[Nunt]

Organisations are ineffective if they are not hierarchical, especially military organisations.

You cannot correctly make such statements. Even if we theoretically assume that a hierarchical organization is better than a nonhierarchical, this does not mean that the hierarchical organization will always win. There's more variables than just hierarchy. In many real life cases, it may be that the nonhierarchical organization wins.

Military organisations cannot peacefully co-exist within the same territorial arena without well-defined allegiance to each other

This is unproven. I see no reason why we should make this assumption. Sure there are some conditions that need to be fulfilled in order to have peaceful coexistence. But I see no reason why it would be impossible.

and they cannot function well as a team versus existential threats without unified chains of command.

This is unproven. I see no reason why we should make this assumption. Many coalitions of soverein nations have fought together in wars, and won those wars.

[SolarCross]

You cannot correctly make such statements. Even if we theoretically assume that a hierarchical organization is better than a nonhierarchical, this does not mean that the hierarchical organization will always win. There's more variables than just hierarchy. In many real life cases, it may be that the nonhierarchical organization wins.

Its a generalisation and there are other variables that have impact but it is one that fits very well with all historical experience.

Military organisations cannot peacefully co-exist within the same territorial arena without well-defined allegiance to each other

This is unproven. I see no reason why we should make this assumption. Sure there are some conditions that need to be fulfilled in order to have peaceful coexistence. But I see no reason why it would be impossible.

Again the entire history of war begs to differ.

and they cannot function well as a team versus existential threats without unified chains of command.

This is unproven. I see no reason why we should make this assumption. Many coalitions of soverein nations have fought together in wars, and won those wars.

Against other coalitions of nations. All those sovereign nations that made up those coalitions were in themselves large organisations with unified chains of command. In an anarchy we are not talking coalitions of nations though, anarchy would be at best be more or less leaderless mobs. Weight of numbers would be the only advantage if you even had that.

[Nunt]

anarchy would be at best be more or less leaderless mobs. Weight of numbers would be the only advantage if you even had that.

I wouldn't call today's biggest corporations leaderless mobs...
Why do you assume that people need a ruler to work together? Why do you assume that you need a ruler imposed hierarchy? If it is to their advantage, people can still choose to be part of a hierarchy. Many firms and organizations within a libertarian world would be hierarchic. You assume that it would just be every man for himself. But that is simply not true. I am not against hierarchy. I only require that people join the hierarchy voluntarly. This is something that happens everyday. When I go to work, I agree to the hierarchy of the corporation.

[SolarCross]

I wouldn't call today's biggest corporations leaderless mobs...

Neither would I. They are all hierarchical, and almost invariably topped with a supreme executive, a CEO. They aren't military organisations though. They are only able to be peaceful purely economic (productive / distributive) organisations because some other hierarchical corporation is taking care of the military thing for them, that organisation is government. This is why major corporations flock to places like UAE, Singapore but are not flocking to Somalia.

Why do you assume that people need a ruler to work together? Why do you assume that you need a ruler imposed hierarchy? If it is to their advantage, people can still choose to be part of a hierarchy. Many firms and organizations within a libertarian world would be hierarchic. You assume that it would just be every man for himself. But that is simply not true. I am not against hierarchy. I only require that people join the hierarchy voluntarly. This is something that happens everyday. When I go to work, I agree to the hierarchy of the corporation.

You are confusing relatively peaceful organisations with military ones. Your assumption is that somehow by magic people will be able to continue peacefully co-operating without one organisation having a near monopoly of force. The reason that people do not put guns on the table when they negotiate, or otherwise interact, is because there is a supreme organisation of overwhelming force that will crush them into slime if they did. Absent that organisation, called government, the guns (or knives, baseball bats, swords, petrol bombs...) come back on the table because they have to, because if you don't the other guy will.

I understand why you are confused about what government is because in your country (and quite a few other countries) government has become confused as to what it is, due to progressivism. Government is a military organisation. Historically that is what they invariably are at the core. Sometimes they might do other things but usually it is ancillary to their military objectives, like the Roman government built roads because it was of strategic usefulness for moving troops efficiently around their empire. Let me repeat that: government is a military organisation.

Anarchy, if it is such, means that area no longer has a supreme military organisation capable of preventing others using force for persuasion. That means warring, from individual warring (crime) to even organised warring (competing military), is the dominant activity and peaceful co-operation becomes impossible until somebody wins so that peace can return.

