Jargon
Sorry, I can’t reply from that fourth page of the Mall Cop thread; so I replied to your post here.
If these elites do indeed buy important resources, what then? What can they do without an apparatus to force people and exclude competition? What is dominance? What will they do with advanced weaponry? Re-establish the state? In that case, the only downside of AnCapism is ending up back where you started.
They don’t need the people at all, if they have all the good arable lands, upon which to plant crops, huge herds of cattle and other farm animals for sustenance, and secure, clean bodies of water–and all of the firepower necessary to not only keep these things but to take what others claim for themselves. It’s also difficult to believe that, among all of the dispossessed humans, struggling for a means of survival against one another, not very many would gladly agree to work the crops, tend the animals and bring the water, in exchange for a secure, if meager, survival. And I’m also downplaying the level of comfort, wealth, and ease that these hypothetical elite would have assured themselves, in the event of their accidental destruction of the financial system.
The best path to AnCapism is spreading ideas, so the state can shrink and shrink until the people are ready to vote to voluntarize taxes. That would be a stable transition. People would stop paying taxes for monopolized services and entrepeneurs would recognize the opportunity and start enterprises to replace the state functions.
This is a fair description of what my direct democracy Constitution is crafted to establish–by removing all income taxes and other taxes, making those who use public/government services pay directly for them; making prisoners/aggressors work 40 hours a week to repay the costs of imprisonment itself; and leaving neighborhoods to set their own local laws for themselves, thus creating thousands of testing grounds for hands-on experimentation in good governance by the people–who hopefully learn to appreciate the freedom of less government.
Also, recognize that chaos is far more improbable in capital-accumulated societies than in desperate ones. Wealthier societies are more prone to non-violent resolutions because they have less to fight over (or rather more to not fight over).
A vibrant, productive ancap community would have to forcefully exclude power-seekers and parasites from such a free-market territory, not only so as to establish it in the first place, but for the duration of its existence. For, the more successful and productive such a society might become, the more attractive it becomes to free-riders and the power-hungry–to those who would subvert and sabotage it.
In the case of people trying to create a state, a state requires a tax base.
A state requires force–tax base optional. If you truly believe that there are super-wealthy elites today, not content to enjoy their advantages through leisure, but instead intent upon controlling and subverting the people, why do you assume that some among these highly-successful, productive ancappers wouldn’t turn to more exotic, devious entertainment than simple strolls on beaches and trips to the moon? Is human nature so chartable that one can confidenly predict that in an ancap society all children will be well-loved and well-treated–that sadists won’t be born or bred?
Firstly, they are defending and may prepare.
How does one prepare for military invasion, except by maintaining a standing military? And if some choose not to contribute to it–because they, like Ron Paul, shy away from such things–how are the contributions and the troops of a coercive state system to be matched?
Secondly, they have better reason to fight than the statists and may convert enemies into their ranks. They are after all the innocent non-aggressors.
Converted enemies can also be potential double-agent saboteurs, yes?
Thirdly, the statists need them alive. What good is a tax base if they are too dead to pay their taxes?
Correction. They need their resources, and all of the valuable assets that accrue in a very free, very productive society. The people can be slaves, as easily as taxpayers, should they lose their fight.
Fourthly, it’s a standing statist army vs. standing free army and free guerilla army. The statists must confront the defense agencies that are defending the free people, but they must also confront the free people who are presumably conducting sabotage, recon, propaganda, etc.
The free army/defense agency can split up anyway it likes, standing or guerilla, likely both; it’s still a question of whether a state military will find that the spoils of war, ie all the wonderful wealth created by an ancap society, is worth the risk and the costs of invasion. The Romans answered yes, every time they encountered a civilization more refined than their own.
Fifthly (?), where is the money for this statist assault coming from? Out of the coffers of the elite? Well they better hope that their savings hold out, because they aren’t gaining any revenue from the free people. The only people fighting for them are the ones that they are paying.
That’s the whole problem: the only people fighting for the ancappers are the ones they are paying. In other words, there is no threat of imprisonment for refusing to fight, or for quitting in the middle of the fight. These mercenaries are, by definition, motivated by money. So some will be susceptible to offers from the other side; others will lose interest in compensation when certain death confronts them. Most mercenaries operate in situations where they aren’t likely to incur gunfire at all; or where, if they do, they expect a decisive technological advantage. I think it’s a little naive to believe that such soldiers-for-hire would risk life and limb for money, so that someone else equally endangered doesn’t have to. It might kind of kill the spirit of comraderie and a common cause.
But evil people are often *self-*destructive too. Sometimes they go too far; and they could theoretically bleed too much from their victims. If the system fails as a result, then the question arises: Have they been manipulative and forward-thinking enough to provide for such a collapse? Well, the very “bleeding” itself might be seen as a parasitic enrichment designed both to empower them over and to insulate them from the masses all along. So the death of the system wouldn’t kill the parasite: it only makes it easier to feed freely upon the struggling masses.
