Inevitability of collapse of anarchist societies

[Richard Allan]

In the Ayn Rand thread Ian B made some claims about the inevitability of any hypothetical anarchist society's collapse into a Statist system, with the implication that this would occur in a very short time frame. Since he now appears to have bowed out of that thread, I wonder if he might like to post the evidence he used to come to this conclusion in this one instead.

I'd be particularly interested to hear how global society has managed to function without an over-arching global State for essentially the whole of human history. Thanks in advance.

[Davy]

I cite as examples of free market defence on a tiny budget being effective: the IRA, the IRAQI insurgents & the Taliban. If the collective consciousness doesn't believe in the authority of whatever government is trying to impose itself, it's EXTREMELY hard for them to do so, even with overwhelmingly superior fire-power.

I always found this video very compelling also:

[sconzey]

I cite as examples of free market defence on a tiny budget being effective: the IRA, the IRAQI insurgents & the Taliban. If the collective consciousness doesn't believe in the authority of whatever government is trying to impose itself, it's EXTREMELY hard for them to do so, even with overwhelmingly superior fire-power.

Well, collective conscience is always subsumed to rational expedience. Consider Ottoman Turkey's domination of their conquered territories with only small bands of elite swordsmen, or Lord Cromer's stewardship of the whole of Egypt with the support of only 5000 British troops. What did they do that the Brits didn't do in Ireland, or the yanks in Iraq or Afghanistan?

The only pre-war insurgency I can think of that was vaguely successful was the Boer War (crushed, incidentally, but not after increasing the number of troops ten-fold).

Yes, it's arguable that modern weaponry has been more beneficial to smaller forces than larger ones, but insurgency today is only successful because modern armies care about human rights (and insurgents -- all too often -- don't).

From a moral perspective, this is fine, from a praxic one -- not so much. The British army over the hill may be nicer chaps, and gave you that shiny tractor, but the guy in the black turban rigging an IED in your field has a gun in your face and is taking lascivious looks at your daughter. I'm not ashamed to say my balls aren't that big either.

I fear overwhelming firepower may be required.

[IanB]

Richard, this has echoes of the lively debate we had over at Samizdata. You ask for "evidence" but this is something of a misdirection. What form would this "evidence" take?

Debates of this type generally are based upon reasoning and logic. It is much as if somebody asks me "give me evidence that a true free market would work". I cannot provide "evidence" as such since none has ever existed. All I can offer is reasoned argument.

The situation can be looked at; what is the null hypothesis? From that angle, you are making the extravagant claim, not I, and thus it is you who must provide the evidence. That is, you are the one asserting that an anarchy would, or at least could, be stable. Where is your evidence for this? The only evidence from the actual world is that nowhere is there an anarchy. There are many different systems and polities, but not one in which individuals are entirely free of coercion.

You are asking me to prove a negative, effectively. It is well known that that cannot be done. But you are the one asserting a particular system. Ergo, it is up to you to prove it will work, rather than up to me to prove that it won't. It is similar to a situation in which you present me with a claim that you can build a remarkable machine that produces free energy. It is up to you to show that it works if you want me to buy it.

In our epic struggle at Samizdata, from which I finally retired exhausted, you never nailed down precisely what you were proposing. Please describe the hypothetical society- its structures and conventions- so that we have some solid basis on which to procede, if you wish to. How are common rules of conduct ("crimes") defined? For instance, suppose I knock over your pint in the pub. How do we decide whether or not I have committed a crime against you, and what happens next?

[IanB]

I've just had another separate thought after posting the previous.

It occurs to me in these debates that many people when talking about "anarchy" are referring to what one might call a "technical anarchy"; that is something that is technically an anarchy because it fits a particular technical definition thereof. I remember you (Richard) quoting Max Weber's definition a lot- that the State is that which has a monopoly of power. Ergo, if there is no "monopoly of power" then there is no State, ergo it is an anarchy.

To use an imaginary example; suppose there is some geographic area ("country") in which Christians, Muslims and Jews live. Now suppose that each has their own governance- their own laws and courts and ruling council etc. If a Jew commits a crime, he is dealt with by the Jewish courts, and so on. The three communities interact via these separate governances, with dispute resolution systems etc, and there is no overarching governance. The Christian, Jewish and Muslim community governances are the highest governance level. None has a monopoly.

