"an open, transparent, and efficient government" is a blind alley. While the tasks you will be doing are not criminal, you are working for criminals. You might reject my radical statements out of hand but if you are open to why I say this and want to know more please let me know.
Only _some_ aspects and activities of government are criminal.
We still need someone to build roads and make sure the water stays clean. Arguably, we also need an education system, an oversight of healthcare, a social safety net system and many other things. Working in these capacities helps society in general, and everyday citizens to have better lives.
There are way too many ineffective people in bloated bureaucratic stasis managing these things at the moment, and very much poor and overpriced execution which costs all of us in terms of services received and increased tax burden.
Helping to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of these socially important tasks is a very worthwhile use of work time and is not "working for criminals", as the recipients of this work are the citizens of the country.
>Only _some_ aspects and activities of government are criminal.
States do some "good" things like feeding hungry schoolchildren, but never without first committing some "bad". Typically this is extortion (taxation/"revenue"),but originally states are founded on other forms of aggression like military conquest.
Those who perform "good" tasks like being a teacher or web developer can be forgiven totally.
>We still need someone to build roads
This is the #1 laugher for us anarchist libertarians. Here's a lengthy book if you would like to see the case against road socialism.
Poke around that site and I'm sure you can find many more arguments for each of the things you mistakenly think a free society can't provide.
Please realize that the blind alley is in part thinking that government is a business. It isn't and will never be. It's similar to your local mafioso, just a widely accepted one.
Even though some of the people operating the government are criminals, the function of government is necessary (as it is for all large human organizations).
"Open, transparent, and efficient" may be a lofty goal, but it's still important for civilians to get involved in moving the government toward that goal.
Nothing is black and white. You seem to be unwilling or unable to see the gray in your chosen area of extremism.
So you don't actually have the conviction to refuse to pay the criminals?
If you really believed what you are saying you would move to another country and give up your US citizenship. Until you take that kind of stand you are just a blowhard.
>Even though some of the people operating the government are criminals, the function of government is necessary
History disproves that a government (geographic monopoly on arbitration and security) is necessary for maintaining civil order. Of course, you aren't taught this history in state education.
I'm most familiar with the polycentric legal order of medieval Iceland, which lasted longer than the US has so far, so I will point there first.
I think it's important that more people start to recognize government for the evil that it is and build businesses that help keep money out of gov't coffers rather than keep heading down the blind alley you suggest.
If you are an honest person, you'd now would admit you are wrong that gov't is necessary. You just don't know the history yet. Who's really the black and white extremist here? It's okay, I'm familiar that the majority of statists like yourself are oblivious to their Stockholm syndrome and hardened indoctrination. (The rest may be able to see gov't for what it is but lack the creativity to start to work toward alternate solutions.)
You seem pretty set that this gov't thing is necessary. There's at least a few thousand abolitionists like myself ready to pioneer the land a state is willing to cede. Let's go grey baby. Are you even open to the idea you could be wrong?
Besides the fact that this also was quite a bloody period of Icelandic history, the population also most probably was below 50000, which is the census result of 1703.
If you have no population to speak of, and practically everyone is a subsistence farmer/fisherman, and you have a population density of about one person per square mile, then yes, you don't much coordination/government.
Qualify "bloody". You can say it all you want, but once the polycentric system fell to the cultural perks and a new monopoly given to the church and chaos ensued, the people begged the king of Denmark for a relative stability.
We're talking about many centuries before your irrelevant census point. A 2 or 20 person society is relevant on a theoretical level.
Go look on wikipedia for the earliest abolition of slavery:
After the early rush of settlers, the need for external slaves became unnecessary because the population eclipsed exploitable resources.
Whatever bullshit objection like small population or they are "backwards" subsistence farmers is irrelevant to the fact that civil order was maintained by polycentric law for 3 centuries. Could it work today? Your type won't even allow the experiment so people are forced into schemes like seasteading or "free cities" in Central America.
No need for ad hominems, let your arguments speak.
> like small population or they are "backwards" subsistence farmers is irrelevant to the fact that civil order was maintained by polycentric law for 3 centuries.
Both subsistence farming (e.g. means of production that are by definition not exhibiting division of labor) and an extremly low population density mean that both communication and coordination between people are orders of magnitude smaller than in complex and dense societies. That's pretty much consensus both in macro economics and in sociology.
> Could it work today? Your type won't even allow the experiment
I'm an empirical scientist, so not exactly opposed to experimentation. Has it occured to you that "my type" simply isn't persuaded by your argument?
Haha. The Age of the Sturlungs, the "bloody" era is after the early Commonwealth I am talking about. Way to not even read my links or have a remote clue about the topic. Look 2 up on the right list on your link for what I am talking about.
You're complaining about what happened after people switched over to the statist mindset you simultaneously are trapped in.
