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I stopped reading that fantasy post pretty early on, if there were no government, there would be corporations owning warlords that made it so they could do whatever they wanted, including killing people to take their land.
I stopped reading that fantasy post pretty early on, if there were no government, there would be corporations owning warlords that made it so they could do whatever they wanted, including killing people to take their land.
If there was no government, the only property you would own is that which you could defend by force of arms. Corporations could not exist.
I stopped reading that fantasy post pretty early on, if there were no government, there would be corporations owning warlords that made it so they could do whatever they wanted, including killing people to take their land.
Look, Warlords are really nothing more than a form of government. The term Warlord simply refers to any person or group who is in control of a region because of military power and not through a legal central authority. But for that matter, one could argue that basically all governments throughout time have be ruled by warlords at one time or another. You could especially argue that the confederate president Jefferson Davis was a warlord. Governments really only exist through force. There are huge swaths of this country that would secede if they weren't prevented from doing so. For that matter, couldn't you say that the continental congress and George Washington was a kind of warlord?
If we look at Somalia, it is routinely considered to be in "anarchy". But the reality is that Somalia has been in a state of Civil War with regional quasi-governments trying to take control of the nation since 1991. For the most part, regions of the country largely based on ethnic, religious, or linguistic similarities overthrew the central Somali government, then those tribes, clans, or religious groups created their own governments, and the head of those governments we call "warlords".
Right now, a part of Somalia has effectively broken off and created a relatively stable government. That region is called "Somaliland". By definition, its leader would have to be considered a warlord, but does that actually make any sense?
For that matter when we came into Afghanistan we assisted the "Northern Alliance", which was nothing more than a bunch of warlords.
You make it sound like warlords are just some criminal organization with guns who go around trying to steal everyone's stuff. When in reality, warlords are just quasi-governments established illegally by local militias(supported by the local people). I mean, look at the "warlords" on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. They are just tribal governments who don't recognize the authority of the central government in Kabul.
Which is really the problem. As Bakunin wrote about nations more than 150 years ago.
"The existence of one sovereign, exclusionary State necessarily supposes the existence and, if need be, provokes the formation of other such States, since it is quite natural that individuals who find themselves outside it and are threatened by it in their existence and in their liberty, should, in their turn, associate themselves against it. We thus have humanity divided into an indefinite number of foreign states, all hostile and threatened by each other. There is no common right, no social contract of any kind between them; otherwise they would cease to be independent states and become the federated members of one great state. But unless this great state were to embrace all of humanity, it would be confronted with other great states, each federated within, each maintaining the same posture of inevitable hostility. War would still remain the supreme law, an unavoidable condition of human survival.
Every state, federated or not, would therefore seek to become the most powerful. It must devour lest it be devoured, conquer lest it be conquered, enslave lest it be enslaved, since two powers, similar and yet alien to each other, could not coexist without mutual destruction."
Basically, the problem with government, is that the existence of any government anywhere necessitates the creation of government everywhere. America couldn't be in anarchy if there exists a Russia, or China, or Iran, or whoever. Because there would be no organization of force to prevent those countries from trying to dominate or conquer us.
The point is, a warlord is a form of government. If there is government then there is no anarchy. Therefore your example of a warlord stealing land to give to a corporation is nothing more than an example of a government using eminent domain to take land from individuals to give to corporations(which they already do). It is not an example of anarchy.
If there was no government, the only property you would own is that which you could defend by force of arms. Corporations could not exist.
Why couldn't a corporation exist? And why couldn't they just hire people to take your land from you if needed? You guys wouldn't make it a week if we were void a government.
Thomas Hobbes believed that a state of nature is a "war of all against all". Basically, everyone would be out trying to kill or steal everything and anything. I disagree with that position and so do most philosophers since then.
John Locke believed that Thomas Hobbes was wrong, because he believed that humans, unlike animals, have something called "reason". That even in the absence of government it would be greatly in our interest to cooperate and get along with each other.
