[theblueadept111]

This article explain why the author calls himself an anarchist, but not what he defines "anarchist" to mean. It is simply someone who opposes any form of state government? Even if the majority of the people want state government? If so, by what means would the author seek to impose anarchy against the will of people, and how would that be better than the problems of democracy that he rails against?

[randallsquared]

Except in unanimity, there is no "will of the people".

There are two parts to what states do: things that any individual can do, and things that only the state can do. Anarchy is just the limit of the observation that if one person doesn't have the right to do something, then two do not either.

Of course, this sidesteps a lot of questions, particularly about what "the right to do something" means and where it comes from.

In spite of the fact that Raymond is a hacker, I'm not sure that Hacker News is an appropriate venue for this discussion, though. :)

[knieveltech]

Nobody said anything about imposing anarchy on anyone. The author is postulating that government in all common forms has consistently failed in it's (implied) responsibility to function without inflicting undue hardship on the governed and in lieu of acceptably functional structured alternatives, a switch to pure anarchism may be the only way for the people to avoid said hardships at the hands of government.

Personally I think ditching a couple hundred years of (largely arbitrary) legislation, not to mention taxation, is pretty appealing. Admittedly not everyone in our society is mature enough to cope with a world where nobody's "in charge" and there are some fairly thorny issues surrounding stuff like infrastructure and personal security but several sound proposals (on paper anyway) to deal with these complications have been put forward over the years.

Additional light reading on the subject: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism http://www.infoshop.org/page/AnAnarchistFAQ

[theblueadept111]

To my mind, there is nothing such as "anarchism" except what you see when you look around you, wherever you are. The strong dominate the weak, and when sufficiently organized, they are called "the government". You can't "switch" to anarchy because you can't escape it in the first place. Government is an emergent property of a self-organizing society.

[knieveltech]

Certainly you aren't the first person to postulate that and it's a very valid point, but what if you could get people to organize without coercion? Doesn't that at least sound appealing? Like something worth striving for?

[theblueadept111]

I think the humans are hard-wired to view/organize each other into hierarchies. All social interaction is based on the currency of hierarchical standing to some degree. You can't even have a disagreement with someone without it being interpreted as a 'challenge' to their standing. So coercion isn't really the best way to explain why one person (strong) dominates another (weak). Yes, strength determines the outcome, but the reason for the entire dance is to establish the hierarchy.

I don't believe you can have any form of "anarchy" (or any other social system) where people do not struggle to form a hierarchy, because that's what it means to be human, for better or worse.

[pash]

> ...and how would that be better than the problems of democracy that he rails against?

I can't speak for the author, but the general idea is that because anarchy ("no rule") precludes the monopoly on violence that exists in state systems, there is better hope of some force countervailing the worst paroxysms of the majority. Think an extreme form of checks and balances.