Thanks for the kind post AJ.
I think you’re right. But i think a counterargument might be made from early 19th century united states. What was the average level of education and enlightenment in the country at large? How about in the western territories? I think that points to a different definition of education than what we’re used to using.
Because this dovetails with where i think the other posts are heading, i’ll address it here. It seems like the big question is the likelihood of individuals assessing that it is in their interest to expropriate rather than choose other means of attaining their ends. I don’t see why anarcho-capitalism per se would decrease this likelihood. One might argue that increased wealth available in such a society would allow more leisure and therefore more seeking and attaining knowledge and virtue, but that can’t happen if the initial state of affairs is such that no property is safe from looters (ie if initial conditions are such that the likelihood in question is very high), and it may well happen in a statist society that is very wealthy at the outset.
That’s not necessary. It is the case that humans always prefer more preference satisfaction to less. Security in property and person only means that some preferences aren’t taken by others.
Humans usually value their own lives over their property. It’s obviously not always and necessarily the case – consider India.
First: i did. It’s impossible to know the state of weaponry in a future time and possibly different place. I answered with what we will know about people’s behavior no matter that state.
Second: I cited the 2009 LvMI edition, see way above. And as i said, i think it follows from Hoppe’s statement that all insurance companies in the society he described must be so armed.
Third: I don’t admit that. I sufficiently clarified above.
Demand here means ability and willingness of people to purchase the good. The first follows because each of a finite number of persons has only a finite amount of purchasing power. The second follows because communication with a finite number of persons is possible. Persuasion of those persons may not be.
That’s not loose at all. It means whatever the jury (or other factfinder) in the society we’re describing determines it to be.
Those are the people that will have motive to seek jobs in the insurance business. Just as Hoppe says vile types have incentive to seek political positions in our society.
I meant the incidence of it never stopped, not that one army or king never stopped. And if you’ll recall, i was using it to show that there is no lack of reason for people to seek to expropriate, at least in their own eyes.
We are dealing with human motives and likely outcomes. If there is a strong incentive for humans to pursue a given end, it is more likely, ceteris paribus, that they will do so than if the incentive is lacking. I want to know what about an anarcho capitalist society makes it less likely that it will breed territorial force monopolists than any other society, and if there is anything about anarcho-capitalism that removes the incentive for individuals to seek territorial monopolies. My original question assumed that people would seek them and posited that the market alone would not be able to check this desire.
Because that’s not relevant to the discussion. People act because they calculate that it is in their interests to do so. They choose the means that they deem least costly for attaining their ends. As the question was posed, proving a possible reason that current state actors act was all that was necessary.
As used above, those “having force” would be those possessing the means to successfully repel or retaliate against those aggressors in the territory having reasonable amounts of training and weaponry. Reasonableness is established in every society, although it may vary from one society to another.
I don’t recall saying that they would inevitably do that. What i said was that was one means. What i wanted to know was whether there was a check in the anarcho-capitalist system for those seeking to do so by those (or for that matter, any other) means.
But the ability of customers to cancel their subscriptions is something that a force cartel (as opposed to any other) can take away from them. Hence the original question.
I think it is pretty likely, although you’re right, i should say short of inevitable. Why would any such company choose to resort to expropriation? Because the new leadership deems it profitable, for any reason whatever.
As far as shifting the burden: if Hoppe is selling anarcho-capitalism, and the reason i should buy it is because the state as a territorial monopolist of force has abused that position, shouldn’t Hoppe tell me why anarcho capitalism precludes (or at least makes less likely) the acquisition of territorial monopolies of force?
Change them to what? Belief that an anarcho-capitalist society, as described by Hoppe, would be better than the present one, or that people ought to unconditionally behave towards one another according to a set of moral principles?
No disagreement here. Note also before anyone reads into my response above re Hoppe selling A/C, i don’t believe a state is necessary, either.
Nope. I suppose it’s possible to give an historical estimate, but we both know that doesn’t say anything about the future.
Do you know that humanity will end? When?
Ok, i should have said “very likely that individuals will attempt to form territorial force monopolies,” because the incentive is always there.
