Living without a government - do you think it would work?

Posted: Sun Dec 20, 2009 4:47 pm

Hi infidels,

I'm wondering what you think of the idea of a self-governed society without any sort of monopoly on leadership and the other things that governments claim to be their own.
I hesitate to use the word anarchy because it really seems to have a bad image and a lot of conflicting variations.

The idea here is to logically and rationally weigh the pros and cons of statist-societies and anarchic-socities.

Looking at how the number 1 contributors to human suffering worldwide all throughout human history are governments (but feel free to disagree), I think it's worthwhile to examine this proposition seriously and with an open mind - which I very rarely see in forums.

Feel free to post all the reasons why a stateless society would be bad and non-functional in your opinion or why it would be a rational and workable approach to governing.
I will try to provide counter-arguments and everyone else is of course welcome to do so, as well.

Posted: Sun Dec 20, 2009 8:56 pm

Quote:

I'm wondering what you think of the idea of a self-governed society without any sort of monopoly on leadership and the other things that governments claim to be their own.

First of all, I don't see us ridding ourselves of government until we rid ourselves of our current notions of reciprocal economics. I think human society would be better as a whole under some type of united direction (rather then the state systems we have now), if you want to call that government, fine. Our current systems are just a slight upgrade of tribalism, which are divisive, often destructive and wasteful.

That said, I do not think we are capable of individualistic governance, at least in a world with a high population, maintaining complex social structures and technology. If we wish to go back to something like pre-bronze age society, we could probably pull it of in a limited fashion. However, I don't think I'd want to live in a world like that.

Most people that ask this type of question are convinced a free-market society without government would be better... I'm under the opinion it'd probably be worse. I don't believe human greed is a reasonable alternative.

A little Wisdom of prot...

Gene Brewer wrote:

Don't blame the politicians for your problems. They are merely a reflection of yourselves.

Posted: Sun Dec 20, 2009 10:39 pm

MockingGods wrote:

Quote:

I'm wondering what you think of the idea of a self-governed society without any sort of monopoly on leadership and the other things that governments claim to be their own.

First of all, I don't see us ridding ourselves of government until we rid ourselves of our current notions of reciprocal economics. I think human society would be better as a whole under some type of united direction (rather then the state systems we have now), if you want to call that government, fine. Our current systems are just a slight upgrade of tribalism, which are divisive, often destructive and wasteful.

That said, I do not think we are capable of individualistic governance, at least in a world with a high population, maintaining complex social structures and technology. If we wish to go back to something like pre-bronze age society, we could probably pull it of in a limited fashion. However, I don't think I'd want to live in a world like that.

Most people that ask this type of question are convinced a free-market society without government would be better... I'm under the opinion it'd probably be worse. I don't believe human greed is a reasonable alternative.

A little Wisdom of prot...

Gene Brewer wrote:

Don't blame the politicians for your problems. They are merely a reflection of yourselves.

Thanks for the reply MG!
I think that there are a couple flaws in your argumentation... I'm sure you won't mind me pointing 'em out XD !

First of all, you mentioned you would prefer some form of united direction, which I would understand to be something akin to a world government. It sounds interesting, but I don't see why it should be any different from any of the current governments. The evidence seems to suggest that the bigger a government, the worse it is (russia, china, usa)... How should a global government be any better?

Your second argument is that people wouldn't be capable of maintaining our developed world without governance... Here are some of the problems with this argument as far as I can see:
1) how do you know? What is your logic behind this claim? You have posited a conclusion without telling us how you got there.
2) last time I looked, it were private people and companies doing the job. I don't see why you would need governments for any of those things? Again, you may have good reasons, but you haven't formulated them.
3) societies are broken down in dimensions; households, neighbourhoods, districts, cities, regions, etc. In other words, there are ways to keep a complex society "simple". Therefore, I don't see why size and complexity should be a problem at all?

Your argument against the freemarket unfortunately also doesn't offer any substance as it is, so I hope you could expand on that.

By the way, that's a good quote you have there. I tend to agree with it; in my opinion, there would be no politicians if we had the courage to honestly examine ourselves.

Posted: Mon Dec 21, 2009 1:44 am

MockingGods wrote:

... I do not think we are capable of individualistic governance, at least in a world with a high population, maintaining complex social structures and technology. If we wish to go back to something like pre-bronze age society, we could probably pull it of in a limited fashion. However, I don't think I'd want to live in a world like that.

AliTheBandit wrote:

First of all, you mentioned you would prefer some form of united direction, which I would understand to be something akin to a world government. It sounds interesting, but I don't see why it should be any different from any of the current governments. The evidence seems to suggest that the bigger a government, the worse it is (russia, china, usa)... How should a global government be any better?

Your second argument is that people wouldn't be capable of maintaining our developed world without governance... Here are some of the problems with this argument as far as I can see:
1) how do you know? What is your logic behind this claim? You have posited a conclusion without telling us how you got there.
2) last time I looked, it were private people and companies doing the job. I don't see why you would need governments for any of those things? Again, you may have good reasons, but you haven't formulated them.
3) societies are broken down in dimensions; households, neighbourhoods, districts, cities, regions, etc. In other words, there are ways to keep a complex society "simple". Therefore, I don't see why size and complexity should be a problem at all?

