Thomas Babington Macaulay said:
The measure of a man’s real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.
I think that would make me a cheat and a pervert – but I already knew that.
There’s a question that’s bugged me for a couple of years now. It’s quite simple really:
What would happen if every government and every law was removed from society?
Click this picture to read her story. It’s the saddest and most intriguing thing I’ve read in a while.
I’ve asked a few people this (or deduced their answers from other questions) and it seems that most people think that we’d end up in an anarchic state where people go around murdering each other – as one person put it “until murdering becomes the norm”.
I’m quite surprised with how focused so many people are on murder. They seem to be saying that the only reason people don’t murder is because of the law. They’re frightened of the consequences, so they won’t do something.
That to me sounds like the stupidest reason to not do something – because you’re “scared” of the consequences.
It’s like those poor people who deny their sexuality for fear of going to hell.
Training dogs is fun – as is seeing the results. I would definitely not call myself an expert, but we’ve had 7 dogs all trained by my parents. They’ve tried different techniques in each dog, focusing on whatever worked before.
Not surprisingly, our current dog is the best trained. The other day I walked a beautiful friend up the drive, taking the dog with to “go to the toilet”. I told the dog to sit at the top of the drive whilst we walked down to her car to say goodbye. We chatted for a few minutes. Someone walked by.My friend looked over at our dog to see she was still sitting there. She was amazed.
I thought it was the norm, as it was for us. But I thought about it more later. None of our other dogs would have been that obedient. I thought of the way we’d trained her – and I realised that, unlike the other dogs, fear had never been a motivator for her. We’d always used praise and reward.
Not that I’d actually know, but, apparently, fear as a training method for kids doesn’t work either – eventually, they’ll overcome their fear and break loose.
So why, if we know it doesn’t work, do we expect it to? Why do we think fear is the only thing holding people back from murder?
I don’t know about you, but I don’t kill people because I don’t want to – not because I’m scared of punishment. It’s tempting some times when someone’s driving at 25km/h in a really small car to just carefully accelerate over them repeatedly, but I don’t – it’d probably damage my car and the time it would take to give them their due is more than it would take to get where I’m going at their speed.
I selfishly do not kill people – which is nice to know if you’re ever driving in front of me.
People also claim that there would be groups of people who’d decide to take power for themselves. They’d impose themselves upon us, using their power to take control. This would result in scaled down religious and up scaled gang wars.
I wouldn’t impose myself upon others. The people saying this wouldn’t impose themselves upon others. So who exactly are these people who’d impose themselves upon us?
And this is what I find so intriguing. Ask people what they think would happen if law and government disappeared, and they start talking about what other people would do. What would you do? And why do you think other people would do any differently?
When I think about that second question I look around me for an answer. Then I begin to understand why.
I think that anarchic state they’re talking about is the one we’re already living in.
In your scenario you don’t mention HOW every government and every law has been removed from society and so it’s not really possible to answer your question.
If, for example, the majority of people agreed generally that it was not acceptable to steal and to ‘initiate force’ (murder, rape, assault, kidnap, threaten etc) and if we agreed to enforce rules outlawing these behaviours then all governments and all government laws would naturally be outlawed and removed from society.
You’re probably thinking, “But wait a minute, governments enforce rules against stealing and murder, assault, kidnapping etc”
This is not true. Governments enforce a monopoly on the legal right to steal, murder, assault, kidnap etc. In other words governments invent laws which say “Only government can steal, murder, assault, kidnap etc and get away with it….. everybody else goes to jail if they behave this way – that is the law”
A law is not a rule. A law is just an opinion backed by violence. For example, ‘everyone over 6ft tall must be rounded up and executed’ can be a law. A rule is a condition which is universal, such as ‘nobody is allowed to steal’.
A government does not enforce rules, it enforces laws. In a statist system such as a ‘democracy’, there are no rules! There are only rulers who boss everyone about under threat of violence (AKA ‘laws’).
The rule “Stealing is not allowed” obviously does not apply in a democracy because the government steals half of everyone’s wages each week (that is billions of $$$ each week stolen!).
The rule “Murder is not allowed” also does not apply in a democracy because the government goes all over the world murdering people by the million.
Government laws on theft and murder only make it unlawful for YOU to steal and murder while allowing government to steal and murder at will. Like I said, ‘laws’ are there to give people in government a monopoly on the LEGAL RIGHT to steal and initiate force.
