For the average person, they've grown up in a world where they've learned through school, the media, their parents, and 95% of other sources of knowledge about this world that the State (in an abstract form, not with an R, D, or other political party affiliation tied to it because of those currently in power) is a protector, friend, keeper of order, etc. To attack or criticize the State (in abstract terms) and say that it could potentially abuse it's power, is like saying that your parents or some other loved one could potentially betray you.
If someone tells you your mother or father could potentially steal from you because their name is tied to your bank account, how does that make you feel? Do you feel like this person is right, or you do get defensive and say that could never possibly happen? Most defend their parents and their parents' trustworthiness. The same goes for their view of the State.
The difference between your parents and the State though, is that different individuals of varying trustworthiness move into and out of power. As this happens, eventually some bad actors will gain power, and those who depend on that established trust will be badly hurt.
Let me offer a counterpoint. The average Internet anarcho-libertarian has grown up so coddled by the benefits of first-world government they don't even understand why they need it. They go out in the street and feel safe and think that's just how human societies are. They talk about jack-boot thugs, but they've never experienced fear of a real one. They have no experiences that would let them comprehend a world without a monopoly on violence. A world where small groups of people using organized violence can terrorize the majority. A world where the background threat of violence at the hands of government is replaced with in-your-face actual violence from the vicious people among your fellow man.
That's a false dilemma. It's not about our current government vs no government, it's about complacency vs reform.
Most libertarians are not "anarcho-libertarian", whatever that actually means, nor are we anarchists.
I think most of us agree that a state is important. The question, which people have been grappling with as long as there have been states, is how to make sure that the state is benevolent--that it actually works in ordinary people's favor, rather than degenerating into a relationship of oppression and exploitation.
The libertarian question, specifically, is how do you ensure that the state respects people's individual freedoms?
History has shown mass surveillance to be antithetical to individual freedom. So our goal is to abolish mass surveillance.
You said we're "so coddled by the benefits of a first-world government". Do you think MLK was coddled by his gov't when he was hounded by the FBI, sent threats, & imprisoned for his words? We are lucky that the surveillance capabilities of the state back then were much more limited than they are today.
Today, every email in your inbox, every text, every cell phone GPS coordinate, every draft in your drafts folder is plaintext in a big database. That database is searchable by bureaucrats you'll never meet. Even if they never type in "rayiner" specifically, this state of affairs is dangerous to the freedom we all enjoy. Just because we have it better than some unlucky people elsewhere, doesn't mean that we should stop trying to fix our own society here and now.
I didn't mean to imply it was a choice of current government versus no government--my post was a limited response to the idea of the state being the most dangerous thing. I think it's tremendously important to constantly strive for better government.
As for solutions:
> Today, every email in your inbox, every text, every cell phone GPS coordinate, every draft in your drafts folder is plaintext in a big database.
And whose fault is that? The government didn't create SMTP, SMS, webmail, etc. You can't have privacy from the government without creating a culture of privacy. We have a culture where people share extremely intimate information with their thousand "closest friends" via Facebook, Twitter, etc. People are not going to trust the government less than their random acquaintances, and people aren't going to demand privacy from the government unless the culture shifts such that they value privacy in other aspects of their lives.
Actually, the government did create SMTP (Postel was on a DARPA grant) and SMS (CEPT was an association of state-run PTTs, and Hillebrand in particular was a Deutsche Bundespost employee); and the US government in particular worked very hard indeed to stop SMTP, TCP, and IP from getting encryption added to them, what with treating cryptographic software as a “munition” and export-controlling it, plus constantly stymieing working groups in the IETF and other places that tried to standardize encryption.
> People are not going to trust the government less than their random acquaintances,
It sounds like you’ve never met an immigrant, a black person, or a poor person? Because that statement of yours sounds totally absurd to me.
> Today, every email in your inbox, every text, every cell phone GPS coordinate, every draft in your drafts folder is plaintext in a big database.
> And whose fault is that?
That fault lies with the people directing the assembly of the information into the database.
But agreed with your comment on Internet anarcho-libertarians. That is not a view grounded in rough and tumble world reality. The state is necessary to the human condition. I just wish we had better ones that took a broader view.
There are huge databases with all your text messages and emails. The government didn't create them. Software engineers did. And once you condition people to accept that, you'll sound like a nutter complaining about the government having data that's already strewn all over the Internet.
