They’re some hobbesian criticisms (people I have argued with have said this) of an Ancap society is that the rich will have all the big guns and rich kids would go to neighborhoods and shoot those in poverty. First off these arguments sound silly. its not economically effecient to kill off potential customers by private police agenices and if they did it would surely alienate consumers since they would never pay into a system that kills or rather stands by and does nothing about murders of innocent civilians. Are they’re any other specific economic arguments that disprove the hypothetical situation that the rich will take over in an ancap society?
Demanding proof of an outcome of events that arise from human free will is a logical fallacy and a trap. Don’t accept the premise that any concrete economic outcome can be proven or disproven. Theirs can’t either. If you can get them past that, then you are dealing with comparing the dynamics of different systems. The main aspect of that is the network of incentives that a given system creates. If they are advocating some kind of government system, it’s not too hard to show (to an honest debater) that the incentives created in anarchy are less likely to create such a scenario. After all, if they want to see an example of their greatest fear made real, they can just look out the window.
The biggest problem I encounter, aside from those who are just plain socialists and beyond the reach of rational argument, is the fear of the unknown. This isn’t entirely irrational, as they have an intuitive understanding of the web of incentives occuring in the system they live under. Understanding the web of incentives that would likely exist without the state requires a complex cognitive extrapolation that, even to those willing to make the effort, takes a long time to sort through, and still lacks the immediate perceptual confirmation that the more familiar system presents.
Short answer, no.
I do realize that its practically impossible to predict proof of what will happen since economic activity and entrepreneurship is so dynamic and changing. Like you said its the fear of the unknown that people are afraid of. Having no government is even more fearful since the very concept is unthinkable toward the mainstream.
You might suggest that the rich have already taken over so it couldn’t possibly get any worse. Isn’t the Fed buying up a bunch of property these days with free money?
Well, perhaps poor kids can shoot rich kids as well ? Also, rich adults can shoot everybody else, and vice-versa. I imagine that in a free society guns would be very cheap, so even poor kids could get enough money to buy guns, say, by begging. Sorry about the nonsensical answer, but a nonsensical question perhaps deserves such an answer ? =]
It’s a common complaint, but as you’ve deduced one that holds very little water.
Is this a joke? That is some of the most obsurd, least substantiated propaganda I have heard in a long time!
No, the rich wouldn’t have all the “big guns”; the utter lack of gun control would mean practically anybody could get their hands on some “big guns” if they wanted. Okay, the rich could hire mercenary armies to carry out their work of death, but that would require the cooperation of thousands of people.
More importantly, why would they do that? That statement assumes that deep down inside anybody who make over $100,000 a year desires to watch people die, and that the government is the only thing that stops them from destroying mankind. Both statements are entirely false, and come from the leftist arch-stereotype of the rich as the spawn of Satan and big government as Jesus.
You got that right. My first reaction, however, would have been to laugh them out of there.
Absolutely. Austrian economics is based upon voluntary trade and division of labor–that is, people voluntarily cooperating for mutual gain. Warfare statism, on the other hand, expropriates and destroys property, resulting in danger and desolation to both sides.
Now, why would I, a multi-billionaire, choose to waste money on weapons and massacre people, only to risk having my lexus blow up next time I turn the key, when I could instead profit from those people by hiring them in factories or putting a discount store in their town?
And that is overlooking the fact the most of the ultra-rich are do-gooders and donate large amounts of money to charity, either to win praise, or to appease their own consciences. Even if the benefit to them is small, the cost is even smaller. But above all, the rich are human beings like the rest of us, and the have the same feelings as anybody else.
I don’t think their rein will last too long since I’ve also heard that they eat their young…
I think a stronger variant of the argument is when they cite a reason, and the most common one I’ve encountered is the rich using coercive private armies to enforce their business monopolies. I.e. to actually bomb rival factories, actively pursue stores that sell competitors’ goods and services, etc.
My response to this was it would be far too costly to implement this for any long amount of time, and normal people, seeing what they’re doing, would likely purposefully buy from others. Thus they have increased their costs, while sales are falling, and they bleed dry of money.
Also, something to note is that in a free society we would not have as many ultra-rich billionaires as today, because most of them have become rich through cooperation with governments and theft.
They already do that. What was it called…? Statism?
This identifies power disparity as a potential enabler of crime. However, it falls to apply these same rules to the State, which is the most severe form of power disparity achievable by man.
As power disparity increases the chance of violence increases, as the cost of using violence falls. Every action taken by the State to decrease private violence increases the scope of government violence.
Of course, its in government created ghettos, where the poor are not allowed to own guns, that we see the rich endanger the poor in the form of drug violence.
I’m sure there will be instances where some warlord figure tries to exercise his control over a group of individuals but how is he going to fund his war against the world? With taxes? He can tax those whom he as conquered but where are they going to get any money? The rest of society would likely not deal with those who are under that warlords control. Personal finances? Likely that would be exhausted rather quickly. The illicit trade in drugs and counterfeit money? Hardly. Drugs will be legal since there is no state to make them illegal and money will likely be gold and silver and it is difficult to counterfeit hard money. Perhaps he will fund his war with plunder taken from conquered people. But that has always proven to be an unreliable source of income and really doesn’t motivate people to fight and die. No matter, even if a PDA went rouge and tried to set up a de facto state it would likewise run out of money soon as customers left.
And the potential warlords military might will probably be limited to conventional small arms since privately funding an army with tanks, bombers, fighter jets, etc. would be impossible. Any conflicts that did break out would be small and limited in nature.
The absence of the state and it’s ability to create unlimited amounts of fiat money and its ability to tax a group of people over a specific territory would make large scale conflict nearly impossible. But that is always the risk you take with freedom. I recently ran across a great quote from Thomas Jefferson: “Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of Liberty.” I think it is fitting.