>
>I didn't concede a point the first time, and I didn't
>concede a point above, either.
Thi sin't getting us anywhere, Gordon. You did concede the point when you said that the size of the private armies would be limited by other people's willingness (and, implicurky, ability) to tolerate them. The result is the world of part I of the Postman or Nozick's state of nature. These are _illustrations_, not arguments; I don't need to argue further, since you have, in fact, admitted that there will be private armies limited as explained. Indeed,w ithout a state monpology on force, there is nothing but other force or lack of talent to prevent anyone from organizing a private army and conquering whoever he wants. This is an argument.
You presented a movie as an
>argument, and I said I could make another movie that was a
>counter-argument. This does not constitute conceding a point.
>Nozick is irrelevant to our discussion; if we're taling about
>_Anarchy,_State_and_Utopia_, Nozick argued against the
>possibility of preserving current property relations in an
>anarchy, "anarcho-capitalism" in other words, and I agree;
No, he's not irrelevant. You are not grasping the point for which I am bringing him in. It's not to say something about property relationships under anarchsim--under anarchism therew ould be noproperty,s ince there would be no laws that gave enforceable title; each would have what he could take an hold, as Hobbes said. My invocation of Nozick was to give an example of what a world of protective associations or private armies would be like. N works it out in some detail.
>you can't preserve the kind of private property we know today
>without somee version of the State. But as I'm the communist
>sort of anarchist, his objections don't apply to my ideas.
Actually they do. You cannot have socialized property either if there are no laws or police to prevent individuals or groups from just privately taking and appropriating whatever they please and can get away with. This is so obvious I do not see how anarchocommunists fail to see it. Note that we do not have to assume general greed, rather a very slight amount of selfishness and private appropriation on the part of most people, or a very large amount on the part of a few who were organized and militarily effective, would abolish sharing. The free rider problem again!
I don't want to go to the moon or have a
> > >videophone at the cost of enslaving millions of people; I'll
> > >try to do without.
>
>Justin Schwartz:
> > Back to primitivism then.
>
>Probably not. But it's your problem, not mine; you're the
>guy who is sure high technology requires some sort of social
>coercion.
>
>
No, you mistake who has the burden of proof. It lies on the person
advocating change. That's you. Anyway, I diasgree with you that coercion in
the ordinary acse, e.g., capitalist liberal democracy, is worse than
anarchist primitivsim, and so does 99.9% of the human race.
>
>The question is not whether the State is the sole source of
>nasty behavior, but whether it's the best way of dealing
>with nasty behavior, or even an adequate way.
What exactly is your alternative, aside from getting rid of the state?
However, I
>don't think free-riding is one of the more prominent
>problems we have,
It's hard to know what planet you live on. I think it's absolutely pervasive in almost every human society, and this is empirically observable. Moreover it is to be expected: most people would rather have others do the hard stuff and want to make sure taht they get theirs. Won't that be true under anarchism?
and in any case the State as we know it
>doesn't get rid of it -- as I've pointed out, there's plenty
>of free riding with the present incarnations of the State;
>in fact the State is the tool of choice for many free-
>riders.
Sure, that's the point of public choice theory. The radical right wing
advocates of this view (James Buchanan, et al) think that everything should
be marketized to deal with it. I don't,although I think a graet deal should
be marketized, at least compared to you. But the fact that states don't get
rid of free riding doesn't mean that we'd do better in dealing with the
problem with no state!
>
>
> > Well, that's why I'm a liberal and not an anarchist.
>
>Yes, but what does this say about liberalism? If you believe
>that coercion in the name of technological progress is a good
>thing, why not go all the way?
>
>
Because I am a liberal who believes in limited government and extensive civil and political liberties, not a fascist or a Stalinist. In fact I am a civil libertarian fundamentalist and extremist. Even an a anarchist ought to be able to tell the difference between the ACLU and the KGB. Can't you?
jks
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