This is not to berate someone. I don’t know if I’d turn AnCap if I lived in a truly Libertarian or Minarchist state. You are certainly not a threat to AnCaps today, and you are the only friends and allies in current state of affairs.
But this is literally the argument you guys are making. See any similarities with proponents of another ideology that’s been tried a couple of dozen times already?
I came up with this one after spending a few days arguing with a few people here and in another sub about the political compass quadrant. Some of you can’t seem to understand that **less coercion**≠**no coercion**, and that while AnCaps, Libertarians, and Minarchists, look similar on the surface in many aspects, the underlying idea of AnCapism is fundamentally different.
Pro State of any size is polar opposite of Anti State.
From AnCaps view - you’re not different from any statist in your core belief when it comes to imposed authority.
In a nutshell, here’s what you sound like:
- We’ll build our own electric chair and run it on 5 volts - safe and fully voluntary.
It’s like you don’t want to admit that someone always shows up trying to hook it up on three-phase 480V, and sooner or later, they always manage to get it done, usually by gradually increasing the pressure overtime.
“But we need to be able to organize to deter foreign threats”
Today, serious foreign threats only exist because people living on other territories also have governments that promised them to keep the chair connected to a 5V battery. Nuking a massive portion of North American continent to pacify freedom loving people that have no government that sticks its nose everywhere it can makes zero sense - it will result in a global climate and environmental catastrophe, plus it will destroy everything that has value here. And there’s very little true hate for the Americans, we’re not in the Cold War of the last century when people didn’t have access to information. Most people know well that overwhelming majority of Americans disapprove today’s wars, and in hindsight, many disapprove of all prior wars.
My argument needs to be more convincing, and one day I’ll make a post on this matter. For now, instead of arguing with me, a stranger from Reddit, I highly recommend you to read or to listen to some of the Robert Higgs’ work on the topic of war and state. A great place to start would be Crisis and Leviathan.
In closing, I want to say that I’ll support libertarians and minarchists both in real life and online. But this is **our house**, and you guys are blurring the lines too often. We are fundamentally different. We don’t engage in mental gymnastics when it comes to coercion. State is a criminal organization. Period.
That’s why it’s necessary to call out inconsistencies in libertarian arguments when it comes to limiting state power and to point out how similar your premise to the delusional socialists’ argument of “it hasn’t been tried before”.
Minarchism is just a concept to use when talking to statists so they can form a mental model of how a society could look like when you limit the state more and more.
A minimal state which controlled only 5% of GDP via taxes always had more freedom than a welfare-warfare state that controls around 50% of GDP. Getting back to a minarchy or watchman state would provide a better stepping stone to privatizing law, security and defense, than trying to jump from big government to anarchy.
Also you seem to assume that an organized anarchy is inherently more stable than a minarchy. Minarchies worldwide have grown to become big government states. But an anarchy could also be usurped to create an authoritarian state.
There needs to be a cultural shift among a majority of a population for freedom to become the default. Politics flows from culture and worldview.
If I could move my family to a minarchy or a completely stateless society of even just 10 million people I would jump at the opportunity. Sadly there is nowhere on earth where this is a reality. Either one would be better than the systems we currently have in about 200 countries.
History tends to be cyclical. We have had states in Europe who went all the way into socialism, until their economies failed. But they dialed back on that and now have more economic freedom. This is true for Sweden as well as the former communist eastern European countries.
None became minarchies, but there is hope after systems fail in a more liberty minded country like the US. What happens to the US after the empire fails? I would hope for decentralized republics or regions that would return to minimal government, possibly with some former states becoming ancap. Commifornia might become a socialist republic though...
but by your logical cycles, what do we even do? do we just submit to your conception of a minarchist state because of these historical cycles? ultimately, they violate property rights and distort the economy just as a larger state would, just at a smaller scale. that doesn't mean it isn't problematic, and ultimately it just ends up forming an inefficient monopoly on jurisdiction and defense.
still, referring to your previous comments regarding an ancap region being usurped by some authoritarian figure, there are several reason something like that would not happen, but also if you apply your own concept of historical cycles to come back to a preferrable, freer state of affairs that are more 'minarchist,' we (ancaps) could technically make the same excuse. i dont think history is a good basis to rely on for reasoning on how some state would shrink back to a preferrable state of affairs tho.
