My point was that states can engage in theft much more easily than PDAs, because PDAs have to bear their own costs of burglary. States socialize the costs, and can therefore steal and waste money without consequence. Every society operates off personal profit, monetary or psychological. States are made up of men who act like other groups of men.-- seiben
all you are stating is that PDA will be more efficient.
however, nothing will prevent PDAs from becoming absolutist within their sphere of influence. Moreover, PDAs will be far more lethal than a statist agency of equal size. As a result, wars or conflicts within a anarchic society will be far more costly in both human and material terms.
you are under the assumption that ancap societies would be attacked in the first place. But as an excellent trading parner, and at the risk of undermining the state’s image as a protectorate, this is exceedingly unlikely.–seiben
the geopolitic is anarchic and that hasnt stopped war. Indeed, within liberal democracies there is far less conflict and violence per capita then within the geopolitic. pre-war europe in 1914 and 1939 was engage in mutually beneficial trade, nonetheless these nations went to war for largely territorial gains (hitler wanted german “living space” in the east)
I mean there are so many governments in the world who have crappy nonexistant militaries who are not attacked in the status quo. Why is that?–seiben
these nations have contracted a “PDA” to defend them – it is the United States, russia, china or some other regional hegemon. Note that in an anarchic society there is no reason to believe that the myriad competing PDAs will not be engaged in conflict similar to that of the 20th century global anarchic system.
Why doesn’t some imaginary barbarian state take over the philipines? Or madagascar?–seiben seiben
The USA is the hegemon that essentially controls the phillipines. as for madagascar I suppose that there is nothing there worth guarding.
War isn’t profitable, even if you loot everyone. You destroy the country’s infrastructure and lose all the advantages you had when you could trade with them voluntarily.–seiben
history is rife with examples of nation-states acting within the anarchic geopolitic attacking vulnerable, peaceful societies for economic, security, et al motives. if the globe is anarchic and conflict has dominated history — establishing mini-anarchic societies within former nation-states will simply increase thee chances for more conflict since you will have more self-interested actors on the world stage. The only difference is that these actors will be more efficient and lethal than past combatants.
Ancap societies can rearrange capital structures just as well as state societies, except they do not have to contend with the calculation and knowledge problems, of which you have yet to address.-- seiben
calculation and knowledge problems are irrelevant in war. the cost of security, freedom, or life itself is priceless so within a statist society maximum resources will be devoted to defense while consumer goods will be rationed. IN contrast, many citizens and neighboring PDAs in an anarchic society who are free riders will defer from contributing to the war effort even when their neighbors are under attack.
So, if an ancap society needed a behemoth PDA, there are accountability issues. People don’t sign unenforceable contracts though… it is likely that the entrepreneur bidding for the defense contracts would put in all sorts of checks against abuse of this power.–seiben
it is called a constitutional federal republic with decentralized military commands and branches with a 2nd amendment to add teeth to the other amendments.
however, I acknowledge that it may be possible for a group of founding fathers (or rather founding entreprenuers) within an anarchic society to develop free market checks and balances that might forestall a PDA or PDAs from going absolutist – however, in the largest and best experiment on anarchism known to man – the geopolitic. we will still have conflict and wars among the diverse and competing PDAs. Moreover, the more checks and balances on the PDA system, the less effective these PDAs will be defending against statist threats. IN contrast, the less restrictions on PDA power, the more likely they will go “absolutist”
In sum, just because a single PDA wont be taking absolute power, and just because a PDA will be more efficient and more lethal, does mean that isolated and weak PDAs and anarchic societies and their citizens wont be overrun, killed, and tortured as occurs in the anarchic geopolitic.
You mean free riding? Its taken care of by organizing through insurance. If everyone thought they had to buy their own personal SAM battery, there would be free rider problems. But if everyone simply took out insurance, the few insurers would cooperate and make the necessary expenditures to protect their liabilities in the property/lives of their clients.-- seiben
NO, I meant that if the USA was broken up into say 50 PDAs, that a statist adversary could attack the area defended by PDA X (maine) and it is likely that the PDA and insurance company that dominates market share for citizens living in the area around boston would not expend resources to defend the customers in maine. It is even possible that they would contract with the statist attacker to divide the spoils.
With respect to your post. the system of insurance is virtually the same as taxation with the obvious differences. IN the anarchic system, the “taxes” are voluntary and probably more consistent with the actual threat. IN contrast, the statist regime generally over emphasizes the threat in order to justify more taxes. Nonetheless, the statist regime, while less efficient, has no free riders. In contrast, the anarchic society could have free riders or under estimate threats in order to reduce insurance premiums. Note that the more competition (decentralization of force) , the more the likelihood of the competing PDAs or insurance companies bidding down the costs of defense in order to gain market share, this could be fatal.
State elites are interested in protecting their own positions of power, but not the property or lives of the common man. As I said before, they nominally accept responsibility as guardians, but do not accept liability. In this way, there is no profit-seeking motivation for state authorities to protect their citizens.-- seiben
In the area of national defense, state elites are very responsive to providing the most effective and efficient defense against threats since the failure to do so will result in them losing power or worse. In sum, they are motivated by more then profit — they are motivated by personal security, life itself. In contrast, the PDA is primarily motivated, and constrained, by profit.
in a battle between survival and profit as the prime motivator — I think survival has good odds.
