Anarchocapitalism = economic totalitarianism?

[2OuterJitsu]

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Who does he pay for the land? If the peasants are the owners, why would they sell?

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Good question.

One of the suppositions of anarchocapitalism is that "government" properties - parks, museums, national monuments, schools, roads, wildlife refuges, etc. - would be seized or auctioned off.

How this process would work - who would get the money raised from auctions, or which seizures would be valid, or how it would be decided who got to seize what - are some of the questions acists typically avoid answering.


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I’m pretty sure the land the peasants are farming would not be auctioned off, as they are not public goods. I haven’t come across any ideas, as to who gets the auction money, so I am working out solutions on my own.

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My point is that regardless of how the auctioning or seizure process worked, the owners of land or other means of production would (according to ACism) end up with the kind of power any medieval despot aspire to.

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Now the peasants can raise the price of their crops to afford their rent. The king isn't farming so he'll probably reduce his rent.

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Actually the king-cum-capitalist landlord would charge what the market would bear, and the farmers would do what farmers always do - which is to charge the market price.

I'm not sure why you think the king would reduce rents, or why anything would change for the farmers.


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Because I’m not thinking in a vacuum. The former king just bought the entire realm, what is he paying his mercenaries, food, castle maintenance, mote maintenance, stable staff, maids, hunting dogs, heat, clothing, etc with? We both agree he isn’t providing it for himself, how much money exactly does he have? If the realm was so cheap why wasn’t he outbid? Maybe you’ve forgotten that his forcefully appropriated, fiat taxes are now worthless, not to mention buying the realm will bankrupt any single individual. The King/President/Prime Minister produced nothing, ergo he couldn’t outbid 1 bushel of corn at any auction. His personal income/salary/treasury would be worthless.

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If he likes affordable food he will have a great deal less, or is he one of those infinitely wealthy, abdicating, farming, hypothetical monarchs?

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He's the same as any owner - he does not work himself; he profits from his investments.

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He doesn’t have any investments. Anarcho-Capitalism isn’t sorcery you can’t just buy stuff with a piece of paper that was only worth as much as you could force people to believe it was worth. Once abdicated the king would be worth exactly as much of the stolen gold/silver as he manages to keep. He can’t use it, because every single former taxpayer will file suit as soon as it becomes available for a return of a portion of his wealth.

[LinusKS]

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To put it simply: is it not fair to say anarcho-capitalism is not capitalism without government; it’s government by capitalists?

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Actually, you are more or less correct, in my opinion. And being governed by capitalists, with profit incentives, would be a far sight better than what we have today.

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I'm glad we can agree about that much, at least. If we could agree that the argument is about who gets to make the rules, rather than about whether society can function without them, that'd be a big step forward.

Most ACists seem to believe that if the owners get to make the rules, that's the equivalent of having no rules at all, or that their system of capitalism is somehow "natural."

Both assumptions are invalid, imo.

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There are pros and cons to having no government, just as there are pros and cons to having big government. You have to weigh the totality of it all, not just isolated quesions like "OMG WHO WILL PROTECT THE KITTENS"?

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I agree that there are pros and cons.

I disagree that "OMG WHO WILL PROTECT THE KITTENS" is an isolated question, if you mean it as a kind of stand-in for "Who will defend the defenseless?"

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Most of the things the government does badly wouldn't happen because there's no profit in it. (think about the public education system we have now for example).

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A lot of people beat up on public education. I think there's there's an important issue that tends to get skimmed over in this debate: which is that the performance of a school is usually determined not by the facilities, or even by the teachers, but by the kids who go there.

If you have one group of schools for the kids of parents who care enough about them to pay extra for their education, and are also generally from middle- and upper- income homes, it shouldn't be surprising that those schools do better than the ones for the rest of the kids.

The private schools are better, but it's not because of they're private; it's because of the kids who go there.

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The sets of rules you'd have to live by would be far more local and you'd have many options even within the same locality.

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I have no problem with that. I've often thought that living in a small country offers much more in the way of opportunities for genuine participation in government than does living in a country the size of the the US.

My problem is with arguing that small states or principalities are not states, simply because they're ruled by the owners of the real-estate, rather than by democratically elected representatives.

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And of course, these sets of rules you choose to be governed by are your CHOICE. Don't underestimate the importance of this.

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Well, yes and no on that one.