Now in technical terms, because of the lack of monopoly, this is an anarchy. However, I would propose that it is only a Technical Anarchy. Why? Because the power over people of each of the structures is the same as that of a State. A person may perhaps defect from one to another by converting from, say, Christian to Jew. But he cannot escape the combined triumverate system. He does not live without government; rather he simply lives in a territory containing, effectively, three parallel, geographically intermingled States. He is always subject to laws and force from "his" governance and, as a result of the inter-governance systems, from the entire system as a whole. He cannot set up himself as a separate, ungoverned entity. And whichever community he belongs to, he will find himself subject to many laws- on diet, sexual conduct, modes of dress, worship, etc.

So although he lives technically in an anarchy, in practise he is not very free. To use a crass example, Somalia is technically an anarchy- that stoned a girl to death in a public stadium under polycentric sharia law, because the polycentric law there is a clan law- there is no overarching authority, but each person is strictly subject to their clan.

I am, as a libertarian, most interested in the society which will allow me to be most free of coercion. As such, a Technical Anarchy is likely to be of little use. So it would be useful to the discussion to be precise about what sort of anarchy we're discussing- a state with polycentric governance, or a state with none at all ("Full Anarchy"?)

[Richard Allan]

Uh-oh, I think I hear goalposts moving! Firstly, the claim was that we shouldn't fight the State because the alternative is worse, which was phrased as empirical fact. Let's see:

I simply pointed out what actual history tells us happens, compared to what tweedy anarchists at their word processors like to imagine would happen.

That's the thing about political theories. You actually have to measure them against reality.

Hmm. OK. It's interesting to note that this is essentially the same argument that is used to support the EU: "But if we're not in it, how can we reform it? And if it weren't there, then France and Germany might go to war! Surely you don't want that!" Which calls back to my point about the absence of a global State, and the fact that most libertarians oppose such a thing, even when they claim to support the State as such.

But now we appear to have a purely theoretical debate about the possibility of anarchy.

Well, in fact, there has always been some kind of "state" and always will be; the Big Man of the village, tribal elders, a warlord.

OK, this is a theoretical question which relies on a definition of "State" (the fact that you put "state" in scare quotes suggests to me that you know you're using an unreasonably broad definition). The key distinguishing factor of a State is that it is "sacred", a spook, that commands allegiance based on some kind of divine right, rather than voluntary acceptance. Contrary to what you seem to believe without openly stating it, it is possible for entirely voluntary dispute resolution mechanisms to exist. I would therefore deny that there has always been a "State"; there have been periods of voluntary governance throughout history like Somalia, Ireland, Iceland, periods of American colonialism, etc.

In fact after re-reading your contributions to the Ayn Rand thread, I would have to say that you really are using a nonsensical definition of "State". If even a voluntary organisation is a State then the word has no meaning. It's like saying "Everything that lays eggs is a bird, even if it has no wings, is cold-blooded, and has scales instead of feathers."

from which governments will arise and, from history, we know that's a painful process.

Anarchy isn't a model for a society; it's a transient kind of particle with a very brief half life that decays into something else.

Empirical questions. Sources, please!

And then you're stuck with the fact that it never has in the past- there is not one instance in human history of anything even vaguely similar to anarcho-capitalism

Strong words! Of course I can't ask you to prove a negative here, but I think for that reason, this statement is non-falsifiable and can safely be ignored. It's an article of faith more than anything else, and it depends on definitions, which we've already seen you to have a very loose grip on. videlicet:

It occurs to me in these debates that many people when talking about "anarchy" are referring to what one might call a "technical anarchy"; that is something that is technically an anarchy because it fits a particular technical definition thereof.

Yes, words have meanings. If, saying "anarchy", I meant something which did not fit the definition of "anarchy", I would say something else instead. "Apple pie", for instance.

Now in technical terms, because of the lack of monopoly, this is an anarchy... But he cannot escape the combined triumverate system... He cannot set up himself as a separate, ungoverned entity.

You're doing it again! "Suppose this guy lives in an anarchy, but he has to consent to a given form of dispute resolution." Well he doesn't live in an anarchy then, does he? Good grief.

The argument given against voluntarist justice is that, if you can't enforce claims, then people will be more likely to do bad things. Firstly, I don't accept that, I need evidence. In my reading of history the possibility that the State will commit crimes against its own citizens far outweighs the possibility of private citizens doing anything similar on any kind of comparable scale.

