>Yes, but are norms the same as State power? They don't
>appear to be to me.
No, but as Millpointed out, unofficial social norms can be as repressive as
state power. NB, since under anarchism there is no official monopoly on the
use of force, there's nothing but norms and other people with guns to stop
those who are offended at the violation of their favored norms to resport to
force.
>
>I find these construals of anarchism very odd among people
>who appear to know so much -- first primitivism, and now
>total social breakdown. And no reasoned support of either
>construal, so far
Well, sunce the anarchists here are supporting a return to hunter-gathering while maybe scavenging the detritus of technological civilization, primitivism seems to be indicated. ANd as for total socail breakdown, what else do you expect if you have no mechanism for making enforceable collective decisions, no rukes for interpreting the norms (no laws, that is, no lawyers, no courts), and no recoyrse against the use of force but force? You mention Hobbes below; he comes to mind.
>
>It seems to me if you believe that you have to hold a gun to
>someone's head to get high technology,
If by this you mean mechanisms for enforcing policy, yes. Otherwise you have the free rider problem.
a rather Hobbesian
>view, I think, you'd at least refer me to Hobbes. I wonder
>what you would think of this guy Marx who talked about the
>withering-away of the State.
>
I think Marx was wrong (the term is actually Engels'). But then I am a liberal democrat. Be that as it may, Marx didn't mean anarchism, he meant that the government wouldn't be an instrument of class oppression.
jks
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