ACists say there's no reason why they should have to move, just because they want a different kind of government.

I think there's lots of people who feel that way, and would feel like, "You can always move" is just not acceptable.

In other words, ultimately people have to get along, and the idea that people can just keep moving from one place to another until they find just the right government is problematic.

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A lot of people dismiss that as irrelevent. I've noticed that the most ardent detractors to AC/libertarianism betray a deep contempt for personal liberty and choice.

The paternalists and the moralists see eye to eye. Authoritarian rule over your every choice is not objectionable to either of them in the end. (And don't underestimate how much of leftwing policy is truly driven by a hatred of the rich as opposed to a love of the poor. Many are willing to sacrifice the liberty of ALL just to get to the rich. Again, think of the public education system we have now).

natedogg

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I'm as much for freedom as the next person - and perhaps more so. My problem is that the system(s) ACist describe would not result in freedom for the vast majority. Instead of "no rulers" what ACists are talking about is rule by (1.) the most violent, or (2.) the most wealthy.

And I prefer representative democracy over either of those.

[pvn]

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My problem is that the system(s) ACist describe

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What systems are those, exactly?

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would not result in freedom for the vast majority. Instead of "no rulers" what ACists are talking about is rule by (1.) the most violent, or (2.) the most wealthy.

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Rule of what?

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And I prefer representative democracy over either of those.

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You can have it. Nobody seeks to deny you this.

[Skidoo]

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And I prefer representative democracy over either of those.

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You can have it. Nobody seeks to deny you this.

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Except the same plutocracy that will swoop down on ACland the minute the park gates open for business.

[tolbiny]

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yes, but I have large scale societies as well and I believe there were, um, people living in the west before the europeans that make up your ACish society got there - it may have been lasseiz faire but there certainly wasn't any just acquisition of the property

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POH- The American West was largely unowned by the time of the expansion push of the 19th century. Disease (smallpox essentially) had been wiping out Native American population for decades and was an essential ingredient in why expansion became so popular. Some estimates put total population below 500,000 during the mid 1800s, from an original population that may have been anywhere from 10 to 100 million prior to Europeans landing.

[LinusKS]

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I’m pretty sure the land the peasants are farming would not be auctioned off, as they are not public goods. I haven’t come across any ideas, as to who gets the auction money, so I am working out solutions on my own.

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Well, in theory the king owns all the land, originally. That's the theory of feudalism, as I understand it. Anybody who lives in the realm is either a tenant, or, in the case of nobles, holds the land "in fief" - in exchange for military service. Of course, you can leave if you want to, but as long as you're on the king's land, you must follow his rules. And because the king is "government," all his land is government land.

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Because I’m not thinking in a vacuum. The former king just bought the entire realm, what is he paying his mercenaries, food, castle maintenance, mote maintenance, stable staff, maids, hunting dogs, heat, clothing, etc with?

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He's paying with the rents he collects from the people who live on his land.

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Maybe you’ve forgotten that his forcefully appropriated, fiat taxes are now worthless, not to mention buying the realm will bankrupt any single individual.

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Well, his taxes would have been collected in gold coin, not in fiat currency, so there's no reason why his gold would have become worthless. It's possible he could have given away all his gold, as well as auctioned off his land, but in this example he kept what was in the treasury.

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The King/President/Prime Minister produced nothing, ergo he couldn’t outbid 1 bushel of corn at any auction.

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He didn't produce anything, but he did collect money from everyone who lived on his land. Before he abdicated he called this money "taxes." After, he called it rent.

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Once abdicated the king would be worth exactly as much of the stolen gold/silver as he manages to keep. He can’t use it, because every single former taxpayer will file suit as soon as it becomes available for a return of a portion of his wealth.

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Suppose the king abdicates, throws his gold into the ocean, and kills himself. Everyone agrees to auction off all the land to the highest bidder. Most of the people are peasant farmers, but there's one fellow who's accumulated quite a bit of wealth. For the sake of the example, let's say he's a money-lender. Because he's richer than the farmers, he outbids them for their land, and becomes their landlord, and - of course - charges them rent to live on his land.

Because he owns the land, he can evict anyone he wants to, and he's free to evict anyone who doesn't follow his rules, whatever those happen to be. If you live on his land, you must follow his rules.

He's also able to pay for a private defense force to protect his interests, with the money gets from charging rent. Furthermore, with the rents he collects from the peasants, he's able to build a palace, and a castle. And, of course, he doesn't have to work.

