SF Razor vs. Remix

[FromTheSouth]

We're all judging. Open for a week. Good Luck.

Razor will be affirmative.

Resolved: Anarchy is superior fascism.

[Remix]

FTS, by "Anarchy is superior faschism" do you mean "Anarchy is superior to fascism"? It's not really very clear, and I'd like to make sure that I'm understanding it right.

Also, good luck Razor.

[Remix]

Ok, in England it's Wednesday now and Razor's had an extre 24 hours to post. Since he hasn't yet, I'll start.

Why Fascism is superior to Anarchy

Introduction

I am going to be arguing the position that fascism is superior to the state of anarchy. I'll be doing this on an interlectual level first and then compare the definitive fascist state (Nazi Germany) to the definitive anarchistic state (Somalia) to take the interlectual arguements and make them more applicable to everyday life

Definitions

Fascism and anarchy are both terms with several different definitions. I'll be using these definitions

Anarchy: Absence of any form of political authority

Fascism: A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.

Both of those definitions came from thefreedictionary.com.

Ecconomy: The theory

Theoretically, anarchy is the ultimate free market. There's no government to impose and inforce restrictions, and companies, wholesalers and outlets can do whatever they like. On the other hand, fascism takes the opposite approach and rigidly controls everything. However, the problem with anarchy is that it's not just companies which are unaccountable to the law it's the consumers. They're free to just steal the stuff, which is bad for the ecconomy.

Ecconomy: The reality

Somalia's ecconomy has been healthy despite the civil war, with a poverty level better than many other subsaharan countries. This is possibly because Xeer (Somali customary law) provides a stable environment for companies to exist. So yeah, the ultimate free market has produced a country which has a healthy ecconomy. Let's see what Fascsm can do.

Healthy does not begin to cover what a Fascist government can do ecconomically. Hitler came to power in 1933, which you may recall as being slap bang in the middle of the great depression. And if you remember your history, that's the worst depression in recent history. Hitler rose to power in a country where 30% of the workforce was unemployed and the world's ecconomy was in tatters. In six years, Germany had become a strong power capable of fighting a world war. Hitler's policies took the construction industry from employing 666,000 to over 2,000,000. That's a threefold increase. Fascism wins this round conclusively.

Crime: The theory

In a society where there are no laws, anything goes. You're accountable only to your peers and if you're the strongest guy in the area, you make the rules. This is not a stable society, and when strength of the people outweighs strength of the law it's not a safe one either. However, owing to a, lack of laws, there's technically no crime in; though if western laws existed there would be. Lots. In a Facist state, there are laws. They are enforced, and there's no chance in hell that anybody is going to have the power to stand up to it. This would result in people obeying the law out of a sence of self preservation (like how nobody goes against the strongest guy in town if they know what's good for them)

Crime: The reality

Somalia is insanely corrupt (its corruption level is 180) and its piracy problem has become an menace to international trade. I don't need to type much more to prove my point that anarchy breeds massive amounts of crime. When Nazi Germany was strong, local police files indicate that there was little to no crime; and crime went up as the state got weaker. Either way though, crime was the least of the reasons to be concerned about Nazi Germany. Round two goes to Fascism.

Conclusion:

I think I've proven my point that a Fascist state is better than an anarchitic one. I could do some more research and drag up information on other areas for comparason, but I dont see the need. I've also got revision to do, and can't afford the devote much more time to this.

[Razor]

Well then. That's what I get for not checking the Debate League to see if my round is up. Let see here....

Anarchy is superior to Fascism. It's not even a choice, really.

Socially:

Fascism ALWAYS exists through a severe depression of the citizenry. Hitler came to power through manipulating the Germans into blaming their entire economic blackhole on the Jews, whom he blamed for the Treaty of Versailles (a valid cause of his economy, but it was not caused by Jews per se).

Russia? Sure, they were communists. The Nazis were avid capitalists. Russian citizens actually yearned to leave after World War II, when they realized that communism under Stalin was not a good day. How did Russia respond? With the totally Fascist ideal of the Iron Curtain, in which all immigration was drastically cut. They refused to allow their citizens the basic right of travel.

The Social Contract:

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. Some argue that these basic truths only apply to the Lockean Social Contract, but I argue that it applies to any society that exists as an agreement between individuals to live as a cohesive unit. Basically, every society's government has the responsibility to fight for the Life, Liberty, and Happiness of their individual citizens.

How does fascism do that? By actually taking away all but the citizen's most basic rights? Sure, a citizen in Russia could eat, but could they write what they want in the newspaper? Could they say what they want? Do what they want? Maybe, but the fascist government would haul that citizen away to a gulag.

Crime:

I would argue that, despite what Remix says, crime is much more rampant in Fascist governments. The crime in Nazi Germany may have been nonexistent amongst the populace, but have you thought of the government? They were killing millions of Jews, Gypsies, Homosexuals, and other lower social castes.

How about Russia? They were a fascist communistic society. Russia has always been plagued by crime. What crime wasn't perpetrated by the populace was rife in the Russian Government. Stalin murdered more Russians than Hitler did people during the Holocaust.

Economy:

Any Facist government you give will have a robust economy. Hitler's Germany, Mussolini's Italy, Stalin's Russia. They all had incredibly active economies during the early years.

But what happened to those economies in the end? They collapsed. And they collapsed hard.

Hitler's Germany had an economy that collapsed under the combined weight of an Allied advance and the burden of somehow supporting a international economy while trading with Switzerland, Italy, and Japan.

Stalin's Russia is the best economy of the bunch. It lasted up until 1990, when a ballooning military budget led to the collapse of Gorbachev's Russia. Why was that military budget and general expenditure humongous? Not only were they Communists, and therefore forced to pay for all kinds of programs that effectively supported those ideals, but they were stuck in a Cold War with the United States. Still. The communists of Russia were forced to keep up the communist programs because they had to keep their citizenry happy...because the government was a bunch of fascists. People don't like having their civil rights trampled unless they're getting free bread.

Mussolini's Italy? Lulz. Sure, the trains ran on time. But that's about it. The Allied Powers steamrolled through Italy and left Mussolini hanging naked from the ramparts. The economy was only good because it was Italy, the center of world trade.

Where Does Anarchy Fit Into This?

It's simple. Anarchy provides a way to solve all of these societal problems without resorting to the pitfalls of Fascism.

Anarchy is the ideal through which societal order and individual responsibility prevail. The individual is trusted to do his part for society, while an all powerful government is feared. And rightfully so.

As such, there is nothing that says this idea of anarchy must fit a predefined size. We are not applying the idea of Anarchy to Texas, California, the United States, or the world. We are applying anarchy as a social idea to fascism, another social idea. We can move our control group sizes up or down, as much as is needed to properly show the interactions of the idea.

Fascism, no matter how large or small the control size, leaves the citizenry oppressed and the government was power that no group of the minority should have over the majority.

Anarchy would not work in a large scale, country-sized control group. The individual can not be trusted to work with his fellow man to work for the good of a group that large without a power structure to tell him to do so.

However, anarchy how it is supposed to work, works fine. Anarchy has never been argued for a large country by those who really know what the hell is going on. Anarchy has always been argued for smaller cohesive units of individuals. Villages of no more than 100 or so people, perhaps even fewer. There's a reason why all the utopias we learn of in high school never got more than a few hundred people. That size then requires a social structure of government. That's a no-no in Anarchy.

Anarchy in a small group works incredibly well. Social responsibility is enforced by the individual himself, because if the person does not work than that person (and the rest of the community) can not eat. If the society has progressed and only a few farm while others do trade (think early Middle Age villages or early Native American societies) than the individual works because he will then not have a mode of trade to use within the society. No government is needed, because the society is close-knit enough to relegate the social responsibility to each person, as opposed to the government.

Once social responsibility is taken by each individual, the other pieces of society fall into place. Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness are guaranteed when a person is living his life in harmony with the others in his village. No one's social responsibility will ever call for killing another or infringing on the rights of his fellow citizen.

