I understand that we need a good narrative to comprehend the world, but I think we can do better than the "government = bad" one. The truth seems like it would be more nuanced.
Finally, you see, if a politician does a bad job, he still gets paid and keeps his job at least until the next election. If a private company messes up, people leave in droves and it goes bankrupt.
There might be some good people in the government, who truly believe they are doing some good. That doesn't make the system good and they have zero chances to make it a good system.
Like it or not, most government systems humans have invented so far are woefully inefficient and provide perverse incentives from time to time. However it seems our current democratic/republican system works the best, if not on any objective scale, but for the fact is the most relatively stable and proven.
Now, anyone can see that our current government has issues, much like the ones you pointed out. And most people have known that for ages, the hard part is can you devise a better system, and how would you go about testing it without ruining a generation? How do you go about minimizing corruption. Sure the "lets-all-live-in-the-forest" and "burn-down-the-institutions-and-the-rich" route is nice and ideal, but its a pipe dream that will fall apart instantly (some people like to point out examples of small villages living without electricity and money - but you simply cannot scale that "lifestyle" to 300 million people).
I'm not a political philosopher or an economist so I won't assert that the system we have now is greatest and you are wrong. I just want to see more expanded thought on the idea that "politicians are crooks and we should get rid of the system."
But the fundamental question is not whether we can make our system better or worse. The fundamental question is, is it okay to steal from others? When government takes taxes, it steals. You may call it a "perspective", but if I disagree to pay, you and I know very well I'm gonna be at the very least intimidated by the government agents and may possibly go to jail. If all people in a given country indeed agreed that taxes are good, you wouldn't need to enforce collecting it, you would just let people donate, like on kickstarter. If, however, some disagree, you can't claim it's fair simply because the majority is sort of okay with it. The majority supported a lot of horrible things throughout history, yet now we don't see them as being on the right side of it.
If you don't want to pay your taxes, leave the country and build your own, with roads, running water, infrastructure et. all. If you find you need outside investment to "bootstrap" your new country, then you may end up paying dividends to your investors just so you can have running water - how is this any different from taxes?
Okay, you might say - but why don't we let private companies manage roads, infrastructure, and others? You should ask yourself, do you really want a company whos job it is to maximize profits to be running these basic services? We already have a couple examples of how privately run institutions with perverse incentives can ruin peoples lives.
Lets look at the prison industry, which is now private. They benefit from the free labour of prisoners indirectly giving them an incentive to have as many people as possible in prison. As a result America has the worlds highest incarceration rate by a wide margin[1]. Often these people are in prison for reasons illegitimate. While these people are in prison they also represent an innumerable net loss to the actual economy. These are people who could be getting educated or running higher worth jobs.
It shouldn't be a stretch of the imagination that running a country - managing the resources and happiness of millions of people as well managing relations with other countries as represented by millions of other people is an incredibly complex task. Simply boiling down "taxes = stealing" is too simple and naive to actually strongly consider.
[1]http://www.prb.org/Publications/Articles/2012/us-incarcerati...
However despite how inefficient an engine is, academia, industry and the military pout millions of dollars every year to increase modern engines efficiencies by .1%.
So is inefficient bad? Well its wasteful and we have worked very hard to reduce that waste, but it will never be physically more than 30%. However I would call a modern lamborghini engine "bad". With the tools and knowledge humans have at the moment lamborghini has managed to produce an amazing engine.
Same goes for the government. Yes there are holes and I'd imagine there are people working to fix these holes. But is the government today objectively bad? Are we blindly driving ourselves to wall. I think its hard to say. Its easy to say that the government should do x, y, z and all our problems would be solved, but that is easier said than done. Modern human society is exceedingly complex. So to say the government is "bad" would require more knowledge on modern human society that is currently even possibly, just like to say if an engine is bad you would need to be an expert on engines. However just like I can say 70% of an engines energy is wasted on heat and is therefor inefficient, the government is also inefficient in a similar matter, without at all being "bad"
We may assume that in the absence of government, we'd have the same economic station as we do, forgetting that that wealth we do have is the result of the whole economic system we have now, including the government, imperfect as it may be. Without government, you'd get to keep all of your income (all the income that the marauding bandit with a bigger gun than you lets you keep) but it would be far, far lower than the amount of wealth you now possess.
