An armed individual who just wishes to be left the hell alone will last
longest under which system?
a. Communism
b. A corrupt Democracy that is racing to embrace Fascism
c. Anarchy
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The World’s Most Direct Political QuizJuly 8th, 2004 |
 46 comments to The World’s Most Direct Political Quiz |
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I’ll have to vote C
Depends on how well armed the individual really is.
Well, there was this one marine in WWII who managed to held off ’bout 2000 Japanese Imperial Marine for a couple of days. The Japanese CO apologized to his man in his suicide note for not able to take out this single man.
I’m going with B. I don’t trust anarchy at all.
Uh……. it depends. What do you mean by ‘last longest’, survive or succeed in his/her wishes?
Will this be followed by “A disarmed individual….”?
What is the point of this quiz? Would one’s ideology reflect one’s answer? I don’t understand.
Hard to say. Obviously the drafter wants to push you to C, but anarchy is by its nature hard to predict and highly variable, so its hard to land there with any confidence.
(b) would work for a while if the individual used influence and leverage to get special favors from the proto-fascist government. These favors, of course, don’t last forever and there’s always the scary chance one organ of government doesn’t communicate this privilege to another.
But (c) would work more in the long run. Without the greatest violator of rights around (the state), a determinedly isolationist individual would have the freedom to find where and how he wanted to live and full freedom to defend himself.
If your truly just wish to be left alone and are reasonably poor, a and b work ok. Both will at some random time come for the gun, but it isn’t obvious which moves first. Both will take out political opponents first – someone who just wants to be “left alone” won’t be political.
In anarchy someone will come try to steal your stuff pretty quick, if you have anything. But the poor may be left alone.
So, if you are poor, it doesn’t matter, maybe c. If you are rich or middle class – b.
I would say B. In my favorite libertarian paradise, Haiti, a single armed individual will last about five minutes unless he is part of a recognized street gang or an organized crime family. You either join one of those two organizations or die because they sure aren’t interested in individuals carrying guns.
Perhaps we could include a fourth option:
D. A society in which people are jealous of their freedom but understand that cooperative behavior to limit individual power is in everyone’s interest. So they institute organizations which provide for communal defense against both foreign and domestic (like street gangs) attackers.
Concur with David.
Every armed individual in every truly anarchic country I’ve ever been in, only lasts as long as he doesn’t encounter two armed individuals who decide they fancy his wristwatch. B – but only by virtue of the fact that it takes a while for fascists to really get control of a country.
Of course if we’re living in a fantasy land of utopian politics, where many big-L libertarians seem to reside most of the time, then of course the answer is C.
But then again, your neighbors in Political Fantasy Land include contented and well fed Marxist peasants, noble citizen statesmen of Democracy, and Rousseau’s noble savages who, in spite of a dreadful lack of clothes, car, food or money, seem to be be healthy and get laid an awful lot. So there would be no reason that you’d need the gun because your neighbors would be fine people…
For A)
An armed individual won’t last under a communist government at all. He’s an enemy of the state, and the state will use any means to remove him. Including turning his neighborhood to vapor. Or bombing where he’s hiding.
For B)
A fair while, until the government decides that those who want to ‘shoot’ should join the military and be part of the ‘system'(it’s happened before). In which case you’ll be left with a ‘select’ few with guns who will fight to gain back which they’ve lost…some who won’t care…and live it out until they are caught…and they will.
For C)
It gives you the best and most reliable chance of survival. The only thing you have to realize is…you must have overwhelming firepower, and you have to have the biggest and baddest way’s to remain safe. They key is to be prepared for it…that ensures your ability to survive.
Option C seems to give you the best chance of survivial, anarchy makes ‘you’ the law.
Option C. You’ll be left alone until someone comes along that wants what you have and is able to take it from you.
In order to ensure you’re always left alone under C, you must be constantly re-evaluating your level of armed defense vs. the capabilities of anyone who may want to bother you. You’ll need to be eternally vigilant.
If you are a tough SOB, you could thrive under this system. You could ensure you’re left alone by killing those who would bother you first.
So, C provides the best way for those who really are tough and clever.
Option B would be easier in the short term, because you could use politics to help in your defense. You would not be totally depending on your firepower for protection. You could use money to gain the favor of the corrupt people in power to aid in your defense.
