Question regarding anarchy

[Thank You]

q

[Brad Reddekopp]

That's weird, I don't see that last option when I try to edit my opening post. And I can't choose to delete the poll either. Maybe you get that because you're a moderator?

Maybe. I'll go into the admin control panel and check into the permissions -- I certainly think that anyone who has the ability to create a poll should have the ability to modify it.

Meanwhile, do you want me to make it so people can change their votes in this poll?

[Brad Reddekopp]

Please check it again, Centurijohn, and see if that option is now available to you.

[Centurijohn]

Please check it again, Centurijohn, and see if that option is now available to you.

It is, people should be able to change their votes now.

[Centurijohn]

Coercers committing the same coercion do not necessarily act in unison.

Yeah, but they wouldn't be that much of a problem if they didn't cooperate.

At the very least, if they're not willing to act on their presumed right to help seek retribution against a coercer, an anarchist wouldn't avoid involvment with them, so that there would effectively be a great deal of unison among the anarchists (because their activities don't require a lot of direction).

Yes, but then that wouldn't have that much of an impact on the coercive party IMO.

Anarchy doesn't say anything particular about dispute resolution, other than that the disputing parties aren't expected to be held to a resolution process to which they haven't agreed. Now, one could argue that it isn't likely easy to find a process to which everyone in a dispute would consent. I agree, but I also think that giving people the responsibility of organizing the handling of one's disputes would lead them to decide on potential resolution processes upon entering any resolution.

Certainly, yet that presumes that a resolution process you'd agree to is actually provided. But the arbitration firms in your neighbourhood rely on their customers' payments, and I'd expect them to be on the side of the expected majority of people who do not share the anarchist attitude of coercion-initiation-avoidance.

On the other hand, with the current government enforced process, there isn't a lot of feedback regarding whether or not it does a good job, because people can't choose whether or not to use or support it.

Well, people do get to choose whether they want to support or use it, and they can work to improve it, but I agree that feedback-avoidance is a problem.

So this just fits into the general libertarian/anarchist argument: make people pay the consequences of making bad decisions (e.g. with regards to preparing for conflicts), and they'll make better decisions for themselves than you could make for them.

Very true, but making people pay the consequences for their decisions isn't easy to do when you're in the minority.

Well, the reason anarchy isn't likely to succeed in such a situation is because the costs of maintaining a less ideal social structure aren't that bad. If disagreements among people aren't a significant source of problems, I suspect folks would put their resources toward other things (like conflict with nature), and end up with a less than optimal way of dealing with the very few person-to-person disagreements that occur.

OK, you could argue that way, but I think you could also argue that because people do not disagree about many things, convincing people to espouse anarchy would be easier.

[Thank You]

q

[Centurijohn]

Very true, but making people pay the consequences for their decisions isn't easy to do when you're in the minority.

You misunderstand me significantly. Remember that this "pay the consequences for their decisions" comment followed the idea that people don't get to decide whether to support the government enforced resolution system. So the decision (for which people would pay the consequences if they were allowed to make it for themselves) is whether (and how) people prepare for conflicts with their associates.

You're right, I misunderstood you completely. I guess I lost the plot for a moment.

I think that people would favor arbitration with a tendency to rule against coercion, even when they would like to commit coercion. The cost of trying to get people to agree, upon entering their relationship with you, to an arbiter who clearly favors you is that people won't actually enter into voluntary relationships with you.

I'm thinking rather along the lines of arbitration and protection firms that favour (a) particular group(s) over another, not simply a person over all the rest. That's why I said that coercers that cooperate are the problem.

In other words making (letting) people choose their own arbitration processes leaves it much more transparent whether they want to commit coercion. In order to commit coercion, then, you'd actually have to pay for war, rather than just for an arbitration process that favors you (because none of your victims would recognize that process).

I guess if you and likeminded people can simply pay protection and arbitration firms to favour you over another group, it wouldn't matter that some people do not agree to the process. The situation may result in armed conflict, but it may also result in people simply accepting your rules or moving away.

As things stand right now, on the other hand, potential victims of coercion do recognize (as their only option) a resolution system that is fairly easy for potential coercive majorities to control, and people have the option to coerce at the relatively cheap cost [cheaper than war, anyways] of buying out potential victims' only arbitration option. That doesn't detail specifically what amount of power potential coercers would need, but I think they'd need a lot more, because it isn't likely that they can gain any support for their coercive policies from a mutually recognized arbitration system -- because potential victims would have options regarding which arbiters to support.