Actually, privateers rocked the socks off all statist navies for 700 years.-- seiben
I am interested in reading the account. No doubt these private mercenaries fared well, however they were not “game changers”. They could be a nuisance but they couldnt take a statist capital. Indeed, the privateers in somalia fared far worse when bumping heads with Seal snipers. Moreover, the privateers in iraq who are now in “heaven” are sadden that all of the virgins have been claimed since so many of them have been killed to little effect, save the deaths of many innocents.
So you have to imagine that an anarcho capitalist society, materially wealthier and with better enforcement of libertarian laws, which prohibit infanticide, would somehow still commit infanticide, and that a foreign state would somehow take an interest and go to war to stop the baby killing?–seiben
The anarchic enclave and its PDA that prohibited infanticide would be favored by neighboring islamist, christian, or liberal democracy --however, they would still be subject to attack from a marxist, socialist, or communal anarchic society or statist regime. However, they would have the moral high ground that would encourage islamic, christian, liberal democracies to come to their aid. Still in the anarchic geopolitic many moral and prosperous societies have been overrun by large statist regimes. being moral and just is no guarantee from predation.
there is no reason to suggest that simply having more actors (ancap societies) on the anarchic geopolitic will deter war and predation. Indeed, having more disparate societies will encourage and increase the chances for conflict.
Let me make your point for you more clearly; You are saying that PDAs are motivated only by profit, whereas state forces can be motivated by patriotism or emotion etc, and therefore will make better soldiers b.c. you can sacrifice them etc. Well PDAs are not only motivated by profit; as I said before, the same tactics states use to motivate their troops are also available to PDAs, who I must say, would certainly have the upper hand on propoganda!–seiben
I think they are all motivated by security and power relative to any competitors, irrespective of whether the competitor is a PDA or statist regime.
There is no reason to suggest that once you eliminate statism that the competion over the scarce resource of “security” is now abolished.
in sum, why should a globe dominated by anarchic societies act any different then the current geopolitic that is essentially anarchic ?
both states and PDAs see each other as potential threats and will engage in conflict to protect turf, defend ideologies, defend citizens who are mistreated, et al
whatever motives were responsible for war in the current anarchic geopolitic willl result in war in the ancap geopolitic. the citizenry, private enterprises, and the leadership within statist societies support wars even when they know the economic costs may exceed the economic benefits, primarily because there may be other motivations like security, religion, territory, et al. these concerns do not disappear simply because the potential adversaries are more efficient, more decentralized, and motivated by profit.
for example:
“Those pigs from PDA X want to enslave you and they continue to drive up your insurance premiums with unjust arbitration! They think you have no rights! They’ll continue to send our loyal PDA Y clients to be brainwashed in their private prisons without due process !”
It is true that states come into existence and continue by virtue of propoganda, but none of the slogans I mentioned above are really at odds with freedom. In order to establish a state, you would have to somehow turn people against the ancap society which has been so good to them… its possible but i think very difficult.-- seiben
if you have thousands of disparate and distinct anarchic societies, you would eventually have many at odds against each other for the same motives that lead to war in the current anarchic geopolitic. the only difference is that the PDAs would be more lethal and since they are more numerous the chances of war would greatly increase.
In contrast, within a liberal democracy violence is at latent levels relative to the greater anarchic geopolitic. note the sweden, switzerland, the USA, canada, UK, netherlands, et al have isolated incidents of violent crime and civil disorder but it is far more ordered, humane, peaceful, prosperous, and stable within these socieites then in the world outside them.
if you convert these states into a mosiac of anarchic enclaves you have just taken the war ridden example of the larger geopolitic and created myriad more tiny anarchic systems within the boundaries of these former nations thereby dramatically increasing the chances and opportunities for war that history has shown exists within an anarchic system like our current geopolitic
In sum, we have had a test tube of the results of anarchic society, the geopolitic — and the results of this system has been dismal.
Anarchism is not at odds with collectivism though; it is at odds with compulsory collectivism. But even collectivists, if they better understood economics, would realize that states are harmful to their long term prosperity etc.-- seiben
what is the difference between a globe dominated by peaceful, prosperous, stable, and free liberal democracies who engage in the free trade and travel without visas like the EU, USA, Canada, et al and a society of anarchic enclaves?
If the world was democratized, then likely citizens in each state, province, or nation-state could relocate his business or home to a new area if he was not satisfied with the current regime.
In sum, we are already living in an anarchy. the citizens in each of the anarchic “enclaves” have tacitly accepted the ruling authority by not engaging in civil disobedience. In many areas of the globe, the citizens vote with their feet to relocate from dysfunctional societies.
I dont think that your anarchic globe will look much different than anything we have in existence today. Indeed, it is better to simply democratize the world geopolitic, break down barriers to trade and labor, and you will have your anarchic society since the competing nation’s governing authorities (PDAs in all but name) will have to adopt policies that attract productive citizens – namely freedom, security, stability.
i will respond to the balance later.