Is there any difference between the reign of the king, and the regime of the landlord, other than the matter of titles?

[tolbiny]

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In AC = economic totalitarianism, I posed the following question:

Suppose - to take a hypothetical - that a king notices unrest among his peasants. He has, of course, a mercenary army at his disposal, but for whatever reasons he'd prefer not to use it.

He issues a decree, in which he abdicates, disbands his government, and sets up an auction. He then buys up the land the peasants live on.

The peasants are now free of taxes. Instead, they must pay rent. He stops calling his men "mercenaries," and starts calling them a "Private Defense Association," instead.

What, if anything, has changed?

Does the king have any less authority over the peasants as their private landlord, than he did when he was their monarch?

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Please ignore some of the loose generalizations in this post.

The King or Queen of England never owned all the land, and never had (or could of had) the power to sell it all off had he chosen to (I'm sure there is a long and nasty history of small eminent domain type of situations here). The King didn't have a monopoly on land, he had a monopoly on the laws of the land and how they were enforced (generalization). There is no way for him to abdicate that throne in reality and still retain those powers which differentiated him from the other, non kings, of England.

[nietzreznor]

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My point is that regardless of how the auctioning or seizure process worked, the owners of land or other means of production would (according to ACism) end up with the kind of power any medieval despot aspire to.

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I don't think this is a fair summarization; I know I'm not the only one who thinks that the workers could legitimately seize the property of all government entities and businesses that get the majority of their profit through statist coercion.

[nietzreznor]

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Suppose the king abdicates, throws his gold into the ocean, and kills himself. Everyone agrees to auction off all the land to the highest bidder. Most of the people are peasant farmers, but there's one fellow who's accumulated quite a bit of wealth. For the sake of the example, let's say he's a money-lender. Because he's richer than the farmers, he outbids them for their land, and becomes their landlord, and - of course - charges them rent to live on his land.

Because he owns the land, he can evict anyone he wants to, and he's free to evict anyone who doesn't follow his rules, whatever those happen to be. If you live on his land, you must follow his rules.

He's also able to pay for a private defense force to protect his interests, with the money gets from charging rent. Furthermore, with the rents he collects from the peasants, he's able to build a palace, and a castle. And, of course, he doesn't have to work.

Is there any difference between the reign of the king, and the regime of the landlord, other than the matter of titles?

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There IS a difference between the king and the landlord (a very BIG difference, imo), but you have constructed the examples such that there really is no difference. Let me make a few points that I have tried to make clear but perhaps haven't (and of course I can't say whether most ACists agree with these or not):

1. In your example you keep having the land get 'auctioned off'. While this may be what actually happens in some small subset of cases, I think the vast majority of cases wouldn't need an auction. Take the king's castle, for instance--assuming the king amassed his fortune, his land, his castle through violence, taxes, theft, etc, then clearly is castle isn't legitimately his property. But the choices for who legitimately owns the castle aren't only 'the king' and 'nobody'. The most logical choice is the people who have actually homesteaded the castle (other than the king). So, the squires, knights, etc.
Similarly, in today's society government property and large corporations wouldn't just go to the highest bidder--if they are not legitimately the property of the people who claim to own them currently, then they clearly are the property of the people who work on them, use them, etc.

2. Following the above, there is no reason to assume that a huge piece of land (e.g., an entire kingdom) would be auctioned off as one piece. In cases where, say, government 'property' is to be given up by the government and there are no legitimate claims to the property, the property is now unowned, abandoned, and can be used by whomever homesteads there first (so, in other words, NOT whoever pays the most).
Again, someone who legitimately gained lots of $$$ will still be able to get some land and property, but its not like anyone is favoring just auctioning off all govt property to the highest bidder.

[latefordinner]

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POH- The American West was largely unowned by the time of the expansion push of the 19th century. Disease (smallpox essentially) had been wiping out Native American population for decades and was an essential ingredient in why expansion became so popular. Some estimates put total population below 500,000 during the mid 1800s, from an original population that may have been anywhere from 10 to 100 million prior to Europeans landing.

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Oh, I see, it was the disease that did it, not the genocidal campaign of wars against the uncivilized savages that had no conception of property rights.

I do believe that the European invaders carried with them a disease, however you might want to google "wetiko psychosis" to find out more about it.