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Nope, our accommodation only extended to your ability to make tax free purchases with promissory notes, assuming the promissory notes were not purchased with money (i.e., they were the result of barter only). Within this context, the courts would not be available to you, since you opted out by so doing. The public interest enters into the picture, however, when any individual decides to pursue his own forms of justice, apart from the law, and since the government is all about the public interest, this would not be permissible. You had better trust the honesty of those you are dealing with, under these conditions.



I think the typical situation would be farmer Jones obtaining the equivalent of $50 store credit for X amount of eggs supplied to the general store. The only thing that would keep the shop keeper honest, in this case, would be the desire 1) to maintain a good reputation in the community and 2) to continue dealing with farmer Jones in the future.

Keep reading.

Since I continually modify my posts until you reply, you ought to check them out again after you have replied in case it has changed. After you reply, I do not change them, except if I find a typo.

As for "Keep reading," I'm not sure what you mean. Please expand on that.

I have no reason to be even faintly interested in such an "accommodation."



Imagine if I met you on the way to school and beat you up every day, because I enjoyed it. You didn't enjoy it, so one day you offered to make an agreement with me whereby I wouldn't beat you up anymore if you agreed to, say, give me all your lunch money. So I said no, I'm going to keep beating you up, because it's my nature: but if you like, I'll sign an agreement with you that says you'll wear a red shirt to school every day, so that when I beat you up the blood won't be quite as obvious. Would you be interested? Or would you instead decide to start carrying a knife or a gun to school with you?

Here's a thread that promises to develop into a fairly highbrow, interesting discussion of anarchism:

Lies Our Forefathers Told Us

At the very least, the article at the top of it makes some of the same points I have here, but much more eloquently. It's from L. Neil Smith's The Libertarian Enterprise.

My purpose in this thought experiment is to set up a free-market competition between government and anarchism. We know that government doesn't work; we don't know whether anarchism works or not. I think it will; therefore I think it will win any free-market competition. You think it won't; therefore you shouldn't be afraid of a free-market competition. So I'm willing to agree to a situation that sets up such a contest.

But I'm not willing to unconditionally accept whatever terms your government sets down (designed from the beginning to ensure government victory) and simply live with them. We already know what happens to government-distorted free markets; there's no need for more experimentation on that issue.

Sorry, but I have no idea what you are talking about. I don't say this as a rhetorical device. I really have no idea. You have some mighty loose associations.

We do? I have never agreed with that premise. Perhaps your definition of "work" is the problem. Does something only work when it works perfectly? If that's the case, I'm afraid you need to get ready for a lot of disappointments in life. This is anything but a perfect world. We are a fallen race, and this is a fallen world, and there is little that is perfect in it.



Unfortunately, what you propose is not possible. A government that can be individually opted out of is no government at all. We either have one or we don't. If we don't have one, I hope you are prepared to be the slave of some potentate, or else a potentate in your own right, because that's the only other option to government, i.e., the total state where the vast majority are considered the possessions of the ruling class, to be used exclusively for their benefit. It is only government that stands in the way of this outcome.



You seem to know very little about human nature.

My definition of "work" is pretty simple: if something works, then it successfully achieves the purpose for which it was created. Government, if we are to take our framers at face value, is instituted among men in order to secure their fundamental unalienable rights. Has our government done that? No: instead it occupies itself with abrogating and destroying those rights--and it has been doing so at least since the War of Northern Aggression. I'm sure I could find examples before that, even if we excuse slavery and the Native Americans.

(Remember: the most fundamental right of all is the right to private property, and you agreed with me (or at least were unable to disagree) that there is no such thing as private property in the US today.)

Can you give me an example of any other government that has worked either? I can't think of one, right off.


If you did the job that you were hired to do as badly as we both agree our government is doing the job we hired it to do, do you think you'd make it to the end of the week, or even the day, without being fired? That's all I'm saying: our government is incompetent, corrupt, and insanely overpaid. Let's fire it.


So you're unwilling to even think about a free-market competition between government and anarchism? Why does the concept make you so nervous?


First, if we had no government, I'd like to see some potentate try to make a slave of me. Perhaps you could describe how you'd foresee that happening. Secondly, I'm a libertarian: I have no interest in being a potentate. Thirdly, you've made that assertion a number of times (government or slavery are the only options), but I don't think you've ever supported it with more than one preliminary argument which you have then refused to discuss further.