Crime? Whose responsibility calls for committing crime?

Society? Who is going to fight or infringe on the rights of others? Whose responsibility would call for that?

Economy? You're trading wheat for nails. It's a barter economy, you can't get much more fair than that. The only problem would be when the harvests are ruined, which can be solved by setting aside a set percentage of the harvest for use during such a disaster. No government would be necessary for this, it need only be kept in the center of town. Easy.

Anarchy, when kept to the small groups it is meant for, is an incredibly novel way to keep a society running. Fascism, or the centralization of authority under a government in a drastic and overly authoritarian way, only breeds contempt for the government due to blatant human rights violations.

If you want to run a country, sure. Use Fascism. Just don't be surprised when your citizenry revolts because you told them they couldn't say you smell.

[Remix]

Originally Posted by Razor

Socially:

Fascism ALWAYS exists through a severe depression of the citizenry.

Not always. It's easier to come about when there's a severe depression. But that's by no means the only way. Some of the rulers of Ancient Greek city states could qualify as fascists. The Spartans for example took posession of every baby, judged if it was healthy, killed the sick ones and when that baby was old enough to fight, they were drafted to the army. And yet, there was no depression there. It was actually founded on those principles. As for the nationalistic aspect, they enslaved non-Spartans at every opertunity.

Hitler came to power through manipulating the Germans into blaming their entire economic blackhole on the Jews, whom he blamed for the Treaty of Versailles (a valid cause of his economy, but it was not caused by Jews per se).

It wasn't caused by the jews at all. Technically, Hitler never claimed it was. It was caused by the Allies of WW1 sitting at a table compromising over how much Germany should be punished (and for the French people, it wasn't enough. They voted out Clemenceau for letting them off easy). He blamed the loss of WW1, and some of the financial ills of Germany on the jews though. He also said that the German people were racially superior to Jews and the people of the east.

Russia? Sure, they were communists. The Nazis were avid capitalists. Russian citizens actually yearned to leave after World War II, when they realized that communism under Stalin was not a good day.

All true

How did Russia respond? With the totally Fascist ideal of the Iron Curtain, in which all immigration was drastically cut. They refused to allow their citizens the basic right of travel.

Stalin slaughtered his populace. Limiting movement was the least of his sins.

The Social Contract:

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. Some argue that these basic truths only apply to the Lockean Social Contract, but I argue that it applies to any society that exists as an agreement between individuals to live as a cohesive unit. Basically, every society's government has the responsibility to fight for the Life, Liberty, and Happiness of their individual citizens.

Very true. Everybody should be entitled to those things.

How does fascism do that? By actually taking away all but the citizen's most basic rights?

How does anarchy do it? By making it a free for all, and ensuring that only the strong get what they should be entitled to while everybody else suffers.

Sure, a citizen in Russia could eat, but could they write what they want in the newspaper? Could they say what they want? Do what they want? Maybe, but the fascist government would haul that citizen away to a gulag.

In anarchy, you piss off the wrong person and that person can do whatever he likes to you. I think being beaten to death by a pissed of guy is roughly as bad as being sent to a gulag.

Also, I think you'd agree Sadam Hussain was a fascist. I think that you'd also agree that after removing him from power, Iraq rapidly went from fascism to anarchy. With this in mind, you'd expect the country to improve socially. I mean after all, piss off the fascist government and you face the consiquences. Last I checked, it got worse. Under fascism, you know your enemies. Under anarchy your enemies are unknown and constantly changing. Which is worse, the evil you know, or the evil you dont?

Crime:

I would argue that, despite what Remix says, crime is much more rampant in Fascist governments. The crime in Nazi Germany may have been nonexistent amongst the populace, but have you thought of the government? They were killing millions of Jews, Gypsies, Homosexuals, and other lower social castes.

Yes, the holocaust is one motherfucker of a crime. No denying it. However, since anarchy, by definition has no government you cannot compare governmental crimes. It's like comparing the engine size of a Bugatti Veyron to a push bike. One's got a big, huge, massive engine the other doesn't have one. You really cannot compare them. So I compared something that they did both have, citizens who commit crimes.

How about Russia? They were a fascist communistic society. Russia has always been plagued by crime. What crime wasn't perpetrated by the populace was rife in the Russian Government.

Yes it was. State sponsored murder was very common in the USSR. And China under Mao.

Stalin murdered more Russians than Hitler did people during the Holocaust.

Many more. And if Genghis Khan conqured the same area today would have killed more than both. (you could make a good arguement for the Mongol empire being anarchistic in nature. As it allowed for free trade, and local armed forces were disbanded and people roamed around in perfect safety. Granted it controlled individual areas by fear but the Khagan wasn't the sole bearer of power, preventing it from being a true fascism).

Economy:

Any Facist government you give will have a robust economy. Hitler's Germany, Mussolini's Italy, Stalin's Russia. They all had incredibly active economies during the early years.

And no anarchistic state can say the same.

But what happened to those economies in the end? They collapsed. And they collapsed hard.

In most of those cases because of large factors like big wars, and trade becoming impossible. Which are external factors. You could make an areguement for China. And that's a state that doesn't look to be failing any time soon.

Hitler's Germany had an economy that collapsed under the combined weight of an Allied advance and the burden of somehow supporting a international economy while trading with Switzerland, Italy, and Japan.

Yep, the German ecconomy was a beast, and it took most of europe to take it down. Hell, if Hitler hadn't been a communist hating prick, there's a good shot that he'd have won WW2.

Stalin's Russia is the best economy of the bunch. It lasted up until 1990, when a ballooning military budget led to the collapse of Gorbachev's Russia. Why was that military budget and general expenditure humongous? Not only were they Communists, and therefore forced to pay for all kinds of programs that effectively supported those ideals, but they were stuck in a Cold War with the United States. Still. The communists of Russia were forced to keep up the communist programs because they had to keep their citizenry happy...because the government was a bunch of fascists. People don't like having their civil rights trampled unless they're getting free bread.

Very true.

Mussolini's Italy? Lulz. Sure, the trains ran on time. But that's about it. The Allied Powers steamrolled through Italy and left Mussolini hanging naked from the ramparts. The economy was only good because it was Italy, the center of world trade.

But Mussolini was completely incompetant though. It took someone competant (but for more evil) to take his idea and make it work.

Where Does Anarchy Fit Into This?

It's simple. Anarchy provides a way to solve all of these societal problems without resorting to the pitfalls of Fascism.

Because the pitfalls of anarchy are so much better? Which is why people in Iraq prefered the fascism of Sadam's dictatorship to the anarchy it's currently in.

Anarchy is the ideal through which societal order and individual responsibility prevail. The individual is trusted to do his part for society, while an all powerful government is feared. And rightfully so.

Thing about that idea is that it doesn't work. Ihere'll simply be people who take advantage to become more powerful, and everything ends up in deep shit. It's like the idea of Marxism, it looks great, but in the real world it doesn't work and leads to dictators like Stalin and Mao wiping out milllions of their own people.

As such, there is nothing that says this idea of anarchy must fit a predefined size. We are not applying the idea of Anarchy to Texas, California, the United States, or the world. We are applying anarchy as a social idea to fascism, another social idea. We can move our control group sizes up or down, as much as is needed to properly show the interactions of the idea.

What better test of society is there than letting it happen in the real world? In the real world, fascist states have been stable and ecconomically powerful. Anarchistic states, not so much.

Fascism, no matter how large or small the control size, leaves the citizenry oppressed and the government was power that no group of the minority should have over the majority.

Very true. However, anarchy unless in a control group too small to be demographically useful doesn't work at all, and leads to groups of people who become powerful and poress the people anyway. The only difference being that it's citizen vs citizen, rather than state vs populace.

Anarchy would not work in a large scale, country-sized control group. The individual can not be trusted to work with his fellow man to work for the good of a group that large without a power structure to tell him to do so.

