From: Georgi Guninski <guninski@guninski.com>

>http://phrack.org/issues/62/16.html
>The Feasibility of Anarchy in America

From that article:  

" A very real problem to be faced if the central government were removed is
the military situation and the protection of this country from hostile
foreign powers.  It is well known and goes without saying that quite a few
foreign nations would take little time in responding to the collapse of the
government and militarily invade and occupy the nation to their political
and economic advantage.  Thus, it would be imperative that a collective
military be formed and trained in order to resist such a fate.  However,
another problem then arises: if a military is formed, and there is hierarchy
within this military (as there needs be if it is to be effective in
protecting the nation from coordinated foreign attacks), then what is to
stop it from staging a coup and forming a new governmental body under
military rule, with the commanders being the upper class and the new leaders
of an unwilling populace?  This is not an impossible or even an improbable
scenario.  Take Afghanistan, for instance.  After the Mujahideen shook off
the yoke of Soviet dominance and government, they found themselves in quite
a problem: there were several militias, all led by separate commanders with
different ideals.  Soon, fighting erupted between them, and the country was
in a state of war-torn chaos.  Nothing productive came from them, and they
never ruled with any sort of authority.  This serves as an example for how
useless a struggle is against an oppressive regime if no stable government
can be formed afterward.  After their many blunders, a new group rose up
against them and their corruption: the Taliban.  They were originally a
group of freedom fighters who claimed to have no desire for power or rule.
They said that their goals were to remove the Mujahideen and their
atrocities from Afghanistan, and to restore order, security, and peace to
the region.  We all know that, afterward, they indeed became the new rulers
of Afghanistan, and were no better than the former Mujahideen in the least."  [end of long quote]

Maybe most people who actually read the article, and who are aware of my AP essay  https://cryptome.org/ap.htm   , will understand why I say, "Aha" at this.  Evidently, the author (the article appeared in 2004) was unaware of AP and its principles.    Although unaware of it at the writing of AP, in 1995-96, I later learned of David Friedman's (son of late economist Milton Friedman) 1973 book, "The Machinery of Freedom".    (Reprinted in 1989 and 2014). 


Friedman had a chapter titled something like "The Hard Problem"  , later it was edited to this,  http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Machinery_3d_Edition/The%20Hard%20Problem%20II.htm   in which he explained precisely this problem:  Historically, and certainly up to and including 1994, "anarchy" (and an anarchist Libertarian society) were unstable, because such a society could be attacked and conquered by an external,  statist-based, non-anarchistic society.  Friedman evidently considered this problem "hard", because it WAS hard, fiendishly hard.   While I too was aware of this general problem long prior to 1995, I did not know of David Friedman's existence, nor of his book, nor the fact that he had titled his paragraph, "The Hard Problem". 


Ironically, even until today, I strongly suspect that most people who call themselves "anarchists" are entirely unaware of this problem!  They are intellectually invested in an idea that prior to 1995, could not possibly have worked EXCEPT for the solution to the "Hard Problem".  The one that I found.  


Indeed, that was precisely why I classified myself prior to January 1995 as a "minarchist libertarian":  It wasn't as though I wanted some tiny residual amount of government to exist; rather, I simply could not figure out HOW to make that final, tiny amount of government vanish, like a pufff of smoke.  I was sufficiently intellectually honest that I could not advocate a kind of society that I suspected would be unstable and unavoidably open to external attack.  I probably didn't even suspect that there was a solution to this problem, let alone did I think I would be the one to solve it, which I did in my AP essay.


Unfortunately, I think David Friedman must somehow resent me, because I think even in his 2014 revised edition of "The Machinery of Freedom" doesn't mention me, or my AP essay, or the implications for his "Hard Problem".  I give credit to Friedman for identifying the problem, recognizing that it was "hard", and leaving it for somebody else someday to solve.  I think Friedman should give me similar intellectual credit for describing what I believe is, or at least some day will be, the solution to this problem.   


But that leads me to a gripe:  Having gone to the trouble of finding a miraculous solution to Friedman's "Hard Problem", I occasionally see misguided references to the idea that this problem still exists!  This essay, "The Feasibility of Anarchy in America", is just one such example.   Nine (9) years before "Anthony" posited that problem, I had solved it.

              Jim Bell


That author   Anthony <ivrit@missvalley.com>  concludes with:



" I conclude this rather brief essay by answering the question posed in the
beginning: it is not possible that anarchy can exist within America if only
because of the fact that the population could not handle it, and can not be
trusted to act with the best interest of society in mind.  Not many in this
culture of ego-gratification and self-centered hedonism would find it in
their best interests to give up their many enjoyments, possessions, and
sheltered way of life so that they could exist with more responsibility and
self-reliance.  Not only this, it would also be impossible to rid the
majority of the population of the idea of private ownership of property, and
because of the self-centered nature of this culture, it would be entirely
out of the question to assume that a form of communism or communal-lifestyle
would be acceptable to the majority involved.  Besides, without some form of
central government deciding the fate of this communal property and what
should be done with the material harvested or grown from it, we would be
hard-pressed to come to any agreement upon what should be done with it.
Thus, without any sort of unification or democratic government, or even an
authoritarian dictator imposing his will upon the population at large,
nothing can be achieved except factionalism, strife, and inevitably
destabilizing, unconstructive conflict."   [end of quote]