From: Phil Osborn (philosborn2001@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Oct 22 2002 - 20:32:20 MDT
Goodness! There has to be a way to stop these endless
itterations.
Buy a good reference. This is not a new subject. It
has been argued in detail for a long time both on list
and off. Even the academic encyclopeadias of
political ideas now get it right more often than not.
Anarchy is like atheism. It doesn't define a
positive. It just says what you don't accept as being
true, good or valid. Atheist: "without a God."
Anarchist: "without a ruler (the ancient Greek
"Archon"). The word has survived unchanged for over
2,000 years.
Some anarchist societies work - or appear to have the
potential to work as we haven't tried them yet, such
as the case of the more modern versions of
anarcho-capitalism. Ancient Ireland seems to have
been a working anarchy which was very successful and
stable for hundreds of years, and is often cited,
especially by anarcho-capitalists, as much of its
functionality is similar or parallel to their
concepts. The Hunza valley is another reputed
example, altho I haven't seen real verification on
that yet.
I suspect that the anti-property communal anarchies
will not work for many reasons, including the fact
that they have always failed disasterously when they
have been tried, as property is a necessary component
of any working society. A good century of
anthropology has shown that even when property is
overtly outlawed, it springs up again in another form.
See Margaret Mead's "Sex and Temperment in 3
Primitive Societies." Or, check out some of the
Russian economics websites where they explicitly
analyze how property emerges even under socialism.
The best single source that I'm aware of for the basic
exposition of anarcho-capitalism is "The Market for
Liberty" by Morris and Linda Tannehill. This used to
be available from Laissez Faire books. Later editions
included "Social Services Under Laissez Faire" by
Jarret Wollstein, which I also recommend.
After you guys who want to attack anarcho-capitalism
actually know what you're talking about, THEN talk
about it. OK?
To see how successful anarchists can be, check out the
Mondragon cooperative. $8 billion dollars
capitalization now, entirely owned and run by the
workers for half a century with NO state money or even
any outside funding at all. They were upset because
they only grew 14% last year - blamed it on the global
recession....
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