…How? Walmarts only going to lose business and go broke if it mugs its customers. Security is an in demand commodity. Both for its own sake and for economic reasons.
But kidnapping a Walton is probably far more lucrative than working for one…
Just look at all the CEOs kidnapped by summer interns.
It’s not even that such a state is unrealistic, but it is Utopian, so we must address the statist world as well as an idealized anarchist one.
I’m not talking about a world free of violence. I’m talking about a society who doesn’t allow institutionalized vioelence. Are you saying that anarchy is utopian?
Look, Wal-Mart mugs its factory workers in China, ok? That’s part of the reason they do business in an authoritarian state - their workers can only protest or strike if the government says it’s OK.
I’m talking about a society who doesn’t allow institutionalized violence
How does society enforce the ban on institutionalized violence without an institution capable of violence?
A coordinated violent institution, like a gang, will beat isolated individuals every time. If the individuals form a self-defense militia, how is that not an institution? If they defend themselves with violence, how is that not institutionalized violence?
For me, the question is - how does the militia remain accountable to the people its supposed to protect?
Neither am I.
I’m saying a society which is anarchistic but “doesn’t allow” something is Utopian.
The problem is much bigger than mere enlightenment. Even if every agent in the market was fully enlightened about the benefits of non-aggression, voluntarism, and free markets (a big if) , there will be plenty of them for whom aggression and crime would/could potentially yield much more than the alternative.
Power (force) is seductive because it shifts the subjective preferences of all market agents in the direction of the ones that wield it. No promise of “higher prosperity for all down the road” would convince a self-interested power-wielder to stop distorting markets in his favor. Those distortions change the subjective preferences of all (self-interested) market agents (“if you can’t beat them, join them”). This further concentrates the power and the cycle keeps going. Such is the negative feedback loop that repeatedly converges power “markets” into sticky territorial monopolies.
Anarchy just means “lack of rulers”, not lack of the rule of law. There could be non-libertarian, or partially-libertarian anarchic societies as well. Any system of law would be “not allowing something” or “hampering u free will”. If you think this is “utopian”, as in impossible, I disagree.
Is this part of your case against anarchism, China?
How does society enforce the ban on institutionalized violence without an institution capable of violence?
There is a difference between initiatory violence and retaliatory violence. You can read more about this here, ironically about China.
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I’m talking about coordinated, private firms, not isolated individuals. It is costly to wage war. Private defense agencies have a huge advantage in that people, generally speaking, would rather pay to have their property defended, rather than just being run over by a gang of thieves. The only reason that states exist still (states are only different than any other mafia in that they have acceptance of the ruled), is that people live in fear of “anarchy” and can’t conceive of any alternatives.
For me, the question is - how does the militia remain accountable to the people its supposed to protect?
Profit motive/self interest, which as an enterprise requires satifying consumer desires.
We already know that slavery and robbery can be economic when the state gets involved. They don’t pay their own bills like a “free market” slaveowner has to, and they have the general consent which reduces their overhead by 99%.
If everyone believes that stealing is a “necessary evil”, it will persist. But don’t discount that china walmart is just economically wrong in this case. Can you prove that the attacking of employees would remain economically viable in the absence of state support? Continue reading below.
So you seem to be agreeing with me that voluntarism is economically superior for everyone, but somehow individuals will choose this less economic alternative?
You can’t say markets will fall to central power by beginning with the precept that someone has already gained power…
You underestimate how much easier it is to defend yourself than expansively aggress.
Regardless, you aren’t following the logic here. Slavery is economically bad for both slaves AND slaveowners. See the article I linked above on the economics of slavery. The only time slavery and coercion become profitable is if you, and only you, can externalize your costs onto large numbers of people. But then again, anything becomes profitable under these conditions.
You are predicting that PDAs will develop to the point where their contracts are unenforcable. People don’t agree to unenforceable contracts :I
It isn’t even necessary for some “critical mass” of majority belief that a certain form of societal organization is preferred. From here:
What kind of businesses can advance market anarchism? Businesses which make people more expensive to govern. Businesses which offer their customers the means to protect their property and their persons from government. One of the highest leverage possibilities is a business that offers its customers the means to shield their income from taxation. Taxes become voluntary to the extent that individuals can avoid them, and when taxes become sufficiently voluntary governments must fail. What is the incentive for businesses to offer such services? Such businesses would be going after a piece of the same massive revenue stream that governments now control, the financial rewards would be immense.
I don’t expect one business to step forward with a turnkey solution for individual freedom. Rather I expect lots of businesses to attempt to carve out their own share of that revenue stream, each of them making people a little bit more expensive to govern. The cumulative effect will be the same.
If you can provide people with the means to protect their property and their persons from government you won’t need to waste any breath persuading them to do so. They will overwhelmingly do so out of self-interest, regardless of their political views.
Government can be seen as an attempt to solve public goods problems by punishing those who defect from cooperating with the collective. The problem with this solution is that we become prisoners of government. Our Prisoner’s Dilemma is that we’d all be better off if we collectively defected from government, but individually we can incur severe penalties for defection.
The solution to the dilemma is to introduce agencies which can reap tremendous rewards for protecting individuals from the penalties government can inflict, businesses, which can reap tremendous rewards for enabling their clients to defect from government without penalty.
Aye. The entrepreneurs will figure out the most economic way to organize people and then pay them to do it 
Belief in liberty is nice but manumission really happened.
