I'm asking this as a serious question (not as a troll), because one of my firmly-held principles is that I never argue with anarchists.
In a voluntaryist society, how do you prevent coercive power structures from arising? Anyone who owns a lot of land/factories/newspapers/guns is in a powerful position, and has a plethora of incentives to abuse that power. Please don't misunderstand me, I'm not a communist troll - when I say "abuse," I mean coerce other people who are in weaker positions to associate in ways they'd otherwise not. The most obvious way to do this is if I have a lot of guns and I simply force people to pay me tribute or die. I've always felt that the principles of voluntaryism don't have a good comprehensive answer to this sort of problem beyond simply saying "well, we don't think it's a problem." Prove me wrong?
One last thing: I can see already that people are going to say that I've described modern governments above (i.e., "pay use tribute or we'll use our pile of guns on you"). That may be, but I'm asking you to describe how this would be prevented in your hypothetical society, not arguing that we don't already have it in ours.
Great question, politely worded - and I see that it never actually got an answer, except simply to reassert that once we have no government things will somehow be perfect, so we have to keep aiming for that goal. Call me a fuddy-duddy, but honestly I'm a little shocked by the prevalence of "voluntaryism" and anarchy on this site, given the apparently knock-down objection you put so well. There will always be coercion at least as long as there are scarce resources and humans are humans. We might say that government is the worst solution to this problem, except for all the others.
I suapect that nobody answered my question because the answer is "it's easy! The rest of the people would just band together, form an organization that can coordinate against the would-be coercers, and shut them down."
In other words, we'd just form a government. :)
Thanks for your reply. I may be posting more of this kind of stuff if Steem keeps acting like an anarchist echo chamber; follow me if you want in!
Already followed.
"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." - Albert Einstein
Society/consciousness as whole has some evolving to do before we can realistically consider pie-in-the-sky world peace/resource economies/decentralized power. However even though we may not see the culmination of this evolution, we may be those responsible for initiating change and play our part in the overall evolution of consciousness
In other words, once humans become moral angels, we will not need government. True enough. On that day I too will probably be fine with anarchism. But while humans are not moral angels - which will still be the case for a long, long time, I predict - what do you suggest? Why fight to get rid of a system designed to mitigate the problems when humans are not angels?
As I stated, we are responsible with initiating change - those futurists of us. The evolving consciousness is on a slow path beyond our lifetimes
When you say "pay use tribute or we'll use our pile of guns on you" reminds me more of la Cosa Nostra than big government (haha). Anyways to answer your ever so enigmatic question, I'd have to suggest in order to prevent such rising powerhouses, the rest of the vountary society would have to refuse goods, services, or just straight up NOT doing business with the faction in question. This would prevent any funds from being directed to the group and theoretically shut down the would-be mafia before it gained momentum and/or popularity.
This assumes that you don't start with inequalities. How do you avoid that?
Your answer assumes coordination. You say "the rest of the society" would have to decide to do something, but because there's no government to coordinate them, there is no effective "society" that can make decisions as a unit. There are only individuals, and individuals are vulnerable to coercion.
Well the first step is to not react in fear to what MIGHT happen, and use that as a reason to not do anything. Solutions should be sought when a problem occurs. There is an element of RISK but that is life. I'd rather be FREE and take a risk and have to try to solve that than to have some monolithic entity (of 1 to infinite people) able to dictate how I live my life. Furthermore those power structures already exist, and have existed in EVERY ideology we have ever tried.
So there is a good chance it will happen, but finding a solution depends on resources and people available at the time to address the issue. We cannot know what that situation would be like so it'd be no more than making a random story up to explain it. Does that make any sense?
EDIT: Also... good question. You shouldn't be afraid to argue with anarchists. Other than being well researched if we are civil we can learn from each other. So far the anarchists on steemit seem to be really cool and not condescending. As we grow I'm sure some of the other type will arrive.
Hey! The conversations I've had with you have been very civil, it's true. You're the good kind. :)
Like wise. I will continue to try and keep it that way. I am human though and some days like anyone I'm sure I'll have a bad day where I say some bonehead thing. I'm usually pretty good about apologizing when I do such things. (At least I hope I am). I recognize your name pretty much whenever I see it so I can say I feel the same about you. :)