Dakryn's Batshit Theory of the Week

[V.V.V.V.V.]

I think this sort of thing is exactly what I meant by anarchism seeming like armchair politicizing and philosophizing. There are just way too many holes and way too many ways for anarchy to just be called something else which it represents more, making "anarchy" just seem like a cool buzzword to throw around so you seem more educated and cool. No offense Cyth, because I know you're learned...it's just...eh. The last time this was discussed we basically came to the conclusion that an "ideal" anarchic society for any particular person ascribing to the philosophy of anarchism is just a (federated) democracy with perfection in basically every facet of its establishment and subsequent management. Which just doesn't happen. Anyway yeah looking forward to talking about it in any case

 

[Cythraul]

How do you propose, in your own words, this privatization of governmental roles

I'm not sure I understand this question. Are you asking me to describe the process by which the roles played by government would come to be privatized?

and how will it be possible to disallow the privatizing entity from getting "out of control", so to speak? That is, how is it made sure that said privatizing entity does not merely assume responsibility and take control in an un-anarchistic way?

Could you explain to me what a privatizing entity is supposed to be? I have never seen this term used before.

 

[Cythraul]

Yeah, I'd really like to hear this as well. Especially some real-world examples that illustrate that it's even remotely feasible.

Why do you need real-world examples? Every political system that's been tried was untried at some point in time. But if you really want some examples, large parts of our economy are pretty close to being anarchic. But it's impossible to predict in detail beforehand how a market in anything will work out.

Various people have claimed that medieval Iceland was quite close to something like market anarchism. Same with Celtic Ireland. A lot of people have made the same claim about the old West in the United States. I guess that last example doesn't help much. I don't think many people would prefer to live in a Clint Eastwood flick.

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

Right now I think you are deliberately trying to be confusing because my questions were not at all hard to understand, but I'll humor you I guess (Grant understood what I meant so really I can only assume that you're just trying to pull the wool over my eyes)...

I'm not sure I understand this question. Are you asking me to describe the process by which the roles played by government would come to be privatized?

I'm asking you exactly what it says in the question, but I'll rephrase it since I know that just answering it how you think it should be answered is too easy and straightforward

"How do you propose, in your own words, that the roles the government plays in a political system (that is, one that is not anarchic) be privatized?"

Could you explain to me what a privatizing entity is supposed to be? I have never seen this term used before.

An entity, in my question's case, is just something, anything which fulfills the criteria of a 'thing' to do a job that needs to be done, such as privatizing in this case. I don't think this was difficult to understand at all, and maybe you're overthinking it.

edit: a few addenda...

Every political system that's been tried was untried at some point in time.

First off, using the term "untried" is pretty commendable (or dumb, I can't decide which)...anyway, of course, but for what reason? Most were stamped out because they were weak (as in, they were conquered and remade as another kind of system because the individuals doing the conquering had more power) and not ambitious enough to participate in the secular push-and-pull of government relations.

large parts of our economy are pretty close to being anarchic.

There's good reason for this though, and not (yet) good reason for entire societies to operate anarchically, at least in this day and age. The economy needs to be at least somewhat "anarchic" because forceful rerouting and regulation of the economy is, well, dangerous as fuck (not to mention the economy is unpredictable and very fickle, as we all clearly know).

 

[Cythraul]

Right now I think you are deliberately trying to be confusing because my questions were not at all hard to understand, but I'll humor you I guess (Grant understood what I meant so really I can only assume that you're just trying to pull the wool over my eyes)...

Why do you feel the need to be so damn presumptuous?

I'm asking you exactly what it says in the question, but I'll rephrase it since I know that just answering it how you think it should be answered is too easy and straightforward

"How do you propose, in your own words, that the roles the government in a political system (that is, one that is not anarchic) plays be privatized?"

I don't quite know. You're basically asking me how a radical change in society would be undertaken. I don't have some manifesto in my head about the strategy by which the libertarian/anarchist revolution would be undertaken. How does one make any radical change in society come about? I don't generally think about that.

An entity, in my question's case, is just something, anything which fulfills the criteria of a 'thing' to do a job that needs to be done, such as privatizing in this case. I don't think this was difficult to understand at all, and maybe you're overthinking it.

It's difficult to understand because you're talking about something that I've never read about before. Why are you talking in terms of some specific entity that does the privatizing? I don't see the relevance of this. I was never talking about entities that engage in privatizing things in the first place; I was talking about entities that are privatized.

