How Libertarianism was created by big business lobbyists

[cunicula]

Wait, if it's not perfect then why do you cling to it? I mean Statism has some good elements, Communism has some good elements, and libertarianism has some good elements.

Why can't we mix all three?

Statism and communism cannot tolerate libertarianism. The opposite is not true.

All Statist countries have capital thought crimes? I thought that was just mine. Anyways, even in my country almost all thoughts are permitted.

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[myrkul]

The list goes on and on. Your solutions to each of these are inadequate, and far from being ideal. They've all been covered. And you never offered a satisfactory solution to any of them.

I admit that AnCap is not perfect. If you want perfection, you're shit out of luck. It is, however, better than any other system presented.

Let me understand: your system, essentially untested, not deployed, and with many detractors, is better than any other system?

Yes.

I see nothing but confidence (over confidence) and opinion here. Enjoy your bubble of beliefs.

And you, yours.

[Richy_T]

Wait, if it's not perfect then why do you cling to it? I mean Statism has some good elements, Communism has some good elements, and libertarianism has some good elements.

Why can't we mix all three?

Statism and communism cannot tolerate libertarianism. The opposite is not true.

All Statist countries have capital thought crimes? I thought that was just mine. Anyways, even in my country almost all thoughts are permitted.

I mean enacted, of course. Though there is some evidence that your beliefs may single you out for special attention if some of the stuff going around is to believed (I tend not to take much on faith).

[J-Norm]

Some people wear tinfoil hats, I wear a silver foil hat. I am impervious to the cult of the majority or even the vocal minority.

Don't let that scare you away, I am a very nice guy, I just take people on a case by case basis.

[bb113]

Is Singapore an  AnCap society? If not, why are the evils of Singapore being blamed on AnCap principles? There is some sort of logical trick going on there. If two things share a subset of the same properties, then they will share all the same properties, or something.

Also its funny that the main criticism of AnCap (which I agree with) is that there is a threat from assholes who want to create governments... yea, exactly. Thats what we want to figure out how to stop.

[FirstAscent]

Is Singapore an  AnCap society? If not, why are the evils of Singapore being blamed on AnCap principles? There is some sort of logical trick going on there. If two things share a subset of the same properties, then they will share all the same properties, or something.

Also its funny that the main criticism of AnCap (which I agree with) is that there is a threat from assholes who want to create governments... yea, exactly. Thats what we want to figure out how to stop.

That is one criticism which you guys have now admitted to. I wouldn't qualify it as necessarily the main criticism, nor the least criticism. There are plenty of other criticisms, all quite valid. Nor do I see how it's a funny criticism. If a society can't actually be the society it wishes to be due to either internal or external threat, then it's not very viable, is it? Nothing funny about it.

[myrkul]

If a society can't actually be the society it wishes to be due to either internal or external threat, then it's not very viable, is it?

It doesn't stop an AnCap society from being an AnCap society, it's a threat to that society. A threat that's actually rather easily dealt with.
1. Armed citizenry. And when I say "armed," I mean up to, and including, in some cases, the most advanced weaponry available to those who would take over.
2. Protection services. These, likewise, would be armed with the full range of available weaponry, and serve as both an internal police force, to protect against aggression internal to the society, and as a defensive army, to protect against aggression from external sources.

And anyway, as David Friedman (author of The Machinery of Freedom) said once, "The answer to a feared concentration of power is not a concentration of power."

I'd also point out the example of the conquistadors and the Apache (thanks, MoonShadow):

By 1521, just two years after Cortes first laid eyes on Tenochtitlan, the entire Aztec empire—a civilization that traced its roots to centuries before the time of Christ—had collapsed. The Aztecs weren't alone. A similar fate befell the Incas. The Spanish army, led by Francisco Pizarro, captured the Inca leader Atahuallpa in 1532. A year later, with all the Inca gold in hand, the Spanish executed Atahuallpa and appointed a puppet ruler. Again, the annihilation of an entire society took only two years.

These monumental events eventually gave the Spanish control of the continent. By the 1680s, the Spanish forces seemed unstoppable. With the winds of victory at their backs, they headed north and encountered the Apaches. This meeting—in the deserts of present-day New Mexico—is crucially linked with the music industry's fight against the P2P sites. Why? Because the Spanish lost.