You could argue that you don't need a "government" for any of these things, that communities could come together and provide them without the "government" stepping in. Of course any administrative mechanisms the community puts in place to manage these will very quickly begin to look very like the "government" we despise.
And I would like to answer one of your questions specifically: "How would they enforce contracts arising therefrom without a legal system" by pointing you to an Bitcoin-related idea by a friend of mine: http://blog.oleganza.com/post/58240549599/contracts-without-...
I'd see taxes more like calling in a debt. It costs money to live here, you have to pay for that. You can't shout and scream "THEFT" when a hotel is trying to get you to pay for your stay, even if you don't want to use the TV yet still have to pay for it.
> "We built those roads, we gave you education". Yes, except you didn't.
I'm not sure which country you're from, but I'm guessing there are schools and roads funded by the state.
> Finally, you see, if a politician does a bad job, he still gets paid and keeps his job at least until the next election. If a private company messes up, people leave in droves and it goes bankrupt.
There are plenty of companies that do bad jobs and are still running.
What do you mean costs money to live here? I already pay my rent and utilities. When I walk or drive on public roads, it is only because it is a monopoly and I have no other choice. Do you think in the absence of government no one would build roads? Or schools? Or do you argue that it costs money to stay on a piece of land? Then maybe we should start taxing breathing the air as well.
> There are plenty of companies that do bad jobs and are still running.
Because there's a demand for that particular level of service, not because they force everyone to visit them and become their customers.
To me, it's pretty obvious that when you have a large group of people trying to live geographically close together, someone has to set up the rules, and make sure those rules are followed. Otherwise, there will be conflicts, because people will have different opinions about how something should be done, and some people will try to enforce their worldview on others. Whoever will have the power to resolve such conflicts is the government. That will be their job, and people will have to pay them to do this job.
A true resolution would be when both sides agree on the price. An simple example would be this:
I would like to throw a party on my lawn, but my neighbor disagrees. I really want that party though, cos it's my birthday, so I would go to my neighbor and try to convince him to let me have a party. I can see he wouldn't appreciate the noise so I would offer him something in exchange for his inconvenience: maybe I would let him use my bathtub for the next month, or maybe I would simply give him some money. If it wasn't just my one neighbor, but maybe 3 or 5 of them, I would have to convince them all and pay them all and that would make my party very expensive, so I would consider cancelling it.
Now on a larger scale, imagine you'd have various law firms, each protecting their clients interests and bargaining on their behalf. So, for instance, clients of one firm wouldn't like gay people to marry, while clients of that other firm, obviously many of the are gay, would be in favor of it. Even if we suppose that those who oppose gay marriage are the majority, they still probably wouldn't be able to outbid the minority here. That's because when people are asked to pay to teach others how to live, it becomes painfully obvious most of them are not ready spend their money on it.
However, what is the real price of an 8 year old boy? Lets say I go and kill little Mark Zuckerberg. By doing so I have zapped almost 100B dollars from the economy and paid his parents 10-20 million. I'm doing a disservice to everyone by killing him, should I also pay everyone who Zuckerberg will make a future millionaire, how will I know this?
Even in your example, how does his neighbor know what the perceived cost of your action are? What if his property value goes down, because of your party and noise making? How will ever be able to calculate that cost? What if he has his elderly sick mother staying over the weekend? How does he put a price on his mother's piece of mind?
I'm pretty sure a large portion of society would bet against you if you decided to kill an 8 year old boy. You would never have enough money to outbid the society. It doesn't matter how much money you pay to the parents, the society would still be willing to put you in jail, since it doesn't want people killing other people, no matter how rich they are.
On the other hand, we have places with weak rule of law, where the governments are corrupts, or cult of personality places men above law. These are the places where people suffer, have little hope or freedom to progress and have constant boot of power pressed on their face.
If strong government is what is stopping the utopia, why is there no such utopia in Somalia? I am finding it very hard to match reality with your claims.
A good government is quite different than absence of any government, which the anarchist claim would lead to utopia. History and current situation are littered with examples of weak rule of law with practically no government. Why doesn't this fabled anarchist utopia rises there? Why does every time there is a power vacuum, some local warlord arises to fill in the gap? Why don't these mythical "good humans" just learn to live without ruling other and being ruled .... just as proposed by anarchist/libertarians?
I have given you examples of good working government, and pointed out what I don't consider to be the proper idea of government. Provide me with evidence of your utopias.
