I’ll respond to the article and other posts later, I have to get back to work. we have anarchic free riders in the power plant, so if I dont do the rounds nobody will and the hospital will blow up.
moreover, the last anarchic free rider who used the printer didnt add paper another free rider), so I have to go steal some from human resources.
now you know why i question the efficacy of anarchism.
The opposite argument is also a fallacy Retropper, for the exact same reasons.
There’s an anarchic power plant? Where?
Ah the negative externalities of not properly refilling the printer.
What kind of job pays you to write refutations of anarcho-Capitalism?
So what happens when you stave off an attack from a competitors customers?
A) You get paid for your trouble. You aren’t doing it completely for free (though maybe subsidized, or better yet, “gouging” prices).
One last thing. Part of a mutual defense agreement could even be selling part or (if dire enough) all of the customer contracts held by the firm in need of help to the other firms who are helping. So if you still insist (even after all of the previously explained profit and logic in expending resources and capital to satisfy a competitor’s customers) that they won’t do it because they would want expand their market share, there’s the solution.
Rett,
Please sign up for this course: The Economics of Private and Legal Defense Services with Robert Murphy
now you know why i question the efficacy of anarchism.
No, considering none of it made much sense to begin with.
Proven? More than one liberal democracy or statist regime has fallen before. Given the actual amount of anarchist societies that have actually arisen and the amount of states that have arisen, you could hardly say that the proof is in the history of societies.–sam
liberal democracy while not perfect appears to be the “flavor of the month” on the geopoltic. of course the argument that ancap is a failure since it hasnt existed is not irrefutable it is something to consider.
why hasnt ancap society been created and sustained ?
I havent heard any convincing argument to explain this away. moreover, the overwhelming majority of the masses and elites in business, arts, politics, science, et al reject anarchism as a viable system.
As to decentralized vs. centralized, decentralized terrorists have given these liberal democracies and statist regimes a greater run for their money with fewer resources than any state vs. state battle I can think of.–sam
terrorist, or more specifically extremists, are not game changers. that is why they resort to terrorism as a vehicle for change. they are totally inept and marginalized politically, economically, and socially that the only way they can gain notoriety is by terror attacks against innocents.
moreover, ancap society would be extremely vulnerable to WMD terror attacks since it has open borders and no provision to preempt these kinds of attacks. a terrorist could covertly construct a WMD in the privacy of his home or business with significantly less oversight or intrusion than he would expect within a liberal democracy or statist regime.
Look at how horrendously shitty Iraq’s centralized military defense did as opposed to how well the insurgents have done. It’s like night and day. That is the difference centralization makes. Statists hate attacking decentralized defense systems, because there is no head to cut off, and it is self regenerating. Decentralized defense will further dissuade a statist regime from attacking. I’m sure they’ll remember “Mission Accomplished” in the future.–sam
insurgents are not game changers, they are simply terrorists. only statist armies can take and hold territory. indeed, the insurgents in iraq are finis. likewise, the insurgents or VC in vietnam were extinguished in the Tet offensive and they were a non-factor for the rest of the war. likewise, the northern alliance was locked in a stalemate with the taliban until the US intervened, then the taliban fell in less then one month with virtually zero US casualties.
So what happens when you stave off an attack from a competitors customers?
A) You get paid for your trouble. You aren’t doing it completely for free (though maybe subsidized, or better yet, “gouging” prices).–sam
i suppose a PDA under attack could contract out services to another PDA to assist in defeating a statist threat.
B) You are also defending your customers from attack later down the road, a so called “Preemptive” defense.–sam
on the flip side, it is an equally hypothetical argument to claim that defending a competitor PDA from a statist threat would incur the wrath of the statist regime and INCREASE the chances that your ancap customers would be attacked. essentially what you are advocating is an entangling alliance that our founding fathers warned about.
C) Because you are now less likely to be attacked due to a buffer zone, any insurers are likely to give you lower rates.-sam
i dont see the logic in rewarding a PDA that attacks. I thought that the purpose of these private defense agencies was to engage in actions that reduce the frequency of conflict. I wouldnt be motivated to insure a PDA that was hell bent on creating buffer zones in competitor PDAs markets thereby inviting conflict.
D) Because any potential attackers now know of a mutual defense agreement, they are less likely to attack you, which again brings down even further your insurance rates.–sam
again the flip side to this argument is that entangling alliances lead to war. ---- see world war I for proof.