Sure. Why would they necessarily be less successful in an A/C society?
Of course, we will provide this at public expense… 
Sure, they will rise and fall. But that cycle may take centuries. So we conclude it is a matter of prevalent mindset, in part because a non statist mindset increases the cost and risks of tyranny. In other words, property is safe in an A/C society to the same extent it is safe in a statist society. It is safe to the extent that those having power to expropriate choose not to do so, and the systemic disincentive is the likely prevalence of an anti-state mindset in such a society, as that mindset makes it more costly to do so.
Is an anti-statist mindset simply one that respects life and property unconditionally?
A demands that B do this or that with his property. If B fails to do so, A harms B’s person.
On insurers having soldiers, see the other Hoppe quote.
It doesn’t matter why CEO A would change his mind. With incentive to do so, he might use any reason.
Not imputing godlike power to CEO A, simply sufficient firepower to blow up a competitor.
It’s not an argument from ignorance. When people are faced with threat of force, they generally fight or retreat.
My initial claim: “In the case of Hoppe’s insurance companies, though, a voluntary cartel would have most of the force in a given region, so it could keep new players out of the insurance market. Those that tried to undercut or leave the cartel would either be destroyed or forced retreat to defensible territory, and the cartel would be left to raise prices, change trade rules, and by and large use its force to eliminate other force and expropriate property, as it would have no reason not to. That is, the insurance companies would more or less become states.” I meant to distinguish it from a cartel selling something other than force, as such cartels don’t have force at their disposal to maintain themselves. A cartel on force would.
You seem to be assuming that 1) the initial state of affairs for anarcho-capitalism must necessarily be such that no property is safe from looters, and 2) that it’s at all possible for property to actually be completely safe from looters. Why?
Aside from that, keep in mind that even in the state with the highest prison population per capita (the US), the percentage of people in prison is about 1%. Adding people who are on probation and parole, the proportion rises to about 3.1%. The vast majority of incarcerated people in the US are apparently incarcerated for non-violent crimes, such as selling or possessing illegal drugs.
Going along with the above, about 16% of the total US workforce is employed by some level of government. Somehow I doubt that most of those people are the kind who really seek to expropriate at every turn. But let’s be generous and say they all are. Even being so liberal here, this gives us a figure of under 20% of people who are the kind that you’re worried about. That is, over 80% of people - a large, if not vast, majority - are certainly not like that now.
My point here is to show that people with psychopathic tendencies to the point where they seek to expropriate at every turn are surely vastly outnumbered by those who aren’t that way.
It is necessary. You weren’t claiming that humans always prefer more preference satisfaction to less. You were claiming that humans always prefer more satisfaction of specific preferences to less. The specific preferences in question are “security in property and person”. So again, please prove that the goal you described is always and necessarily preferred over its absence.
Which means that one cannot form valid deductive-logical conclusions about human behavior and outcomes here. That was my point. Thanks for implicitly conceding it. But can you prove that humans “usually” value their own lives over their property? Regardless, this claim is hardly the same thing as claiming that cases of arguing the law when a gun is held to one’s head are (i.e. necessarily throughout time, including the future) “few and far between”. So you still haven’t proven that.
You did not answer my questions. Please try again.
Please provide the set of logical propositions from which you think that follows.
Obviously I don’t consider your “clarification” to be sufficient. If you want me to change my mind, then you’ll do more here.
How is this notion of “demand” measurable or quantifiable, exactly?
I was talking about the final conclusion - sorry for being unclear. That is, I fail to see how the proposition “organization of a cartel is always possible” follows from the other propositions given. You have not demonstrated this.
Hence there’s no logically necessary or even presumed meaning to it. How is that not loose? You’re basing an argument on something that you refuse to define explicitly.
Can you please flesh this out? I fail to see how you’ve proven any of your claims here.
If there’s no lack of reason for in people’s own eyes to seek to expropriate, why don’t more people expropriate?
The notion of “kings and armies endlessly seeking conquest” is vaguer than I expected. In fact, I’m not quite sure how it can make much sense at all. It seems to me the same fallacious notion as calling someone who committed a crime at one point in time a “criminal” with the connotation of habituality (i.e. “Once a criminal, always a criminal”). I’m not sure what exact fallacy this is - it might be hasty generalization or fallacy of composition.
