[extropy-chat] Anarchy!

[Technotranscendence]

On Friday, April 20, 2007 11:25 AM gts gts_2000 at yahoo.com wrote:
> On Fri, 20 Apr 2007 07:54:40 -0400, Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org>
wrote:
> > A different question: is here anyone who *isn't* an anarchist? ;)
>
> Since you ask, I don't personally have much use for anarchism. Too
> idealistic for my taste.
>
> Talk to me again about anarchism when we're all as enlightened as
Buddha
> or Jesus, assuming those characters were enlightened enough for
anarchism
> in the first place.

I actually think this is not the case.  I believe anarchism -- at least,
market anarchism of the sort advocated by people like Molinari,
Rothbard, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, George H. Smith, Edward Stringham* -- is
practical and applies to regular people.  Just as economic laws apply to
all people under scarcity, I think the political philosophy of anarchism
can be applied to all people -- whether they be Buddhas or average
people or even less than average people.

In fact, I think it's unwise to trust people will the power to govern
others -- which is what having a government is -- if you don't have
saints or angels.  So, absent saints and angels, it seems unwise to have
a government populated by people who are likely to be very
un-enlightened and shortsighted even if not outright corrupt and evil.
Given that real world governments are unlikely to be run by the Buddha,
why put any trust in them?

(Also, any real world government run by the Buddha would still face
economic problems that even his saintly character could not solve.  (Not
that he would want to.  The goal of the Buddha was achieving nirvana and
bringing that enlightenment to others.  That is an apolitical goal and
can even be carried on in a forced labor camp.))

> In the meantime I'm interested mainly in keeping my
> feet on the ground, and in devoting my thought
> processes to the real word in which we live today.

Same here.  And I'm sure you want to change that world -- even if only
in some small way.  One way to make the world a better place is to
devote some thought to what practical political arrangements -- of which
I think market anarchism is one -- can improve things.

> Oops, sorry for the blasphemy!

No blasphemy involved.  You and I just disagree over what's practical.
My guess is, too, that most people on this list are NOT anarchists or
even libertarians.**  I could be wrong.

Regards,

Dan
    See "Free Market Anarchism: A Justification" at:
http://uweb1.superlink.net/~neptune/AnarchismJustified.html

*  Stringham is one of the newer members of the market anarchist
movement.  He has a homepage at: http://www.sjsu.edu/stringham/  Check
out some of his works at:
http://www.sjsu.edu/stringham/Pubs-stringham.html

**  There are libertarian anarchists and libertarian minarchists.  The
latter believe that some form of limited government is compatible with
libertarianism.