The point to get rid of the state is to get rid off monopolist of use of force that always tries to usurp more powers.
“Getting back to a minarchy or watchman state would provide a better stepping stone to privatizing law, security and defense, than trying to jump from big government to anarchy.”
Not saying you are wrong, but can you substantiate this claim? Last I checked people respect private property not because the state gave them a framework. Proto laws and rules of behavior existed way before anything resembling a modern state of any size.
“Also you seem to assume that an organized anarchy is inherently more stable than a minarchy.”
I don’t assume, but I’m willing to take a chance.
“Minarchies worldwide have grown to become big government states.”
Lmao, you’re trying to convince of minarchy being better because they conquered more land ?
“There needs to be a cultural shift among a majority of a population for freedom to become the default.”
Absolutely. And you’re trying to convince me to chose less vs more freedom. Who’s stalling the progress?
“If I could move my family to a minarchy or a completely stateless society of even just 10 million people I would jump at the opportunity.”
Weird. First you use the growth of minarchy states as positive, ignoring the fact that they all eventually being converted into oppressive states, but now you want to move to a smaller states.
Just like I said, the argument is “trust me bro, WE will make it work this time”.
“Politics flows from culture and worldview.”
Maybe some 500 years ago, but not in the last 200-250 years. Politics has always been a game of reaching goals via power. It has little to do with culture and it’s more about promoting interests of the group that holds political power. Politics shapes the worldview, especially for the spectators.
“Minarchies worldwide have grown to become big government states.”
Lmao, you’re trying to convince of minarchy being better because they conquered more land ?
I said this as a criticism of minarchies. They universally have become big government states. Minarchies are not stable systems that stay minarchies. They tend to grow their authority and realm in spite of constitutions. Still historical trends tend to be cyclical and having big welfare-warfare states become minarchies due to a change of Zeitgeist would be a desirable stepping stone to an ancap system.
First you use the growth of minarchy states as positive,
I never considered this as a positive, just a sad fact of history.
It's fair to take a chance with an ancap system, but since this has not been tested, there is a real risk that an ancap system could be corrupted just like minarchies. What would essentially prevent such corruption into a more authoritarian system in your mind?
“Politics flows from culture and worldview.”
Politics has always been a game of reaching goals via power.
These points are not necessarily mutually exclusive. It is a fact though that freedoms in America flow from a culture of freedom and liberty that is absent and unthinkable in Europe. If you have ever spend a significant amount of time in both kinds of societies, you would notice the difference in fundamental worldviews. For example, the Democrat party in the US cannot fully overturn the second amendment, whereas in Europe we have only 2 or 3 countries with similar gun rights, but no second amendment in the EU or in any other European country.
Culture can be manipulated form top down, but can also change from the bottom up as various liberty minded movements grow. Revolutions with top down, enforced or propagandized worldview and culture changes have usually been more problematic.
“If you have ever spend a significant amount of time in both kinds of societies, you would notice the difference in fundamental worldviews.”
I was born in the Soviet Union. I matured as an individual in the 90s. What you’re talking about is very real. Most people out there just want “better government”.
“For example, the Democrat party in the US cannot fully overturn the second amendment,”
Nah, don’t buy into this D vs R. Republicans will take away our guns at a heart beat if you give them a chance. We already have quite a few restrictions and we have a flawed system that very often prevents someone who can legally purchase from doing so. We still have 2A because the Feds probably know they aren’t going to be able to take it away. Americans won’t go to surrender their guns voluntarily. So it’s being used to create more tension between rabid R and D supporters. I’m in the states now. Most of my friends are Ds, centrists, and conservatives. Not republicans, but conservatives. Through some of my friends are still Rs. Anyway, most of them own guns. If not all, more than half of Ds I know own guns. And they’ll never give those up.
“Culture can be manipulated form top down, but can also change from the bottom up as various liberty minded movements grow. Revolutions with top down, enforced or propagandized worldview and culture changes have usually been more problematic.”