They lost to a people who at first seemed primitive. Unlike the Aztecs and the Incas, the Apaches hadn't put up a single pyramid, paved a single highway, or even built a town to speak of. More important for the conquistadors than pyramids or highways, the Apaches also had no gold. So, instead of pillaging, the Spanish tried to turn these people into Catholic farmers by forcing them to adopt an agrarian lifestyle and converting them to Christianity. Some of the Apaches did in fact take up rake and hoe, but the vast majority resisted. Not only did they resist, but they actively fought back—raiding everything in sight that was remotely Spanish.

You'd think that against an army like the Spanish, the Apaches wouldn't have had a chance. But that wasn't the case. As Nevins told us, "By the late seventeenth century, the Spanish had lost effective control of northern Sonora and Chihuahua to the Apaches. The Apaches had successfully wrested control of North Mexico—not that it was ever their desire to do so." This wasn't a single accidental victory, however. The Apaches continued to hold off the Spanish for another two centuries.

It wasn't that the Apaches had some secret weapon that was unknown to the Incas and the Aztecs. Nor had the Spanish army lost its might. No, the Apache defeat of the Spanish was all about the way the Apaches were organized as a society. The Spanish couldn't defeat them for the same reason that the record labels weren't able to squash the P2P trend.

Nevins told us how he arrived at the solution to the mystery. A few years ago, he spent three years living with the White Mountain Apaches in Arizona, studying their culture, observing their rituals, and learning how their society really works. He immediately recognized differences between the Apaches and other tribes: "If you look, for example, at the Sioux—the Dances with Wolves people, right?—they had some degree of political centralization. They resisted spectacularly for short periods of time, but they were really not successful for more than ten years. Whereas the Apaches were fighting this battle for hundreds of years." How did they survive? "They distributed political power and had very little centralization." The Apaches persevered because they were decentralized.

[FirstAscent]

If a society can't actually be the society it wishes to be due to either internal or external threat, then it's not very viable, is it?

It doesn't stop an AnCap society from being an AnCap society, it's a threat to that society. A threat that's actually rather easily dealt with.
1. Armed citizenry. And when I say "armed," I mean up to, and including, in some cases, the most advanced weaponry available to those who would take over.
2. Protection services. These, likewise, would be armed with the full range of available weaponry, and serve as both an internal police force, to protect against aggression internal to the society, and as a defensive army, to protect against aggression from external sources.

And anyway, as David Friedman (author of The Machinery of Freedom) said once, "The answer to a feared concentration of power is not a concentration of power."

I'd also point out the example of the conquistadors and the Apache (thanks, MoonShadow):

By 1521, just two years after Cortes first laid eyes on Tenochtitlan, the entire Aztec empire—a civilization that traced its roots to centuries before the time of Christ—had collapsed. The Aztecs weren't alone. A similar fate befell the Incas. The Spanish army, led by Francisco Pizarro, captured the Inca leader Atahuallpa in 1532. A year later, with all the Inca gold in hand, the Spanish executed Atahuallpa and appointed a puppet ruler. Again, the annihilation of an entire society took only two years.

These monumental events eventually gave the Spanish control of the continent. By the 1680s, the Spanish forces seemed unstoppable. With the winds of victory at their backs, they headed north and encountered the Apaches. This meeting—in the deserts of present-day New Mexico—is crucially linked with the music industry's fight against the P2P sites. Why? Because the Spanish lost.

They lost to a people who at first seemed primitive. Unlike the Aztecs and the Incas, the Apaches hadn't put up a single pyramid, paved a single highway, or even built a town to speak of. More important for the conquistadors than pyramids or highways, the Apaches also had no gold. So, instead of pillaging, the Spanish tried to turn these people into Catholic farmers by forcing them to adopt an agrarian lifestyle and converting them to Christianity. Some of the Apaches did in fact take up rake and hoe, but the vast majority resisted. Not only did they resist, but they actively fought back—raiding everything in sight that was remotely Spanish.

You'd think that against an army like the Spanish, the Apaches wouldn't have had a chance. But that wasn't the case. As Nevins told us, "By the late seventeenth century, the Spanish had lost effective control of northern Sonora and Chihuahua to the Apaches. The Apaches had successfully wrested control of North Mexico—not that it was ever their desire to do so." This wasn't a single accidental victory, however. The Apaches continued to hold off the Spanish for another two centuries.

