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Comment by snitko | Hacker News Reader

Everyone knows we need some kind of government

I don't. Many people I know don't either. So what if we don't really need any kind of government?

I think that we would still have governments because organizing into collectives to assert power and control resources is inevitable as long as inequalities between people and scarcity of resources exist.

I hear Somalia is nice this time of year.

So violence in Somalia is not acceptable to you, but allowing your government a lot of violence is acceptable? If people in Somalia cannot find out a way to avoid violence it does not mean it's not possible in principle, or that government is somehow "good".

Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, etc.

I love white people who are satiated by the blessings of good government that they can talk, without irony, about how they don't need government. I don't meet many anarchists from my part of the world...

The state of human nature is lawlessness and violence. The only thing keeping society from collapsing into the hell that people in those countries live with is the collective force of the majority asserted through government.

Anarchy sounds dandy until a bunch of people realize that in the absence of the overwhelming power of the state, all it takes is a gang of a dozen people to terrorize their neighbors, taking from them whatever they want. Morality doesn't prevent that. The only thing that prevents that is a bigger group of men, with guns. At first those groups of men were warlords, who eventually became kings, and ultimately we decided we should be able to vote for them. History of civilization in a nutshell.

It takes considerably more than "government". It takes a society, with culture and virtues and churches and economy and civic institutions and traditions. There many places in the world that have actual elections were those elections are used by some factions to abuse others. There are still more where decent democracies ultimately collapsed.

Democratic government, government by discourse and persuasion, is a remarkable achievement of a society. It is maintained and supported and continued by that society. There is nothing inevitable about it.

You're right that it does take more than government. The western world enjoys not just (relatively) good government, but a virtuous culture and people. But government by itself can be better than culture by itself. I'd imagine a lot of Iraqis miss the strong but dictatorial government under Saddam as compared to the weak but democratic government they have now. Basic security is a higher need (in the Maslovian sense) than self determination. That is the history of the world, after all. People embraced the kings that saved them from the petty warlords and criminals long before they instituted democratic government.

I saw this comic on the internet once.

It shows this skinny nerd getting beat up by a tattooed thug. With a caption that says something like "This is your anarchist utopia: getting beat up like you were in middle school over and over and over again."

It was awesome (and phrased in a slightly more clever way than I can remember). I really wish I could find it again, but I can't seem too even after trying many times.

Maybe I'm sensitive about it. When I was young, in Bangladesh, we had a house in the capital city. It was surrounded by a concrete wall with broken glass on top and had an iron gate. We once had a bus full of robbers try to break down the gate. They harassed us for 30-40 minutes before the police finally came (apparently this story could have also taken place in Detroit).

I'm as skeptical of the Po Po as the next guy, but the alternative isn't sunshine and rainbows.

My government has not once engaged in violence to me or my family.

The one possible exception is my sister (I wasn't there when she was arrested), but you steal $10,000 worth of silver from an in-law to feed your drug habit and I can't say I'd be surprised that the government gets involved.

P.S. On that note, how does anarchy account for thieves?

Did you pay taxes lately? Have you ever been disappointed by what government does with your taxes? Why haven't you tried to withhold your participation by not paying taxes? E.g. if you dislike the war in Iraq, what stopped you from not paying a part of your taxes? Also, even if you are hard-core fan of taxation, your neighbour may be not. If he also disagrees with the gov on the same matter as you, but decides to withhold some amount of taxes, would you call the cops to arrest him? Or will you let him do his thing and be disappointed if cops find out? Either way, you will notice there is violence behind taxation.

Anarchy is not some structure imposed on people. When I advocate for non-violent solutions, it's not me who needs to prove anything. It's the advocates of violence need to prove why all of a sudden generally undesirable violence becomes totally valid when done by a man in a special costume.

You yourself live 95% of your life in anarchy. You voluntary interact with people you like and avoid people you dislike. You avoid bad districts, you put locks on your bike, purchase insurance, enjoy security video cameras. Ultimately, with modern technology, people can be ostracized economically without any violence whatsoever. You'd need violent action only in extreme case of personal assault, but that's outside of morality. Morality is needed to avoid such situations in the first place.

Like you just said, the government can already generally enforce their laws just fine without violence.

If you go try to beat up the policeman when they come at you with a signed warrant, or ever point a gun in their direction, then don't be surprised when they don't decide to just roll over and die. This is, again, consonant with you mention about personal assault.

But don't try to brush away the question: What does an anarchist propose to do about thieves? Rapists? Murderers? Apparently your answer will not involve violence and will involve sterning telling people to be moral to each other. But I'm not worried about people who are moral, I'm worried about people who aren't.

The tremendous success of governments over the past several thousand years, as well as the even greater success of democratic governments over the past several hundred doesn't count as evidence in their favor?

> My government has not once engaged in violence to me or my family.

What happens if you don't pay taxes?

The government will get violent.

No, they'll garnish my wages. That doesn't require violence at all, the banks and/or my employer will be quite happy to comply.

No, they'll send men with guns to imprison you.

They might have hundreds of years ago. But nowadays they won't (though if I refuse to file taxes things may be different).

Let's not forget that other governments have helped to turn Somalia into what it is today.

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