[From Mike Acree 990215.1304 PST)]
Since the issues overlap substantially, I'm attempting a composite
response to Rick, Martin, Bruce, and Tracy.
Rick's argument, as I have consistently understood it through a long
string of posts, is as follows (Martin's argument seems to me
essentially the same): (a) Many complex tasks, such as building a 747,
require coordination through hierarchical organization. (b) Any
hierarchical organization is, or has, government. (c) Therefore
government is necessary.
The first premise, though it has often been repeated, has never been
disputed by anyone to my knowledge. The second premise uses
_government_ in a metaphorical sense which leaves it utterly inadequate
to support the conclusion, understood in the usual specific political
sense which is the topic of this entire thread, namely an agency which
holds a legal monopoly on the use of coercion in a given territory (with
anarchy being the absence of such an agency). _This_ is the "verbal
trick," and not a very subtle one at that. I'm with you (Rick and
others) in favoring in general an abstract approach; and there are
surely things to be learned from considering the similarities between
families, baseball teams, corporations, governments, and other
hierarchical organizations. But we will run into trouble in practice if
we ignore the important distinctions between these. Possession of a
legal monopoly on the use of coercion distinguishes government from all
the other kinds of hierarchical organizations you mention; and, given
your apparent agreement (Rick) with Bill on the concept of coercion, I
would expect you to find this a crucial rather than a peripheral
distinguishing feature. I had thought, in fact, that we agreed, thank
goodness, at least on what we mean by that concept, since I agreed with
Bill on virtually all his discussion of that concept last year, and you
did, too--against Tim, Bruce Gregory, and others. But you've been using
the concept lately in a very much looser way. One example was your
remark (990210.1330) to Gregory that "resistance is itself a form of
coercion." If you actually believe that, then you believe that if a
woman fights off a rapist, they should both go to jail. It may be
possible to build a livable society on that basis, but I think it's a
harder sell than anarchy. More recent, and more extreme, was your claim
(990212.0830) to Tracy that
when one tries to get people to
accept _any_ system concept -- even one that says people
should be free and uncontrolled -- there is control of
behavior (coercion).
A year ago you would not have agreed that you and I had been coercing
each other throughout this discussion. I would still say that we're
not. We do speak metaphorically of the "force" of an argument, but we
recognize the usage as metaphorical. Trivializing the concept of
coercion by lumping it together with persuasion makes political
discourse pretty much impossible.
Perhaps we can determine the relevance of coercion (restricted sense)
for you as follows. Suppose that government were a voluntary
association like your other examples, so that membership or
participation occurred only under joint agreement of the individual and
the organization. Membership contracts--formal or informal, implicit or
explicit--include conditions for dissolution if either party ceases to
be satisfied--divorce, resignation, firing, expulsion, or secession. I
think all the evidence from existing privatization projects suggests
that government would quickly disappear. For every service currently
provided by government--education, police, fire, mail--I think people
would use the money they now pay in taxes to buy the services from
competing private firms. (The opposition to privatization among
government employees suggests that they know this, that their job
security depends on government-enforced monopoly, and that the market
would demand higher standards.) Services that nobody wanted to pay for,
like conscription, would disappear. This would be anarchy. If you
would object to such an arrangement, then you are granting the crucial
relevance of coercion. The difference between us is then just that you
favor it--and you can no longer lump government indiscriminately with
orchestras.
Your example of airplane manufacture can, in fact, be used to
characterize anarchy in a slightly different way. If you actually look
at the way airplanes are manufactured, what you will see is several
large, complexly organized corporations. _Several_. Note especially
that there is no Airplane Czar overseeing the whole industry and
deciding which aircraft get produced at what times and in what quantity,
for what price. Such a concept isn't impossible (some countries have
tried it, with less than encouraging results); it just isn't necessary.
Each company has a person or group who makes such decisions, but there
isn't anything or anyone at the top of the hierarchy, over the whole
industry. Nor is the aircraft industry unique. Consider food
production, an enormously complex, sprawling, coordinated set of
organizations. Yet there is no Grocery Czar. (We do have a Secretary
of Agriculture who intervenes forcibly in the process to do things like
legally enforcing _minimum_ prices for dairy products which are 50% to
100% above the free-market price--as a special courtesy to wealthy dairy
producers who contribute to legislative campaigns, and as a special,
ongoing, gratuitous act of cruelty toward the poor. That arrangement
has worked so well that Secretary Glickman is planning to implement a
similar program for pork, which has also been far too affordable for
poor people. But I see no reason why we couldn't do without management
at this level.) Now anarchy is simply allowing _all_ services and goods
to be provided in the same way as airplanes or food or insurance, on the
basis of voluntary negotiation and contract. We don't need
government-enforced monopolies for fire or police or anything else.
