition necessarily causes development – services and products improve as business organizations strive to attract and maintain customers.
Jeff Tucker often posts articles praising some new product (a coffee maker or something from google, or whatever), saying “the state couldn’t have come up with this, look what capitalism gives us – life’s easier, more comfortable, etc.”.
Now, you mention 300 years of no-government inIceland and 1000 years of no-government in Ireland. Could you please tell me how that translated in quality of life for icelanders and the irish during that period?
Were they eating more/better?
Were they living longer, healthier lives?
What scientific/technological breakthroughs were they involved in?
Part of issues like this is that each society must be allowed to use their own yardstick. We look through Western eyes because that’s what we’re used to. The point is that individuals and voluntary groups can shape their own lives without government – however they want. The government does a lot of that for us, so much so that it’s tough to know what exactly was influenced by what. So, thousands of years ago, stateless people may have had goals that we can’t even understand now.
Indubitably. Did so-called “anarchist” society really find themselves with a new and better standard of living?
While I wouldn’t have called Iceland a ‘no-government’ system, it certainly had fewer restrictions on liberty than most places today, which is its own reward. Iceland actually had a complicated system of “godord” which were halfway between an insurance company and a neighbourhood watch. You could change which “godord” you belonged to simply by declaration, which maintained fairness and justice for a long time. The problem was that early on, the “godord”‘s together had decided that they would never tolerate or recognise any new “godord”, essentially meaning that an oligopoly legal system was established. Even so, the system worked well enough. It was only much later, when the Danish king wanted to get Iceland under his rule, that the church was set about buying up all the positions in the “godord”s essentially creating a monopoly of justice. Once that was in place, Iceland fell swiftly.
As for quality of life, Dave Albin is right that each community has its own idea of what a successful society should look like. In Iceland’s case, the community focused on literary output. This is the time wen all the great Icelandic sagas were written/passed down. The sheer volume of output from an essentially medieval society is quite amazing. It’s also quite good, imho. It has been suggested that if Iceland weren’t so far from the rest of Europe, relative to the boating technology of the time, the literary output of Iceland would have dominated medieval European culture, and for the better.
It’s hard to place a value on having a strong literary tradition, and a culture of sharing stories and such. But it is what the Icelanders wanted to do with their spare time (of which there was much more than the standard in Europe, due to not needing to pay taxes), so perhaps that’s the best test.
All this coming from a society on a volcanic island that has approximately 0 trees. Seriously, driftwood that washed up on the beach was a prized resource, because not many trees can grow in that soil.
Aw poor baby. Sparta existed for some 400 years therefore a militaristic society is more stable than your ideal Icelandic society.
Incorrect. Communism does not have the economic means to work. If people were robots on the other hand, then perhaps you’d have a point.
Firstly, nobody said Iceland was ideal, just that it was an example of anarchy working. Lit “Iceland worked great for 300 years with no government” as response to your “Yeah right! Communism would have worked too”. Daniel was providing you with an example of a stable society functioning for more than a generation with voluntary means alone.
Can you understand the difference?
Secondly, nobody cares how stable Sparta was, as it wasn’t a voluntary society. Showing that a non-voluntary society managed to exist cannot and does not in any way negate the fundamental point that a voluntary society can function. Getting into a quibble about which form of society was “better” necessitates the question “better for whom”? No Spartan lived 400 years, why should the length of time matter then? A more pertinent question would be the capacity of Spartans or Icelanders to live their lives as they see fit. Iceland wins hands down, there.
I would say if there was anything to idyllic anarchist Iceland then it would still be around. Gee it only lasted 300 years. So much for the notion that world will go anarchist or stay one for long.
Secondly, it ought to matter which societies last the longest and to what state societies gravitate to. History seems to show that societies on both extremes gravitate towards the hybrid system in use now – people get to keep some of the wealth but have to contribute to a common pool.
P.S. Who’s to say Spartans hated their lives and wanted to be Pacifists? If they didn’t their society would either ceased to exist or at least be toned down.
“I would say if there was anything to idyllic anarchist Iceland then it would still be around. Gee it only lasted 300 years. So much for the notion that world will go anarchist or stay one for long.” Again, it was not idyllic, it was just significantly more free than the society we have now. And it is no longer “around” because the Danish king had the resources of the entire danish kingdom’s taxpayers to throw around, and used it to exploit the weaknesses of the system which were: 1) the “godard” were fixed institutions, and new entrants to this system were disallowed, and 2) it was an extremely poor settlement, as Iceland was only recently settled with medieval technology, and the land was still quite barren (the soil level is generally not thick enough for trees to grow, ergo there is no wood).
So, it was not the anarchism of Iceland which was its undoing, but a combination of the departure from anarchism, and the relative wealth of the danish king for use in threats and invasions, which ended the civilisation. Do you understand?
” it ought to matter which societies last the longest and to what state societies gravitate to.” It does matter, obviously, but it does not, in any way, help to determine whether a voluntary society can function. If you want to use historical examples, note that slavery is slowly becoming less and less prevalent, each generation is pushing the idea of freedom further and further, and using violence and coercion to get people to do what you want is becoming less and less acceptable. The general trend, then, is toward free, voluntary interactions. The “hybrid system[s] in use now” are entirely novel, and under constant revision, because there are still many known problems with them.
“P.S. Who’s to say Spartans hated their lives and wanted to be Pacifists? If they didn’t their society would either ceased to exist or at least be toned down.”
No, you’re assuming that the average Spartan had some form of freedom in deciding how they would like their society to function. Nobody has advocated Pacifism, try to focus. Besides, it is well known that people who are abused (and do some reading on Spartan culture if you don’t think Spartan children were abused) tend to become abusive themselves. In this way, the worst possible ideas about human relations can be passed from generation to generation. The “if people didn’t want X, they would have chosen otherwise” argument only applies when people actually do have a choice.
This is interesting – it’s almost like the equivalent of a moral CV, so to speak.
This already happens on the web (e.g., public-key cryptography, or what news websites you trust over others, eBay and Craigslist postings, etc.), where trust and reputation are large factors that play heavily into the decisions people make day after day.
Yeah, a character credit-check.
In truth, it wouldn’t even be nearly that complicated. How do I know. Because we see this millions of times every day on sites like e-bay. Sure there are disputes, and fraud, but generally speaking massive amount of commerce happens every day without disputes.
As long as there are free-market ways to deal with fraud…. Actually would be better at stopping cheats than our current system, which provides all the safety nets for crooks.
Case-in-point: uninsured driver (against state law) hits our car. Our insurance, which had uninsured/underinsured coverage, was required to cover it. We called the police on him, but they said they couldn’t do anything about it (too few resources, or some other nonsense like that). A free-market system would not keep propping up people like that. A system of private justice would work to deal with crooked people, or would not be in business long. Also, if we wanted to, we could hire someone to collect from this deadbeat – the state would not have a monopoly on all these things (like making everyone hold insurance, and then not enforcing the law).
Dave
The example of the uninsured driver is not a sound one in the context of this discussion. The risk of taking yourself and your property onto the road is yours and properly remains so. You need to bear the consequences of YOUR decision to travel on the road. It is not up to the state or anyone else to deal with that. Of course, you are now going to inform me about how it was “the other guy’s fault”. Well yeah, sure it was. Right. Heard that one many times before.
A lesson to realise is that the state only cares about you in regards to how much it can bilch from you. When it comes to “proecting” you and your interests, well, that isn’t a prioriy. As you realised, too few resources etc…, lots of excuses.
In a free market situation the roads would be privately owned. The owners may require all users to have insurance or they may not bother with such demands (more than likely the case). In that situation (as with any other really), you are responsible for yourself and no-one is bound to accept your burden of responsiblility for you. If there is a “deadbeat” on the road at the same time as you and the both of you happen to share a collision, you can’t expect him or anyone else to indemnify you of all damages. You are going to suffer a loss. It’s up to you how you personally make provision for the possibility.