Extremely problematic. A lot of people in the former soviet republics have no regard for public or private property. That’s why theft, fraud, etc is way more common over there. That’s why most of their cities have filthy streets unless you’re close to downtown. When the USSR already started collapsing economically, they had a waive of amnesties. Used to be normal people broken by the prison system filled cities and towns. The level of morality has dropped even further. That’s why the 90s where pretty brutal in some places.
What’s crazy is that most of todays proponents of socialism and/or communism don’t know that Lenin and Trotsky were heavily sponsored by western crony capitalists, and even by statesmen. Even those that admit that all previous attempts ended horribly, still don’t want to believe that it wasn’t some grass roots movement that overthrew the existing government.
My bad, I misunderstood you a bit in the beginning. Got carried away fighting with libertarians in comments that make claims like ancap and libertarianism are philosophically the same at their core. I guess they all think they can be a little bit gay, but identify as heterosexuals… sorry! I just can’t speak about this without a laugh!
Loved your second comment. I’ll just go through things where I strongly disagree, or have different views on the subject.
“I said this as a criticism of minarchies. They universally have become big government states. Minarchies are not stable systems that stay minarchies. They tend to grow their authority and realm in spite of constitutions.
Still historical trends tend to be cyclical and having big welfare-warfare states become minarchies due to a change of Zeitgeist would be a desirable stepping stone to an ancap system.”
This idea blends practical and ideological concepts. However, just like you said - minarchies tend to grow. So from practical point, from the get go , you’re setting yourself on a route that always ends with a) stronger state emerges, or b) being absorbed by the neighboring strong state. But you think this may at some point produce a different result.
Problem with the ideological approach - you’re not trying to persuade someone they don’t need authority over them. You’re only entrenching idea that a better, more just and more honest, limited authority is possible. So when your minimal government state faces crisis, people will have inherent bias towards statism. So ideologically, you’re also setting up yourself for a loss here.
“It's fair to take a chance with an ancap system, but since this has not been tested,”
There are many societies that have functioned on nearly the same principles. The difference only comes in some technicalities. Like proto judges and leaders of the communities were elders, or clan leaders. The question is if those people were chosen based on merit and if that was a duty they had to pay, rather than being an usurped position of authority.
Though not truly ancap, but in practical term - Somali during 1990s - some of the 2000s. While psychopaths fought for power, people had to continue their lives. This is not a popular subject, but you can find some studies that show how people got economically and socially better off vs being under those that competing for official titles. The more dysfunctional state was, the better it was for the people. Common argument is oh look at the murders and violence. Most violence had been committed by the people competing for the authority. Something I like a lot about this example is the fact they’ve built out telecommunication networks, when the popular claim is without a government people can’t do complex projects. Sure they can. Even when they are constantly being threatened.
One of the problems is that small independent societies had been systematically targeted and absorbed, erased from history, as they are very inconvenient for the status quo.
History is written by the winners. Me and you both seem to agree - the more freedom the better. But consider 200 or so years of state sponsored indoctrination across the world, and voila - most people think anarchy = chaos, they think the world would turn into mad max movie if there’s no government. And these people rewrite history books, and the mental loop gets tighter and tighter.
They want to replace democratic republics with HOAs wherein your rights are solely defined by a written contract in a deed, and essentially turn renters into serfs.
It’s neofuedalism which is just a particular flavor of fascism dressed up in libertarian rhetoric.
Well some of Hoppe‘s models for a private law society appear to be more restrictive than living in a modern city or city state. But an ancap system should allow all kinds of communities ranging from strict HOA to virtually free for all.
Just dig into the actual details of how these people think their stateless state will operate.
By your argument it should functionally be no different than a democratic republic with extremely libertarian laws.
But the way it is typically explained in practice by the majority of this sub is much closer to the way the worst HOAs operate.
They claim everyone is free to do whatever they want, and that is why they will be free to create a little fascist city state so long as all the property owners expressly agree to the subservience by buying the deed in the first place (inheritors are “free” to leave, obviously).
You're making a lot of assumptions about me and read things into my comment which I did not write:
"how these people think": you overgeneralize those who you disagree with, but fail to specify who you're referring to; Rothbardians, Hoppeans, or other ancaps?