I think most people understand why stealing and the initiation of force are immoral and unacceptable ways to behave. Even people who steal and commit violent crimes KNOW they are behaving badly (most do it because they are desperate, poor, suffered abuse, got in with the wrong crowd etc).
Most people want to live in a society which rejects theft / violence as a LEGITIMATE way to behave, and most people want a society which has effective police and a legal system able to deal with those few people who resort to behaving that way. Most people realise that it’s actually a lot more pleasant to live in a world based on respecting each other’s property and living peacefully – this is actually the most *selfish* way to live.
And we ALREADY live in that kind of a society…… except when it comes to governments. They are the only agency in society which still claims the legal right to use theft and violence to achieve their aims. Everyone else gets arrested and put in jail for stealing and initiating force … but governments still get away with it.
And so if people just *extended* the rules we already have in place so that they ALSO applied to people working in government, then government (as we know it) would cease to be. Instead we would just have a collection of service providers operating in a free market just like everyone else.
If a government run school tried to FORCE you to fund them they would be treated the same way as if a mobile phone company tried to FORCE you to pay for them …. ie as criminals!!
“…I’ve asked a few people this (or deduced their answers from other questions) and it seems that most people think that we’d end up in an anarchic state where people go around murdering each other – as one person put it “until murdering becomes the norm”…..”
Murdering is already the norm in a statist society (such as a democracy). Government’s murder millions of people all over the planet. Over the last century government’s have killed 250,000,000 people and that’s BEFORE you count government funded wars. Without governments there can be no wars because wars can only by funded by a tax system. Remove taxes and you make war literally impossible to fund.
Governments also create a dependent underclass with one parent families with kids who drop out of the atrocious government run schools who then join gangs and THAT is where most of the murder in society happens.
Where government intervenes the most in society is where we see the most social dysfunction, violence and misery.
Most of our daily lives is conducted in a state of anarchy. People LOVE and VALUE the anarchy they have – the freedom to marry who they want, choose where to live, choose who to hang out with, choose what clothes to wear, choose who to do business with, choose what phone to buy, choose what car to drive, choose what charities to support etc etc.
If government tried to dictate these things for us by force we’d be outraged. We love the anarchy we have but we have been trained to FEAR the anarchy which governments take away from us by force – such as the freedom to keep all your wages and spend them according to your own free will, the freedom to decide how your children are educated, the freedom to choose whether or not to fund an illegal genocidal war or spend your money on something else… governments make all those choices for us.
Anarchy is just another word for being a responsible grown up in charge of your own life. Asking how a society would cope without a government is like asking how children would cope without their parents.
Obviously children can’t cope without their parents, and obviously society can’t cope without a government…… and yet the point is that children have the potential to grow up to be responsible, independent adults in charge of their own lives. In fact most helpless, dependent children do!
In the same way society also has the potential to grow up live responsibly, peacefully and independent of government.
Being an adult is not easy and we all make mistakes and sometimes bad things happen……. but we’d never give up the anarchy of being an adult and go back to living with our parents like children!
An anarchic society also requires some work, and of course there will still be crime and violence here and there …… but imagine a world without taxation, without wars, without government schools, without all that death, destruction, corruption genocide, poverty, economic crashes, ‘wars on X’ and with almost unimaginable freedom…… who in their right mind would give all that up and go back to being a slave to violent rulers?
In the end statism is a religion. The ONLY way it can exist and have power to rule is for enough people to believe that ‘governments’ really exist and have authority over them.
And conversely, the ONLY way you can ever truly get rid of governments and government ‘laws’ is for enough people to stop believing ‘governments’ actually exist.
A violent revolution does not change people’s beliefs or mindset and so all that will happen is a new government is formed, or mafia gangs will take over (which are in essence just competing mini governments).
But the moment enough people stop believing ‘governments’ exist we will finally be able to see governments for what they really are…… a bunch of men and women who work in big fancy buildings in capital cities who go around stealing money from people and using violence to get what they want. That’s all they are! They’re just mafia gangs and terrorists under a different name.
When enough people FINALLY stop believing ‘governments’ actually exist there will be no need for any violent revolution. Just as a child who becomes mature does not need to kill his or her parents in order to become an adult. Only immature teenagers protest against their parents and challenge their authority (while still expecting their washing to be done and their meals cooked for them!)
We’ve stopped believing in overt slavery, we’ve stopped believing in women as second class citizens, the next myth on the list is the ‘governments’
By: Abandon TV on February 20, 2013
at 7:22 pm