Sione
To a point, you are correct. In my case, a driverless (that’s right) car struck my vehicle. Certainly, a driver should maintain control of his car – it was his fault. Nothing will every happen to him. Property protection is somewhat of a joke, when, in our society, people can damage property and subsist on state welfare, for example – never having to pay for the damages. The state will never protect us from people like this, but in a stateless society, people who offer nothing to anyone else except harm would eventually be ejected from society or would perish.
“If there is a “deadbeat” on the road at the same time as you and the both of you happen to share a collision, you can’t expect him or anyone else to indemnify you of all damages. You are going to suffer a loss. It’s up to you how you personally make provision for the possibility.”
This is very strange. My reading of the somali Xeer, which was a few times mentioned in discussions about stateless societies where everyone had to be “fully insured”, was that insurance was primarily to cover damages caused to someone else’s property.
Indeed, it is my choice to buy insurance – but if as an uninsured person I cause damage to someone’s property, I should expect to have my own property seized and given to the other part as reparation.
couldn’t stand listening to the narrator’s voice for more than 47 seconds.
The narriator’s voice was boring/annoying. But otherwise I liked that video..
I don’t even have to watch the video to be convinced.
Suppose that someone who doesn’t believe in a voluntary society makes a video – How Could An Involuntary Society Function?
How indeed?
It is absurd to think that person ‘A’ could be given coercive power over persons ‘B’, ‘C’ and ‘D’ … and that person ‘A’ would not use this power for his or her own benefit, but would for the most part use the power for the benefit of the other persons.
It is equally absurd to think that even if the subjects of person ‘A’ have, in theory, “democratic checks and balances” to use against their leader, they would be able to use them effectively.
Coercive power, holding as it does the tremendous potential for getting fabulously wealthy and committing violence with impunity, attracts the greediest people, the most persuasive liars and the biggest psychopaths. In other words power attracts most strongly the people who feel the strongest urge to hold and wield power. By definition those people who least want to have coercive power will expend the least effort to achieve this power. The non-power-seekers also lack the innate deviousness which would enable them understand the minds of the power-seekers and therefore detect them and cast their votes in favor of those rare, selfless individuals who might from time to time allow themselves to be nominated for office. And even if the people could detect and reject someone who is a power-seeker, it is the inevitable consequence of wielding power that it tends to corrupt even the most selfless individuals.
Finally, even if against all odds the people were able to assign coercive power to one of those rare, selfless individuals, and if that person turned out by some miracle to be incorruptible, how far would society be ahead? At this stage the famous Austrian “knowledge problem” would negate the good intentions of even the most angelic leader. Nobody understands anyone’s needs and desires as much as they understand their own needs and desires. They could not coerce others into having better lives, because they lack any specific information about how other people can achieve satisfaction, either individually or collectively. Since their actions are coercive, they do not receive feedback from others as to which of their actions give satisfaction and which do not. They cannot tell the difference between those who acquiesce to their actions because they are satisfactory, and those who acquiesce because they do not wish to be killed or imprisoned.
How could a voluntary society function? By not being an involuntary society.
Such power was given by birthright (or God for some religious believers). Just as people are born beautiful and get a higher standard of living because of it so too are some people born strong and capable of ruling others. The school bullies applied for no licences to bully rather they just have the strength and ability to carry it out. The victims would love to fight back, overpower the bullies and make them too timid to use physical force to get what they want but the victims are too weak and feeble so they learn it’s better to play by the bullies rules and live.
However you left out the way in which some people are venerated for their power. Haven’t you heard women have little to no interest in “nice guys”. Haven’t you noticed how many women stay in abusive relationships because they still love their men? Haven’t you heard women are primarily attracted to high status men and aren’t too particular where the men get their status from?
Gil,
So do you relate to those women who want to be beaten and want others to have their wealth stolen for your benefit?
I don’t follow.
I’m sure that’s familiar territory for you.
So instead of concentrating on building a credit score, we would focus on building our reputation. Either way, one would still be a slave to judgment. Isolated, both are a cold, emotionless, bitter way of verifying quality and trust.
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