Author Topic: Is life without government possible ?  (Read 3872 times)

felixbf

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Is life without government possible ?
« on: February 09, 2018, 04:45:46 AM »
Just a thought, we hear countless stories of Billions going missing in every government on the planet, tax payer money being used to fund other countries wars, sending rockets into space to study other planets (yet our planet is in the crapper), outsourcing jobs to other countries,etc. Most of them for kickbacks in their own pocket on our dime.

No government to date has done their job at 30% promised goals...ever.

Thoughts?

Linea_Norway

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Re: Is life without government possible ?
« Reply #1 on: February 09, 2018, 05:03:57 AM »
I think societies require a form of government to ensure things run smoothly. But for a government to work in a fair way, it needs to be very transparent. If we elect people to make decisions for us, we need to know whether these people receive payment from other sources than the government. It should also be transparent what they decide.

In today's digital age, it would be possible to remove the elected representatives and have a more direct democracy. Just present every law as a vote on the internet and let the citizens decide. How do you make sure the citizens are well enough informed about the contents of the law? How do we know for sure that our elected representatives are well enough informed about the law when they vote for it?
But governments also have a process of discussing and changing law proposals, based on the representative's comments. Someone needs to do that. But maybe this process could also be digitalized and included many common citizens.

Most societies need some form of redistribution of wealth and resources, like taking care of those who require much more healthcare than others. This could in theory be left to the goodwill of those who have most. But maybe it is easier to implement by a government that governs this in some fair way.
« Last Edit: February 09, 2018, 06:18:28 AM by Linda_Norway »

JG in Hangzhou

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Re: Is life without government possible ?
« Reply #2 on: February 09, 2018, 05:10:22 AM »
Without government, who would protect us from major corporations?  uh...

matchewed

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Re: Is life without government possible ?
« Reply #3 on: February 09, 2018, 05:29:36 AM »
Well if you can think of a system that works better you are more than welcome to write about it and convince others. In the meantime I recommend working on the problems or working on implementing better systems rather than pissing in soup.

Plus flagging for putting this in the Off Topic area where it probably belongs.

LWYRUP

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Re: Is life without government possible ?
« Reply #4 on: February 09, 2018, 05:45:23 AM »

Governments suck because people suck.

You remove governments, you will still have people, who will find new ways to suck.

Sibley

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Re: Is life without government possible ?
« Reply #5 on: February 09, 2018, 05:52:10 AM »
Absolutely, life without a formal government is possible. That life would just be nothing like what we've got now. IE, small bands of hunter/gatherers with perhaps a bit of cultivation, who have only occasional contact with other similar bands. Once you start getting bigger than that you need some sort of government. Doesn't mean that it's some sort of ideal society of course.

Incidentally, it would be possible to end up in that situation again. It would be preceded by the death of the vast majority of the human population from some cause. War, disease, or famine (or some combo of the 3) are how large numbers of people die. Take your pick.

Capt j-rod

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Re: Is life without government possible ?
« Reply #6 on: February 09, 2018, 05:54:45 AM »
Your Utopian society has been tried in all sorts of flavors. Can it be done? I honestly say no. Look at trickle up vs trickle down economics... Neither works, both have been tried yet we continue to try both. I personally could care less about a political stance. I work on me and my family. I stay relatively flexible as to benefit from what ever comes my way. Stock market tanks? BUY! Real Estate for cheap? Buy! Lots of work available? WORK! Now as far as government... It is a very slippery slope. Zoning is hated by all legit contractors but it keeps your neighbor from raising chickens in an abandoned car and dragging in two trailers to live in. What is the answer? Do the best you can with what you have. Keep your ear to the track and adapt your plans to succeed. Let the government be stupid like the other 80% of America that are broke and ready to lose everything due to stupidity with financials.

undercover

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Re: Is life without government possible ?
« Reply #7 on: February 09, 2018, 06:16:50 AM »
No, because even at an instinctual level we are governed by unwritten laws. I mean yeah, there could and most likely will be life without government as you know it (not in your lifetime), but there will never be life without some form of government.

Just because people are tired of their current government does not mean government will ever go away - it will just be replaced with a more ideal type of government. Human nature is human nature - there is both order and chaos. But there will always be order to an extent because there has to be for our survival.

Even tribes have chiefs and elders and usually have some form of council. Hunter/gatherers still need to live by a set of principles and rules or their way of life wouldn't last very long either. The distribution of power would of course be much more horizontal or some form of patriarchy, but there would very much be a feeling of governance within your small tribe. There is no escaping the concept of government because it is just as necessary for life as oxygen.

jlcnuke

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Re: Is life without government possible ?
« Reply #8 on: February 09, 2018, 06:46:19 AM »
There's a reason that every society on Earth that progressed beyond a small band of people eventually developed a system of government - because it's necessary for the good of all people (without it you're pretty much guaranteed to have some version of mob rule/might makes right depending on the scenario).

p.s. You're posting this on the internet which was developed, in large part, due to the government. You're probably also using technology developed for/because of government travel to space everyday in your life etc. Much of that "wasted" money from space exploration was used to fuel a large part of the innovation that has propelled our advancement and economy...