Most were stamped out because they were weak (as in, they were conquered and remade as another kind of system because the individuals doing the conquering had more power) and not ambitious enough to participate in the secular push-and-pull of government relations.

What are you trying to prove with this?

There's good reason for this though, and not (yet) good reason for entire societies to operate anarchically, at least in this day and age.

That's fine if you don't think there's good reason for entire societies to operate anarchically. I was just trying to point out that there are small-scale examples of how anarchism could work.

 

[Einherjar86]

neither the modern libertarian movement nor its roots in classical liberalism has ever been, either in theory or practice, what you describe.

As far as modern Libertarianism goes, you're correct; but as far as its traditional principles go, I think you're confused.

And I suppose that's all we have to say about that.

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

Re: Cythraul:

Yeah, but how are they privatized...that's my question. I don't really see why that's so hard to see. And if you have no answers regarding anarchism, why bring it up? So you can have little meta-arguments elucidating what you believe and having them go nowhere? Because, as far as I can tell, your "ideal" system and what you believe is just a set of ideas and ideals with no way to do them/no process whatsoever. I don't understand the want or need to believe anything like that.

If you believe in anarchy as a plausible form of society, why the hell wouldn't you think about how the "radical change" to it could possibly come about? It just seems rather alien to me that anyone could so clearly identify themselves with a particular way of thought and possess a certain level of entrenchment in it, yet not think about how the ideals professed and mulled-over could be brought about. As far as I'm concerned, you just quit the discussion and proved that it's just armchair philosophizing and being pretentious. I suggest you think about it more and get back to me (and anyone else who wants to hear the reasoning behind the point of view you hold) if you want such ridiculous ideas as you profess to be taken seriously.

That's fine if you don't think there's good reason for entire societies to operate anarchically. I was just trying to point out that there are small-scale examples of how anarchism could work.

Yeah, I know it's fine, thanks for allowing me to believe that. Anyway, no, you quite obviously were not trying to point that out when you brought up being an Anarchist in this very thread. You might have been trying to point that out very recently, and I agree it could be possible to create a small-scale society in this day and age that operates under your professed form of anarchism, but initially you were (apparently) trying ham-fistedly to apply tenets of anarchy to the United States, where they really can't be applied presently.

What are you trying to prove with this?

That the "untried" (lol again) systems, such as most anarchic societies, were dissolved because they were not good enough, and replaced by other systems that have worked for longer periods. I think this is probably very fair to point out.

 

[Cythraul]

Re: Cythraul:

Yeah, but how are they privatized...that's my question.

Any nonviolent means by which ownership of various things is transferred from government into private hands is fine with me. I don't know the details about how such a process would be induced, and the fact that it's not all that clear to me is no objection whatsoever to my view of what should be the case regarding the state. Do I have to know every detail about how some state of affairs would come about in order to be justified in wanting that state of affairs to be obtained?

I don't really see why that's so hard to see. And if you have no answers regarding anarchism, why bring it up? So you can have little meta-arguments elucidating what you believe and having them go nowhere? Because, as far as I can tell, your "ideal" system and what you believe is just a set of ideas and ideals with no way to do them/no process whatsoever. I don't understand the want or need to believe anything like that.

I brought it up not thinking that somebody like you would ask me silly questions the relevance of which are not clear.

If you believe in anarchy as a plausible form of society, why the hell wouldn't you think about how the "radical change" to it could possibly come about?

I am interested in philosophy and economics. I leave the speculations about strategy to activists. I don't need to know such things to think some state of affairs is desirable. You are holding me to a very weird standard.

It just seems rather alien to me that anyone could so clearly identify themselves with a particular way of thought and possess a certain level of entrenchment in it, yet not think about how the ideals professed and mulled-over could be brought about. As far as I'm concerned, you just quit the discussion and proved that it's just armchair philosophizing and being pretentious. I suggest you think about it more and get back to me (and anyone else who wants to hear the reasoning behind the point of view you hold) if you want such ridiculous ideas as you profess to be taken seriously.

Quit being such a dick. If you want to have a serious discussion, then cut it out with the condescending bullshit.

Yeah, I know it's fine, thanks for allowing me to believe that. Anyway, no, you quite obviously were not trying to point that out when you brought up being an Anarchist in this very thread. You might have been trying to point that out very recently, and I agree it could be possible to create a small-scale society in this day and age that operates under your professed form of anarchism, but initially you were applying tenets of anarchy to the United States, where they really can't be applied presently.

What the hell are you talking about? I only started pointing out real world examples of anarchism in response to VG's request. Why the hell are you bringing up my first post about anarchism?