It wasn't that the Apaches had some secret weapon that was unknown to the Incas and the Aztecs. Nor had the Spanish army lost its might. No, the Apache defeat of the Spanish was all about the way the Apaches were organized as a society. The Spanish couldn't defeat them for the same reason that the record labels weren't able to squash the P2P trend.

Nevins told us how he arrived at the solution to the mystery. A few years ago, he spent three years living with the White Mountain Apaches in Arizona, studying their culture, observing their rituals, and learning how their society really works. He immediately recognized differences between the Apaches and other tribes: "If you look, for example, at the Sioux—the Dances with Wolves people, right?—they had some degree of political centralization. They resisted spectacularly for short periods of time, but they were really not successful for more than ten years. Whereas the Apaches were fighting this battle for hundreds of years." How did they survive? "They distributed political power and had very little centralization." The Apaches persevered because they were decentralized.

In other words, you can't kill a snake by biting off its head when it has no head. Understood. Terrorism is similar, in many ways.

However, your argument is relying on other components of AnCap which have been pointed out to be flaws themselves. Who will spend the money on 250 million dollar weapons? Who manufactures them? Who will sell them to you? Even so, the consumers will not be a centralized force. They will be competing forces. Why do the competing forces compete? For efficiency, of course, to better serve the consumer. Are they not there to handle disputes among the citizens? Where does this money come from? The citizenry, of course. But I thought they didn't want to pay taxes, so they'd have more money for themselves! Now they're paying so much to have weaponry for the defense agencies to be effective against outside forces.

We don't live in a world where you get your weapon from a tree outside. Ah, plastic printed guns is the answer, then. Perhaps. I can't totally discount it. More likely, your system will simply have bad apples within. And if they're rich, that's a problem. And if they're sociopaths, they might agitate other nations. I hope your society is not dependent on imports.

And these bad apples? How does NAP deal with them? Arbitration? How does NAP force arbitration? It doesn't. The only thing in AnCap that forces anything is money and guns. He who has power wins. Sounds very tyrannical. And that's exactly what it is. A society whose virtues are the attractors of tyranny.

[myrkul]

In other words, you can't kill a snake by biting off its head when it has no head. Understood. Terrorism is similar, in many ways.

Indeed. So the "threat from outside" and the "someone will take over" arguments have been defeated. With no capitol to seize, no president to assassinate, no power structure for a coup to take over, these things are impossible.

However, your argument is relying on other components of AnCap which have been pointed out to be flaws themselves. Who will spend the money on 250 million dollar weapons?

Those who want them, of course.

Who manufactures them? Who will sell them to you?

Those who want the money from those who want them.

Even so, the consumers will not be a centralized force. They will be competing forces.

I fail to see how this is a problem. In fact, that's the very benefit I discussed in my last post.

Why do the competing forces compete? For efficiency, of course, to better serve the consumer. Are they not there to handle disputes among the citizens?

Defense forces are there to settle conflict (by which I mean armed conflict) which should happen rarely, if ever, between citizens (that's what arbitration agreements are for), but more commonly between criminals and citizens, or an invading force and citizens.

Where does this money come from? The citizenry, of course. But I thought they didn't want to pay taxes, so they'd have more money for themselves! Now they're paying so much to have weaponry for the defense agencies to be effective against outside forces.

The argument against taxation was not that we should have more money for ourselves (that is a side benefit, however) but that we should be the person deciding how to spend it.

We don't live in a world where you get your weapon from a tree outside. Ah, plastic printed guns is the answer, then. Perhaps. I can't totally discount it. More likely, your system will simply have bad apples within. And if they're rich, that's a problem. And if they're sociopaths, they might agitate other nations. I hope your society is not dependent on imports.

That's a lot of maybes to base an argument on. And there will always be those willing to trade with those who are willing to buy.

And these bad apples? How does NAP deal with them? Arbitration? How does NAP force arbitration? It doesn't. The only thing in AnCap that forces anything is money and guns. He who has power wins. Sounds very tyrannical. And that's exactly what it is. A society whose virtues are the attractors of tyranny.

An AnCap society would deal with bad apples that refused arbitration by excluding them. If someone does not play by the rules, you simply don't play with him anymore.