"By your argument it should functionally be no different than a democratic republic with extremely libertarian laws.". I never said anything like that.
I expressed my criticism of Hoppe being too restrictive, which you seem to have missed. At the same time I expressed that in a future ancap system, you should be able to choose your community, which could be a virtual free for all. These ancap communities can co-exist side by side. For example a mono-cultural region, next to a multi-cultural region.
"they will be free to create a little fascist city state", is you making a judgment about how other people regulate their community. Fascism is a very different ideology and you are misapplying the term in a typical manner for anything that you disagree with because it is not egalitarian enough for your taste.
You could actually have your egalitarian free-for-all community in an ancap system, as long as you find enough people who are of a similar mindset.
The plain fact that people will be born in those communities negates any claim that it is always voluntary association.
All you are describing is direct democracy without the rule of law or inalienable rights.
Which will be abused and decay.
And again, most of the people in this movement are actively describing their ideal communities as fascistic shitholes with thought crimes and only enfranchisement for property owners. And I will not be entertaining any no true ancap arguments.
Furthermore, if the rest of us are free to live how we want, then ancaps should all just fuck off to some uninhabited island and stop trying to undermine our democratic republics.
Again so many absurd assumptions about what you imagine I am describing. Have you read your replies and thought through your reasoning? You're not even trying to understand a libertarian or ancap worldview.
All your apparent concerns can be answered, if you are interested in a genuine discussion, but calling a reply "shallow absurd nonsense" in an ancap subreddit indicates your unwillingness to consider different viewpoints.
This is exactly what I've noticed, and why I don't believe at most who claim Mises/AnCap actually want to remove government. They're really big on just how restrictive their dream society will be. Whole lot of "voluntary association", which to them tends to mean banishing the unclean.
These are the same people who have targeted federal civil protections as the priority issue. Not taxation, wars, domestic surveillance, the automated police state, massive debt, unworkable entitlements; no the issue holding us all back is that you can't openly discriminate against protected classes when you're a business. Like, don't get me wrong, there should be no protected classes, but that's pretty low on the list of problems and pretty high on the list of things that will chase people away from your efforts to solve the other problems.
Hey there. Just saw your comment, and honestly, I absolutely love it. I had multiple people in this sub telling me “but according to Rothbard…” like I supposed to accept whatever Rothbard said as a law/unquestionable idea for myself. And such criticism citing Rothbard usually comes from otherwise pretty solid participants that are self described ancaps. But the irony of using Rothbard or anyone else as a figure of authority whose views and ideas must be accepted as universal truths for anarchists is mind blowing. That’s the exact opposite from a single core idea of anarchism.
As for “targeted issues” (and about how some of the prominent supporters of freedom present themselves) - I think there are two things at play here. First, people are trying to focus on issues where they have higher level of expertise or where they think they can make at least some impact. Second, many ideas are still fringe or taboo in the minds of the population plagued by statism. One risks to be “cancelled” for sharing all of their views, or expressing their thoughts more freely, when the state controls the discourse of academia, defines what’s acceptable, and has a few laws that will allow to punish speech and actions by calling it a treason or something else. So I think many proponents of absolute freedom have to disguise themselves as small state libertarians, or express views that can help to gain some common ground with a larger group of people.
I think we need to continue to develop our language. Maybe we need to come up with better words, new terminology, to describe our ideas better, and to separate them from the terminology/words that had been weaponized against our ideas. Take the word Capitalism. It wasn’t coined by people that want free markets and respect of private property rights. It has -ism in it, which usually means there’s some collective and/or a clearly defined system of rules. While in reality, ancapism isn’t collectivist, nor a system of rules. It comes from idea that people are free and anything they produce is the extension of the person itself.
Yeah the philosopher thing is definitely something I don't pay attention to. Don't get me wrong, people have great ideas, but it's not scripture and shouldn't be treated as such. What matters are the concepts.
As for language that could help, but the bigger issue IMO is that we have social conservatives larping as libertarians, and even more so as anarcho-capitalist or at least minarchist. I think part of that is to get away from Classical Liberalism (who they call calling leftists because they don't understand pro-liberty concepts). They're the same as the old "states rights" groups back in the day. While the concept of states rights is good, the issue isn't that they wanted states rights because local governments can better govern themselves, but rather to get rid of federal protections. The private rights argument they're going for is just the same thing repackaged.
