Who makes up this society? Just the people in your political borders? What about the people in other countries? Or would they count only after their military successfully invades your country? And when their military does this, everyone in that country is responsible, right? Cause it's their "agents", right? So if it is an illegitimate invasion, they are all guilty? Or would the guilty just consist of the immature and irresponsible anarchists who didn't support any of the warmongers up for election? How would we know if it is an illegitimate invasion? Society decides, I guess?
It's amazing how the blatant conflation of state and society that you make is allowed to pass in debates about anarchism with such frequency. And how often the people who make that conflation pat themselves on the back for being all "nuanced" and mature when in fact, through sloppy thinking, they managed to avoid dealing with all the problems that the anarchist has had to work through in order to arrive at his position.
I cannot speak for the parent, but disagreements can be resolved by independent, third-party arbitration (which may have also been agreed upon by the HOA). This is not to be confused with a territorial monopoly on final arbitration, viz. a government court.
It is strange how well conditioned people are to regard roads as this Great Social Problem even as they go about buying cheaper and cheaper stuff that does more and more everyday thanks to capitalism.
1. Because the majority does not possess the means of survival by subsistence and are forced to cooperate with proprietors.
2. "Property" cannot exist without enforcement. If you own land and I don't, chances are that I can find another poor bastard who will help me to take it from you.
I just want to note first that it is not clear that all land is currently owned. Natural owners (homesteaders) have been displaced many times by state violence and the threat of state violence keeps people from homesteading available space. I had sidestepped this earlier because, even if all land has legitimate private owners, that does not preclude voluntary cooperation.
1. Your body is your property, and you have the right to contract (i.e. agree with another person to use your property in a particular way, for instance as a condition of transfer of property). So the filthy rich person who owns a country--which by the way I don't think is possible, since he probably just planted a flag and yelled that he owns it, which does not make a homestead... but for the sake of argument let's say he does own the country--this guy excludes thousands of people who only have the standing room on which they were born. Do tell me how this guy will eat. I will bet that, through the magic of self interest, the landowner will be happy to contract with the impoverished majority, say, for farming. Now if you're thinking ahead, you already see that the poor folk, if their private property rights are respected, can save their income and trade and sell among themselves, maybe even buy some of that land from the country owner. The historic problem is not that ownership of land existed, but that it was never treated as a private property, or that the individual right to self-ownership and contract were not universally respected.
>Simply having a welfare state or some nationalized industries is not socialism.
Yes it is. It is a matter of degree. When you have an income tax, you have socialized income. If you have a "workers factory", you have socialized the means of production.
Your first paragraph seemed like you had the right insights, yet you contradicted yourself by the second.
Yes, if we agree on a primitivist definition of "everything they need", which most likely includes food, shelter entertainment and some artwork - perhaps even basic medicine. But no electric energy, electronics, cars, farm machinery, refrigerators, antibiotics and so on. Building this stuff requires massive amounts of capital.
I suppose that would be disingenuous... if anyone were to suggest it.
You have no idea, of those government provisions you listed, what the actual costs are. You won't be able to get the most efficient allocation of resources, because it's not a market allocation (people freely paying), but a political allocation.
Oh, and I don't care if a drug company is benevolent. Just that they are free to offer me the goods at a price that isn't rigged (as by regulation of competitors, for example).
I admit, I'm not sure what the argument is exactly. Nature is chaotic, therefore socialism?
I cannot speak for Randians or Objectivists, but an advocate of a private property society does not have a problem with insurance. Insurance is a perfectly legitimate good that can be provided in markets. It's the whole pay-us-or-go-to-prison monopoly thing that doesn't sit well.
Further, many rich business people are rich precisely because of government privilege, including protections of so-called intellectual property. You'd be hard pressed to name a successful person in modern times who hasn't made or at least maintained his riches because of some special privilege.
Who makes up this society? Just the people in your political borders? What about the people in other countries? Or would they count only after their military successfully invades your country? And when their military does this, everyone in that country is responsible, right? Cause it's their "agents", right? So if it is an illegitimate invasion, they are all guilty? Or would the guilty just consist of the immature and irresponsible anarchists who didn't support any of the warmongers up for election? How would we know if it is an illegitimate invasion? Society decides, I guess?
It's amazing how the blatant conflation of state and society that you make is allowed to pass in debates about anarchism with such frequency. And how often the people who make that conflation pat themselves on the back for being all "nuanced" and mature when in fact, through sloppy thinking, they managed to avoid dealing with all the problems that the anarchist has had to work through in order to arrive at his position.