Anarchist vs democratic theories of proper governance

I'd first like to begin by mentioning one thing which might serve to curb possible future confusion. That is that denying the legitimacy of politico-democratic institutions does not necessitate the invalidation of democratic institutions per se. The emphasis of my own refutation (coming later in the rebuttal period) will focus more on the political (read: violent) nature of democratic State institutions than any self-proclaimed democratic decision making mechanism present therein. If Con is to justify a democratic State over an anarchist society than he must use recourse to the political apparatus present in his model; not just the democratic nature of its internal function (seeing as how several anarchist schools affirm certain internal democratic decision making models[1][2]). Now with that cleared up we can move on.Introduction: Anarchic VisionsBefore delving into the arguments for or against this or that political institution or social philosophy, it would seem prudent to get a grasp of what it is that anarchists are actually advocating for. Being a broadly negative movement (that is, one primarily organized around opposition to the State), many seem to have less than a clue as to what it is that anarchists actually envision to replace the State apparatus once their revolution (or whatever such methods are to win out) has removed it. The sketch I intend to place here is by no means universal, but is situated strongly enough within the anarchist tradition to allow for me to use it as a baseline from which to (a) compare to Con's politico-democratic model and (b) to defend independently as a coherent and legitimate social philosophy. A social/political philosophy is tasked with constructing an institution (or set of institutions) tasked with delegating the tasks necessary for the functioning of society. If that (or those) institution(s) is to be in line with the ethical philosophy of anarchism, it should more or less adhere to the following principles/characteristics.(1) Decision making power is delegated as much as possible to those directly affected by the effects of a given political action (contra the indirect representational model employed by political democracies).(2) If a representational model is to be used it is to be carried out via temporary delegates whether in the community or industrial models outlined in sources [3] and [4] (contra career politicians/bureaucrats under the State model).(3) Social institutions as well as private individuals/groups are not to employ initiatory aggression against others (contra the institutional use of such means under the State model).Such a list is bound to be in some sense incomplete. My purpose here is simply to outline a model which Con may attack while limiting the possibility of confusion or misunderstanding.Delegation of Power: Direct vs. Indirect.One difference between anarchic and political philosophies lies in the structure upon which the public decision-making apparatus in society should be based. More simply, it has to do with how our social institutions (particularly those dealing with purely public [non-private] problems) are to be set up and run. Political [read: State] institutions are constructed upon a separation between those who are affected by policy (citizens) and those who construct policy (politicians, bureaucrats, etc.). Political institutions essentially set up a class antagonism in their internal framework, one in which one class is entrusted with power over the other while being vulnerable to a drastically lowered level of accountability. This disconnect (both from direct accountability and situational affectedness) leads to policies not in line with the interests of directly affected community members. Anarchist social philosophy seeks a solution to this problem via unification of the two classes. It is essentially to entrust only those directly affected by policy to take part in the decision making process (there are various perspectives on where this mechanism be placed, whether in industry[3], local communities[4], or both). This would be opposed to implanting an artificial barrier wherein citizens may only affect (political) change through lobbying political actors or groups.Methods of Action: Coercion vs. Voluntaryism.The primary difference between anarchism and Statism which I will draw upon here is the latter's reliance on coercion as a mechanism to put its edicts into effect and the former's rejection of such means. But before I move on, coercion should be defined. Coercion does not include actions which are taken out of personal defense, defense of an innocent, or actions taken against someone as a result of their using coercive means against someone (i.e., punishment, retribution, or restitution). Coercion is the initiation of aggressive violence against a non-aggressor. A basic moral axiom would be that coercion is never (or almost never) justified. Justification of this axiom may be drawn from Hans Hoppe's argument that force is inherently contradictory and thus argumentatively indefensible[5]. The reasoning goes that since one relies on the free exercise of one's own volition to justify claims/axioms of action/etc. any philosophy which denies the right to free volition contradicts the presuppositions of their own argument. (Hoppe termed such an instance, a performative contradiction because the content of the proposition is out of line with the necessary actions taken in order to forward it's truth.) Such an ethical system would allow for the defense of individuals against coercion while strictly forbidding initiatory violence.The State conceptually violates this axiom both in its existence as well as via actions taken out in performing its duties. Regarding the existential violation problem, we need only look at the territorial monopoly which a State must hold in order to exist. This territorial monopoly precludes dissenters from being able to opt out of a given political unit in a meaningful way (I preclude relocating to another State [read: nation/country] entirely as being a meaningful or reasonable way to deal with disagreement) while simultaneously disallowing any other non-aggressive political unit to come into competition. Furthermore, through taxation, the State habitually coerces (in the form of theft) the citizenry. Given the compelling reasons outlined above in favor of disallowing initiatory violence, one should err to the side of a social philosophy which doesn't take coercion as a central administrative mechanism.The primary difference between political institutions and anarchic ones lies in the fact that decisions (precluding those which have to do with defense of innocents from force or proportional action taken in response to such) are only binding insomuch as one has some existentially meaningful way to opt out. This would mean trusting public decision making to industrial (that is, economic institutions with no hold on those not belonging to or associating with them) or communal (local communities in which dissenting parties have a greater set of existential options in terms of opting out than they do in a system regulated by an overarching federal structure) institutions as opposed to political ones.========================================Seeing as this round is intended only for affirmative arguments (negation of the debaters' cases will start in R2 as per R1 stipulations), I'll leave things here as they are and pass the debate over to my opponent.===Sources===[1] http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com...[2] http://www.princeton.edu...[3] http://libcom.org...[4] http://www.social-ecology.org...[5] http://libertarianpapers.org...