You should try reading some of the other posts, instead. This particular issue is starting to come up rather regularly here.
Here’s one thread that discusses the issue: https://forum.freecapitalists.org/t/ayn-rand-on-anarcho-capitalism/738
As a Bible thumper myself, I accept the premise that men are evil–where “evil” approximately means, “willing to aggress for their own benefit.” But, like Lew Rockwell, I would turn the argument back on the statist. If men are evil, then that includes whichever men are chosen to rule. Therefore, rulers are not to be trusted. So anarchy is the only acceptable system given that men are evil.
Somehow the argument never seems to convince anyone, though. Statists often pick Walmart as the symbol of ultimate evil. I ask them, “Which scares you more? Sam Walton, with $16 billion, or George Bush, with $2 trillion, an army, and atom bombs?” They never address the question, even. They usually just reply, “You’re freaking nuts,” and stop talking to me.
I agree completely. If people are “evil,” why do they so seldom kill and eat each other? Because their focus is “their own benefit.” Although they’re willing to aggress for their own benefit, it’s often for their benefit not to aggress. One way of ensuring that is to make consequences for aggression: namely, self-defense and forcible restitution. A government is only a half-measure in that regard. It creates consequences for all aggression except government aggression. Any aggressor with half a brain will become a cop, a lawyer or an elected official.
–Len.
How would an anarchic America have acted during WW2? If no one wanted to pay their PDA to go fight overseas, clearly there would’ve been no response. What if some customers of a particular PDA wanted their security to go fight the Axis but other patrons of the same PDA were opposed to it. What would happen then?
If Nazis were marching down Main Street, not only would PDAs respond: the men would fall-in with their rifles and muskets. Genuine self-defense doesn’t require anyone to be convinced to act.
Your question is still interesting, but it assumes the less-than-obvious premise that joining the European conflict was self-evidently right–so much so, that forcing people either to fight or to finance the fighting was also the right thing to do. I would point out that Wilson doing exactly that is how we got WWII in the first place. And our involvement in Europe had nothing to do with saving the Jews, either. Roosevelt turned away Jewish refugees who ended up in the gas chambers. That doesn’t eliminate the question, but I think it does eliminate any chance of Roosevelt comparing faborably with an anarcho-capitalist society.
–Len.
The millions of volunteers who wanted to fight the Axis could have joined one of the existing armies involved in the conflict. (Many Americans did that, but some went into the German army.)
America would have stayed out of the fight, would have had the world’s powerhouse economy, would have come out of the conflict as the one country with a material standard of living beyond any other’s reach.
Here is David Friedman’s opinion on tyranny arising from market anarchism: http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/Law_as_a_private_good/Law_as_a_private_good.html
I tend to agree with him. I think its at least as unlikely as a military coup within government leading to total tyanny.
Has anyone read this article, arguing in favor of minarchism?
http://mises.org/journals/scholar/Bond.pdf
In particular, pages 36-38 raise some interesting doubts about the effectiveness of law in a society where it isn’t mandated.