[illinoissmith]

"In other words, you can come up with examples of "government" which don't involve any humans ruling over any other humans? Please do! I look forward to this enlightening--nay, amazing--discovery."

Think about it technically.

Some examples of 'govern' from dictionary.com:
"a valve that governs fuel intake"
"a student who could not govern his impulses"
"Chance usually governs the outcome of the game"

Also, there is the term 'self-government'.

Self-government (the individual governing himself and his emotions and base instincts, usually in accordance with his interests (personal prosperity, personal fulfillment through means of his choice, personal safety (from philosopher-kings especially), the preservation of the society he cares about for his children, and that is structured such that he has reason to believe it will well afford his children with reasonable chance for prosperity, fulfillment, and safety)) seems to be the fundamental organizing principle in the society you have in mind, I think?

Self-governed individuals behaving in ways that (taking into account the actions of other selves, and taking into account that the actions of the others depend upon the action of the individual) further their own interests (or for some sick people, that don't further their interests, so long as they don't mess with others). Self-government can be checked by other individuals' interests when they get out of the "line" drawn by one's own property. This is self-governments of different selves checking each other systematically.

There is a sub-branch of economics, which overlaps with evolutionary biology an mathematics, called 'game theory' and it deals with such systems of interacting individual interest and their equilibriums and so on. With the formalisms of this field, these sorts of interpersonal dynamics can at least begin be talked and thought about formally, and without necessarily being imposed on others.

At any rate, if the word 'government' is clear, I'm not saying you will have a social system without humans governing other humans (in fact, I am saying that you will not, even your "true civilization" is not free of this, not without killing everyone first). I am just saying that that is not inherent in the word 'government' itself, as evidenced by the valve example above. (Note that some wack leftists academics in the humanities would draw a connection between human oppression and the valve governing fuel intake, and use that to publish a paper on evil Technological Western Oppressor Culture or the like, all while living off your tax dollars - the basic ideas that give convoluted root to such wackiness go back at least to Rousseau). If I and my neighbors each decide to ward off thieves with guns, we are governing the behavior of other humans, using force. The difference is that we are not initiating harm or immanent threat of harm against other people, only making it clear by our behavior that there is a cost to initiating that harm. Through the force of our volition, shaped by our beliefs about justice, we have changed the incentives for thieves, thus deterring much theft, thus governing the behavior of would-be thieves. Note, also, that this is a very distributed sort of government, as opposed to the philosopher-king sort.

Going back to why I say my earlier bit about 'government' was not flowery, but technical. Generally, say there is some force. For some reason, it behaves in a roughly predictable way, so it creates roughly predictable patterns (gravity on earth is a force that acts to move big heavy things toward earth, you get a pattern in which most cars are on the ground and not floating in midair). The force governs the patterns. This is happening in the system you described as "anarchist". There is individual volition. This is a force. Because volition is shaped by individual thought about reality and individual inheritance, in a given culture, or a given place with neighbors talking to each other, or just by accident from different people noticing and instinctively wanting the same things, it often works in a roughly similar way in each neighbor; thus it is often a coordinated force.

For example, if one way volition is shaped is into the will to "shoot the man that tries to kill me," then volition governs murder patterns to a large degree (on the assumption that most would-be murders want to keep their lives, a reasonable assumption in general, it really honestly changes their incentives) - specifically, it acts to make murder more rare than it would otherwise be. This is why I said, earlier, that without any government you won't get more than particles moving randomly. (For the record, I think that there are some very smart people that seem to want this - what I called "death-wish anarchists". You can prevent their ideas from getting into your head, and thus prevent them from influencing your actions in ways that are contrary to what your truly care about, while still holding tight to love of liberty, by hounding those ideas with reason. It is also handy to look at language for clues. Language is a formalism for human thoughts (thoughts go to language), it is a semi-inherited and semi-acquired formalism, and there are often usefully informative connections there that we are often not consciously aware of without taking long and serious analytic thought, or looking in a good etymological dictionary.)

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From what you are saying, you seem to want a society governed, roughly, by the following constitutional principles ('constitutional' in the sense "of or proceeding from the basic structure or nature of a person or thing; inherent" - dictionary.com):

(a) an human adult is a human who has reached [say] 16 years of age to the day.

(b) a human child is a human who has not yet reached [say] 16 years of age to the day.

(c) each individual adult human has dominion over his body.

(d) each individual adult human has dominion over the property that he owns. the property that he or she owns is that which he or obtains through voluntary trade, his creation, or as a gift.