And secondly, so what? You're just making the "perfect" State, where everyone obeys the law out of fear, the enemy of the "good" anarchy, where sometimes bad things happen. Do we ban people from driving, in case they negligently kill someone else? No. So why ban people from choosing their own dispute resolution mechanisms, in case something bad happens? In both cases free personal choice leads to a loss of life; and if you use the correct definition of "negligent", then the killer has committed a tort in both cases. But restricting people's right to drive is anathema to libertarians, whereas they have this strange blind spot about restricting access to justice.

So, in summary:

The claim that abolishing the State would necessarily (and quickly!) result in something worse I find to be ludicrous on its face. Yes, abolishing the State badly wouldn't help, but there are many ways to skin a cat. Moreover, whatever you like to say, it is an empirical question, which deserves an empirical answer.

Your definition of the State is useless for communication. A State is involuntary; that is its defining characteristic.

If the State is inevitable, then why is there no global State, and why do nations seem to hum along and co-operate with one another fairly readily? Sure, there are wars, but not constant war.

And finally, "sometimes bad things happen" is neither an indication that the State exists, nor a justification for the State. I quote Hans-Hermann Hoppe:

Assume a group of people, aware of the possibility of conflicts; and then someone proposes, as a solution to this eternal human problem, that he (someone) be made the ultimate arbiter in any such case of conflict, including those conflicts in which he is involved. I am confident that he will be considered either a joker or mentally unstable—and yet this is precisely what all statists propose.

It is for this reason that I believe the burden of proof to be on those who claim that a State will reduce (rather than increase) the incidence of "bad things"; rather than the burden being on those who claim the opposite. I believe that, to the vast majority of people, it is prima facie obvious that "power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely;" and thus that no-one can be entrusted with the power a State demands.

[IanB]

Richard,

To avoid an immense wall of text, I will concentrate on one thing-

"The argument given against voluntarist justice is that, if you can't enforce claims, then people will be more likely to do bad things. Firstly, I don't accept that, I need evidence. In my reading of history the possibility that the State will commit crimes against its own citizens far outweighs the possibility of private citizens doing anything similar on any kind of comparable scale."

No. The argument is that, if you can't enforce claims, you can't enforce claims and you have no justice system. You keep talking of voluntary justice, but justice is inherently involuntary; because laws apply to their perpetrators, not their victims. If a man rapes a woman, somehow he has to be forced into court and then forced into jail. There is nothing "voluntary" about that.

If you have a system- well, a non-system- in which submission to the courts is a matter of personal choice, quite clearly our rapist will choose not to attend court. He has no reason to do so. It matters not that the victim volunteers to this justice system; unless she can force the perpetrator to do so, she has no justice.

Take my earlier example. Suppose I spill your pint in the pub. In your belief system, that is a crime and I must compensate you. In my belief system, accidents are nobody's fault and I have no crime to answer. You ask me to attend a "court", and I tell you to bugger off. Now how do you proceed? Either you will use force (e.g. a mob of hired thugs) to kidnap me and drag me into your court, or you are stymied. Once I have been hauled by force into your courtroom, in what sense am I "voluntarily" participating in *your* justice system?

***

You see, I'm interested in liberty, and not much interested in your technical definition of a state. All the supposed "stateless" societies you claim to have existed have some form of, let's call it "collective coercive apparatus"; a collective which as a collective submits to coercion. You might claim that these are, by some strange definition "voluntary", but I see no qualitative difference between being obligated to obey the laws of my clan, or my religious group, or tribe, or what have you, and the laws of a state, the state just being somewhat bigger, more formal, and probably has a flag and a theme tune. States are merely complex tribal structures. Heck, Britain is still a monarchy. We get to vote for our tribal elders and can even vote to change any structure or abolish it altogether. Aren't we "voluntary" too?

***

As to international history, if you ever dare read a history book you'll note that the collectives which have been able to exist have done so purely by military strength; and that most of them have been conquered and subjugated or destroyed altogether. It's no evidence for anarchism.

[jockox3]

Okay - so this is going to be a bit of a ramble picking up some general points over the past few messages, so I won't quote people directly. Also, IanB, you seem to be something of an "old hand" at these debates, so, whilst I don't want to be patronising, I do kind of want to know whether you know of and understand the various arguments made for competing law and justice by the an-caps and market anarchists. Because I find them compelling, and clearly, if you do know about them, you don't and that's the difference I want to get the to the bottom of...