By the way, that's a good quote you have there. I tend to agree with it; in my opinion, there would be no politicians if we had the courage to honestly examine ourselves.

you both make great points. i seem to not be as politically savvy as you guys, but i think an important issue that wasn't addressed is, without some type of government, how would peace among the populace be maintained?

and if citizen defense forces were developed in place of police and military, what would be the checks and balances to keep any of them from trying to establish some sort of dictatorship? although i like the concept of a sustainable governmentless society,
i think something like that could only work if every one was truly benevolently reciprocal, and as we all know there are far too many assholes in the world to live by the honor system alone.

maybe through some sort of ethical eugenics program, we could eradicate the traits that lead to violence, greed, jealousy, as well as genetic defects and disorders, and make peaceful anarchy possible someday, but other than that, i just can't see how it would work.

Posted: Mon Dec 21, 2009 2:02 pm

elusive_elf wrote:

you both make great points. i seem to not be as politically savvy as you guys, but i think an important issue that wasn't addressed is, without some type of government, how would peace among the populace be maintained?

and if citizen defense forces were developed in place of police and military, what would be the checks and balances to keep any of them from trying to establish some sort of dictatorship? although i like the concept of a sustainable governmentless society,
i think something like that could only work if every one was truly benevolently reciprocal, and as we all know there are far too many assholes in the world to live by the honor system alone.

maybe through some sort of ethical eugenics program, we could eradicate the traits that lead to violence, greed, jealousy, as well as genetic defects and disorders, and make peaceful anarchy possible someday, but other than that, i just can't see how it would work.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts, elusive_elf =) !

Your skepticism is completely understandable, but I think that your points don't pose any problems to a self-governed society if you try to imagine it accurately.

Your first objection is: how should peace be maintained?
Now, there are a couple of questions that have to be asked before answering this question:
1) How do fights and wars generally start?
2) How are conflicts being funded?
3) Is peace being maintained *with* governments?

If you try to answer these questions honestly, I think you will see that none ends up being "pro" government.
As I'm sure you know, conflicts generally only start because one state wants to have something that another state possesses... Whether it's land or ressources, etc.
However, civilists almost never start conflicts unless they are being threatened by the military forces of some government. All that is historically very clear.
So in other words, if you don't have governments, there would be no one to lead a population into war. People are busy enough with their own lifes, why should they go to war in some foreign country for some unclear reasons - unless they are being forced to by their leaders?

Also, how would wars be funded without governments? Currently, it is the tax payers money that funds wars. Usually without us even having anything to say in the matter!
Without tax revenue, who would provide the enormous amounts of money necessary to keep a war going? Even the most wealthy companies couldn't do it for more than a couple months.
Therefore, wars would be impossible without governments.

The last question is: is peace being maintained *with* governments? And we all know the answer: HELL NO.
There is constantly some kind of war inspired by conflicting interests of different states going on. So saying that peace couldn't be maintained if there were no states is meaningless, because it's NOT currently being maintained at all.

Now, some kinds of defense and police forces would probably be necessary in any stateless society, but they would be funded according to the service they provide. So for example, if everything was peaceful, then the society would have a very minimal defense force which couldn't possibly ever turn into a "government". If the times got rough, it would only get so much funding as necessary, because people don't like giving away their money unless they know its necessary.
In other words, if a defense force threatened to become too powerful, people would simply have to stop funding them. With governments, this isn't possible, because you get thrown in jail if you don't pay your taxes. Thus, this point also ends up being in favor of a society with no government.

Your next point is that an ungoverned society would need the people to be truly benevolently reciprocal. Now, I don't really agree with that and don't see why that should be, but let's just say you're right - then a government is the worst possible solution that you can think of.
A government in its essence is a monopoly of power. The government makes the rules, laws and regulations, it has potential control over almost everything.
It is your claim that people aren't benevolent, well, we both agree that they are usually extremely selfish and often outright evil. Who do you think would want to gain control over a socitey?
The peaceful, honest, wise people? Or the insecure, megalomaniac, aggressive folks? Of course it would be the second group!
And that is being proven over and over again.

Now, because of our democratic system its (almost) not possible to be outright evil and become a president, so the people who tend to get into office are the liars and smoothtalkers who tell you one thing and do the complete opposite. This is what is expected in a system like ours and the facts consistently prove it every single time.

Your last point is that we couldn't get to a peaceful society unless we somehow changed humanity. Now, I want to try to be as polite as possible, but it does seem to me that you have a somewhat inaccurate understanding of human psychology. Again, I'm really not trying to say that you're "foolish" for believing this, but I do want to challenge your position because in my opinion it is completely wrong... (but who knows, maybe you end up having some really convincing arguments)

Now let me explain: All the "negative" human traits that you mentioned - violence, greed, jealousy, defects & disorders, etc. - are part of human nature. What is important to do is to act in an objective, scientific manner and not start panicking; we have to examine the symptoms and find out what precisely causes these negative sides of human nature to rise to the surface.

I guarantee you that you can research any random person on earth which shows some of these traits and you will find the direct causes somewhere in their history. Once you understand this, you will see that its not these people who have to be "amputated" but the causes that lead them to become who they are. Therefore, what we would need wouldn't be an eugenics program, but a redesign of our environments (families, societies) which "shape" our natures.