Are you serious? I just described how we are already all possessions of the ruling class, courtesy of the government, and you were unable to disagree with me. It's government that produces this outcome. In the face of this, how am I to make sense of your assertion?

I never said that our current government does that well. In fact, it does it very poorly. The Declaration, however, speaks of the solution to this. "Whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it...[now comes the important part], and to institute new government,laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness." Notice that they did not simply say to abolish government.



As I'd like to see you try to steal my lunch money on the way to school. No one can be made a slave against his will. You have to choose between death and slavery. Of course there is always the possibility of your vanquishing your captors, in which case, more power to you, Hercules. In truth, slavery is merely another angle on war. You can only be a slave if you choose to surrender. Your conqueror may then kill you or enslave you. It is both his choice and yours. If you never surrender, of course, that is the nobler course, but in that case, you might have to accept an honorable and very praiseworthy death.



Well, you can choose to stay clear of everyone, and live on your own, or in a small community in the mountains somewhere, I guess. But if you live in society, that society will either be a tyranny or one where the state power is reined in by the people. The latter type, we call government. In either case there will be a state power, just because of the nature of man. In any given community, there will always be some men who would rather not work for their own living. They'd rather intimidate you into working for them. These people are called the state power. Gradually, institutions rise up around them, and their positions get imbued with a sense of justice, i.e., "They ought to be our rulers, because God has willed it." Now, those institutions can remain raw state power, or society can begin to rein in that power for its own benefit. This latter scenario is called the institution of government. Some governments are better than others. Ours was probably the best there ever was. It's corruption over time is what became the bad government we know today. It was not that in its inception. It was never perfect, however, as we live in a fallen world and perfection does not exist here, unless you count my magnificent mind. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

In other words, it doesn't work--so we agree, right?


Of course they didn't. They were planning to institute a new government, and they had every confidence that it would work. Today, with the benefit of hindsight, we can see that they were wrong. If they had known back then that even a government specifically designed to preserve individual liberty (rather than to support a ruling class in the style to which they wanted to become accustomed, or to conquer vast territories, or to eliminate crime, or whatever) would fail miserably, who is to say what they would have done?


Read it again. Nothing in that scenario had anything to do with me stealing your lunch money.


Close. There's a third option, of course: you arrange to make the slavery option so difficult or otherwise distasteful to the enslaver that he chooses not to bother. That's what our founders tried, and failed, to do.


That which you call "government" is a fleeting, temporary phenomenon, as has been demonstrated repeatedly in history. If it exists at all, it lasts only as long as it takes the rulers to figure out how to get around it.


I understand what you're saying; you don't have to say it again. But I don't understand how you envision that happening in an anarchist society. How does an anarchist freeman go from believing that no man has the right to rule another to believing, "They ought to be our rulers, because God has willed it?"


But with what we know now, we can see that it contained the seeds of corruption at the very beginning. It should no longer surprise anyone that it failed. We can see now the places where the tyranny we find ourselves under has come from. Among them are the welfare clause, the lack of judicial accountability, and the Congressional powers to tax and to coin money.

Let me ask you this: If you could be omnipotent for a week, how would you set things up?

Nope. I said that in its original form, it worked pretty well. What failed was its corruption. If I build a house, and for 50 years it protects me from the snow and rain, but after that time the roof starts leaking, and the termites have eaten away at the frame, and it becomes a danger even to the person it was built to protect, can I say that the house that was originally built was a failure? No, it was the corruption of that house that failed. I failed to keep it up.





No, they understood human nature, but did the best they could in an imperfect world. They knew that it would not last unless the people remained armed and vigilant in defense of liberty. The people failed. The Founders didn't, and neither did the government they established. Our task is one of restoration. There are no perfect systems that cannot be corrupted by corrupt people, given enough time.



Sad, but true. You cannot force a people to stay free.



Are anarchists somehow above human nature? In any given grouping of men, there will arise some who wish to live off the labors of others, and who will seek ways to do so. Usually lots of blood and death are involved, resulting in intimidation. Yes, the good guys can come to the rescue and chase off the scoundrels, but there will eventually be a successful bunch of scoundrels. History is replete with such examples. Show me a society and I will show you a state power. The only question is whether the given society has reined it in with government, and how successfully.





