Down with Every government earth!

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Never really cared to be honest. Your argument does not surprise me, but I do not see it being very applicable to a modern age. For one, more areas are dependent upon other areas for economic support, and the benefits of trade are greater and better known than in the past. Not only that, but also, it does not really support the original form of the argument you made, you argued that people would automatically kill their neighbors in the absence of overarching laws, however, the sense of the term "neighbor" in your example is significantly different than the usual notion of "neighbor". This is also weakened by the fact that we have nations without powerful overarching laws above them not engaged in killing each other. Your term "strong central government" is full of connotations that are not essential to what you are implying with law and order.


Ok, and I do not think that the lives of primitives is the best way to understand a world in which trade is becoming a more powerful force, and where capitalism is the new dominant mechanism.


There is no international central government, there are bodies, but they are mostly powerless bodies, as their teeth are from agencies underneath them that can defy them.


Well, there are some international laws, but there are no powerful international bodies to enforce them. We do not have a strong international structure. Thus, we have laws without the power to enforce them, only the mutual benefits of enforcement.


Well, not really. I mean, law and order does not equal "strong central government" it equals law and order. Strong central government has implications far beyond the efficient implementation of basic laws.

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To essentially sum up, in case my response was somewhat disorganized, as I felt it was, here are some of the points for my position:

a) The economic structure of the world has fundamentally changed, and it has changed in a manner to promote trade and the level of development of the world has made wars costlier by getting us to a point where most actions leading to a real war are rarely are worth the risks and losses of a real war, this is because high baseline levels of wealth lead to an aversion for more austere lifestyles for much of the populace.
----you can attempt to counter this point with modern examples of fighting, but it must be recognized that in none of the post-WW fights has any power had a total war economy.

Not only that, but the economic structure of the world is the force above all governments and powers, and is the mediating structure. Due to it's power, strong central governments are less desirable than governments that interfere less.

b) Peace is possible within anarchic structures because of the change in economic order, in both reducing incentives for war, and creating structures that stand above all powers. Not only that, but the current international structure is somewhat anarchic, but war has still not been around for decades, and is not widely predicted to emerge for decades. Thus, the point that strong central government is necessary seems refuted by the current world order.

c) Strong central government is different from law and order. Law and order is just that rules are enforced, but "strong central government" has a number of implications beyond that. It is not the central government that usually enforces most laws in most regions but rather local enforcement teams. All that higher institutes do is mediate or arbitrate disputes between the agencies beneath them.

d) Governments and nationalities undermine peace and order by creating divisions that a lack thereof would tend to preclude. Trade, however, increases peace and order by crossing social divisions, and by creating benefits to pro-social actions, as well as requiring a surrender of anti-social actions.

Yes police and military. Though I am against private police and military for philosophical/moral reasons. The US military is clearly the greatest military on earth. But look at their budget. If you gave a private company the money and other resources that the government has, they could assemble a military that could flatten the current US one. The government has much less incentive to perform that private industry. The government never has to worry about going out of business.

Anarchy doesn't work. While it can topple a government, once the government falls the following things occurs.

1. People realize it's easier to steal then to be truly self-sufficient.
2. It's even easier to steal with a group of friends
3. Victims band together to keep their stuff from being stolen
4. Victim organizations join with each other to strike back against the looters (who are much more likely to compete with one another instead of joining forces)
5. Victim organizations become so large and powerful they cease being victims and become a government
6. Government creates a set of well-defined laws, thus ending anarcy.

Personally I think the best form of government is an ultra-accountable democracy. In such a government the people elect representatives to maintain the day-to-day operations of the country and respond to emergencies. Every 3 months the citizenry goes to the polls to to decide on major issues, these can be anything of the following:
-Confirming a constitutional amendment passed by congress in the last 3 months
-Stating their opinion of everyone who represents them (be they a congressmen or the president), if someone's approval rating drops below 1/3, new elections for that position are held 3 months later, if they drop below 1/10 then the person is instantly kicked from office and forbidden for ever running for public office again
- Confirming an ongoing war. If 2/3 of the population demand withdraw, that's exactly what happens (except when an invasion makes accurate polling impossible)
- Stating their opinion of the government as a whole. If 2/3 of the population wish to recall every elected and appointed official in the local, state, or national government, that's what happens (failure to step aside within 3 months is legal grounds for political assassination)


One other key feature is that all elected officials are paid a salary based on the nation's GDP. So if they help the economy they get paid more, and if they hurt the economy their paycheck shrinks. After all the only sure way to make sure politicians don't screw over the rest of us is to make poor economic times directly affect them.

@Awesomelyglorious

Of cause economy plays a role, the most important role in history. But: You need a framework for economy to work. Why the Industrial Revolution started in the UK? Do think the Italians or Germans were thicker or just lazy or less greedy? No: The feudal structures were in England destroyed in 16th and 17th century via a strong central government, providing a legal frame work.

Such structure did not exist in German were approx. 1200 states formed the Holy Roman Empire, often not more than a few villages with a legal system of monstrous complexity and a central court, the Reichskammergericht (Imperial Chamber Court) who's decision could be only executed by the good will of those involved.

You need a minimum of a central order to have a capitalist development.

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BTW: I was talking not about "International Law" as the system of rules governing the interactions of states, but of "International Civil Law"; the set of rules which rules international trade, in which e.g. decisions of a German court can be executed, after some formal dealing, in Canada - and vice-versa. But even this set of rule demands states which are willing and able to execute such court decision.

You takes your chances and you takes your choice. Which shall it be? An efficient military that is not answerable to the public or something like what we have now, where the voting public has some indirect input to the operation of the military.

ruveyn

Actually, the contentions is with 4-6.