I would argue that governments, because of a massive lack of understanding of human nature, set up precisely the wrong incentives and create programs that end up mutilating the "personality" of humans rather than supporting and carefully leading it, like a good psycho-therapist would do.

So far, I would maintain that all arguments speak in favor of a society with no government. But I would expect the counterarguments to come raining down on me anytime now =D !

Posted: Mon Dec 21, 2009 8:58 pm

AliTheBandit wrote:

The evidence seems to suggest that the bigger a government, the worse it is (russia, china, usa)... How should a global government be any better?

Not a "bigger" government... a "single" government. I suppose it might be bigger, but it wouldn't necessarily have to be. I am, as you can probably tell by what I wrote, against nationalism. Nationalism is the primary (perhaps only) reason we have such things as large scale wars, which are extremely wasteful.

Quote:

Your second argument is that people wouldn't be capable of maintaining our developed world without governance...

What I actually said is, "I do not think", meaning, "it is my opinion. It's possible I could be wrong, but "I don't think so". Wink

Quote:

1) how do you know? What is your logic behind this claim? You have posited a conclusion without telling us how you got there.
2) last time I looked, it were private people and companies doing the job. I don't see why you would need governments for any of those things? Again, you may have good reasons, but you haven't formulated them.
3) societies are broken down in dimensions; households, neighbourhoods, districts, cities, regions, etc. In other words, there are ways to keep a complex society "simple". Therefore, I don't see why size and complexity should be a problem at all?

What we have now, currently, is many fractured systems of government. We call them countries, states, etc. You're saying that by dividing them into even smaller units it will get better, I "think" that will make the situation worse. My idea has never been tried, yours has for basically as long as we've had human civilization, the only difference being scale. A good argument could be made that we've seen the most dramatic increase in the quality of human life since the advent of larger-scale governance (under current models I don't think it's sustainable, but that's another discussion). It is not my opinion that individuals or small groups of individual make better decisions overall then those that can be made on a larger scale. This is the model that gives us such ideologies as, "business secrets". Imagine a world were ideas were not protected because of our capital paradigms. Imagine how fast our technology could progress if all ideas were shared freely and worked on as a group only in the spirit of cooperation. This is the world I'd like to see. Is it possible? I don't know.

Now imagine if you will that we remove all governance and borders. How do you think we'd end up dividing ourselves. Logically, I think it can be assumed, most people would begin grouping by religious affiliation. We like to put ourselves into groups; it's seems to be part of our intrinsic nature. So basically the people with the power would be the ones that could attracted the largest religious following. We couldn't stop this, because there would be no rules, no government. It would be a free-for-all system run by mostly religious values and human greed (free-market capitalism).

I would like to see a world were we think of ourselves as an integrated human society consisting of individuals working to improve the situation of everyone. It's my opinion that "free-market" systems tend to focus on the micro level and totally avoid the macro level. What's produced is generally was is popular, and rarely what is rational, totally avoiding the macro effects its production causes. It's primary concern is profit making (a fucked up paradigm in my opinion). Without a control mechanism of some kind (you can call that government if you like) it would totally spiral out of control.

Quote:

By the way, that's a good quote you have there. I tend to agree with it; in my opinion, there would be no politicians if we had the courage to honestly examine ourselves.

K-pax (at least the first two, because I haven't read the remaining books yet) is an excellent series of books. Gene's representation of prot (the main character) thinks, oddly, much like I do (well, I don't believe I'm an alien).

I was going to make a thread devoted to this next quote, but I'll put it here to begin with...

Gene Brewer, in K-PAX wrote:

Titled "Preliminary Observations of B-TIK (RX 4987165.233)," it was primarily a detailed natural history of the Earth, especially of the recent changes thereon, which he attributed to man's "cancerous" population growth, his "mindless" consumption of its natural resources, and his "catastrophic" elevation of himself to superiority over all the other species who cohabit our planet...

There were also some suggestions as to how we might "treat" our social "illnesses": the elimination of religion, nationalism, the family as the basic social and educational unit - all the things he imagined were fundamentally wrong with us and, paradoxically, the things most of us hold dear.

I had one of those "Oh shit" moments when I read this. Very Happy

It is my honest opinion that a free-market system sans government would only serve to exacerbate "mindless" consumption, something humans on the individual level, are stellar at.

The Learned Joined: Jan 11, 2008 Posts: 109

I would argue that it’s astonishing that the current top down organizational paradigm is able to function. The idea that people are greedy and corrupt seems to me to be reason why you dare not have government. If people are subject to a Hobbesian war of all against all then putting people in charge of people seems to me to be irrational. If one argues that we can just have watch dogs then you descend into infinite regress.

I do not believe the publically spirited people in the public sector selflessly protect us from selfishness individuals in the private sector. In fact I would argue that the state is fundamentally a market itself on top of the existing market. Market agents that do not obtain utility in the private market channel their interests into the political markets and as Gabriel Kolko argues you have political capitalism. We cannot escape markets anymore then we can escape cost. The only question is should the markets be for the few (political class, business lobbies) or for everybody; free markets.

I believe when we look at nature we see the spontaneous order emerges from the bottom up. Not from top down. Humans defy nature in their ignorance by attempting to design society in the opposite way. The reason this is bad should become obvious. Knowledge itself is never given to one or a few people in society. It’s often dispersed, fragmented and even contradictory. Knowledge is also not always scientific but knowledge of a particular place and time. Very mundane and ordinary people may have knowledge that skilled do not possess. Society should thus attempt to maximize the power of the individual and our current methodology doesn’t do this.