So you concede the superiority of fascism when it comes to ruling a country?

However, anarchy how it is supposed to work, works fine.

So does communism. But in the real world, nothing works as its supposed to. Drugs aren't 100% effective, enzymes aren't 100% effective, DNA checkpoints can fail and lead to malignant tumors (cancer), power stations aren't 100% effective, religious fundimentalism leads to hate when the founders preached love. In the real world even the best ideas fail.

[qupte]Anarchy has never been argued for a large country by those who really know what the hell is going on. Anarchy has always been argued for smaller cohesive units of individuals. Villages of no more than 100 or so people, perhaps even fewer. There's a reason why all the utopias we learn of in high school never got more than a few hundred people. That size then requires a social structure of government. That's a no-no in Anarchy.[/quote]

Yeah anarchy works great for groups of 100 or so. How useful is that though? Yes those 100 people are perfectly cohesive, but that's completely useless outside of those 100 people. What can 100 perfectly synchronised people do that 100 oppressed people can't? While a small utopia is great and all, fascism simply works better for a useful society. Hell a fascist factory would work better than an anarchistic one. If you need anything other than complete equality fascism works better. And because people aren't equal, no useful anarcistic society will ever work, wheras fascists have had stable, working countries throughout the 20th and 21st centuries.

Anarchy in a small group works incredibly well.

Anything can work well in a small society unless its fundimentally flawed.

Social responsibility is enforced by the individual himself, because if the person does not work than that person (and the rest of the community) can not eat.

I'm with you so far.

If the society has progressed and only a few farm while others do trade (think early Middle Age villages or early Native American societies) than the individual works because he will then not have a mode of trade to use within the society.

Still with you.

No government is needed, because the society is close-knit enough to relegate the social responsibility to each person, as opposed to the government.

And what if one of the farmers decides to put himself above the community, and focus on making the most money? Suddenly that anarchy isn't so utopic. All it takes is one self serving prick and the anarchy rapidly transforms into a structured society with centralised control. In the middle ages it was the church and the crown which were the spanners in the works.

Coincidentally, those villiages did have a government because they still had to follow the King's laws and pay his (and the church's) taxes.

Once social responsibility is taken by each individual, the other pieces of society fall into place. Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness are guaranteed when a person is living his life in harmony with the others in his village. No one's social responsibility will ever call for killing another or infringing on the rights of his fellow citizen.

But that never happens. People are programmed to do what's best for them and not society. From an evolutionary standpoint, you're more likely to pass on your genes by helping yourself as well as society and that's a powerful motivator.

Crime? Whose responsibility calls for committing crime?

Society? Who is going to fight or infringe on the rights of others? Whose responsibility would call for that?

Nobody's. However you'd be a fool to think that people would only do what they're responsible for.

Economy? You're trading wheat for nails. It's a barter economy, you can't get much more fair than that.

Unscrupulous farmers decides to create an artificial shortage of wheat. Or alternatively, traders alter the value of their goods depending on the customer (what's costs 5 nails for person A might cost person B 10). Suddenly bartering seems a lot less fair.

The only problem would be when the harvests are ruined, which can be solved by setting aside a set percentage of the harvest for use during such a disaster.

You're asuming that people won't serve themselves before others. Marxism had the same principles, and look where that lead (Stalinism and Maoism)

No government would be necessary for this, it need only be kept in the center of town. Easy.

What's stopping people from stealing it?

Anarchy, when kept to the small groups it is meant for, is an incredibly novel way to keep a society running.

Until people stop being perfect and altruistic. Which they will.

Fascism, or the centralization of authority under a government in a drastic and overly authoritarian way, only breeds contempt for the government due to blatant human rights violations.

The problem with that though is that fascist dictators tend to censor the press. Which leads to people not knowing about the atrocities. Which leads to them not hating the dictators. Hell Stalin was one of the biggest cunts in history, and he had a cult of personality built around him (until Khrushchev told everybody the truth). If you control the information of the people, you control the minds of the people.

If you want to run a country, sure. Use Fascism. Just don't be surprised when your citizenry revolts because you told them they couldn't say you smell.

And yet only Italy got rid of its fascist dictatorship this way. And that was because Mussolini was an incompetant idiot who failed at war. Whereas the competant fascists didn't get overthrown at all. Hell if Hitler hadn't been a stupid megalomaniac odds are that Germany would have remained a fascist state for a lot longer. And if Hitler hadn't been a fucking racist piece of shit, he'd have gone down as one of the greatest world leaders in history (for taking Germany from rags to modern power).

Fascism works in the real world. Anarchy doesn't, and that's why Fascism is superior to Anarchy.

[Razor]

Originally Posted by Remix Mancini

Not always. It's easier to come about when there's a severe depression. But that's by no means the only way. Some of the rulers of Ancient Greek city states could qualify as fascists. The Spartans for example took posession of every baby, judged if it was healthy, killed the sick ones and when that baby was old enough to fight, they were drafted to the army. And yet, there was no depression there. It was actually founded on those principles. As for the nationalistic aspect, they enslaved non-Spartans at every opertunity.

How is killing all babies deemed "not fit for life" not oppressive? How is enslaving any non-Spartan not oppressive?

Fact is, Sparta was an incredibly oppressive fascist government. Killing babies because their arm might not be as long as you'd like it to be is not exactly a nice time.

It wasn't caused by the jews at all. Technically, Hitler never claimed it was. It was caused by the Allies of WW1 sitting at a table compromising over how much Germany should be punished (and for the French people, it wasn't enough. They voted out Clemenceau for letting them off easy). He blamed the loss of WW1, and some of the financial ills of Germany on the jews though. He also said that the German people were racially superior to Jews and the people of the east.

I didn't blame the Jews. I was blaming the Treaty of Versailles. Which you're agreeing with me here.

However, Hitler DID blame the Jews. He blamed the Jews as being integral in forming the Treaty of Versailles, and he tapped into centuries old Anti-Semitism.

See, the Catholic Church condemned loaning money for profit in the Middle Ages. They deemed it non-Christian. If you are to loan money, you shouldn't be doing it for money. You should be doing it out of the love for you fellow man.

So who could lend money and charge interest? The Jews. So they did. And they made a lot of money. And they charged exorbiant interest rates, because they were the only people you could get money from.

And so in the 1930's you had a Jew stereotype that was greedy, money grubbing, and hook nosed. Hitler made the easy jump to saying "See? Those greedy Jews are making us pay outrageous amounts to borrow the money we need to jump start our economy again." Neglecting to say that anyone in Germany had huge interest rates because...well, their economy was shit after a massive and world altering WWI.

Stalin slaughtered his populace. Limiting movement was the least of his sins.

Still an oppression of rights, as I'm arguing that Anarchy would not do.

How does anarchy do it? By making it a free for all, and ensuring that only the strong get what they should be entitled to while everybody else suffers.

No, you're confusing Anarchy for Capitalism.

Anarchy guarantees personal freedoms and natural rights by making it to where a person's social responsibility would not require them to infringe on those rights. A farmer who is growing wheat for eating and trade doesn't need to tell the blacksmith he can't call the elders in the town stupid. As long as he takes care of his own and the other citizens take care of their own, every one's rights are observed.

In anarchy, you piss off the wrong person and that person can do whatever he likes to you. I think being beaten to death by a pissed of guy is roughly as bad as being sent to a gulag.

No. You're confusing anarchy with a lawless society.

Anarchy has a primary principle. And it's right...here:

The most fundamental maxim of anarchism is that no individual has the right to coerce another individual, and that everyone has the right to defend his or her self against coercion

Anarchy allows for anyone to retaliate against another trying to coerce them. Coercion of course allows for threats of murder, robbery, or assault. If a person murders another, then that may be seen as a form of coercion against the society at large, and the society at large may correct that form of coercion.

