Hello everyone! Thank you for the responses so far; I always enjoy hearing from my subjects. Many of you have asked me questions about the basis of Anarcho-Capitalism and how it would 'work'.
1) What is anarchocapitalism?
Anarcho-capitalism (also known by other names, such as free market anarchism) is an individualist political philosophy that advocates the provision of all goods and services —including systems of justice, law enforcement, and national defense—by competitors in a free market. Anarcho-capitalists argue that a pure free market system, based on private property would maximize individual liberty and prosperity. For them, the only just way to acquire property is through trade, gift, or original appropriation. Anarcho-capitalism rejects the state as an aggressive entity that steals property through taxation, initiates physical force, uses its coercive powers to benefit some businesses and individuals at the expense of others, creates monopolies, and restricts trade.
2) What about Monopolies in AC land?
Monopolies cannot occur without the state. The only way for one businesses to dominate the market is to supply the best product at the best price, and there isn't anything inherently wrong with that. If the company then raises prices and/or lessens the value of the product, it opens the doors for other competitors to gain market share.
3) What about price fixing and cartels?
Price fixing is morally wrong because one party is telling the other how much he has to sell there own property for. If you don’t want it you don’t have to buy it. Cartels also create a paradox. The higher it fixes it’s prices the more incentive it gives (1) companies within the cartel to break the deal, lower prices and gain more market share, and (2) incentive from outside individuals to begin competing and selling it’s products at lower prices.
4) Without a government that provides a military and police, how do we defend ourselves?
The free market can and will provide these things. There is a demand for people to be defended from outside threats, and there is a way to supply it. Both these things can be done voluntarily.
5) What if the security companies start waging war with each other, or forcing people to either take part in the service or be killed?
Violence and particularly war is very expensive to wage. For instance the War in Iraq at this point is costing the US government close to $2billion a week on average. Have we gained $2Billion for every week we've been over there? Certainly not. Furthermore, who will sign up and fight in the Wal-Mart Army? Without Nationalism millions less will be willing to fight in wars, and the ideas and appeal of nationalism will be long gone in a society of individualism and rejection of the state.
6) Why wouldn't people work 100 hour weeks without the government's ability to legislate laws concerning labor?
Libertarian principles recognize everyone's right to agree on what one's labor is worth. If you don't want to work 100 hour weeks, no one is forcing you to. Competition of industry's in pure capitalism creates better working environments, wages, and benefits.
Statists point to conditions such as the industrial revolution and say that it sis evidence that a government is needed for good working conditions to exist. The differences are enormous, that being (1) Working in a factory was an improvement over working on a farm which is what most were doing beforehand, (2) Unions had not existed yet, (by the way unions would likely exist in AC society, in most cases they would have less power though because they would not have the power of government funding and support). (3) it was the industrial revolution and people as a whole were much poorer at the time, and (4) the influx of immigrants to the US temporarily overwhelmed the labor market.
7) Why wouldn't stateless society quickly develop a state?
Most simply, because when states have fallen there has been a demand to raise another state. Anarchocapitalism cannot and will not come about without a large amount of people supporting it, otherwise another government will rise again. Unlike other philosophies that use force to come about, Anarchocapitalism relies on the idea to be popular. People in an anarchocapitalist society will as a whole reject of the state, nationalism, taxation, and coercion and therefore would resist such acts of aggression (taxes) and propaganda (nationalism).
8) So it seems Anarchocapitalism depends a lot on private property and it's defense. Is private property natural is it just arbitrary?
I don't think I speak for all the ACist here but I don't think property rights are natural, it's just the best way to solve the problem of a large (well any) population and how it uses a limited amount of resources. If everyone owned everything I'd have to get permission from 6 billion people before he could use eggs and bacon to make some breakfast.
9) How can private property exist without government?
Under ACism, property comes about as an effort of labor. If you take a branch from a tree and work it into a bow, that bow is your property. You might trade your bow for something else and then that something else would be your property. You might also go out hunting and kill a deer. Now, through your effort, the deer meat and the deer skin is your property. This is pretty obvious to most people. It's the land property part where people get confused, but it's not that much different.
Let's say a person goes out into the wilderness by themselves and builds something. They take 5 acres of land, and on that land they build themselves a home and turn the rest into farmland and grow crops, which they use to trade to other people for other stuff, for the benefit of all. By what we've established, the crops are obviously their property, but is the land itself? How can it not be? The land is much improved from its natural state due to this person's labor. If this person died and someone else took over, that person would have a *much* easier time with the house already built, the trees already cleared and the soil ripe for farming. Thus, by this person's labor, the land has significantly gained in value. Certainly they have more of a right to reap the rewards of this value than anyone else, and this translates into ownership.
To take it one step further, if this person decided to move on to something else and they pay someone else to take care of this land, they are still contributing to the upkeep of the land. If, on the other hand, instead of paying someone to take care of it they instead neglect it, they start to lose the right to the land. A person maintains a right to own land only so long as they care for that land. By neglecting it, they can lose that right and leave someone else with an opportunity to claim it for their own.
10) What about the free rider problem?
