Anarcho Capitalism vs Minarchism

[gwax23]

The point your trying to make is all states are bad because they use force. Besides the definitions issue this I already understood this.

How would an anarcho capitalist society protect and enforce property rights? How would it handle disputes? Murderers? Thiefs? Other Criminals?

If lets say an Anarcho Capitalist society could develop on some part of the world how would it defend itself from States who wish to exercise control over that area?

I can see everything being privatized save for the courts/police and the military. So whats I need help understanding is how a Anarcho Capitalist society could handle Courts/Police and defense?

 

[Quark]

I think Thomas Paine answered this one quite well in Common Sense. Hencely, I'm a proponent of minarchy. The role of the state is to protect one's life liberty and estate, that's all.

 

[Danan]

But I'm saying you can't opt out of the state unless you move into an "anarchist zone" with other anarchists who have paid off this section of land (maybe it's the size of a town, maybe it's 10% of Oregon, but it's a clearly defined and concentrated area and not a bunch of dots of individual houses here and there on a map). If the minarchist U.S. felt it was necessary to have a passport system applied to the anarchist zone (a likely possibility if terrorists, foreign criminals, or illegal aliens got their foot in the door at the anarchist zone and crossed into the U.S. from there), you might be required to get and show a passport whenever crossing into the U.S. and if you decided to sell your passport to a bad guy who did cross over with it and caused some serious problems, I would not hesitate to send forces into the anarchist zone to come get you.

So am I a statist yet?

Well, the argument about getting on my property when I did harm to you/your country would still be in line with anarcho-capitalism, imho. That's what I'd have a rights enforcement agency for and if my agency and I both felt that I didn't do anything wrong and your country insisted on enforcing some law we'd be in the same situation two sovereign countries are right now when they have disputes. There would be a war.

To not have constant wars my agency and your country might agree uppon an arbitrator for these cases in advance. In which case he would decide how both parties proceed.

The only real problem I'm having with what you wrote is that you wouldn't let me secede with my own legitimately owned property, which I never agreed uppon to be within the jurisdiction of your state.

But of course I'd really prefer your society to what we have today.

 

[heavenlyboy34]

So then what do you believe in?

I don't like to give it a label, as labels tend to oversimplify things and result in a system of dogmatic beliefs rather than rational, logical solutions. I simply favor voluntary association, recognition of property rights (including self-ownership), right to micro-secession, and the various other rights proven critical and real in the classical liberal/libertarian tradition.

Though I thouroughly dislike Madison, Federalist no 51 contains a great passage: "If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions."

What Madison, et al failed to understand, however, is that liberty is not the natural impulse of the VAST majority of people. If you do a survey of the populous at large, you'll find that regardless of what people say publicly, they want-in practice, a tyrannical nanny state. IOW, depending on "The People" will inevitably fail at some point. The closest thing we can get to a solution at this point in history is truly voluntary society. Mises' "Liberalism" is really good-it covers micro-secession and numerous other critical concepts. That plus Rothbard's "system" (as Mises called it) is the best template for a free society I'm aware of. (being a natural rights liberal system, it allows for adjusting to law as necessary )

 

[Danan]

The point your trying to make is all states are bad because they use force. Besides the definitions issue this I already understood this.

How would an anarcho capitalist society protect and enforce property rights? How would it handle disputes? Murderers? Thiefs? Other Criminals?

If lets say an Anarcho Capitalist society could develop on some part of the world how would it defend itself from States who wish to exercise control over that area?

I can see everything being privatized save for the courts/police and the military. So whats I need help understanding is how a Anarcho Capitalist society could handle Courts/Police and defense?

There are many books, lectures, papers, etc. on that issue.

 

[erowe1]

The point your trying to make is all states are bad because they use force.

I haven't said that states are bad for that reason, only that that's what makes them states. And it's not just force, but the subjugation of others against their will.

To say that subjugating people by force against their will is wrong would make someone an anarchist, or at least, not a statist.

To say that it's not wrong would make someone a statist. I assume that all statists consider themselves minarchists, since the amount of violent subjugation they support will always be whatever they think is the minimum amount below which there would be too little of it.

 

[TheTexan]

HB34 is an anarchist he just doesn't like labels.

 

[emazur]

Individual houses are clearly defined and concentrated.

I find it unlikely that most minarchists will go far it. I doubt even I'd go for it. So assume an anarchist zone. Sorry, no Petoria for you!

 

[erowe1]

I find it unlikely that most minarchists will go far it. I doubt even I'd go for it. So assume an anarchist zone. Sorry, no Petoria for you!

I agree. If they did, they'd be anarchists not minarchists, which was what I said earlier.