E) Any Losses you take from the defensive battles would be covered by an insurance agency.–sam
and good luck finding low rates for your PDA and its CEO “george bush” who likes to engage in defensive battles protecting other PDAs area of responsiblity from statist regimes thereby running up costs to both customers and insurance agencies.
F) By defending said territory from a coercive monopoly, you leave open possibility of expansion which otherwise would be if not completely, then partially closed off.
G) Advertising, since obviously their company wasn’t able to defend them without your help, perhaps they’ll switch to a better firm.–sam
on the flip side, what would prevent PDA X from aligning with statist regime Y to divide the spoils of PDA Z. statist gain power and land, PDA X gains market share, win-win.
A) Other PDA’s eager for just (Read: they won’t become outlaws if they attempt to gain these customers) acquisition of customers will defend the anarchic society being attacked either through financing or through outright payment. Perhaps with terms set beforehand in case of attack.-sam
again the flip side is a set of entangling alliances with competitor PDAs and their problems. is that cost effective ? was the allaince system in place prior to WWI effective ? Is the USA engaged throughout the globe in a similar arrangement and two wars effective ?
i think that ancap PDAs will be inherently disinterested in neighboring PDAs in order to reduce costs and forestall being drawn into endless sectarian and regional conflicts.
B) Civil resistance will occur (just like it does now in Iraq and Afghanistan when outsiders attempt to invade), and likely just as drawn out.–sam
civil disobedience works in rural backwaters like vietnam, afghanistan, et al — but it doesnt work in a relatively modern urban center like kosovo, iraq, et al. the centers of gravity (food, water, energy, transportation, commerce, et al) are more centralized and can be controlled by an invading force which compels potential insurgents to behave. moreover, who said the statist invader was interested in “nation building” – see china and russia to learn what happens to insurgents.
C) Insurance companies will refuse to pay for losses taken from an aggressive war.-- sam
I agree, and this will handicap ancap societies from engaging in preventative and preemptive war which must be “on the table” to insure security. see israel 1967.
D) Insurance companies will pay for other PDA’s losses taken from the defensive war.–sam
i dont understand this one. do you mean that insurance companies will pay for non-customers defensive expenditures if they deem this effort prevented their insured PDAs from having to fight ? That makes sense since they are rewarding a non-customer or PDA who is doing the heavy lifting against a common threat. however, when the statist regime finds out that insurance company X is funding PDA Y then you can bet anarchic enclave X is going to get a cruise missile up its ass. this is called total war and it implies that any source of funding or military support however indirect will invite attack, generally air missile or bombers. perhaps, nuclear.
E) Stock holders will hardly see the immediate benefits of an attack, and will quickly pile out of the company in the short term, cutting off further funding. There’s also the potential for stockholders to become outlaws, so that adds to the cost of being a stock holder, further driving down it’s value.
F) The risk of becoming outlaws by being involved in an aggressive war will dissuade most of your lower staff, causing your costs for lower staff to sky rocket.–sam
here your constantly jumping back and forth from preventative war, defensive war, aggressive war, et al. it is all relative, one societies aggressive war is another societies preventative war. if france invaded germany in 1939 while the wehrmacht were engaged in poland than WW II would never have happened yet by your definition if the french were an ancap society they would lose insurance protection and that would dramatically undermine its ability to defend itself against future attack.
in sum, basically your entire argument parrots what happens in the global geopolitic between states. ancap society will produce nothing earth shaking or new. same ole’ same ole’ crap.
the only sure thing in the geopolitic today is that liberal democracies dont fight each other, if you want lasting peace and free trade, look to liberal democracy.
G) They will lose customers that they already have who don’t like aggressive wars. Do you honestly think that all of the Democrats who hated bush would continue to pay their defense agency if they started a war in Iraq? I mean, we’re starting from the condition that they aren’t captive customers, so they would be able to switch. That PDA would then either have to accept the losses or compel payment amongst all of their customers, causing even further resistance and further loss of customers who now see that nobody is safe from compulsion from that PDA, and further war of that PDA vs. their previous customers and their newly contracted PDA + defectors who don’t want to be outlaws. That is certainly a loosing battle.–sam
with respect to iraq, a pacific PDA or industry of PDAs that neglected the iraqi WMD threat would inherit an energy market of $10/gallon gas.
