You could have said you created a blog instead of lying about the post’s content with a deceptive title, but you want attention, so I will give you some.
Your self-description: “Brilliant. Glorious. Philanthropic. Genius. What more can be said? I am talented in every field. Loved and respected by all and hated by none. A God among men. Of course, I believe the best, of my many many magnificent qualities, is that I am very very humble.”
Maybe your friends and family will be amused by this, but to a stranger it can be viewed as arrogant. However, perhaps your blog will be more comedic than serious, so your self-description may be consistent with your blog’s light-hearted theme.
Your website’s title, Libertarian Monarchy, is argued. You say, “Hoppe is against democracy but believes Anarcho-Capitalism, a system of competing private and purely defensive governments can work. When referring to democracy, Hoppe accurately explains how competition between politicians is bad. Competition forces the elected officials to be the best liars, demagogues, and manipulators. Hoppe does not develop and expand on this concept further, which is why I believe he lacks a proper understanding of political systems, particularly anarcho-capitalism.” Hoppe wrote a whole book the subject. You can read the intro online.
You say, “In anarcho-capitalism, competition between governments is encouraged.”
Anarcho-capitalism means governments don’t exist. There can be private defense agencies, private courts, private military groups, but no governments. Your critique of anarcho-capitalism is based on misunderstanding it. It is about voluntarily-funded security providers, not tax-funded governments.
I agree with much of what you say, but persuading non-libertarians will likely take more effort. For example, you say, “The government has made a complete mess of elementary/high school by managing it into the ground(because of the influence of teachers unions and the general incompetence and inefficiency of government)”. This is not news to libertarians, but brand new to others. To reinforce this point, cite, for example, Stupid in America, a 20/20 expose of U.S. public schooling.
Is this serious?
I wasn’t “lieing”. I just didn’t feel like adding anything to the title, so I plugged my website lol. That way I could hear other people’s opinions about the topic.
The self-description was obviously meant to be humorous. Anyone who is annoyed by a simple joke should not be reading radical libertarian thoughts.
I didn’t intend to insult Hoppe. I respect him very much. I was simply stating that I believe he is wrong about anarcho-capitalism.
“Anarcho-capitalism means governments don’t exist.” That all depends on how you define government. The crux of my argument is that the private defense agencies will merge with eachother and then restrict competition. Shareholders of the private defense agencies don’t want to put their capital at risk. They want to eliminate competition. Hoppe tries to apply a free market solution to government. But the problem is that the government uses “coercion”. How can there be a free market in the production of coercion. It’s an unfree market.
Regarding the point about education, I have an article called the education bubble which I thought would be sufficient. http://www.libertarianmonarchy.com/education.htm
I think you grossly misunderstood a lot of what he had to say, and the concept of PDA’s in general.
I did not misunderstand. But I’ll outline a scenario:
So, let’s say we magically switch to an anarcho-capitalist society. Everyone magically became a libertarian we dismantled government and subscribed to private defense insurance companies. The companies would be owned by shareholders. The shareholders would not want to lose their lifesavings if another company comes along that is more efficient than them. If there are 30 large agencies, they would all feel the same way. So there would be an extremely strong tendency to merge together, for the “public good”, and once there is a large government-like agency it would shut down smaller agencies and restrict new entry into the industry.
Explain how Hoppe would deal with this problem?
You just created a hypothetical strawman scenario, and expect how one would answer in said scenario. I don’t know how Hoppe would deal with that, since I don’t know him, but I’ll answer anyway.
Assuming there are 30 PDA’s in some given territory that all have a mutual feeling, why would you also assume they would want to merge together? I assume outside of these 30 there is no other competition, no other threat that’s more productive than these assumed equally good companies, so if anything these 30 would want to eliminate competition, not join the competition (if you’re not losing profits and let’s say you’re in the top 10, why would you consider merging?) What’s the “public good” and how would they restrict other agencies from entering the market? The PDA’s don’t make the law.
What you do assume is that people have to pay the PDA for services, you forget these transactions are voluntary and the PDA’s are at the whims of it’s customers. They don’t have to pay the PDA’s for their services if they do not want them. You believe the PDA must exist just as a government coerces it’s will on it’s subjects, it’s not the same. If the people feel the PDA is not up to their “demands” they can end it’s payments (or said insurance companies can do the same, depending on who’s contracted through and with who).
“That all depends on how you define government.”
It is an involuntary, usually tax-funded, violence monopoly in a certain area.
“So, let’s say we magically switch to an anarcho-capitalist society. Everyone magically became a libertarian we dismantled government and subscribed to private defense insurance companies.”
This means that libertarianism gained widespread acceptance, so reversing it would require quite a counterargument or outside subjugation (another state invades).
“The companies would be owned by shareholders. The shareholders would not want to lose their lifesavings”
I doubt people would put their entire life savings in one company.
If there is a merger, it has to be agreed to by the companies. If there is any unjust coercion, the media coverage would be quote critical. Shareholders could protest by selling. The stock could be short sold. Alternative private defense agencies could offer a better alternative. The emergence of a government in a libertarian society would be very difficult. The population would presumably have access to firearms (including modern assault rifles, body armor, and the rest), so conquering them to tax them would entail much cost to achieve meager benefits.