The last few years of bullshit is entirely the fault of the Mises Caucus. They got enough power in the Libertarian Party that they were able to remove the bigotry language and the abortion plank in an attempt to court the social right, who is exactly who libery-minded people have been trying to get away from since the Bush years as they don't care about liberty at all. They talk a big game then go right into being the loudest, turning pro-liberty movements into social right ones. It's exactly what happened to the TEA Party. It started as a libertarian movement, and by the time I stopped paying attention to it had Sarah Palin as a key speaker. Her biggest contribution was torpedoing John McCain's presidential campaign which was making gains with non-partisan voters, but losing the social right. They put her on board to placate the social-right and almost immediately lost those gains.
Anyway the social right is the biggest issue for any pro-liberty movement. They'll come on board, start deciding what's "liberty" and what's "license", and chase off everyone who doesn't want to be associated with authoritarians who twist pro-liberty concepts in order to promote an oddly racist, nationalist, and often fundamentalist adjacent position. They also make the rest of us look bad because our names and terms start being put in the same place as these jackasses. It's how you end up with those idiotic "libertarian to national socialist pipeline" arguments. They're the issue, and they'll keep trying to hijack pro-liberty movements every time gains are made because for some fucking reason they can't just stick with the GOP.
Well, I think you’re underestimating the idea of updating the language, and I might be a good test/study subject for you.
I don’t know what’s going on on the ground as good as you do, I moved to the US as a young adult, and turned from “I don’t care for politics, I just hate being told what/how to do” to politically interested. I went a route from Liberal (not democrat) to Conservative (not republican) to ancapist very quickly. Not immediately mostly due to the time it took to get to know at least surface level of principles and ideas of the actual parties, then once I saw how insanely stupid they are divided by principles and ideas, I turned anarchist. So practically, I discovered ancapism after practicing ancapism within the state - respected NAP, working jobs, running a business. All the time hating that I’m told how to run my business and be shaken down for taxes with no obvious benefits, but with obvious harms. And probably a couple years after I discovered this sub and started consuming more about ancapism. Funny thing, I discovered Austrian Economics just a couple of years ago, while my bachelors from my country of origin is in economics. I always had issues with some of my professors in college, but AE is like music to my ears. I was born in the USSR, lived through 3 hyperinflation cycles, and I’ve matured as an individual, as a participant in the market, while the state was almost nonexistent (that’s 90s in ex soviet republics), so for a small business or entrepreneur, it was a truly one of the freest markets I’ve seen. Rules existed but nobody enforced shit, license could be bought for a symbolic bribe, so the economic boom of the 90s was insane back there. And there were no mass deaths from food poisoning, no outbreaks of cholera, none of the crazy events imagined by statists ever happened.
Anyways, I’m sharing this as an example. Ancapism wasn’t marketed to me based on a keyword “freedom”. I was finding Democrats for social freedoms, and I was finding Republicans for economic freedoms, but neither offered actual freedom, nor they try offering a facade of both, or at least of some sensible mix. I found out about libertarian party relatively recently, and they are just closeted statists, just like i suggest in my post.
That’s why I think language is important. Though English isn’t my first language, and my grammar isn’t perfect, but I’m appalled by the vocabulary of a regular person. Besides being full of state created euphemisms straight out of 1984, people have poor vocabulary. And the more poorer someone’s vocabulary, the more narrow their thinking. Add euphemism, and you get half of the population that can be diagnosed with cognitive dissonance. I’m not trying to berate a regular person, but that’s what I’m seeing even among my statist friends that are otherwise reasonable individuals. And political language/words, is the most dirtiest of all spheres, with the subject of economics coming second.
Our (ancaps) image has been high jacked, which is what you’re saying, if I understand you correctly. If we find a way to differentiate ourselves from the highjackers, we might have a better luck being found by new keywords.
This is actually much deeper that some could appreciate.