Cromacster

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Re: Is life without government possible ?
« Reply #9 on: February 09, 2018, 06:57:31 AM »
Go to Somalia, no government to speak of there. I hear it's paradise!

FrugalToque

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Re: Is life without government possible ?
« Reply #10 on: February 09, 2018, 07:02:09 AM »
No government to date has done their job at 30% promised goals...ever.

[citation needed]

Toque.

Pigeon

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Re: Is life without government possible ?
« Reply #11 on: February 09, 2018, 07:25:08 AM »
Quote
Even tribes have chiefs and elders and usually have some form of council. Hunter/gatherers still need to live by a set of principles and rules or their way of life wouldn't last very long either. The distribution of power would of course be much more horizontal or some form of patriarchy, but there would very much be a feeling of governance within your small tribe. There is no escaping the concept of government because it is just as necessary for life as oxygen.

Yup, and tribalism is often not so wonderful for the people who aren't chiefs or elders.

GuitarStv

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Re: Is life without government possible ?
« Reply #12 on: February 09, 2018, 07:43:29 AM »
Government-free societies can work, but by I think that they all have to be very limited in size (like family unit sized).  The more people that you get together in a group, the more likely that a particular action taken by one or several of the people will be deemed unacceptable by others in the group.  Once you get to a large and complex society, a government is required to allow things to be productive.  Imagine trying to get to your work in the morning if there were no traffic laws for example.
« Last Edit: February 09, 2018, 07:46:11 AM by GuitarStv »

Davnasty

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Re: Is life without government possible ?
« Reply #13 on: February 09, 2018, 07:44:25 AM »
No government to date has done their job at 30% promised goals...ever.

[citation needed]

Toque.

Indeed. I don't see how this is even quantifiable. Have governments promised 100 units of citizen satisfaction while only providing 30 units at most?

Just Joe

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Re: Is life without government possible ?
« Reply #14 on: February 09, 2018, 08:35:02 AM »
Without government, who would protect us from major corporations?  uh...

Awww, just dump that industrial waste sludge in the river. Nobody will notice... Who cares if the next town downstream all dies from it. As long as WE don't get caught. Besides, boss told us to. Not our problem. We had no choice.

So how was church last night Frank?

Eric

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Re: Is life without government possible ?
« Reply #15 on: February 09, 2018, 06:30:43 PM »
Wanna move to Jonestown?

Norioch

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Re: Is life without government possible ?
« Reply #16 on: February 09, 2018, 07:04:53 PM »
Yes, it's possible, but it's not desirable.

bacchi

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Re: Is life without government possible ?
« Reply #17 on: February 10, 2018, 09:10:05 PM »
It'd be a total shitshow and we certainly wouldn't have the internet to talk about our no-government problems.

Laura33

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Re: Is life without government possible ?
« Reply #18 on: February 10, 2018, 10:26:29 PM »
Well of course not.  Because whenever you have more than one human, you need laws and rules to govern their interactions.  For most of history, those rules were, basically, “the stronger guy gets what he wants.”  But that’s still a government - it’s called a dictatorship. 

So the real question is what kind of government do you want?  Personally, I think the modern concept of “rule of law” is a huge improvement over “might makes right” (at least, given that my name is not Mongo). 

Of course, the rule of law is not always right, fair, perfect, or even reasonable.  It’s just better than all the other options.

sol

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Re: Is life without government possible ?
« Reply #19 on: February 10, 2018, 10:49:47 PM »
No, not possible.

I'm not saying you couldn't form a society without one, I'm saying that warlords and strongmen would rapidly take over and then they would become the new government.  Power abhors a vacuum. 

The virtue of a democracy is that everyone gets a say in what sort of shitty government they get, instead of having a shitty government thrust upon them by whoever is most willing to bash heads in.

Thegoblinchief

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Re: Is life without government possible ?
« Reply #20 on: February 11, 2018, 08:02:01 AM »
There’s a lot of interesting ideas proposed by people on the libertarian toward anarchist spectrum and it appeals to me at a gut level but no, I don’t think it’s particularly possible to have a good life without some form of government. I personally think government could be a lot smaller and less regulatory and still be effective but that’s very different than no government at all.

This is primarily a Dunbar’s number problem. (That is, societies can no longer be about direct personal relationships once you get beyond about 150 members.)

omachi

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Re: Is life without government possible ?
« Reply #21 on: February 11, 2018, 09:12:53 AM »
It's absolutely possible, though it is dubious to claim it's desirable. How much of humanity do you think had governments 10,000 years ago? Think the ones that did looked anything like the ones we have today? They managed to get by, but at a cost of next to zero mobility, little recourse to grievances, violence that spirals out of control, etc.