For the entire Wiki paragraph:

The most fundamental maxim of anarchism is that no individual has the right to coerce another individual, and that everyone has the right to defend his or her self against coercion.[citation needed] This basic principle forms the basis of all anarchist law, and indeed of virtually all anarchist theory. "It is best summed up by the maxim 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you" (quoting Kropotkin), with the additional provision that if others try to do things to you that violate your rights you have the right to stop them. In short, anarchist philosophy includes the 'golden rule', but typically does not include "turning the other cheek" (with the exception of Christian anarchism and other nonviolent/pacifistic movements.)

Also, I think you'd agree Sadam Hussain was a fascist. I think that you'd also agree that after removing him from power, Iraq rapidly went from fascism to anarchy. With this in mind, you'd expect the country to improve socially. I mean after all, piss off the fascist government and you face the consiquences. Last I checked, it got worse. Under fascism, you know your enemies. Under anarchy your enemies are unknown and constantly changing. Which is worse, the evil you know, or the evil you dont?

It was not anarchy. It was in the middle of a civil war. That civil war found itself waged between a group of Shia and Shiite Muslims that were both fighting for power. Who was heading these groups? A power structure of Islamic clerics on both sides. It was not anarchy, it was merely civil war between two shadowy religious governments.

Yes, the holocaust is one motherfucker of a crime. No denying it. However, since anarchy, by definition has no government you cannot compare governmental crimes. It's like comparing the engine size of a Bugatti Veyron to a push bike. One's got a big, huge, massive engine the other doesn't have one. You really cannot compare them. So I compared something that they did both have, citizens who commit crimes.

So what, members of government aren't citizens any more?

Hitler was a citizen of Germany. Stalin was a citizen of Russia. Once they were given the power of a fascist government they killed billions of their own citizens and non-nationals through war.

Yeah, I'd say until Somali pirates kill a billion people that Fascism has Anarchy beat on that one.

Many more. And if Genghis Khan conqured the same area today would have killed more than both. (you could make a good arguement for the Mongol empire being anarchistic in nature. As it allowed for free trade, and local armed forces were disbanded and people roamed around in perfect safety. Granted it controlled individual areas by fear but the Khagan wasn't the sole bearer of power, preventing it from being a true fascism).

And Genghis Khan lived in a time that was rife with murder to live. Did Stalin and Hitler have to kill all of those people to live? No. They had to kill all of those people to, in their own mind, protect their power. Completely different reasons for the killings provided as evidence.

And no anarchistic state can say the same.

No anarchist state can claim a complete collapse in natural human rights either, but Stalin and Hitler took great big ole slaps at them, huh?

In most of those cases because of large factors like big wars, and trade becoming impossible. Which are external factors. You could make an areguement for China. And that's a state that doesn't look to be failing any time soon.

Well, those countries in question waged wars because they had to to keep the public opinion behind them. Just like Russia had to do nothing short of giving out free bread to keep their citizenry happy, Hitler and Stalin had to wage war. It's their own damn fault that they had to expand so far and ruin their economies.

China is the exception that proves the rule. When Germany can get 1 billion people to worship Chancellor Merkel and pledge their freedom to her, then Germany will also has a Fascist economy that arguable controls the entire globe.

But, they don't. And no one else ever has. So China can't be used as an example of Fascism working and have you be completely truthful. They're an exception.

But Mussolini was completely incompetant though. It took someone competant (but for more evil) to take his idea and make it work.

I don't care how incompetent Mussolini was. He was still a Fascist, and his economy still collapsed. Stalin was brilliant, and as was Hitler. What did their states do? Collapse. Looks like the common denominator isn't competency, but rather Fascism.

Because the pitfalls of anarchy are so much better? Which is why people in Iraq prefered the fascism of Sadam's dictatorship to the anarchy it's currently in.

First of all, Iraq has a stable government thank you very much. They just held free elections and are in the process of installing their second freely elected government.

Secondly, they were never in anarchy. They were in civil war between two opposing Islamic power structures while being ruled overall by the freely elected Iraqi Government.

Thing about that idea is that it doesn't work. Ihere'll simply be people who take advantage to become more powerful, and everything ends up in deep shit. It's like the idea of Marxism, it looks great, but in the real world it doesn't work and leads to dictators like Stalin and Mao wiping out milllions of their own people.

I'll go ahead and quote it again:

"It is best summed up by the maxim 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you" with the additional provision that if others try to do things to you that violate your rights you have the right to stop them.

There is a provision in the anarchist system for application of justice. It just isn't handled by a government that the anarchists view as being a product of the "elite." Because in an anarchist society, there is no elite.

What better test of society is there than letting it happen in the real world? In the real world, fascist states have been stable and ecconomically powerful. Anarchistic states, not so much.

Oh? What fascist states have lasted as long as say, America? A very fledgling country.

Germany under Hitler? No.

Russia under the USSR? No.

Italy under Mussolini? ...No.

China under the People's Republic? Sure.

North Korea under Kim Jong Il? Hells no.

You're batting 1 out of 5 there. And China is an exception, as I've already said. Anything with a billion people pledging their allegiance to a single ruler will run correctly. A dog could run China if we got all over the people to say he knows what he's doing.

Very true. However, anarchy unless in a control group too small to be demographically useful doesn't work at all, and leads to groups of people who become powerful and poress the people anyway. The only difference being that it's citizen vs citizen, rather than state vs populace.

I've already covered this. Anarchy is not a lawless society, but rather it has no overall government to run it. So yes, the villages will be smaller. However, the rule of life in those villages will be happier and more cohesive. I'd say a happy, lawless society that exists cohesively and peacefully is more demographically useful than a fascist society in which millions of people are killed by their government, no one can eat unless the government hands out food, and no one can speak to their neighbor without fear of being reported for anti-American speech.

So you concede the superiority of fascism when it comes to ruling a country?

If by ruling a country you mean completely oppressing their citizenry, developing a nation of third world poverty and freedom, and creating a government that holds all power over life, death, and freedom with no checks or balances. Then yes, yes I do.

So does communism. But in the real world, nothing works as its supposed to. Drugs aren't 100% effective, enzymes aren't 100% effective, DNA checkpoints can fail and lead to malignant tumors (cancer), power stations aren't 100% effective, religious fundimentalism leads to hate when the founders preached love. In the real world even the best ideas fail.

Throw in Fascism there. Anarchy has never had a village or sufficiently sized control group to judge it with. We can not judge its effectiveness literally, but only theoretically. And theoretically, anarchy works to uphold freedoms and society.

In the real world and theoretically, Fascism destroys everything but the power of the government. That won't ever work for a country that isn't brainwashed into worshiping their leader.

Yeah anarchy works great for groups of 100 or so. How useful is that though? Yes those 100 people are perfectly cohesive, but that's completely useless outside of those 100 people. What can 100 perfectly synchronised people do that 100 oppressed people can't? While a small utopia is great and all, fascism simply works better for a useful society. Hell a fascist factory would work better than an anarchistic one. If you need anything other than complete equality fascism works better. And because people aren't equal, no useful anarcistic society will ever work, wheras fascists have had stable, working countries throughout the 20th and 21st centuries.

1) Thanks for conceding my point. Anarchy would work in a small group at least, while Fascism would not. And since Fascism nor Anarchism would work on a grand scale, that puts Anarchy up a point.

Anarchy 1, Fascism 0. We win.

2) 100 perfectly synchronized people can...oh, I don't know, live their lives? What else can we ask of them? And, as I've argued, 100 oppressed people can not do that. At least not happily and as their natural freedoms would allow them to.

3) People aren't equal? Since when? Every constitution in the world states that all people are created equal. America was founded on that principle. Everyone is equal, and to argue that point is faulty.

Anything can work well in a small society unless its fundimentally flawed.

And since Fascism can't, for the oppressive element would simply be killed by the proportionally large oppressed society, that would imply that Fascism is fundamentally flawed.