Why? It passes the buck to a political class of bureaucrats or technocrats which subverts the will or the ability of others to deploy their knowledge. One might argue the government serves the will of the people via direct or representative democracy but this itself is absurd. Condorcet and Ken Arrow demonstrate that collectives really cannot act. When you attempt to obtain a global social preference order you get strange phenomenon where the highest preference may often lose to the lowest preference and thus democracy itself ends up serving the interest of the minority preference, democracy thus becomes tyranny itself.

This suggests society not only cannot act but may not exist. It is an abstraction. At best a humanist secular god. What is axiomatically clear is “an individual acts”. This cannot be denied unless we invoke Quine or Putnam but even then we are still building up an even more robust argument against a collective will and the same criticisms apply.

This isn’t’ where the problem ends as the larger the democracy the less value your vote has. Because of this there is an economic incentive not to vote. This results on what Phil Converse calls “rational ignorance” (it is rational to be ignorant, on policy, as the probability of your vote to be deciding is very low). This is expanded upon tangentially by Mancur Olson in “logic of collectives” where Olson argues, because of the emasculation of the voters, those that attempt to obtain utility from the government do so via lobbies; what public choice economics calls rent-seeking. In this sense the state emerges as the very thing it’s supposed to police – a market. The poor and middle class cannot lobby so easily so the state ends up serving the interests of the rich. It is ironic that some of the poorest champion this model of social organization when its’ so corrosive to their autonomy. However it hands out favors from time to time in the form of welfare projects or public goods. Unfortunately what is not seen is the political market as most individuals do not have time or background to do a robust analysis of the political economy.

This results in a 3rd problem. Democracy enables people to be amateur social scientists and economists, but most do not possess this ability. Yet these people are able to vote on policies or individuals that propose policies that may be economically possible or may not be. Retrospective voting was supposed to mimic Schumpeterian “Creative Destruction” but ends up with voters blaming natural disasters like shark attacks and tornadoes on the current administrations these events happened proximal to. Democracy is likely a very excellent anti-dictator tool (ignoring Hitler who was democratically elected) but democracy is trash for selecting efficient institutions. I would cite Mackenzie’s 03 on Knowledge and Fremling, Lott’s 98 paper on Bias cancellation but have beat up on democracy enough.

Public choice theory is only 50 years old and serves as an impressive fulcrum for understanding the state as an economic entity where self interested individuals may attempt to maximize non-monetary or monetary gains, but what is even more impressive is evolutionary biology I would argue.
I think Parasite-host equilibrium reveals parallels between the relationships not only of 2 biological organisms but of market entities, There is no reason why this couldn’t’ be extended to the political apparatus as a public choice analysis argues a blind approach to institutional analysis, e.g. Starbucks vs Netherlands central government. When a host is denied viable exit from a interaction with a putative parasite we see symbiosis driven toward predation rather than mutualism. The state is non-voluntary par excellence. Thus the state acts as a parasite and exit costs are high for hosts (us). Under market mechanism when you have competing firms individuals may exit to obtain better deals driving the system toward mutualism. The state is the opposite of this. While the rich may exit and evade the assault from the state the poor and middle class have a harder time. Markets are way ahead of the state on this and one of the main reasons Hayek’s “Road to Serfdom” never manifested was, I would argue, because people/capital can defect from states so easily.

Parasite host isn’t the only issue here but so is Kin selection theory. This is the idea that a behavioral governing mechanism exists that controls the outcome of relationships between relatives that reduces the incidence of predation or assault. This in a sense maximizes the fitness of an individual’s genes by insuring their offspring will survive or related genes will survive.

The idea that the state can act as a parent or a nurturing authority that wants whats in our best interest doesn’t’ make sense. Where is the locus of desire seated? Often it isnt’ seated anywhere because I would argue it does not exist. The state is made up of unrelated individuals pursuing their own individual self interests which often conflict with each other and our own. Since political agents are not related to us they suffer very low penalties for engaging in back door corruption, squandering resources or waste that benefits them at our expense.

This is also the reason why Plato’s republic and various sorts of “Body analogies” of the state do not work. The cells of the polity are unrelated. In my body some of my cells may never reproduce and may actually die to save others. They do this because that action enhances the probability identical genes carried in gametes will be perpetuated.

The more you concentrate control the worse this will be as more and more conflicting interests will clash and more people will be denied choice for the benefit of sovereigns who will suffer minimal costs from neglecting or exploiting minorities.

Global government would be a feeding frenzy for market interest to divert into the political market where a rather apathetic 51% majority would not care much about the rent seeking costs that a 49 % would have to bear.

Global government would also concentrate knowledge acquisition on a very few people. Also voters would be denied exit driving the system toward extreme exploitation.

The state it seems is much like a religion in that its’ scribes and acolytes are assumed to be wise and thus guide tremendous amounts of social life; they appear benevolent and thus are authorized to wield tremendous amounts of power over deployment of violence and finite resources. The problem here is that when Hobbes argued we needed an artificial god we didn’t imbue it with omnipotence or beneficence. We populated it with the same flawed people it was meant to police. Nature does not naturally bifurcate men into all-knowing angels vs. the normal joe and for that reason I repeat, you dare not have a state.
In that sense when I say I’m an atheist that means I do not believe in the leviathan either. What I see is a massive political market driven by self interest and greed that serves the interest of its’ own internal components; I see a functional monopoly.

