Democracy: Do you support it?

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Firstly, there are several types of anarchy. All share some ideas, but can be very different when put into practice. I can understand the problems with anarchies such as anarcho-communists and post left anarchists who prefer no solid form of organisation, but what of anarchies such as (my personal favourite) anarcho-capitalism?
But read a little for yourself:



This was from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism# ... capitalism

How would contracts be enforced in anarcho-capitalism? What stops you, if you cannot be more efficient than your rival, from simply murdering him if there is no police, etc? What prevents the rich from hiring gunmen and ruling like feudal lords if there is no police or army? What stops you from robbing shareholders, forging currency, contracts, deeds, etc if nobody is going to put you in jail? In the absence of anti-trust leguislation, what will stop capitalism form degenerating into a few very rich monopolies that have their own private militias and dungeons in case anyone doesn't like it?
Anarchists should study history and see what happens in the real world when the government is very weak or it collapses - it becomes the law of the jungle, the rule of warlords and private militias, not an egalitarian utopia.

with no change in sight, lets all remember this when voting for the next president. oh wait what am i talking about? nothing will change. ittle be business as usual

Because there are police. Law is privatized, it is not non-existent. Now, perhaps you could work out some massive system of bribery, but given the decentralization of power there is great difficulty in getting every legal force under your control. You would essentially have to bribe all providers of law.

There are police and there are army, they are just private. Now, honestly, what prevents the rich from doing this now? They already distort the legal structures for their own benefit. Honestly, I'd say that the reason why they won't do it is because it is not efficient to do it, and few people would put up with them if they did do it. Robbing shareholders? Well, contracts can be enforced, but if there is no contract, then it falls down to your reputation, sort of like how if you don't pay off your debts you can get a bad credit rating. Forging currency? Once again, laws are private, not non-existent. You still might be able to do something like that, but efforts by opposing forces will be made in order to prevent currency forging happening. Jails can exist under anarcho-capitalism. Anarcho-capitalists don't believe in the absence but rather the privatization of law. Quite simple, anarcho-capitalists don't believe that monopolies that powerful will emerge anyway, and usually anarcho-capitalists don't believe that anti-trust legislation is a good idea period, much less necessary.

Um.... there are anarcho-capitalist historians. David Friedman actually studies the history of medieval Iceland, which had a very private system of government for around 300 years(not anarcho-capitalist but very very private). Murray Rothbard is noted for writing a few books on American history, and the history of economic thought. Thomas Woods has a PhD in history, and even is an author of a popular American history book. As well, the old American west has also been researched by anarcho-capitalists who have claimed that it is similar in structure to anarcho-capitalism. Honestly, that last point is not so much of an argument as it is a dismissal, and an ignorant one at that. Anarcho-capitalism is not the same as plain anarchy, and it does not speak much of egalitarianism. Murray Rothbard openly wrote against egalitarianism as a revolt against nature, and Per Bylund wrote about social egalitarianism as opposed to economic. Honestly, when arguing against a theory, you must understand the theory and oppose it with another theory. I am not saying that facts are unimportant, facts are highly important, but facts are meaningless without their interpretations, without theories for understanding them.

And who pays for, and has command of, the privatised army and police? How are taxes collected to pay for it? Are you going to hold a referendum every time a decision is made (and even that requires officials to administrate it, courts to resolve disputes, etc). If you have an army, police, courts, tax collectors, etc, then how can that be described an anarchy? Isn't a privatised law just a plutocacy/oligarchy? It sounds like you're using the word 'anarchy' for laissez-faire economics with a government - a misnomer, since such policies have proven to be perfectly compatible with a very strong government, a la Pinochet.
If you have gunmen, you don't need reputation. People will do business with you if the alternative is execution, or if you're a monopoly (and bankers will give you credit at gunpoint regardless of your credit history). If there is no government and you have your private militia, you can just do what the medieval aristocracy did - live above the law, untaxed, with everyone at your beck and call, and if somebody doesn't like it, that's what gallows are for.
The actual historical experience is that unfettered capitalism leads to monopolies a la Gilded Age - because the big fish eat the little fish until there's just one big fish, or several big fish have formed a cartel. Do you really think something as complex as a modern economy can be run without contracts?
The rich, obviously, can afford the better army and therefore can easily impose a kind of market feudalism - sort of like Mexico circa 1900. If you studied the history of military dictatorships, you would see how easy it is to bring every legal force under your control if you have enough guns.
The Far West was far from anarchic, there was a heavy US military presence. The only thing like anarchy that has ever existed in the US is some parts of the South as the Confederacy collapsed (quickly replaced by Unionist military rule).
Having a PhD doesn't mean you live in the real world. The real historical experience in the absence of government (Somalia being a recent example) is that it introduces the rule of warlords, and that it's economically ruinous (well, not for everyone). In Somalia, the warlords charge for using the roads (unless you're traveling with a heavily armed escort), but don't actually repair them - which shows what happens in practice to the notion that everyone will voluntarily contribute to public works (and that they will get done at all) if there is no government.