>Both subsistence farming (e.g. means of production that are by definition not exhibiting division of labor) and an extremly low population density mean that both communication and coordination between people are orders of magnitude smaller than in complex and dense societies. That's pretty much consensus both in macro economics and in sociology.
Seems like just another bullshit excuse for an increase in bureaucracy like OP is joining into.
>Has it occured to you that "my type" simply isn't persuaded by your argument?
I don't care. The fact remains that we are not allowed any land to experiment with. Say you aren't opposed to experimentation all you want but let me know when we can experiment and I will care. Your democracy experiment will crumble before this ever happens anyhow so whatever. Democracy was not common outside the US pre-WW1.
> Haha. The Age of the Sturlungs, the "bloody" era is after the early Commonwealth I am talking about.
The Age of the Sturlungs is what Commonwealth devolved into in a relatively short period. Are you suggesting the Age of the Sturlungs just appeared out of nowhere?
> Seems like just another bullshit excuse for an increase in bureaucracy like OP is joining into.
Ok, apparently you haven't yet read much about economics. Division of labor is a precondition for both wage labor and capital accumulation. If you have neither wage labor nor capital accumulation, you can't have capitalism. It's that simple. You have markets, yes, but everbody had markets for thousands of years. Markets =/= capitalism. Your argument boils down to using a society that is neither culturally nor demographically nor economically similar to present day societies as a role model for present day society. Can you now see why I'm not persuaded?
And again: Ad hominems don't help. You want to persuade the majority to try out a grand libertarian experiment, but you get all worked up because a single person questions your reasoning. It won't work that way.
I appreciated your comments and learned some interesting things from them. I also admire your ability to have an argument without letting it drift toward becoming personal. I wish there were more people online who could do that.
Unfortunately, I think you're feeding a troll at this point. No amount of logic or reason can undo countless hours stewing in his/her own confirmation bias.
> I appreciated your comments and learned some interesting things from them. I also admire your ability to have an argument without letting it drift toward becoming personal. I wish there were more people online who could do that.
Thank you :)
> Unfortunately, I think you're feeding a troll at this point. No amount of logic or reason can undo countless hours stewing in his/her own confirmation bias.
I suppose you are right. But text-only casual communication gets misinterpreted so easily (e.g. I have the tendency to read agressiveness into texts that are just dense factual answers) that I try to stay calm one answer longer than I'd emotionally do. Works for me :)
>The Age of the Sturlungs is what Commonwealth devolved into in a relatively short period.
The Commonwealth lasted ~290 years. That's all that's relevant is that a polycentric legal order, one paradigmatically different than the statist one that dominates history has worked and could work again.
Your bloody Sturlunga is evidence of the aggressive nature of the statism you propose as "necessary".
>Ok, apparently you haven't yet read much about economics
Sure homie. Update me when you have read Human Action. To me markets are capitalism, but people equivocate on "capitalism" as also the current statist crony corporatism. Wittgenstein teaches us to be clear about what we mean. If you're not familiar with him it's a simple and important lesson.
Your summary of medieval Iceland displays your ignorance. Go read the article I linked and see Byock from UCLA if you will only crack open mainstream history. Byock supports the history just fails to recognize the polycentric and anarchist interpretation.
The point is that society functioned well and civil order, viz. not the chaos that "anarchy" is assumed, was maintained for longer than the US has existed. In the grand scale of history medieval Iceland succeeded almost 3x as long as the democracy you surely worship has been unquestioned as superior (just ~100 years now).
>Can you actually make a real case in teh real world that "government" in some for is not nesercery?
Let's gloss over that Lex Mercatoria why don't we. Yeah, I missed mentioning my #2 area of knowledge, Xeer customary law in Somalia. The quality of life there has improved vastly despite the UN insurgency (see proof in my past comments from CIA/World Bank stats).
Wait, I can just hear it now, "warlords". I'll spare myself the time responding to ignorant people like you and just drop one more link. Maybe one day I will be bestowed the honor to silence those who disagree and remain happy in my ignorance without reading.
I did read most of the Major Icelandic saga's at school the primary sources and not wikipedia.
and your seriously sugesting that a failed state like Somalia is a good model for civil society.
I used to work for the Uk office of a major Lebanese company and lets say I did not ask to many Q about how we got a kidnapped guy back from beruit - probably some one said well give him back or we have or mates in the phalange make your locality be the next shatilla massacre
Failed state? More like failed UN insurgency and failed propping up government the people don't want going on 20+ years. Anarchy reigns outside of the warzone. Past Galkayo there is quite a lot of peace relative to Mogadishu. Even before Barre's regime failed it is estimated that 80-90% of any state court orders were ignored in preference of Xeer customary law. You don't know the situation here if you can distill it to "failed state" and "warlords".
Who cares you read sagas or whatever about a Lebanese kidnapping?
