Well, that’s something that Gil Guillory is very carefully testing.

In other words, I don’t think anarchy exists without /some/ (probably rather significant) societal value placed on non-coercion. Though that /might/ be in accord with people’s “natural” sense of morality (or at least not too much of a stretch from what is intuitively obvious in a civilized setting), people are almost invariably educated, in the modern world, to believe in the nation-state paradigm (and hence to tolerate marauders and /or wait around for the strongest one to win—or for the least evil to show himself so’s to give him their support, etc).

Again, though, the state is just /organized/ coercion. Localized banditry and violation of human rights are still coercion – a state is not required; all that is required is powerlessness /or/ acquiescence.

That said, another problem which tends to prohibit a /functional/ anarchy in this day-and-age, and one that I find seldom discussed despite its seeming great importance, is the fact that institutions (like the theoretical “insurance companies” that one always hears about in market anarchist theory) are, if not entirely precluded from existing at all within the dominant nation-state paradigm, certainly precluded from /tending/ to exist. I’ll be damned if I’m gonna believe that proponents of the nation-state are going to let alternate paradigms come into being (let alone flourish)!

The nation-state would seem to me to crowd out all competing models (by design, in fact – albeit not necessarily by /conscious/ design). For example, how likely would you think it to find a company dedicated to providing non-coercive governmental services going public anytime soon on the NYSE? How likely would it be that if such a company (or better yet, companies) were to come into being, it (they) would be allowed to provide any kind of service before the compassionate international community put the effort to a halt – either militaristically and / or by clamping down on the finances of the company / companies in question?

So, yes, I would agree that militaristic meddling is a significant factor in the deteriorating situations in Afghanistan and (apparently, though I’ll admit I’m not terribly knowledgeable on the subject) in Somalia. However, I find the nation-state to be a jealous god, and one unlikely to allow something as “amoral” as a stateless territory, not to mention the institutions that would allow felicitous existence therein, to exist untrammeled for any length of time. Yeah, people are definitely equipped to get along without /necessarily/ resorting to violence, but people are left little recourse against gangs of bandits when moral defense agents aren’t allowed to come into being or do their jobs (by exceptionally large, well-funded gangs of bandits called “nation-states,” of course).

The American Federal GOVERNMENT was occupying the territory, Saddam Husein a DICTATOR, had just been deposed.

You call that statelessness?

Tracy

If a polycentric system evolved into the current crop of mini-states, that would be a point against the anarchists. But if a bunch of mini-states failed to evolve into anarchy, I’m not sure that’s a point against anybody.