The fact is, people are happy enough with the system as it is, and they do vote out the "mafia thug" if he acts particularly bad. This global warlord requires money to maintain its strength and most people are more than happy to pay their share of taxes.
Also, ruled by reason, really? Same reason that helped it decide to spy on all people and kill millions in bloody wars all over the globe? I mean, it's not just the US. If you look at history, no criminal organization, even the most bloodiest and craziest one, can compete with an average government in how many people it killed, tortured or imprisoned.
Yes, ruled by reason. The same reason that forces them to withdraw from wars, same reason that checks military spending to less than 3% of human efforts, the same reason that maintains property rights for people to function, the same reason that can channel together forces to plant 200 million plants to stop the dust bowl .... and I can parrot on and on. Is the government perfect? Hardly, but it is in every way superior to lack of government, where my ability to maintain my rights depend on how big armies I can summon on my side.
Your tiny force of hundred cannot lead to change of any reasonable measure because there would be a person with an army of million. Always has been, always will be. I am not making stuff up just to argue with you. Feudalism is exactly the result of model you propose. When local security forces run by private party are supposed to enforce whatever any one pays them, it is just in their own benefit to merge together to form bigger force ... which goes on till the ultimate biggest force is run by a King at the center, and small forces run by local security guy. Now unlike trust busting which the government (ruled by citizens) can undertake, there is no one in your utopia who can stop security agencies from forming cartel. Again, brush up your English history (Or Russian history for that matter). When rules depends on who has more money in his pocket, ECON 101 rationale follows, forming ever larger security force accountable to no-one but itself ... enforcing not the rule of law, but whatever whims it wants to.
I think the mistake you are making is thinking that it's either a modern state which gives you certain benefits or some sort of medieval anarchy situation with warlords and lots of random violence. How about when you have 3 or 4 major protection agencies. You may think of them as governments, but instead they work within one country and everyone is free to switch to one or the other at any time. Those agencies sell laws to their customers want, resolve conflicts and enforce property rights. Why do you think such a competition would be worse than having a monopolist who doesn't even live by its own laws (Example: senator did cocaine? made a mistake. A regular person did cocaine: jail). Try to understand that the word Anarchy doesn't mean what you've been told it means. Anarchy simply means no state, but it doesn't mean no rules.
But the point is, you can't just burn a church in a village and expect people to become atheists. Which is an analogy for what happened with the USSR. People got their freedom, but they had no idea what to do with it. So it was gradually taken back from them again.
That's the truth right there. Vast majority of people already have more freedom than they know what to do with. Those people, if faced with a clear choice, would gladly trade some of that "freedom" for stability, security, and comfort in their lives.
If you remove a government from a society, it will quickly descend into chaos. Various armed forces will longer be held accountable for their actions. What do you think will happen? Anyone with a gun can become a "government". Now instead of one government, you have a thousand. Eventually, power will consolidate, and you will end up with a single government, back where you started.
I feel a bit strange having to explain these obvious things, it's like I'm talking to a 10 year old. Do you not realize that the societal order you're proposing has been tried many times since the beginning of civilization? It has never worked. Every time, some kind of power (official or unofficial) had emerged sooner or later (usually sooner), and eventually a some sort of a centralized government was formed. This happened every single time. If people could function without a government, surely we would have seen an example of that somewhere.
The thing is, I realize a lot of people are not ready to be unplugged. That's fine. But there are a lot of people who share my views who would like to live without a government and who know how to do it. The problem for these people is that all the land is taken by states already. And, mind you, most of it is unused. It doesn't have to be some really good land, Las Vegas was built in the desert after all. I guarantee you, if such a land was made available, you would see an unprecedented migration of people and businesses into it and a huge economic boom. The reason it's not available is because states are mostly afraid that if they sell a piece of land to someone completely (that is, allow to secede) many more would follow.
Ok, good point. The society without any government is possible in theory. It's possible that in the distant future, human civilization will evolve to some kind of government-free organization.
However, you are claiming that it is possible today. Let's say we completely remove all people from California, restore it to its wild prehistoric state, and declare it a government-free zone. Anyone can move there and do whatever they like. No laws, no infrastructure, no social services, just wild nature. The blank slate. Let's say a lot of all kinds of people from all over the world will move there and will want to start a new life. Also, for the sake of the argument, let's say no outside influence will be exerted on that land, it will be allowed to develop independently.
