If someone had enough resources I don’t see why someone couldn’t finance the formation of a state by military means?
I think if you use your imagination this can’t really be ruled out…
Because they would still be missing a key ingredient of state power: nationalism. They would not be viewed as legitimate by 90% of the population like today’s states are, but instead seen for the exploiter that they are. This alone would raise their costs of occupation to prohibitive levels, and voluntary associations, with the advantage of solidarity (and economic incentive), would likely outcompete them.
And your definition of a state is…
“Because they would still be missing a key ingredient of state power: nationalism”
Ideology. The cloak of the state.
So you think the Saxons thought the Normans were legitimate? Did the Egyptians think the Romans were legitimate? Did the Moscovites think the Golden Horde was legitimate? etc.
I’m just saying I would rather pay taxes then be slaughtered
A state is a self-adjudicating territorial monopoly on the provision of defense/policing over a territory with the right to tax the inhabitants of the territory.
I would rather risk to get cancer again than keeping my illness uncured, let it spread more and eventually kill me
“So you think the Saxons thought the Normans were legitimate? Did the Egyptians think the Romans were legitimate? Did the Moscovites think the Golden Horde was legitimate? etc.”
Those were not ancap societies like in your hypothetical. From the people’s perspective, one compulsory monopoly was exchanged for another. The existence of a state actually makes it far easier for another expropriator to take over, since the centers of state power and the infrastructure of control are already in place. And your hypothetical seems to assume that, at least for a time, an ancap society and a state would exist together. In such a scenario, the state would have to devote such a large proportion of its resources towards stamping out dissent that it would be extremely difficult for it to compete economically, all things being equal, with the ancap society which would not be so burdened.
I’m not saying a state military coming in and taking over, that’s a problem with any society, I’m talking about someone internally amassing a military force and imposing despotism on the society.
Despotism does not need legitimacy, if strict gun control were enforced it would probably more sustainable today then it ever was… I mean in the dark ages peasants could modify their farm tools and still at least face the military of their day iirc that’s what the Swiss did.
For the record I’m still not decided I’d say market anarchy would be ideal for certain situations and minarchy would be ideal for others… Can you at least understand why it would be useful in some situations to have a central authority that could mobilize society and repel threats?
As I see it the main issue is there has yet to be devised a successful mechanism for limiting the state.
Another scenario I don’t like particularly for those for open borders is soldiers of an enemy state just walking in past all of the defenses and start slaughtering people. Or if some enemy bought a majority share in the water works and dumped cyanide in it…
At the very least I would say the vulnerability to sabotage would be immense.
A ‘state’ as in a territorial monopoly of the use of force would indeed be all around us in anarchy: guys owning land, posing conditions of entry. For all practical purposes that would be a state. Me owning a neighborhood and renting out, condition applying, housing to people, would be a state-ish thing by most standards.
Thus, a guy with huge resources (or a corporation) could buy up all land that constitute a state the size of . Yet, he would be allowed to keep people from fleeing or using eminent domain. On everything else, he’d be an absolute monarch. One dependent on the marketplace though: escaping his estate would be easier that escaping a like-sized modern state as, by definition, clients would not own the property they live in, hence it would be easier to get away.
As for military force, fine, use your little toy army, but fighting one company is expensive, and fighting every other company is ruinous. And of course, we live in the nuclear age. Crossing a big, nasty insurance company by trying to enslave one of its clients would not exactly be wise. Damn, even the sociopaths of the and the American government where deterred, let alone a rich whore playing too much 2.