_Some_ kind of organization and coordination will obviously be important
in handling the maverick problem, but there is no reason to suppose that
it has to be a protected monopoly. (Those "services," of course, that
are inherently coercive and uniquely governmental, like conscription and
taxation, may not find much of a market.)
Bruce (990210.1345) has raised the question of
what
happens in an anarchy when negotiations break down and contracts are
abrogated.
I've answered that question in a previous post: If negotiations break
down, no transaction takes place. If you want a Stanford library card
but don't want to pay $500 a year for it, there's no sale. Contracts
generally include provisions for abrogation; especially nowadays, they
often stipulate arbitration, just as they would under anarchy. I take
it as understood that reference to contracts and negotiations doesn't
imply that they are always formal and explicit. I don't need to sign a
contract every time I enter a restaurant; any restaurant that refused
restitution or arbitration in a case of food poisoning or fraud would
find its customers going elsewhere after a single such report.
I wonder what
it would be like to negotiate the speed limit
on the Mass Turnpike? I suppose that those who were not part of the
negotiations (visitors from Montana, for example) could legitimately
feel free to drive at any speed they liked. Come to think of it,
that's
what they seem to do now...
Similarly, it doesn't seem much more likely to me that individual
drivers would negotiate driving speeds with the highway owner (though
it's not totally out of the question that safe drivers might be granted
more latitude) than that individual consumers negotiate the ingredients
of Big Mac sauce. Owners would presumably be free to set limits if they
wished, and to deny access to those who violated them; drivers might
choose companies/routes (U.S. 20 or Route 9, etc.) according to policies
on safety vs. speed.
Actually, I think there are more difficult issues with respect to
privatization of roads, like liability for drunken drivers (the driver
vs. the highway owner that admitted the driver). I don't mean they're
insoluble, but I don't think they've received a lot of attention yet,
probably just because privatization of roads is far from the top of most
libertarians' list of priorities.
But let me assume you meant to ask the next question, which is what
happens when someone refuses to abide by the decision of the arbitration
agency (and assuming the process of appeals to other agencies has been
exhausted). I've already answered that question, too (990201.1100):
Such a person makes himself thereby an "outlaw," placing himself outside
the realm of negotiation and contract. Nobody else will feel any
obligation to honor contracts with him, and he will have a tough time
purchasing any insurance or protection services. Most importantly, he
would not be due restitution for harm done to him, which makes it more
or less open season for anyone who has a grievance against him. That
seems a pretty strong deterrent to flouting arbitration decisions.
So let me raise the next question for you and answer it (Martin
indirectly raises this question): Wouldn't private arbitration agencies
be subject to the grossest corruption? Couldn't they easily be bought
by the rich? No, that's much more of a problem under a
government-enforced monopoly. If a private arbitration agency were to
acquire a reputation for favoring wealthy clients, that might well make
them more attractive to the wealthier party in any contract. But it
would make them unacceptable to the less wealthy party, and most
contracts will have one party who will fear discrimination and refuse to
deal with that agency. A scrupulously maintained reputation for
fairness looks like the only way an arbitration agency could stay in
business.
I have referred, in this and earlier posts, to restitution as the basis
for the justice system under anarchy. Restitution is a discriminable
concept from punishment; and, as a contract-based concept, I think it is
compatible with PCT in a way that punishment is not. Martin
(990210.1700) has made the interesting point that
there _cannot_ be a fair contract between individuals of unequal
power.
I might well agree, at least if the concept of power is properly
specified. If it is defined, as Martin does (earlier in the same post)
to include economic power, then that claim invalidates heterosexual
marriage, as many feminists have argued. (I don't necessarily take this
as an argument against the claim.) I think the relevant dimension to
support Martin's claim is political power, and under anarchy there are
no _political_ inequalities.
Martin's concept of inequality of status points up an important
distinction between restitution and punishment, but we must be careful
about the meaning of words. Rick (990210.1030) plays loose with this
concept again, when he responds to Lee's advocacy of training children
in the use of guns:
I presume this was to solve problems by shooting the people with whom
they disagree.
Isn't getting shot a rather severe punishment? If you train people to
shoot other people aren't you teaching them to be
punitive?