Posted: Mon Dec 21, 2009 10:52 pm

MockingGods wrote:

Not a "bigger" government... a "single" government. I suppose it might be bigger, but it wouldn't necessarily have to be.

A small world government? That appears to be impossible to me...
The size and power of a government depends on the productivity and wealth of its population.
A governments constant objective by its very nature is to grow, because humans instinctively want to accumulate wealth and rise the power ladder... that's just the way evolution made us.
So if you keep human nature in mind, its practically impossible for a government to be small relative to the population.
To my knowledge, there isn't a single instance of something like that happening for a longer time period in our history.

MockingGods wrote:

I am, as you can probably tell by what I wrote, against nationalism. Nationalism is the primary (perhaps only) reason we have such things as large scale wars, which are extremely wasteful.

Yes. It seems to me that we obviously wouldn't have things like that without governments?

MockingGods wrote:

What I actually said is, "I do not think", meaning, "it is my opinion. It's possible I could be wrong, but "I don't think so". Wink

I was hoping that you would explain yourself?
Because what you said was not a neutral or "aesthetical" statement, it is objectively testable. Can people maintain our modern world without governments? I don't see a reason why not, so if you disagree, I would expect you to make some sort of case for why in your opinion they can't. Well, if you feel like doing so, that is...

MockingGods wrote:

What we have now, currently, is many fractured systems of government. We call them countries, states, etc. You're saying that by dividing them into even smaller units it will get better,

Actually no - I was simply pointing out that large societies can be broken down in order to be easier to handle. Therefore, in my opinion, it should be easily possible to take care of a large modern society without a central government.

MockingGods wrote:

I "think" that will make the situation worse. My idea has never been tried, yours has for basically as long as we've had human civilization. It is not my opinion that individuals or small groups of individual make better decisions overall then those that can be made on a larger scale. This is the model that gives us such ideologies as, "business secrets". Imagine a world were ideas were not protected because of our capital paradigms. Imagine how fast our technology could progress if all ideas were shared freely and worked on as a group only in the spirit of cooperation. This is the world I'd like to see. Is it possible? I don't know.

Wait, the idea of having no government has to my knowledge never been consciously tried (I think it requires certain memes to be universally present which at the moment are not).
I think that you have gotten the wrong idea about what I said, though.
I'm not proposing that people should gather in tribes... What I was saying was simply that complex social structures can be broken down in many parts in order to be easier to deal with. Whether you prefer a global government or global society without a government, that idea still applies.
I would of course agree with the way you envision future societies to be, but I would maintain that it is logically impossible to have a free society so long as there is a state.
Remember that the government it its essence is an instrument to enforce the will of one group of people over another group (and call that "justice" or "law").
It is an artificial construct which - unlike science or phiosophy - is not grounded in empiricism or logic but the subjective opinions of people.
By its very existence it seperates a society into rulers and the ones being ruled. Thus (moral) "freedom" becomes logically impossible.

MockingGods wrote:

Now imagine if you will that we remove all governance and borders. How do you think we'd end up dividing ourselves. Logically, I think it can be assumed, most people would begin grouping by religious affiliation. We like to put ourselves into groups; it's seems to be part of our intrinsic nature. So basically the people with the power would be the ones that could attracted the largest religious following. We couldn't stop this, because there would be no rules, no government. It would be a free-for-all system run by mostly religious values and human greed (free-market capitalism).

I don't think that this is logical... But I do of course see where you're coming from.
I would argue that it would be more accurate to say that people are primarily interested in securing "safety" for themself and their family and also in accumulating wealth.
Some people may find it to be advantageous to join certain groups, however, there is no reason to think why this should be more the case than it is right now.
It is of utmost importance to try to understand how societies "function".
The arguably most important aspect of societies is "trade"; the free market.
The free market is absolutely vital for any society, because otherwise it has no way of surviving (other than stealing, but since that doesn't actually produce anything, it's only a matter of time until that kind of society dies off).
In order for the free market to exist you need certain kinds of people like manufacturers, service providers, retailer and so on.
In other words, every person in a society would have the chance to be an actual part of it with a more or less equal amount of control over the society.
So for example, if some corporation tried to set unfair prices, the people could choose not to use its services and someone else would replace them.
There would be no government to bail them out.

I believe that religion would quickly go exctinct if we had no governments.
Here is why: religion feeds upon ignorance. Ignorance is created because states prohibit the population from taking full responsibility for their own lifes and developing personalities that can survive without oversight and artificial "support".
If you want to survive in a society without a state, you have to be "useful" to the society in some way. In order to be useful, you need to be smart AND moral (because if you screw with the society, it will simply exclude you from itself). Religion is disadvantegous to these ends and will die out.

MockingGods wrote:

I would like to see a world were we think of ourselves as an integrated human society consisting of individuals working to improve the situation of everyone. It's my opinion that "free-market" systems tend to focus on the micro level and totally avoid the macro level. What's produced is generally was is popular, and rarely what is rational, totally avoiding the macro effects its production causes. It's primary concern is profit making (a fucked up paradigm in my opinion). Without a control mechanism of some kind (you can call that government if you like) it would totally spiral out of control.

