Stephen Thair

I'm stuck on 3 issues:

(1) the scale issue you mention tangentially in this letter as one of Ellie's issues. Does Anarchy scale beyond Dunbar's Number? Or is Anarchy a state we can only return to once our current technological society collapses due to resource exhaustion?

(2) the problem of "defectors". This is the old "tragedy of the commons", "prisoners' dilemma" and the "free rider problem" stuff. What happens when someone doesn't want to follow the "rules" and wants to impose hierarchy again? Fine back in the Blackfoot days when Mr Colt's "equaliser" wasn't as widely available, but firearms and other modern force-multipliers make it was too easy for a small minority to exert disproportionate force. Assuming the universal perfectability of human nature flies in the face of our lived experiences. Some people are violent, power-hungry, domineering a*sholes.

(3) Does anarchy assume a "post-scarcity" society (a la "The Culture" in Iain M. Bank's novels)? If not, how does it deal with other aspects of human nature, specifically parental drives? If you ask most parents would they prioritise the needs of their children over the needs of a stranger or other tribe member most would say "yes". Without getting all Dawkins and "selfish gene" and genetic kinship percentages, many people would generally agree that their "circles of priority" would be children > spouse > siblings > parents > close friends > other friends > neighbours > co-religionists > State > Country > "Allies". Sure, you can quibble about the order of some of them, but most people would generally agree on the first 4 or 5. So, in times of resource scarcity, how

All good points, everyone, but I still can't help but feel that any polical system that on relies on "our better angels" is fragile and open to exploitation (and perhaps domination) by those who choose to not play by the cooperative rules.

I'm reminded of the evolutionaey biologist E.O. Wilson's comment on Communism - "great idea, wrong species".

The more we understand about our closest cousins, the primates, it's plain to see that their "societies" aren't all peace, love and understanding. There is war, rape, infanticide, murder, jealousy, hierarchy, social exclusion, resource hoarding and unequal distribution, etc etc.

Any social and political theory that only works if EVERYONE is morally perfect, psychologically stable, and emotionally intelligent is laughable.

The broad sweep of History, and our own lived experiences, show us over and over that NONE of these things are true for ANYONE over their lifetime.

Everyone gets angry, lies, makes bad decisions and hurts other people at some point in their lives, and some make an entire lifestyle out of being that type of person.

Economics and game theory have loads of concepts like "the tragedy of the commons" or "the freeloader problem" or "deflection" (eg in "The Prisoners Dilemma") that talk about how expecting people to always choose the group over their own best interests is doomed to failures over the long run.