The nature of anarchism (Lefty Despair etc.)

[Justin Schwartz]

>
>This is generally a return to the argument from efficiency.
>Efficiency is the ratio of cost to production, but by itself
>it does not state some ultimate value of what it is that is
>being produced, or its costs.  So many measures of efficiency
>omit significant costs and byproducts.  Thus, while a monopoly
>postal service may be a good thing by itself in terms of
>getting one's mail, no evaluation has been provided as to
>whether this convenience outweighs the cost of class and class
>war, which are necessary to sustain a state and its agencies,
>as well as the other products of the State, such as war in
>the conventional sense, political repression, police violence,
>economic oppression, and so on, which arise directly out of
>class war or are resonances of it.

You misunderstand. The point is not that the post office has to be amonopoly 
maintained by force, but that it's a public good which won't exist at all 
without a public authority. And if the choice is a state with all it's 
problem, including the risk of abuse and oppression by state authorities, 
and no public goods--no roads, passenger trains, no universal education, no 
post office and telephone service, etc., I jnow how 99.99% of humanity will 
choose.
jks

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