Honorable mention goes to Doug Casey for “Anarchy Is the Solution to the Evil Idiocy of the State” :“Nothing can be done and you are a moron for trying” is a snotty-yet-unshakable Foundation Stone of the Mogambo Grandiose Economic Theory (MGET), which, as a corollary, also says that you should always bet against the government using a fiat currency over the long term because that particular bet has always paid off, paying out unbelievable odds, which means you should be buying gold, silver and oil with Both Freaking Hands (BFH).
I mean, consider that the entire last 4,500 years of history should show the modern, sophisticated 21st-century person, like you and me, that everything that can be tried has been tried, over and over, in wild, desperate attempts to preserve the booms and prevent the busts at the end of long money-fueled booms, over and over, and although everything that can be tried was tried, over and over, everything they tried failed in the end, over and over, sometimes tragically so.
In light of such damning evidence, plus the fact that It Is Happening Again Just Like It Always Has (IIHAJLIAH), it would seem to prove, to all but certified idiots who could possibly think otherwise, that nothing can be done, and that is why it is so vitally important that countries not get into this ugly economic situation in the first place, which we wouldn’t be in if we had had a stable money supply, like under the gold standard, where it powered the glory of free enterprise, resulting in a combination of forces that worked so well, for so long, for so many, to such marvelous effect, that it raised this country from a collection of religious cults eking out a subsistence living into the economic Colossus Of The World (COTW) where a rising tide truly lifted all boats!
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And I said so, too, in my fortnightly report for Xlaxxar, Supreme Overlord of this sector of the galaxy, who really isn’t interested in anything around here ever since that party at Snorgli’s house, that little butt-kisser, in the Andromeda district, where Xlaxxar got really blitzed and said, “Mogambo reports that Earth people, individually and collectively, owe much, much more than they can possibly repay, thanks to central banks constantly creating so much money and credit that it fueled a multi-decade indulgence in an embarrassment of financed/leveraged private and governmental feel-good gluttony. Now the inevitable bust-after-the-boom is here, they are surprised and angry! Hahaha!”
Well, everyone at the party agreed that such imbecility showed real stupidity on the part of Earthlings, and everyone started joining Xlaxxar in laughing at Earthlings and ridiculing them, waving their tentacles around and making farting sounds using various kitchen utensils, a degree of contempt that resulted in a “new social order” where me, the failure of my mission here on this planet you call Earth, Earth itself, and the creatures upon it that use a fiat currency all have a social standing at an all-time low in the omniverse, which means that nobody wants to be around me or process my request for a transfer, and so I will be stuck here for a long time because there will be no spaceship arriving to take me home as long as Xlaxxar is running the show.
Thankfully, I have gold, silver and oil to protect me against the inflation in prices that will doom this planet, and unless you have a spaceship coming to pick you up and take you home – and pretty soon, too – I suggest you do the same.
In point of fact, anarchism is the gentlest of all political systems. It contemplates no institutionalized coercion. It’s the watercourse way, where everything is allowed to rise or fall naturally to its own level. An anarchic system is necessarily one of free-market capitalism. Any services that are needed and wanted by people — like the police or the courts — would be provided by entrepreneurs, who’d do it for a profit.
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So, let’s start with a definition. Many people think of anarchy as being chaos. They see riots and chaos on TV from some place in conflict and think, “What anarchy!” ... But chaos and bomb throwing are not anarchy. Chaos is the actual opposite of anarchy. Anarchy is simply a form of political organization that does not put one ruler, or ruling body, over everyone in a society. ... In any event, there’s no conflict whatsoever between anarchy and the rule of law, since there are private forms of law and governance. That’s what Common Law is all about. ...
But I never said a truly free, anarchic society would be a utopia; it would simply be a society that emphasizes personal responsibility and doesn’t have any organized institutions of coercion. Perfect harmony is not an option for imperfect human beings. Social order, however, is possible without the state. In fact, the state is so dangerous because it necessarily draws the sociopaths — who like coercion — to itself.
What holds society together is not a bunch of strict laws and a brutal police force — it’s basically peer pressure, moral suasion, and social opprobrium. Look at a restaurant. The bills get paid not because anybody is afraid of the police, but for the three reasons I just mentioned.
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A more obviously government-like example is Disneyworld, which is nothing less than a private city, complete with numerous rules that would be called laws if it were run by politicians instead of a corporation.
Why would anyone go along with rules that aren’t laws? Because they want to go to Disneyworld. They agree, and for the most part, they go along, and if they cause too much trouble, Disney kicks ‘em out — which they have every right to do as owners of their private property.
As Pareto’s Law indicates, there’s inevitably a bad element in most places. 80% of folks are truly decent, and 20% are perhaps problematical. And 20% of that 20% are bad apples. You have to have a culture that keeps them hiding under rocks, rather than rising to the top — as they wind up doing quite often in government.
The reaction of a person to the idea of a truly free society is an excellent moral litmus test. The more negative the reaction, the more likely you’re dealing with a sociopath.
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... If you have people who’ve been brought up to believe that the only limits on what you can or should do is the force exerted by the authorities, it’s no surprise that when the greater power disappears, they reach out to take whatever they want, by force. ... Actually, ex-police states are the most dangerous places — like Russia in the early ‘90s, the Congo in the early ‘60s, or Haiti today, because they have a culture of repression that’s like a pressure cooker. When the lid comes off, it’s a mess.
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Well, it’s really not that complicated. We can probably agree that it’s wrong for me to point a gun at you and take all your money. Some people might feel sorry for me if I did that to buy medicine for my dying mother, but it’s still a crime, because it violates your human rights. And it’s still a crime if I ask someone else to do the same thing for me — and still a crime if a whole bunch of people vote to ask someone with a spiffy uniform and a badge to do the same thing.
It wouldn’t matter any more if a group of people calling themselves Congress went through some rituals that involved a leader putting some ink on some paper and said a violation of your rights was now “legal” than if a witch-doctor told a tribe’s warriors that it was okay to take slaves and sacrifice them to the gods. Laws are just a “civilized” man’s taboos.
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Here’s the rub; imagine that the Quebecois decided unanimously that they really didn’t want to be part of Canada anymore but wanted to be an independent, French-speaking country. So they peacefully vote and take their marbles to play their own game. In doing so, they don’t violate anyone’s rights, so there is no moral way the government of Canada can stop them. They could use force, but that would violate the rights of the Quebecois, who would not be hurting anyone. And if the Quebecois could do this, so could Disneyworld, or your neighborhood — or you individually.
There’s no moral way to prevent peaceful secession — but if a state doesn’t prevent secession, it soon disintegrates. People always want to do things differently, and they would if the threat of force from the state didn’t stop them. Brute force — although gussied up with myth, propaganda, and red, white, and blue bunting — is what holds the state together. That force is ugly and corrupting.
No matter how benign a state might be, even one that found a way to fund all of its activities without resorting to force, it must still violate the fundamental human right of self-determination in order to preserve its own existence. That’s why the state is inherently a criminal organization — it must rely on force. Even the best of them are never based entirely on consent of the governed; there is coercion of the non-consenting minority. And there are always some who do not consent.
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