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RE: The Strongest Evidence That Anarchy Works
The issue with the blind followers is that they lack the experiences and the effective judgement to evaluate their responses. It gets hard to scale anarchy. The best we can hope for individualist anarchy driven by intellectuals to help advance the creation of a just society.
In your ideal, the less capable or willing would still be following the lead of the so-called intellectuals. I don't see how what you are proposing is any different than my comment. There will always be people - probably a majority - that would rather go along to get along. It doesn't matter if there is a state or no state. That shouldn't deter anti-statists. If, when the dust settles, a majority want to just follow the lead of their local notables, so what? The key is that there is no coercive state, not that everyone is uniquely individualistic. That is an impossible goal - that turns anarchism into some sort of messianic religion awaiting the time of the intellectuals to lead the people out of sloth.
unless you have majority of population who are anarchists, you cant claim the society is anarchist. My point is it is extremely hard to get a plural majority of anarchists as most tends to be followers of order set by those in power or with influence. Saying a anarchist society will be ordered suggests a causative effect which wont be true.
Not necessarily. If the state were replaced tomorrow in a given geographical area with multiple options for various functions typically performed by governments (police, arbitration, schooling, etc...) and people had to pick which they used, the so-called followers could simply pick wantonly or follow someone else's opinion - much like people do for car insurance in the US. There would be no State regardless of whether or not the populace thought themselves to be anarchists. There would likely also be collusion amongst a subset of service providers to retain their markets (for policing, schooling, etc...); despite the inefficiency in such collusion, it would also apply a basic order to geographical region.
A plurality of the populace having anarchist views is not necessarily sufficient for anarchy; the availability and use of non-state alternatives to state activities is the required element. That may occur due to the work of an agitating minority and due to a weakness of the state as it inevitably deals with the aftermath of having to reckon with currency and debt issues. Minarchism and later anarchism may be foisted onto the people whether they want it or not.
thanks, very interesting and good counter argument.