I'm trying to come up with a formulation of what I'm calling the argument from creativity:
When someone says that "the market cannot provide X", where X= roads, health care, schools, courts, police, etc., libertarians usually respond by showing how these things can be provided voluntarily.
But that's just one person. In reality, we can draw on the total creativity of the entire human race to come up with solutions. Unless the statist can prove that it is logically impossible for the market to provide something, then the burden of proof is on them to show that no human out of 6.5 billion people can think up a way to efficiently collect payment from road users, for example.
Even if my only solution is toll booths, the market can still rely on everyone else to come up with their solutions. My "toll booth" solution may not be profitable as a business model, but everyone else has the incentive of profits to satisfy the wants of road users.
The beauty of the market is that it applies the entrepreneurial ability of the entire human race to solving these problems.
Has anyone else thought about this? I imagine Hayek has written on this topic, but I have yet to read him.
AnalyticalAnarchism.net - The Positive Political Economy of Anarchism
First, if people want something badly enough, they'll voluntarily pay for it. Currently, I have *NO CHOICE* but to purchase roads/schools/police/courts from the State. In most cases, free market alternatives are outlawed or prohibitively expensive.
You cannot say "Without the State, nobody will build roads." In the present, the State has a monopoly on road building.
There's another argument you're missing. The anarchist has to describe, TO EVERY LAST DETAIL, how a stateless society would work, to convince the Statist. Why can't people experiment and work out the details as they go along? I can't be 100% sure how a stateless society would function, because there's no current or historic examples.
Further, when someone says "There should be a government", they're making a *POSITIVE* argument for its existence. The Statist says "Prove that a stateless society is valuable." Alternatively, you could say "Prove that having a State is a good idea."
Once you realize "Taxation is theft!", it's very hard to support any form of government at all. The same argument that allows a 1% taxation rate allows a 99% taxation rate. (In fact, if you carefully calculate all the direct *AND HIDDEN* taxes, you'd find them to be 95%-99% or more! For example, the State-granted monopoly/oligopoly of telecom corporations means that I pay more than the fair free market rate for phone service; that's a type of tax.)
I have my own blog at FSK's Guide to Reality. Let me know if you like it.
It seems there is an "ah ha" moment for the anarchist, after which he and the statist cannot really communicate well. Sometimes, very rarely, I can see thinks from the other side. Just the other day I had a statist present to me the argument that the market cannot provide security and law since "law has to be above and outside society, not part of it." If only he saw that government was, in fact, a part of society too...
Here's the thing. If asked one of these questions, it makes us feel better to say "the market will figure it out" - because we have years of studies of economics to back up that statement. It makes me feel better to say "Perhaps not, but how can a statist society work?" The problem is, neither of these is going to be understood by the person you're arguing with, or by the bystanders. So, what's the point of the argument - to please yourself, or to convince others?