If you are an evolutionist . . .

[tolbiny]

[ QUOTE ]

Even so, the evidence isn't very good for arnarchism being a well-adapted form of social organization. Human societies with governments have proven much better at surviving than have anarchies. Growth in human population and technological knowledge have exploded in places with organized states, not in anarchic regions. Groups of organized humans (i.e., states) have historically subsumed or conquered anarchic tribes and regions quite easily. Th following are examples of cultures that flourished, in terms of scientific progress, economic progress, and population growth: Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, Carthage, the Roman Empire, the Chinese Dynasties, the British Empire (and the other major European powers of the Renaissance), and America. All of them had strong central governments. Can you provide an example of an anarchic society that similarly flourished?

[/ QUOTE ]

The largest non military growth periods for these civilizations were during minimal central control times, and the military expansion in each of these situations was a major factor in destroying the prosperity which allowed the military expansion in the first place.

[Borodog]

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. . . then you should be an anarchist. Do you see why?

If you aren't, I don't think you really understand evolution, or else you have an inconsistent worldview in which you have failed to apply the lessons learned in one field to the other.

This works both ways, by the way.

You creationists still have my blessing to be statists.

gogogogo.

[/ QUOTE ]

I disagree. For one thing, the two are not related. Evolution by natural selection is a theory of how (or why) things are, not how they should be. I can fully accept that evolution by natural selection is the most likely explanation for the existence of humans without accepting any particular moral (or political) beliefs.

[/ QUOTE ]

That wasn't the claim, as I've explained already in the thread.

[ QUOTE ]
Even so, the evidence isn't very good for arnarchism being a well-adapted form of social organization. Human societies with governments have proven much better at surviving than have anarchies. Growth in human population and technological knowledge have exploded in places with organized states, not in anarchic regions. Groups of organized humans (i.e., states) have historically subsumed or conquered anarchic tribes and regions quite easily. Th following are examples of cultures that flourished, in terms of scientific progress, economic progress, and population growth: Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, Carthage, the Roman Empire, the Chinese Dynasties, the British Empire (and the other major European powers of the Renaissance), and America. All of them had strong central governments. Can you provide an example of an anarchic society that similarly flourished?

[/ QUOTE ]

The flourishing of some cultures was not due to their "strong central states", but rather due to their systems of property rights, legal theory, and free trade, all of which developed on the market. It is exactly to the extent that these systems were later monopolized and perverted that these societies experienced decline and collapse. The current dominance of the West is not due to brilliantly executed plans of various Western governments, but rather due to the rise of industrial capitalism based on a strong tradition of property rights that developed out of the allodial system, and a strong tradition of libertarian common law theory that dates back to Roman law theory, an extremely Austrian view of law (i.e. that the entire legal code is discovered deductively from a first axiom).

There have indeed been a number of thriving anarcho-capitalesque societies, including but not limited to the American west, the pre-state Alaskan frontier, Medieval Iceland and Ireland, and some parts and times of Medieval Europe. That these eventually succumbed to government is not an argument in favor of government or against anarchy. In some places it was a cultural problem, i.e. in the American west many people still believed in the Government Fairy, the same on the Alaskan Frontier, so government is what they got. Medieval Iceland and Ireland were conquered by invading governments, but that isn't a knock on anarchy either, it's a knock against being smaller, having fewer resources, and being behind the technology curve. As pvn has so eloquently pointed out, when the Death Star enters orbit it doesn't matter what form of government or lack there of the US has. All else being equal a society based on an untrammeled free market will produce rings around a modern style neo-mercantilist, interventionist, welfare-warfare state. As it was it took mighty England almost a thoudand years to conquer almost Stone Aged Ireland.

[ QUOTE ]
Biologists and evolutionists look at the fossil record. The equivalent of the fossil record for governmental theory (recorded history) presents a very strong case for statism, not anarchism, as the better-adapted form of communal organization for human survival.

[/ QUOTE ]

No, it doesn't. Better adopted, clearly. Better adapted, hardly. Again, it is precisely those governments that have engaged in the smallest amounts of internal intervention in their markets that have come to parasitize off of the wealthiest nations; the wealth exploited from internal liberalism allows them to be the most aggressive internationally, but it is precisely to the extent that such governments cannot contain their kleptocratic tendencies that these governments destroy that internal liberalism, leading to their ultimate downfall.