The seeds of corruption go further back than that. I believe it had something to do with a serpent and a piece of fruit. We can make no perfect systems in this world. We can only try to make the best ones possible, i.e., which take human nature into consideration. As for the welfare clause, it was not meant as it has been interpreted, and those that interpreted it knew that. As for judicial accountability, read Article III Section 2. Oh heck, I'll quote it: "...the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exception, and under such regulations, as the Congress shall make." So, you see that congress is a check on the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. We elect Congressmen. Ultimately, it is our fault, we fallen men. As for the power to coin money, this is no longer in the hands of congress, but the Federal Reserve Bank, a private institution. This is unconstitutional. As for the power to tax, it did not extend to individuals until 1913, and that amendment was unconstitutional, because it did not satisfy the requirement for an amendment.





If I were omnipotent, I would probably live in a splendid palace (I'd probably have quite of few of them) with hundreds of beautiful slave girls serving my every need. Soon, I would place little value on human life, and I'd probably have people executed for looking at me funny. You don't want me to be omnipotent, or any other human being for that matter. Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

All manmade government is unavoidably corrupt, from its very inception. You said it yourself: power corrupts, and that's what coercive government is--naked power.


I don't think the analogy is apt. Weather and termites are external to a house, even though they should optimally be provided for in the design. Corruption is intrinsic to a government, and cannot be provided for in the design. (Give it a try; you'll see what I mean.)


But they didn't understand human nature well enough. They understood that governments tended toward the tyrannical, but they didn't understand how intensely a governed people tends toward the ovine.


Prove it. There are no incorruptible governments, but you haven't effectively argued yet that the absence of a government is corruptible. See below.


Okay...I can't tell whether you're avoiding the issue or genuinely not understanding the question, so I'll ask just one more time. If you conspicuously refuse to address the question again, I'll settle for that, and won't press the issue further.

In a society where everyone is taught at his mother's knee that it is unjust for any man to rule another, through what specific process do you foresee a group of scoundrels convincing a much larger group to support them under threat of force? You've told us several times that you foresee such a process; we believe you and we don't need to be told that again. But you haven't told us yet what the process you foresee is.

Oh--and incidentally, nobody claims that an anarchist society would be perfect. But it would be free--its imperfections would be in areas other than coercion. Individual imperfect people would screw up their individual lives, but the screwups would be isolated: they would not have the coercive power to screw up the lives of others as well.


True; but its corrupt interpretation should have been foreseen. That, it seems from our current vantage point, should have been an easy one.


Okay--given our forefathers' "balance of power" theory that if a little coercion was good, a lot of coercion would be better, I suppose I can understand how they intended to make the judiciary accountable. Obviously, it didn't work; the three branches are pretty good at scratching each other's backs, if it gives each of them more power.


True, but irrelevant. If Congress had not started out with the power to coin money, we would not now be under a monopoly, whether public or "private."


Again, irrelevant. The power to tax is the power to control. Give somebody the power to tax anything, and he will eventually have the power to tax everything. I can explain how that works if you like, but not now--I'm late.


For a week, Hawkeye, for a week. When the week was over, you'd still have to face the people who paid for the palaces and the fathers and brothers of the slave girls. I figure a week is about enough time to set up whatever coercive government you'd like. You've been picking at anarchism for the past several dozen posts; let's have you design something better and I'll pick at it for a bit.

Government is the harnessing of state power that already exists, and which will unavoidably exist, due to the nature of man. Government is the people's restraint on that power, for the good of themselves. When it fails, the power reverts to its natural course, i.e., to be parasitical and predatory on society. This failure can happen gradually, or all at once. No government can perfectly control the state power, but ours did a damned good job of it for a while.



Corruption is intrinsic to man, and can only imperfectly be provided for in the design of government.



You may be right. It could be that every government is doomed to fail, eventually. I see this, however, as a basic failure in human nature, i.e., a large percent being sheeplike, and there just may be no intellectually generated solution to it, which is why I recommend recourse to tradition and the traditional institutions of liberty, i.e., a restoration of the traditional institutions of liberty.



Does this need to be argued? Any observant human being will take note of this fact in nature and history. Some men are naturally drawn toward power, and have a knack at acquiring it for themselves. I have also observed that power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely (Acton). If there is no government, do you think there will arise no public power? When in history has such a power vacuum existed in any civilization?



Are you kidding? How would you establish such a universal tradition? At gun point? How long do you think it would last, even if you did? You remind me of the dialongues in Plato's Republic. The problem is inate in the nature of man. You cannot solve it with intellectually generated utopias. Even if you were able to establish such a tradition (by what process I cannot imagine), man's nature will not thereby be altered one iota. It is only by recourse to the traditional institutions which have fostered liberty in the past that we can find any refuge against the total state. Our task is one of restoration, not revolution (i.e., our task is not to wipe away the past in order to establish some never-before-seen utopia).



