Comments on: Anarchist? http://www.freedomdreams.co.uk/blog/2009/03/16/anarchist/ Ben Webb - a teenager dreaming of freedom - in computing and in life Thu, 03 Sep 2009 19:03:45 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 By: Ben Webb http://www.freedomdreams.co.uk/blog/2009/03/16/anarchist/comment-page-1/#comment-14096 Ben Webb Mon, 23 Mar 2009 16:24:31 +0000 http://www.freedomdreams.co.uk/blog/?p=83#comment-14096 Well, the press has finally reported on the story - http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/1104098_boys_accused_of_bomb_plot Well, the press has finally reported on the story – http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/1104098_boys_accused_of_bomb_plot

]]> By: libervisco http://www.freedomdreams.co.uk/blog/2009/03/16/anarchist/comment-page-1/#comment-14019 libervisco Mon, 16 Mar 2009 17:03:56 +0000 http://www.freedomdreams.co.uk/blog/?p=83#comment-14019 Great points. It was only recently that I realized this little but crucial distinction myself. For a while I sort of thought of "anarchy" as synonymous to "voluntaryism", because I went with the correct definition of anarchy as "lack of coercive ruler". While that wasn't technically incorrect, what happens when there are no coercive rulers? Also, how does that happen in the first place? Technically, you might be able to remove coercive rulers without making people have that mental switch from coercionism to voluntaryism, so they'd probably soon revert to another form of violent "order". Also, examples such as modern Somalia and medieval Iceland show anarchies, at least to an extent (in Somalia), but mentality of people still wasn't clearly voluntaryist, they didn't morally reject all coercion in their minds and so they were vulnerable to eventual regression into violent (dis)order. So yeah, anarchism is simply a description of a society without coercive rulers, regardless of how it came to be, but voluntaryism is a description of a society of people who deliberately rejected all coercion. Voluntaryism is also the only way to cause a truly stable anarchy. Great points. It was only recently that I realized this little but crucial distinction myself. For a while I sort of thought of “anarchy” as synonymous to “voluntaryism”, because I went with the correct definition of anarchy as “lack of coercive ruler”. While that wasn’t technically incorrect, what happens when there are no coercive rulers? Also, how does that happen in the first place? Technically, you might be able to remove coercive rulers without making people have that mental switch from coercionism to voluntaryism, so they’d probably soon revert to another form of violent “order”. Also, examples such as modern Somalia and medieval Iceland show anarchies, at least to an extent (in Somalia), but mentality of people still wasn’t clearly voluntaryist, they didn’t morally reject all coercion in their minds and so they were vulnerable to eventual regression into violent (dis)order.

So yeah, anarchism is simply a description of a society without coercive rulers, regardless of how it came to be, but voluntaryism is a description of a society of people who deliberately rejected all coercion. Voluntaryism is also the only way to cause a truly stable anarchy.

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