In the long term, B is riskier because it relies more on outside forces for complete protection. You could find yourself, and those you support, out of power and end up in a pretty bad situation. But, if you aren’t tough enough to provide for your own defense, B is probably the best option.
Here’s the archive of the original Quiz. Hit the “Up the spout” link for more good stuff by the late Mark Penman.
I Pick C, with a Crucial Modifier
I’d pick a modified C even over “liberal democracy”.
What’s the point of this quiz? The question is spectacularly ill-posed.
(In case it’s a sort of Rorschach test: I think it looks like a butterfly holding a tire iron.)
B. Anarchy is not something that can be sustained. It is always transitional, eventually succumbing to the enforced order of an upstart local power or a neighboring power. The survivability of an armed individual in anarchy depends on a) his ability to avoid the armed thugs (whose numbers multiply during anarchy), and b) the nature of those who eventually come into power.
Er, guys…? It’s, like,… a joke…? You know, fun.
Why would one simplify such matters into a multiple choice but for a laugh? I mean, especially when we spend most our waking hours here on Samizdata.net railing against communists f***ers, tyranny of democracy and barking moonbat anarchists.
Can I go for answer
D) A classical liberal society with a small but strong goverment.
One that protects its citizen from interference either from within or without and very little else
B depends on the competence of the government.
I’ll give two answers for the individual to “last longest” with dignity:
i) Potentially, all three options, if you are armed enough.
ii) More probably, Option C: with an optimal evolution, if you are not alone against anarchy, it could bring a Constitutional, representative government, protecting life and property under the rule of law.
Chris Josephson wrote: “Option C. You’ll be left alone until someone comes along that wants what you have and is able to take it from you”
Well, someone who wants what I have and is able to take it from me has already come along: the government. 😉
B because absolute anarchy would inevitably lead to authoritarianism. And, of course, one needs to look at what type of anarchy we are talking about.
B because absolute anarchy would inevitably lead to authoritarianism. And, of course, one needs to look at what type of anarchy we are talking about. And how said anarchy came about.
I would say B. In my favorite libertarian paradise, Haiti, a single armed individual will last about five minutes unless he is part of a recognized street gang or an organized crime family. You either join one of those two organizations or die because they sure aren’t interested in individuals carrying guns.
David isn’t alone in this kind of thinking. Why do people assume that without a state to guide our actions, we suddenly degenerate into brutal thieves who act on whims of greed? That’s an ugly way to view humanity. I certainly won’t dispute the violence that is racking nonstate areas of the world, but the Somalia analogy gets tired after a while, Haiti’s specifics notwithstanding.
“Why do people assume that without a state to guide our actions, we suddenly degenerate into brutal thieves who act on whims of greed?”
We assume that enough people will degenerate to be a severe problem because this always happens whenever a government’s not around.
Er, guys…? It’s, like,… a joke…? You know, fun.
There are people who, weirdly, think anarchy is workable – or at least imagine themselves as the most heavily-armed and therefore safest inhabitants of an anarchic region. So it’s not especially obvious as ironic, much less a joke.
There are people who, weirdly, think anarchy is workable – or at least imagine themselves as the most heavily-armed and therefore safest inhabitants of an anarchic region. So it’s not especially obvious as ironic, much less a joke.
None of the people I know who have knowledgable market anarchist views see polycentric legalism as workable because they will be the most heavily armed people in the region. Rather they believe that multiple market providers of rights protection are have much less incentive to engage in aggression against individuals than democratic governments do. They are familiar with the economic structures of monopolies and how it relates to dispersed costs and narrow benefits.
I find it shocking that the same sneering condescension borne of ignorance with which ignorant statists see minarchist libertarians is used by minarchist libertarians against free market anarchist libertarians. Yet they continue to rail against the monopolistic state all the while not realizing just how high the deck is stacked against them due to the utopian view that force monopolies can be constrained.
If you truly believe that it is a “joke” that people hold such views, at the least, you could prove to yourself that it is a joke by arguing against them. If you want to prove to yourself (again perhaps) that these views are “weird”, follow the link above to my blog and tell me what is wrong with my post. I would love to learn something and change my views.
