Quote:
Originally Posted by Lune
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It's not that I plug my ears at the mention of anarchism and go "lalalalala", it's just that I see it as logically unsound. Anarchism denies mass cooperation which I think is absolutely integral to human prosperity and progress.
The only issue I have with "all human interaction being voluntary" is you shouldn't be able to enjoy the benefits of society (cooperation, safety, rules), without the responsibilities (taxes, civic duty, mutual aid/defense, rules). Which means if you decided you didn't want to sign the contract, you'd have to leave. Unfortunately, the planet is basically full, and all the world's resources are spoken for. We also share an environment.
By denying anarchy I just admit that violence is the way in which the contract is enforced-- if somebody breaks the rules, that causes harm, and violence (force) is society's recourse. In a perfect world the contract is voluntary, you'd be able to leave and go homestead somewhere in the frontier and make your own rules, but I just don't see it.
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As I see it, all of this just comes back to the social "contract" not being anything like a contract. It's an excuse to force one group's wants onto others. You say I shouldn't get to benefit from society without paying, but how it really works out is every individual is paying for a ton of "benefits" that they don't actually want, subsidizing government inefficiency, propping up cronyism, etc. There's also tons of wiggle room for people to be free riders with VERY little incentive for anyone to do anything about it.
Privatizing everything wouldn't collapse society. People would still be able to get together and decide what they want to contribute towards a public society. But nobody would be threatened with violence by a nearly-omnipotent state to pay for any more than they actually want to... and since everything is private, individuals have incentive to make sure there aren't free riders or inefficiency, etc.