I doubt that, for the reasons I mentioned before. As you tried to explain in that quote before: politicians are reflections of ourself.
If politicians can successfully campaign for environmental and other "macro level" causes, then what this tells you is that people are interested in these things.
If they are interested in them, they would also be interested if we had no governments.
Because we wouldn't live under the illusion that there is a government to take care of these problems, people would take action themself and actually get things done, because it wouldn't be in their interests to get votes, but to solve the problems at hand.

Gene Brewer, in K-PAX wrote:

Titled "Preliminary Observations of B-TIK (RX 4987165.233)," it was primarily a detailed natural history of the Earth, especially of the recent changes thereon, which he attributed to man's "cancerous" population growth, his "mindless" consumption of its natural resources, and his "catastrophic" elevation of himself to superiority over all the other species who cohabit our planet...

There were also some suggestions as to how we might "treat" our social "illnesses": the elimination of religion, nationalism, the family as the basic social and educational unit - all the things he imagined were fundamentally wrong with us and, paradoxically, the things most of us hold dear.

It sounds very provocative. Are there any more suggestions about how to treat these illnesses XD ?

Confident Learner Joined: Jul 28, 2009 Posts: 98

AliTheBandit wrote:

Here is why: religion feeds upon ignorance. Ignorance is created because states prohibit the population from taking full responsibility for their own lifes and developing personalities that can survive without oversight and artificial "support".
If you want to survive in a society without a state, you have to be "useful" to the society in some way. In order to be useful, you need to be smart AND moral (because if you screw with the society, it will simply exclude you from itself). Religion is disadvantegous to these ends and will die out.

Nonsense. How do you explain the very low rates of religiosity in most European countries given the fact that so many of them have strong state governments. Also how do you explain a country like Afghanistan which has not had much you could call a government for the past 30 or so years and yet has rampant religiosity.

Confident Learner Joined: Jul 28, 2009 Posts: 98

FullMetalJackpot wrote:

In this sense the state emerges as the very thing it’s supposed to police – a market. The poor and middle class cannot lobby so easily so the state ends up serving the interests of the rich. It is ironic that some of the poorest champion this model of social organization when its’ so corrosive to their autonomy. However it hands out favors from time to time in the form of welfare projects or public goods. Unfortunately what is not seen is the political market as most individuals do not have time or background to do a robust analysis of the political economy.

FMJ, I agree with most everything you wrote, especially what I quoted above. That said though could life in a stateless society be any better. It seems to be a fact of human nature that whenever you have a large group of people and finite resources you will have a power vacuum and if there is a power vacuum then the power vacuum will be filled, either by a religious regime, a dictatorship, or by democratically elected representatives. The last choice seems best but it requires a system of government. And you seem to be telling us that this type of system must inevitably slip into one of the other two choices, or something worse.

Also it would seem that a stateless society would be unrealistic because it would always be susceptible to invasion by countries with central governments and standing armies.

Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2009 11:02 pm

invixxtus wrote:

Nonsense. How do you explain the very low rates of religiosity in most European countries given the fact that so many of them have strong state governments. Also how do you explain a country like Afghanistan which has not had much you could call a government for the past 30 or so years and yet has rampant religiosity.

It's not very hard to explain, actually.
First of all, the rate of religiosity in europe isn't that low. It's about what you would expect from countries that are both developed and statist.
The problem with countries like Afghanistan is that they're *not* developed. They haven't had the chance, because they have constantly been raped by the states around them.
Like I said, ignorance causes religion and it is obvious that a half-dead place like Afghanistan can't possibly be an oasis for wisdom and knowledge...

If you have more questions, go ahead and ask, I'll be happy to try and answer them.

@FMJ: excellent post, what can I add...

Confident Learner Joined: Jul 28, 2009 Posts: 98

AliTheBandit wrote:

The problem with countries like Afghanistan is that they're *not* developed. They haven't had the chance, because they have constantly been raped by the states around them.
Like I said, ignorance causes religion and it is obvious that a half-dead place like Afghanistan can't possibly be an oasis for wisdom and knowledge...

Afghanistan is a great example of a place where the state has not been available to prop up ignorant people. So if there is a positive relationship between ignorance (and thus religiosity) and the availability of state assistance, as you initially claimed (" Ignorance is created because states prohibit the population from taking full responsibility for their own lives and developing personalities that can survive without oversight and artificial "support" "), then we should expect to see low levels of religiosity there. We see pretty much the exact opposite. Clearly your theory is incomplete.

Posted: Wed Dec 23, 2009 12:37 am

invixxtus wrote:

AliTheBandit wrote:

The problem with countries like Afghanistan is that they're *not* developed. They haven't had the chance, because they have constantly been raped by the states around them.
Like I said, ignorance causes religion and it is obvious that a half-dead place like Afghanistan can't possibly be an oasis for wisdom and knowledge...

Afghanistan is a great example of a place where the state has not been available to prop up ignorant people. So if there is a positive relationship between ignorance (and thus religiosity) and the availability of state assistance, as you initially claimed (" Ignorance is created because states prohibit the population from taking full responsibility for their own lives and developing personalities that can survive without oversight and artificial "support" "), then we should expect to see low levels of religiosity there. We see pretty much the exact opposite. Clearly your theory is incomplete.