Your argument could just as well be claimed to show that history presents a "strong case" for religion as the "better-adapted" form of philosophical endeavor than science. It isn't; its just an unfortunate historical accident that we went through a dark philosophical dawn and are now crippled with extremely powerful mind viruses that developed during that time. They are neither necessary nor inevitable. If they could be eradicated, they would not arise again.

If nobody believed in God, they would stop building churches, and if nobody believed in Governments, they would stop building legislatures.

[soon2bepro]

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. . . then you should be an anarchist. Do you see why?


[/ QUOTE ]

No, I don't. Care to ellaborate?

(I do understand evolution)

[Sephus]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
. . . then you should be an anarchist. Do you see why?


[/ QUOTE ]

No, I don't. Care to ellaborate?

(I do understand evolution)

[/ QUOTE ]

LOL. he's been trying to, but the subject is beyond us.

[Borodog]

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[ QUOTE ]
. . . then you should be an anarchist. Do you see why?


[/ QUOTE ]

No, I don't. Care to ellaborate?

(I do understand evolution)

[/ QUOTE ]

Read the rest of the thread.

[m_the0ry]

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That these eventually succumbed to government is not an argument in favor of government or against anarchy.

[/ QUOTE ]

Right...

I really wish you would cut back on the AC cheerleading on this board, it makes it really hard to take the rest of your posts seriously. Especially when you're so condescending about such blatantly hypothetical arguments. You can't say "obviously..." when there's no premise for what you say to be obvious. No pureblood AC structure has existed ever. End of story.

[Borodog]

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[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
. . . then you should be an anarchist. Do you see why?


[/ QUOTE ]

No, I don't. Care to ellaborate?

(I do understand evolution)

[/ QUOTE ]

LOL. he's been trying to, but the subject is beyond us.

[/ QUOTE ]

Only some of you.

I wish I hadn't started this thread the way that I did. Now that I'm sober, while I still agree with my OP, the important thing isn't some silly point about anarchy.

The really interesting thing what I said about the appearance of design. The products of evolution have the appearance of being the products of purposeful action. Hence, entire segments of praxeological analysis must apply wholesale to evolution, and indeed they do. People have been looking at evolution through the economic lens for a very long time of course, but I think this may be a crucial insight as to why that works in the first place.

This is the important thing about this thread. There is something here that ties together . . . everything. Everything I have ever read or been interested in about these two fields is connected here, from Rothbard and Hoppe to Dawkins and Dennett.

[Borodog]

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That these eventually succumbed to government is not an argument in favor of government or against anarchy.

[/ QUOTE ]

Right...

I really wish you would cut back on the AC cheerleading on this board, it makes it really hard to take the rest of your posts seriously. Especially when you're so condescending about such blatantly hypothetical arguments. You can't say "obviously..." when there's no premise for what you say to be obvious.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks for snipping out the part where I provided a logical argument showing why this is the case.

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No pureblood AC structure has existed ever. End of story.

[/ QUOTE ]

So what? You say this like it means something. There was a time when there had never been a representative democracy. There was a time when there had never been a monarchy. There was a time when there had never been state socialism. Your argument says that all of them were then impossible because they had not previously existed.

Monarchy did not exist before someone produced a political theory to justify it and propagated that theory to the masses. The same is true of representative democracy. And state socialism. And every other form of government. And the same will be true of the lack thereof.

Anarcho-capitalist theory is brand-new on historical timescales. All that needs to be done to make it viable is to spread the word to the masses.

[soon2bepro]

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[ QUOTE ]
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. . . then you should be an anarchist. Do you see why?


[/ QUOTE ]

No, I don't. Care to ellaborate?

(I do understand evolution)

[/ QUOTE ]

Read the rest of the thread.

[/ QUOTE ]

All I see is you ranting about AC, but no connection to evolution.

[m_the0ry]

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[ QUOTE ]
No pureblood AC structure has existed ever. End of story.

[/ QUOTE ]

So what? You say this like it means something. There was a time when there had never been a representative democracy. There was a time when there had never been a monarchy. There was a time when there had never been state socialism. Your argument says that all of them were then impossible because they had not previously existed.

Monarchy did not exist before someone produced a political theory to justify it and propagated that theory to the masses. The same is true of representative democracy. And state socialism. And every other form of government. And the same will be true of the lack thereof.

Anarcho-capitalist theory is brand-new on historical timescales. All that needs to be done to make it viable is to spread the word to the masses.

[/ QUOTE ]

And what has history taught us about making statements of the form, "this new civilizational model is the ultimate in social evolution, and is the form of government that makes all other forms of government obsolete"?