On possibility of transition to anarchy and comparisons between states and stateless societies

http://blog.mises.org/11535/anarchy-and-haiti/

Find this exchange in the comments

he government of Somalia didn’t peacefully wither away because the vast majority of Somalis read my pamphlet on the stateless society and saw the light.” In order for a stateless society to function as envisioned, the condition of statelessness must, at first, be arrived at intentionally. For example, if a terrorist attack destroyed all federal, state, and local governments in the US, the now-free citizens COULD immediately begin building a stateless society with private security forces, roads, etc. But it is likely that they wouldn’t. Since they believe the state is crucial to their well- being, they will likely place a high priority on immediately rebuilding the various state-related structures, running elections, etc. They will not realize that private security is optimal, and will therefore not take steps to provide it (or advocate/ donate to such efforts). So … in order to have a properly-functioning stateless society, it is NECESSARY to have a critical- mass of people believe that it can be done. But this is not the case in Haiti, Somalia, the US, or anywhere else at the moment. And that’s why an intentional secession and relocation of stateless proponents is the only way to ac

Also...

omparing stateless societies to state societies: Many people like Jarred Diamond in his book Guns, germs, and steel ( http://books.google.com/books? id=kLKTa_OeoNIC&dq=jared+diamond+guns+germs+) look at stateless societies, like the tribes of New Guinea, and compare the violence level there with the violence levels in England or the United States and see evidence that states provide peace. Norman Yoffee in his book Myths of the archaic state ( http://books.google.com/books? id=azE1vmdmZSIC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Myths+o out that comparing societies this way is based on a fallacious assumption. That is the myth that societies can be measured by set of universal stages of progression. I believe this myth has been adopted so readily by academics because it fits with the Marxist theory of progressive stages of societies with communism as the final stage that had been popular in the past academic circles and still frames much of social theory today.

In comparing state societies to stateless societies it makes sense to compare the NOT so Wild, Wild West http://mises.org/journals/jls/3_1/3_1_2.pdf to the Gangs of New York http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0217505/ Or the violent Middle-east to peaceful stateless Harappa during the third millennium BCE. http://www.independent.org/pdf/tir/ tir_10_3_04_thompson.pdf