Toughest An-Cap Topic?

Economics Political Theory
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I’ve had several discussions regarding stateless societies lately, and they have ranged from the legitimacy of NASA to the ethics of a state regulated currency. Sentimental moment: I truly enjoy experiencing 96% of everyone on this forums’ intellectual insight (Wheylous, Clayton, JJ, many others–you guys are amazing)… If nothing else, I feel like many of us share the common experience of being occassionally marginalized for our beliefs by someone completely blind to our system… I think this effect is illustrated by many prominent libertarians, Amanda BillyRock being one of the poor souls that has completely shifted their life to accommodate it…

But what do you consider the be the toughest issue to persuade (for the average debate) of An-Cap? If you had to boil down what you’ve had the most difficulty debating, or simply explaining, to one issue, what would it be?

EDIT: In essence, what is your best “devil’s advocate” argument against An-Cap?

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Wheylous was listed first. Wheylous likes this.

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If you’re asking about AnCap specific things, I’d say the most common counterargument is “but it would just devolve back into a state.”

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You’re asking two different questions. What is hardest to convince people on is different than what are really the hardest questions for anarcho-capitalism to address. Both of the following are just what really stick out to me. I can’t determine a “toughest” per se

Hardest to convince people on:

Private defense companies will not take over everything

Democracy is not good

Government welfare is bad

The business cycle is not an inherent part of capitalism

Notable runners up:

Roads

The morality of people without the state

Best arguments against anarcho-capitalism:

Public goods

Currency, deflation, and inflation

Speculative bubbles

Notable Runners up:

Intellectual property

Nuclear weapons/formation of the society

Education

I can expound on any of these if you would like.

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I’d say depending on how you look at it, that question is either the toughest or the easiest one to answer…

I’d say it’s tough because I’m not sure if I could come up with one simple, specific issue…largely because I would think the hardest thing to even begin to get people to wrap their heads around (let alone be persuaded of) is the abscence of a state period.

In other words, I think the answer is in the question. The toughest thing to persuade people about an-cap, is anarchy itself.

To be perfectly honest, I actually remember not being able to even begin to imagine how a stateless society would work. Literally, I couldn’t imagine it. I’m very glad to be able to remember this mental state. I saw the title of some video online or read something somewhere about an-cap and remember kind of shoving it off as people fooling themselves…kind of like people do with communism. A short while later I came across a series of videos with the theme “in a stateless society” by AntonBately.

I recall seeing those titles and thinking “how the hell would that work?” I recall listening to some of those with great interest, because it was literally an attempt at explanation of something that I literally could not imagine.

Looking back now, and recalling some of the arguments put forth in some of those, from what I remember, they’re not even that good…but it was certainly a start.

Sadly I cannot remember much detail about how exactly my intellectual journey progressed, and what specifically advanced each step, or even what those stepping stones were. But it was definitely a progression. It wasn’t as if I read a single book and was converted. (But then again, I didn’t really start reading the books that might have caused such a conversion until after it had largely occured.) It was more of an incremental thing…a process of simply being exposed to various arguments on various topics as I happened to come across them. I think it was simply a conclusion that manifested as more and more arguments were found to be persuasive…until eventually you kind of realize the overall truth.

So I think a big part of the trick is tackling each issue as it comes up…meaning don’t jump immediately to anarchy every time. Simply guide them to the reality of its unnecessary nature. You don’t have to compromise on principle, and pretend that some government is needed for defense and courts and the like…but you don’t need to start off by saying they aren’t needed either.

You have an advantage in the fact that, because most people can’t begin to imagine a stateless society, they don’t expect anarchy to be a position someone could/would genuinely hold…so they won’t tend to assume such a thing about you. Which means they’ll assume you are at least a minarchist (even if they’ve never heard that term before). This gives you the freedom to lead them to the reality of whatever they’re advocating, without them getting ahead of you and writing you off before you make your case.

For more on this topic see “Argumentation & spreading the word” in The Ultimate Beginner meta-thread. In particular,

To Any Who Were Once Apathetic: What Brought You In?

Why Ron Paul is so effective

Recommendations on policy when dealing with newbs/statists.

Details on best practices

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That’s actually a really good list. I think that will serve well as a basis for more argumentation articles.

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One big problem is people talking about child labor, my uncle actually said that if we had no minimum wage everyone would be making only a couple dollars an hour and have children working in factories. I knew how silly his argument was but it seemed so extreme I couldn’t say anything against it. I think everyone has heard the children working in coal mines argument against libertarianism.

He actually brouht this up after I said social security was robbery. According to him government taxing is nothing compared to the blessings the government gives us so that we are not all working in the 19th century conditions. People really are lead to worship the state. What I should have done was ask why did child labor laws become effective after great increases in productivity. Eventually he would have to conclude it was increased prosperity not child labor laws and minimum wage that made people richer.

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You think so? Do you mean this is something where An-Caps are kind of “wrong” in / critics have a “good point”?

