Anarcho-Capitalism is a system devised to promote liberty without the need of a government. In the place of an agency designed to protect individual rights, Anarcho-Capitalism involves the competition of several such agencies. The belief that this will promote liberty and efficiency stems from economics, where competition of companies produce better products at a lower price.
Anarcho-Capitalism misunderstands one of the most essential goals of government. Any particular use of force must be judged by others in society as either an initiation of force or retaliatory force. Any initiation of force is a threat to everyone, not just the particular victim. Anarcho-capitalism assumes that only the two agencies (criminal’s and victim’s) would be involved. In reality, the primarily role of government is to judge this use of force. In practice, whichever force is dominant in the region will make their judgments stick. This is called government. It is not only necessary, but unavoidable.
Anarcho-capitalism rests on the several flawed notions. First, that putting force on the marketplace will produce positive results. Since markets only produce positive results when the use of force is banned, it is a non-sequitor to say that competition will produce better government. Also, the results of the market are good by the standard of the value-judgments of individuals. It is impossible to say that liberty is what they value.
A second flaw is that it requires a single rule to be followed by all the protection agencies. That they do no bar competition through the use of force. But this is absurd. Today we have governments that do not allow competition. Why do anarcho-capitalists think they can count on this?
Another basic assumption is that if people don’t like a particular agency, they can give their money to another instead. Well, if this were true, why don’t they do it today? The fact is, an agency, since it deals in force, can force people to be its “customers”. Anarcho-capitalists evade this fact.
Anarcho-capitalism is an imaginary construct that cannot exist in reality. It is based on flawed understanding of government, society, and economics."
Simple refutation: the person has no understanding of what governments are, i.e. coercive expropriating territorial monopolies which initiate force against the citizens it supposedly “guards”. As a result, his entire analysis is flawed, since it begins from a faulty premise.
Your refutation proceeds from a faulty definition of “government,” namely that government must by definition be an initiator of force. As long as you hold that premise, you will “misunderstand” anyone who advocates a government that is prohibited by law from initiating force.
Well the person writing that critique didn’t advocate a government prohibited from initiating force. So you’re talking of a system where there would be possibly competing governments? Since if they are prohibited from initiating force they would have to accept money through voluntary means- and if people don’t like them- their funding stops and they die. Isn’t that what anarcho-capitalism is about anyway?
That’s not faulty; that’s the political definition. That is the commonly-accepted definition. That is the definition which Rothbard, Hoppe, and other use. It is correct.
@Stephanie - Is the government’s role to determine who initiated force?
@eliotn - You didn’t provide a source link. I’m not sure how much can be gained from it, because it’s not even a good refutation. It’s really poor and fallacious.
Major problem here. No government limits itself to a role of protecting natural rights. Thats what makes governments so unique, and their ability to expropriate (tax).
No. Ancap is a free market, without democratic governments, and agencies that tax. complete non-sequitor
So if someone carjacks me, i need to consult “society” to determine if my car was really stolen?
We use a common law system, based on natural rights. i think anacap would also be some kind of common law societies
But putting force in the hands of government world wide produce positive results?
Why would people contract with an insurance or private defense agency if they have a reputation of committing violence against others? a defense, or dispute resolution agency immediately loses revenue-goes bankrupt, once it becomes a threat to society. Unlike democratic governments of course. The US invades Iraq under false pretenses, and since then has increased its revenues.
The question is what is likely? Tomorrow Obama, could theoretically conspire with the Armed forces, to nuke California and invade NYC- and install a military dictatorship. Whats stopping that from happening? Anarchy and some kind of interpersonal cooperation is prior to security in property
If you read some of these articles, you may find its self-contradictory. For instance, this person states that agression should be prevented, and retalitory force should be issued, yet at the same time, the state is supported and anarchno-capitalism is dismissed.
However, for the most part, I think he is really close on the spectrum to anarchno-capitalism.
That’s true. It seems to be a similar argument and hang-up objectivists have against anarchism. (though I always thought this was fueled by Murray’s writing of Mozart was a Red).