If you're actually curious about how people interact in small groups, bands, tribes, without a large state government, get your hands on "The World Until Yesterday" by Jared Diamond. Fascinating book and it certainly convinced me that we get a lot more good out of government than you seem to think. I'll take it, even with its inefficiencies.

BudgetSlasher

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Re: Is life without government possible ?
« Reply #22 on: February 11, 2018, 10:20:58 AM »
I guess it depends on where some form of social organization becomes government.

As an example, even few people living in isolation without modern technology would probably have some form of social contract (spoken or unspoken) regarding things as simple and theft of food and a mechanism for punishment, such as shunning or exile.

NoraLenderbee

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Re: Is life without government possible ?
« Reply #23 on: February 12, 2018, 02:58:59 PM »
Just a thought, we hear countless stories of Billions going missing in every government on the planet, tax payer money being used to fund other countries wars, sending rockets into space to study other planets (yet our planet is in the crapper), outsourcing jobs to other countries,etc.


That's because reporting on the things government is doing well doesn't make an exciting news story. Imagine if Fox and CNN reported daily on all the clean water that people got by just turning on the faucet, all the sewage successfully processed, the fire departments that did their jobs without fanfare, the police that did their jobs and came home safely, the polio epidemics that didn't happen, the meat that is safe to buy and that meets consistent quality standards, the detailed ingredients list on food that allows people to know what they're eating, the trains that ran on time, the bridges that didn't fall down . . . Look around at the things you take for granted in your normal, modern life.

pegleglolita

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Re: Is life without government possible ?
« Reply #24 on: February 12, 2018, 03:48:33 PM »
There's a reason the vast majority of hard-core libertarians and anarchists are white men. 

Tawk amongst yaselves....


Leisured

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Re: Is life without government possible ?
« Reply #25 on: February 15, 2018, 08:09:11 PM »
Go to Somalia, no government to speak of there. I hear it's paradise!

Excellent comment, CrocMaster.

I follow Thomas Hobbes, seventeenth century British philosopher. He envisaged society as a Leviathan, to which we all submit, for our own good. I quote from his book Leviathan, Chapter 13:

‘In such condition, there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no cultivation of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving, and removing, such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.’

Excellent summary of the benefits of government.

Kyle Schuant

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Re: Is life without government possible ?
« Reply #26 on: February 15, 2018, 08:40:52 PM »
Just because your current government, or your particular country's government system, is utter shit, does not mean that government is inherently bad. At the moment you're like the guy who gets screwed around on his girlfriend and goes all Telly Salvalas in the Dirty Dozen. "They're all sluts!"

FrugalToque

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Re: Is life without government possible ?
« Reply #27 on: February 16, 2018, 05:50:45 AM »
No government to date has done their job at 30% promised goals...ever.

[citation needed]

Toque.

Indeed. I don't see how this is even quantifiable. Have governments promised 100 units of citizen satisfaction while only providing 30 units at most?

I've seen right leaning politicians promise things like: "We'll get rid of 33% of the red tape in government!"

As if you can quantify the unnecessary forms in the bureaucracy.

Toque.

KTG

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Re: Is life without government possible ?
« Reply #28 on: February 16, 2018, 06:30:51 AM »
Without government there would be no law and no police. Good luck.

FrugalToque

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Re: Is life without government possible ?
« Reply #29 on: February 16, 2018, 06:57:52 AM »
Just a thought, we hear countless stories of Billions going missing in every government on the planet, tax payer money being used to fund other countries wars, sending rockets into space to study other planets (yet our planet is in the crapper), outsourcing jobs to other countries,etc.


That's because reporting on the things government is doing well doesn't make an exciting news story. Imagine if Fox and CNN reported daily on all the clean water that people got by just turning on the faucet, all the sewage successfully processed, the fire departments that did their jobs without fanfare, the police that did their jobs and came home safely, the polio epidemics that didn't happen, the meat that is safe to buy and that meets consistent quality standards, the detailed ingredients list on food that allows people to know what they're eating, the trains that ran on time, the bridges that didn't fall down . . . Look around at the things you take for granted in your normal, modern life.

True that.

We had a provincial government in Ontario that wanted to get rid all of the "unnecessary" regulations.  One of those actions involved privatizing water testing across the province.  5 people died and 2500 became seriously ill in Walkteron, Ontario.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkerton_E._coli_outbreak

We had a federal government in Canada that wanted to privatize meat packaging inspection.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Canada_listeriosis_outbreak  That went about as well, with 22 dying of listeria poisoning.

It's not until someone decides we don't need government that the media realizes how much we do need it.

Toque.

lemonlyman

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Re: Is life without government possible ?
« Reply #30 on: February 16, 2018, 07:14:37 AM »
You can get a nice plot of land and have very little interaction with any government, but ownership of that land flows through government services. Without a government, you'd be on your own to protect it and there would be no documentation that the land is yours except that you're sitting on it. Anyone could come take it from you and/or kill you for it because there's no deterrent to those crimes without a government. The concept of a crime doesn't exist without a government to enforce it. So yeah, life is possible, but it would suck.

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!