Comment Thread for Debate: The Merits of Anarchocapitalism

[Mickey Brausch]

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Rome and Greece are terrible examples of of government protecting the rights of people, for as you said they only did this for their citizens.

[/ QUOTE ]This is not a serious argument against the polities of Rome or Athens. All human societies and aspirations began small and by the 19th century we ended up universal.

Moreover, there is a case to be made for all cities to be run, if possible, like ancient Athens. (With some calibrations to bring it up to modern speed of course, e.g. no slaves. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img])

[Mickey Brausch]

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He cited ... Greece as general examples of economies flourishing because of states, and he very much implied that the poor in these societies were better off thanks to the states. In reality the poor in these societies were not cared for by the governments who got around the issue by declaring them non citizens.

[/ QUOTE ]This is totally incorrect, as far as who made it as citizen goes. link

For instance, in ancient Athens, it was not just the owners of estate who had the right to vote, as was the case in Brtiian until relatively recently...

Every male who had done his military service could run for office and vote in ancient Athens. (Sure, Athenian democracy was not as inclusive as our modern democracies are, i.e. women and immigrants did not get to vote. But it was more inclusionary than most contemporary or subsequent regimes, and certainly one of the most direct democracies ever!)

And I think you need to clarify which ancient city-state you're talking about when you're talking about "[ancient] Greece". E.g. Corinth was very different from Sparta.

[John Kilduff]

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Given the high costs of contracting private security firms...

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What makes you think this?

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They're expensive today so I'm guessing they'd be expensive in the future, too.

[LinusKS]

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[ianlippert]

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And I still can't figure how seemingly intelligent people can buy into this crap.

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Because you seem to be focused entirely on the most extremely theoretical points of AC, the legal system. Libertarians can provide very compelling evidence that free markets work in almost all areas of life. Education, labour, health care, etc, and that in many cases the government is a net loss to society. Libertarianism and capitalism arent exactly crazy wild out there theories. Market Anarchist just take it one step further by saying "Well if free markets are so great in all these areas, why wouldnt they also work with legal and police services? It might be kind of confusing at first but there might actually be a solution somewhere."

Arguing about legal system in AC is so academic that its basically a fun intellectual exercise. There is so much that has to be done to get to that point. There is so much that ACers want changed before they are going to get into the nitty gritty of a private legal system. Like I'm an ACist and as much as I'd love to see pure capitalism my two biggest issues with the current system is Iraq (pointless wars in general) and Unionized Government services. Not very controversial.

[pvn]

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Given the high costs of contracting private security firms...

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What makes you think this?

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They're expensive today so I'm guessing they'd be expensive in the future, too.

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Today people only hire them for specialized work *beyond* what the mandatory security firm (i.e. the police) will provide. Of course, many people don't even want many of the "services" the Police provide (i.e. the war on (some) drugs), but they have to pay for those anyway.

[Dan.]

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Today people only hire them for specialized work *beyond* what the mandatory security firm (i.e. the police) will provide. Of course, many people don't even want many of the "services" the Police provide (i.e. the war on (some) drugs), but they have to pay for those anyway.

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You must be confused about how the government works, because a bunch of street cops did not get together one day and decide to fight a "war" on drugs.

[pvn]

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Today people only hire them for specialized work *beyond* what the mandatory security firm (i.e. the police) will provide. Of course, many people don't even want many of the "services" the Police provide (i.e. the war on (some) drugs), but they have to pay for those anyway.

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You must be confused about how the government works, because a bunch of street cops did not get together one day and decide to fight a "war" on drugs.

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It doesn't matter *who* made the decision, once that decision is made by anyone other than the party paying for it. The cops are participating in it and taxpayers pay for that "service" whether they want to or not.

[ShakeZula06]

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Given the high costs of contracting private security firms...

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What makes you think this?

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They're expensive today so I'm guessing they'd be expensive in the future, too.

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Some how taxes pay for police now (even though it's a ineffecient monopoly which creates both higher prices and a worse product), why would putting in on a free market make it too exspensive to be used.

What other specialized goods or services on the free market are too exspensive to the point where people always choose to enlist friends or relatives to provide them for free instead?

If a company's product is generallly too exspensive (say higher then the equilibrium price) it lowers the price. If say the costs of providing it are too high for a large amount of consumers in the area, I don't think to many friends and relatives will be thrilled with the idea of doing it pro bono.

[LinusKS]

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And I still can't figure how seemingly intelligent people can buy into this crap.

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Because you seem to be focused entirely on the most extremely theoretical points of AC, the legal system.

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The legal system, yes.

But also public infrastructure: roads, sidewalks, public parks.

Public resources: clean air, clean water, oceans, lakes and rivers, national forests and endangered species.

National defense.

Public safety.

It just seems like they can't explain how any of this would work under their system, except by saying, "You can't show how it won't work."

I'm sorry, that's just not very convincing. I mean, it's not like anarchy's never been tried (though never on purpose, to my knowledge), or there are no historical, or even common-sense examples of what happens when government breaks down.

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Libertarians can provide very compelling evidence that free markets work in almost all areas of life.

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I agree that free markets are wonderful things. And I agree there's lots of compelling evidence that they work well in producing shoes, and movies, and color TVs.

There's no compeling evidence, however, that they produce functional transportation systems, or laws, or public safety.


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Education, labour, health care, etc, and that in many cases the government is a net loss to society. Libertarianism and capitalism arent exactly crazy wild out there theories. Market Anarchist just take it one step further by saying "Well if free markets are so great in all these areas, why wouldnt they also work with legal and police services? It might be kind of confusing at first but there might actually be a solution somewhere."

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That there might be a solution somewhere is a terrible justification for abolishing government, don't you think?

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Arguing about legal system in AC is so academic that its basically a fun intellectual exercise. There is so much that has to be done to get to that point. There is so much that ACers want changed before they are going to get into the nitty gritty of a private legal system. Like I'm an ACist and as much as I'd love to see pure capitalism my two biggest issues with the current system is Iraq (pointless wars in general) and Unionized Government services. Not very controversial.

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