Biggest Problems with AnCapism imo:

National Defense

Land and Water Monopolization

Liquidation of Civic Virtue

Liquidation of the Artist Class (with the abolition of copyright)

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Jargon,

This is something that I’ve never actually heard much of a compelling argument for, but bubbles just concern me because of how often they’ve occurred throughout history. I’ve also never heard a really compelling reason as to why they exist, and they don’t fit in very well with ABCT in my opinion.

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What’s the difference between a speculative bubble and a boom-bust cycle?

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A bubble is rapid overinvestment in a single area of the economy, whilst the traditional ABCT narrative deals with misallocation of resources systematically and throughout the entire economy in such a way that it’s relatively difficult to predict what is and what is not a malinvestment. What is particularly concerning to me is that once a bubble starts to formed then De Soto’s explanation of why rational expectations don’t prevent malinvestment (entrepreneurs just have to believe that they can “pull out” before the boom occurs) applies pretty exactly. I have no problem accepting that credit expansion “adds fuel to the fire”, but I have a hard time believing that it is the source of bubbles since I see no evidence for it.

I need to read Wood’s “Meltdown”

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Neodoxy, what do you mean by “Public goods” as being problematic in an AnCap system?

Also, a common challenge I’ve faced when discussing libertarianism is running into people who plainly believe that using force for a greater good is moral. I almost take it for granted that most other people are against aggression, but this is simply not always the case. When someone believes that there is no immorality in encroaching on property rights, I’ve found it’s tricky to build an argument by which they’ll be swayed.

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Willy,

I mean that important goods and services such as global warming prevention, (some) roadways and bridges, and above all defense may be either chronically under-provided or exist in massive diseconomies of scale compared to what individuals would actually benefit from them. It’s all well and good to talk about private defense companies until you start to ask exactly what a normal person’s incentive is to pay for these things.

My usual example is a military defense budget of 20 billion a year. If we assume that the median annual income is 45K a year, then paying my entire yearly salary would be negligible in the total defense budget, so what is my incentive to pay this? It’s not until we get into the incredibly small number of people with incomes of over 100 million dollars a year in income that we finally reach people who could realistically influence the total defense budget if they were willing to pay very large portions of their income to defending the society. Once you reach this point you also run into the problem of power discrepancies of the society and the incentive of these elite to fund the defense agencies. Large companies might be another viable solution to this problem, although once again that’s slightly concerning to me.

Also,

As for the morality/nonaggression thing. I find that some people are more receptive to that argument than others. Some people are more deontological while others are more utilitarian. Regardless you have to convince people that the society is at very least possible. I know of no one who has ever said “I don’t care that society would descend into chaos and more violence and much more death would result than would occur with a state, I just can’t justify endorsing state violence”.

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Everybody is against aggression when it comes to themselves, by definition. Most people are against aggression in their personal lives in that most people engage in voluntary exchange. People just go stupid when it comes to government. I think a good counterargument is to talk about double standards and the golden rule. An example:

If you kidnap and falsely imprison an innocent man, you would rightfully be charged with the respective crimes. If a police officer does this, he might get reprimanded.

Obviously, there are many people who will not care and think this is actually okay. They are lost causes and you will not get anywhere engaging them in moral reasons for anarchy. Perhaps the can be convinced by economic reasons, but I wouldn’t bother.

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“Everybody is against aggression when it comes to themselves, by definition”

False.

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I can’t tell if you are joking.

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I just want to tack something on here Neo.

A lot of AnCaps forget that in AnCapistan there are no trade barriers. Accordingly, why should not foreign investors or even foreign governments buy shares in these Defense Insurance Companies, as long as it’s a profitable investment? What happens now, when a foreign country declares war on AnCapistan and that foreign country and many of its extension-investors or vassal-investors decide to pull their capital out of the DIC? Or perhaps they decide to have a board meeting on how the DIC should respond to the declaration of war? Perhaps the state decides to depreciate its currency massively to buy a bunch of shares in a bunch of the DIC’s and control them that way?

We assume, because markets decentralize, that no one DIC would be responsible for the defense of an entire territory. So that responsibility is dispersed throughout all the DIC’s. Why should not 3 of the 7 DIC’s sell out to the death threats of the invaders? (A Commander in Chief would not do this, because the state is essentially his property during war time, and he is the sole strategic target and bearer of responsibility for the nation)

There’s also the philosophical differences between mercenaries/businessmen and born-and-bred loyal-to-flag-and-country military men. I so nothing in the Rothbardian framework to provide for the loyalty of the DIC’s to those they most benefit, those requiring protection.

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Well if you understand the reference then I should think that the answer is obvious

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in fact I believe that most people cannot be convinced until the goobermint attacks something dear to them. which is why this government is so awesome, they are becoming evidence article number aaa1111!!! that they have no legitimacy. the hard part is getting them to escape the conflict dialectic, because somehow everyone wants to be “anti-government” at that point. anti-government means you are an enemy of the state and enemies of the state get shot. the state will defeat itself, what liberty-minded individuals need to do is work on their own stuff, like finances, food supply, economic free agency, networking, and sports.

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also its incredibly difficult to explain to people that defense is a private good and doesnt have to cost trillions of dollars. government militaries are horribly inefficient. defense is cheaper than offense, so you are talking about an exponent of an exponent when you compare the cost of a private defense agency to that of a public imperial military.