[NickMPK]

In trying to deal with the whether there would be sufficient charitable efforts made in an AC society, I haven't seen ACists address the following consideration:

It would seem to me that there is a sizeable portion of the population who, with respect to a large range of the chartable/welfare programs x, would agree with both of the following statements:

1.) I would prefer not to give $z to support x.
2.) I would vote for a law forcing all people to give $z to support x.

That is, they believe that the the charitable effort is worthwhile is given the sufficient funding that forcing everyone to contribute would provide. They are happy to be forced to provide this funding if everyone else is forced to. But given the opportunity to be a free-rider, they would do so.

Now, I understand than in AC, a group of people could contract with each other to commit to provide funding of x with some enforcement mechanism. But some people might want to only fund the program if all people were also forced to fund it, include those people who would never willingly commit to funding on their own. That is, they only want to provide a fair share, not a disproportionate one.

I think a lot of charitable/welfare programs would lose most of their funding because of this. They would not only lose the support of people who were not being involuntarily coerced to give, but also of many people who voluntarily voted for coercion, but would not give on their own. I think the level of charitable giving (including current government welfare programs) would collapse.

In short, I think there are lot of programs than many people believe are worthy of support, but only if the burden of support it borne by all, even those who don't want to support it. These programs may be funded by the state, but will disappear in an AC world.

BTW, I'm really uninterested in any sort of "taxation is theft" discussion. I'm just interested in knowing how these programs would exist in AC society, or what would replace them.