Hi Whitenight,
Some people argue that resource exploitation happens because there are vast amounts of government owned land vs all land being privately owned. Government owns all of the land and issues permits, which are not priced according to normal market level, which means lack of incentive for companies to practice sustainability with those resources. If companies had to bid and purchase the land the price would likely be much higher and they would be far more likely to not just abuse it and move on.
Also how does a free market monopoly exploit the poor? The poor are the ones voluntarily paying for it's products or services. Of course the monopoly of government can do whatever it wants because we're forced to fund it, but that's a huge difference. It would be unlikely for a monopoly to even exist in a free market and if it did then it would be because they were doing a great job. Yes, people could be fooled into lied to, but in this day and age i doubt it would take long for word to spread if a company was operating unethically.
Nobody is saying that we'll erase peoples natural tendencies and sure one group might attack another, but the damage would be far less when people stop accepting that we need to be ruled and taxed. If people were not coerced into paying for wars how long would they last? Hours? Days? Probably not long. When a company can't force its customers to fund it who do you think would pay for it? Anarcho-Capitalism actually admits that human nature exists and that we should not give evil people access to institutionalized violence (government).
I see what you are saying but on the other hand, Our resources on this planet are finite and because of capitalism and the fiat money system we have, people and companies are inevitably seeking return on their investment and growth in the economy, This pursuit of growth means every year our companies need to dig up / cut down or farm more crap from the earth than last year, this would be fine if at some point people would be happy with what they have but alas that is not human nature. Governments that own land or fishing / mining rights only exacerbate the situation. I think that if our nations / world wealth wasn't being syphoned off by a tiny elite then we would all have more "things" and a better quality of life but still we would want more at any price.
A monopoly is the antithesis of a free market, and without regulation monopolies can and will exist, When I wrote the above statement I was thinking at the time of JP Morgan profiting from the provision of benifits payments in the US (and soon UK), However even without the state benefits these massive banks will try to exploit people, If the UK was a made a stateless land mass tomorrow, All the big banks would be pouring in to buy up independent corner shops or farmers or utility companies or land so they could set market prices. The whole point of a monopoly is that it has no competitors and is hard to boycott (imagine if wallmart bought like 90% of the food shops with no government to intervene, people in locations without competitors would be forced to shop there.)
I think it is a mistake to assume Companies do not use force, there are examples of people finding themselves in fatal plane accidents and such, There is that story of an investigation into market manipulation of the gold or silver market (can't remember) where the investigators have been run off the road and the investigation has stalled for years. Even with a proper unbiased Court system and judicairy the universal incentive of money is still their for people and companies to do wrong.
Please correct me if my thinking is wrong, I am still a recovering libertarian statist so I may not have thought on the challenges to anarcho-capitalism for as long as some of you have.
