Sun 23 Aug 2009
@Mike G re: this, in the order listed:
- This is, at least to me, more open ended than it sounds. What definition of “private property” (or even “impossible”) are we working with here? I personally believe that property in land & natural resources is already impossible without government (recognizing such subsidizes their separation and depletion), but obviously the question goes beyond that. Do you mean “impossible” as inconvenient to the point where no one would bother, or do you mean LITERALLY impossible? Not to say I’d prefer the state, just wondering where the line is.
- Hell no. That’s what actually happens anyway, that’s not a reason to support government.
- Seeing as how I don’t have any of those type of benefits I can discern, I don’t see why not.
- Um…define “beat”. If you include spanking, then whose gonna stop me?
- I’d still do it. Besides, it’s not like it’s all that great now anyway.
- The state is just formalized force anyway, if someone seriously decided they rejected freedom then they could go join some group that was left over that’d tell them what to do & leave everyone else alone. They’d have a choice, as opposed to now where I don’t.
- Nope, good riddance!
- Like I said about land above, IMO they are in fact impossible. Hell, IP is to an extent impossible even in current society, being subject to death by millions of tiny cuts every day.
- No.
BTW: from what I can tell, Mike means to indict utilitarian reasoning for anarchism. I get how fragile it is alone, but at the same time I don’t think rejecting it 100% is helpful to achieving a post-state outcome. If this is the first thing you drop on the average person they’re likely to think you’re nuts.
August 24th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
I always wonder what would happen to my hypothetical stateless community when a state decided to annex it. I’m reminded of how my Cherokee ancestors, who were relatively stateless up until the 19th century, were clobbered by my European ancestors, who were subjects of a state.
I reckon that hearts and minds want transforming on a massive scale before we will be able to live in peace.
August 24th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
Basically. That’s why I personally favor undermining the state while simultaneously building non-state alternatives, as opposed to just direct “smash it today!”.
If, for example, the US government were to collapse tomorrow then things would probably suck here. That doesn’t discredit letting it go away at a later time, it just draws attention to how deep the rot goes. You can’t plant a fresh garden while ignoring the weeds that were already there.
August 28th, 2009 at 4:31 am
Heya! Thanks for the reply post.
The point of the thing wasn’t about utilitarianism at all, but rather to point out that clinging to my preferences and beliefs as to what a free society might look like was holding me back from considering other possibilities.
For example, maybe a claim sometimes heard from anarcho-communists, that property as we call it either just wouldn’t happen or would be some kind of loathed deviation in a free society, is actually true. Not living there, we can’t know, but only speculate. I doubt that claim myself, but I have to admit it might be true.
As for spanking your kids, maybe I’d stop you. Maybe spankers would be ostracized. Maybe children found subject to any sort of abuse would be liberated by members of the community. Maybe the nature of family and community themselves would be so different that spanking out of public view or spanking at all would be unthinkable. We can’t know!
August 29th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
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