Uhm, I think you've taken my original statement a bit too literal... I of course didn't mean to say that governments are THE cause of ALL ignorance, but that they are A cause of it.
If your country is crippled and dying, its irrelevant whether it has a state or not, its still going to be ignorant and thus religious.
What my theory does say though, is that if you were to leave a stateless society alone for long enough to develop properly, it would become atheistic pretty quickly.

Confident Learner Joined: Jul 28, 2009 Posts: 98

AliTheBandit wrote:

invixxtus wrote:

AliTheBandit wrote:

The problem with countries like Afghanistan is that they're *not* developed. They haven't had the chance, because they have constantly been raped by the states around them.
Like I said, ignorance causes religion and it is obvious that a half-dead place like Afghanistan can't possibly be an oasis for wisdom and knowledge...

Afghanistan is a great example of a place where the state has not been available to prop up ignorant people. So if there is a positive relationship between ignorance (and thus religiosity) and the availability of state assistance, as you initially claimed (" Ignorance is created because states prohibit the population from taking full responsibility for their own lives and developing personalities that can survive without oversight and artificial "support" "), then we should expect to see low levels of religiosity there. We see pretty much the exact opposite. Clearly your theory is incomplete.

Uhm, I think you've taken my original statement a bit too literal... I of course didn't mean to say that governments are THE cause of ALL ignorance, but that they are A cause of it.
If your country is crippled and dying, its irrelevant whether it has a state or not, its still going to be ignorant and thus religious.
What my theory does say though, is that if you were to leave a stateless society alone for long enough to develop properly, it would become atheistic pretty quickly.

For my criticism of your argument to be valid it is not necessary that you believe that governments are THE cause of ALL ignorance, but that they be, at least, a big cause of it. The reason you have given for there being a positive relationship between the involvement of the state and the level of religiosity is the notion that governments prop up ignorant people who would have to be smart and productive- thus not ignorant, thus not religious- in order to survive in a country without heavy state involvement. Clearly in the case of Afghanistan we have a population that has been without a functional government for quite some time. Moreover , they have been, by in large, without the aids of modernity, as you say. If anything this fact should make survival more difficult for ignorant people. We should expect, then, to see low levels of ignorant, religious people. The opposite is true. Your analysis is deeply flawed. Maybe the amount of state involvement is not related to levels of ignorance (at least not positively related, it would seem). Maybe ignorance is not the primary cause of religious belief.

Posted: Fri Dec 25, 2009 12:53 am

hey ali, i appreciate you taking the time to address the issues i presented in my previous post, although at one point you did seem to be a bit condescending. no worries, i don't think that was your intention, and i take no offense.

as i stated earlier i'm not too savvy when it comes to politics, but as a free thinker i'm trying to expand my knowledge base in order to make better sense of a highly irrational world. in order to get a better understanding of this topic, i wanted to address some of the points you raised.

AliTheBandit wrote:

Your first objection is: how should peace be maintained?
Now, there are a couple of questions that have to be asked be fore answering this question:
1) How do fights and wars generally start?
2) How are conflicts being funded?
3) Is peace being maintained *with* governments?

If you try to answer these questions honestly, I think you will see that none ends up being "pro" government.
As I'm sure you know, conflicts generally only start because one state wants to have something that another state possesses... Whether it's land or ressources, etc.

as m.g. has stated in one of his post, humans have a tendency to group themselves and create affiliations. a likely component of our social instinct which eventually led to culture and our ability to accumulate knowledge with each generation. some groups are peaceful and some aren't. i thought invixxtus made a good point when he stated...

invixxtus wrote:

...it would seem that a stateless society would be unrealistic because it would always be susceptible to invasion by countries with central governments and standing armies.

without some type of government, what's to stop the non peaceful groups from taking land or resources from the peaceful, who in order to defends themselves, would have to fight back. wouldn't this essentially be a war?

AliTheBandit wrote:

However, civilists almost never start conflicts unless they are being threatened by the military forces of some government. All that is historically very clear.
So in other words, if you don't have governments, there would be no one to lead a population into war. People are busy enough with their own lifes, why should they go to war in some foreign country for some unclear reasons - unless they are being forced to by their leaders?

in order for this to work wouldn't everyone in the world have to agree to this ideology?

Quote:

Also, how would wars be funded without governments? Currently, it is the tax payers money that funds wars. Usually without us even having anything to say in the matter!
Without tax revenue, who would provide the enormous amounts of money necessary to keep a war going? Even the most wealthy companies couldn't do it for more than a couple months.
Therefore, wars would be impossible without governments.

without taxes, how would public services be supported and maintained? perhaps through donations, but that would seem to require extreme benevolence on the part of many.

Quote:

The last question is: is peace being maintained *with* governments? And we all know the answer: HELL NO.
There is constantly some kind of war inspired by conflicting interests of different states going on. So saying that peace couldn't be maintained if there were no states is meaningless, because it's NOT currently being maintained at all.

true, we don't have a utopian society with current and past governments, but that's not to says in the place of organized warfare we wouldn't have violence through chaotic anarchy without government.