Woot. Anarchy 2, Fascism 0. I'm winning.

And what if one of the farmers decides to put himself above the community, and focus on making the most money? Suddenly that anarchy isn't so utopic. All it takes is one self serving prick and the anarchy rapidly transforms into a structured society with centralised control. In the middle ages it was the church and the crown which were the spanners in the works.

1) There is no money to be made. There is no currency in this market. It's pure barter. He'd have no reason to stockpile wheat....other than to let it go bad in his farmhouse.

2) As I've already stated, Anarchy has controls placed to counteract people who would seek to screw over the society. They are termed, perhaps seemingly oxymoronically, as Anarchist Laws.

Citizens who find themselves in an anarchist society have every right to punish anyone who breaks the Golden Rule. This punishment can take any form the society warrants.

Coincidentally, those villiages did have a government because they still had to follow the King's laws and pay his (and the church's) taxes.

They had a government, but I was not using the villages as an example of anarchist government. Those were the Native American villages. The middle ages villages were used as an example of a pure trade and barter economic system.

But that never happens. People are programmed to do what's best for them and not society. From an evolutionary standpoint, you're more likely to pass on your genes by helping yourself as well as society and that's a powerful motivator.

No.

Evolution has a control in place for Altruism or working to promote the society as a whole. Simply put, any one who works to promote the society has a better chance to procreate, thereby increasing their evolutionary fitness. Anyone who practices Altruism, or acts that are done without want of reciprocal reward, also promote evolutionary fitness. Acts such as giving food to a starving neighbor or adopting another man's child all promote an organism's evolutionary fitness.

So, evolutionarily speaking, a person would be best served to help out society. That's why people naturally seek to form some sort of societal structure. And that's why Anarchy has the most rudimentary social laws in place, while staying away from a government structure that would promote a societal elite.

Nobody's. However you'd be a fool to think that people would only do what they're responsible for.

When that's all that's asked for them, and when the village of 100 people have set, rigid forms of societal punishment for any violations of the Golden Rule, then yes. People will only do what they're responsible for. That's why inner village murder is so rare in Amazonian villages or Native American villages of old. Their anarchist social structure calls for strict punishments for anyone who violates the social responsibility. And so those villages were peaceful.

Unscrupulous farmers decides to create an artificial shortage of wheat. Or alternatively, traders alter the value of their goods depending on the customer (what's costs 5 nails for person A might cost person B 10). Suddenly bartering seems a lot less fair.

Then the Golden Rule has been violated, and the society places judgment on the individual. Anarchy is not totally lawless. Even your blessed Somalia isn't completely lawless. They regularly use Islamic Courts in the region as opposed to the regional warlords.

You're asuming that people won't serve themselves before others. Marxism had the same principles, and look where that lead (Stalinism and Maoism)

The problem with Stalinism and Maoism is that there was no one there to check those dictators and punish them for breaking the Golden Rule. Punish those who grow too power hungry, and there will be a check in how powerful anyone one group gets. So no one groups becomes more powerful than another, and the rule of the entire society rules, as opposed to a few powerful elite.

And there you go, we have an anarchist system.

What's stopping people from stealing it?

The idea of, you know, the society killing you for stealing their wheat.

Until people stop being perfect and altruistic. Which they will.

Then law is brought in to stop them. Unlike Fascism, where the government is allowed to run completely without checks and balances. Then we have governments like Stalin's Russia, where millions of sovereign Russians are killed by their own government. That would never happen in an anarchist society.

The problem with that though is that fascist dictators tend to censor the press. Which leads to people not knowing about the atrocities. Which leads to them not hating the dictators. Hell Stalin was one of the biggest cunts in history, and he had a cult of personality built around him (until Khrushchev told everybody the truth). If you control the information of the people, you control the minds of the people.

Which is a blatant violation of human rights, something that does not happen in an Anarchist society. Therefore, anarchy can be held up as a society that only helps keep human rights in the hands of the citizens.

Anarchy 3, Fascism 0. I'm up 3, yo.

And yet only Italy got rid of its fascist dictatorship this way. And that was because Mussolini was an incompetant idiot who failed at war. Whereas the competant fascists didn't get overthrown at all. Hell if Hitler hadn't been a stupid megalomaniac odds are that Germany would have remained a fascist state for a lot longer. And if Hitler hadn't been a fucking racist piece of shit, he'd have gone down as one of the greatest world leaders in history (for taking Germany from rags to modern power).

Yet more reasons why Fascism is not a good idea for a power structure of government. You'll get megalomaniac dictators who will lead the government into the ground, or at the very least a state that oppresses their citizens at every turn.

Case in point: Iran, Iraq under Saddam Hussein, North Korea, China, Stalin's Russia, Hiter's Germany, and Mussolini's Italy.

Fascism works in the real world. Anarchy doesn't, and that's why Fascism is superior to Anarchy.

Hmmm..I fail to see how Fascism works beyond the one great China. Fascism has failed in every other instance of its practice.

1. Iran is barely holding onto their power over the citizenry.
2. Iraq under Saddam Hussein was overthrown by President Bush, and the liberating American Army was welcomed as liberators. It wasn't until recently that the American government has been made a villain by the citizenry, and that is after years of fuck ups, like accidentally bombing schools and launching nighttime raids after Al Qaeda that ending up killing 5 innocent children and women.
3. North Korea is currently falling apart. Their citizenry is surviving off of Arkansas rice and grass, while their dictator eats and lives in luxury. Another 10 years, and North Korea is dead.
4. Stalin's Russia collapsed once the government was too impoverished to feed their citizens. Why did they have to feed their citizens? Because the citizenry was too busy being oppressed and kept from working paying jobs because the jobs would require foreign experts to teach the Russians (a violation of the Iron Curtain).
5. Hitler's Germany only survived because Hitler kept his oppressive measures largely to minorities. Any oppressive measures he levied (like censorship of the press) on the common citizenry he explained as necessary to maintain the cohesive nature of the state. The Germans ate it up because they were winning.
6. Mussolini's Italy fell because he was an idiot. That, and no country will stand being oppressed if their country can't even win a war. Mussolini would have stayed in power if he could actually, you know, win a battle that wasn't against Ethiopia.
7. Mao's China is regularly held up as a glaring example of human rights abuses. The only reason there hasn't been a massive uprising is because of the North Korean-esque brainwashing that occurs. That, and the police won't hesitate to shoot any dissenters. No, not the secret police. The police.
   
   "Oh, wow. That man hates our Great Leader? He has a gun!" *Gun shot*
   
   If you think that's exaggerated....I'm sorry to say it isn't. Any government dissension is swiftly put down. Millions of Chinese are worked to death in Labor Camps. I'm sorry, they're just sentenced to "Hard Labor."
   

The fact is, no government you can claim as Fascist has succeeded without massive human rights abuses. The only one left standing, China, only survives because of brutal human rights abuses. Those are not successful governments by any means.

[Remix]

Originally Posted by Razor

How is killing all babies deemed "not fit for life" not oppressive? How is enslaving any non-Spartan not oppressive?

Fact is, Sparta was an incredibly oppressive fascist government. Killing babies because their arm might not be as long as you'd like it to be is not exactly a nice time.

Yes, we can agree that the Spartans were fascist bastards. However it does go to some way disprove your original point that 'Fascism ALWAYS exists through a severe depression of the citizenry' given that the Spartans liked it that way because it made them strong (strong enough infact to be the dominant power in the area at some points in their history)

I didn't blame the Jews. I was blaming the Treaty of Versailles. Which you're agreeing with me here.

I know you're not blaming the Jews.

However, Hitler DID blame the Jews. He blamed the Jews as being integral in forming the Treaty of Versailles, and he tapped into centuries old Anti-Semitism.

I'll take your word on it, as I can't remember the specificity of Hitler's claims about Jews. I do believe he that he blamed the loss of the war on the Jews, and the Weimar System for accepting the treaty though. He definately tapped into anti-semitism though.

