Re: Why Anarchy Fails

Economics Political Theory
1

A.J.

The following is the short list for why anarchism fails:

  1. specialization of labor – private security agencies emerge consisting of those skilled in the application of force.

  2. economy of scale – PDAs merge into an all-powerful bloc leading to absolutism.

  3. coercion is a necessary and beneficial means to reallocate resources in an anarchic society.

  4. empirical and logical evidence confirms that power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

  5. empirical evidence proves that zero government is equally inefficient as absolute government – see Rahn Curve.

  6. security relative to fellow citizens is a zero sum game.

  7. unlike liberal democracies with their separation and balance of powers, ancap society has no structured decentralization or balance of the institutions of coercion.

In sum, profit goes to the most efficient enterprise, this does not preclude the establishment of a monopoly among PDAs. Moreover, none can deny the empirical and logical tenet that “power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely” Nor can any deny that in the absence of voluntary exchange, coercion will be employed by the most powerful PDAs to obtain valued resources from weaker inefficient actors in society.

anachro-capitalist are wasting their time with this pipe-dream. It is better to attack statism with an attenuated version of our present Constitutional Federal Republic. For example, eliminate the commerce clause from the Constitution, enforcement of the 10th amendment, balanced budget amendment, a Constitutional amendment to set the Federal spending at < 15% of GDP, et al.

of course, like statist utopians – there is always a market for naive ancaps who believe the utility of coercion will disappear if government is eliminated. They misunderstand that government is a means to an end, not the causal factor for absolutism and violence. These are inherent in mankind – and thank God for without this brutal trait we would have never made it out of the savannah and steppe of Africa.

2

Rettoper,

I categorically deny #2 – economies of scale do not always exist, especially in defense. The most efficient enterprises will be ones that most adequately cover specialized regions. Larger jobs will be handled through cooperation between smaller organizations, which does NOT imply that they are one organization. Your argument seems to suggest that a one-world government is also inevitable, which is similarly ridiculous.

There are problems with the rest of your argument, but the lunacy of #2 sinks the argument outright.

3

I too must take offense here.

Economies of scale do not exist. Never have, never will. It’s a statist construct to justify license-and-tariff-made monopolies. Ricardo’s theory of comparative advantages and Mises’ theory of the impossibility of socialist calculation are all the proof one needs.

But I concede that if economies of scale existed, states would be unavoidable. Actually a single world government of untold repression would be unavoidable, hence minarchism too would be a pipe dream.

4

Non sequitur. There are economies of scale to everything; it doesn’t follow that it leads all the way to there just being one firm.