[Nunt]

This is why major corporations flock to places like UAE, Singapore but are not flocking to Somalia.

This is not a good example. A security organization sells a product to the local population. The reason why those organizations don't go to Somalia is because Somalia is poor.

You are confusing relatively peaceful organisations with military ones. Your assumption is that somehow by magic people will be able to continue peacefully co-operating without one organisation having a near monopoly of force.

It will work by the same "magic" that stops the current monopoly of force in Western countries from becoming a dictatorship.

[SolarCross]

This is not a good example. A security organization sells a product to the local population. The reason why those organizations don't go to Somalia is because Somalia is poor.

No, it is correct. Singapore and UAE are rich because they are secure. Somalia remains poor because it is not. Corporations are quite happy to go to poor countries, poor countries mean cheap labour, as long as they are secure. Corporations are falling over themselves to go to China not because China was rich but because China is secure. Corporations do not want to throw down millions of dollars on projects if they not reasonably unlikely to get trashed by howling cannibal biker gangs and other pirates on a regular basis.

It will work by the same "magic" that stops the current monopoly of force in Western countries from becoming a dictatorship.

What magic is that?

[Nunt]

No, it is correct. Singapore and UAE are rich because they are secure. Somalia remains poor because it is not. Corporations are quite happy to go to poor countries, poor countries mean cheap labour, as long as they are secure. Corporations are falling over themselves to go to China not because China was rich but because China is secure. Corporations do not want to throw down millions of dollars on projects if they not reasonably unlikely to get trashed by howling cannibal biker gangs and other pirates on a regular basis.

There's a difference between producing for the locals (as the security companies would do) and producing for export (as corporations in china do). If somalia was rich, but lacked security then security companies would gladly produce and sell security to the locals. Those corporations weren't falling over themselves to try to sell goods to poor chinese farmers.

What magic is that?

Clearly there is something magical going on because your assertation that there currently is a government, a military organisation with supreme and overwhelming force. Yet somehow this military organisation with supreme and overwhelming force seems to be bound by some rules. It isn't lack of military power, is it? Current governments are the only ones with guns. But for some reason, there aren't using their supreme power. Can you imagine why?

[SolarCross]

There's a difference between producing for the locals (as the security companies would do) and producing for export (as corporations in china do). If somalia was rich, but lacked security then security companies would gladly produce and sell security to the locals. Those corporations weren't falling over themselves to try to sell goods to poor chinese farmers.

Ah so now we are talking about security companies. Isn't government a security company?

Clearly there is something magical going on because your assertation that there currently is a government, a military organisation with supreme and overwhelming force. Yet somehow this military organisation with supreme and overwhelming force seems to be bound by some rules. It isn't lack of military power, is it? Current governments are the only ones with guns. But for some reason, there aren't using their supreme power. Can you imagine why?

They are the one's that make those rules. Those rules, that they make, are credible precisely because they have overwhelming force. They don't use that force if don't need to and if they have a secure monopoly they don't need to. However you will notice that when someone challenges their asserted monopoly on violence without their permission: a lone gunman, a mafia or a foreign army, then out come their guns until challenger is no more.

[Truth To Power]

This is why major corporations flock to places like UAE, Singapore but are not flocking to Somalia.

This is not a good example.

Sure it is.

A security organization sells a product to the local population. The reason why those organizations don't go to Somalia is because Somalia is poor.

And why is Somalia poor...?

<crickets>

You are confusing relatively peaceful organisations with military ones. Your assumption is that somehow by magic people will be able to continue peacefully co-operating without one organisation having a near monopoly of force.

It will work by the same "magic" that stops the current monopoly of force in Western countries from becoming a dictatorship.

But... those countries effectively ARE dictatorships: dictatorships of the rich and privileged.

[Truth To Power]

Isn't government a security company?

No.

Clearly there is something magical going on because your assertation that there currently is a government, a military organisation with supreme and overwhelming force. Yet somehow this military organisation with supreme and overwhelming force seems to be bound by some rules. It isn't lack of military power, is it? Current governments are the only ones with guns. But for some reason, there aren't using their supreme power. Can you imagine why?

Can you?

[SolarCross]

Isn't government a security company?

No.

Well that was a brief denial. Would you care to elaborate on that negation at all?

[Truth To Power]

Isn't government a security company?

No.

Well that was a brief denial. Would you care to elaborate on that negation at all?