We assume that enough people will degenerate to be a severe problem because this always happens whenever a government’s not around.
Really?
I needed no state supervision when I woke up this morning, drove to work, worked, drove home for lunch, at lunch, drove back to work, worked, and I won’t need state supervision when I drive home and then hang out with friends later tonight. I’d gather this applies to roughly most of the people in America, given the fact that there isn’t a 1:1 ratio of police to citizen and citizens aren’t constantly in the presence of police.
Furthermore, I live in Texas and there are parts of the state that have vast distances between cities, homes, and government offices. And yet, I hear of no general rioting, looting, and murdering out there.
You don’t need a government to have peace and civility.
You don’t need a government to have peace and civility.
But you do need protection. People have a tendency to kill each other; the 20th century is proof enough of that. Even if you simply want to be left alone, there will be many who want to kill you, and they’ll find a justification to do so (“infidel”, “bourgeoius”, etc). However, rather than having only body providing protection, there should market of providers.
Makes you wonder why the modern state evolved from the competing guilds/armed gangs/local big men.
Actually, the concept of a market of protection providers in the absence of a state with a monopoly of ultimate force is superficially attractive and workable. But only superficially. It assumes that in the absence of an ultimate authority there would be a free market, when in reality there almost certainly would not since companies tend not to actually want free markets.
I think if you want a free market in anything, you need a state (or the practical equivalent) with a monopoly of ultimate force to enforce this freedom by constraining the natural corporate tendency to oligopoly, cartel and monopoly. For reasons which should be patent, I don’t think you can leave this to other corporate interests to enforce – or if you did, those other corporate interests would become a de facto state, which makes the anarchic experiment somewhat pointless and short-lived. So I think if you expect a market completely devoid of regulation to remain in any meaningful sense free, I’d really like some of whatever you’re smoking.
The reason why we have states is not because it’s some horrid control-freak conspiracy to do down the individual, nor because it’s licenced robbery, but rather for the simple and unglamorous reason that it just happens to work better than the alternative. The state evolved out of anarchy or near-anarchy because it’s more efficient and effective. Why is reversing the trend of recorded human history considered progress?
EG
Makes you wonder why the modern state evolved from the competing guilds/armed gangs/local big men.
It’s a matter of degrees. History is the story of how the individual has broken free from guilds and armed gangs more than in prior times. The fact that liberal democracy exists at all, allowing the majority to periodically replace the rulers of the all is a testament to the fact that societies evolve and change over time. No longer do Caesars rule the land.
It assumes that in the absence of an ultimate authority there would be a free market, when in reality there almost certainly would not since companies tend not to actually want free markets.
Plenty of things lack an “ultimate authority”. The Lord of the Rings movies became wildly popular all over the world without any ultimate authority declaring them to be “good stuff”.
I think if you want a free market in anything, you need a state (or the practical equivalent) with a monopoly of ultimate force to enforce this freedom by constraining the natural corporate tendency to oligopoly, cartel and monopoly.
And yet, markets exist without any sort of ultimate force threat. Trade between individuals located in different nations happens everyday. My blog server is located in Europe. I am located in the US. Yet, I carry out a transaction with it via my credit card company to make mutually beneficial exchange without any overseer. Reputation serves as the enforcement vehicle. My credit rating results in one company one company allowing me to use its borrowed money. Seeking a reputation for being reliable and cheap, my webhost has an incentive to create a good product.
Similarly, there is no world govt, yet Western nations exist generally peacefully among each other, engage in trade, treaties, associations.
For reasons which should be patent, I don’t think you can leave this to other corporate interests to enforce – or if you did, those other corporate interests would become a de facto state, which makes the anarchic experiment somewhat pointless and short-lived. So I think if you expect a market completely devoid of regulation to remain in any meaningful sense free, I’d really like some of whatever you’re smoking.
Corporations change from merely providing services that individuals desire to creatures of the state precisely because the monopolisitc state exists. If a corporation has a choice between spending $2 million dollars to convince lawmakers to enact tariffs that cost the 250 million citizens of the US $1 each (netting it $250 million) vs. spending $2 million to reduce the size of govt netting the 250 million individuals $1 each, which option will it take? Most likely the first one. This is because the economics of monopoly enable narrow interests to capture control of entire govt. It results in the economics of narrow interests and dispersed costs.