(e) if one human or party of humans (the first party) physically injures, or kills, or is in the act of directly attempting to physically injure or kill, another human (the second party), this is known as "infringement of bodily rights" of the second party by the first party. the human whose bodily rights have been infringed upon (the second party), or another human (the third party) acting on the second party's behalf, has the right to infringe on the bodily rights of the first party [to some specific extent], without himself being subject to (e).

(f) if one human or party of humans (the first party) damages the property of, or steals the property of, or is in the act of directly attempting to damage or steal the property of, another human (the second party), this is known as "infringement of property rights" of the second party by the first party. the human whose property rights have been infringed upon (the second party), or another human (the third party) acting on the second party's behalf, has the right to infringe on the property rights of the first party [to some specific extent], without himself being subject to (f).

(g) children are the charges of their biological parents, or of those adults whom their biological parents have left them in charge. an adult in charge of a child is responsible for providing that child with food, water, clothing, education, shelter, and basic means of hygiene. the adult in charge of a child has to right to infringe on the bodily rights of the child with reason, and without causing permanent or debilitating injury. should the adult fail in his responsibilities, or infringe upon the bodily rights of a child in a manner beyond that detailed in the preceding sentence, that child may choose another adult charge. This choice may only be enforced by force of the child himself.


Now, I'm not saying I got down exactly what you're thinking or that I got down something really great or that I'm a necessarily a supporter of what I wrote above. This is just an example to illustrate that something roughly like what you seem to be thinking about could be written down.

I'm also not necessarily saying there is an advantage to writing it down; there may be, but that is a different topic. I'm just saying that principles similar to the above would be there in what you are discussing. I am not a fascist for being curious about these principles. I am not trying to impose them on anybody by pointing them out. People are curious, and I'd bet that if, hypothetically, you had a group of people acting on these principles for some time, eventually you'd get a curious person somewhere pointing them out, and writing them down if he were literate. So far as I am aware, the only reason to refrain from thinking about these principles is if someone with nefarious purposes is using fear to get people to avoid thinking about where things actually follow.

This is not to say that all constitutionalism is voluntary. The US constitution contains a mix of things.

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For the record, this structure differentiates your system significantly from that of the classic religious anarchists, of whom I was not initially sure you were not a follower. The Anabaptists, from whom the Quakers are derived, and who themselves Russell claims are ideologically derived from the Greek Orpheus cult, are not big on organizing principles of any sort (IIRC). They believe that their community of true believers will be run, not by organizing principles like "each person has the right to shoot an attacker", but by what they believe to be God's fiat going directly into their heads. When the Anabaptists tried it (as I remember), it ended up being run by individual impulse and not working for very much. Their forerunners, the Orpheus cults, were frenzied, impulsive, bloody things (Bertrand Russell claims) involving ripping apart and eating live animals and intoxication and such. Basically the idea originally was that base primal energy is something holy - that it was the divine directing individuals, well, directly. Russell (who was a property-despising socialist, so analyze what he says very carefully if you read him) claims this was originally a gut reaction against civilization for people who had only recently begun living civilized. I think it is a likely reaction of any people who believe other people exert unjust power over them - in reaction to unjust structure, they clamor for total chaos rather than just structure. They will not get it total chaos without killing everything (though some, in the back of their minds, accept the latter condition), they will just get rule by base emotional impulse, which is not sufficient for keeping crafty rational-mind-using philosopher-kings at bay. It is understandable for a human to want some sort of primal chaos after having been herded like a sheep since childhood, but it is counterproductive if what is really good to live in is some of just structure (your neighbor will shoot you if you try to kill him) combined with ample avenue for individual choice.

"The "power to punish wrong-doers" inherently includes the power to do all sorts of things to innocent bystanders. It is inherent in what police are, that they must infringe some rights, in the name of catching rights-infringers. You think that's OK. I don't."

I do not think it is OK, I think it is very bad. The problem you discuss is also a problem in your system, barring miraculous reweaving of the fabric of the universe (which might be nice for all I know, but I do not know, and at any rate it is not an option we can necessarily expect to happen in our lifetimes, even if you believe it will happen some day). I do *not* think it can be avoided by giving the power to the people instead of to the police. I *do* think that giving that power to the people instead of the police does have other benefits like decentralization of force, and reduced chance and incentive of the force-wielders to use unjust force.