This is a problem that people might potentially not invest in security because they could get a free ride off someone else's security that he paid for. The thing is this really isn't a problem. For one, positive externalization (when something benefits more then just the participants) is not a problem at all. For practical purposes, these types of "problems" can be solved by voluntary contracts.
11) Why has AC society never come about?
It has, well kind of. ACism is a stateless society. A traditional definition of a state is one that monopolizes things like police, military, and other "public goods". Celtic Ireland at one time did not have that.
12) If we have no safety nets enforced by the government, won't people starve and die in the streets when they're unemployed or disabled and have no means of making money?
Basically, people having to pay taxes every year adds to this problem more then anything else. Forcing people to pay for the services of others when they might need that money themselves also brings up questions about the legitimacy of taxes. People are free to voluntarily donate time, money, or anything else they’d like to help others, however initiating force on others to achieve those needs is immoral
13) So you think charity can take care of all the problems? That sounds like pretty wishful thinking.
Well for one clearly the state isn’t fixing the problem by any measure, in fact, more often then not it hurts the poor (minimum wage laws which lead to higher unemployment, progressive taxes that hurt a businesses ability to both create cheaper products and higher more people, regulation enacted to stifle competition and thus less jobs and higher prices). Also, right now under a state that claims to take care of poverty and thus people generally consider it the state’s problem to solve it rather then individuals that care about the plight of those in bad situations.
14) Isn't anarchocapitalism just some impossible utopia like true communism?
No. No one that seriously and intelligently promotes anarchocapitalism thinks of it as a utopia. There will still be problems, it's just that anarchocapitalism allows people to deal with their problems and assess risk on their own terms, without a coercive force telling them what they should do. Those who oppose it’s ideas on the basis of it being utopian are using a straw man fallacy.
15) What about environmental considerations? Who will keep private businesses in line from destroying the environment?
Businesses are allowed to pollute right now because the government authorizes it to happen. In reality, pollution is an act of aggression that private parties are able to seek reparations for. In free market anarchy the environment (water or air for instance) are privatized, as it solves the tragedy of the commons.
16) Ok, well then how does one seek reparations against another party since there is no government supplied court system?
Court systems can be supplied by the free market. Competing courts would have to be very good at supplying justice in order to get business, and thus ones that gave out unfair judgments would be rooted out, unused, and go out of business.
17) I think that without limited liability, the risk of investment in corporations would be too great.
A: From Borodog: "Too great a risk" is of course a normative, subjective statement. There is no reason a priori why society needs a particular amount of investment in risky schemes; there is no "correct" amount of risk or investment. By limiting liability you are promoting risky, negligent behavior and decisions amongst the real people shielded by these fictitious people, meaning you are purposefully increasing the damages that they inflict on innocent bystanders of your (and their) scheme to sub size their risky undertakings. You are externalizing their costs onto their hapless victims
18) Why would I invest any amount of money in a business if I would incur unlimited liability for everything that business does?
A: From Borodog: “A market solution might be that you are responsible for the damages caused by the firm that you invest in in proportion to your investment. I.e. if you own one ten-thousandth fractional ownership of Company X which does $10M in damages, you would be responsible for $1000 dollars in damages. If this leaves you open to ruin, you should perhaps be more careful in your investments. If other investors are unable to cover their portion of liability, that may leave the suitor out in the cold, but no one seeking redress for damages can be assured that their aggressor will have the funds to make them whole.”
It is also possible that the original owner agrees to take the liability of damages that could occur as there is obviously a value to people interested in buying stocks not to be liable for damages it didn’t directly cause.
19) Many government regulations and laws today are based on an attempt to gain greater transparency or knowledge for the consumer. Without these laws in place, how will the consumer be protected?
Consumer advocacy groups, forums, any form of media.
20) Is Somalia an example of AC society?
"I've posted on this subject many times. The absence of a state does not set a society on the road to utopia. The key to anarchocapitalism is not really the "anarcho" part; it is the "capitalism" part. The West's history of capitalism and culture of property rights is what has made it wealthy, not the form of government. There can be no capitalism without property rights. The Third World is the way it is, in both Somalia (which has government, by the way; it has 4 the last time I checked), and in well over a hundred countries around the globe because there is little culture of property rights, no systems in place for establishment of title of property (ownership), or peaceful systems of resolving title disputes. Because of this, capital cannot be leveraged, there is little investment, hence most of the population stays very close to subsistence because productivity is low. Why invest in something or save if you are uncertain that you will be able to keep what you've saved or produced?
There's precious little capitalism in the Thrid World, and hence there can be no anarchocapitalism, including Somalia. Asserting that Somalia is anarchocapitalistic is simply a canard."
21) How do I support AnarchoCapitalism now?
1) Practice libertarian values (responsibility, independence), educate yourself on economic matters and encourage others to do the same.
2) Either vote libertarian or simply do not vote at all. Some think that not voting sends a signal that people are dissatisfied with their government, others think voting libertarian more directly demonstrates a preference for less government and more personal liberty. Personally, I will be voting libertarian in this election.
3) Own guns and be able to protect your property. The ability to defend oneself greatly aids the cause of individual sovereignty.
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