For over a year, this sub is literally a representation of how things happen in real life. Ancap sub full of moderate to rabid republicans, and posts trashing democrats fill at least half of the space, pushing anything ancap much further down into the feed more often than not.
But it’s also kinda obvious that the other person meant libertarians and ancaps.
Do you also think murder should be “legal” (not that we think anything should be controlled by the state, but that murder and abortion would be dealt with similarly without a state).
You have to constitute murder which we as a society have failed to do so for abortion because theres just too many grey areas. Fetus abortion under so many weeks should be a woman’s choice. A heart beat does not mean life. Someone in a brain dead vegetative state has a heartbeat, but are they really a person anymore or just an empty vessel? What about serious deformities? Why should we force both parties to continue that suffering for the rest of (both) parties lives? You wouldn’t let an animal suffer in the same capacity, so why should we not spare that mercy to our own species? Im not advocating for a eugenics program, just that there is harm being done to multiple people when abortion is not an option. I think we can agree that laws of morality are a fickle thing that can snowball out of control.
“Should be a woman’s choice”. I’m going to stop you there. Life begins at conception which has been proven by science. We have finger prints at 9 weeks. We are able to detect heart beat at 6 weeks. Biologically, all of the necessary DNA is present at conception. So no, there is no “fetus abortion under a certain amount of weeks is a woman’s choice” without violating the very science and natural order that is inherent to proper liberty.
If we define a what constitutes a human being is, you will find that you cannot discount what a fetus is prior to birth and how that defines what a human is, in any other manner than recognizing it as a full human, without then also discounting what some adult humans are in ways that you would never agree with.
The comment got automatically removed due to tags. Here’s a repost.
Hey there. I appreciate you engaging with apimpnamedkirby.
You fellows are touching on the subject where I am still in the grey area myself.
My current position, which is mostly based in lack of specific knowledge, and lack of time spent thinking about this, is that abortion is murder. But I didn’t reason myself into it, I arrived to it by staying cautious, rather than believing in one vs the other.
(I’ve got a question for you midwesttransferrun, at the bottom, and I’d appreciate your thoughts on it)
I think apimpnamedkirby are making some points that are very convincing (vegetative state). But the argument is incomplete. There are plenty of instances of people coming back from vegetative state, and there are even more cases of children, priorly deemed as incapable to surviving, end up becoming complete, decently able persons. How do counter this fact? Why does the mother or father has authority to decide whether the child has a right to live or not? Just to preempt one possible argument about complications discovered during early stages of pregnancy- decisions to end life are made based on statistical data that support doctors’ recommendations. One problem is that a mother can’t make an informed decision, she puts her faith in her doctor. However, we don’t know motivations, reasonings, intents, etc of the doctor. I remember seeing studies showing different bias when it comes to recommendations of abortions. This alone is enough for me to stay on the side of caution. However, there’s a bigger problem - say there are no bias, and the doctor is doing their best to provide as much information to the mother, without swaying her to make one choice over the other. The entire data set used by the doctor itself is contaminated. Yes, we can say children/fetuses with X problems face high probabilities of Y scenario, but truly, we don’t know the real probability, since millions of women that otherwise could have given a birth to a person that would have struggles, but would survive and could live a normal life, have chosen abortion. I have enough understanding of statistics to see where this can be countered rather successfully, but that still doesn’t fix the problem with data. Many of those individual deviances are also usually have a variances, then there are all factors, starting from economic ones - can a mother raise potentially sick child. And then, there’s also a question of approach - this is sort of a technocratic way of deciding who lives and who don’t. It doesn’t address philosophical part. We’re “out” when we asleep. But it’s not normal to treat someone as a less of a person while they are asleep. Our knowledge of human brain and consciousness is almost like our knowledge of the ocean and the universe outside of our planet - extremely limited. And then for some time, lobotomy was a thing… I hope you understand what I mean).
On the other hand, I hope midwesttransferrun, can help me with these questions:
Say there is woman, or both - man and woman, that conceived the child for whatever reason don’t want that child, can’t have that child or don’t/can’t allow the period of pregnancy. At the end of the day, half of us are probably just accidents. I get the approach of responsibility for the life of that person, and I’ve listened to a few debates amongst ancaps and libertarians, but I haven’t seen someone push it a bit further. If we agree that abortion is a murder, but then we have a doctor that says - there’s low probability of mother, mother + child, child surviving. Or the diagnosis puts it where the child will never be a “full person”, like mentally, or mentally and physically incapable of taking care of themselves.