Quote:

Now, some kinds of defense and police forces would probably be necessary in any stateless society, but they would be funded according to the service they provide. So for example, if everything was peaceful, then the society would have a very minimal defense force which couldn't possibly ever turn into a "government". If the times got rough, it would only get so much funding as necessary, because people don't like giving away their money unless they know its necessary.
In other words, if a defense force threatened to become too powerful, people would simply have to stop funding them. With governments, this isn't possible, because you get thrown in jail if you don't pay your taxes. Thus, this point also ends up being in favor of a society with no government.

what's to keep the rogue defense force from simply looting and pillaging to get what they want? the civilians would have to take up arms and defend themselves. this would require leadership and a command structure, essentially, a type of government, which has the potential for expansion. it just seems to me, based on the current state of human nature, some type of government seems inevitable. also studies on our closest relatives, chimpanzees , show that our warlike nature may on some level be instinctual.

Quote:

Your next point is that an ungoverned society would need the people to be truly benevolently reciprocal. Now, I don't really agree with that and don't see why that should be, but let's just say you're right - then a government is the worst possible solution that you can think of.
A government in its essence is a monopoly of power. The government makes the rules, laws and regulations, it has potential control over almost everything.

without this benevolent congruence, how do you deal with the hitlers, stalins, hussiens, those truly intent on monopolizing power at the expense of the people? true, our current democratic governments aren't flawless, but so far they are the best we have.

Quote:

It is your claim that people aren't benevolent, well, we both agree that they are usually extremely selfish and often outright evil. Who do you think would want to gain control over a socitey?
The peaceful, honest, wise people? Or the insecure, megalomaniac, aggressive folks? Of course it would be the second group!
And that is being proven over and over again.

here you misquoted me, i didn't say that people aren't benevolent, that's a far too general statement. of course there's benevolent people in the world.

i'm one, and i get the impression that you are as well, although we're probably not saints Laughing

. my point, is unless this benevolence is mutual among all, there are going to be those that are going to try to amass power and wealth at the expense of others, any way they can.

Quote:

Now, because of our democratic system its (almost) not possible to be outright evil and become a president, so the people who tend to get into office are the liars and smoothtalkers who tell you one thing and do the complete opposite. This is what is expected in a system like ours and the facts consistently prove it every single time.

it would seem to me instead of just abandoning government all together, that a more feasible approach would be to improve upon the best system currently available and go from there. i don't believe all politicians are liars and smoothtalkers. i think some of them really believe in the ideals they convey.

it seems to me that america has had a few presidents that, although not perfect, had a genuine will to exemplify democracy to the best of their ability for the good of the people.

Quote:

Your last point is that we couldn't get to a peaceful society unless we somehow changed humanity. Now, I want to try to be as polite as possible, but it does seem to me that you have a somewhat inaccurate understanding of human psychology. Again, I'm really not trying to say that you're "foolish" for believing this, but I do want to challenge your position because in my opinion it is completely wrong... (but who knows, maybe you end up having some really convincing arguments)

Now let me explain: All the "negative" human traits that you mentioned - violence, greed, jealousy, defects & disorders, etc. - are part of human nature. What is important to do is to act in an objective, scientific manner and not start panicking; we have to examine the symptoms and find out what precisely causes these negative sides of human nature to rise to the surface.

I guarantee you that you can research any random person on earth which shows some of these traits and you will find the direct causes somewhere in their history. Once you understand this, you will see that its not these people who have to be "amputated" but the causes that lead them to become who they are. Therefore, what we would need wouldn't be an eugenics program, but a redesign of our environments (families, societies) which "shape" our natures.

o.k., here's where the condescension comes into play. first of all, my understanding of psychology isn't so inaccurate, that i'm not aware that both environment and genetics both play a part in human behavior. second, your reference to the traits i mentioned being a result of some event in their past seems to be over simplifying the issue. obviously most people are going to have normal expressions
of certain traits, but through education and proper socialization, learn to behave and act rationally according to societal standards, but there are those that seem to lack this ability.

not all sociopaths have a bad childhood or traumatic past. trying to redesign their environment without removing the biological cause would be in vain. and do you really think mental disorders and birth defects should just be casually accepted as a part of "human nature"? i'm certainly not suggesting "amputating" anyone, and i'm not saying that eugenics is the only answer, but given our current state of technology and its rapid increase, the ability for an unstable individual or individuals to do great harm, is also increasing.

imagine if hitler had the nuclear arsenal of present day u.s. or russia. surely it would behoove our species to take a more proactive approach to reproduction. this seems like a legitimate issue for contemplation, especially considering overpopulation and the fact that due to medical advancement, we have removed some of the evolutionary pressure on our species. an ethical eugenics program would seem like a humane way to strengthen our species and reduce the suffering of natural selection.

Quote:

I would argue that governments, because of a massive lack of understanding of human nature, set up precisely the wrong incentives and create programs that end up mutilating the "personality" of humans rather than supporting and carefully leading it, like a good psycho-therapist would do.

some might argue that some governments do this intentionally through their understanding of human nature.

Quote:

So far, I would maintain that all arguments speak in favor of a society with no government. But I would expect the counterarguments to come raining down on me anytime now =D !

lol, dude, you make good arguments, but i'm still not convinced. Smile


Login/Register New account	Home · FAQ · News · Shows · Videos · Forums · Arcade · Listen & Chat · Book Store · Contact Us · Go Mobile