It is not regulatory capture by corporations that I wish to emulate, but rather precisely that which I wish to avoid. Avoiding regulatory capture is a public good, meaning that individuals have to make voluntary contributions of virtue (in fighting special interests, resisting the incentive to use the govt to further one’s own ends, etc) to fight the power of govt. Yet, in a polycentric legal system, law itself is a private good because control of law is proportional to the resources spent, and narrow interests cannot capture the entire monopoly, because no monopoly exists.
The reason why we have states is not because it’s some horrid control-freak conspiracy to do down the individual, nor because it’s licenced robbery, but rather for the simple and unglamorous reason that it just happens to work better than the alternative. The state evolved out of anarchy or near-anarchy because it’s more efficient and effective. Why is reversing the trend of recorded human history considered progress?
The reason states exist is because the vast, vast majority of the population believe they need to exist. 200 years ago, before Ricardo and Smith, the vast, vast majority of the population also believed that protecting industries through tariffs was required for economic survival. Luckily, some “barking moonbat” economists like Ricardo, Cobden, and Bright came along and said otherwise. Similarly, 300 years ago, liberal democracy was believed to be a pipedream in the face of omnipresent monarchy. Luckily, our liberal forefathers thought otherwise and the American Founders made a practical demonstration of those ideas. 150 years ago, outright slavery was an institution that had existed always, and always would. Abolitionists in Western societies thought otherwise.
Polycentric law would not be a “reversal” of history, but merely a continuation in the right direction of freeing the individual from the gang by degrees over time.
“David isn’t alone in this kind of thinking. Why do people assume that without a state to guide our actions, we suddenly degenerate into brutal thieves who act on whims of greed?”
Because that’s the way the real world tends to work. No one has ever really been able to use history to refute Hobbes on this matter. BTW, in case anyone had any doubts on the way I would vote the answer is B. There’s always some weenie crying about how democracy is corrupt and heading towards “facism” but the fact remains that democracy tends to be more respectful of the rights of its citizens than all other forms of government.
Gabriel:
That would include such worthy gentlemen as your very own Brian Micklethwait (Link), then?
Assuming the companies care enough about it, yes. Corporations DO NOT WANT a free market, they want dominance through cartel, oligopoly or monopoly. Why is it so hard to imagine a group of companies colluding to stitch up the market and to hell with reputation or what the punters think they want? This, after all, is what companies really do when they can get away with it, so why would anarchy be any better?
I don’t think corporations are creatures of the state. They are subservient to it, because they must be in law, but that’s not the same thing. I think you’re right about the option the company would take, but naive about why. The company wants an easy life and to be in the position to make the most money for the least effort, effort including such things as increasing productivity, improving management, developing new products, etc. This is why they would support tariffs. If either option would net the company the same amount of cash, which one do you think it would take and why?
Well, if they have sufficient resources they can get as close as makes no difference, and then, behold!, you have what is essentially a state all over again. Imagine, if you like, a security/justice corporation as dominant in its market as say Microsoft is in the computer software market. What do you think might happen? Why would it be different in practical terms from a state?
EG
The reason states exist is because the vast, vast majority of the population believe they need to exist.
I would like to dispute this point. While tariffs and other economic barriers were factors, a greater one was the issue of national defense.
It was more like, “Would you prefer my gang of thugs which treat you better, or that other gang of thugs that’ll make your life hell? Now pay up!!!”
The power of states rose when feudalism gave way to anarchy, simply because the organizational capabilities of a state in gathering resources(taxes) was so much more potent, a necessity in fielding armies to fend off that other group of thugs(eg. nations). In order to defend themselves, citizenry had no choice but to pay their thuggish overlords, often of the same stock as they were, taxes in order to avoid even worse from other thugs.
Why not try to defend themselves, as some would suggest? Because when you’re armed with a gun, the enemy has an artillery cannon. If you have an artillery cannon, he’ll bomb you from the air. The power of an individual is hardly a match for the harnessed power, training, and hardware of a trained military. See: Iraq.