A security company is privately owned and serves the interests of its owners. Government takes many different forms, only one of which -- feudalism -- is ownership by private interests. The feudal "libertarian" ideal of government by private security companies is often advocated by people who are baldly nostalgic for feudalism.

[Nunt]

They are the one's that make those rules. Those rules, that they make, are credible precisely because they have overwhelming force.

This really ignores the issues. Assuming the government has overwhelming force and can make any rules it wishes. Why does it act as if it is bound by rules? The behavior of western governments or western militaries is very constricted. They can't do whatever they please. For example, they have to allow elections and can be voted out. If you have overwhelming force, why would you just relinquish that force because there were elections?

[SolarCross]

This really ignores the issues. Assuming the government has overwhelming force and can make any rules it wishes. Why does it act as if it is bound by rules? The behavior of western governments or western militaries is very constricted. They can't do whatever they please. For example, they have to allow elections and can be voted out. If you have overwhelming force, why would you just relinquish that force because there were elections?

Governance gets confused as it gets big and divided. There are lot of people making rules in the government but ultimately those rules carry weight because they are leveraged by the overwhelming force of the military and the police. The people in government make rules for you but they also make rules for each other. The politicians don't command the loyalties of the army so they can't leverage it help them stay in office longer. They don't really have power in the end you see. The army does but is generally happy to let others make the rules as long as they continue to get what they want which is ever larger budgets. Why should the army upset a system that provides for them?

[Nunt]

Governance gets confused as it gets big and divided. There are lot of people making rules in the government but ultimately those rules carry weight because they are leveraged by the overwhelming force of the military and the police. The people in government make rules for you but they also make rules for each other. The politicians don't command the loyalties of the army so they can't leverage it help them stay in office longer. They don't really have power in the end you see. The army does but is generally happy to let others make the rules as long as they continue to get what they want which is ever larger budgets. Why should the army upset a system that provides for them?

This is more or less the answer I have been waiting for. As in your previous posts you have always described the government as a military organization, a monopoly, an organization of overwhelming force,... Now here, you finally recognize that there are people within government and that their behavior is not bound by the will of the monopolist. But that instead they are bound by a network of rules and norms in which power is decentralized.

However, what you have done right for government (seeing it as a decentralized institution of people instead of a single monopoly), you forgot to do for the army. You say the army has the real power. But there is no such thing as the army. The army (or better: the people in the army) are also bound by the same rules. I'm sure a general would be in "command" of units with enough firepower to storm the whitehouse and make himself president. But I doubt many soldiers would actually listen to such commands. So does "the army" (whoever that may be) really have the real power? They have to follow the rules like everyone else. Hardly a property of having overwhelming force.

Lets get back to your earlier post:

Your assumption is that somehow by magic people will be able to continue peacefully co-operating without one organisation having a near monopoly of force. The reason that people do not put guns on the table when they negotiate, or otherwise interact, is because there is a supreme organisation of overwhelming force that will crush them into slime if they did. Absent that organisation, called government, the guns (or knives, baseball bats, swords, petrol bombs...) come back on the table because they have to, because if you don't the other guy will.

What you are proposing here is that without a monopoly of force above the people, nobody will be able to peacefully cooperate. Your solution is then to institute a government. But I hope you realize now that a government cannot be a solution. If people wouldn't be able to cooperate peacefully, then the people in a government wouldn't be able to cooperate peacefully either. You would have a conflict between several factions in the government untill one faction has supreme power and then you would have a conflict within that faction and so on untill only one dictator is left.

This is the logical consequence of the assertion that you made here: every society would end up in a dictatorship. Clearly, that consequence isn't happening, so the assertion must be wrong.

As you have just realized, when the important people within a government don't put guns on the table, it is not because some supreme organisation of overwhelming force that will crush them into slime if they did. They have to obey norms and rules.

What I am saying here is: the norms and rules that keep the people within government (who act in a decentralized system with no monopoly of force) are the same kind of norms and rules that will keep the people of private security firms in check.

[SolarCross]

This is more or less the answer I have been waiting for. As in your previous posts you have always described the government as a military organization, a monopoly, an organization of overwhelming force,...

This is the essence of government and what it ought to be. To the extent that it tries be other things teacher, nurse, lawyer, civil engineer.. it is in the process of decay and forgetting what it is. Big democratic governments are more or less degenerate governments.

Now here, you finally recognize that there are people within government and that their behavior is not bound by the will of the monopolist. But that instead they are bound by a network of rules and norms in which power is decentralized.