(1) ancap PDAs would remove sanctions from iraq and disengage.
(2) saddam would then be free to develop nuclear weaponry as was his intention if/when sanctions were removed,
(3) saddam would then engage in aggressive war throughout the middle east with the intention of capturing 70% of the worlds most accessible oil reserves. essentially you have a significant percentage of the worlds oil supply in the hands of a miscalculating meglomaniac. the markets would price in the uncertainty associated with this development and gas would skyrocket.
(4) good luck developing alternative sources of energy with no intellectual or property protections in ancap society while 95% of transportation grinds to a halt for years until alternatives ramp up.
(5) lastly, saddam had previously committed the worst case of environmental terrorism in history, any attempt to attack him after he obtained a nuke could likely lead to an irradiated oil supply in the middle east and $10/gallon gas for years.
of course, poorly run overly aggressive or too timid PDA will go out of business. eventually a single dominant PDA will emerge through increased market share, mergers, and acquisitions (economy of scale) . then you will have no safeguards or mechanisms in place to prevent against absolutism.
lastly, whats wrong with working within the framework we already have ? namely, liberal democracy has built in mechanisms, checks, and balances to forestall a return to statism that is not present in ancap society.
a balanced budget amendment would protect us against frivolous or politically motivated schemes like wars on terror, wars on poverty, wars on pollution, et al.
it is far easier to work within our constitutional federal republic then to scrap a system that has undermined statism, dramatically increased civil and political rights since 1776, and increase standards of living to unprecedented levels.
capitalism and peace can be achieved within liberal democracy, we dont need to risk changing to an unproven perhaps unsustainable system when all that is required is to further attenuate what we already have and that the overwhelming majority of citizenry across the globe acknowledge is a good system, albeit not perfect or even perfected yet.
The mere fact that some states setup an institution does not mean that that institution is inherently bad. We might as well say that because statist police are created by the state and have done bad things in the past, the free market should never set up free market police with their own free market protections.–sam
the similarity between the PDA and the statist military is that they are both self-serving and they both have competition. The statist competes with other nation-states, while the PDA competes against other PDAs. of course it could be argued that the PDA is more accountable to its “customers” then the statist despot, however the bottom line in any company is profit. moreover, if the PDAs managers can gain a profit at the expense of either the company’s long term health or the customer-- history has shown that they will cash out their golden parachutes and retire to some tropic villa.
moreover, a dominant PDA run by an ambitious and charismatic CEO (alexander, ceasar, napoleon, et al) might be inclined to gain unlimited power over its competitors and 100% market share by assuming absolutist power.
Your argument amounts to exactly that. Because some states have setup a statist mutual defense agreement which sucked in the past, PDA’s should never find a similar free market version of mutual defense agreements.–sam
private companies are not infallible, in fact 99% of them go out of business from failed policies. while this isnt a problem with virtually all goods and services since it involves creative destruction or an allocation of resources from unproductive enterprises and industries to productive enterprises and industries within national defense or ancap societal defense failures are fatal and they only need to occur once to end the ancap experiment once and for all.
Countered by profit motive efficiency in allocation of resources. Also there’s nothing stopping people from promising their own savings and property, and even debt, in order to pay for defense. They’d lose it all anyway if you don’t. Why not promise it as payment to fight the dicks trying to take it away out of spite? Besides, anarchy doesn’t all of a sudden destroy a sense of community and willingness to fight for it. In fact, the more free you are, the more you are willing to sacrifice for it because of the value the mere existence of anarchy bestows upon you.–sam
free riders. the ancap society would have them, statist would not.
moreover, i made the argument many times in this thread and previous threads that ancap society would be decentralized mosiac of many distinct and disparate ethnic, cultural, racial, religious, et al enclaves . all of them with no common experience or bond to bind them together. In contrast, liberal democracies like the USA are a melting pot that has a strong societal bond of common history, politics, heritage, et al we are strong because we are different and bound together nonetheless.
moreover, ten of thousands of Americans have sacrificed their lives to defend constitutional federal republicanism partly because they believe it to be effcacious, as opposed to ancap society in which nobody appears to risk more than hot air to defend or promote.
in summary, if anarchism is to be taken seriously for more than a fringe ideal, then it is about time for some adherents to put some skin in the game instead of tacitly acknowledging the superiority of liberal democracy by enjoying in its fruits, albeit with some whining.