See, the Catholic Church condemned loaning money for profit in the Middle Ages. They deemed it non-Christian. If you are to loan money, you shouldn't be doing it for money. You should be doing it out of the love for you fellow man.

So who could lend money and charge interest? The Jews. So they did. And they made a lot of money. And they charged exorbiant interest rates, because they were the only people you could get money from.

THis, I knew. The Jews have a Europen history that makes them uniquely hateable. And they have been hated for centuries. Kicked out of the UK, the Spanish inquisition, scapegoats for the execution of Jesus. The list is endless.

And so in the 1930's you had a Jew stereotype that was greedy, money grubbing, and hook nosed. Hitler made the easy jump to saying "See? Those greedy Jews are making us pay outrageous amounts to borrow the money we need to jump start our economy again." Neglecting to say that anyone in Germany had huge interest rates because...well, their economy was shit after a massive and world altering WWI.

Very true. To say they had a shit ecconomy after WW1 is putting it very lightly though. 'Twas a time of hyperinflation where money wasn't worth the paper it was printed on.

Still an oppression of rights, as I'm arguing that Anarchy would not do.

Yes, limiting movement is oppressive. And anarchy wouldn't result in limiting people's freedom to roam. Mostly because in your perfect model nobody would have the right, the power or the need to. Pity that no plan survives contact with the enemy.

No, you're confusing Anarchy for Capitalism.

And you're confusing humans with selfless beings. There's a reason that Marxism (equality for all, in a nutshell) has led to Stalinism (Fascist communism) and Maoism (which led to state sponsored slaughter). Humans are beings that can, will and do do things for their own benefit before helping others.

Anarchy guarantees personal freedoms and natural rights by making it to where a person's social responsibility would not require them to infringe on those rights.

And because people dont need to do sometihng, they wont? Did Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand need to start the Spanish inquisition? People do things they don't need to, often with negative implications for others.

A farmer who is growing wheat for eating and trade doesn't need to tell the blacksmith he can't call the elders in the town stupid. As long as he takes care of his own and the other citizens take care of their own, every one's rights are observed.

But if the Farmer disagrees with the Blacksmith, and decides to stop bartering with him (therefore infringing on the Blacksmith's rights) that'd be a fundimental flaw in the system. People are petty.

[quote]No. You're confusing anarchy with a lawless society.

Anarchy is, by definition a lawless society. With no establisment to set rules, nobody to inforce rules (which would count as oppression anyway), there can be no rules. This, by definition is a lawless society.

Anarchy allows for anyone to retaliate against another trying to coerce them. Coercion of course allows for threats of murder, robbery, or assault. If a person murders another, then that may be seen as a form of coercion against the society at large, and the society at large may correct that form of coercion.

Which actually proves my point. Once anarchy fails (which it will) it leads to feuding and an 'eye for an eye' culture.

Originally Posted by Ghandi

An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind

Seems like that'd work great, right?

It was not anarchy. It was in the middle of a civil war. That civil war found itself waged between a group of Shia and Shiite Muslims that were both fighting for power. Who was heading these groups? A power structure of Islamic clerics on both sides. It was not anarchy, it was merely civil war between two shadowy religious governments.

And which of those shadowy religious governments had authority? Like you say, they were too busy fighting eachother to set up laws. If there's no governmental structure, it's anarchy per my definition in my opening post.

So what, members of government aren't citizens any more?

Originally Posted by Marie Antoinette (when the commoners had no bread)

Let them eat cake.

The lives of government are removed from those of the citizens (as evidenced above). In the middle ages, Monarchs were annointed by god, in modern society it's one rule for the dictators, another for everyone else.

Hitler was a citizen of Germany. Stalin was a citizen of Russia. Once they were given the power of a fascist government they killed billions of their own citizens and non-nationals through war.

As I stated above, dictators dont apply their own laws to themselves. Even if they were bastards who slaughtered their own populations.

Yeah, I'd say until Somali pirates kill a billion people that Fascism has Anarchy beat on that one.

Touche.

And Genghis Khan lived in a time that was rife with murder to live. Did Stalin and Hitler have to kill all of those people to live? No. They had to kill all of those people to, in their own mind, protect their power. Completely different reasons for the killings provided as evidence.

Temujin slaughtered people as psyshological warfare. He certainly didn't need to kill populations of entire cities, before tearing it down and sowing salt into the soil. It just made his job easier (so that cities would surrender without a protracted siege).

No anarchist state can claim a complete collapse in natural human rights either, but Stalin and Hitler took great big ole slaps at them, huh?

What anarchist state? You've conceded that Anarchy doesn't work in large scale.

Well, those countries in question waged wars because they had to to keep the public opinion behind them.

Hitler didn't have to fight a war. The citizenry were well behind him, and most weren't aware of the holocaust until long after the event. Hitler faught a war because he was a racist who thought that the Aryans needed Lebenstraum, not because he couldn't keep people drinking the kool-aid.

Just like Russia had to do nothing short of giving out free bread to keep their citizenry happy, Hitler and Stalin had to wage war. It's their own damn fault that they had to expand so far and ruin their economies.

It wasn't expansion that scuppered the Nazis. If it was, the British Empire would have completely raped the country and its future generations. It was the fact that Hitler was an incometant when it came to fighting a war, and all of the people working in the factories were busy getting killed by the allies on two fronts.

China is the exception that proves the rule. When Germany can get 1 billion people to worship Chancellor Merkel and pledge their freedom to her, then Germany will also has a Fascist economy that arguable controls the entire globe.

People pretty much did worship Hitler and thought he was the best thing since sliced bread.

But, they don't. And no one else ever has. So China can't be used as an example of Fascism working and have you be completely truthful. They're an exception.

See above. Hitler was one popular son of a bitch until he started losing WW2. And Stalin was insanely popular until his successor denounced him.

I don't care how incompetent Mussolini was. He was still a Fascist, and his economy still collapsed. Stalin was brilliant, and as was Hitler. What did their states do? Collapse. Looks like the common denominator isn't competency, but rather Fascism.

Look at what it took to get those guys to fail though. The common denominator was fighting a war whilst ountumbered, outgunned and out of luck; not Fascim.

First of all, Iraq has a stable government thank you very much. They just held free elections and are in the process of installing their second freely elected government.

IIRC, the interview I was refering to took place in 2008. Which according to Wikipedia was right around the time when militant activity picked up again, undercutting government influence.

Secondly, they were never in anarchy. They were in civil war between two opposing Islamic power structures while being ruled overall by the freely elected Iraqi Government.

No stable government authority = anarchy. If the government has no power over that area it is in anarchy. A civil war can be anarchy if the war has caused there to be no way for either side to have authority in a given area.

I'll go ahead and quote it again:



There is a provision in the anarchist system for application of justice. It just isn't handled by a government that the anarchists view as being a product of the "elite." Because in an anarchist society, there is no elite.

ANd in a Marxist system there aren't any either. Where did that lead again?

Oh? What fascist states have lasted as long as say, America? A very fledgling country.

Germany under Hitler? No.

Russia under the USSR? No.

Italy under Mussolini? ...No.

China under the People's Republic? Sure.

North Korea under Kim Jong Il? Hells no.

Most of medival Europe with their absolute monarchs? Yep.

Roman Empire? Yep

Byzantine Empire? Yep

Fascism existed pre-Musolini.

You're batting 1 out of 5 there. And China is an exception, as I've already said. Anything with a billion people pledging their allegiance to a single ruler will run correctly. A dog could run China if we got all over the people to say he knows what he's doing.

In the modern world, Fascism is harder to maintain than it was, because people 'want' to be free, and censorship is a lot easier to bypass.

I've already covered this. Anarchy is not a lawless society, but rather it has no overall government to run it.

And I've explained that Anarchy is, by definition a lwaless society with an 'eye for an eye' clause.

So yes, the villages will be smaller. However, the rule of life in those villages will be happier and more cohesive.