TWG
It sounds a lot like you are making the very arguments I would make in supporting polycentric legalism. Businesses (as opposed to large corporations), in general, provide services that people desire. They and the consumer partake in mutually beneficial exchanges. Businesses in the free market find it nearly impossible to collude. This is because collusion is a public good. The benefit of collusion is dispersed among all the colluding partners. Contrastingly, the benefit of cheating in a collusion scheme is captured entirely by the cheater. Thus, the incentive for cheating in a colusion scheme is greater than faithful participation in a collusion scheme. Breaking collusion is both profitable for the cheater and it hurts his competitor-colluders.
Businessmen have tried to collude in the free market since there was a free market and found it impossible. So they turned to the one place where free market does not exit – the law. Since the law is a monopoly, it caters to the highest bidder in a fixed-sum game. There could be only one ‘winner’ who decided what the one law would be. Thus, the more money businesses had, the greater influence it had on the law. Which lead to incentives to greater size of corporations to handle legal manuevering and create ways around legal obstacles.
In contrast to a free market, in this monopolistic market of law creation and enforcement, collusion is profitable. Different corporations, desiring to be free of the market constraints of competition and consumer sovereignty find it profitable to collude. They pay off lawmakers to create special legal status, all enforced at the point of a gun, for themselves. Of course, they have to declare some sort of justification for doing so. Thus, doctors in the US who don’t want competition collude under the guise of licensing with the justification of “protecting the public”. One set of US corporations might collude to pay off US lawmakers to raise the prices of goods purchased from foreign businesses (tariffs) with the justification of “protecting American workers”. Another set of corporations might collude to prevent smaller business from raising safety standards by paying off regulatory agencies designed to, ironically, raise safety standards.
If a bunch of gas stations in a town decide to collude and raise prices to $10/gallon (as opposed to, say, $2/gallon), there would be massive incentives to cheat because it would bring much more business to the gas station that did. Consumers could purchase from the gas station that lowered prices, and soon, the other gas station would have to lower prices to compete. In contrast, when a corporation pays off the law, consumers cannot choose another law. There is only one law. Consumers cannot buy a market prices from a foreign business under tariffs precisely because the law is monopolistic and backed by the use of force.
The general point is that collusion is unprofitable in a free market, but highly profitable under a monopolistic legal system. This is the fundamental economic problem with any and all states, and why all the complaining and politicking and liberty-meme-spreading is ultimately doomed to failure. The odds are simply too stacked against us in a democracy.
Competing protection agencies in a free market for law creation and enforcement would have a difficult time colluding because there would be no monopoly to buy off. Agencies working for a profit have it in their best interest to cheat in a collusion scheme because it would be profitable and hurt the competition.
The more agencies there are, the more difficult collusion becomes. Most police forces in the US cover jurisdictions of less than 100,000 people. In a country of 250 million, it is likely that there would be hundreds to thousands (or more) protection agencies.
One reason Microsoft is so large is due to the existence of copyright, which is its own separate issue. Regardless, Microsoft offers a product that millions of consumers exchange their own money for voluntarily, even though free alternative operating systems exist. I can always choose another operating system and software if I don’t like Microsoft. I can live the rest of my life without purchasing another product from Microsoft if I so desire. If a protection agency became highly successful even while many alternatives existed in the market, it would be because it provided a service that people valued and willingly exchanged for the fruits of their labor.
Frankly, I find the fingers-in-ears approach to market anarchism while berating the monopolistic legal system while praising democracy to be highly contradictory and irrational. It seems like complaining that you get mugged regularly on the way home from work, but continuing to walk through the ghetto every night instead of taking a safer way home.
Yes, I agree that self-defense is one reason why states exist. But states serve mutiple monopolistic functions, of which territorial defense is but one function. Other functions include law creation, legal adjudication, and law enforcement. The latter functions are much more conducive to market forces than is the economic good of territorial defense. It would likely be the most difficult to produce in a free market because it is a public good.
Yet, public goods problems are overcome all the time. Free newspapers, concerts, fireworks shows, charity, patriotism, and leadership are all public goods that whose benefits are widely dispersed yet are provided by free individuals acting of their own free will. Advertising, entrepreneurship, and civil societal norms are cultural institutions and traditions which help create the private provision of public goods.
The alternatives are not simply individual vs state. When individuals come together, they do not have to form a state. They can also form voluntary assocations, markets, businesses, co-operatives, mutual aid organizations, etc. Organization and robustness towards economic ends can be provided via the market as well as the state.