What kind of job pays you to write refutations of anarcho-Capitalism?–chloe732
steam engineer in a hospital power plant.
i dont get paid to post on this forum.
i get paid to monitor and maintain the power plant systems from this computer.
if an anomaly occurs in the plant, I know about it in an instant since I am always online.
in fact, the only time I might miss something is when I am doing my rounds checking gauge readings every hour.
ultima,
the anarchy and efficient law article was ponderous to read, the arguments by hoppe on the subject are more easily understood.
of course, the market does identify efficiencies far more effectively with less corruption and waste than statist law or arbitration.
however, this argument does not address the inevitable emergence of a dominant PDA, insurance and arbitration agency through economy of scale.
when this occurs, your ancap society is a razors edge from absolutism. what would prevent an ambitious PDA CEO from “crossing the rubicon” and assuming absolutist power when economy of scale and division of labor has made his PDA the dominant player?
in contrast, our constitutional federal republic has numerous checks and balances that deter a return to statism.
indeed, I think the near future will show how dynamic and effective our system is at removing statist abuses.
we will see a dramatic reduction in the size and scope of government brought about by the necessity of having to reduce the deficit.
hence your will see that we have a self-correcting mechanism for rolling back statism within our liberal democracy.
a balanced budget amendment and further amendments to prevent a repeat of deficit spending and/or damaging monetary policy will be in place in our lifetime.
the system isnt perfect, but billions acknowledge its supremacy and many are willing to fight to defend it as opposed to anarchism which has no following and it is a fringe ideal that nobody seems willing to fight for.
One last thing. Part of a mutual defense agreement could even be selling part or (if dire enough) all of the customer contracts held by the firm in need of help to the other firms who are helping. So if you still insist (even after all of the previously explained profit and logic in expending resources and capital to satisfy a competitor’s customers) that they won’t do it because they would want expand their market share, there’s the solution.-- sam
I doubt it.
I think that a decent lawyer would see that this is simply a web of dangerous entanglements that would create a firestorm of conflict when it unraveled.
it sounds eerily like the entangling alliances that were present in europe on the eve of world war one.
i think that a responsible PDA and its respective insurer would make provisions to prevent it from getting involved in “foreign wars” as opposed to seeking them out .
on the flip side, a cartel of PDA this closely dependent on each other eerily resembles the emergence of a monolithic absolutist military.
maybe this explains why no ancap society has emerged and why not many in the mainstream and elites trust in its efficacy.
when it comes down to it, the ancap PDAs while efficient still resemble nation-states interacting within the global anarchic geopolitic.
ancap society offers nothing earth shaking or new.
moreover, liberal democracy with an attentuated government offers global peace, vigourous and free trade, civil and political rights with almost the same market freedoms as ancap society without the uncertainty of an unproven untested system.
No, considering none of it made much sense to begin with.–jon
another great post jon.
i think I am going to combine all of yours and angurse’s substantive contributions backed by fact, logic, and empiricism in one post for easy reference.
thanks again dude.
Already answered your challenge in my previous three posts. Feel free to actually address the questions and points made whenever your ready, if you aren’t willing, able, or ready, … no problem. However, completely dodging the posts and repeating obviously unsubstantiated remarks (see last post) isn’t going to help you achieve the substance you claim to desire.–angurse
You are more than welcome to engage in serious and substantive debate. However, since you continue to engage in spurious off-topic posts devoid of fact, logic, and empiricism, I am not going to waste more then a minute of my time responding.
Using your logic, child rape should be legalized since the state hasn’t been able to create a society where child rape no longer exists.
Appeal to authority and argumentum ad populum.
Tangental and non sequitur.
Ironically, the statist terrorists, that is, the government of the United States of Glorious America, dropped the nukes on a Japanese society which, ironically, was also statist. Let’s not forget all the carnage from statist wars.
Non sequitur and straw man, otherwise, irrelevnt.
Where are the liberal democracies?
So? Using your logic, the USA would have been able to defend itself from a WMD attack by Saddam. So what difference would it make if Saddam actually had WMDs?
Using this logic, we might as well legalize rape since rape would occur anyway.
Perhaps because determinism is fallacious.
Just like the first amendment protects us from frivolous or politically-motivated prohibitions of free speech?
The Constitution hasn’t undermined statism.
