Which nation functions closest to what Norsefire wants?

Norsefire is so far to the right (libertarian style) that he sounds a bit like the extreme left anarchists.

Is their a nation that functions the way he wants?

It can't be a dirt poor nation that has no government because it can't afford one and also has no roads or electricity. I think Norsefire wants roads and electricity, just they should be private toll roads and the electricity should not be government regulated.

It can't be a place that is a paradise for the politically connected rich but were the unconnected wealthy get robbed routinely by government officials. Even though the many right wing dictatorships have the good business climate, low taxes and little or no social services that Norsefire likes, if Norsefire finds the coercion and extortion of the US government intolerable he would not like the uncertainty in most right wing dictatorships of never knowing when a government official is going to demand money or an when an official might give Norsefire's land to somebody else who paid a bribe.

Has Norsefires paradise ever existed? How was Pinochet's Chile?

 

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I'm not sure if he's serious, or just having fun getting everyone worked up with ethical arguments that are hard to refute.

 

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My answer to the thread topic question is: Who gives a shit?

If it's the latter, then that is considered trolling. Norse must've been hanging out with Sam for the past however-the-hell long he's been gone.

 

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No such country exists, but Somalia comes closest I think. It has roads and some infrastructure. It has electricity for those that can afford it. It is pretty much a perfect anarchist society. There are no taxes. Anybody can virtually do whatever they want...providing they live long enough to do it.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somalia

With the collapse of the central government in 1991, the education system is now private. Primary schools have risen from 600 before the civil war to 1,172 schools today, with an increase of 28% in primary school enrolment over the last 3 years.[55] In 2006, Puntland, an autonomous state, was the second in Somalia (after Somaliland) to introduce free primary schools with teachers now receiving their salaries from the Puntland administration.[56] In Mogadishu, the Benadir University, the Somalia National University, and the Mogadishu University, Kismayo University, University of Gedo are five of the eight functioning universities that teach Higher education in Southern Somalia. The Somali National University and all of its campuses in Lafole, SNU or Jaamacada Ummada, Medicine, and Gaheyr have been left unsafe for holding classes in any of its facilities since 1991. In Puntland, higher education is provided by the Puntland State University and East Africa University. In Somaliland, it is provided by Amoud University, University of Hargeisa, Somaliland University of Technology and Burao University. Three Somali universities are currently ranked in the top 100 of Africa. Qur'anic schools (also known as duqsis) remain the basic system of religious instruction in Somalia. They provide Islamic education for children, thereby filling a clear religious and social role in the country. Known as the most stable local and non-formal education providing basic religious and moral instruction, their strength rests on community support and in their use of locally made and widely available teaching materials.

The Qur'anic system, which teaches the greatest number of students relative to the other education sub-sectors, is the only system accessible to nomadic Somalis compared to the urban Somalis who have easier access to education. In 1993, a survey by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) was conducted in which it found, among other things, that about 40% of pupils in Qur'anic schools were girls.[57]

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/so.html#Govt

Government type:
no permanent national government; transitional, parliamentary federal government

Legal system:
no national system; a mixture of English common law, Italian law, Islamic Sharia, and Somali customary law; accepts compulsory ICJ jurisdiction with reservations
Economy - overview:
Despite the lack of effective national governance, Somalia has maintained a healthy informal economy, largely based on livestock, remittance/money transfer companies, and telecommunications. Agriculture is the most important sector, with livestock normally accounting for about 40% of GDP and about 65% of export earnings. Nomads and semi-pastoralists, who are dependent upon livestock for their livelihood, make up a large portion of the population. Livestock, hides, fish, charcoal, and bananas are Somalia's principal exports, while sugar, sorghum, corn, qat, and machined goods are the principal imports. Somalia's small industrial sector, based on the processing of agricultural products, has largely been looted and sold as scrap metal. Somalia's service sector also has grown. Telecommunication firms provide wireless services in most major cities and offer the lowest international call rates on the continent. In the absence of a formal banking sector, money exchange services have sprouted throughout the country, handling between $500 million and $1 billion in remittances annually. Mogadishu's main market offers a variety of goods from food to the newest electronic gadgets. Hotels continue to operate and are supported with private-security militias. Somalia's arrears to the IMF continued to grow in 2008. Statistics on Somalia's GDP, growth, per capita income, and inflation should be viewed skeptically. In late December 2004, a major tsunami caused an estimated 150 deaths and resulted in destruction of property in coastal areas.

So I think Nosefire should go to Somalia to live out his dream.

 

Economic freedom is compatible with authoritarian regimes. Just look at the success of China. It's ruled by fascist assclowns, but economically is doing awesome, thanks to capitalism.

With that said, I doubt you can find any country that allowed both economic freedom and personal freedom of anarcho-capitalism. Government's like to be in control, and everyone likes telling other people how to live their lives. I'd say 18th and 19th century America was pretty close, except for the institutionalized slavery and religiousity.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowloon_Walled_City

Sounds like an interesting place, although sadly it no longer exists.

 

As far as I know, Pinochet's Chile was a test lab for free market economists. Is this economic model successful? Hmmmm, I don't know

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Norsefire seems to want anarchocapitalism/libertarianism. Pinochet's rule was nothing like that.

 

Yes, it was. They took the brightest minds and sent them to the University of Chicago School of Economics, then designed all Chilean Economics programs to teach Milton Friedman's free-market ideology. UofC graduates took most top-level economic posts. Public industries were privatized, social security programs reduced, etc.