The Columbian Cocaine networks seem to be working pretty well in B.
None of them. This is “number of angels on a pinhead” debate.
The alternatives are not simply individual vs state. When individuals come together, they do not have to form a state. They can also form voluntary assocations, markets, businesses, co-operatives, mutual aid organizations, etc. Organization and robustness towards economic ends can be provided via the market as well as the state.
No, they don’t. But come a certain scale, and throwing in the n-squared law, an organization, however voluntary in the midst of anarchism, WILL become a de facto state.
In the best case scenario, perhaps the ringleaders will come to their senses and dissolve the whole thing when there is no longer a need for such a ‘state’.
And oh yeah, pigs can fly!^_^
TWG
PS. I liked that pink, winged hippopotamus.
I have to vote a tie between b and c
Which is the essential problem with anarcho-capitalism – it won’t work because a state will inevitably and pretty quickly emerge one way or another.
Apart from anything else, the putative anarcho-capitalist really needs to anchor his boots firmly on the ground and think about the reality of the world rather than economic theory. Society generally works better when there is ONE legal code, system of courts, judiciary, etc. This is simply because everyone knows that everyone else must (in theory) play by the same rules, and that these rules are well enough known to all. Amazingly enough, people (and companies) actually like that sort of thing, however theoretically impure and nasty it may be.
EG
Euan and Wobbly,
In a couple of posts above, I argued why collusion would be very difficult in a free market for law enforcement. It is what David Friedman calls being on the “right side of the public goods trap”. Yet, instead of addressing my arguments, you continue to claim that collusion would inevitably occur. It’s one to to make the claim. It’s another to actually ask why and when collusion occurs. Economics is filled with phrases such as “cutthroat competition”, “the profit motive”, and “self-interest”. It’s important to study under what scenarios collusion gives way to competition and vice versa. If you have any economic arguments that show how and why motive to compete would give way to the motive to collude, please give them.
There are both economic and social reasons why collusion would take place:
Socially:
A sufficiently large proportion of people like and want authority over others. They become politicians, bureaucrats, etc. But they can also end up in powerful positions in companies.
You have more authority when you collude than when you compete. Furthermore, you can make sure your friends share your authority. This is a natural human tendency, to go for the maximum gain at the minimum effort, and in the absence of anything stopping people acting like this, they will act exactly like this. Go somewhere where the rule of law hardly applies and you will see that this IS the way anarchy works.
Economically:
In a cartel situation (consider OPEC) you can charge more or less what you want (within reason). Your wealth and influence can help you raise the bar for entry to your marketplace sufficiently high that it is economically difficult or impossible for new competitors to emerge, hence you and your mates retain your power, influence and wealth. The oil and oil products industry is an example of a rigged cartel in which major players, companies as well as states, have considerable wealth and power and show no signs of wishing to give up these desirable things. More especially in the US, the sugar industry is another albeit smaller-scale example.
The motive to collude is generally and in the absence of any ultimate authority frowning upon it, more powerful than the motive to compete.
It’s probably more important to remove one’s nose from economics textbooks and see for oneself how people behave in the REAL (as opposed to theoretical) worls. Get out more, observe how people really operate, and you will see that anarchy is not a viable political or economic solution in practice, even if it is wonderful in theory.
You NEED a state or something essentially equivalent to it to enforce a market, otherwise you will inevitably get a cartel. This is reality, whatever the textbooks might say.
EG
Theoretically if an individual really wanted to be left alone and kept quiet then that person should be able to last quite a while in any society. The problem is with the question is that no government is altogether comfortable with the idea of it’s people being armed.Governments in general don’t really trust the people they govern. The corupt democracy turning into facists AKA the USA seems to be okay with it’s populas being armed … I have no explaination for that … The comminists are ussually pretty lazy but the police wake up and all hell breaks loose…. so again it’s all up to the idividuals “want” to be left alone….or is he/she just saying that and then going out of their way to be not left alone?
As to the anarchists who knows the variables are to many to predict….is our armed man lives in the bush hunts traps and stays out of the way useing a barter syestem …. a life time …. if not then my guess is the gun gets passed around the community.