Some honest questions for proponents of #anarchism, specifically of the individualistic sort (ie, #anarchocapitalism):
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What do you make of the lack of [significant experiments in the real world](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_anarchist_communities) (note that most examples on that page are collectivist societies, communist #libertarians, etc — not experiments where all property is private)?
I get that a modern nation doesn't sell a region or a province to a group of like-minded individuals to let them live and interact as they please, and that even if that were possible, such community would still depend on the “outer world” for lots of important things.
Still, isn't is suspicious that there aren't at least a bunch of long-lasting, functioning libertarian experiments where members voluntarily ditch outer courts and laws, shun subsidies and quotas of any kind, rely on an inner grey market to conceal income and wealth as much as possible, rely solely on voluntary agreements among them, etc?
With so many passionate supporters worldwide, why isn't that happening, at least to the extent it's feasible within the framework of existing jurisdictions?
+bonifartius 𒂼𒄄
@tripu
> Still, isn’t is suspicious that there aren’t at least a bunch of long-lasting, functioning libertarian experiments where members voluntarily ditch outer courts and laws, shun subsidies and quotas of any kind, rely on an inner grey market to conceal income and wealth as much as possible, rely solely on voluntary agreements among them, etc?
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> With so many passionate supporters worldwide, why isn’t that happening, at least to the extent it’s feasible within the framework of existing jurisdictions?
short answer: because the much larger body of statists send people with guns having no problem with shooting others for not participating.
if you need a central enforcing thing you have just another oppressive system.
e.g. with private streets you need a contract to use them which may include "needs a certificate and insurance". those things aren't unfixable problems, they often only appear this way as we only know how it's done currently.
mutualist cooperations where people have ownership worked pretty well in the past.
anything without ownership ("anarcho"-syndicalism/communism) requires coercion and is not anarchism.
you really only need ownership, universal non violence and _if_ you are attacked by someone not adhering to that the right for proper self defense. everything else follows from that.
"anything without ownership (“anarcho”-syndicalism/communism) requires coercion and is not anarchism."
Sincere question: how do you have ownership, without coercion? In what sense do I own my bicycle, if someone who takes it from me cannot be "coerced" by some entity or other to return it?
@ceoln
there's ownership and possession.
in libertarian philosophies you are the owner. you can _decide_ what happens to _your_ things. if those decisions are going to be made reality depends on if you are in possession. if the thief is in possession you still have ownership. this is exactly the same how our western - if not most - states handle things. it also is a pretty old concept in general.
following your line of thought you currently don't own your bike as well.
the thing you did achieve though is that you enabled someone all-powerful - the state - to steal your bike because you didn't pay your taxes. which the state invented. if you want to protect yourself against this robbery you are kidnapped or murdered.
If two people disagree about who owns a thing, what determines which is correct?
In the current society, the government has standards for that, and procedures to fix the situation if ownership and possession get out of sync. This is frequently abused! But it seems better than the alternatives.
Capitalism cannot work if owners are not secure in their control of the capital that they own. How does that work in an ancap system? Where does the required security come from? Assuming everyone will be nice and respect each other's property seems impractical.
@ceoln @tripu
how often did this happen to you?
i once had my bike stolen. that's about it.
how things are done is upon the members of society to handle. that's the point about freedom, you have responsibility to handle things.
relying on the government to fix things will backfire as soon as the next _really bad_ psychopath is in power. those currently are just laymen.
That's why we keep trying to develop better models for government; democracy is better than monarchy, democracy with an independent judiciary is better than one without, etc.
When you say it's "upon the members of society to handle", what does that mean? Can they form guilds? Gangs? Protection agencies? Private armies? Governments? If not, what stops them from doing that?
@ceoln @tripu
i'd actually do the same, mutual societies are a pretty good idea!
i see no problem in working together, i see a problem in forcing people to associate which is what the "red" anarchies _have_ to do.
with mutualism your property is respected, and you voluntarily give funds for a mutual business (or whatever). pretty cool!
That depends on what you mean by "forcing people to associate". If that means, for instance, "forcing" people not to run off with all the stuff that the association is keeping in the barn, then yeah, we sort of have to do that. :)
Property doesn't get respected by magic; it gets respected when not respecting it, has consequences.
It may be that only 0.1% of the people in the county would do that "running off" thing; but that's all it'd take.
@bonifartius
Help to organize collective institutions to mitigate the problems. Depending on your exact definitions, it would be either a collectivist thing that I suspect you'd count as "communism", or else a government. Or both!
I don't know of an alternative that works better.
@tripu