 

Pinochet's rule wasn't anything close to libertarian or anarchic. He ruled from a strong central government that oppressed/imprisoned/tortured anyone who disagreed with him. He was a capitalist, yes, but that doesn't mean he was libertarian. All libertarian anarchists are practically by definition capitalists, but not all capitalists are libertarians or anarchists.

 

Well, then, according to info. below, such countries would be Hong Kong, Singapore, Bahrain, Bahamas, and Ireland (if you look at freedom from govt and economic freedom indicators). It is interesting that most of these countries don't produce anything, they're just used as hubs for distributing resources. At the top is Estonia, which got the highest oevrall ranking, including in civil liberties, which is very strange considering the fact that army service is mandatory there and ethnic minorities (the Russians) suffer from severe discrimination.

http://www.stateofworldliberty.org/report/rankings.html

 

Those cities listed are economically free, but personal liberties are fairly restricted.

 

None of those are even close to what Norsefire is describing. He wants no taxes, no government services, etc. Basically no government of any kind.

 

That's what the no government and economic freedom indices approximate.

How can we have a state without government? It's impossible. Somalia is listed above, but its exports as % of GDP are the third lowest in the world, which suggests that this is a very self-sufficient economy. If people want to engage in market transactions, they need rules, which is why I don't think that complete anarchy is even possible. In barter economies--maybe, but not in currency-based economies. People want economic freedom but what they don't realize is that a decision to liberalize the market is also a rule and someone needs to put it in place and ensure that it stays in place. You still need oversight. As for "the market will determine the laws", that's just not going to happen. The market's role is to determine the valuation of things, and not all things can be quantified.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_exp_pergdp-economy-exports-per-gdp

 

You can still have money, but it would presumably by something like gold or silver coins, or paper money printed by private banks that backed bills.

Whaaa? Liberalization is the removal of rules.

 

Money, banks = having a system. Systems are based on rules.

I don't agree that liberalization is a removal of rules. Rather, it is an act of creating a rule that governs the system within which there are no rules. As long as the system is not self-contained (ie there are other countries in the world), it cannot exist completely rule-free. There still needs to be a rule that defines the system. But I guess this is a discussion on the limits on freedom. My personal opinion is that as the world has evolved, so have its subsystems (people, corporations, countries), which is why we need more rules to define more of these subsystems.

Also, in anarchy, if you are talking about everyone fighting for individuality, you are essentially talking about separate subsystems within a larger system, so again, rules would have to exist to define them. For instance, is your property a part of your system? How about your neighbor's property? What if the neighbor disagrees? You would compete for resources and eventually settle on a certain distribution, which would mean creating a rule, which in turn would contradict the notion of having a system without rules. If you wanted to maintain a rule-free existence, you would have to fight for the same resource over and over, which would be unproductive and would impede progress. So, instead of producing something with the use of resources, people would spend all of their effort fighting for resources. Resources are just means to an end, however (the end being the ability to sustain oneself and accumulate more resources). Therefore, fighting to maintain a state without rules is counterproductive. Eventually, and inevitably, some kind of a rule/system/government would have to emerge or else humanity would perish.

 

The system is based on trust and reputation. If people trust a bank to honor its pledge to back its money, then it will function as money. No government-imposed rules are necessary.

Only if you can defend it, or at least convince people to respect it.

Then you fight.

If we disagreed then we might eventually reach a mutual agreement, but that agreement would not be imposed upon us or enforced by the government.

Not necessarily. Fighting over resources will have a risk. If people are mostly satisfied that what they might gain wouldn't be worth the risk of trying to take someone else's resources, they won't try to take them.

 

So you would create a rule that would stipulate that everyone should trust someone--the bank, in this case. Then, how is this different from having a rule that everyone should trust the government? You can't have a rule without oversight to enforce that rule.

I agree with you on the risk vs. benefits point, but perhaps the fact that governments exist is also an expression of our collective opinions that the risk of not having a system that works at least partially is not worth putting in effort to eliminate that system? I mean, what's better - having a system in which everyone gets by, or one where a few people have everything and the rest nothing? Also, because competition is hierarchical, would we really want to create an environment in which the strongest few would eventually get to the top and (surprise) would create a tyranny that would help them exploit the rest? I think that social inequality (lack of a middle class/the satisfied majority)->revolution->anarchy->tyranny->revolt->democracy is an inevitable progression.

 

Evolution follows rules, yet there is not, as far as scientists can tell, any sort of "governmental oversight."

Rules can arise from inherent properties in a system, as opposed to rules being applied from outside sources. Capitalists argue that markets are more efficient when left to their own devices than being meddled with externally, since inherent properties in human nature lead to predictable results. They further argue that attempts to change market operations from the outside, regardless of the intent of the influencer, is unfair to those in the market, as it always results in inefficiency, waste, and theft.

 

It would not be a "rule". You are free to trust any or no banks, as you wish. There would be no rule saying you had to trust any of them. If you want to only accept payment in gold, or barter for some specific good, or whatever, that would be up to you. Most people, however, would probably find one or more banks who they trusted and would use their currency - even though it was not legally required.

You are probably right. Personally I would rather still have government, because living in an anarchy sounds too dangerous. Obviously Norsefire disagrees.