Yes, if it would benefit them more then and there, as opposed to “perhaps (risk?) later, and if everyone also decides the same”. I believe that the wealth and prosperity of a society/market (as a whole) is directly proportional to the ratio of voluntary (free) exchanges vs coerced ones. But that’s “as a whole”. On an individual basis, each agent constantly evaluates all avenues for maximizing their self-interest, and these are not always the same as the avenues for long-term prosperity of the market as a whole (The Prisoner’s Dilemma).
That’s not what I was saying. I was explaining the mechanism by which a small advantage in the power market inevitably grows into a large one, and finally into a sticky monopoly. The adjusting forces of competition that would normally appear in any other market are stifled by the market distortions of this power advantage. When free agents notice this rising power they start adjusting their subjective valuations and preferences to maximize their own self-interests as the situation changes. This is the source of stickiness and seductiveness of power, and why I think standard economic laws do not apply in power markets.
And you underestimate how much easier it is to join an overwhelming force than to stubbornly fight it. Existential self-interest does miracles for your philosophical convictions and subjective preferences.
Who enforces a “contract” with the enforcer? The meaning of “contract” changes when party A has the power to smash party B any time it wishes. The stronger A gets, the more it will affect the preferences and decisions of a self-interested B.
What is a “sticky monopoly”?
And you underestimate how much easier it is to join an overwhelming force than to stubbornly fight it. Existential self-interest does miracles for your philosophical convictions and subjective preferences.
It seems like you are still assuming that “power” can only collect in the hands of those who violate rights.
Who enforces a “contract” with the enforcer? The meaning of “contract” changes when party A has the power to smash party B any time it wishes. The stronger A gets, the more it will affect the preferences and decisions of a self-interested B.
Maybe we should give B a choice of “enforcers”? It is insane that you advance this line of argument at the same time as saying monopoly provision is superior.
One that has distorted the subjective preferences of all self-interested agents to such an extent that it has become difficult to remove.
Those seem to be the only ones that seek it. Quite peculiar, that.
I’m saying monopoly provision is inevitable. The only discussion remaining could be about its nature and about the process by which it may be reached. Some are more and some are less beneficial to flourishing and productive markets.
One that has distorted the subjective preferences of all self-interested agents to such an extent that it has become difficult to remove.
Would a state be a sticky monopoly? How is that any different than any other sort of monopoly (except the hypothetical “natural monopoly”)?
Again, it doesn’t take a mass-movement to achieve anarchy. The preferences of the masses realign when entrepeneurs achieve the goal of profitably making government unprofitable for the ruling elite.
Those seem to be the only ones that seek it. Quite peculiar, that.
The history of the private provision of law and security defies this statement. The term “thief taker” came about as a name for people engaged in the business of capturing thieves. Members of a private army could earn much more than their pitiful salary and college tuition by taking a cut of assets seized from dictators or the hypothetical gangs in a free society.
I’m saying monopoly provision is inevitable. The only discussion remaining could be about its nature and about the process by which it may be reached. Some are more and some are less beneficial to flourishing and productive markets.
I remember you citing Hasnas on “empirical natural rights”, or how a society best handles conflicts. Then when faced with the question of how you deal with the theft of 10 oz. of gold, you just throw up your hands and say “Uh, however the market sorts it out”. So since you are unable to recognize the correctness of what has been lain out so far, or are just overcome with skepticism about an aprioristic doctrine of right, you keep peddling this nonsense about states being inevitable. If it is inevitable, why do you bother arguing it? If you truly believed your own theory, you would go say your hurrahs on some other political website.
I am starting to think that some other factors involve could be the short sightedness of gangs.
At any moment, you could be shut down by the state and go to jail for a long time, therefore I think it would almost never make sense to make a short term sacrifice in order to have longer term success. If you know that you are going to play the prisoners dilemma 100 times, I believe that this changes the choices that people make and they are more likely to cooperate. There are no such guarantees in the gang world.
Also, I think there could be a factor of once you reach a certain level of violence adding more doesn’t really make much of a difference. Even if turf wars were not a part of gang life, they would need to have guns to protect from theft, which is a higher threat in illegal substances for obvious reasons.
I am aware of that. It also does not mean there will necessarily be rule of law either.
No, you misunderstand the difference between law and regulation. Law deals with future events, consequences for actions and the resolution of conflicts. Regulation deals with systematizing the prevention of law breaking. At best, law can be a disincentive for an action deemed illegal, it cannot disallow something unless it has the power to regulate.
I will allow that.
I already said that I understand why if drugs were made legal, some big pharma or big agro business would crush the gangs in competition. But that is because they would also have the backing of the most powerful protection racket. But I am still looking for reasons why this would also be the case in a stateless society. Without the super gang, what is preventing the gangs we have today from keeping up their territorial monopoly and each gang not allowing big pharma products to be sold in their area. Yes big Pharma could afford a bigger mercenary army than each individual gang, but I am not so sure it would be more powerful than all of them combined.
So I think the argument either needs to show why exactly gangs choose violence and territorial monopoly, and that this reason doesn’t apply anymore in a stateless society, or that the behavior of gangs in a world where they exist outside of the law of the state and almost everyone else does, is going to be different when everyone including the gangs exists in world outside the law of the state (because it doesn’t exist)
Hey Joe, tell that to the music, entertainment and publishing industries. (I just like saying Hey Joe, like Hendrix sang it)
I think that we’re going to evolve past gangs by and large. We’re already evolving past the biggest gangs of them all, and the little ones will struggle to have any consistent territorial monopoly power.