Lee was undoubtedly talking about self-defense against government
soldiers who were shooting at them. Self-defense is not generally
considered punishment. Picking up Martin's distinction, I would say
that punishment can occur _only_ between those who are unequal in
status. I can do things to hurt you, but I have no power or authority
to punish you. We speak figuratively of my "punishing" you with a
sarcastic reply, or of a "punishing" hurricane; but we recognize the
figurative use with quotation marks. I think punishment can also be
usefully distinguished from retaliation, which would be applicable to
equals. In this respect (like practically all others), I think Bill was
careful in his usage in Chapter 17. When one stretches concepts as far
as you do, on the other hand--government, coercion, punishment--they can
be used to support virtually any position; but that doesn't accomplish
anything beyond making your position look desperate--"any stigma will do
to beat a dogma."
Rick (990210.1030)--
It looks like you are _defining_ anarchy and government
as different approaches to conflict resolution: the word
"anarchy", by your definition, seems to mean "conflict
resolution by negotiation and contract"; the word
"government", by your definition, seems to mean "conflict resolution
by
punishment-based rule of law". Given these
definitions it's easy to see why [you] think B:CP Chapter 17
is a celebration of anarchy and a condemnation of government.
You write as though my reading of Chapter 17 were strange, but the
strange thing is: that's what the author meant. You (and others) have
yet to say how you interpreted the arguments of that chapter. I remind
you that if you reject anarchy but accept the arguments of that chapter,
there are, so far as I can see, but three logical possibilities:
"(a) Punishment-based rule of law, however feckless and
counterproductive, is nevertheless necessary. (b) Punishment-based rule
of law, contrary to the arguments of Chapter 17, is _not_ feckless and
counterproductive after all. (c) Government, in some sense besides
enforcement of the whims of a dictator, is possible without
punishment-based rule of law. Bill appears to hold (a), referring me
for support to Gibbons; I have explained twice before why I found
Gibbons unconvincing. You (and possibly Tracy?) hold (c). No arguments
have been advanced in support of it (or (b)), and so far as I can tell
it is simply incoherent." (990204.1440)
Tracy has tried to carve out a fourth position by distinguishing two
meanings of "rule of law"; I have given my reasons (990209.1652) for
doubting whether that will get him where he wants to go.
Rick (990211.0930)--
The solution (I think) is to stop trying to analyze society
in terms of system concepts (like socialism, capitalism,
libertarianism, etc) that were developed before we had a
scientific understanding of the nature of humans as
perceptual control systems. If we really want to figure
out how people can best organize themselves I think we
should start looking at human societies in terms of the
nature of the systems that make them up.
I've already expressed my support for this approach (990204.1440), when
I described Bill as having done that in Chapter 17. He didn't spell out
the details about how such a system might be implemented to the degree
that I have in this thread, but that's no criticism of the book. If you
follow through on your proposed project, I'm confident that you'll find
the anarchic system I've described the only one consistent with PCT:
it's the only one that doesn't _build in_ any involuntary, coercive
relationships, like taxation.
When I say that anarchy is unique in not _building in_ coercive
relationships, I am not saying--to repeat--that coercion cannot occur in
an anarchic society. Nothing can guarantee that. Anybody can hold a
club over your head at any time and demand your wallet. What I have
said, and given reasons for believing, is that anarchy can _minimize_
the coercion in a society. Rick also persists (e.g., 990210.1330) in
equating anarchy with pacifism, despite my previously having argued that
anarchy does not imply pacifism. As Tracy (19990211.0800) has pointed
out, a few anarchists have been pacifists, but most are willing in
principle to use violence in self-defense, whether against government or
individual muggers. If I fight off an attacker, I'm not coercing him to
do anything but stop his coercion. If you see us as equally guilty of
coercion, then, as before, I should go to jail for not allowing him to
succeed in robbing me. I'm not especially interested in arguing against
pacifism; I admire Gandhi's strategy of nonviolent resistance; but, like
Bruce Gregory (990212.0517), I wouldn't expect it to work as well
against Hitler or Stalin as against the British, with their (somewhat
bizarre) genteel code of conduct for war.
Rick Marken (990211.0930)--
anarchists . . . are
advocating coercion as much as any advocate of government
regulation; they are talking about depriving people of
their freedom to choose non-anarchy.
That's not only total b.s.; it's another claim I've already denied
(990204.1440). I've said explicitly that in an anarchic society you and
your friends would be perfectly welcome to secede and form your own
dictatorship if you wish. To enslave each other to your heart's
content--but not anybody else. I gather that the freedom to run your
own lives isn't good enough for you. I also pointed out that the
generosity wasn't mutual--that governments wouldn't let anarchists
secede. Remember?