 

[The Gold Standard]

But I'm saying you can't opt out of the state unless you move into an "anarchist zone" with other anarchists who have paid off this section of land (maybe it's the size of a town, maybe it's 10% of Oregon, but it's a clearly defined and concentrated area and not a bunch of dots of individual houses here and there on a map). If the minarchist U.S. felt it was necessary to have a passport system applied to the anarchist zone (a likely possibility if terrorists, foreign criminals, or illegal aliens got their foot in the door at the anarchist zone and crossed into the U.S. from there), you might be required to get and show a passport whenever crossing into the U.S. and if you decided to sell your passport to a bad guy who did cross over with it and caused some serious problems, I would not hesitate to send forces into the anarchist zone to come get you.

So am I a statist yet?

Yep. And you might want to think twice before sending a clunky, inept state military into a free society. Of course if you think you are going to limit the size of the free society to that of a prison camp, and restrict travel in and out of it, then I guess it isn't free anyway, now is it?

 

[ican'tvote]

I voted minarchist, but after reading the semantics arguments in this thread, I don't know what I am. It doesn't really matter though, because even cutting government to the size it was in 1928 seems like an impossible dream.

 

[emazur]

Yep. And you might want to think twice before sending a clunky, inept state military into a free society. Of course if you think you are going to limit the size of the free society to that of a prison camp, and restrict travel in and out of it, then I guess it isn't free anyway, now is it?

Actually there would be room for the "camp" to grow - just buy more land from the federal and state governments (and if you anarchists were smart, you'd buy a large enough zone in the first place not to feel cramped). We'll sell you more if you don't fuck things up like allow a pipeline for the bad guys to get in, just like we wouldn't impose passport restrictions if you keep doing the right thing. You can have your free society if the anarchist "collective" respects its minarchist neighbor's property. If not, maybe that should be taken as a sign that the anarchist experiment was a failure (side note: I would expect some to be failures and some to succeed. The most likely case is that minarchists would allow for one initial zone to be purchased and future zones could be established after some period of evaluation time. If the batting average is high, is quite possible that eventually there would more anarchist territory in America than minarchist. All I can say for you is don't screw up that initial zone).

 

[robert68]

If you want a country/territory/etc. that has a "government" by erowe's earlier definition, but is not a state by erowe's definition then maybe medieval Iceland or some of the early American colonies would apply.

In the early American colonies there were taxes collected.

 

[TheTexan]

If you accept the notion that some amount of government force is needed to preserve freedom [which I don't], I do believe a government ran by a benevolent anarchist dictator would be more effective than a constitutional republic.

Just sayin'. In case any of you guys want to take over the country and rule it by force, I'd be cool with that.

 

[Shane Harris]

The fact that governments exists now should be proof enough that they naturally form.

if your referring to the second part of that quote I used "may" because that was my conjecture.

And the fact that tyranny exists now proves that it naturally and inevitably forms in all types of government, even our constitutionalist one.

 

[XTreat]

I am of the opinion that Ron Paul is an anarchist.

 

[A Son of Liberty]

And the fact that tyranny exists now proves that it naturally and inevitably forms in all types of government, even our constitutionalist one.

+rep

At this point, a minarchist society is just as unlikely as a stateless one. And the differences between the two are relatively inconsequential.

I reject the state because the initiation of force is self-destructive, and as such a flawed and illogical conclusion.

If I were to be most concisely labeled, I would be called a Voluntaryist, meaning that all associations between individuals must be freely chosen ones.

But if I woke up tomorrow in a true minarchist society, you wouldn't get much complaining from me.

 

[BuddyRey]

<---Unabashedly voluntaryist/ancap since 2009.

And glad to see we still maintain an RPF's presence.

 

[Christian Liberty]

To say that it's not wrong would make someone a statist. I assume that all statists consider themselves minarchists, since the amount of violent subjugation they support will always be whatever they think is the minimum amount below which there would be too little of it.

Maybe, but there can still be an objective definition of minarchy. Anyone who would compare John Locke to Adolf Hitler just because they both supported states would be ridiculous. Clearly Locke supported a much, much, MUCH less pervasive state than Hitler did (Saying "Much" three times is hardly sufficient, bear with me). If someone supports government intervention in something other than military, courts, and police they aren't really minarchists proper. If they are close to this, they are probably limited government supporters, constitutionalists, moderate libertarians, conservatives, anti-federalists, perhaps something else depending on what exactly they want in addition to the minarchist core...

 

[erowe1]

Maybe, but there can still be an objective definition of minarchy. Anyone who would compare John Locke to Adolf Hitler just because they both supported states would be ridiculous. Clearly Locke supported a much, much, MUCH less pervasive state than Hitler did (Saying "Much" three times is hardly sufficient, bear with me). If someone supports government intervention in something other than military, courts, and police they aren't really minarchists proper. If they are close to this, they are probably limited government supporters, constitutionalists, moderate libertarians, conservatives, anti-federalists, perhaps something else depending on what exactly they want in addition to the minarchist core...

I have trouble seeing any real philosophical difference between supporting state-based socialized medicine and supporting state-based socialized military. If minarchy includes the latter, it seems to me it includes the former as well.