Yes. And the government is whoever has the most access to violent force.

I'm familiar with this line of argument from Vaush & co. I think it might be useful conceptually but that pragmatically it breaks down.

The distinction between physical violence and political rhetoric/speech that leads to structural violence is necessary because direct physical violence contributes to lawlessness and disorder, where as political rhetoric and speech are necessary ingredients to any form of democracy.

Obviously any state, including democratic states, also require physical violence to function. But it needs to be tightly restricted: citizens only have recourse to physical violence as a measure of self defense where as the state has a monopoly on the use of violence otherwise.

A lot of libertarian and anarchist types frame the monopoly of force by the state as a bad thing.. But in reality the alternative is multiple competing sources of force..IE civil conflict and unrest.

If you take the idea that politics which result in structural violence is the same as physical violence then basically advocating for single payer or redistributive tax policy is no different than armed robbery.

What if there was a taboo against hierarchy that was twice as strong as incest and kiddie ****ing combined?

My assertion is that it's not just down to arbitrary taboos, it's about pragmatically functional rules. The reason why having a monopoly of force is a better recipe for stability is because the only alternative is having multiple competing agencies of force, rather than nobody exerting force which is essentially a meaningless pipe dream.

The idea that you could get one traffic light changed to a four way stop in your hometown if you devoted your entire life to it is a pipe dream. You really couldn’t do it. You could go to every city council meeting write your mayor. Do everything in your power to meet every council person and commissioner, the mayor, hold signs, try to organize rallies. It would be an unachievable goal. So when discussing hypotheticals what’s the relevance of attainability? Just because what you want might actually happen doesn’t have anything to do with you somehow making it happen. Pushing for radical **** that will never happen might make more of a difference since it might at least put a new thought in someone’s head. I mean it’s all pointless. Neither of us are changing anything.

If you are the only one pushing for that cause, sure. It should be a pipe dream. If enough people push for it then it's far from impossible.


For instance if I thought universal healthcare was literally an impossible outcome,I wouldn't waste my time advocating for it. Maybe it will happen and maybe it won't. But there's no doubt it can.

But understand... I'm not saying the idea of nobody exerting force is just politically unfeasible. I'm saying that based on game theory and basic human nature and the nature of power vacuums, it's impossible in the same way that a jungle without predators is impossible.

You have as little say over American healthcare policies as you do over chimp wars in the jungle. None.

The people can achieve universal health care? Bull****. We are killing off all the top predators in the what’s left in the world’s jungles however.

Um... Universal healthcare already exists in other countries... Clearly it can be done

I individually don't have the power to do anything but if enough people insist it can be done

Nice job pivoting away from the question at hand, btw.

What’s the question at hand? Is anarchism feasible?