Private individuals.

Who said that we would necessarily use a taxation system?

Not necessarily. We could, but usually decisions are made by individuals.

We won't necessarily have tax collectors. It is also anarchy because if it is private then there is no centralized state mechanism.

Possibly, but not necessarily and I think that most anarcho-capitalists would say that privatized law means individuals choosing their legal arrangements and thus will say that anarcho-capitalism will probably tend more towards contractarianism. I'd say that you make this assumption without studying the system of thought, as a government refers to the centralized structure as opposed to the decentralized structure. Many anarcho-capitalists do believe in multiple, competing sets of legal structures within the same society. Um.... I know about Pinochet's existence, but I would still hesitate to say that capitalism is perfectly compatible with a very strong government simply because a stronger government would not have a capitalist system and would regulate that element of life as well.

No, you still need a reputation. Other people also have gunmen and other people also have the power to execute. You are assuming that only one powerful individual exists, I am assuming multiple powerful individuals exist. Not only that but there isn't a single example that I can think of of a monopoly *that* powerful, and most of the monopolies I have heard of, such as John Rockefeller's monopoly, ended up being highly competitive, and temporary.

The only thing is that living above the law pisses people off.

No, the evidence is actually shaky on that. Monopolies did occasionally occur, but they were efficient and temporary as I stated earlier, Standard Oil, for example was one of the rare monopolies to actually occur(many attempts were made mind you, but they usually just resulted in oligopolies due to competitors or were unsustainable), and within 2 decades the company reduced the cost of oil to 1/7th of what it was before that time frame. Standard Oil got its success because Rockefeller was a good business man. Also, if you'll note, I actually did not eliminate the role of contracts, I said that enforcement would be made more private.

Ok, but there isn't a single group known forever more as "the wealthy". If that were so then our government would look even more to be a mess. Who makes our laws? Wealthy congressmen. Who buys the congressmen? Wealthy businessmen. Given both of those, shouldn't our society be as bad as you claim the anarchist society would be? Trust me, I know that power stems from the barrel of a gun, but the issue still pops up of creating an army and getting control. I'd still assert that society is too divided to allow for one army to be bigger than someone else's.

Ok. The military did not enforce US laws.

Ok, Africa HAS warlords. A whole freakin' bunch of them, and I am not speaking of Somalia, I am speaking of the entire continent. Few nations actually don't suck over there and tribalism exists even when governments attempt to exist. Somalia itself was a dictatorial hellhole before their government collapsed. Somalia isn't economically ruined either and private institutions have made remarkable strides in working over there. There is a paper showing that Somalia is doing better than neighboring regions in most factors ever since its government left. http://www.peterleeson.com/Better_Off_Stateless.pdf Frankly, nothing can mean that you live in the real world, NOBODY IN EXISTENCE KNOWS THE REAL WORLD!! I have not seen a single individual who can honestly say "I absolutely know the truth in and out", everyone lives in their own little fantasies, just ask a psychologist about the influence of our beliefs on how we process old and new information. Ask about confirmation biases and things of that nature.

private individuals that pay for and have command of the army and police = warlords. Simply put, the rich can pay mercenaries more, hence in such circumstances the rich would just govern by force, sometimes clashing with each other, sometimes cooperating, but always collectively above the law (like the medieval aristocracy). Yes, individuals (warlords) would be making the decisions. It is perfectly possible to have multiple warlords in the same place.
Do you think medieval serfs were not pissed off at how the aristocracy was above the law? They revolted - and were massacred, because the nobility was militarily stronger. Pissing ordinary people off only matters in a democracy.
I'm sorry, but there are countries vastly more plutocratic than the US. Yes, it can be a lot worse. And yes, in other places it has happened that monopolies or wealthy individuals have their private militias, and they use them exactly like the medieval warlords did.
Capitalism (private property, the bulk of the economy owned by corporations and private individuals) has proven perfectly compatible with totalitarian governments. Laissez-faire capitalism has also proved, in practice, perfectly compatible with extreme dictatorships - Pinochet was extreme even by the standards of military dictatorships, he even assassinated opponents on US soil and assassinated dissident generals, both of which few Latin American dictatorships have dared to do.
The US government has never been too weak to be able to put any real pressure on monopolies. This is not the case in other countries, where monopolies and concentrations of wealth and power have far exceeded anything ever seen in the US.
The US military in the Far West did not act as a police force, but it did ensure that nothing could happen that would seriously challenge the Federal government - shootouts between uninfluential individuals did not pose such a challenge.
Yes, it's possible to have a government that is even worse than anarchy - but I would hardly call Somalia a success story, even by Third World standards.
Contract enforcement would be more private? Well, drug barons are experts on that - break the contract, get killed - unless you have better goons and kill the other guy first.

