Somalia is the exact definition of a stateless society, it is run by war lord gangs. The USA bailed way back when Clinton decided it was fubar after “black hawk down”. The UN’s involvement is limited to attacking pirates, as is Nato’s and the USA’s role there. There are pirates there Gilby. What about anarchy do I need to explain to you ? The USA and the UN, Nato, are fighting pirates there. It is the very definition of a free state in anarchy.
The reason there is no police, courts, justice or prisons is because there is no government there. Taxes are zero. Unless you consider extortion a tax. Since Gilby considers state taxes theft , perhaps he may consider taxes in Somalia kinda high, if he considers robbery or extortion to be taxes. Gun collecting has replaced tax paying.
I ask you again Gilby, why you don’t go to Somalia? Please don’t tell me it is because I don’t understand anarchy . We all know it is because you are ignorant about guns and the fundamental role they play in governance in a society with no state. You are afraid to go there. So am I.
There is a reason most peoples all got together and decided it was better to have taxes. The policeman and fireman must be paid. The judge must follow agreed upon law. Without a state, these basic functions are not there.
He says no taxes is no theft, presumably a good thing. But no taxes seems to increase gun gangs and theft, as the non existent cops and penal system means you must fight battles and win, or be robbed. Or it seems to be that way in every country I have ever heard of throughout all of history.
People seemed to make a very credible case for pure communism in the 30’s, 40’s, 50’s, but less so as time went on, and these experiments ran their course. Anarchy is not a new idea. Can Gilby name a single place it ever worked ? Communism is passing for a reason. It didn’t work so good. Where is Gilby’s anarchist paradise, and why does he not want to go there ? Do not societies founded on good ideas flourish ?
can you name a single place where capitalism worked? capitalism is passing for a reason. It didn’t work so good. Where is your capitalism paradise, and why do you not want to go there ? Do not economic systems founded on good ideas flourish ?
by the way, the chinese communism economy is overtaking the capitalism at the moment…
you mix economic systems (communism, capitalism) with social systems (democracy, anarchy)
there is no anarchy till now, but may be we should try something new, better than to remain in the same old stuff …
we call it development;)
Have you heard of Sweden, or Denmark ? The health care system in Canada costs half per citizen as in the USA yet provides free service. The USA has an infant mortality rate comparable to Cuba. That is not because capitalism has failed. For profit health care is a shit idea. It is a fact that the USA has the highest per cap cost for health care on earth , and is getting a really shitty result. We need to copy countrys like Sweden, and for that matter almost every other country that is getting so much better results than the USA is. We suck at affordable health care because it is a big $ thing in the USA. Police, courts, fire and health protection should be in the public common. The huge profits made by health insurance companies in the USA is just a huge drain on the system. The fact that thousands die every week because they have not access to health care is also important. I sorta care. I guess that makes me a liberal.
But Sweden and Denmark have high taxes, so they must be evil. Thank of all the unicycles you could buy if you did not have to pay taxes!
OK, I admit that I like taxes, but I do not always agree on how they are spent. More education, less prisons would be a great change for California, where we spend about 10% of our annual state income (inadequately) supporting prisons.
But with less prisons, where do you put the bad guys? They are in the pen for a reason. Better education can help with some of this, but some people are gonna be criminals regardless of what opportunities are presented to them. Its about to get bad in Texas with education. Our governor has really screwed up educational funding here. Thousand of teachers are getting laid off. It really sucks…especially since I am a teacher…one who still has a job. We are trying to make rocket scientists out of everyone, and that is NOT working. More trades need to be taught. The average IQ of an inmate is about 85, so most of them will not end up in college. We need to teach these people how to make a living someday in some sort of trade or vocation. This can make the difference between making an honest living and being a criminal…at least in some of them.
I’m not sure of your meaning here. In my two trips to China I observed a very capitalist society with a communist government. I really don’t understand how the two co-exist, with all these small (and large) businesspeople making money hand over fist. What I did see (in 1993 and even more in 2000) was a swiftly growing economy that seemed to follow the capitalist model. I did not see a lot of evidence of the communist part, aside from the large amounts of government involvement in many things, and the huge shoveling of BS wherever it seemed to be taking place.
Apparently the current rate of incarceration in California is 595 per 100,000. This is below the US average of 743 (counting all types of lockups, so the California number is not directly comparable, but the US number is far higher than any other western country.) A lot of these prisoners came from the war on drugs, but California is seeing more violent crimes and fewer minor drugs crimes. (That is not to deny that much of the violent crime is driven by the drug trade.) The new sentences are much longer, and three-strikes convictions (for life!) are playing an increasing role in the high inmate populations. We should work to reduce crime, and eventually we need to release some of these prisoners. Sensible parole board decisions might make progress in this area. The whole “get tough on crime” and “three strikes” approach to law enforcement is extraordinarily expensive, and I resent my taxes paying to keep ALL of these offenders behind bars. (Yes, I want some of them behind bars, but I do not think life would be much more dangerous if the majority of prisoners were released through sensible parole processes and with supervision.) The “three strikes law” in particular is a full employment act for prison guards (who are paid more than teachers). It makes no sense to keep 65 year old convicts in prison until they die, especially when some of their three strikes offenses were non-violent. Keeping prisoners is extraordinarily expense at something like $50 K per person per year (and probably inadequate at that price.) We also seem to find it very easy to throw people away rather than to try and salvage something from their lives. The waste on all sides of the process are just tragic.
Europe keeps about 100 prisoners per 100,000 population. I guess Europeans are just nicer than Americans. I do not recall being particularly worried about crime last time I was in Paris.
OK, I will get off my soap box.
I pulled some of my numbers from this website and from wikipedia: