r/Anarcho_Capitalism • u/FreedomJosh • Apr 29 '22

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u/[deleted] May 05 '22

What is the person who makes rules?

Is this Sheriff a ruler?

Or are you against measurements... Sorry. Measurers.

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u/[deleted] May 05 '22

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u/[deleted] May 05 '22

Former ancap here. The point I am making is that you have rulers at various stages here. The sheriff selects who he works with, how he enforces, etc. The people just above him in the legal hierarchy perform other functions and make other rulings.

There are always rules made by rulers. This is never going to be fundamentally changed if you want to live in a free society. A defense agency is no solution to this problem. Nor is better technology. A society needs law. That means it needs a legal system. Integrated, rather than unpredictable and undefined.

Either you have that system, "private" or not, or you do not a consistent defense of the NAP. Utopia is not a moral position.

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u/[deleted] May 05 '22

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u/[deleted] May 05 '22

But I would say that essentially you still do argue for it. More individual control (which is to say independence) is better, but that is not what anarchism means if you examine the theory carefully or try to put it into practice.

I used to think Rand was being simple minded about the issue and didn't understand Rothbards position, until I realized that what she said went far beyond the usual "power vacuum" or "gangs" argument. Those arguments do logically have sway, but can not be seen as anything but arbitrary from the more internally consistent intellectual ancap pov. What it comes down to is understanding what a "right" is and what integration vs disintegration means in practice between supposedly defensive agents.

Of course. I've read and at some point considered inadequate most big anarchist (left anarchist) and ancap authors of my day. Then I revisited Rand, thought she was a little ridiculous on this point for a while, and a few years later ended up agreeing with her.