: ::: "Personally, I am and always have been an anarchist; biased towards Schumacher-like "small is beautiful" communities based around voluntary co-operation; I believe the nation state to be an artificial and unwieldy construction.": Gideon, I have a reasonable question. Under anarchy, what happens when a person steps out of line? When he steals or murders?
: Stuart Gort
This is an excellent question. Of course, pure anarchism has never existed. The nearest we have come to is "primitive communism" on the left, and possibly some "anarcho-capitalism" on the right. i don't know anything about the history of anarcho-capitalism, but let me say what i do know.
In societies like the Pygmies, which still exist in central Africa, centralized authority, crime, punishment and property are essentially unknown. The society is governed according to communistic democracry; decisions are made and goods are shared in common. The only punishment for crime, which is very rare, is expulsion from the tribe- no other penalty is exacted on the offender. Because there is no indivoidual property, theft of course is very rare; but this cannot expalin the low rate of murder or violence. the reason for the low crimne rate in general, according to the anthropologist Colin Turnbull, is that the Pygmies are truly a SOCIETY; that is, each member sees themselves as part of a network involving teh erst of society, the rainforest, and the God who is manifest in nature, and not primarily as an individual. he says teh Pygmies are held together by shared belief, in contrast to Western societies which are held together by 'force and the threat of force (=laws)."
In general, societies with low rates of INEQUALITY, be they rich or poor, tend to have extremely low crime rates. For example, 5 of the lowest 10 murder rates occur in West Africa, suggesting that culture is a major determinant of the crime rate. These societies all have reasonably egalitarian structures and place a strong value on the common good rather than individual gain. More generally, however, crime rates tend to be highest in highly unequal societies like Brazil and Colombia where there is a predatory bourgeois class and a large, alkienated majority. As Marx said, capitalism and inequality tend to breed alienation, and as we have seen simnce then, alienation breeds crime.