Only in the military sphere does there need be monopoly (for peace). As a collective government is necessarily a monopoly at least in the military dimension. Inside the collective there are factions that compete but they avoid (usually) competing with each other by shooting at each other because they are inside the monopoly of arms.

However, what you have done right for government (seeing it as a decentralized institution of people instead of a single monopoly), you forgot to do for the army. You say the army has the real power. But there is no such thing as the army. The army (or better: the people in the army) are also bound by the same rules. I'm sure a general would be in "command" of units with enough firepower to storm the whitehouse and make himself president. But I doubt many soldiers would actually listen to such commands. So does "the army" (whoever that may be) really have the real power? They have to follow the rules like everyone else. Hardly a property of having overwhelming force.

Historically it is not unusual for that to happen actually. Maybe it hasn't happened to the US yet but likely that has more to do with politicians keeping the army and its generals onside with a steady supply of tax revenues than any superstitions on the part of the generals.

However you are not advocating democratic government with a monopoly of force. You are suggesting as an anarchist that anyone can organise a military force and fund it by what means they will and that they can all have autonomy and co-exist peacefully with overlapping territorial interests and somehow this will not result in multi-factional permanent civil war. Literally every time in history a government monopoly of force broke down into autonomous factions or had to compete with new emerging armed factions the result has been civil war until one faction emerges the winner and becomes the government.

What I am saying here is: the norms and rules that keep the people within government (who act in a decentralized system with no monopoly of force) are the same kind of norms and rules that will keep the people of private security firms in check.

Government as a system has monopoly of force. The norms and rules ultimately are obeyed because the monopoly presents the use of force as unusable. The norms have no force without force.

The ideological hegemony you are suggesting can be substituted for a military hegemony has a precedent in medieval europe. The Catholic Church aimed at making all the autonomous military organisations of europe subject to their norms by persuasion alone. It did not work very well. The Kings and Lords of Europe continued to fight each other despite their common notional allegiance to the Pope. Eventually ways around the Church's ideological hegemony were found, notably King Henry the VIII of England broke away from the Church's norm domination by creating his own state religion that would be subservient to him. The only effective response the Church could make to that norm rebellion was to persuade other still loyal kings to fight England. Ultimately norms rest of force.

[Nunt]

Your reasoning is inconsistent:
-When people call themselves government, you assume they suddenly have reason to cooperate and coups will not occur
-When people call themselves market, you assume they will have a free for all because there is no centralized power

Of course there is no centralized power within government either. You simply ignore this fact. Just like there may be different security organizations, there are different branches of goverment, different factions with their own ambitions. You claim they are part of the system of government which feeds them, so they have no incentive to fight. But of course they have an incentive to fight: its better to be a powerful faction withing government then a weak one. The same arguement can also be used for a free market: all the security firms (just like government factions) together form a system of security and all those firms together have a monopoly. Why would they fight?

Your example that when state collapses, violence occurs is not relevant. Of course, the implosion of a government is going to make different factions strive for power. However, I am not arguing for an implosion of government.

[SolarCross]

No you are being inappropriately consistent. You want to believe that unpeaceful businesses like military protection rackets can operate in the same kind of anarchic free for all manner that peaceful businesses like cake making, transistor manufacture and landscape gardening operate without doing what they do best which is fight. Even worse you imagine that military protection rackets can compete for business while at the same time the operations of peaceful business will be unhampered by that competition, as if cake makers are going to continue cake making while warring police tribes fling RPGs at each other, instead of running for the lives.

Anyway I think in the US you will get to see soon enough what anarchy is like. Democracy has just about run its course the bureaucrats are running things now. Bureaucracies are horrid, contemptible, unbearable and insane so soon enough collapse into anarchy. A clear sign that bureaucracy is about ready to fall into anarchy is when incidents of factions of the bureaucracy are openly fighting each other, cops shooting at cops. Look out for that sign for then the zombie apocalypse is nigh.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

[annatar1914]

Taxizen, I'd like to hear some more of your insights on Libertarian Monarchism.

I'm quite intrigued as I said.

[SolarCross]

Taxizen, I'd like to hear some more of your insights on Libertarian Monarchism.

I'm quite intrigued as I said.

I'd be happy to oblige you, though perhaps I am now not so much a libertarian monarchist but more of an absolute monarchist. In practice an absolute monarchy could very easily be highly libertarian, more so than a democracy ever could be, although the reigning principle is completely different.

Is there anything in particular you would like described?