That's why I'm hoping Tim Cook runs with what he is saying here. In principle, I can send iMessages that even Apple can't read. If you condition people to expect privacy, they will demand it from the government too.
This is interesting to follow; I basically agree with your take, but I also know precisely the kind of libertarian "anarcho-capitalist" type that Rayiner is effectively responding to, folks who follow in the footsteps of Murray Rothbard and company. They elevate "coercion" to the highest possible crime: you cannot have a state that isn't invested with the power to coerce its citizens' behavior, ergo a benevolent state is impossible. So they fashion themselves anarchists, either unaware of or choosing to downplay the very anti-capitalist roots of anarchism. (And Rayiner's observation about the frequent criticism of "a state monopoly on violence" from that crowd is one I've also had; as opposed to what, exactly, a free market for violence? Or a natural monopoly on it, perhaps? I understand their criticism to be valid concerns about what the failure conditions of that monopoly lead to, but many of the alternatives are horrifying in their success conditions.)
Turning this back on the actual topic, though, what do you think the libertarian response to the problems in your last paragraph should really be? I can't think of any reforms which don't still depend on the state following its own rules for both what it's allowed to collect and what it can do with the data it does collect. Granted, merely having those rules--which we largely don't--would be an improvement, but it feels like it's in the "necessary but not sufficient" category.
I always thought it was the oppressive laws, poor economies, concentration camps and (in many cases) out right starvation of the populace that held the people in check. To me those things seem a lot more important that the gov't snooping on my email.
So just because we are not rounding dissenters up into concentration camps or starving half the population to death David Cameron (or whoever the next one is) should be able to search my entire communication and location history?
That attitude sends society rapidly back to the concentration camps and starvation.
I won't try and speak for all anarcho-capitalists, but I've experienced both extremes of the spectrum - and my political position is not a result of some kind of preferred violence. It is a moral issue, as I don't believe that the end justifies the means. In order to support the state, you have to be of that mindset, that the end justifies the means.
This is my experience too. I was just a garden variety minarchist libertarian before I had travelled widely. Seeing the common thread throughout the world that everywhere you go the people calling themselves the state exhibit the same totalitarian thuggishness is what drove me over the edge into being anarchocapitalist.
I find it tragically naive to see statists adopting this position as if they're the world weary travellers that don't wish to be bothered by the naivete of others that can't see the necessity of their chains, when the reality is closer to the exact opposite.
It's also like the religious fundamentalists who insist "you can just pray the gay away." As far as most people are concerned, the premise that all violence is absolutely unnecessary is not a widely held position. Indeed, it's more commonly seen as an exercise in extreme wishful thinking, on par with believing that it's possible to walk on water or leap from a building and fly.
Sure, you can flatly insist "the ends don't justify the means" but this is begging the question in that it assumes the means in are unequivocally wrong. Most people aren't about to make that assumption when it comes to violence. In other words, the tack taken by our friendly anarcho-libertarian here is is a bit like hitting a baseball and making a dash straight for second base. Sorry, kid, but nope.
To get to second you've first got to convince us that all violence is absolutely, supremely wrong in each and every case. Only then will the "ends don't justify the means" argument have a leg to stand on.
>>As far as most people are concerned, the premise that all violence is absolutely unnecessary is not a widely held position.
This is a straw man that, quite frankly, I'm left scratching my head as to where you got it from. People commit violence when they can get something they want by doing so, and won't face repercussions for the violent act. The places around the world that are widely considered the most violent countries are those that have strong (sometimes authoritarian) central governments, and few rights individuals can exercise to protect themselves on a local level. Examples - China, Russia, Brazil, the Middle East.
The reason this is the case is because the vast majority of citizens in these locations are law-abiding citizens, meaning they won't break the law to own a gun to protect themselves, or take other measures necessary to ensure their own protection, other than depending on the government (either local or national). Then, what happens is government law enforcement fails, because we're human and we all make mistakes - national law enforcement may not be present, local law enforcement may be corrupt or incompetent, or hundreds of other reasons failure could take place. When the law enforcement fails though, regardless of the reason, those law abiding citizens who don't have any means of protecting themselves are now vulnerable to pretty much anyone.