So, do you understand that the vision, if you will, is of a society in which because "contract is king", so to speak, individuals and organisations will require some evidence of bona fides on the part of people they do any kind of business with - except perhaps for small scale cash based transactions. As Bob Murphy puts it in "Chaos Theory" if your employer can't rely on calling the government's enforcers to take you away if he finds you with your fingers in the till, he'll likely want to have some kind of agreement with you that if you should do such and such wrong you agree to be bound by a certain procedure. And that for you to be able to show you are trustworthy enough to agree to such a contract, it's likely that he'll want you (and you him) to have some kind of indemnity cover.

And it seems to me that this is key to understanding the entire concept. The other incentive to have that sort of insurance is to insure you against against aggression initiated against you or your property. But the upshot of it all is that in order to be economically active in any meaningful way - to get a job, to get any kind of credit, including agreements such as renting a roof over your head, you'll need to have some type of insurance organisation offering to indemnify those you deal with.

These insurance contracts would be available from all sorts of competing firms and with all sorts of different types of cover and premiums. So yes, someone who personally lives by Shari'a say and wants to deal by Shari'a rules with people of a like mind, might well use an insurance firm whose rules of resolving disputes between its own members involve submitting to Shari'a rules. But that when they deal with people who are not Shari'a advocates, they'd have to have terms that would be agreeable to the counter-party and his insurers. The insurance contracts need not be expensive - who needs expensive indemnity insurance if you have proven yourself to be a "good risk" and, in any case, there's an obvious application here for mutual societies, even local neighbourhood based ones perhaps where their assessment of your "riskiness" can be based on what real people you deal with regularly of see in your daily lives know about you.

Now, in a technologically advanced society, it would be relatively easy for a sort of an "electronic ostracism" to happen. If you are suspected of committing some crime you'd likely not last long economically if you did not come forward to clear your name, and if you were guilty (or even just found such by an arbiter acting for the victim even if in your absence because you chose not to turn up) you would be pretty well outlawed. Because it's not just your reputation that others might not want to "trade with" but that their other law abiding customers would probably want to avoid a business that did business with known or suspected criminals - and even if they still did, it's likely their premiums would rise to a point they couldn't afford to continue to do so.

So, would a family member or friend risk their ability to trade or rent or work to give you safe harbour? Maybe, for a while, but since also we don't believe in prison (by and large - there are alternatives for some cases) but in restitution it's not like they would be handing you over to a brutal spell in a university of crime, but to accept a judgement that is most likely to be some kind of financial reparation to the victim or their representatives. If you can't afford to make reparations immediately, there would also be specialised insurance firms paying such money immediately (so the victim is always compensated when it matters - none of this "one pound a week" stuff we get today on court fines) and then taking charge of getting the money out of you.

They'd likely take control of your "insurance" and agree a payment plan with you to recoup their outlay. If you have no employment they may provide either job opportunities themselves - by hiring out say "gang work", or perhaps if you seem to be a flight risk, a residential work camp. These would not be anything like current day prisons - the incentive not being to punish so much as extract money from you to pay the reparations. So their incentive is not to lock you in an eight by six cell for 23 hours a day, but to try and match work to your skill set to maximise the income and minimise the time you spend there. Conceivably they would also try and increase peoples' skills. Finally, they would probably help you "reintegrate" in a similar way to these credit card firms who market themselves at bad credit reference holders to help them rebuild their credit. So you'd probably be on quite a short leash imposed by that insurance firm until you had done enough to show you weren't a risk (to others and therefore also to them as an insurance firm that would have to pay out).

Ultimately, for the serial recidivist or someone who simply utterly refuses to co-operate, then it seems likely that they would only really be able to survive by moving to somewhere where only outlaws live - a sort of a voluntary prison colony/internal exile - but given the lack of violence in the "punishment" part of the mainstream justice system they'd probably conclude that accepting their reparations and making arrangements to pay would be far preferable. Such colonies, unable to trade with mainstream society and so on, are likely to be pretty grim places, but an advantage of them is that if all the outlaws are there together, they will be easier to defend against them aggressing on law abiding society.