Are you an anarcho-monarchist too?
If so, awesome! You’re the only other person like me that I know.
“People cry on the streets”
Oh Stokholm Syndrom, oh you…
RothbardsDisciple, I don’t think this guy is an “anarcho-monarchist” or whatever. Just someone who is confused on what Hoppe had to say.
Looks to me like he might be a minarchist variety of monarchist. (I was at one point too). Sorry, I was just excited. xD
By the way, for me Monarchism is a strictly symbolic, nominal thing. Not something that really matters to my politics at all.
It’s symbolic for me also, but you try to put an anarcho-capitalist twist on it.
Out of curiosity Bert, what twist - or lack of a twist - do you put on monarchism? Is your monarchism anarchistic too?
Simply interested to compare our philosophies. =)
I am not an anarcho-monarchist.
See the basic problem of reality is that everyone wants to steal from each other. That is a clear praxeological insight. Everyone(including libertarians) wants to make themselves wealthier and an easy way to do that is to take what others have through coercion. So society has a prisoner’s dilemma. If no one steals from eachother then a free market will exist and everyone can be very wealthy. But the individual can be made better off if he steals. So what happens is everyone will steal, trying to make themselves wealthier as individuals, but as a society we become much poorer.
I believe that “anarchy” a system with no government, but more importantly no coercion, is the ideal system. The problem is coercion exists, it cannot be eliminated. Therefore, the problem with every political system is that it requires the use of force(coercion) to stop the aggressor. In a democracy everyone is given coercion through voting. In anarcho-capitalism anyone can open up a PDA and use coercion. At least in a monarchy only the king has the right to coerce. So the use of coercion is limited to one person, even though zero would be ideal.
Now the anarcho-capitalists will claim that competition will make sure that no coercion exists. That is simply wrong. Competition is not good when it comes to the product of government; coercion. Competition increases production, increases efficiency and innovation. That is only good when it comes to the production of goods. But do we want an increase in efficiency of the production of “bads”, that is “coercion”. Obviously we want a monopoly(monarchy) in the production of coercion, so that supply can be restricted.
If anarcho-capitalism works, then explain to me why it hasn’t in the real world. There’s lots of competition between the countries of Africa. That has resulted in the exact outcome that my theory predicts. Dictators compete with each other, and the most ruthless one wins out. If a dictator says I will respect private property, the people won’t support him. The dictator must rob some people and give it to others to get very strong support.
“If there is a merger, it has to be agreed to by the companies. If there is any unjust coercion, the media coverage would be quote critical. Shareholders could protest by selling. The stock could be short sold.”
You are missing the point. There is an extremely strong tendencies for these companies to merge. If you want empirical evidence then open your eyes and look around, governments are not competing the way you claim they would. A government could supposedly get huge support, and become a PDA, if just one would offer protection and charge for it. But if that is not enough, let’s think about he logic. Large shareholders, the ceo and others, have a big stake in the company they don’t want it to go bankrupt. Every company is in this position. Therefore they all have mutual interests. If they compete with eachother, it is a constant headache. They all know that if they agree to merge all of their profits will soar. Then they will use force to restrict additional entry, and keep their profits high. You say that shareholders could protest by selling their shares or selling short. It’s already too late. The capital investment(weapons production) has already been made. The companies have the firepower.
The anarcho-capitalists claim that a libertarian society would never let it happen. But that is ridiculous. Not everyone is an austrian economist. Not everyone is going to waste their time protesting for every little thing the PDA’s do. And over time, generation after generation will become less and less libertarian, like what happened to the U.S.
You are missing the point. There is an extremely strong tendencies for these companies to merge. If you want empirical evidence then open your eyes and look around, governments are not competing the way you claim they would. A government could supposedly get huge support, and become a PDA, if just one would offer protection and charge for it. But if that is not enough, let’s think about he logic. Large shareholders, the ceo and others, have a big stake in the company they don’t want it to go bankrupt. Every company is in this position. Therefore they all have mutual interests. If they compete with eachother, it is a constant headache. They all know that if they agree to merge all of their profits will soar. Then they will use force to restrict additional entry, and keep their profits high. You say that shareholders could protest by selling their shares or selling short. It’s already too late. The capital investment(weapons production) has already been made. The companies have the firepower.
"eliminate competition, not join the competition (if you’re not losing profits and let’s say you’re in the top 10, why would you consider merging?) "
Even if you are the most profitable company you would still rather merge, because your stock price is already valuing the company at it’s accurate price. Merging would simply eliminate risk of loss. And not merging while every other company does merge would put you at huge risk of war with EVERY OTHER firm. In addition, once all the firms merge, they can restrict competition and start stealing from the public. That is where the real massive profits come in.
Your King is immoral and a tyrant because he would steal and use coercion. My King is Just and Righteous, representing the sovereignty of the Individual.
And we don’t want any aggression; we want to abolish it entirely. If there is any criminal organization, whatever it is, I want it abolished. Think of me as an anti-criminal extremist.
Just check this spammer’s post history. This is all he does. Virtually every post in this Mises Forum (and probably plenty of others) is plugging this idiotic website of his. He’s been warned by mods multiple times. And now it would appear he’s graduated to bait & switch thread titles.
I wouldn’t feel bad about a ban.