Using this logic, the Founding Fathers should have never revolted against the King.
There are plenty of companies whose bottom lines have been losses, not profits.
So could a liberal democracy.
Liberal democracies aren’t infallible either.
I don’t believe in your power to be omniscient; at least not when it comes to anarcho-capitalist societies, of which, you obviously don’t know much about.
Argumentum ad populum.
Appeal to ridicule and ad hominem.
Also, quit the insults or, else, you will be banned.
El snoozo.
Huh?
“…I commonly use is the absence of coercion. Going by that definition, we certainly don’t have anarchy between the states, as all the wars you mentioned can attest to.”
Your definition of anarchy is wrong in any classical sense of the word. You may call that libertarian, , anarcho-capitalist, pacifist, non-confrontational. non-exploitive, or anything like that. But you will find no dictionaries that define anarchism as “without coercion.” Anarchy means without rulers and has always been accepted to mean lack of a central authority.
“your definition defines what self-proclaimed anarchists actually advocate; anything else would be a straw man argument.”
Well, seeing as how anarchists encompass a VERY wide range of outlooks, that makes any refutation of anarchy a straw-man. Avoid making assumptions based on your own life’s biases.
“If you think about it, most of the atrocities states commit are committed against their own citizens, not other governments.”
See; chechnia, bosnia, iraq, afghanistan, most of central and south america, vietnam, tibet, isreal/palestine, world wars 1 and 2, or even the cold war (which was fought in hot wars in many of the countries i listed above, and more).
I fail to see how you refuted his claim that we do not have anarchy between the states. Perhaps you should have said “the UN.” It would have been a weak argument nonetheless (no taxing power, no real authority, etc), but much better than “I define anarchy different than everyone else, ergo, we do not have anarchy between nations.”
Once again, avoid making conclusions based on your personal biases.
another great post jon.
You seem to confuse long rants for “quality posts”. That said, the logic in your post was hardly evident in -any- way, so, you’d best explain.
Edit: misread.
daniel,
Using your logic, child rape should be legalized since the state hasn’t been able to create a society where child rape no longer exists
i dont know how you came up with child rape from my assertion that empirical evidence rejects anarchism based on the fact that anarchism has never existed. perhaps, economy of scale and specialization of labor are the logical reasons why ancap society has not been viable or sustainable.
but No. child rape should not be legal because we cant eliminate it completely — like murder, rape, robbery, et al it should be deterred and punished by laws and by vigorous enforcement of those laws.
moreover, how the inability of statist society (even ancap society) to eliminate rape debunks my assertion that ancap society has failed up to the present time is not a logical rebut.
Appeal to authority and argumentum ad populum.
while not generally an argument in confirming or rejecting many scientific hypotheses. appeal to authority and argumentum ad populum is indeed pertinent when discussing political systems that people desire.
while argumentum ad populum is not a sound argument in rejecting gravity since most people would like to fly,
it is both absurd and amusing that you think that ancap society will emerge and sustain itself in the absence of any substantive support from the very people who would live under its shortcomings.
in sum, when discussing political and social systems ---- appeal to authority and argumentum ad populum is essential, reliable, and valid. – and the ancap rejection of it confirms their naivete and their ignorance of what matters in gaining and maintaining power — a system that the majority of people and elites identify with and believe in.
Tangental and non sequitur.
in debating the issues with other substantive contributors, we all divert into tangental and non-sequiturs to explain our positions. however, it is apparent that we do not consider these tangetal arguments trollish behavior. a contributor cited “private” non-state terrorist groups as an effective fighting force against liberal democracies and statist regimes and I responded that these groups simply kill innocent people and and they are not “game changers”. i also responded with some examples of the failures of these groups to force change in contrast to statist military forces which have sacked, annexed, and pacified vast swaths of territory and peoples.
in sum, in depth debate and discussion of issues will lead to tangental and non sequiturs. those that disagree with my positions have done this and I have done this — I dont mind since generally their contributions have been informative and in many cases effectively debunk my assertions.
also, i dont think they mind when I divert since my contributions have been in depth and explanatory as opposed to purely critical posts without substance, that in my opinion represent a tiny fraction of the contributors to this thread.
Ironically, the statist terrorists, that is, the government of the United States of Glorious America, dropped the nukes on a Japanese society which, ironically, was also statist. Let’s not forget all the carnage from statist wars.
the bombs on hiroshima and nagasaki (250k dead) prevented the need for a land invasion that would have cost (1 million AMerican lives and 4 million japanese lives). in addition, it immediately ended the war.