I hope you realize, and can think deeply enough, to understand that the problem of violence is not one that has a binary solution to be solved only via monopoly powers of government. There are literally thousands of creative ideas that can be tried to combat violence...before resorting to coercion by the State. If you read the other posts here, you would understand how those ideas could be explored, and also why they have pretty much died out.
No libertarian or anarcho-liberterian lives in a fantasy world where they think they can just 'wish away' violence. They just understand the answer to violence is not as simple as a vote for 'yes' or 'no' on a ballot box. If that's the world you wish to live, then great. If not, I suggest you open your mind a bit, expand your thinking, and at least consider what the other side has to say.
"Then, what happens is government law enforcement fails, because we're human and we all make mistakes - national law enforcement may not be present, local law enforcement may be corrupt or incompetent, or hundreds of other reasons failure could take place."
Then there's anarcho-tyranny, where in a riff on the old theme of the upper and lower class uniting against the middle, the ruling class uses withdrawal of police resources against geographically distinct enemies. I've been told this has been done in D.C., which like NYC essentially forbids legal gun ownership (although when I was living Inside the Beltway, I noticed D.C. police and juries were rather sympathetic to genuine self-defense shootings).
I've observed this in the U.K. during Blair's regime, where rural areas were stripped of ... 2/3rds of their police, if I remember, and some suburbs that voted "incorrectly" were also said to have suffered, but it was less clear cut.
So this goes way beyond "When seconds count, the police are minutes away" and societal/governmental breakdown.
Maybe not as much as in the past, but they certainly have far fewer freedoms than Americans enjoy, including the right to own a gun to defend yourself. I was just reading the other day that entrepreneurs are afraid to start businesses here because there are so many taxes and fees that apply to new businesses, that business owners don't know what fees and taxes are legit and what are scams from criminals taking advantage of their naivety. Sounds like a great way for a country to help all of its citizens achieve their full potential.
Your bias is really showing. Brazilians don't have far fewer freedoms than Americans, in fact I'd say some of the freedoms brazilians enjoy are far more important than those in the US.
That doesn't mean Brazil is perfect, it's certainly not. It's a country with a lot of problems, but to say it is authoritarian is just straight-up false.
This is just a small list, there are many more examples if you bother to look for them.
That's why the U.S. system is split into three branches.
Also, your use of the term "the State" is ambiguous. The State could mean a system of laws with law enforcement and dispute resolution. People believe in a system of laws - fight for it, even.
You have to remember: the state is a technology. It was developed by our ancestors to solve certain problems. It's not a panacea that solves every problem and I, frankly, only know straw men that think otherwise.
Most people probably don't believe that the state can solve every problem, but a large portion of people do believe that the state (and even only the state) can solve certain extremely important problems, like building infrastructure, producing a legal system, and producing a monetary system and economy.
The further into the past a decision regarding the State solving a problem for a society was made, the more its citizens today assume that decision was the best option and the private sector failed. This assumption is often based on the fact that there are no, or very few, competing alternatives left to solve that problem.
The reason there are very few remaining alternatives is largely because (in most systems of government today) the State has taken tax dollars from the private sector's solutions, thus starving them of resources, to fund it's own competing solution. So, the State is taking resources from it's competitors and then provide an alternative (normally at subsidized prices), which makes it's competitor's market share smaller and also sets pricing at unsustainable levels. There is only one outcome, ever, to this type of arrangement, regardless of whether or not the State actually offered the best solution to its citizens.
> The reason there are very few remaining alternatives is largely because (in most systems of government today) the State has taken tax dollars from the private sector's solutions, thus starving them of resources, to fund it's own competing solution.
I find this very doubtful indeed. The state by and large spends money on things the private sector has no interest in, such as welfare systems; I fail to see how this starves/steals from private sector solutions (no one makes money by supporting old people; no one makes money providing medical help for the poor; no one makes money by polluting less; no one makes money off going to the moon, though lots of people make money off the research that comes from it, etc.)
I don't have time right now to dig up data on it because I have to get going, but from a financial efficiency point of view, donating directly to private organizations that perform welfare services is an order of magnitude more effective than letting the State tax you and then redistribute your money to welfare services. The issue is the way our tax system is designed right now, it makes more sense for private individuals to keep their money until the government takes it by force to give to those in need, than for those individuals to contribute directly.
