So long as there are rights, there need to be agencies to arbitrate them. You might, for example, argue that property rights can be defended and arbitrated by private security firms, but in the absence of a central government, the arbitration of rights would depend on which security firms have the most power to defend properties, which at the root is fundamentally driven by, among other factors, military force. An argument that follows from the "private security firm" argument, is that the state is the sanctioned monopoly on force.
First of all, this is incorrect. The state does not have a monopoly on force any more than the IEEE standards body has a monopoly on computing. The state contracts out private security and paramilitary firms, and the vast majority of the weaponry of most government is developed by the private sector. The very fact that there is a such thing as private security firms goes against the claim of a monopoly.
Well you might claim that it's a monopoly because the state is the single agency with the most force, and this is ensured by law. Now, this might actually be true of the United States, due to our bloated military budget. However, this is not a problem with the state, but with the U.S. Federal Government. In many other states, they have an extremely small military, and in others, such as Japan, their military is entirely privatized. As for the police, they are far more decentralized, existing chiefly on a city/town basis, with some exceptions for certain regions which have municipality police.
But even then, these city-states have no more power than IEEE- they have power only because they are recognized by state protocol as the official arbitrators. We still have private security firms, and our police do not have the majority of the power because they have a legal monopoly on it, but because most people depend on the police (and the government, for that matter) for the defense of rights.
Now, the real question which not addressed, and one that actually reveals the reason why the state exists, is "why do the people rely on the state for protection instead of having their own private security firms?" Private security firms are legal, and can be hired for the defense of property, and probably will do a better job than the police or Federal government will, simply because their employment is optimized for the defense of property rights.
There are a few reasons for this:
1. because for most people, a centralized institution for the defense of basic rights is more intuitive and convenient.
2. Because the defense of rights is not something that should be competed for. A person should not lose their rights because the firm they depend on for the defense of rights does not have enough power to be "competitive", or "goes out of business".
3. Because for entrepreneurs and businessmen to make long-term investments in countries, a region needs stable institutions to ensure the conditions that determine the success of their investment (the "rules of the game") are clearly understood and reliable.
4. (perhaps the most important reason) Because cooperative endeavors require an agency to set the standards and protocols for cooperation, so as to ensure all efforts are compatible with and complementary to each other.
Regarding #4, the protocols (institutions) that the state is most necessary to universalize the standard for in the interest of preserving the defense of right, fostering trade, providing a secure environment investors, and ensuring the health and well being of the people:
a. Property
b. Money
c. Roads
d. Police
e. Military
f. Education
g. Healthcare
Of course, the state is accepted as the primary agency for these institutions, but it is not by any means the only one-
a. Property rights can be defended the security firms.
b. Private money is legal in most states and even encouraged in some.
c. Roads on private property can built and maintained privately and funded by tolls.
d. Private police have long been a commonly hired by the affluent (and even the average joe can hire bodyguards if he's paranoid enough for it to be worth the investment).
e. Paramilitary corporations are legal and even contracted out by the state when there is a shortage of resources (in the case of Japan, their military is entirely private, made possible by military protection of the U.S.)
f. In the US, public education may be the norm, but private schools abound and provide excellent formal education, and parents also have the right to home-school their children and have that education recognized. g. Even as Obamacare is implemented, the government doesn't even provide healthcare. They instead set standards regarding the coverage insurance companies must offer, and a requirement that all Americans making over a certain income must have coverage meeting those standards or else pay a penalty fee. The healthcare actually provided in the U.S. is private sector- only the insurance coverage itself is regulated.
Perhaps this was a bit drawn out, but I think these points are all too often ignored by libertarians and anarchists. If you want to get rid of the state, you need to understand its functions, and why the vast majority of people support the state in spite of its many shortcomings. Above all, the greatest function of the state is the provision of the institutions necessary for society to function and encourage long-term investment.
For people to invest in a region, or even to be willing to live there, they need to be able to know that the "rules of the game" that they build their lives on will hold true. They need to know they can live in peace and work hard to achieve goals without having to worry about their dreams being shattered by other people who don't play by the same rules.
The state arbitrates many institutions to establish the rules for interactions between people, but chief among these institutions is Property. One could argue that without the existence of property, the other institutions would be unnecessary, because the need for security, the need for a consistency and stability regarding the institutions of society, it derives from ownership. Without ownership, there is no competition for resources, and thus no conflict of interests. The friction between people that necessitates the defense of rights, creates problems when people don't play by the same rules, and necessarily results in "winners" and "losers"- it is founded in ownership.
The very fact that ownership is recognized as a "right" is the reason why states exist, why force exists, why crime exists, and why conflict exists. This is not to say we can magically get rid of all the problems in the world by getting rid of ownership- to begin with, ownership is part of human nature, a territorial instinct, and these problems persist chiefly because of this flaw in humanity. The purpose of civilization is chiefly to minimize the flaws of humans and to provide a framework for us to evolve past them. By recognizing this primitive notion of "ownership" as a right, we are devolving ourselves into beasts that use force against and kill each other in an act of what is little more than the human equivalent of territorial pissing.
