hahaha, the Enlightenment was pretty awesome though. And Locke and Hobbes are still probably both right, while people may not inherently be evil, with no system to keep them in check, they would most likely tend to doing "evil"

@Tolstoy - Yes we are still around, but our existence wasn't the most pleasant. I don't think anyone is arguing that anarchy would result in extinction, rather it would result in a life that to quote Hobbes would be 'nasty, brutish and short'. I'm also dubious of the claim that pre-civilisational humanity had no 'government'. I'm pretty sure groups of hunter-gatherers would have had some form of hierarchy.

It does put things in perspective to acknowledge that what we understand to be 'government' is a relatively recent anthropological factor.

I find the the original staement interesting..Anarchy, but we'll privatise everything. Isn't that UK Conservatives/USA Republicans

Is Anarchy not the idea that there IS no police instead of a privatised or state-controlled force?

"Anarchy, but we'll privatise everything"
There is no property in anarchy.

not in a communistic anarchy anyway

No person is inherently good, evil, or anything in between. It's social norms that really determine what is good and evil, and what you interpret to be good and evil...but I guess we could start a new Nature vs. Nurture thread...though that discussion has been beaten to death.

But seriously, how would anarchy happen. I know Conservative Man has backed away from his ideal capitalist anarchy, but let's just pretend for a minute that in theory, all of his original assumptions would stand (people are inherently good, that courts would work, that no mad man would blow up the world, that money is somehow regulated)...how exactly would these socieites happen? Do people vote for it to happen? Is it enforced on a society?

The only way I could see it happening in theory is if it happened across the world all at the same time...or at least in the industrialized capatilist socieites of the world. Otherwise, if State A went it alone and dissolved into itty bitty anarchist societies, wouldn't other states, afriad of the consequences, invade the little anarchist societies, as this would be a threat to the state system? The transition into our current state system was preceded by a 30 year war in Europe which was kind of nasty.

Also, what about the psychological impact of anarchy would do to people. I mean, no more nationality (I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing), but something like that would take a little while to grow out of, as it is a part of people's identities. Humans are social creatures, and we have a psychological need to group ourselves. What would happen to our imagined communities.

How do you completely smash one set of norms which guide society and replace them almost immediately with another? Would there be a transition, and how would it work?

How complicated would it be to play Diplomacy in anarchist socieites? Could you?

@ottovanbis - you said "...while people may not inherently be evil, with no system to keep them in check, they would most likely tend to doing 'evil' "

If people tend to be evil when there is no check and balance, then they are in nature evil. Their tendencies reveal their being.

Personally, the only form of anarchy I could ever see working out in real life would be one of anarcho-communism, and even then only on a very small scale (say, a village where everyone works for the common good). In real life anarchy is all but impossible to sustain over a long period (hence the reason periods of anarchy between rulers were eventually filled with governments of various forms). Whether you believe in inherent goodness or the evil nature of humanity, you cannot deny that some people have a tendency to lead and others to follow, which is the very base root of government.