If you have an armed populace and they are free to protect themselves against rights infringement with arms, what is keeping them from doing "all sorts of things to innocent bystanders"? Two things: (1) self-government (the same thing which allows people to drive down streets lined by busy sidewalks without mowing over pedestrians - go to a a busy downtown at midday, and notice that a frail woman in an SUV could flick her wrist and kill dozens, yet things like this almost never happen, because most people aren't monsters), and (2) deterring disincentives ("eye for an eye" sorts of things, as in (e) and (f) in the example constitution).

I think the decent options are the following, either:

(1) Allowing individual citizens or those acting on their behalf (relatives, neighbors, hired bounty hunters, etc.) to go after wrong-doers. If a population did this, the behavior could be described by principles like (e) and (f) in the above example constitution. It is really a form of very direct democracy - if you're going after some dude for stealing your car, your neighbors all better have reason to think you justified, or else they will think you are the criminal, and go after you. This opens things up to large families or other sorts of "loud" blocs (bribers, say), ruling the roost through covert trickery if people aren't highly rational and highly informed. Bounty-hunterism also creates incentive for crimes to occur, and you could get all sorts of situations in which some guys form a business framing other people for crimes, and then hiring out their services to extract justice from the framed people. This would technically be illegal according to the above example constitution, but might be difficult to prevent.
or
(2)
Somehow trying to keep a citizen-checked judiciary, and letting that issue warrants to privately-hired bounty hunters or for government agents only on the basis of evidence. Creating a chair for a judge involves lots of risks that must be checked through some mechanism, and ultimately by an armed populace, to avoid rule by fiat. Creating a chair for government agents creates lots of risks that must be checked to prevent jackboots and expansion into policing like we have today. Creating a route for bounty hunters to justify their services creates lots of risks involving a subset of private citizens who have a vested interest in crimes occurring. How this would fare would depend upon the checks - insufficient checks, and it devolves into what we have today. Decent checks, it might confer as much freedom as the white people had before Lincoln. With our economy already being largely industrialized and technological, and with people on this continent largely over the unfounded thinking about humans that allowed them to justify slavery to themselves, it might last a good bit longer being decent until what happened under Lincoln happened.

I lean toward (2), but depending upon the specific checks; else (1). I can understand if someone else leans toward (1) entirely, and I will listen to their arguments. My problem with many people who call themselves anarchists is that they want me to accept (1) without discussing it, and then they call me a traitor to liberty for my fortitude to (what I consider to be) their cult with its English-like jargon designed to cut off certain thoughts.

[Shalom Israel]

Also, there is the term 'self-government'

Anarcho-capitalism is almost synonymous with "self-government", if by it you mean that each individual "governs" himself and his private property. In fact it is the only sort of "government" that doesn't involve at least one human having power to aggress against at least one other human.

There is a sub-branch of economics, which overlaps with evolutionary biology an mathematics, called 'game theory' and it deals with such systems of interacting individual interest and their equilibriums and so on.

My PhD is in mathematics, so I'd rather claim that game theory is a branch of mathematics borrowed by both economists and evolutionsts. :-)

With the formalisms of this field, these sorts of interpersonal dynamics can at least begin be talked and thought about formally, and without necessarily being imposed on others.

I quite agree. I'm always game for stimulating talk! Some people, of whom you aren't one at the moment, scare me because their talk is heavy with the implication that they plan to "do something about it", or expect others to. If the end result is a stimulating converstation about governments, well. If the end result is someone actually setting one of the durn things up, not well.

I'm not saying you will have a social system without humans governing other humans (in fact, I am saying that you will not, even your "true civilization" is not free of this, not without killing everyone first).

This is where things become murky again. You claim that it is impossible for any "society" to exist without some humans governing other humans, where I use "society" in the broadest possible sense. My inner ear hears you adding, "So, since someone has to be in charge..." which sets off the alarm bells. But I dispute your claim. Ignoring young children and the insane, for the purpose of this discussion, I claim that it's perfectly possible for no human to rule any other human involuntarily.

I do need to point out, yet again, that killing in self-defense isn't "ruling". Neither is being someone's employer; though there's an authority structure, it is contractual and purely voluntary. You can quit your job, and nobody will ever arrest you for it. Similarly with clubs, etc.

If I and my neighbors each decide to ward off thieves with guns, we are governing the behavior of other humans, using force.

Ah, I see precisely what has you confused. The exact ethical rule is the non-initiation of force. A thief has broken the rule. The homeowner who shoots him has not. Defending yourself from a murderer isn't "ruling" him in any sense that matters--indeed, the attempted murderer is guilty of trying to rule you. Equating murder and self-defense with deadly force will only result in confusion. The two things are worlds apart.