[FirstAscent]

And these bad apples? How does NAP deal with them? Arbitration? How does NAP force arbitration? It doesn't. The only thing in AnCap that forces anything is money and guns. He who has power wins. Sounds very tyrannical. And that's exactly what it is. A society whose virtues are the attractors of tyranny.

An AnCap society would deal with bad apples that refused arbitration by excluding them. If someone does not play by the rules, you simply don't play with him anymore.

For this particular issue, I think your answer is rather naive. Remember, he has money and guns. He has influence. People want his money. People are afraid of his thug force. It usually works opposite to the way you describe it.

[myrkul]

And these bad apples? How does NAP deal with them? Arbitration? How does NAP force arbitration? It doesn't. The only thing in AnCap that forces anything is money and guns. He who has power wins. Sounds very tyrannical. And that's exactly what it is. A society whose virtues are the attractors of tyranny.

An AnCap society would deal with bad apples that refused arbitration by excluding them. If someone does not play by the rules, you simply don't play with him anymore.

For this particular issue, I think your answer is rather naive. Remember, he has money and guns. He has influence. People want his money. People are afraid of his thug force. It usually works opposite to the way you describe it.

What you are describing is a criminal organization, and it would be seen, and treated, as one. Why should I fear the Mafia when I have my own security force who can, and will, shoot the mafia thugs when they come calling? For that matter, if I can do that myself?

[MoonShadow]

In other words, you can't kill a snake by biting off its head when it has no head. Understood. Terrorism is similar, in many ways.

Indeed. So the "threat from outside" and the "someone will take over" arguments have been defeated. With no capitol to seize, no president to assassinate, no power structure for a coup to take over, these things are impossible.

Unfortunately, I can't agree with you on this one, Myrkul.  And this is where I can't make that last step into ancap political theories.  This above statement is true only if the assumption is that the end goal of the threat is to conquer and subjegate a population.  Which is true for most of human history, since that is how value is extracted from subjects.  But it does not deal with the possibility that the survivablity of the incumbent population is unnecessary.  What if the goal is simply to aquire the landmass and natural resources of the incumbent society, and the attacking society has enough of it's own population as to not care whether the incumbent population survives at all.  This is the kind of event we might see with resource wars, should the world's population actually discover a physical limit to the Earth's total sustainablity; or for that matter simply believe they have discovered same.

[FirstAscent]

And these bad apples? How does NAP deal with them? Arbitration? How does NAP force arbitration? It doesn't. The only thing in AnCap that forces anything is money and guns. He who has power wins. Sounds very tyrannical. And that's exactly what it is. A society whose virtues are the attractors of tyranny.

An AnCap society would deal with bad apples that refused arbitration by excluding them. If someone does not play by the rules, you simply don't play with him anymore.

For this particular issue, I think your answer is rather naive. Remember, he has money and guns. He has influence. People want his money. People are afraid of his thug force. It usually works opposite to the way you describe it.

What you are describing is a criminal organization, and it would be seen, and treated, as one. Why should I fear the Mafia when I have my own security force who can, and will, shoot the mafia thugs when they come calling? For that matter, if I can do that myself?

I've said it before. I believe AnCap is a breeding ground for criminal organizations. It's the ultimate petri dish for unethical behavior, power plays, crime, gangs, etc.

[myrkul]

In other words, you can't kill a snake by biting off its head when it has no head. Understood. Terrorism is similar, in many ways.

Indeed. So the "threat from outside" and the "someone will take over" arguments have been defeated. With no capitol to seize, no president to assassinate, no power structure for a coup to take over, these things are impossible.

Unfortunately, I can't agree with you on this one, Myrkul.  And this is where I can't make that last step into ancap political theories.  This above statement is true only if the assumption is that the end goal of the threat is to conquer and subjegate a population.  Which is true for most of human history, since that is how value is extracted from subjects.  But it does not deal with the possibility that the survivablity of the incumbent population is unnecessary.  What if the goal is simply to aquire the landmass and natural resources of the incumbent society, and the attacking society has enough of it's own population as to not care whether the incumbent population survives at all.  This is the kind of event we might see with resource wars, should the world's population actually discover a physical limit to the Earth's total sustainablity; or for that matter simply believe they have discovered same.