Ayn Rand talks a bit about how the primary reason people cooperate with each other is to further their own interests. And that as a general rule, killing or stealing from someone else greatly increases your odds of being killed yourself. A good example of that is the famous "Hatfield and McCoy" family feud. If you kill someone else, there is a good chance their family or friends would then kill you(and so on and so forth). Thus, the best avenue as an individual is to always seek peace.
Rousseau talks a bit about the state of nature as well. He argues that "morality was not a societal construct, but rather "natural" in the sense of "innate", an outgrowth from man's instinctive disinclination to witness suffering, from which arise the emotions of compassion or empathy."
He goes on to say, "society's negative influence on men centers on its transformation of amour de soi, a positive self-love, into amour-propre, or pride. Amour de soi represents the instinctive human desire for self-preservation, combined with the human power of reason. In contrast, amour-propre is artificial and encourages man to compare himself to others, thus creating unwarranted fear and allowing men to take pleasure in the pain or weakness of others."
The point is, as a general rule, in the absence of all government, people would tend to want to behave peacefully. They would always attempt to seek a balance to prevent conflict, since conflict could mean death.
When I explain it to people, I usually use the example of the Westboro baptist church. Basically, without government protection there is no way they would be protesting at anyone's funeral. Which is why I usually refer to government as "the protector of a-holes". You really can't be a jerk without protection. The same goes for abusive men. In the absence of governmental protection, a man who beats or rapes a woman is likely to end up dead.
Why couldn't a corporation exist? And why couldn't they just hire people to take your land from you if needed? You guys wouldn't make it a week if we were void a government.
Do you even know why the early anarchists were all socialists? I don't even mean socialists like the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union really wasn't even socialist. It was a hierarchical system with huge wealth inequalities, and its foundation was actually capitalist. China is in many ways more capitalist than America.
Anarchist thought over the last 200 years believed that anarchism produces something called "left-libertarianism" or "social-anarchism".
The reason is, it would be very hard to have huge gaps between rich and poor without governments to enforce it.
When I think of anarchism, I always think of the Irish potato famine. The interesting thing about the Irish potato famine is that the entire time people were starving in Ireland, Ireland was actually exporting food to Britain.
The reason is, the average Irish farmer during that time only owned about 1-5 acres of land. They grew potatoes because potatoes were the only thing they could grow in enough abundance to pay their bills and feed their family from such small amounts of land.
On the other hand, Ireland was considered the breadbasket of the British isles. And huge landowners from Britain were growing huge amounts of corn and wheat and shipping it out of Ireland for profit in Britain while the poor Irish farmers were starving. The Earl of Lucan for instance owned 60,000 acres.
The point is, without government protection, there is no way a million Irish would have starved while food was being exported out of the country.
"The Irish People were "expecting famine day by day" and they attributed it collectively, not to "the rule of heaven as to the greedy and cruel policy of England.... "the people watched as their food melted in rottenness off the face of the earth," all the while watching "heavy-laden ships, freighted with the yellow corn their own hands have sown and reaped, spreading all sail for England."
"The Almighty, indeed, sent the potato blight, but the English created the Famine."
I stopped reading that fantasy post pretty early on, if there were no government, there would be corporations owning warlords that made it so they could do whatever they wanted, including killing people to take their land.
You just described the government and the police state... LOL Whoa!
Why couldn't a corporation exist? And why couldn't they just hire people to take your land from you if needed? You guys wouldn't make it a week if we were void a government.
How could they hire anyone? No government also means no money, as well as no property. Corporations can only exist if there is a government where there is "rule of law." In total anarchy it is every individual for themselves.
I spend more than a week in Alaska's bush without access to civilization in general. I think I could last longer than a week without government.
Why couldn't a corporation exist? And why couldn't they just hire people to take your land from you if needed? You guys wouldn't make it a week if we were void a government.
Still takin' your momma's milk, eh?
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