This is why I said, earlier, that without any government you won't get more than particles moving randomly.

On the contrary, all humans act in self-interest, excepting the severely insane. Self-interest isn't random. Even idiots that think rain-dances are good for their crops aren't behaving randomly; they're acting perfectly rationally, given their stupid assumptions, and other humans can easily act accordingly. We can laugh at him; we can try to teach him about weather; we can try to sell him magic rain-dancing galoshes; we can tolerate his silliness with friendly good humor--we have lots of choices. But our misguided farmer friend isn't a wild animal, a falling rock, or some other unpredictable force. He acts consistently with his perceived self-interest.

In other words, humans act. Any human action carries the a priori truth that the actor thought it would benefit him in some way. Similarly, any trade proves that the trader values what he gets above what he gives. If you follow that out in all its implications, you'll realize that we actually have incredibly powerful insights into the behavior of others. They are anything but random.

For the record, this structure differentiates your system significantly from that of the classic religious anarchists, of whom I was not initially sure you were not a follower...

I'm sure there are analogies. The best summary would be, an anarcho-capitalist who is also a Bible believer.

The Anabaptists, from whom the Quakers are derived, and who themselves Russell claims are ideologically derived from the Greek Orpheus cult, are not big on organizing principles of any sort (IIRC). They believe that their community of true believers will be run, not by organizing principles like "each person has the right to shoot an attacker", but by what they believe to be God's fiat going directly into their heads.

Quakers and Anabaptists are strict pacifists. They manage to maintain order in other ways, such as meidung. Pennsylvania was an anarcho-capitalist colony for many years. I can't speak to the details of their law enforcement, but their society was, in broad terms, the sort of thing I recommend. It was less structureless than you think, because the citizens shared many cultural assumptions, including the non-initiation of aggression and, for the non-quakers, the permissibility of self-defense.

As for Russell, no comment. He's a dolt.

This is just an example to illustrate that something roughly like what you seem to be thinking about could be written down.

Yes, and your suggestion is a pretty decent first stab at it. I encourage writing such things down, because homo libertatis, if he ever exists, will need something to study in school. However, to call it a "constitution" carries the further baggage that someone or other will be empowered to enforce it; that's emphatically not true. Each individual will enforce it within his own sphere.

I think the decent options are the following, either:

1. Allowing individual citizens or those acting on their behalf (relatives, neighbors, hired bounty hunters, etc.) to go after wrong-doers...
2. Somehow trying to keep a citizen-checked judiciary, and letting that issue warrants to privately-hired bounty hunters or for government agents only on the basis of evidence...

I lean toward 2...

"Government agents" in #2 opens a very large can of worms: it implies that there's a govenment to employ these agents, and that its agents have special powers--namely, to "go after wrong doers," even if only "on the basis of evidence." Those special people with their special powers are guaranteed to be the oppressors of future generations. Ultimately, it will become their decision what constitutes "evidence," and what constitutes a "wrong doer." It can be no other way.

First, the supposedly independent, supposedly limited citizens' judiciary would without fail evolve into a full-time, professional judiciary--after all, the magic of specialization works there as it does everywhere. People who really want that job will become experts at getting it, whether that involves getting elected or whatever mechanism. If judges themselves are selected purely at random by lottery, then the power-hungry will move into supporting positions from which they will command significant influence over the clueless folks chosen at random.

Once the professional judiciary is solidly in place, it will immediately form incestuous relationships with whoever enforces the laws--these "government agents". Both win: the judges get direct access to an enforcement staff; the enforcers get judges who will accommodate their wishes. Once the separation of powers is weakened sufficiently, we're back where we are now: a monolithic ruling class made up of judges, cops and their supporting bureaucrats.

The key ingredient that makes this scenario work is that, way back at the beginning, we assumed that these agents were special, and had special business being armed, and special powers to apprehend wrong-doers. In other words, as soon as you gave up your gun and decided to let someone else take responsibility for your safety, the end result was guaranteed.

My problem with many people who call themselves anarchists is that they want me to accept #1 without discussing it...

If you want these "agents" to have power over you, that's ultimately your business. You have the right to go submit to slavery, just as you have the right to commit suicide or to overeat. But you appear to be casually assuming that those agents will also have power over me. I rather object to that! What gives you the right to tell me that I must submit to some master? How would you like it if I came and told you that you must submit to my imam, and I can't agree to let you out of your burqa without some serious discussion first?