Moreover, the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is, indeed, incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives. Should we continue to fight, it would not only result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization.-- emperor of japan on his first address to the japanese people a few days after the nagasaki bomb was dropped.
in sum, the dropping of the bombs saved millions of lives.
lastly, if you hate the USA to the degree stated, why dont you do the honorable thing and take up arms against this “evil statist empire” ? why is it that virtually every other ideology has believers that are willing to fight for their beliefs, yet ancaps tacitly acknowledge the systems they vehemently criticize by hypocritically following its societal rules and norms.
in sum, what is it about ancap society that deters its adherents from taking a firm stand and risking life, libery, and sacred honor to defend, while we have young men and women risking their lives to defend and perhaps die to protect the very system you call mass murder?
Non sequitur and straw man, otherwise, irrelevnt.
citing empirical evidence comparing the anarchic geopolitic to predict what would happen within a hypothetical anarchic society on a smaller scale is not a straw man.
in contrast, it is obvious from your post that
(1) you disagree with my position (s)
(2) you are not willing to offer anything substantive in rebut save empty criticism without adding knowledge to the subject.
(3) I have offered lengthy and substantive arguments and opinions, thereby exposing these views to possible ridicule and criticism. Idont mind this as it adds knowledge to the subject. however, when I have been confronted with rebuts deviod of fact, logic, and empiricism I have responded in the only way possible – by exposing these empty posts for what they are — logical fallacies, ad hominems, semantic diversions, et al.
in sum, most of the contributors on this thread disagree with my positions, moreover they have offered substantive and logical rebuts that have effectively pointed out inconstitencies in my arguments. I have acknowledged these and benefitted from them. in contrast, IMHO a small minority have engaged in trollish behavior motivated more by personal animus in the absence of any substantive contributions than any other motivation.
Where are the liberal democracies?
the UNited States, netherlands, sweden, UK, finland, norway, denmark, germany, france, belguim, austria, italy, spain, portugal, ireland, canada, new zealand, australia, japan, chile, costa rica, switzerland, czech, slovakia, hungary, poland, lithuania, estonia, and many smaller nations (liechenstein, luxembourg, andorra, barbados, dominica, cape verda, tuvula, et al.)
in sum, if you reject the democratic peace theory, I challenge you to cite a hypothetical case study that would predict war between any of these nations.
So? Using your logic, the USA would have been able to defend itself from a WMD attack by Saddam. So what difference would it make if Saddam actually had WMDs?
using your “logic”, we should dismantle the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and allow every tinhorn miscalculating dictator and his non-state faith based cronies of choice to all have nuclear weaponry ?!
in contrast, I think nuclear proliferation is a bad idea. Particularily when it occurs in a failed state like iraq whose leader had done the following prior to operation iraqi freedom:
Using this logic, we might as well legalize rape since rape would occur anyway.
No, we should pass laws that deter and punish rape.
similarly, as we have laws and constitutional protections against the emergence of statism/absolutism within our constitutional federal republic.
in contrast, ancap society has no constitution, no checks and balances against the free market mechanisms that :
(1) specialization of labor that will create quasi-statist entities like professional PDAs, arbitration agencies, et al.
(2) economy of scale that will eventually see these statist like entities morph into monopoly status through increased market share, hostile takeovers, mergers, and acquisitions.
Perhaps because determinism is fallacious.
Just like the first amendment protects us from frivolous or politically-motivated prohibitions of free speech?
The Constitution hasn’t undermined statism.
you are manifestly wrong on these points.
by any objective, rational, and independent thinking measure civil and political rights within the USA have improved markedly since 1776 (universal sufferage, the elimination of slavery, equal protection under the law, proliferation of human rights NGOs, the proliferation of communications and free expression, et al)
Using this logic, the Founding Fathers should have never revolted against the King.
you have a point. It is possible that I would have supported the existing power structure if I thought that freedom from the crown wasnt a viable and sustainable alternative. Moreover, it appears from the experience of the UK, canada, australia, et al that the monarchy was in abject decline anyway and drifting inexorably toward representative government in a relatively peaceful and stable manner.
however, a large percentage of adroit, brilliant, brave, and passionate group of Americans thought otherwise, hence we have the USA.
