If you and enough other people are, and there aren’t enough people that care on the other side of the issue to pay to prevent it, then YES. There is no authority to decree otherwise.
Note that all that happens when there is a territorial monopoly on force (a State), generally speaking, is that consumer preferences are distorted by the monopoly for the benefit of the monopoly and in most every aspect also the detriment of the people. Take that monopoly away (reaching the AnCap conception of “anarchy”), and the general result is that consumer preferences are better reflected. That is all. It doesn’t change human nature or cultural attitudes, so quite possibly in an AnCap society that was predominantly a certain Muslim sect, something like that might happen. However, protections of minorities would be better, too. And the other side of the coin is that in such a society where most people wanted women to be property, if it were Statist it would be far worse.
Maybe not, but that definition does not contradict anything. AnCaps hold that the minimum necessary governmental interference for maintenance of peace and property rights is zero.
What if you are a billionaire and own gold mines? You could keep lobbying and paying off government officials so in that case “the law” would be enforced. Or probably still most societies would not allow it, but your unfair advantage as a billionaire is only magnified by the existance of a monopoly on force that you can buy off. AnCap is not utopian; it simply eliminates the additional tool for abuse of inequality known as the State.
Why would it be legal for him to be killed? He pays his private defense force which is larger than all others. Your collection is useless since his army is stronger.
Very true. Minarchism is utopian. It claims belief in the existence of a perfectly honest and neutral government.
I wouldn’t go there necessarily. I’m an anarchist first because I do not believe it is legitimate for me to use force to gain property or control someone else’s property.
Not really. It may not be successful in practice, but that isn’t the case. There are only two directions one can go from Mises’ views on government: more or less.
Why wouldn’t it be legal?
You are changing the scenario… which opens up an entire different discussion. But the size of his army doesn’t really matter as we really only need to pay one person to have him killed, and generally the larger an army is the less dedicated they generally will be, and mercenaries aren’t particularly famous for being loyal soldiers.
Why “enough” people if I have more money than anyone else? I can pay for whatever law I want.
No they are not. In an anarcho-capitalist society whoever has the most money makes and enforces the law.
They claim this but have not provided evidence of this. I can claim anything it does not make it so.
Making arguments against the state does not make them for anarcho-capitalism. You still haven’t answered the question of what stops the Billionaire and his larger than yours army from coercive action. Who protects property rights if the Billionaire can simply use his army to take your property.
Don’t you mean libertarian, not anarchist? I tend to think of libertarianism/ NAP as the ideology or ethical doctrine, and anarchism (“anti-monopoly-on-force-ism”) as the practical side. It seems to me that we are aiming to achieve the latter, because we expect the former to be better upheld as a result - because of the better reflection of consumer preferences, true “democracy.”
The directions are logical, which one is subjective. More or less, pick one.
Mystical Rambo? Thats the equivalent of hiring an assassin?
Pure conjecture is this billionaire goldminer who magically knows how to keep mercenaries loyal and has more money and men than the rest of the world can muster up.
No, this is what happens in a statist society. There is a monopoly on law. You can buy monopoly privileges (military, educational, medical etc industrial complexes) and you can buy positive law (no smoking, no drinking, no sex, no pot, no driving fast etc.)
Ancap is not only a consequentialist position. It is an ethical one. That we’re all safer and happier and more prosperous, when we’re not trying to enforce rules on each other, abrogating property rights and competing for political power over the group. It’s an acknowledgment that the only fair and rational society, is one where violence is not used as a means to gain control of property.
In theory, yes. However, it’s even easier for the uber-rich to control things under the system we have now, as I already explained.
You made it clear earlier in the thread that you do not understand the fundamental arguments of anarcho-capitalism. If you would like to learn, read actual works by scholars in the field, because it’s going to take way too long to get a grip on the concepts here on the forums. Other than that, you seem to want to argue against AnCap even though you do not yet comprehend how it even purports to work. That fact alone ought to set off warning bells in your mind that you’ve been biased against that which you cannot yet even identify.
You objected that laissez faire was by definition at odds with AnCap, and you gave the definition. I refuted that. What you wrote here has nothing to do with the thread of discussion you are responding to. I know there are a lot of posts, but if you’re going to participate try to at least follow along.
At this point, we cannot really continue until you do more reading on the subject. I don’t think anyone here is willing to sit down with you and rehash all the points brought up again and again in the literature until you understand it. Just like any system of social organization, the full theory with all objections answered is not going to be found from a poster on a forum, and to demand that we produce the full theory and answer every last objection without you having to do your homework is a bit silly.