We are? How can we talk about “likely outcomes” when no metric or set of metrics has been given for the very notion of “likelihood”?
You seem to be shifting disingenuously between absolute and relative characterizations of “likely”. Why is that?
Apparently the vast majority of individuals lack the incentive to begin with. Why do you think that is? If you think most people have the incentive, then how do you explain the fact that so few people are systematically expropriating from others? Finally, how is anyone else prima facie obligated to accept your assumptions?
Yes it is. I asked you if you’re sure and whether you could prove it. You refused to answer directly, which to me implies disingenuity on your part.
You wrote that “a voluntary cartel would have most of the force in a given region, so it could keep new players out of the insurance market”. I asked you how - as in how necessarily. I took your answer to be in that vein. If you were merely stating a possible course of action, then why weren’t you explicit there? Furthermore, even your possible course of action (if it really was such and not a necessary course of action) had no guaranteed outcome. Threatening a person in no way guarantees that that person will do what you want - it doesn’t even guarantee a change in likelihood of that.
I fail to see how there’s any way to pin that down - i.e. establish quantitative bases for “successful repulsion/retaliation” and the like. So I see this as just more “looseness”, or perhaps better yet, disingenuity.
You never said it was one means. Again, I’m referring to your hypothetical regarding insurers A, B, and C.
How exactly can it take that away from them? You haven’t answered this question, and at this point it’s starting to look like you’re actually trying not to answer it.
That assumes, of course, that the company’s non-leadership agrees with that course of action. Can you prove that they would necessarily do so?
Abused what position, exactly?
Tell me what claim Hoppe actually made that you think he hasn’t proven. All I see is you making a claim that is outside of Hoppe’s statements in The Private Production of Defense and trying to shift the burden of proof away from yourself. In other words, you’re doing this: “I believe X. Prove me wrong.”
I think the two go hand-in-hand, actually. But my emphasis is actually on the latter.
Okay, but what don’t you think it’s necessary for?
Then you concede that your original claim here - that the expected outcome is that many parties having force will determine that they most easily achieve their ends by expropriation - has no logical basis. The only alternative left is for you to simply assume it as a premise, not deduce it as a conclusion. At that point, I and everyone else are free to simply accept or reject it.
Of course not. What’s your point?
Your use of the word “incentive” here seems vague to me. How much of an incentive? Does it ever vary from one individual to the next? Is it always the same in other ways? Also there are questions of how many individuals, how likely is “very likely”, and over what time period is this likelihood to be measured.
I can’t and therefore won’t guarantee that they’d be necessarily less successful in an anarcho-capitalist society. However, I think a society where people believe consistently in the non-aggression and self-ownership principles would lead to institutions that reflect their beliefs, which I think would make it more difficult for the people in that society to be conquered from within.
… What???
My only concern here is this notion of “having power to expropriate”. The very phrase makes an assumption about the future - namely that the attempt at expropriation necessarily will be successful. For example, one could say that having a gun means “having power to expropriate”, but I fail to see how having a gun means I’ll necessarily be successful at robbing my neighbor. So I think phrases like “having power to expropriate” reveal an illusion of certainty.
I don’t know about unconditionally - that sounds more like pacifism. The anti-statist mindset is not the same as the non-violent mindset in my opinion. As an anti-statist, I would say that violence has its uses, namely when it comes to defending against aggression. So I would also say that I respect life and property conditionally, with the condition being as long as they don’t aggress against me.
That in no way means that B will necessarily accede to A’s demands.
Hoppe doesn’t use the word “soldier”. Now what?
The incentive is the reason, it seems. So what’s the incentive and why does it exist for him?
See my earlier statements about phrases such as “sufficient firepower to blow up a competitor” revealing an illusion of certainty.
You ignored my questions about the logistics of blowing up C’s assets, so I’ll repeat them: How long would it take to blow up C’s buildings and “bases” (I didn’t know C was running a military organization)? What’s the probability for these efforts being detected beforehand, let alone halted?
