Who Were the Sea Peoples?

Often anarchists say something like, "I'm fine if you people want to live in a statist society: just let me out!" OK, so let's say the U.S. tomorrow offers any individual or political sub-entity the right of secession. (I think this actually might be a good idea: the approach Czechoslovakia took to the Slovaks is probably the right approach here: you want to go, fine, go.) Would any present American state do this? I doubt it. But would you personally? Your initial reaction might be, "Hell yeah! I wouldn't have to pay taxes anymore, and I'd be free of all the oppressive U.S. laws regarding drugs and other victimless crimes." But what would your situation actually be, if you individually seceded? Well, you wouldn't have to pay taxes, but for any goods you planned on exporting to the U.S., you would have to pay customs duties. And assuming the W.T.O. is not going to let you join as individual, those duties could be as high as the U.S. wants t...

In Jonathan Catalan's comment section, Robert Roddis writes about "a system of voluntarily but strictly enforced property rights." If everyone has "voluntarily" accepted this system of property rights, why in the world would it need to be "strictly enforced"?! Well, it would need to be strictly enforced against those who had never voluntarily agreed to it . Just like every "statist" law is voluntary, if you agree with it, and coercive, if you don't. No difference at all.

In the comments section of this post , Bob Murphy writes, "There is clearly a meaning to the phrase 'spontaneous order.' I'm not saying you have to be an anarchist if you like the idea--Hayek himself wasn't an anarchist. But it is an abuse of language to say the state is an example of spontaneous order." Yes, indeed, to claim the state is a spontaneous order would be stupid. Which is why I never said that, nor anything even very close to that. But Bob's confusion is understandable, given all the ideological baggage that has been heaped upon these concepts, and others may partake of it, so let me explain this at the top level, rather than in the comments. Set aside for a moment the matter of the state, and let us turn to the firm. The firm is (largely) a planned order. But, 1500 years ago, no one said to himself, "You know, let me invent an economy full of firms!" No the firm is a (largely) planned order that arose spontaneously. As must...

The other day, I saw a poster on Facebook showing a quote from Jeff Tucker to the effect that "most of our lives take place under anarchy." (I quote from memory.) This is similar to the question one sees that, since spontaneous social orders appear with great regularity, what the heck do we need government leaders for? Let's examine this idea a bit further and see what is going on. There are many phenomena in the world, life being one of the most notable, that are referred to as self-organizing. (I would prefer saying that they are organized by an inner principle, but no mind, we will use the popular term.) No one has to construct a bacterium: they emerge spontaneously from other bacteria. Let us say someone notices this, and decides it is a lovely thing, all this inner-directed activity, a beautiful anarchy, let us say. But they notice one exception: certain creatures, humans foremost amongst them, have developed brains, organs of top-down control, that direct the a...

Well, what do you know? Gangs take over ! Why, this is an almost unimaginable result. Who in the world could have predicted such a thing ?

In the comments to this post , Jonathan Catalan writes: "It sounds less ridiculous [to say that the market can provide law] when you acknowledge that when a lot of people say 'markets' they mean spontaneous order (of which market institutions are oftentimes a product of)." It is quite true that humans are capable of spontaneously evolving an institution to handle law. Over several thousands of years, starting from a situation in which all humans lived in small bands with custom but no law, without anyone planning its appearance, humans spontaneously arrived at... the state! It is true that at times states have tried to plan the economic order, but nobody ever sat down and said "Let's create the state!" The state may impose planned orders, but the state itself is a spontaneous order . If what you want is a spontaneously evolved institution to handle the provision of law, you've got it already.