Not so much necessarily, and I don't think a single individual could actually pay for much of an army.

But unless they all get together, they cannot buy much of an army, nor would they be likely to want one. You jump down to military power, even though such exercises would be wasteful to one's finances.

Actually, it could be possible. Why not? We have multiple electricity providers in the same place.

Divine right of kings. It was legitimized and serfs were hard to massacre given the French revolution. Pissing off ordinary people matters in all societies, especially ones where ordinary people have more power. Frankly, pissing off ordinary people really matters more the richer that ordinary people can be.

3rd world nations, yes. 1st world nations no. You are going to have to back up some of those claims of private militias. Are you merely speaking of strike breakers in the Gilded age? Those existed with a government.

Nope, I still disagree that it is perfectly compatible. Just look at the huge regulating industries we have in China. Where capitalism exists, it tends to push for free speech, free labor choices, etc. I know that Pinochet was powerful though, I am not denying that at all. I am denying perfect compatibility. A successful dictatorship with a powerful ruler does not mean that there aren't tensions, and one can be successful with imperfect compatibility. Capitalism by its nature, will undermine attempts to control the actions of individuals, as once one regulates individual actions, they regulate capitalism.

And of course you will have to provide evidence of this happening without interference by outside groups. The US government didn't have anti-trust laws for much of the Gilded age, and by the time that many of these laws were used, the issue of monopolization was over. Frankly, I tend to think that you are speaking of 3rd world nations under the dominance of some colonial power or another.

So? How often did they use that power? If it wasn't used at all then what is the point of referencing it?

That paper did call Somalia a success story by Third World standards, and it even had comparison nations to look at.

Isn't that what legal issues will tend to fall towards anyway? All a government is, is that it is a monopoly of force in a given region.

Loads of questions about anarchism & anarcho-capitalism answered here;

http://www.infoshop.org/faq/

A single individual could not pay for the US army, but could pay for something good enough to keep the rabble 'in their place'. Google 'guardias blancas' if you don't think this happens. Plus, warlords in Somalia and so on have their private militias. In some parts of the world, drug barons have private militias and de facto fiefdoms (and don't find them a waste of money). Private militias can coexist with government; remove government and private militias are all there's going to be. I'm not sating all governments are good.
The serfs revolted long before the French Revolution - the Peasants' Revolt in Germany for example (an example of a time they were massacred).
If by 'Third World' you mean only the Horn of Africa, Afghanistan and possibly Zimbabwe, then maybe Somalia would qualify as a relative success (the Somaliland, which does have a government, isn't doing too badly). If you include pretty much anywhere else, no (hell, I'm from the Third World). But by 'success' I would understand a country as rich as Switzerland or as powerful as the US, not war-torn Somalia. If a country with a life expectancy of 48.84 years is a success, then anything is a success.
Yes, I'm mostly thinking of the Third World - because anarchy wrecks economies and hence developed countries don't tend to have experienced much anarchy. Switzerland and most of the US have never experienced anarchy. Anarchism was once popular in Spain, and it was easily wiped out by the (very much capitalist) armies of Francisco Franco (the only real resistance came from the Communists).
I would say that capitalism has in fact strengthened the Chinese government's grip on power - even Western companies like google and yahoo just do their bidding. Because of trade, external pressures on China to democratise are largely gone, strengthening the regime. Historically, capitalism has proven compatible with direct democracy, Fascism, presidential democracy, military dictatorship, parliamentary democracy and quasi single-party states.
In capitalism, the consumer is king only so long as there is competition - once you have a cartel or a monopoly, the corporation is king. This is why anti-trust legislation is so important (such actions appear to be the reason why internet connections are faster and cheaper in Europe and Japan than in the US, even though it was the reverse just a few years ago).