Until imperfect humans throw a spanner in the works, when the cohesiveness goes byebye, and happiness plummets.

I'd say a happy, lawless society that exists cohesively and peacefully is more demographically useful than a fascist society in which millions of people are killed by their government, no one can eat unless the government hands out food, and no one can speak to their neighbor without fear of being reported for anti-American speech.

Yep, lots of happy villages works great. Until you need overall coordination. In which case you need an overall government. Which by definition ends the anarchy. With fascism you can get big things done. As evidenced by Hitler laying the foundations for Germany being the European powerhouse it is now.

If by ruling a country you mean completely oppressing their citizenry, developing a nation of third world poverty and freedom, and creating a government that holds all power over life, death, and freedom with no checks or balances. Then yes, yes I do.

Nazi Germany was the furthest thing from third world poverty. Soviet Russia you can make that case for though. Mainly because of Stalin's aggricultural policy.

Throw in Fascism there. Anarchy has never had a village or sufficiently sized control group to judge it with. We can not judge its effectiveness literally, but only theoretically. And theoretically, anarchy works to uphold freedoms and society.

In theory you are the sum of wave functions. Theories based on very small things do not scale up well.

In the real world and theoretically, Fascism destroys everything but the power of the government. That won't ever work for a country that isn't brainwashed into worshiping their leader.

Very true. But at least it's been evidenced able to exist and be sustainable.

1) Thanks for conceding my point. Anarchy would work in a small group at least, while Fascism would not. And since Fascism nor Anarchism would work on a grand scale, that puts Anarchy up a point.

Anarchy 1, Fascism 0. We win.

Originally Posted by Razor

Anarchy has never had a village or sufficiently sized control group to judge it with.

Originally Posted by Razor

Anarchy would not work in a large scale, country-sized control group. The individual can not be trusted to work with his fellow man to work for the good of a group that large without a power structure to tell him to do so.

Contradicting yourself much? You've conceded that Anarchy has never been observed to exist and wouldn't work on a large scale. Wheras Fascism has existed in the real world and does work on a countrysized scale.

Anarchy 1, Fascism 2 I win.

2) 100 perfectly synchronized people can...oh, I don't know, live their lives? What else can we ask of them? And, as I've argued, 100 oppressed people can not do that. At least not happily and as their natural freedoms would allow them to.

And that is useful how? Great, these 100 people will be happier. But those 100 oppressed people will be more productive and one part of a counrtywide machine. Those 100 are in buisness for themselves, and serving their community in a way that benefits them.

3) People aren't equal? Since when? Every constitution in the world states that all people are created equal. America was founded on that principle. Everyone is equal, and to argue that point is faulty.

People are created equal, our actions make us inequal. Unless you want to argue that the life of a nobel prize winning scientist is worth the same as someone on death row.

And since Fascism can't, for the oppressive element would simply be killed by the proportionally large oppressed society, that would imply that Fascism is fundamentally flawed.

Anarchy isn't fundimentally flawed? The same anarchy which has never been observed to exist, can't be applied to populations much larger than a hamlet, is equivalent to a lawless society and tends towards ending itself? We'll be kind and call that a washout.

Woot. Anarchy 2, Fascism 0. I'm winning.

By my maths, it's still Fascism 2, Anarchy 1.

1) There is no money to be made. There is no currency in this market. It's pure barter. He'd have no reason to stockpile wheat....other than to let it go bad in his farmhouse.

Because there's no way to affect the value of bartared goods. Artificial shortages increase the value of the wheat so he can get more for less, while having more than enough for him and his family.

2) As I've already stated, Anarchy has controls placed to counteract people who would seek to screw over the society. They are termed, perhaps seemingly oxymoronically, as Anarchist Laws.

As I've pointed out, these laws are of the 'eye for an eye' variety, which are great if you're feeling barbaric but not for a utopia.

Citizens who find themselves in an anarchist society have every right to punish anyone who breaks the Golden Rule. This punishment can take any form the society warrants.

see above.

They had a government, but I was not using the villages as an example of anarchist government. Those were the Native American villages. The middle ages villages were used as an example of a pure trade and barter economic system.

I get you.

No.

Yes.

Evolution has a control in place for Altruism or working to promote the society as a whole. Simply put, any one who works to promote the society has a better chance to procreate, thereby increasing their evolutionary fitness.

Which would be an example of organisms helping others to help themselves. Once it stops benefitting them, they'll stop.

Anyone who practices Altruism, or acts that are done without want of reciprocal reward, also promote evolutionary fitness. Acts such as giving food to a starving neighbor or adopting another man's child all promote an organism's evolutionary fitness.

Yes they do. However the animals aren't doing it out of any noble reasoning. They're helping others to help themselves. They feed the children because having more children survive benefits them because a larger group is beneficial (they can spend less time watching the skys, and more time eating) and a larger group makes them stronger. In most cases adoption in the animal Kingdom is because the individual cant have children themselves/miscarried a litter and they're surrogate children i.e. they're treating it as their own. Selfless, my left nut.

So, evolutionarily speaking, a person would be best served to help out society. That's why people naturally seek to form some sort of societal structure. And that's why Anarchy has the most rudimentary social laws in place, while staying away from a government structure that would promote a societal elite.

Except that forming a society leads to an elite, whether it's dominant and subordinate individuals; or everybody being equal, but some being more equal than others.

When that's all that's asked for them, and when the village of 100 people have set, rigid forms of societal punishment for any violations of the Golden Rule, then yes. People will only do what they're responsible for. That's why inner village murder is so rare in Amazonian villages or Native American villages of old. Their anarchist social structure calls for strict punishments for anyone who violates the social responsibility. And so those villages were peaceful.

And while those villages were utopic, the fascist European powers arrived and colonised them. Also, the Aztecs were Fascists too and had a larger population, an empire, and were all together more successful than the villages.

Fascism 3, Anarchy 1

Then the Golden Rule has been violated, and the society places judgment on the individual.

And what would that punishment be? Ripping him off too? Imposing set values for goods? beating him? None of those seem good options for you. Ripping him off leads to a second violation of the golden rule, the second requires a governmental structure to enforce and the third is barbaric.

Anarchy is not totally lawless. Even your blessed Somalia isn't completely lawless. They regularly use Islamic Courts in the region as opposed to the regional warlords.

It's not ideal, but then we've both agreed that anarchy doesn't work on the national level. Which means it's the best example I've got.

The problem with Stalinism and Maoism is that there was no one there to check those dictators and punish them for breaking the Golden Rule. Punish those who grow too power hungry, and there will be a check in how powerful anyone one group gets. So no one groups becomes more powerful than another, and the rule of the entire society rules, as opposed to a few powerful elite.

And there you go, we have an anarchist system.

Real world example of this on a country sized scale, please Razor. Fascism acomplishes things in the real world. Anarchy doesn't even exist in the real world.

The idea of, you know, the society killing you for stealing their wheat.

In the peaceful utopia you've been saying anarchy creates? Really? That doesn't seem too peaseful or utopic to me. Also breaks aforementioned golden rule. Killing farmers doesn't count as fulfilling your role in society and does infact weaken it, and as such may lead to the breaking up of said society.

Then law is brought in to stop them.

With anarchy the 'law' worsens the problem. Enforcing the golden rule leads to violations of it, which leads to more violations until people feuding rips the society apart.

Unlike Fascism, where the government is allowed to run completely without checks and balances. Then we have governments like Stalin's Russia, where millions of sovereign Russians are killed by their own government.

Yes, we've established that Stalin was a cunt. However, in spite of this (or even because of it) the Soviet Union became a superpower. Fascism may be brutal but it's very effective. It's the blunderbuss of governments- brutal, but it gets the job done. Anarchy is like the death ray, it sounds great but it doesn't work.

That would never happen in an anarchist society.

Partially because they've never had one.

Which is a blatant violation of human rights, something that does not happen in an Anarchist society.

