RE: going on about 'statists'On Wednesday, January 15, 2003 9:49 AM Pinczewski-Lee, Joe (LRC) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >> 1) How was Medieval anarchic Icerland horrific? > > As to 1) all I can say is that Medieval Iceland > doesn't exist anymore, nor do I remember any > classes explaining the great contributions > Medieval Iceland made to world culture,
Whoa! There are a few problems with the above statement. First, the anarchist period in Iceland lasted longer than the US exists. Second, no Medieval state exists today as it was from back then. Take, e.g., Britain, since you use it below. Can we really say the mixed economy of Britain has existed as one continuous polity with one type of government from Medieval times to the present? I'd say we can't even make that claim going back two centuries. Third, what about the sagas? They're considered one of Iceland's artistic contributions to Western literature. Also, why didn't you pick on Ireland here? I don't think anyone would doubt the Irish contribution to Western Civilization in poetry, religion, and music. > whereas I DO seem to remember a number of > advances made by mixed economy nations, > such as Britain, the United States, Germany, > and France. You would also here have to show that the mixed economies in these countries caused those contributions. I tend to think that would be an instance of the broken window fallacy. I believe others factor impinged, especially heavy cultural mixing in all of the instances you mention -- and not government intervention in markets. > This brings to mind the problem I see with many > Libertarians and Libertarian/Anarchists. The > examples they choose of "good" states/societies > generally demonstrates the fallacy of the arguments > their proponents advance. Rothbard admires > Medieval Ireland and laments its inability to deal > the bad, centralized, militaristic English. If I recall Rothbard's statements in _For a New Liberty_ correctly, he pointed out how much longer it took Britain to conquer Ireland than India because Ireland had no central government whereas the Indians were ruled, in most of their territory, by the Moguls. The British had merely to conquer the Moguls -- cut off the top and place themselves in charge. If this is so, it would seem that it might be better to be in an anarchist society under conquest than in a nation state one under conquest -- all other things being equal. One might live free longer in the former, especially if one is not in one of the enclaves initially absorbed. > Well, my response is that societies that can > not deal with their neighbors and prosper, > probably were not very good societies. > Medieval Icaland may have been a nice > place, what did it accomplish? See above. I will admit, however, that anarchism does have a problem in dealing with nation states. Nation states did eventually conquer all anarchist societies, such as those of Ireland and Iceland. This, in my mind, does not mean nation states make for better societies. After all, not only is any nation state a threat to its society, it winds up getting involved with other nation states. My long term solution to this would be to find a way to combat or limit the centralization of nation states. At risk of sounding lunatic fringe, I propose space settlement as a means of achieving this. This is partly based on the observation that free societies, including anarchist ones, generally exist at the fringes of nation states. Iceland and Ireland existed at the fringes of Europe -- along a frontier where there were no other encroaching states or empires. In space, not only would one have a frontier, but one would have one that is permanent. As transport and support technology advance, in space, one would be able to move farther and farther away from any centers of domination. Also, given the "space" of space (virtually infinite), stealth cane be used to avoid detection from would be statists. The same does not hold for the surface of the Earth or any planet. As transport technology advanced on Earth, it became much easier for nation states to enforce their will on society. Cheers! Dan http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/ See my "For a Free Frontier: The Case for Space Colonization" at: http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/SpaceCol.html
