So this is interesting, but you do understand that from a strictly logical perspective it's completely inconsistent and makes no sense whatsoever?? Mr. Murphy complains that Gaza does not meet this "requirements" for being an anarchy - I would then respectully ask "what does???".. If Gaza is not anarchy, has there EVER been an anarchy in all of recorded history? The "State," as a structure of social organization, exists even in communities of animals that are of substantial sub-human intelligence (e.g., wolf packs, lion prides, dophins, ants, most primates and most other social, intelligent animals all exhibit some form of "pecking order" that can loosely be interpreted to be power structures that self-organized out of "random chaos" (so to speak) so as to further the chances of survival for the species as a whole..) human governments are very similar, except they attempt to inject some degree of "civil procedures" into this otherwise life/death Darwinian drama.. If Mr. Murphy seeks a system where people own property and where other people respect this property, then what exactly, I ask, is wrong w/ Northern California?? Defining anarchy to be such a system (where people own property and other people respect this property) is a complete and total breakdown of all logical, rational reasoning.. I hope you also understand that from the perspective of a business man, perhaps the most important role that governments provide is not necessarily "an organized system of corrupt thugs to whom we pay protection money in the form of taxes" (to paragraph Mr. Murphy's arguments); instead, government most importantly provides business with an institution upon which businesses may pass on risk (if necessary).. ALL business is about minimizing risk, and the more that businesses are able to pass on risk to government (the "State", so to speak), the happier they are.. You need look no further than the DoD bailout of Iridium to see what I mean.. (there are MANY other such examples too..) If Mr. Murphy believes that it is possible to run a business absent government (i.e., in an anarchy), I suggest he quit the pot-smoking grad school scene, get a REAL job (preferabbly in Northern California) and see firsthand how the world REALLY works.. (perhaps AFTER he spends several months in Russia, so he can compare and constrast..) the word "anarcho-capitalist" has no reality for me.. nor should it for any rational, sane human being.. its substantially less than an oxymoron and makes NO SENSE whatsoever.. if you want to live in a world that sustains "anarchy-capitalism", you may as well live in a world where two people can eat the same piece of pizza or a person has the freedom to jump over the Moon (to cite examples from the article) > >A nice rant, below, from a fellow anarcho-capitalist lapsed conservative >apparently Hillsdale College grad. > >[I swear, folks, I *tried* snipping this to relevant bits. :-). I mean, >there's a URL in it and all, and, admittedly, he's preaching to the >choir >around here, but this is nicely done that I couldn't bring myself to >premasticate it for cypherpunk consumption.] > >Cheers, >RAH > > > >--- begin forwarded text > > >Date: Mon, 04 Dec 2000 20:35:04 -0600 >To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >From: "S. Hunter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> (by way of [EMAIL PROTECTED]) >Subject: ip: Chaos Theory > > >http://www.lewrockwell.com/murphy/murphy19.html > >Chaos Theory > >by <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>Bob Murphy > >Throughout history, there have been countless arguments advanced to >support >the State. None of them has been valid. This essay will address a certain >class of these arguments, whose sleight-of-hand consists in a definitional >trick. My purpose here is not to make the positive case for pure >laissez-faire, but merely to show that each pro-government argument >is a >non sequitur. > >Anarchy is the absence of government, both in political science and >everyday usage (it is the first definition given by Webster’s, e.g.). >Chaos, in the context of social science, refers to lawlessness, or the >absence of a relative degree of regularity in human affairs. (I say >a >"relative degree" because, obviously, virtually all humans will always >obey >the ‘rule’ of, e.g., avoiding someone with leprosy or not slaughtering >every female in sight. The ‘laws’ to which lawlessness is opposed are >generally meant to imply the sometimes irksome rules necessary for a >civil >society.) > >[...]