Some miscellaneous responses to various posts:
Me:
The Founding
Fathers of this country were pretty radical for their time (and I'm
sure
would be perceived as dangerously anarchistic today
Rick Marken (990210.1030)--
Now I'm confused. I thought your definition of "anarchy"
is "conflict resolution by negotiation and contract". Now
you are telling me that the Founding Fathers were anarchists
because they went to war over a tax on tea or whiskey (War
instead of negotiation? How is this anarchistic?
I was not implying that the Founding Fathers _were_ anarchists; their
intention was obviously to set up a different government. I _did_ say
"would be perceived." I was assuming that anyone today who signed a
public declaration that it was the right of people to abolish
governments that become oppressive, and who proceeded to violently
overthrow the existing government for reasons like a tax on tea, would
likely be labeled a dangerous anarchist. Am I wrong?
Bruce Gregory (990210.1345)--
don't most governments encourage conflict
resolution by negotiation and contract among citizens? It is only
when
these fail that a punishment-based rule of law is invoked.
I'm not sure what negotiations between citizens you're referring to as
having broken down when the government puts people in jail for smoking
marijuana.
Martin Taylor (990210.1700)--
It was my understanding that the US Constitution
was pretty much a codification of the English unwritten constitution
as
it was at the time (Gearge III) with the exception (insisted on by
Washington) that an elected President replaced the hereditary King.
Is that not correct?
As I said above to Rick, I was not labeling the Founding Fathers as
anarchistic myself; I was only saying that I thought people with their
beliefs and actions would be commonly labeled that way today.
Both English and US revolutionary systems seemed to rely on the notion
that
the rich knew better than the poor what was good for all of them.
The Revolutionary War was not fought just by the rich; and if the
colonists had perceived it as a war to benefit the rich, it's hard to
imagine that they would have won. Some of the signers of the
Declaration of Independence were rich, but many of them lost everything
they had as a result of signing (at least their lives and fortunes).
When there is
conflict, the stronger usually eliminates the ability of the weaker to
control. The stronger thereby often gains strength, making it easier
to
win the next conflict (this is very clearly seen when the conflicted
environmental variable is money). What we have is a positive feedback
process, and they lead either to explosion or to a limiting condition.
Precisely this positive feedback mechanism was one of the reasons I gave
previously for favoring anarchy. Because it applies to government as
well as to anything else. Even though the authors of the Constitution
thought they were placing careful checks on the growth of government
power, the government they set up was still stronger than any other
agency or group in the society. It took a few decades before the
government began seriously undermining those checks, but the process has
drastically accelerated in the 20th century. It won't be an easy
process to stop.
You (Rick and Martin) speak, sincerely I'm sure, of using government to
take money from the rich and give it to the poor. But if you look at
any actual government, you'll see that it functions much more to the
benefit of the rich and powerful than of the poor. The dairy price
supports I mentioned are a typical example (along with pork, sugar,
tobacco, etc.). All the money spent on transfer programs, if it
actually went to the poor, would amount to something like $40,000 a year
for every family of four below the poverty line. That's not what they
get, of course: the rest goes to help make the Maryland and Virginia
suburbs of DC the wealthiest counties in the country. But when I say
"any actual government," I'm including socialist governments as well:
Sweden, Cuba, the Soviet Union. Sweden has always been the showcase of
socialism, and one of the reasons for its success thus far was that it
started out with the highest per capita income of any country in the
world. (That is no longer true.) But my observation has been that
those Swedes who are wealthy enough to travel do as much of their
shopping as possible abroad--furniture, clothes, toys, computers,
everything--to avoid the huge Swedish taxes. Those who are too poor to
travel, of course, are stuck with the tax--which is now still larger
because the wealthy have the means to evade it. So I still count your
argument about positive feedback as a point distinctly in my favor: If
you set up one institution much more powerful than the rest, it's the
rich and powerful who will manage to use it for their ends, to increase
their money and power still further.
In
social structures, that [positive feedback] means riot and civil war,
or strong dictatorship.
(You noted this as a disappointing reason why some historical anarchic
societies succumbed, but did not note that it is a natural consequence
of the anarchy, which it is.)
This is certainly a possible historical eventuality, but I haven't given
it as a reason why any historical anarchic society succumbed. The only
examples I gave were historical conquest, which is not a unique fate for
anarchic societies. (Whether they are especially vulnerable to foreign
conquest is a separate, nontrivial question, with considerations on both
sides.)