You'd be free for a very short time. I'm talking days, not generations. Ever read Animal Farm?



Whatever I devised would fail. Soon as I lost my omnipotence, the media would make a villain of me, and the people would demand the restoration of the paternalistic government they'd grown used to. The institutions of liberty cannot be imposed on anyone. They have to develop organically, along with a tradition of liberty among the people. A piece of paper is worthless if the mass of the people are too brainwashed to understand that liberty is better than paternalism. My argument is that we had those traditions, and our struggle ought to be for a restoration of them. I place little hope in the success of this endeavor. However, I place zero confidence in the success of yours.

If I were omnipotent for a week, I'd have the power to travel back in time. I would use this power to travel back to the Philadelphia Convention of 1787, and I'd bring all kinds of media to show them what the future holds, and ask them to take it into consideration when they devised the new Constitution. Perhaps they would incorporate the bill of rights directly into it, and eliminate the amendment process. Perhaps property would be better defended with a clear clause prohibiting any tax on income or property holdings (The federal government would be funded with fees on imports). Perhaps property would be better defended by a clear statement of why the voting power should be apportioned based on property ownership. At least, this way, it is possible that liberty would have lasted longer. Perhaps the Civil War would have been averted if they knew ahead of time what was to happen, as it was this war most of all that started our rapid decline. Perhaps a lot of things. In any event, I think the best use I could make of my temporary omnipotence would be this trip to the past.

To argue this is to argue that 1) men have an acquisitive nature with regard to power, and 2) the greater the power, the greater its tendency to corrupt. How easy is that? Just open your eyes, man, and look around you.



Anyway, you wanted to know the process by which anarchy would be corrupted. Well, let us assume that your anarchy started off real nice, and that no other nation invaded your land, enslaving all the people. Heck, let's assume you moved to Mars, after terraforming it, and everyone there (let's say there was a population of 500,000) was an avowed anarchist. You'd all live peacefully together, and there'd be no public power to coerce anyone. You'd settle into your occupations, everyone pursuing his own self-interest. Considering man's acquisitive nature with regard to power, how long do you think it will be before the more successful anarcho-capitalists form a cooperative in order to advantage themselves in relation to everyone else? Once it was established, they'd probably want to retain their advantage, and even improve on it. They might even hire a small force of mercenaries to assist them in this endeavor.



Well, there you have the birth of the state power: something similar in organization to the Mafia. What's to stop it? It's power will be one of raw coercion. Naturally, other private businessmen might oppose it with an army of their own, but one or the other state power will win. Even if they fight to a draw, however, you would then have two state powers. What's to restrain them within their spheres of influence? The people, being anarchists, have established no government, so the state's power is raw and unrestrained. Am I missing something? Why is it you can't see this?

Hawk is winning.
The Martian colony needs some sort of structure or it becomes monopolistic....which is kind of what happened with the invention of capital and machinery and the concentrations of power/money it made possible.
Were it not for governANCE, and the political process, we would all live crappy lives on scrip. Even an enlightened population, knowing it could stop buying monopolistic goods, would have to collectively act -- hard to do with monopolistic suppliers of goods, infrastructure and especially communications.
Human beings suck. If we were all Vulcans, pure libertarianism might function. But we ain't and it won't. The thrust of libertarianism should be the expansion of human freedom, both economic and civil, and that is maximized by balance. Which we do not have in this nattering nannystate.

Dave, you make a good point. Businessmen have as their goal to corner whatever market they are involved in, because that way they make more money. Now, were there no government to prevent the use of force, these businessmen would even hire mercenaries to prevent competition from undercutting them. If they are a very wealthy organization of private businessmen, not even other private armies would be able to confront them. They'd become the total state, along the lines of the Mafia. Barak does not seem to understand that money is power, and power will corrupt, unchecked. One role of government is to make sure that people can pursue their interests (including the accumulation of wealth via private enterprise) without harming one another, which they will invariably do without a check on their power. The check must be something above the private sector, and answerable to the people at large. The check must also itself be subordinate to the rule of law, as a check on its own tendency to corrupt. But there needs to be a public power check on the corruption of private enterprise. As you say, this is all a complex balancing act, but it has to be attempted, or tyranny will certainly be the outcome.

Barak understands. He's just not willing to concede the point and he's having way too much fun jerking your chain.

I think he really believes the stuff he's saying, dead wrong though he is.