In contrast, at the present time there is no substantive group of ancap adherents willing to put “skin in the game” to promote the system of their choice.
in sum, when I see a group of successful, brave, and adroit ancaps risk life, property, and sacred honor by sending a declaration of independence with their signatures to the white house, then I will take note.
otherwise, the “movement” is simply hot air.
There are plenty of companies whose bottom lines have been losses, not profits.
and they have gone bankrupt, broke. if your defended by one of the 99% of PDAs that will eventually go broke, good luck. my point was that private enterprise is not infallible, and that is beneficial to societal health and well being since resources are diverted from failing and wasteful enterprises to productive and beneficial enterprises and industries. In contrast, when a PDA falls or the entire industry of protective agencies miscalculates – there is no second chance for society, you are finished. and this failure only needs to happen once.
So could a liberal democracy.
absolutely. and the statist have found a backdoor to absolutism by taxation and regulation since the constitution did not envision this tactic. however, we can work within the framework of the constitution to rollback government’s ability to gain power through economic coercion with a balanced budget amendment and eliminating the ability of the federal government to tax the people directly. moreover, reduce the size and scope of the federal government to national defense and the enforcement of federal law.
these responsibilities represent only 5% of the GDP as opposed to the 40% that government’s intrusion into the economy now approachs.
lastly, while difficult to achieve, rolling back government within our constitutional framework is far easier and less uncertain and dangerous course of action than scraping a viable 200+ year old system for an uncertain, unproven, and unpopular ancap system.
Liberal democracies aren’t infallible either.
of course, and that is why government needs to be constantly attenuated. however, our constitutional federal republic has structures in place (executive, legislature, judiciary, soveriegn but equal states, et al) to check the spread of statism. It is elegant in that our founding fathers saw that statism would emerge in any system (including anarchism) and they employed a small measure of negative rights on government to check a drift to absolutism. this appears counterintuitive, however note the following analogy that our constitutional federal republic while economically coercive to the individual is far more coercive to statism. Moreover, our system is the least coercive to the individual of all viable systems known to man (ancap society has not yet proven to be a viable system):
our system of checks and balances is like a vaccine to prevent disease. we inject the human body with elements of the disease, in order to prevent the disease from becoming fatal. the shot invasive and painful, yet it prevents death and the antibodies are the internal watchdog of disease much like our system of checks and balances and decentralization of power.
in sum, we do have statist structures, but they are coercive more to the establishment of absolutism than individual rights and responsibility. In addition, the system can be attenuated when necessary.
moreover, the checks and balances are not restrictive to national defense. liberal democracies have shown that they can deter and eventually destroy external statist threats without severely impacting individual rights.
in contrast, ancap society has no substantive checks and balances against either external or internal statist threats. in fact, any 2nd rate terrorist organization could easily infiltrate the open borders and unrestricted free markets of an ancap society and let loose a WMD with impunity.
I don’t believe in your power to be omniscient; at least not when it comes to anarcho-capitalist societies, of which, you obviously don’t know much about.
then provide a substantive argument other than personal opinion and insults on my supposed lack of knowledge.
Argumentum ad populum.
i got news for you ancaps, argumentum ad populum matters when discussing social science. you cant change society with an army of ideas, you need people who are willing to risk person, property, and sacred honor to see these ideas realized.
and it is a fact that the ancap doesnt have a argumentum ad populum pot to piss in.
Appeal to ridicule and ad hominem.
Also, quit the insults or, else, you will be banned.
it is not a personal attack against anyone on this forum to point out the obvious – namely that ancap adherents have not seen fit to put “skin in the game” to see their ideal system realized. It is a legitimate challenge to ask ancaps why they continue to tacitly acknowledge the superiority of liberal democracy by following its rules and norms and not engaging in substantive action against the system that you yourself claimed was responsible for mass murder.
As for the threat of bannishment. I will not take the bait. I have criticized specific posts from contributors that I have disagreed with including yours, but I have made no personal attacks on anyone. In contrast, I have been called a liar, stupid, troll, and others have been called fools by contributors who have challenged my views. Nonetheless, I have never once asked that they be censored or banned.
in sum, i will close with this quote:
“Censorship of anything, at any time, in any place, on whatever pretense, has always been and always will be the last resort of the boob and the bigot.”-- eugene oneil