If they actually have options as to the arbiters and protection firms, then you're probably right.

People get to choose whether they want to file complaints in the government court system, but they don't get to choose whether or not to pay for it, or whether to be bound by its decisions. They can try to improve it, but they lose one of their biggest options for doing so, refusal to pay for it when they find it bad enough.

Technically, people do have the option to pay for or choose a different court system or even no court system by going to a country with different laws or not living in a country. They can even live in a country and avoid paying for the court system, but yes, you are right that they are more limited in their options for giving feedback than they could be in a free market for arbitration and protection. But OTOH, in such a market they would probably run into the problems I've described above, where they would end up not having much of a choice as to the local protection and arbitration firms.

I think anarchy would have a bit of an advantage, because people would be free to make the decision of what social system to support on much more ideological grounds, since the cost of choosing a practically inefficient one wouldn't be that bad. On the other hand, there are ideological reasons to support non-anarchic systems (e.g. if people are swayed by ideals concerning self-sacrifice, and the social discourse still includes the same sort of "with us or against us" arguments currently forwarded by socialists).

I think you pointed me to an important distinction there. In a situation where any system for social organisation is more likely to endure, anarchy is more likely to work simply compared to a situation where there is less homogeneity and agreement. Yet that doesn't mean that anarchy is more likely to work compared to other systems.

[Thank You]

q

[Centurijohn]

I'm thinking rather along the lines of arbitration and protection firms that favour (a) particular group(s) over another, not simply a person over all the rest. That's why I said that coercers that cooperate are the problem.

Still, members of that group couldn't get anyone to agree to resolve disputes through that arbitration firm, because pretty soon it would be fairly straightforward what they'd intend by asking people to use that firm. In other words, leaving people to set up their own dispute resolution systems for each of their relationships leaves it in the open whether or not they're acting in good faith wrt resolving conflicts in those relationships. Each relationship comes with its own set of rules for settling disputes, so potential coercers' couldn't get away with their actions by buying out a certain dispute resolution process. The whole idea of buying out an arbitration firm to get it to rule on your side of disputes only makes sense within a system where there's a potential arbitration firm to which people agree prior to entering a relationship.

I guess if you and likeminded people can simply pay protection and arbitration firms to favour you over another group, it wouldn't matter that some people do not agree to the process. The situation may result in armed conflict, but it may also result in people simply accepting your rules or moving away.

I think the results are exactly the other way around. In anarchy, there might be some level of passive consent to the rulings of a big arbitration firm that clearly supports a certain group; but with the increased potential of defining a different resolution process for each relationship, such passivity wouldn't be nearly as great as it is in the current system in the U.S. (for instance), where it isn't even socially feasible to request a court of appeals other than SCotUS, which already adheres to a system of laws biased in favor of certain coercive groups.

Hm, I think I see your point. So there's one issue left that we've only partially discussed. I searched through some older threads and saw that Tmaq had described it better than I could:

...In larger and/or more diverse societies, factions with differing goals and attitudes almost always develop, and one of the primary public-good functions of governments is to mediate between those factions to avoid the blood feuds that otherwise can spread like wildfire into outright civil war. By submitting to an impartial/disinterested/public-welfare-motivated third party (ie, someone without a 'dog in this fight.') the potential spread of those conflicts is minimized, and the whole problem is just how exactly to ensure that impartiality (or, if you are more machievellian, how to convince everyone that they are impartial

The problem with the notion of DROs is precisely the need for an *impartial* party to handle such mediation, and the fact that businesses favor their customers. Paying the umpire $100 to 'keep it fair' isn't going to fool anyone. Have *both* parties pay the same amount? (As far as everyone knows?). Businessmen are guaranteed free from graft and corruption? Customers won't flock to DROs which favor them, personally?

Clearly, an intended impartial mediation-function government can get into the hands of people who want to advance their own agenda, and far too frequently does exactly that, which is why its *always* imperative to keep any government small; not only does a weaker government have less power to fuck things up, it is also less attractive to those who might seek to pervert that mediation function into a stacking-the-deck function, and it is that perversion which public choice theory predicts, and which is approximately the entire problem, vis-a-vis the criticisms of goverment presented by libertarians / anarchists, etc...

[Thank You]

q

[Centurijohn]

...If the mediation system can be determined on a relationship-by-relationship basis,...

Could you elaborate a bit on this part? I'm not sure I understand what you have in mind.