That the "untried" (lol again) systems, such as most anarchic societies, were dissolved because they were not good enough, and replaced by other systems that have worked for longer periods. I think this is probably very fair to point out.

I don't see how you're drawing the conclusion that statelessness doesn't work as well from the considerations you've adduced. It's obviously not a formally valid inference, so where's your empirical argument?

 

[zabu of nΩd]

I am interested in philosophy and economics. I leave the speculations about strategy to activists. I don't need to know such things to think some state of affairs is desirable. You are holding me to a very weird standard.

That's not a weird standard at all. You need to know those things in order to vote wisely and support responsible political candidates and policies. It would be pretty godawful if people didn't take the feasibility of candidates' objectives into account when voting on them during elections. Maybe you've already assumed all this though, and what I'm bringing up is irrelevant to this discussion in your mind.

 

[Cythraul]

That's not a weird standard at all. You need to know those things in order to vote wisely and support responsible political candidates and policies. It would be pretty godawful if people didn't take the feasibility of candidates' objectives into account when voting on them during elections. Maybe you've already assumed all this though, and what I'm bringing up is irrelevant to this discussion in your mind.

V5 was challenging me to provide an account of how we would go about eliminating a deeply entrenched institution (i.e. government). Maybe the process would have to be slow and piecemeal. I'm aware of that, which is why I support politicians who want to decrease the role of government in the affairs of citizens. But I don't know if that would be sufficient. Maybe some kind of uprising is necessary. How am I supposed to know? We're not talking about specific policies here. We're talking about an extremely radical change.

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

Any nonviolent means by which ownership of various things is transferred from government into private hands is fine with me. I don't know the details about how such a process would be induced, and the fact that it's not all that clear to me is no objection whatsoever to my view of what should be the case regarding the state. Do I have to know every detail about how some state of affairs would come about in order to be justified in wanting that state of affairs to be obtained?

I don't really know anything about how that would happen either, to be honest, but I'm kind of reading about it now and getting a Wikipedia crash-course. It seems like what you're advocating is anarcho-capitalist privatization, and I know that the founder of the Molinary Institute is a contemporary believer of this. The main problem with this, that I see, is that it seems to assume people want to voluntarily move privatized property and services around to others in a gift-like manner. There are just a lot of things fundamentally wrong with this to me, and I don't really get why anyone would believe that to be true.

I brought it up not thinking that somebody like you would ask me silly questions the relevance of which are not clear.

Yeah, but why believe something you can't even defend realistically because you would rather leave various parts of the belief system to other people? I'd like to think you'd go beyond just caring about the economic and philosophical tenets of anarchism into the pragmatic and actual political-philosophical tenets of it...but maybe I've got you wrong.

I am interested in philosophy and economics. I leave the speculations about strategy to activists. I don't need to know such things to think some state of affairs is desirable. You are holding me to a very weird standard.

I would think you of all people (that is, an intelligent and seemingly rather proactive person with a seemingly good education [so far anyway and for what it's worth]) would want to know at least something about such things, yeah.

Quit being such a dick. If you want to have a serious discussion, then cut it out with the condescending bullshit.

I'm sure I don't need to bring up a ton of your past posts I could reply to with this, so I'll let you consider that. Just let me be the dick for once, mmkay?

 

[Cythraul]

I don't really know anything about how that would happen either, to be honest, but I'm kind of reading about it now and getting a Wikipedia crash-course. It seems like what you're advocating is anarcho-capitalist privatization, and I know that the founder of the Molinary Institute is a contemporary believer of this. The main problem with this, that I see, is that it seems to assume people want to voluntarily move privatized property and services around to others in a gift-like manner. There are just a lot of things fundamentally wrong with this to me, and I don't really get why anyone would believe that to be true.

I don't see what's gift-like about it. Money would be exchanged for goods and services.

Yeah, but why believe something you can't even defend realistically because you would rather leave various parts of the belief system to other people? I'd like to think you'd go beyond just caring about the economic and philosophical tenets of anarchism into the pragmatic and actual political-philosophical tenets of it...but maybe I've got you wrong.

I can defend it just fine. I just didn't see how the particular question you were asking me was directly relevant to the plausibility of the view, so it's not something I've thought about.

I would think you of all people (that is, an intelligent and seemingly rather proactive person with a seemingly good education [so far anyway and for what it's worth]) would want to know at least something about such things, yeah.

It's an issue that should be explored and I do have some interest in it but for the time being I am more interested in abstract and theoretical matters.