I did discuss in an earlier post the hypothetical case of one clan
becoming much larger than the others (than the others put together), so
that it was in a position to constitute a government. This outcome
seems to me more likely in a clan-based than in a modern, industrial
society, though I gave (speculative) reasons even there why I thought it
might not be so likely. The same concern can be raised about a single
protection agency coming thoroughly to dominate the market in an
industrial society; but, again, I have considered this case before. If
a single such agency were to achieve a virtual monopoly, it could hold
that position only by continuing to provide such superior services that
no other agency could compete. Not much basis for complaint there. It
could not easily constitute a dictatorship, or otherwise proceed to
wield arbitrary power, just because this would not be a society, like
Nazi Germany, which had been disarmed by the government. Any move in
that direction would be perceived as threatening, and would open the
door to the immediate formation of other agencies to take all its
business. These are only plausibility arguments, of course; but I
haven't heard them effectively challenged.
If we accept the principle that reorganization within an individual is
more likely to change the hierarchy when there is substantial error
than
when the error is low, we must then argue that people's hierarchies
will
be more likely to change when their social environment makes it hard
for
them to control than when the social environment makes it easy. I
think
it is this that provides the limiting conditions that eventually cause
dictatorships to be overthrown (or to be softened to a tolerable
degree)
and that causes anarchies to give way to systems based on government
and the rule of law. As with individual reorganization, there is a
negative
feedback system that resists disturbances. Departures in either
direction
from government and the rule of law tend to be resisted.
If I understand this paragraph and those preceding, your argument seems
similar to that made by Gibbons: that governments will tend
intrinsically to increase their power (positive feedback), up to a point
which provokes a revolution (or, less drastically, a
"softening"--negative feedback). Most often, perhaps, the revolution
simply substitutes one dictatorship for another, but occasionally there
are gains in freedom at the expense of government power. It is less
obvious to me what mechanism would drive a society back from anarchy
toward government, even though I've observed such a process in
nonpolitical settings. When I started graduate school at Clark
University in 1968, the Psychology Department at that time was as
anarchistic as one could be and remain accredited: no grades, and
absolutely minimal structure in terms of timelines or requirements.
During my first year, a second-year student was dropped because, so far
as anyone knew, he had never done anything but sell drugs; he had not
attended a class or written a paper or showed any interest in the
program at all. But his dismissal precipitated a panic among students.
Without the usual requirements as a guideline, nobody was sure how
nearby the axe had fallen. To my astonishment, they proceeded to demand
grades, deadlines, and requirements--all of which they got, and which
are still in place. I think there's an important lesson here for
anarchist theorists--I've talked about the issue before under the rubric
of self-responsibility--at the same time that I'm unsure how direct a
translation can be made to the political realm.
Me:
To my mind the most interesting aspect of your argument, however, is
that it amounts to a secular version of the Argument from Design: If
there is organization, there must be an organizer--someone or some
agency in charge, constantly intervening to keep things in proper
running order, breaking up the monopolies of IBM and Microsoft,
enforcing the monopolies of the post office and the fire department,
and
so on.
I'm not clear either how the two parts of this quote fit together (the
part
before and the part after the colon). It doesn't strike me as related
to
the Argument from Design. Neither can I see that what I wrote could
reasonably lead you to either part of the quote.
Perhaps I read too much into your specific arguments. I understood your
argument to be the one that I criticized at the beginning of this post:
that some necessary tasks require hierarchical organization of people,
and that such organization implies someone or some group at the top:
hence government. The second premise was my inference from what you
were saying, and was my basis for imputing to you the view that
organization implied an Organizer. But perhaps I've stretched a
metaphor here too far myself. The argument is what counts in any case,
rather than the label.
A summary comment--repetitious, like the rest of this post, and the ones
to which it responds: I'm still looking for what I entered this
exchange for in the first place: a good argument for the necessity of
government--understood in the usual, specific, political sense, and not
just as hierarchical organization per se--or a good argument for why
anarchy wouldn't work--anarchy, not pacifism or chaos or the lack of any
organization. The exchange so far has been useful mainly just in
creating the strong impression that nobody has such arguments to offer,
though that's never been said. If that's going to be eventual
conclusion, I don't need any more evidence at this point. I think
Tracy's approach may have possibilities, but they have yet to be
developed. In the meantime, I'm feeling impatient again with the
process, which feels to me (and perhaps to others) too much like a
monologue, especially since I don't have the sense that anything I've
ever said has gotten through. But if I drop off the screen, I'll still
be listening in.
Mike