Yes, in part. Then, having found who had, it is to enforce the punishment. That is what it means to have the lawful right of the use of retaliatory force. But the process requires someone to have come forward in the first place and alleged a wrongdoing. Whether he asked the government to mediate the dispute OR went to some private tribunal/court/arbiter and got the ruling, it would still need to have the decision enforced.
So, it will be possible for the free market to operate in terms of having a decision rendered in a given dispute, but the enforcement of that decision would have to be carried out by the government.
Once again with the argument from authority. So, a lot of people mis-define a word, and you just run with it, heedlessly?
Does seflishness mean: “The quality or state of being selfish; exclusive regard to one’s own interest or happiness; that supreme self-love or self-preference which leads a person to direct his purposes to the advancement of his own interest, power, or happiness, without regarding those of others.” Or perhaps you prefer: " too much concerned with one’s own welfare or interests and having little or no concern for others; self-centered."
How do you define it?
How about altruism? Do you agree with any or all of the following?
Altruism is selfless concern for the welfare of others. It is a traditional virtue in many cultures, and central to many religious traditions. This idea was often described as the Golden rule of ethics. Altruism is the opposite of selfishness. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altruism
Altruism is an ethical doctrine that holds that individuals have a moral obligation to help, serve, or benefit others, if necessary at the sacrifice of self interest. Auguste Comte’s version of altruism calls for living for the sake of others. … en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altruism_(ethics)
Regard for others, both natural and moral; devotion to the interests of others; brotherly kindness; – opposed to egoism or selfishness en.wiktionary.org/wiki/altruism
altruistically - in an altruistic manner; “he acted selflessly when he helped the old lady in distress” wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
altruistically - Regardful of others; beneficent; unselfish; – opposed to egoistic or selfish
Ok. So this begs the question, if the government determines who is wrong, and then enforces the decision, who can determine if the government is wrong, and enforce a decision against government? In other words, who watches the watchmen? Has history shown that government can be a check on itself, when it has monopoly power by fiat and no competition?
This is the failure of your position. It is not possible for government as a monopoly to avoid corruption. No matter how well written the law, history has shown that governments operate outside their own rulebooks, and if they have a monopoly, you have no one to appeal to when they do so except the rule breakers themselves. And we know how that turns out. Sovereign immunity.
Your system is great, if people are perfect. But if people were perfect, we wouldn’t need a government or rules. If you can’t trust people outside of government, I don’t understand how you can trust them in government, with no accountability and absolute control over the gun.
And? You realize that arguing from authority isn’t a fallacy so long as the authority in question actually is an authority on the subject, do you not? Further, I’m not arguing from authority so much as listing adherents to that correct definition.
Steph, you are the one trying to redefine “government”. You want it to be a monopoly yet not initiate force. That is impossible. That’s like trying to define something as both the locus of all points equidistant from a central point and an equilateral quadrilateral with all interior angles being right angles. It’s not possible.
History has shown that all governments have been instituted in contradiction to the basic principle that government ought to be the means of collective self-defense against the initiation of force.
The law hasn’t explicitly prohibited the initiation of force. In fact, the law has expressly permitted it. We have not yet had a government that was bound by law to be subject to the law the same as everyone. It’s the law that has been missing. There has even been competition in place in the form of different countries with different sets of laws. But so far all governments have contained the idea that the government ought to have the right to initiate force if only in the matter of how it pays for itself. Most governments go beyond that and institute laws that represent some people’s ideas of “how things should be done” and which are forced on everyone.
I stand by my position that government to succeed needs to be non-contradictory, i.e., it must not initiate force. I said in an earlier post of mine that it should not use coercion, but I was wrong about that, since the use of retaliatory force requires coercion (obviously.)
In my view, “no government” is going to have the same result as “too much government.” What is needed is non-contradictory government.
So the government cannot initiate force in order to maintain it’s monopoly. Also, it cannot force anyone to pay for its services. In other words, the government is no different from any other private business.
The government can never initiate force. So it cannot initiate force to mantain a monopoly, and it can only obtain revenue through voluntary transactions…So every private business funded through voluntary transactions could qualify as a government.