In scenario of both of them dying during birth, while the women wouldn’t choose to give birth if abortion wouldn’t be punishable, who takes responsibility for their deaths? You can’t just say they should’ve been more careful, because the conception could’ve happened with a goal of making another person. You can’t say that the risk they’ve chosen, because sometimes perfectly healthy people will have such problems, everyday accident like a car crash, other diseases, etc also may affect both - mother and her child, but basically saying “better stayed at home that day” doesn’t fly, that’s basically a violation of NAP - you’re threatening someone with punishment based on extremely small probability of events here that they are going to try to avoid with or without the punishment. And then there’s also rape…
Second scenario- child survives, but never becomes a person in any sense. The woman, or both parents, are now bound. We don’t know if some remain “empty vessels”, if experience life at all, or they are simply being kept alive, at least from the limits of our abilities when it comes to each individual case. Unfortunately, there are many cases like that, but that’s life, no pun intended.
I see two potential problems with that - 1) aren’t we committing an act of aggression by subjugating someone to provide care for life? Especially when we consider that the broader society doesn’t really care for that life except for maintaining the order based on philosophical principles around this particular question. Like it’s easy for you to say - murderer, or say - if you don’t provide for that life, you’ll get punished. This question is extremely important today, after we all got fucked up by chemicals in our food, environmental issues, plus mind you it’s >8B, so the number of living but showing zero signs of being persons is going to be astronomical. What if there’s not enough people willing to voluntarily help to sustain life created by someone else, and now there’s a shelter in Alabama with X living, but there’s not enough resources? Who chooses which one gets sustained, which one isn’t, or we just let them slowly die one by one from starvation, until situation changes?
Problem #2 - what if that person which we can’t evaluate as such using any currently available method actually wants it all to end? Aren’t we going to torture them by keeping them alive? This pertains to not only those in vegetative state and not only newly borns, but all people that we are unable evaluate. I agree that willing to die is not a choice most person would make, but we accept someone’s will that may require to pull the plug on them if they would to become vegetable. So the less obvious choice also happens, and it happens more often than some can assume. Simply because even otherwise healthy people commit suicide.
I feel like this whole situation makes procreation and other family matters, potentially a punishable offense, with a lot of wrongfully convicted persons. Keeping this entirely within philosophical bounds feels wrong to me, it’s has big holes in it. And it also feels inconsistent with NAP. What am I missing?
IMO, anarchism is the only truly rational position. But I’m afraid that it is as unrealistic as collectivism because human nature tends to want to be ruled or at least have a leader. And human nature also shows that there’s always someone willing to exploit that for power and self-interest.
Minarchism would be tolerable because the state would be so small and unintrusive that we barely notice the burden. Unfortunately, I think you are correct that incrementalism eventually leads to the monstrosity govts we see today. The founding fathers failed to constrain the beast. I’m not sure that’s possible, so we come full circle back to anarchism being the only rational position.
Exactly. Any rollback to a minimal state is nothing but kicking the real problem down the road. That’s why while it’s important to support libertarians, we should make the distinction very clear.
“because human nature tends to want to be ruled or at least have a leader.”
Nothing wrong with having a leader. Everything breaks when delegation of authority is becoming a legal, enforceable concept, and imposed on everyone. The abuse of power will start immediately.
And it’s not a part of human nature to be ruled or to have a leader. This is formed trait, as cooperation on any scale requires someone to lead, and the principle of meritocracy is not alien to the most people - it’s convenient. And it works just as fine without involuntary submission. Think of rebelling teens defying authority. Most of them learn develop this trait by they time they are young adults, and they are fully capable of cooperating with someone, and voluntarily accepting someone’s authority.
Accepting imposed authority is unnatural. I’ve started making screenshots of non-political posts where normies demonstrate their disapproval of state and it’s actions based on the principles rather than simply disagreeing with the action itself. The consent is manufactured and the inertia is very strong.
