[lehighguy]

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The key to understanding Friedman's ideas is to realize that he is describing an unavoidable reality, not necessarily endorsing it. As an example, if 99.9% of people think that redheads are evil people who should be tortured to death, they will be, regardless of whether you have a democracy, anarcho capitalism, communist workers paradise, dictatorship etc. Such a large demand for a particular good (the torture of redheads) will be provided for. This doesn't mean it's right or moral in any sense, just unavoidable.

The key advantage to anarchy over government is what happens when, say, 90% or 70%, rather than 99% of people want redheads tortured to death. In a democracy, the majority still gets its way. In the U.S., which is a representative democracy with certain constitutionally imposed limits, you need more than 50%+1, but 70-90% is probably enough to get damn near anything through.

By contrast, on the free market, people must pay for the laws they want, including laws which violate the rights of others. But as Friedman points out, heroin addicts value the right to use heroin much more than moralists value the right to deprive others of that right. I should note that this would be especially so in an anarchocapitalist society, since I doubt such a society could ever come about without a populace that has significantly more libertarian sensibilities than our current one.

So yes, we will be slaves to the market, in much the same way that we're slaves to gravity and evolution. I too would like things to be different, and have a world in which certain rights and the principle of non aggression are fundamental and universally respected. But that's not the reality we live in.

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Fantastic post.

Anyone can "pass a law" in AC. Not everyone can enforce it. There is no government with a 100% monopoly on force.

If you and your buddies want to stop people from using heroine you can hire the mercenaries, buy the helicopters, build the finger print database. The reality is, when the state isn't paying for it all, very few people actually want to go that far, especially if the heroin users have thier own merceneries to defend them.

A much more likely situation is that anti-drug types will try to start thier own communities and make people sign housing agreements of sorts to live there (these already exist and are widely used). So maybe the clause in your mortgage will say that if you use drugs you will have to sell your house within six months and move to a town where they allow drugs.