If we are to evolve into a fully mature, stateless society, we need to stop recognizing ownership as legitimate, the same way we have stopped recognizing murder or rape as legitimate. Sure there will likely always be some people who still rape and murder, and by the same token there almost certainly will always be some people who believe in ownership, but we can at the very least eliminate recognition for these elements of human nature sufficiently to establish a stateless world.
First of all, this is incorrect. The state does not have a monopoly on force any more than the IEEE standards body has a monopoly on computing. The state contracts out private security and paramilitary firms, and the vast majority of the weaponry of most government is developed by the private sector. The very fact that there is a such thing as private security firms goes against the claim of a monopoly.
Well you might claim that it's a monopoly because the state is the single agency with the most force, and this is ensured by law. Now, this might actually be true of the United States, due to our bloated military budget. However, this is not a problem with the state, but with the U.S. Federal Government. In many other states, they have an extremely small military, and in others, such as Japan, their military is entirely privatized. As for the police, they are far more decentralized, existing chiefly on a city/town basis, with some exceptions for certain regions which have municipality police.
But even then, these city-states have no more power than IEEE- they have power only because they are recognized by state protocol as the official arbitrators. We still have private security firms, and our police do not have the majority of the power because they have a legal monopoly on it, but because most people depend on the police (and the government, for that matter) for the defense of rights.
Now, the real question which not addressed, and one that actually reveals the reason why the state exists, is "why do the people rely on the state for protection instead of having their own private security firms?" Private security firms are legal, and can be hired for the defense of property, and probably will do a better job than the police or Federal government will, simply because their employment is optimized for the defense of property rights.
There are a few reasons for this:
1. because for most people, a centralized institution for the defense of basic rights is more intuitive and convenient.
2. Because the defense of rights is not something that should be competed for. A person should not lose their rights because the firm they depend on for the defense of rights does not have enough power to be "competitive", or "goes out of business".
3. Because for entrepreneurs and businessmen to make long-term investments in countries, a region needs stable institutions to ensure the conditions that determine the success of their investment (the "rules of the game") are clearly understood and reliable.
4. (perhaps the most important reason) Because cooperative endeavors require an agency to set the standards and protocols for cooperation, so as to ensure all efforts are compatible with and complementary to each other.
Regarding #4, the protocols (institutions) that the state is most necessary to universalize the standard for in the interest of preserving the defense of right, fostering trade, providing a secure environment investors, and ensuring the health and well being of the people:
a. Property
b. Money
c. Roads
d. Police
e. Military
f. Education
g. Healthcare
Of course, the state is accepted as the primary agency for these institutions, but it is not by any means the only one-
a. Property rights can be defended the security firms.
b. Private money is legal in most states and even encouraged in some.
c. Roads on private property can built and maintained privately and funded by tolls.
d. Private police have long been a commonly hired by the affluent (and even the average joe can hire bodyguards if he's paranoid enough for it to be worth the investment).
e. Paramilitary corporations are legal and even contracted out by the state when there is a shortage of resources (in the case of Japan, their military is entirely private, made possible by military protection of the U.S.)
f. In the US, public education may be the norm, but private schools abound and provide excellent formal education, and parents also have the right to home-school their children and have that education recognized. g. Even as Obamacare is implemented, the government doesn't even provide healthcare. They instead set standards regarding the coverage insurance companies must offer, and a requirement that all Americans making over a certain income must have coverage meeting those standards or else pay a penalty fee. The healthcare actually provided in the U.S. is private sector- only the insurance coverage itself is regulated.
Perhaps this was a bit drawn out, but I think these points are all too often ignored by libertarians and anarchists. If you want to get rid of the state, you need to understand its functions, and why the vast majority of people support the state in spite of its many shortcomings. Above all, the greatest function of the state is the provision of the institutions necessary for society to function and encourage long-term investment.
For people to invest in a region, or even to be willing to live there, they need to be able to know that the "rules of the game" that they build their lives on will hold true. They need to know they can live in peace and work hard to achieve goals without having to worry about their dreams being shattered by other people who don't play by the same rules.
The state arbitrates many institutions to establish the rules for interactions between people, but chief among these institutions is Property. One could argue that without the existence of property, the other institutions would be unnecessary, because the need for security, the need for a consistency and stability regarding the institutions of society, it derives from ownership. Without ownership, there is no competition for resources, and thus no conflict of interests. The friction between people that necessitates the defense of rights, creates problems when people don't play by the same rules, and necessarily results in "winners" and "losers"- it is founded in ownership.
The very fact that ownership is recognized as a "right" is the reason why states exist, why force exists, why crime exists, and why conflict exists. This is not to say we can magically get rid of all the problems in the world by getting rid of ownership- to begin with, ownership is part of human nature, a territorial instinct, and these problems persist chiefly because of this flaw in humanity. The purpose of civilization is chiefly to minimize the flaws of humans and to provide a framework for us to evolve past them. By recognizing this primitive notion of "ownership" as a right, we are devolving ourselves into beasts that use force against and kill each other in an act of what is little more than the human equivalent of territorial pissing.
If we are to evolve into a fully mature, stateless society, we need to stop recognizing ownership as legitimate, the same way we have stopped recognizing murder or rape as legitimate. Sure there will likely always be some people who still rape and murder, and by the same token there almost certainly will always be some people who believe in ownership, but we can at the very least eliminate recognition for these elements of human nature sufficiently to establish a stateless world.