Anarchists would not deny that people organize to create civil order, but they would argue that this organization would not necessarily lead to a government. After all, for one, step 4 could be argued against by arguing that victim organizations would not join with each other because of the perceived advantages of competition, and that protection organizations would be open for anyone to join in. In fact, some anarchists essentially say that the process stops with 4, and never progresses further.

I think that the British needed to develop in this manner more so than the other nations, as they needed to search for better alternatives for production before the Italians or Germans did due to resource issues. Necessity was the mother of invention to some extent there, although I will admit that my European history is not as strong as it could be.


Now that's the point of contention.

I worked on this issue as a hobby I looked quite deeply into the structure of government in the Holy Roman Empire and in England in the 16th century and both went in total different directions. Whilst England developed under the Tudors (Henry VII to Elizabeth I) a central framework of administration, law making, religion and executive in the Holy Roman Empire there was further decentralisation. Even a strong a personality like Emperor Charles V was not in the position to strengthen the central power and finally even accepted that Free Cities and Princes were entitled to choose the religion for their territory.

In England you could pay with the same money anywhere, in Germany there was an "Imperial Thaler" and hundreds of local currencies, each town, sometime village had his own complex legal frame work. The village I grow up had two overlord, a nearby abbot and the Elector of Trier. In same cases the abbot was law maker, in some cases the Elector, in other cases the village had the right of self-administration, so there were three administrators for a village of less than 30 houses. There about five villages at the river of Mosel called the "Kroever Reich", they were Imperial Territory, but the administration was shared on the behave of the Emperor between the Counts of Spoonheim and the Archbishop of Trier. all administrative act, appointment of judges, tariffs etc. were subject to an agreement of all three involved. In the city of Cologne is was forbidden to sell beer from the villages around, whilst normal cases were subject to the city courts, other cases were subject to the courts of the Archbishop of Cologne, how was otherwise not allow to enter the City, except in his Function as bishop, but not in his function as Elector, except escorting the emperor, if you were not citizen of a particular city you were generally not allow to run any business, if a case reached the highest courts (there were two with overlapping competences), the first question was often which law had to be applied and which of both court has the say, and-so-on-and-so-on

In such an environment an industrial revolution was possible and it was Napoleon how reduced the number of states form more than 1200 to 34.He saw the How Roman Empire as "Metaphysic Body".

Ok, and based upon what I've seen from US history though, having different states with laws more in the hands of states and even the states leaving more power to more local organizations, and no national bank system or anything like that, did not do anything particularly negative to economic growth in the US. I mean, we can look to history all we want, but I see nothing about your example of Germany that really says "Oh, this is how a nation will inevitably end up without strong central government"

I like this quote:

It was a slow development: The emperors of the Salian House and the House of Hohenstaufen held considerable power, but in process which run between the "Statutum in favorem principum" of 1231 till the Peace of Westphalia 1648 the central power became weaker and weaker.

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BTW: The main different between the US federalism and the German system is the influence of the states into federal affairs. The equivalent of the US-Senate is in Germany the Upper House, but they are not elected directly, but is composed of the governments of the states. So to most federal laws must be agreed by the governments of the states. This is one the heritages of the Holy Roman Empire. Also have the state the right to deal independently from the federal government with foreign states or with the European Union. In some cases the federal government can even bypass the directly elected lower house and govern with the support of the upper house of their colleagues from the state governments.

Umm..... ok? But you still have not established a theory about these things, or accounted for why I think the US system is decentralized on a number of metrics and still successful. As well, talking about the difference between the German government and the US government does not seem very important, unless you are trying to establish that we are talking past each other or something. In any case, I would be talking more about a pre-New Deal US than one after that point in time.

The problem is that real trade needs central regulations and government committed to push those regulations into praxis, it needs a legal system, which is supported by a strong government. Even the pre New-Deal government had here some considerable powers. You need such regulations to ensure that a free trade isn't just a nice wording - look e.g. into the Acquis Communautaire of the EU, which ensures that products can be traded legally all over the EU.

This can be only guaranteed by strong central authorities.

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The BTW was more "Off Topic".

No, trade needs person A to exchange good X for Y units of medium of exchange to person B. This process can involve any number of intermediates, but this is a basic thing that mostly requires property laws.

The pre New-Deal government had some powers, these powers were increasing over time, but I didn't just mean directly before, but rather just mean the general period before that, in which the government used less powers than before. In any case, I also do not think the Articles of Confederation would have necessarily failed either.

As for making sure that "free trade" isn't just a nice thing to say, all you need to do is just unilaterally remove tariffs on goods. There is not much else needed to do.

You need much more: You need regulations for defining products. If a Swedish dealer orders in Spain tomatoes, than they must agree about the quality of the product, so you a central institution, which defines what "Tomatoes Class A" means. Free trade does not make sense without free movement of labour and money, so you need central institution regulation working condition, minimal wages, holidays, bank charges, etc. You need also regulation for technical standards, product liability, insurances, etc. etc. etc.

No you don't. If a Swedish dealer orders Spanish tomatoes, then all that is necessary is a group of people willing to buy the products. I mean, if the Spanish tomatoes are undesirable, then people will not buy them and the problem is taken care of.

I don't want a central institution that defines what "Tomatoes Class A" means though, nor is it necessary, you could have a 3rd party judge the value of the goods and determine it's classification and have stores use that kind of measure. I do not want labor regulations or any other regulations either, so I do not see why I need central institutions.

I mean, you are assuming the necessity of things that I do not see as necessary. And before we get into the economics argument, let me just qualify this whole thing by stating that there are economists who have been very anti-regulation in history, such as Milton Friedman and his Chicago school and members of the Austrian school of economics, some of these individuals have been highly influential and winners of Nobel Prizes.