Well, in that case, the annihilation of the populace is the goal no matter what the political structure of the area, so they're going to be going house to house regardless. It's accepted military fact that a defense-in-depth is more effective than a shell defense, and a single military force is a shell defense. It doesn't get more "defense-in-depth" than Joe down the street having that T-51 he fixed up in his garage, now does it?

An armed populace, with no restrictions on the ownership of weaponry, is the best defense against something like this.

I've said it before. I believe AnCap is a breeding ground for criminal organizations. It's the ultimate petri dish for unethical behavior, power plays, crime, gangs, etc.

And I believe you are wrong. The only way for either of us to prove it is to let us try.

[MoonShadow]

And these bad apples? How does NAP deal with them? Arbitration? How does NAP force arbitration? It doesn't. The only thing in AnCap that forces anything is money and guns. He who has power wins. Sounds very tyrannical. And that's exactly what it is. A society whose virtues are the attractors of tyranny.

An AnCap society would deal with bad apples that refused arbitration by excluding them. If someone does not play by the rules, you simply don't play with him anymore.

For this particular issue, I think your answer is rather naive. Remember, he has money and guns. He has influence. People want his money. People are afraid of his thug force. It usually works opposite to the way you describe it.

What you are describing is a criminal organization, and it would be seen, and treated, as one. Why should I fear the Mafia when I have my own security force who can, and will, shoot the mafia thugs when they come calling? For that matter, if I can do that myself?

This particular strawman also makes an unstated usumption with regard to the powerful & wealthy sociopath, that an existing ancap society was both incapable of identifying and negating the rise in power of a domesticly grown sociopath, and that such a sociopath could actually aquire said power.  This is not a given, as this is not probable even if possible.  As an example, every ancap society that can be imagined, and every example of a similar society that has existed (Apaches included), provided for an alternative outlet to those sociopathic tendencies as well as greater suppression of those tendicies when used beyond the socially acceptable outlets.  Using the apaches as a case study, it was the external threat of the Spanish that provided for those sociopathic outlets for hundreds of years, since the attacking of the external eney was not socially unacceptable, since the Spanish attacked first.  And if such tendecies were turned against their own people, the consequences for such a 'crime' were swift and harsh, since any apache wimply would kill his attacker in self defense.  This is as much true with a modern ideal ancap society as it would be for the apaches because organizations don't grow from nothing without first starting at the individual level, and members are never bound to continue in an organization that violates their mores.  A sociopath that builds a fortune building cars is going to have a hard time shifting the goals of that organization into an army without destroying the structure of the group.

[MoonShadow]

An armed populace, with no restrictions on the ownership of weaponry, is the best defense against something like this.

This is true enough, if the attacker is okay with using conventional forces.  Not really true if he is okay with a few well placed neutron bombs.

The only way that I can see that an ancap society is sustainable is if the whole world becomes ancap within three generations, anything beyond that and there is the possiblity of an external risk.

[myrkul]

An armed populace, with no restrictions on the ownership of weaponry, is the best defense against something like this.

This is true enough, if the attacker is okay with using conventional forces.  Not really true if he is okay with a few well placed neutron bombs.

True no matter what the political organization of the region is. Neutron bombs kill citizens of a republic just as well as AnCaps.

The only way that I can see that an ancap society is sustainable is if the whole world becomes ancap within three generations, anything beyond that and there is the possiblity of an external risk.

Call me optimistic, but once that particular ball starts rolling, I wouldn't be surprised if it only took one.

[Rudd-O]

People,

Have you not noticed already that blahblahblah is an agitator whose activity in the forum almost solely consists of provoking voluntaryists?

Ignore him.  Don't feed the troll.

[Richy_T]

Is Singapore an  AnCap society? If not, why are the evils of Singapore being blamed on AnCap principles? There is some sort of logical trick going on there. If two things share a subset of the same properties, then they will share all the same properties, or something.

Also its funny that the main criticism of AnCap (which I agree with) is that there is a threat from assholes who want to create governments... yea, exactly. Thats what we want to figure out how to stop.

It's like "Communism is bad", "Communist leaders enrich themselves at the expense of others", "That's Capitalism", "Isn't capitalism evil?"

Capitalism is simply the belief that one should be able to retain the fruits of one's efforts.

[Richy_T]

That is one criticism which you guys have now admitted to.

I don't know these guys. Please don't ascribe anything I might say to them. I know it's your thing and all but still.