“What is seen and not seen.

Is the threat of violence violent?”

This. Ironically, the overwhelming power of the threat of state violence that perpetually hangs over all our heads is so powerful that it is much less visible than in the past. The modern state can bring such overwhelming violence to bear that it almost never has to actually do so; the threat is enough. This allows the primary aggressors in society to loot everyone else without needing to do anything as crude as sack cities or hang rebels in the town square or club people over the head. I suppose that’s progress of a sort, in the same way that muggers and rapists who leave their victims alive are preferable to those that don’t, but it’s not nonviolent.

A lot of the post-1945 reductions in war deaths no doubt resulted from the restraining effect of nuclear weapons.

Even without considering nukes Europe became very understandably averse to war after the 70 or so million deaths and the destruction of cultural patrimony resulting from the two World Wars. France may be the major exception but they fought their colonial wars in Indochina and Algeria with gung-ho volunteers, mercenaries and colonial troops. Conscripts were kept out of combat roles.

Yeah, the old Soviet Bloc had very low homicide rates. As others have stated the reduction in citizen violence(as opposed to State violence) is the result of the rise of repressive and centralized government.
But I still wonder how accurate and complete those homicide stats from the Middle Ages are. I have some Michael Bellesiles induced skepticism about claims like these.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090824/ap_on_fe_st/us_odd_feuding_families

Oh shit, wait. Alabama’s a State, right? Forget about the anarchy remark then.

“These tragedies can be averted by a state with a monopoly on violence. States can inflict disinterested penalties [LOFL!!!] that eliminate the incentives for aggression, thereby defusing anxieties about preemptive attack and obviating the need to maintain a hair-trigger propensity for retaliation. Indeed, Manuel Eisner attributes the decline in European homicide to the transition from knightly warrior societies to the centralized governments of early modernity. And today, violence continues to fester in zones of anarchy, such as frontier regions, failed states, collapsed empires, and territories contested by mafias, gangs, and other dealers of contraband.”

The last sentence is as close to a definition of Statism as an anarchist could possibly construct.

He is closer to a definition of anarchy with this passage:

“A third theory, championed by journalist Robert Wright, invokes the logic of non-zero-sum games: scenarios in which two agents can each come out ahead if they cooperate, such as trading goods, dividing up labor, or sharing the peace dividend that comes from laying down their arms. As people acquire know-how that they can share cheaply with others and develop technologies that allow them to spread their goods and ideas over larger territories at lower cost, their incentive to cooperate steadily increases, because other people become more valuable alive than dead.”

That is as close to a summation of free-market anarchy as one will find in the mainstream, yet Pinker doesn’t even understand what he’s writing about.

I respect Pinker for his work in linguistics, I own a copy of “The Language Instinct.” But he’s no expert on political systems. Oh I suppose there’s no harm in theories that can’t be conclusively proved one way or the other. Very convenient for him.

I don’t think we have to be “doomed to a violent existence.” That does not mean that some people won’t be violent. I think we can agree that a small number of people in our society will always feel the need to express themselves through violence. They will need to be repelled, and that is one reason I continue to work in the field of protective services. Those of us who prefer reason over force can try to set a positive tone in our homes, workplaces, social settings, etc. We can also promote changes that will reduce violence and undue coercion in our society (I realize you and I will disagree on some of the specific remedies) and give more power to individuals and less to governments OR employers. Start from the grassroots and you never know what new forms of social organization may emerge.

The only practical hope for the anarchist is in solitude. Anarchy disappears with the joining of two humans in society.

With that admission comes the uncomfortable fact that humans in society are forever doomed to a violent existence.

I guess the only question after that is who is to be master, who is to be slave.

ZZZZZZZZZZ.

Not many do. No offense to the anarchists on this forum, but true, principled anarchists are few and far between. And people recognize this. Many who call themselves anarchists in the U.S. are “communists in anti-authoritarian drag,” as one commenter called the anti-globalization clique. And then you have the primitivists (the Unabomber is an extreme example) and others who seek to bring about their “anarchy” by any (violent) means necessary. So much for the voluntary society! On the Right side of the divide, there are anarcho-capitalists, whom the Left would call “anarchists who require a police force to protect them from their slaves/serfs/workers.” And the battle between “anarchists” rages on! Who would want to get mixed up in that? I’ll settle for being a plain old liberal myself. ZZZZZZZZZ.

Outside of the college campus, punk clubs, and internet forums, few call themselves anarchists, and even fewer understand the meaning of the term. Voluntary cooperation should be the usual condition for society, but this ideology always leaves one with more questions than answers. This is why anarchism is not seen as a viable alternative to many outside of a small circle of devotees.

Is the threat of violence violent?

If one lives in a world where humans no longer maim or kill one another but this is due to the threat of violence by the State and results in total lack of individual freedom, is this desirable?

What is seen and not seen.

The violence is still there — it is a constant in human behavior. It’s just been channeled into less overt means like voting and taxes. And because there is such a drastic imbalance of power between the State and the individual due to technological advancement of weaponry, the ability to resort to defensive violence by the individual has been practically eliminated — at the cost of freedom.

Humanity is just as violent as it has ever been. If it is not manifesting itself in open warfare, it is because the violence is being contained behind a dam of Statist oppression. I wonder how sturdy that dam is?

Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of Warre, where every man is Enemy to every man; the same is consequent to the time, wherein men live without other security, than what their own strength, and their own invention shall furnish them withall. In such condition, there is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no Culture 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, continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short.

As you may have surmised, I’m no anarchist.

Of course there’s an inverse correlation between social stability and violence. If you bring kids up in a world where upheaval is routine and the need for physical self-defence at a moment’s notice is a given then they’re going to be more violent.

It’s like being surprised that the US is better at baseball than countries that don’t teach their kids to play baseball. Wow!