0419 pc354 Beyond Civil Disobedience Part 5

Bad Quaker Podcast
With Ben Stone Lego

Part 5 in a series on taking effective action with a defined purpose, while rejecting civil disobedience and embracing the Zero Aggression Principle.

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2 Responses to 0419 pc354 Beyond Civil Disobedience Part 5

  1. UnitedStatesDenizen says:

    Ben,
    I recently found your podcast through The Corbett Report, and have been hooked ever since. From the podcasts I’ve heard, I can tell you’ve quite knowledgeable about anarchistic solutions to common problems. I have a broad question about human nature that I’m hoping you can shed some light on for me.

    How would an anarchist society handle psychopathic individuals, and those who simply prefer theft to honest work? Would we have to pay mercenaries and soldiers to fight a constant battle protecting us from them? In my opinion, some individuals are simply predisposed to fighting, dominating, and preying on others; it’s just the human condition.

    Thanks for your reply

    • Bad Quaker says:

      UnitedStatesDenizen,
      Thanks for the comments and the question.
      When it comes to the violent mentally ill or those elements of society that just refuse to support themselves through honest means, I think it’s important to look at it in two ways.
      First, does the current State-based system provide a solution?
      Second, can a society deal with dangerous and criminal individuals without the use of a State-based system?

      So to the first part, no the current State-based system not only fails to deal with such individuals, it actually encourages them to take jobs in government and in high level corporate positions where the current system rewards such psychopaths. (Obama, for example, has killed far more people than Charles Manson. Also the Federal Reserve stole more wealth in the last 100 years than all thieves in the US combined.) The State-based system rewards the most successful criminals and glorifies them, encouraging more and more young people to aspire to be like them. This produces an unnatural abundance of criminals living on the labor of fewer and fewer productive honest people.

      To the second part, a voluntary society would have several methods of self protection, some of which are currently forbidden. Always keeping in mind, violence for the purpose of defense is allowed under voluntaryism. Even vengeance may be allowed or encouraged, depending on the community. Communities in the past developed a variety of methods ranging from shaming and shunning, to forced ejection from the community, and some even went so far as the death penalty. However, in a true voluntary society I would expect the death penalty to be imposed only when a serious offender refused to leave a community.
      In situations where a community has developed without the influence of the State, the criminal element is typically very small. This has been well documented by several prominent anthropologists like James C. Scott of Yale, and others. Like all other things, the supply of criminals is directly related to the demand. In a State-based society there is an ever-growing demand for more ruthless criminals to do the bidding of the State. But in a voluntary society the demand for such criminals drops to near zero. I’m not saying there would be zero criminals, just that there would be little reward and almost limitless punishment.

      Hope that helps clarify,
      Ben Stone

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