Oh and an example of how capitalism can be not exactly liberating: imagine a place with huge income inequality (a common result of laissez faire policies), most people are very poor, since wealth is so heavily concentrated in a few, workers have to take pretty much any work they can find, which might include rather harsh conditions such as the pay being in vouchers that can only be redeemed at the company store rather than in money, or curfews for workers, etc (no pesky government agencies doing anything about any of this, no minimum wage, no maximum workday). It may happen that the workers need to borrow money from the boss (from whom else?), the boss is in a position to arbitrarily determine interest rates (no anti-usury regulations) and can attach conditions such as it being a crime if workers leave the job without paying off the debt (perhaps punishable in the boss' dungeon, no need to get the law involved) - which in effect means the boss has their labour as long as he wants it, in whatever conditions he pleases. This is a perfectly capitalist, laissez faire road to slavery and is no fantasy, but has happened in many places (google 'tienda de raya,' for example). It is not a specifically anarchist thing (it has also happened in places with strong governments) but it illustrates how capitalism, including laissez faire capitalism, is not necessarily liberating. If the rich like the government, there is no contradiction whatsoever between capitalism and authoritarian government (the Chilean rich and US corporations loved Pinochet, for example).

Unless other forces act against them. Frankly, in most developed nations, the gap between the wealthy and the less so is not high enough to afford a powerful enough force.

I did not deny that private groups existed, however, the issue really comes down to the examples selected. History proves nothing without detailed analysis. Warlords in Somalia don't exactly have private militias, they have power derived from tribal tradition. Drug barons also are incredibly rich compared to the rest of the population, and belong to an illegal economy that must band together for its own protection. They are not a good example group at all, and really a very horrible one. Frankly, unless you go back to theory, or make theoretical corrections for your examples, they are useless. Yes, private militias is all there will be, but we disagree on the nature of the private militias. I think that private militias will be run in a more corporate form with the goal of profit maximization, you think they will be run in a dictatorial form with the goal of personal glorification.


Um... that is the relevant example group. If we chose another example group then we would be comparing unlike things. Technically, we are not speaking of absolute success but only relative success.


Well, power vacuums damage economies, and the Third World is actually not a very good example group at all as it is full of all sorts of distortions. If the third world had much of its own health then it wouldn't be called the third world. Francisco Franco a capitalist??? No, I mean, he later implemented capitalistic policies, but he wasn't much of a capitalist. His first ideas on running the economy were based upon autarky, a restriction of foreign trade. That really seems to not be proper. Frankly, I am not defending spanish anarchy anyway, I promote a different system.


I think that to be false, because of Western companies, Chinese culture is opening up more to the west and western values. Even though Google and Yahoo do the bidding of the chinese, they don't have more power because now the chinese have to contend with internet access.

The chinese wouldn't respond to external pressure anyway. It goes against their nature. Because of capitalism though, they have greater economic growth for the average person, and the system has promoted a less ideological approach to running society and the rising middle class has expressed concerns about pollution and things of that nature. Historically, fascism is built upon non-capitalistic elements, but technically, capitalism is compatible with any system that allows it. It just is imperfectly compatible with more unfree systems. I do not speak of the right to vote, but rather other rights, as capitalism tends to have a corrosive effect on traditional authorities that was actually feared by early American leaders. Part of the American revolution was fighting against corruption from England.

Yes, but cartels and monopolies have no history of being likely. Anti-trust regulation is not that important, and even economists don't know what should be considered a dangerous monopoly and what shouldn't. In the microsoft case for example, there were major PhD economists arguing on both sides.

Huge inequality is more likely to exist with corrupt governments and other bad market conditions. 3rd world nations are usually more unequal than even the most capitalistic 1st world nations, such as Hong Kong, which has been rated the freest economy by the Heritage organization in the US for a few years now.
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BS. Labor markets. The reason why workers get their pay is because they earn their pay and labor conditions were improving before regulations even occurred. Also, the voucher thing was never very common in the first place, only in a few local regions where a single company was the only employer anyway, and those were rare and usually based upon some resource that had to be shipped out from there.

People wouldn't work this long, employers wouldn't even likely want to have people work that long. Government policies are not the reason why labor markets are doing so well either, the supply and demand for labor are. If your theory were true then most people would make minimum wage or close to it, and the fact is that very very few people make minimum wage and only a few entry level jobs make close to it.

Banks. It is inefficient for one company to do all things. There are specialists and specializations and frankly it is likely that competition will emerge as anyone with a dollar can be a lender.

Yeah, not really no. Anti-usury laws are stupid, end of story. If somebody doesn't like their boss's deal then they can go to another bank or to their family or church or some other organization.

