Re: More Virginia "justice"

In article <fomap5$1lm6$1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
 goldfarb@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 (David Goldfarb) wrote:

> Okay, and if you can point out a society run along anarchist lines that
> lasted for thirty years and had less violence than ours, as good a
> general standard of living as ours, and wasn't conquered by anybody,
> I'll at least consider that as evidence that what you advocate 
> is possible.

Two points:

1. Putting it that way limits it to modern societies, since no past 
society had as good a standard of living as ours. If you drop that 
criterion, then there are a fair number of stateless or semi-stateless 
societies that are plausible candidates. My usual example is saga period 
Iceland, which wasn't quite stateless but had no executive arm of 
government--after a court gave you a verdict it was up to you to enforce 
it. It didn't get conquered by anyone; when it eventually went under 
Norwegian rule it was by vote of the inhabitants, and that was about a 
third of a millenium after the system was established.

We don't have good figures for deaths by violence, but I can't see any 
evidence that the rate was higher than ours and some suggestive evidence 
that it was lower.

Then there are a variety of more primitive societies that are really 
stateless. 

2. Keith's original point wasn't about your currently not agreeing with 
him but about your having said something which he took as implying that 
no amount of evidence would convince you of the contrary--I no longer 
remember what you said so don't know if his interpretation was 
justified. If that is your position, then it presumably includes 
evidence of stateless systems working as well as of states not working.

-- 
 http://www.daviddfriedman.com/
http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
 Author of _Harald_, a fantasy without magic.
 Published by Baen, in bookstores now