Rich people don't get rich by giving away money. I've heard plenty of stories about private non-profits that spend significant percentages of their take on administrative costs and similar. Not to say they're all like that; but then, neither is the government.
2% or less admin costs looks pretty good. A universal basic income system would be better, but I'd be interested to see some private charities that do better than this.
There are plenty of historical examples where a state had to (and did) use force to prevent private individuals or organizations from offering certain services.
> the private sector has no interest in, such as welfare systems
Absolutely false. Children take care of their parents, families take care of each other, friends offer housing and food to their friends. At best you can argue that the private sector has stepped back to the extent the state has stepped in.
Every phrase you wrote has an implicit conditional in it:
> Children may take care of their parents, families may take care of each other, friends might offer housing and food to their friends.
At least one theoretical advantage to the state system that rarely gets talked about is that while its assistance also has the same conditionals, at least in principle, the conditionals are dependent on objective criteria. The state of your relationship to friends and family is immaterial; you don't have to accept terms imposed by religious charities or other organizations that will attach moralistic strings.
I disagree that a significant portion of people think that. I think most reasoning goes like this: we have to form an organization to accomplish x, there's already an organization doing y, maybe it makes sense for it to do x too rather than make a whole new organization.
>>maybe it makes sense for it to do x too rather than make a whole new organization.
For one, by having multiple private sector organizations competing to solve a problem, you spread the wealth around society more evenly than if the government were the only one doing x.
Second, new ideas and better ways to do x can come from anywhere. By having only one organization doing x, you have to convince the person in charge of organization doing x to change how they do x in order to do x in the better way. If you have multiple, competing organizations trying to do x, the one who decides to do x in a better way gets rewarded by serving more customers and making more money.
Third, if you only have one organization doing x, when that organization fails to do x, then everyone who depends on x gets screwed. By having more organizations doing x, if one fails, there are always others to serve customers who depend on x.
I think I've become your straw man. I was not advocating. I was explaining why I think org y ends up doing x too when it's already been decided an org needs to be formed to solve a problem that the market is not or cannot solve.
Understood, and agree that when it makes sense to do so, it should be done, in the private sector - e.g., Amazon offering cloud services on the back of their excess server capacity. The difference between the private sector doing this and government though lies in what happens when failure occurs. That's what I want others to understand.
I think everyone agrees that the private sector should do everything it can. It's a spectrum. Most problems the market can solve just fine. Some problems it cannot without the power of taxation (no free riding). The cut off line is hotly debated. Arguably the line shifts with technological advances.
Well, yeah, you could say that, but it's just a word, it explains nothing. Golem is a technology too, designed and created by man, maybe you've heard tales about that thing and remember what usually happens to its creator. Telling people that government (or "democracy", or whatever this thing is called in propaganda textbooks) is "just a technology" today is just some mantra to make listener feel safe and relaxed, to make him feel he is in control, while he clearly isn't.
It's not a mantra. It's a defined word that contains no judgment of the particular technology.
I think of it much along the lines of Kevin Kelly's "What Technology Wants" and his "Technium". Technology is an extension of evolution. A constitution is as much a technology as the alphabet or an iPhone. All have positives and negatives.
> If someone tells you your mother or father could potentially steal from you because their name is tied to your bank account, how does that make you feel? Do you feel like this person is right, or you do get defensive and say that could never possibly happen? Most defend their parents and their parents' trustworthiness. The same goes for their view of the State.
We hear about child celebrities getting cheated out of their income by their parents. We know this can happen but I guess we assume they are exception rather than the norm?
Of course it can happen, but think about YOUR own gut reaction if someone said this about YOUR parents. Unless you had an extremely traumatic childhood or are estranged from your parents, I'm guessing your response is "Not possible." It's a similar reaction to people's own governments (I guess you could call this Nationalism?). The problem is worse when you identify as an "R" or "D" and the same letter you identify as is in the White House (or whatever head of government position for your country). Paul Graham wrote an essay about this at one point, I believe.
I think you explained it perfectly. I think we can carry the analogy a bit further. Even with my best interest at heart, my parents will do what they think is best for me and will nudge and push me towards what they think I need to do.
So even assuming that the powers that be have our best interests in mind, they are still people and are prone to make false assumptions about what's best for us.