That’s a great insight, and I think it’s possible that that’s what they’re doing now. But how is that the fault of AnCapism?
Who said it’s the fault of ancapism? I’m not blaming ancapism for anything; I’m merely pointing out that, as presented, it’s an incomplete vision, a theoretical model that needs fleshing out with the many contradictory aspects of (Don’t say it!) human nature. I’m making things more complicated for you, because I judge them to be more complicated than you would make them. (I think it’s fair to say that, were everyone in the world a clone of me, possessing my own nature, Earth would look a lot like a planet populated with ancap-like communities–and really ugly chicks.)
I realize that it will probably be difficult to defeat the families but it would be difficult to defeat them under any system of social organization. I do think that if the bloodlines of these families were severed, any system of social organization would be easier on the people.
I didn’t think libertarians were supposed to murder–particularly in the absence of a specific, opposite intent. What if some among their kin were just jerks–super-wealthy, very powerful jerks? Are you justified in killing them solely to cut the bloodline?; or to prevent the possibility of their either turning into sadists, or spawning them?
Limited is limited, with respect to water, arable land and mineable metals and minerals. I’ve already addressed the shortcomings of a private defense agency.
Limited is limited, and that’s why people work instead of frolic. That won’t change in the near future. What are the problems of a PDA?
See the answer above about mercenaries.
My point was that the bomber’s private property rights are not sacred, where his use of his property endangers those around him. The same might be said when one person wishes to poison their part of a river, or live in free communities, upon arable that could sustain the survival of others who do not want freedom. But it’s their property, you might argue, the others can migrate somewhere else. Yes, and the bomber’s neighbors could all move somewhere else, too. But in a world of limited natural resources and finite land masses the real choices are not so plentiful. So the right to life supercedes all other rights. And whoever stands in the way of anyone’s survival is likely to object to the outcome. Their “lesser” rights, those other than the right to life itself, cannot come before anyone else’s right to life. And thus, ironically, we have killing and wars for the natural resources that sustain life; thus we have states and borders that ensure this right to life to the greatest number. And thus all the protests of the rights absolutists, that their lesser rights and freedoms aren’t fully respected, fall mostly on deaf ears–living deaf ears.
And MY point is that when people are endangered they have a right to recourse. Respect of private property doesn’t mean that someone can pollute a river, that’s absurd. Respect of private property means that you can’t pollute a river because then you’re polluting someone’s property. That affected person may then seek restitution in blood or payment, depending on the crime. This is mostly true in America but is distorted in favor of elitists so that the state is the one who arbitrates private property disputes, which then favors those who own the state. In an AnCap society a person may choose his legal setting.
Private courts compete for business and thus have an incentive to be the most objective. If a court rules regularly in favor of corporations, guess what? No ones going to bring their suits to them.
So a man gets mugged; and, now, not only does he have to pay his medical bills and replace his stolen paycheck, he also has to pay for justice? He doesn’t get a trial, unless he can afford one? Or if he hasn’t paid for trial-insurance, and he can’t afford to pay out of his savings, then he doesn’t get a trial? Or if he takes retribution into his own hands, attempting to dish it out proportionally, and doesn’t quite do it well enough the first time, does he get another crack at the guy–assuming he has the right guy in the first place? Can he get a little “creative,” breaking the guy’s kneecap, though the guy broke his nose?
And if the court justly rules for one side much more than another–because victims are more often telling the truth than “predators”–does that make it biased? Who decides whether the trial goes here, or to one that seems to favor “predators?” If it’s all about money, then sometimes the injuring party will be able to buy a trial in a court that shows most injurers favor. And I’m not saying that this doesn’t happen behind the scenes today; but in an ancap society such vulgarities would be the rule of thumb.
Bombing someone with nukes is aggression, and if a neighbor knows that his neighbor has set a timer on a nuke then he is justified in securing his person against the threat.
I would imagine that there are some libertarians who would say that one ought to avoid murder when it is avoidable: that the moral thing is to move away from the bomber, when one can: Property can be replaced; individuals cannot be. Who knows? The bomber might change his mind at the last minute; then they could move back. Even when one displays an intention to act, they don’t always do so.
The actual cost of doing the fully moral thing affects the choice of moral alternatives. If another liveable area lays only a few day’s journey away, is it still moral to kill the bomber?
And if a roving mass of starving statists comes upon a flourishing ancap community, and the cost of doing the moral thing, ie moving on, is death by starvation, are they required to die? If they don’t have money, or the energy to work for food, must they die? And if they are fed by the ancaps once, can’t they just stay awhile longer? Some can? Others must starve? If they promise to work and pay later, and then they don’t, now they must leave and die? Or does survival itself always trump all other moral considerations?