What you originally said - which did not contain the word “generally” - is an argument from ignorance. What you just did here is change your argument. That’s fine with me, but I’d appreciate it if you weren’t disingenuous about it.
The illusion of certainty strikes again. Wars have been lost because of it.
“How come they don’t fight it out for power while they have a monopoly on defense (giving them a huge edge)?”
They don’t? I thought they fight amongst themselves over stolen loot and power like vultures. They fight it out for power against us too and we are easy prey precisely because they have monopoly (and it gives them huge edge too)!
“How come the army doesn’t go evil on us and try to enslave us?”
It doesn’t? I thought that they were there to ensure no competition exist so nobody can offer better (hopefully voluntary) alternative. Certainly to me they are part necessary to enslave. They are ultimate tool of compulsion. Difference between military and police is superficial. Also I bet most of military thinks that we owe them for their “sacrifice”. Owe them fruits of labor for their services under threat of violence that is. What is slavery to you. Who is slave master to you?
“We arrive at the conclusion “Humans aren’t inherently evil and immoral.””
Load of bollocks 
What does that statement even mean? Evil and immoral as determined by what objective standard? What is evil and immoral? These are just subjective terms. Everyone has goals and means to achieve them. If we feel something is “evil” it just means we think/feel it goes strongly against our chosen means. It just happens that goals and means employed by most of us are not sadistic so we just choose to pay taxes to avoid trouble (cage time, some possibility of death and/or rape, career destruction) and considering that there is little to no opposition to them most people just treat them as normal as sunset. I mean who would be against sunset?
“How come our present system generally works?”
I thought we were on this forum precisely because this system generally does not work and tends to blow up abruptly.
“If they were, we would be living in a state of constant tribal warfare.”
But we are living through a war. War over freedom. Productive people vs angry entitled parasites. There is no other meaning to war. It would be the same under ancap but with free market competition to provide real checks and balances. To me that is best what you can hope to achieve.
I agree with your sentiment but I don’t think you would convince a lot of people using your arguments.
Force is necessary for the existence of the state, but it is not sufficient. The state requires cult like devotion in order to divorce it’s barbaric methods from it’s continuing existence. If we were to recognise the state as another private firm, even die-hard social democrats would see taxation as theft and war as murder. They would see civilians dying in Pakistan, the police pepper spraying OWS protestors and dragging away tax resistors to prison and wouldn’t stand for it. Even the police would being to question the morality of the state. If this were to happen, the state would beging to crumble.
The state accomplishes this through public education and control of the media, supplemented with reverance of a monarch or a constitution. If an insurance company or legal agency were to attempt this we would instantly recognise their coercion as, well, coercion and be outraged - they would instanly lose all legitimacy to their customers, their competitors, and the general public.
Branding might be able to make you think that your service is far better than that of your competitors, but it doesn’t make you think that your service is so good that without it society would break down, and therefore you can rape, murder, and pillage all you like as long as you still make Coke/Ipods/Insurance.
The first states were born out of religous cults. These cult-states then expanded through conquest and secularised. However the secularisation didn’t remove the religious mentality people held towards the state. Once we reveal the state as a private firm to people, it will be very hard for them to un-take the red pill.
Interesting analysis, Evilsceptic. I’d add that early humans’ religion was a necessarily familial affair. This was true even in the time of classical antiquity: the Romans were presumed to have their own gods, the Greeks theirs, the Egyptians theirs, the Babylonians theirs, and so on. Only with the advent of universalist-evangelist religions (Christianity in the West, Buddhism in the East) did this change.
Of course, I’m talking about economic education. The average pre-Keynes and pre-Marx person knew more about economics and the sources of wealth creation than the average person today. We’re talking about centuries/generations-worth of socialist brainwashing and propaganda that needs to be reversed, un-schooled. Humanity has taken a wrong turn and has been stuck into this blind alley for ages.
AC or minarchism is not the means toward the end of individuals preferring division of labor and voluntary exchange over expropriation. It’s the other way around. Once individuals become elinghtened about this economic truth, society converges toward liberty (AC or minarchism) by default.
This process is happening as we write. Check out Ron Paul.