Please describe what is going to happen there in the next 100 years? What makes you think it will be different this time around than how it was 200 years ago?
My point is that there are people who understand liberty and understand how to build a free society. They would like an exit. The problem, in my view, is that those in power wouldn't allow them such an exit, because as soon as others see them succeed, the state would lose its legitimacy.
You ask me, what is my solution to this? 1. Educate people about the evil and predatory nature of the state 2. Use Bitcoin. And that's all I have to say about the war in Vietnam.
Your problem is you believe you understand the world better than others. You want to educate others, but even here on this forum, where people generally listen to reason, and are disillusioned with the government, you haven't persuaded anyone with your arguments.
For me, a state is not a religion. For me government is a service, and I'm fine paying for that service. I'm fine trading some of my freedom for security, stability, and comfort. I still have plenty of freedom left.
I honestly don't understand what are you complaining about. If you're living in Russia, and your life there sucks, just move to a country with a better government, with better laws, or with better whatever it is you're not happy about.
Also, I don't particularly enjoy running around and preaching. HN is interesting because some people here indeed listen carefully and actually read your arguments, sometimes presenting challenging questions.
Extraordinary claims require proof from the party making the claim. How do libertarian and/or anarchist propose that intercontinental freeways be built and maintained at the same cost as they are done by the US government?
I suspect one reason for that is that their primary competitor is government, which often has major advantages, like the legal authority to seize property right right of ways and virtually endless funds through taxation and debt.
I don't think that any proposals would claim that all things created by government would exist in a stateless society. Remember, it's possible to not have things like intercontinental freeways but to instead have more economically efficient solutions. The road system in the US, for example, isn't some example of "pure economic good." Freeways require people in cities to subsidize people in rural areas. They also are a massive subsidy to the automobile industry, and a disaster for the rail industry. It's conceivable that a much different (and more efficient) organization of society could emerge without the government creating what it judges to be the "best" public works.
The interstate do not arise in vacuum, nor are they product of mere transportation concerns. They are product of very reasonable concern of quickly transporting war equipment and connecting parts of countries to one another, so as to facilitate quick movement of goods and people, adding their value to GDP. The rail industry is thriving well, doing its job as low cost goods carrier.
"It's conceivable" -- except no one has given good argument that thing which is so obvious has escaped human imagination for close to 10,000 years now, and all the places which are good approximation of said ideologies have people in utterly poor state.
Pardon the snarkiness, but did you learn that in public school? I ask, because I had those ideas unabashedly hammered into my brain my entire childhood in government schools. The problem is that whether someone consents to the actions of government empirically does not matter. Even the founding fathers either deliberately perpetuated this clever lie or managed to deceive themselves like a lot of Enlightenment philosophers. "The consent of the governed" and so on.
For sake of simplicity, lets talk about UK. If the consent of governed does not matter, why hasn't David Cameron taken all the land for himself, a la William the conquer? Was the history of past 1000 year just sham? Something people told themselves to drink the cool-aid? Did all the workers who rioted and all the people who fought and died on side of Parliament against the King stupid? Why exactly are these people living under lie? And how does that country, based on lies and shams, has a well functioning society where you can go from being born in poverty to governing the country in one life time?
And any ways, you still haven't answered the question. Why aren't there incredible large scale projects popping up in north Mali, where Caterpillar industry can go tomorrow and built awesome infrastructure? Surely we in democratic world have to face the tyranny of government in every step ... why haven't the more enlightened countries with little government shown us the way? And if everyone can be lied and manipulated, how is this perfect utopia of anarchy supposed to work?
>I'm not sure which country you're from, but I'm guessing there are schools and roads funded by the state.
And the state is funded by... you and me. I paid for that road, that school, and so did you. Not one dollar was generated by the government. Hey, I'm all for paying for roads and schools and stuff, and am, in fact, willing to pay for it with my own money. I am willing to pay taxes, so that there will be roads to drive on and schools to learn in. So I pay for it (not that I have much choice.) But it is our money that pays for the roads and schools, not "the government's".
And what if I were to write a little poem here, charge you $100 for it, and show up at your house with guns if you fail to pay?
Keeping people in prison, saying that if they are let out of prison, fear and danger will emerge. But if you want to leave prison on your own, you are shot.
There is no one who cares about you, if he is looking for power to control you. Eat, shit, reproduce, obey. Ah yeah, vote something, haha.