Re: How long would it take for Anarchy to start working?
Agree with Mike that expecting people who have been given (close to) absolute power with (little to) no control mechanisms or personal responsibility for damage & failure...expecting people in that position to voluntary constrain themselves and become "benevolent protectors" seems very naive to me. And they say that anarchists are a bunch of idealists. How about believing in the Utopia of creating a government, populated with benevolent protectors, which not only try but also achieve the greatest good for the greatest number..? Wow, some crazy shit, right there!
Where are you living really? I don't even need to appeal to actual history and times long gone, though the most evident proves are there (1649 in England, 1789 in France, 1917 in Russia and again in 1991). Just look around yourself, look at Egypt where the absolute power was overthrown in a matter of few months...
I claim no allegiance to any nation-state
Well what you are talking about are revolutions, you know the forceful removal of the current entities in power and their replacement with new ones. With new rhetoric. And sometimes even the mechanics of how you're being ruled over. This has never changed the fundamental underlying fact that there is a centralized structure, with monopoly on legal initiation of force and you have to pay taxes to it or face punishment. The way to remove THAT, seems to be by gradual evolution. Sort of how collectivism and totalitarian tendencies slowly creep into governments bit by bit, just the other way round
But that requires cultural change, because I posit that government is a consequence of the collective cultural operating system. And let me tell you, we probably won't get much change there if we remain convinced of ideas like "human nature is fixed and can't be changed". Unless people actually choose to be more free as their goal, all of this talk doesn't make any sort of difference. These are extreme cases. I don't know what is beyond state, I can only give you a scale where at one end we have the caves and at the other the state. Anything in between is just a transition from one to the other. I thought it was pretty evident...
And here I am trying to tell you the whole time, that MAYBE it's not that conveniently simple and evident.