And to further your point, I want to see the good in people and believe that those who hold power in positions in the State want to do good, and will do what they think is best, but that doesn't necessarily mean it is. The problem is when the State fails, whether it is because of incompetence, misunderstanding, misguided intentions, or true intent to do harm, those who are dependent upon the state are the ones who suffer.
Very true. Propaganda was so successful that even when you rationally know States are bad, your heart tends to give them the benefits of the doubt. Like "they did that in the past, but we're more civilized now", "our president is such a nice guy, he wouldn't do anything evil - he said it won't happen again", "it happens in other country, but mine is better".
They mostly believe the state is incompetent, or that at worse politicians can steal money or favor their buddies, etc. Doesn't go as far as to question issues of democracy, abuse, etc.
My anecdotal evidence suggests otherwise. Many have no trust of the government or those supplying the politicians their campaign funds. These conversations are simply kept quite and not generally found on mainstream media outlets.
> For the average person, they've grown up in a world where they've learned through school, the media, their parents, and 95% of other sources of knowledge about this world that the State (in an abstract form, not with an R, D, or other political party affiliation tied to it because of those currently in power) is a protector, friend, keeper of order, etc. To attack or criticize the State (in abstract terms) and say that it could potentially abuse it's power, is like saying that your parents or some other loved one could potentially betray you.
This is cringeworthy. I knew HN had a Ron Paul bent, but has it been completely overtaken by 15 year olds?
Go ask ANYONE, your cashier, your hairdresser, or the random joe working on your car -- the standard line of thinking isn't that the government is some nice friend and protector. The standard line of thinking is that government is dysfunctional and politicians are corrupt. You people pick up a copy of 1984 and suddenly you're all mini-orwells running around spewing your "insights" to whoever will stand around long enough to pretend they care.
> If someone tells you your mother or father could potentially steal from you because their name is tied to your bank account, how does that make you feel? Do you feel like this person is right, or you do get defensive and say that could never possibly happen? Most defend their parents and their parents' trustworthiness. The same goes for their view of the State.
Oh, wise sage, please enlighten us with more of your wisdom. Tell us the story of the bunny going to the store to buy milk this time!
> The standard line of thinking is that government is dysfunctional and politicians are corrupt.
That may be the standard response you get, but doesn't mean that is what they think. I'm sure that if you asked them how their day was going, you'd get a "fine" - which doesn't mean anything either. It makes more sense to look at actions than words: people still call the police if they get shorted a chicken nugget. Mothers still call the police to scare their rebellious teenagers straight. People still vote. So it is more likely that people are unhappy with the present government, but if they could just get their guy in office - then everything would be great. Give us a kindly king :)
Calling upon government services and voting isn't a show of faith in the government, it's just a matter of practicality. Do I fundamentally have faith in the police to protect people's safety instead of jeopardizing it? No, because they murder people all the time and get away with it. But I'm still going to file a police report when my laptop gets stolen because that's the only way I can make an insurance claim for it.
As for voting, I'm to the point where I just vote on ballot measures and leave the actual races for elected positions blank, unless there's a socialist running in which case I vote against them.
> Calling upon government services and voting isn't a show of faith in the government, it's just a matter of practicality.
Intelligent people can disagree on the ideal way to transition from our present system to a more preferable solution - but your statement isn't absolutely true. Voting does demonstrate a faith in the government. That faith may only be that the present system allows for a transition through the mechanism of majority rule, but it is faith none the less. As far as police interactions, I chose my examples carefully - they demonstrate a belief in the state beyond practical needs such as insurance claims.
While I do tend to agree with you, this is a content-free comment; it has no purpose but to mock the parent commenter. When commenting, please keep things civil and constructive.
I do try to usually, but really, what more of substance could I have said? I'm starting to question whether being civil really is the proper response when you hear something that violates your views so strongly. Anyway, I appreciate your response.
If someone tells you your mother or father could potentially steal from you because their name is tied to your bank account, how does that make you feel? Do you feel like this person is right, or you do get defensive and say that could never possibly happen? Most defend their parents and their parents' trustworthiness. The same goes for their view of the State.
The difference between your parents and the State though, is that different individuals of varying trustworthiness move into and out of power. As this happens, eventually some bad actors will gain power, and those who depend on that established trust will be badly hurt.