For the genuine sociopathic criminal the same would all apply, but the insurance company that takes on the reparation debt and would otherwise give you work would be likely to insist for their own protection on you remaining in a secure facility. But again, their incentive is still to get the best out of you, so these are also unlikely to be the sort of brutal places that our "state hospitals" are.

Now, as to your scenario about Christian, a Jewish and a Muslim "systems" co-existing meaning that everyone is coerced into one of these more rule bound systems, well that wouldn't be anarchy would it, even on a technical level. The opposite of a monopoly of arbitration is competition in arbitration. Not a three way cartel. If they prevented someone from setting up a "humanist" insurance/dispute resolution organisation, they themselves would be committing aggression.

Whilst I do see market-produced law as a way in which those who want to live by the Shari'a, or the Beth Din to do so in their relationships with each other but co-exist in a religiously pluralist society, I am sensitive to the idea that people may themselves be pressured into say dealing with the Shari'a one if they are from a Muslim background. Someone asked - how do women, for example, "opt out". Well I would suggest that there would be likely in this society, just as there are today lobbying government, "atheist activists" too whose "good works" might involve, for example, providing protection services to a Muslim woman trying to get out of the system and then defending her rights once she got out.

Does that make sense? Am I teaching you to suck eggs in that you already know all of this and still think it unworkable?

[jockox3]

Oh yeah - I forgot to say something about private property and international aggression.

Property rights cover your issue of spilling the pint IMO. When you enter the pub it is likely that the publican would have rules that you are tacitly accepting by patronising his establishment. One of these is likely to be that he, or his senior representative onsite at the time, is the final arbiter in minor disputes whilst on his property. If either of you, Richard with the spilled pint, or Ian who has the accident, don't accept those terms that would be tough - you're not likely to get to drink there again though. Ian, on the one hand, might be accepting a rule that says "we don't believe in accidents here, so a spilled pint must be compensated" and Richard might be accepting terms that said that "we do believe in accidents here so if we decide Ian spilling your pint is an accident, that's the end of the matter and you accept you have no right to higher appeal".

The same happens with property rights and access rights and the competing protection/investigation firms wanting to "arrest" someone. Most street owners, who would be responsible for providing safe passage to their customers, are unlikely to want to be accommodating to people accused of crimes, or convected of crimes and avoiding justice. So again, it's likely to be quite standard that in agreeing to patronise that owner's street, you'd be assumed to be agreeing to a fairly standard "street use" contract that waived your right to sue the street owner if, as a suspected or convicted criminal, someone else's protection agency were to come and arrest you.

See, all still "voluntary". You don't have to use that street, or rather, if you do have to use that street, then perhaps you ought to pop along and clear your name or accept the reparations bill.

Now, as to territorial defence - that is the last thing I ever got to grips with to enable me to eschew the state completely.

Of course an anarchist society would not need an offensive military capability - that would be against the non-aggression principle. And you have to wonder why even a neighbouring state would want to attack such an inoffensive territory. However, assuming they do get attacked, how could they defend themselves?

Well, we'll assume that the aggressor wants your territory or its people for something, so all out destruction - say nuking you - is unlikely to be their chosen mechanism (if it is, then like any nation today without corresponding nukes you're not likely to be able to defend against that). And why, if American troops are too concerned about human rights now, in Iraq or Afghanistan, would they not be such against the anarchist territory?

But there is no reason why privatised - and competing - defence forces could not work. Just as in our own society there are people who volunteer for military service because they think it's the thing they're going to be good at, so there are likely to be in the anarchist society. The owners of things that are likely to be strategic targets in the event of an invasion would be likely to include such protection in their insurance for those assets, which would pay for those defence forces to be kept on retainer. I'd suggest that while they are not needed on defending their own territory these firms, which would likely be highly professional and able to arm and equip themselves much better than current state militaries (because, amongst other things, they're having to make a profit so will look to get the best deals, not the politically acceptable deals, with suppliers), they would be available for hire overseas as *defensive* protection forces.

I could see, for example, as I've mentioned previously somewhere on these forums, that concerned citizens of this anarchist society might see the problems of Darfur or some similar conflict point, and through charitable donations offer to send the highly professional defence forces in to protect the Africans from the Janjaweed, or to protect the Shi'a southern Iraqis from the predations of Saddam and so on.

[Davy]

Jock, those posts were awesome. I've been geeking out on this kind of theoretical stuff for ages now, and I still got some "AHA" moments reading that, thanks!