This is going to get me a lot of flack but this is a legit question. A lot of the examples used which prove anarcho-capitalism are usually pre-industrial examples (like Iceland, Ireland, old Pennsylvania for example) which were a lot different than what society is now. I know an anarchist society is possible but my main question focuses on how we'd get there since we are a post-industrialized economy. I don't think Ron Paul can just end the FED and then POOF! we're in anarcho-capitalism. There's a lot of companies which have an incentive to keep the state and they'd try to stop privatization unless they knew they'd get something good out of it.
In the sense of Rothbard’s “anti-state” button, pushing some button that would erase the state here and now, it would not work. I’ve lived through the collapse of my state, and I can attest that people will scramble to re-erect it. It’s the highest for of societial organization that has evolved, and one cannot just erase it like that, NAP or no NAP.
On the other hand, there’s nothing inherently stately about our age. It’s just that this is what we know, and societal systems cannot be designed to please our ideas. If anarcho-capitalism would emerge spontaneously, that is, it would be successfully tried in a smallish scale, and than expand, than sure, anarchy would be stable. The issue is getting that initial experiment, that initial cancerous cell, to survive.
I believe the key is first education of the it's benefits, then noncompliance to state controls.
We are the soldiers for righteousnessAnd we are not sent here by the politicians you drink with - L. Dube, rip
I think that making taxation voluntary could be the first step. This could allow for the government to continue to exist. But it would introduce many market mechanisms that would force the government to be more productive and the tax payers would end up getting better value for money. Personally i think that if that happened the government would eventually die out. But there is the possibility that the government would becomes so efficient that I actually voluntarily pay for the collectivized services monopolistic model. Of course when you opt out of paying the taxation then you can no longer receive the wonderful government services. But it would be up to the government if they wanted to allow those people to pay for services in a private way and compete. Legalizing competing currencies and completely deregulating the banking industry would be a great start. But i think that ending the license requirements for cutting hair would have to come before the end of the national jurisdiction in force. What right would the government have to tell someone that does not pay taxes that they can not cut hair.
Freedom4Me73986: This is going to get me a lot of flack but this is a legit question. A lot of the examples used which prove anarcho-capitalism are usually pre-industrial examples (like Iceland, Ireland, old Pennsylvania for example) which were a lot different than what society is now. I know an anarchist society is possible but my main question focuses on how we'd get there since we are a post-industrialized economy. I don't think Ron Paul can just end the FED and then POOF! we're in anarcho-capitalism. There's a lot of companies which have an incentive to keep the state and they'd try to stop privatization unless they knew they'd get something good out of it.
Anarcho-capitalism rides on a high amount of idealism. You really think that communities will infer their own laws?
"Is life so dear or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" -Patrick Henry
Stefan Molyneux at the website Freedomainradio.com addresses this point in detail. His take is that humans take about 1.5 centuries for this kind of change. Look at how long it took to rid countries of slavery or give women rights. So the movement to freedom will take a while. My opinion is that no people at this time grouped by locality, except for maybe New Hampshire and that is a long shot, could run itself without a government. But as government buries itself in debt and is ever increasing the violence against its subjects, this change may fortunately take place sooner than 1.5 centuries. Now the time of the US Government is ending in a heap of debt and I doubt it will survive without ratcheting up the violence and the tax collections.
Bogart: My opinion is that no people at this time grouped by locality, except for maybe New Hampshire and that is a long shot, could run itself without a government.
My opinion is that no people at this time grouped by locality, except for maybe New Hampshire and that is a long shot, could run itself without a government.
I live in NH now and have never felt more free in my life. If there's any place anarcho-capitalism could work it's NH.