Yep, because there's no way that an anarchist could break one of the 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Therefore, anarchy can be held up as a society that only helps keep human rights in the hands of the citizens.

Not until it's been demonstrated to work in the real world. Theories without real world evidence are meaningless. The last 'equality for all' based society was Marxism. Look where that led.

Anarchy 3, Fascism 0. I'm up 3, yo.

Still Fascism 3, Anarchy 1 in my book. I'm up two.

Yet more reasons why Fascism is not a good idea for a power structure of government. You'll get megalomaniac dictators who will lead the government into the ground

Yeah, European empires ruled by absolute monarchs sure sounds like they ran their governments to the ground. As does the Roman empire, Greek Empire, Byzantine empire and any other ancient empire you care to name.

or at the very least a state that oppresses their citizens at every turn.

Even non fascist governments oppress people. Ask someone from India what they think of Winston Churchill, for example. Or, ya know slavery in America, and gays not being able to get married.

Hmmm..I fail to see how Fascism works beyond the one great China. Fascism has failed in every other instance of its practice.

1. Iran is barely holding onto their power over the citizenry.
2. Iraq under Saddam Hussein was overthrown by President Bush, and the liberating American Army was welcomed as liberators. It wasn't until recently that the American government has been made a villain by the citizenry, and that is after years of fuck ups, like accidentally bombing schools and launching nighttime raids after Al Qaeda that ending up killing 5 innocent children and women.
3. North Korea is currently falling apart. Their citizenry is surviving off of Arkansas rice and grass, while their dictator eats and lives in luxury. Another 10 years, and North Korea is dead.
4. Stalin's Russia collapsed once the government was too impoverished to feed their citizens. Why did they have to feed their citizens? Because the citizenry was too busy being oppressed and kept from working paying jobs because the jobs would require foreign experts to teach the Russians (a violation of the Iron Curtain).
5. Hitler's Germany only survived because Hitler kept his oppressive measures largely to minorities. Any oppressive measures he levied (like censorship of the press) on the common citizenry he explained as necessary to maintain the cohesive nature of the state. The Germans ate it up because they were winning.
6. Mussolini's Italy fell because he was an idiot. That, and no country will stand being oppressed if their country can't even win a war. Mussolini would have stayed in power if he could actually, you know, win a battle that wasn't against Ethiopia.
7. Mao's China is regularly held up as a glaring example of human rights abuses. The only reason there hasn't been a massive uprising is because of the North Korean-esque brainwashing that occurs. That, and the police won't hesitate to shoot any dissenters. No, not the secret police. The police.
   
   "Oh, wow. That man hates our Great Leader? He has a gun!" *Gun shot*

1. Roman Empire: killed people for sport, had insane emporers which usually ascended to power by murdering their predecessor. Lasted from 27 BC to 476 AD
2. Byzantine Empire: Justinian the Great invited rioters to the hypodrome and brought in the army to kill them. Lasted from 285 AD until 1453 AD
3. Sparta: Killed babies if they weren't strong and regarded people as belonging to the state. Lasted from the 11th century BC to 195 BC
4. Spainish Empire: Spanish inquisition, war against the Moors, Cortez. Lasted from 1402 to 1975
5. Aztec Empire: Ripped out the hearts of people to ensure the sun rose each day. Lasted from 1428 until 1521
6. Mongol Empire: Invaded and conquered central Asia because they insulted him, conqured China because they'd been paying other tribes to keep them weak, slaughtered populations as psychological warfare, and in general were complete dicks. Lasted from 1206 to 1368.

There are more examples of governments that could be described as fascists lasting a long time, but I can't be bothered to look any more up. these prove my point just fine.

If you think that's exaggerated....I'm sorry to say it isn't. Any government dissension is swiftly put down. Millions of Chinese are worked to death in Labor Camps. I'm sorry, they're just sentenced to "Hard Labor."

I know what a nutcase Mao is. Starved his people with the great leap forwards, kicked people out of the country with the cultural revolution. Sidenote: My Dad's parents were missionaries in China and left there within two years of him rising to power. China now isn't much better.

The fact is, no government you can claim as Fascist has succeeded without massive human rights abuses. The only one left standing, China, only survives because of brutal human rights abuses. Those are not successful governments by any means.

See the older examples. They lasted centuries before collapse. But yes, human rights abuses are rife in facist states. That doesn't stop it being better than anarchy, on the basis that inspite of the human rights violations it can form a stable government and get things done on a national and international level, sometihng that anarchy cannot claim.

[FromTheSouth]

This was a great debate. This is exactly what I had in mind when I started this league.

Let me break this down. Remix's plan of attack was to show that fascist governments have existed in the real world and that the only true anarchist nation, Somalia, is a flop. Well played. However, as Rqzor pointed out, all of Remix's examples of successful fascist governments were pre-bronze age. Fascism in today's world just doesn't work according to Razor.

On the other hand, Razor tried to show that the world could exist in small pockets with no government intervention. Good idea for contextualizing the debate. Remix clearly showed that there is no empirical evidence to prove Razor's assertion on a national level. On the other hand, Razor never supported nationalizing anarchy, so, that point is moot. Remix did a good job.

I think that the difference in this round is that Razor's THEORY flows across the round, while Remix's pragmatism has been exposed. When on an even plane, I take pragmatism over theory everytime, however, in this case, the realistic application is shown to be insufficient grounds to vote, leaving only the theory standing.

Razor wins. If I were scoring it, it would have been 50 - 46.

[Tastycles]

Razor

Persuasiveness: Very good analysis of facism and anarchism, but there were a few glaring errors. The first, and this was replicated by Remix, was that you confused any totalitarianism with facism. Facism specifically doesn't allow an emancipation of any socio-economic class. The modern communist totalitarian states such as the Soviet Union were based, at leas on paper, on a solid working class. You also made it clear that anarchy wouldn't work on a large scale, and had to resort to non-anarchic traits to save it when Remix was pressing you on things like the law. 11 out of 15


Punctuality: You made enough posts, but they were late coming. 6 out of 10

Grammar, spelling, punctuation: Excellent. 10 out of 10

On-topic-ness: Kept on topic throughout, good work. 10 out of 10

Quality of responses: Pointed flaws, made your own points, generally brilliant. 5 out of 5

Total score is 42 out of 50


Remix Mancini

Persuasiveness: As with Razor, you used non-Facist examples. The older examples you used were generally speaking heavily favouritist of the upper classes. Also, Marie Antoinette didn't really say the cake thing. Regardless, I think you were much more strong with your support of facism, worryingly, and generally spread your account well. 14 out of 15

Punctuality: Kept on top of this well, and the first debate I've judged to exceed the two post quota, well done. 10 out of 10

Grammar, spelling, punctuation: Well set out, as with Razor. 10 out of 10

On-topic-ness: Very good generally, though I felt you began to wander at times with some of the historical aspects. 9 out of 10

Quality of responses: Generally very good, but I think you could have been a little more cutting, you had him on the ropes a couple of times. For example, I felt when you were saying that there had been no anarchic states you could have hammered home that this was because there couldn't be, but still very good on the whole. 4 out of 5

Total score is 47 out of 50

Result

A very good performance by both, easily the best debate yet, but I think Remix had the edge with his arguments, and punctuality did unfortunately cost Razor a couple of points, and it should have been closer, but I still think the right guy won. Either way, a deserving finalist will come out of this match.

Remix wins by 47 points to 42

[IrishCanadian25]

So FTS has Razor by 4, and Tasty has Remix by 5.

This was the best debate of the tournament, at least of what I've read. Great job both men.

In the end, I was a little bit more drawn in to Remix's rebuttals, but not by much. I scored this Remix 48 to Razor 46. That would give Remix a 3 point win. I would have LOVED to have given it to Razor by one to declare it a tie, but I felt Remix had the slightest edge on his rebuttals.

I think we just witnessed the finals.