I have yet to read the article in its entirety, but what I have read thus far has problems in the reasoning and I will point out one of the more glaring examples.
He states that a government can be either statist or limited. Forgetting statist government for the clear evil it represents, let us look at limited forms where he asserts:
"limited government, which holds a monopoly on retaliation but does not initiate the use or threat of physical force;"
And goes on wqith:
"It is my contention that limited government is a floating abstraction which has never been concretized by anyone; that a limited government must either initiate force or cease being a government; that the very concept of limited government is an unsuccessful attempt to integrate two mutually contradictory elements: statism and voluntarism. Hence, if this can be shown, epistemological clarity and moral consistency demands the rejection of the institution of government totally, resulting in free market anarchism, or a purely voluntary society."
This ignores another possibility: a laissez faire government whose ONLY purpose is to protect the rights of its citizens. Part of that role would include investigation of charges of rights violations and to take remedial steps where called for. Such a government would have no power to stop private parties from voluntarily engaging in business transactions regardless of their nature. They would act only responsively to charges. If, for example, my property is stolen and I hire XYZ Inc. or even my burly neighbor to retrieve it, I would be well within my rights to do so.
If, on the other hand, I hired the same to retrieve property that was in fact NOT mine, which is to say I hired them to steal for me and the victim made charges to "government", the role would be to investigate and
respond with force against force in the case where the charges proved true. Childs appears to wholly ignore this possibility.
As I have mentioned before, there is no fundamental advantage of private "government" over public, and infact are some notable disadvantages. In either case a subset of the population assumes and exercises certain powers as matters of office - of their roles and the underlying purposes thereof. The salient point is NOT whether the offices are formally public or private, but rather what are the powers and their associated parameters of exercise.
There is nothing in principle to stop a market anarchy from devolving into pure feudalism. I suspect that where issues arise between "factions" that are of sufficient importance to the parties in question, feudalism is precisely what would arise. E.g. one group arbitrarily identifying itself as "environmentalist" is against another group identifying itself as "industrialist" where matters of environmental pollution are in question. The former wants clean air etc. while the latter simply do not care - their focus is on production and innovation, the environment be damned. If the former feel sufficiently threatened by the actions of the latter, what do we suppose will ultimately transpire? In all likelihood, use of force - possibly violence - to make the "polluters" stop what they are doing. Likewise, the industrialists would retaliate against the environmentalists' trespass, asserting their right to act.
Who is right? Who is wrong? They are each right and wrong by their own ways of seeing the world. In such a case there are three possibilities that arise - the parties fight, possibly even murdering each other in pursuit of their mutually conflicting goals - they come to an agreement and avert disaster (unlikely where such strong beliefs are in question), or a third party mediates a solution, either siding in-toto with one party, or hammering out a compromise between them. This third party could well be a private entity, and if the disagreeing parties are amenable to such an arrangement, fine. But what if they are not and the only path they are willing to embark upon is that of open warfare - actual physical violence?
We might say that it is their right to mutually engage in such action so long as all the members are agreed that war is what they want. From a purely libertarian standpoint this is the proper way, but other problems may still arise. What if, for instance, the warring activities spill over into communities neither party to the dispute nor wishing any involvement? How are their rights protected? Do THEY have to now take up arms in defense of their own interests? We could say yes even to this, but consider the possibility for cascading warfare. But what if there were a generally recognized third party who held the authority to step in once the rights of even a single individual were violated and and whose ONLY purpose was to put an end to initiated force? If the warring spilled into another party's territory and that party asked for third party ("government") intervention, would that not be preferable to allowing violence to spread? The only thing "government" would do in this case is bring the spread of violence to an end.
The difference here lies in accountability. Even private entities hold some public accountability, which translates very directly and without modification into governance. This cannot be avoided, save to accept nihilism and the chaos it engenders in real world situations. In my world, "government" would be the last resort where serious disputes arouse between people. Their prerogatives to act would be very tightly circumscribed and any violations of the parameters of action under which its members labors would be cause for a stern and public accounting, the penalties bordering on the draconian.
Just and proper governance is eminently attainable in principle. In practice, it is another thing altogether. The problem is not governance per se, but of individuals. Until enough of us choose the path of real liberty and all that it requires of us, there is no system of governance (or government, if you prefer) that will serve us so much as marginally well.
I might also add that in practical terms there is likely to never be any such thing as "anarchy" because some form of governance will always be needed, unless we are to accept pure chaos as our way of life. In a so-called "anarchy", would people not deal with those who rape, rob, murder, and defraud? If not, then it is pure wild-west nihilism and those with the most power will enslave those without. This is observable human nature and the past several thousands of years of human history paint a truth that is not reasonably refuted. The larger a population becomes, the stronger becomes this truth.
Even tribal, anarchic cultures had rules, minimal as they may have been - which means that even those were not utterly devoid of governing elements. In the event a member commits a criminal act, even those cultures call upon one to account for his actions.
The question, then, is not whether we should have governance. In the choice between minimal, righteous, well reasoned, just governance and nihilism, I believe the great majority would opt for the former, and rightly so. The question, however, becomes one of how to establish such governance such that human freedom - proper freedom based on our equal claims to life - is not curtailed in any way. That is the $64 question and I feel it is well about time that people got off this silly bandwagon of "to have or not to have" and get back to the real world of practical solutions.
I have demonstrated to myself in the most unequivocal terms that such governance - PUBLICY ACCOUNTABLE governance - is attainable. I have also concluded that the practical challenges of attaining such governance are formidable on even the best days. The requirements of liberty are daunting and because of this, most people are not willing to do what it takes to ensure the most fundamental elements of the welfare of their own children, much less themselves, their communities, or the nation.
So again I will repeat what bears it: the question is not one of whether to have government, but how to structure, implement, and maintain it such that the absolute freedom of the individual is preserved intact as we move from one day into the next.