If you’re truly interested in the theory, we can recommend you some reading, all available online.
I think you misunderstand what private defense agencies would be for. They would be for capturing criminals that have performed a coercive action.
A private defense agency would not perform a coercive action against some else, even if paid, because they are responsible for their coercive actions just like any other individuals. If a private defense agency was performing a coercive action against an individual without cause, then the defense agency could be brought to an arbiter an charged for their crimes (unlike government officials).
What would make the private defense agency listen to the arbiter you say? Well, if the agency did not listen to the arbiter, then no one would purchase from them again and they would get no more funding.
You could say that a rogue agency funded by only a madman billionaire (which btw sounds like a comic book story) could happen in this society. But I find it highly unlikely that an agency would throw away it’s business reputation to reap the benefit of a short term payment from a madman (which btw would also harm every individual within the agency as well, because not one of them would be trusted for employment anywhere else)
This always gets carried away. So it usually is that the young liberal anarchists here don’t abide by the Dallas Accord. Instead of actually refuting Mises, they turn this into a large name calling hullabaloo.
Anarchy means no rule, by it’s purest interpretation. Yet, anarchists say there will result rules of order such as competing courts, and defense agencies. Yet those are instruments of social rule. In this environment of no rule(anarchy) how are the meek to be protected from the most dominant?
I agree with LeFevre, that there is another option, that of self-rule(autarchy).
Government is a tool of men. Men sometimes don’t use their tools in the best manner. Anarchy, under it’s purest meaning(no-rule) is no sort of tool at all. Anarchy is like an evenly rotating economy(a fiction), in that it makes a nice mental model. In practice it is a means of barbarism, and perhaps savagery. I think it is possible that men may find a better tool other than government, I pray that intellectuals may find it.
Why can’t we all agree that we hate the state, and when we can minimize it as much as possible, than we can decide on how much if any is needed or not?
[anarchy](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=anarchy) [](http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=anarchy)
1539, from M.L. anarchia, from Gk. anarkhia "lack of a leader," noun of state from anarkhos "rulerless," from an- "without" + arkhos "leader" (see [archon](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=archon)). Anarchism is attested from 1642. Anarch (n.) "leader of leaderlessness," a deliciously paradoxical word, was used by Milton, Pope, Byron. Anarcho-syndicalism is first recorded 1913.
“Either the State for ever, crushing individual and local life, taking over in all fields of human activity, bringing with it its wars and its domestic struggles for power, its palace revolutions which only replace one tyrant by another, and inevitably at the end of this development there is … death! Or the destruction of States, and new life starting again in thousands of centers on the principle of the lively initiative of the individual and groups and that of free agreement. The choice lies with you!” [Prince Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921)]
[anarchist](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=anarchist) [](http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=anarchist)
1678, see [anarchy](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=anarchy). The word got a boost into modernity from the French Revolution.
[anarchic](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=anarchic) [](http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=anarchic)
1790, "chaotic, without order or rule," from Gk. anakhos (see [anarchy](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=anarchy)) + -ic. An older word in this sense was anarchical (1597). Differentiated from anarchistic (1884) which tends to refer to the political philosophy of anarchism.
I believe we live in an age of barbarism, I think that a great deal of this can be attributed to the release of individual power to state power. I believe man grew out of the age of savagery when he began to employ the use of tools.
Anarcho-capitalism, isn't exactly the same as self-rule(autarchy).
Thanks, I’m reading that tomorrow. Maybe you should take a look at this little pamphlet which Mises never refuted…and could never had refuted if he tried.
Neither, there is no logical reason something has to be “progressive”.
What if the Billionaire lives in a former U.S. missile silo and only allows his trusted men to visit him? It would be impossible to “assassinate” him and he can conduct all his business over the Internet. Your plan is easily defeated.
So it impossible to keep people employed for money? Why would the rest of the world care what he is doing? Why would the whole world be in an anarchistic state?
Correct, luckily we don’t live in an Anarcho-capitalist society.
No it is not, in the current system they have to lobby congressmen who are not elected by this one man, they do not have to just name a price.
Then surely you can argue it better than you are doing.
You have no refuted it at all the definition clearly has nothing to do with no government. That is why a separate word exists “anarchy”.
Then you clearly do not understand the theory if you cannot defend it or it is indefensible. I am not advocating for anarcho-capitalism, you are and it is up to you to make the case, if you cannot then you fail.