In previous posts I went over the problem with governments and the main justification for governments known as laws. If it can be agreed upon that government enforced laws do not necessarily make for a better society then the question remains how we shall deal with evil. There's no easy answer to this, and depending on your religious background you might have different opinions.
However, if everyone can recognize some universal morals on how people should treat one another known as 'golden rule' or 'common law'. Once that common ground is established then most people will know how to function in a civilized manner. It's the small minority of dastardly people who seek to gain power through immoral acts which ruin things for everyone. I have a few points to illustrate how they might be dealt with. In a more anarchistic society such things are more often allowed to come to their natural conclusions, I will provide some examples and points.
- A more vigilant society.
People won't be dependant on cops to protect them; in a truly just society everyone is responsible for enforcing their own rights and the rights of others. Criminals breaking into homes will more likely be blown away by gun-owning homeowner. This is a natural, self-interest reaction, time tested method which stops crime instantly.
- Crime intervention organizations.
This applies to the above point, in a more vigilant society it is likely that groups will form in order to stop crime as they see it happening. They wouldn’t be cops because they wouldn’t have any authority whatsoever over other people, but only the same authority (which everyone has anyways) to intervene when they see crime going on.
- Criminals will kill themselves off or be killed off by a more vigilant society.
Obviously a well armed vigilant society is the criminal’s worst nightmare! The criminals’ potential for being caught and dealt with is drastically more probable. In a cop enforced society the citizen is unable to react to attacks without fear of being prosecuted themselves. Furthermore, if the perpetrator gets away before the cops can see it they may get away. But woe to the criminal who every victim is potentially able to deal with them how they see fit! If the criminals are exiled or separated somehow from the moral people, they will just kill each other off instead. (explained below.)
- Moral people will separate themselves from the criminals.
Since there is no state monopoly on justice, people with similar beliefs and morals will be free to band together and on their own private property, regulate who lives among them. This may seem elitist, but it really is not since anyone else may do the same. This is getting into my theory of Factionalism and will be discussed later on.
- Less law means fewer problems.
Many times societies create their own problems and their own criminals by declaring certain activities are ‘illegal’. Good examples of this are prohibition in the 1920’s, and the ‘war on drugs’. While these activities might be bad in some instances, they do not violate basic morals. If someone wants to get high on drugs and possibly die then that’s their own problem. There is no need for anyone’s forceful intervention, although some of these activities are regrettable and self-destructive. Also there’s plenty of laws which government needs to gain funds which if not followed escalate into violent proportions. Laws cause violence through unnecessary escalation of disputes. A drug addict will either overdose and die or seek help, either way problem solved with no intervention necessary. A person not paying taxes will conflict with government officials and it could escalate into a shooting match. Is the problem that the person tried to maintain his rightful claim on his property? NO! The problem is the government ultimately needs to resort to violence to fund itself.
- Crime doesn’t pay. (for real this time)
The most successful criminals are in the government itself! Are we to believe that the white-house spends 10,000 dollars on a toilet seat? Or how about the billions of dollars of which congress cannot find which was spent on government contracts in
Murder: They may execute people and start wars.
Theft: Eminent domain and taxes.
Libel: Governments lie all the time.
These are but a few examples, but they mostly cover all the other categories of moral violations. Clearly it does pay to commit crimes; one could become rich easily by getting in the powers of government. With government gone advantages to crime would be limited, and one would be unable to continue doing it with impunity.
- Less necessity for crime.
No restrictions or government seizures concerning private property will exist. On the other hand no laws that protect excessive wealth exist, lest a monopoly may gain power through sheer wealth. More wealth will naturally be available for everyone by the natural circumstances of the world. Homelessness will be non-existent since anyone may claim land which is not being used and just build a home, no permits, and no permission. You wouldn’t even have to purchase the land unless someone else had already improved upon it and therefore had a rightful claim upon it. Not to mention resources the government consumes would then be available to the public. People would be more self-sufficient grow their own food etc. One of the reasons there is crime is because people feel it is the only way to gain what they want. If we can remove all these artificial barriers to wealth, more options arise to gain these things outside of crime.
I could come up with more examples, but the better way to deal with crime is to get at its root causes rather than just try to discourage it with punishments. I conclude that a more free society solves many crime problems all by itself. Anarchy empowers everyone to deal with crime themselves and it also eliminates many root causes for crime. More detail on how this is true will be in the following posts. Some questions arise on how would we prove a person committed a crime without courts? Or what legal system is in place? How can the economy provide so equally in order to undermine the reasons for crime? This is all covered under my theory of ‘Factionalism’. To be defined in another post.
No comments:
Post a Comment