Ok. People should be able to sign whatever contract they want to anyway. Frankly, in all likelihood, in a modern organization the department of labor and lending would be separate.

Perhaps in an underdeveloped economy, but it is rather implausible in a developed economy. Trust me, I know about these historical examples, the real issue is that these examples exist in special cases in economic theory. As such, they do not build a strong case because they would not happen in different conditions such as a more developed economy or things of that nature.

Yeah, and in most of the areas where this stuff happens, life sucks period. End of story. Claiming that capitalism shows this evil really ends up being nonsensical as abnormally bad circumstances would be there no matter what system were in place.

No, the rich do not decide what is capitalistic. In fact, in many cases, things that the rich like are anti-capitalist. Capitalism isn't a system of appeasing rich people and corporations, but rather of competition and private ownership of capital.

I didn't mean no central government. In the US, the federal government's role keeps getting bigger and the states keep losing rights. What we need is the opposite. More power for the state and a smaller federal government.

Medieval Iceland was a very decentralized, agrarian economy - almost everyone were farmers. Not sure that it was a 'private' system of government, and the total size of the government was pretty small ... there were local councils and a general council (Althing or parliament) that met each year in the summer, and people traveled there for marriages, court cases, and to make laws.

And Friedman was not too excited about Iceland's general applicability; he said "It is difficult to draw any conclusion from the Icelandic experience concerning the viability of systems of private enforcement in the twentieth century." (http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/ ... eland.html)

E.Paul Durrenberger is the definitive scholar on medieval Iceland - I picked up a copy of his book "he Dynamics of Medieval Iceland: Political Economy & Literature" when I talked to him a decade or so ago at a conference in Atlanta.

Another good Iceland site? Real Iceland Travel photos and essays on modern Icelandic culture. I wish I was going back, but instead, the Icelanders are coming to visit me next month (9 of them, any way!).

Yes, of course these examples are from underdeveloped places - developed countries have minimum wages, laws that compel employers to pay in money, anti-usury laws, restrictions on working hours, health & safety regulations, a welfare state, the works - and these laws are generally enforced. Thus the market is not 'free' at all in these places but tightly restricted. Of course with such restrictions this slavery cannot happen, but nothing with such enforced legal restrictions can be plausibly labelled anarchy.
Banks wouldn't lend a penny to people that are poor and get paid in vouchers, and the whole point of the boss lending in those circumstances is to coerce the labour, rather than because the loans themselves are profitable.
People won't work so long only if they have options. And if employers are not compelled to pay overtime, why wouldn't they want more hours?
Franco was not laissez-faire, but he was a capitalist (private ownership of capital). Not all capitalism is laissez-faire. It is true that capitalists are not always in favour of laissez faire (US agribusiness being an obvious example).

Where did you get the notion that drug barons band together for mutual protection? Often they're powerful enough to more or less ignore the government and turn their guns on one another. And they do run their private armies with the aim of profit maximisation - to control markets, protect supplies, keep rivals out, make sure their partners keep their ends of the bargains and diversifying their sources of income into things like extortion and kidnappings.
I don't see why you should only compare Somalia to the very poorest countries in the world, it's completely arbitrary - Switzerland has fewer natural resources, for example (no access to the sea - but it's very well governed). By that logic, I could compare the US to Zurich and conclude the US is an economic failure. Or I could compare Zimbabwe to the Stone Age and conclude Robert Mugabe is an economic genius (actually, in a way he is - he's certainly not poor).
The rising middle class in China clearly has a vested interest in a system that produces double-digit growth - would they really prefer the peasants chose the country's leaders? Would foreign investors? The middle class has no political influence and has a vested interest in the system - it's a dependent class, in other words. Yes, laissez faire capitalism corrodes traditional leadership (which is why the Chinese have been so keen to unleash it on Tibet), but it doesn't necessarily replace tribal rule with democracy.
Inequality has increased throughout the Third World where trade barriers have been lowered and government-owned companies privatised (i.e. laissez faire). Sometimes it has brought rapid growth, sometimes stagnation, but increased inequality is a very general trend. Governments in these countries are no more corrupt than they've always been (the rising inequality is not the result of rising corruption). There are cases in which privatisations have led to a single individual owning several percentage points of GDP (nothing in that league has ever happened in the US).

I said very private, not private. Seats of law creation were literally up for sale, and all of their law was a matter between individuals, even murder was still a matter of individual decision and not public law, and murder cases could be resolved by the surviving victims and the murderer agreeing upon a certain restitution. That seems very private to me.

He was also not too disappointed either given his current political orientation, not only that, but simply the existence of Iceland's system is proof of some things.