I'm sure I don't need to bring up a ton of your past posts I could reply to with this, so I'll let you consider that. Just let me be the dick for once, mmkay?

Right after I posted that I realized I was being hypocritical.

 

[The Ozzman]

I think the whole thing behind the whole anarchy/libertarianism thing is that the libertarians don't mind a 'state' if the 'state' is voluntarily agreed upon by the society. That is, all rules, by-laws, guidelines, etc are agreed upon by all and without coercion.

I personally don't mind doing things as long as I'm not 'forced' to do it. There are tons of things we all are 'forced' to do, though (like paying taxes), so that could digress into another 4 pages of shit and I'm tired so BLERGH

I'm not sure if people missed this or what, but I'll throw this in again

 

[Dak]

I don't see true anarcho-capitalism working, if for no other reason, military weakness vs outside threats. However, a capitalistic democratic republic does work (the US being evidence) up until 1913 when everything started going downhill because we let the bankers in to play and after FDR got done socializing the country it was just going to gain speed in the wrong direction.

If we could reverse the US back to the state of economic affairs under Andrew Jackson we would be where we need to be.

 

[cookiecutter]

Cythraul, my problem with libertarian ideas is that it does not protect people who, through no fault of their own, are unable to compete in the market as well as others. Examples would be ethnic groups that were traditionally discriminated against, people who start with less money, people with mental illnesses among others. This is like a race where everyone is able to run, but some people get a head start. How would libertarianism help these people? I find it hard to believe that some private enterprise would help them. If you look back to a time before social welfare systems, there was extreme poverty and private enterprise for the most part did not help those afflicted with it.

 

[Einherjar86]

Cythraul, my problem with libertarian ideas is that it does not protect people who, through no fault of their own, are unable to compete in the market as well as others. Examples would be ethnic groups that were traditionally discriminated against, people who start with less money, people with mental illnesses among others. This is like a race where everyone is able to run, but some people get a head start. How would libertarianism help these people? I find it hard to believe that some private enterprise would help them.

The only way I could foresee is that some of the more fortunate members of society would have to willingly offer compensation out of their own pockets; this is where the whole debate over morality comes into the argument. Today in America, you have many "Libertarian-minded" small business owners who still maintain some semblance of community values; these people often care about the welfare of others in the community and will contribute to their financial security, whether by offering them jobs or contributing to local charities. They don't want the government to tell them when and how much to donate; they feel they are charitable enough on their own.

However, some private business owners might not feel an obligation toward those less fortunate, and the Libertarian defense is: why should they? They have no moral duties to support those people. I find that this usually occurs at the higher, larger levels of business.

I support Libertarianism at a community level, because the small business owners who comprise the community are often concerned about the welfare of those less fortunate, as well as the businesses that might be enduring financial hardships. This is because they feel a closer emotional, moral connection with those people who live near them. When you get into larger, nationwide and even multinational businesses, you see this less and less, because those who run the company have no emotional attachment to those working below them. There is far less incentive to help.

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

I don't see what's gift-like about it. Money would be exchanged for goods and services.

So, in order to uphold generally basic "laws" or rules like, for instance, "no one should murder people", communities have to buy and hire police companies to enforce the community rules and regulations. Why is this desirable? Just seems unnecessary. This is one issue where I think our current government doesn't really do that much in the way of being wrong. When there's crime, it's usually taken care of rather quickly and simply, unlike in the anarchic system.

I can defend it just fine. I just didn't see how the particular question you were asking me was directly relevant to the plausibility of the view, so it's not something I've thought about.

How do you not understand that the way and process by which things are privatized is a big deal and a big part of how your entire system works, mainly because the privatization aspect is arguably the biggest difference between your version of anarcho-capitalism and modern representative democratic-republics like the US? It's not really that far-fetched of me to ask you to defend what seems to be the biggest point of political and philosophical contention here.

It's an issue that should be explored and I do have some interest in it but for the time being I am more interested in abstract and theoretical matters.

So, check your political ideals at the door when it comes to discussing what is pragmatic. Perhaps start a new "theoretical politics" thread...I'm sure that'd be great fun

Right after I posted that I realized I was being hypocritical.

 

[Dak]

NASA Bombing of moon: Hidden agenda?

For those of us who like to think about "what-ifs", it is interesting reading.

 

[cookiecutter]

However, some private business owners might not feel an obligation toward those less fortunate, and the Libertarian defense is: why should they?

If this question even needs to be asked then I doubt Libertarians and I will ever agree

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

I'm not as liberal as Nick but I agree with him here.