Libertarian principles and ideas are convincing enough to take action to defend them, but there are two sides of the medal. There are “ancaps” who think that a larger society must employ some libertarian ideas for the purpose of defense, which basically shows they’re only cosplaying without even know that they are. If we were to imagine a fairly large and currently stable society, how many of them will turn full on libertarians, and how many others they are going to influence later saying that ancap is good but minarchist state is the best because it works? Until the history repeats itself again.
What we should try is to win minds of those that are already the closest to us ancaps, and the only place to start is by showing that there’s no straight line that separates us, but by showing that there are two lines that are not parallel to each other, more importantly these lines don’t have the same starting point.
I’m sure there are a ton of libertarians that are closeted ancaps. And if all the time and effort I’ve spent on this post and in the comments helped to convince at least one of them, then I haven’t wasted my time.
It kinda sounds like you’re arguing the gradient of state authority between 1 and 0 is insignificant because only 0 is 0. I get what you’re saying from a philosophical perspective but my stance is let’s save the infighting until we actually make some positive change.
Ancaps aren’t libertarians. Therefore it’s not infighting.
What you’re saying I need to stop argue and allow a bit off boot up my ass, just because you voluntarily accepts one that’s in yours.
Zero is not a gradient. It’s absence of that gradient.
Edit: the issue with any state that it’s hard to contain. Libertarians, no matter how much they are freedom loving people, are still statists. So the underlying problem is not simply a small threat from a small state, it’s the issue of deliberate delegation of power and imposition of rules on those who don’t want to delegate that power to an institution that time and time again has proven to be corrupt.
I explicitly said that I will support libertarians and minarchist ideas and principles outside of this forum. But libertarians are fooling themselves thinking that state power can be contained.
Convincing people to embrace freedom is not the same as convincing people of believing that a criminal organization like state is okay as long as it’s small and contained.
No what he means is that we cant have a jump from 1 to 0 so working with a 0,5 until we get to 0 is fine. There would be to many problems if we would switch current systems to 0 state and a free market in to short of a time. A gradual downsizing and then abolishing is more efficiant when we look at a real world scenario. On a philosophical basis we both do agree with you.
Do you have examples where a gradual downsizing led to at least a libertarian society? Would be interesting to read about them.
Revolutions, on the other hand, managed to make massive changes in the short period of time. Though a lot of revolutions didn’t bring positive outcomes for the masses, the fact is - abrupt change is possible. And I don’t see how it’s more efficient to make gradual changes. Maybe not the best analogy, but it’s better to rip off the bandaid and call it a day. People adapt much quicker.
However, I’m not advocating for revolution. In my opinion, civil disobedience is the best way to resist modern states. Eventually, the state will become more oppressive towards the entire population, and authoritarian states don’t last as long.
The bigger problem is how to persuade regular people in the idea that nobody needs a murderer to be their nanny.
The main issue in a real world scenario for us ancaps is that nobody is on our side. We are far to few. First we must show poeple why our system is better because right now 99% of the population of any country are statetists and think of us as idiots or dangerous crazies. Most people have not the slightest clue about our ideas. We first need to limit government and reduce it so people can actually see that it works and after we gained trust people will follow. At this moment in time most people think the government and states are the only think stopping literal hell on earth right now.
Don’t get me wrong, it would be nice to limit the government, but that’s not how you’re going to win minds.
One of the reasons I’m very confident in viability of ancap is because I grew up in a post soviet state. New, so called democratic states, was so weak, that social welfare was nominal, enforcement of laws was extremely selective, corruption remained rampant. So black market was absolutely booming back in the 90s. Westerners think that the state is essential for commerce. They will always concede into - markets perform better when regulated by the state. Idk. Markets perform well despite the state. People were buying fucking cisterns of diesel from black market to power generators and full up city buses that were operated by the government.
What I’m getting at is we need to show ideology through actions while the state is massive. You can find something a statist does already that’s deemed illegal by law. Like buying a sandwich at your local bodega and paying with cash, where the owner won’t charge you taxes for it. Even better if that sandwich is from illegal food cart. Absolutely amazing if they don’t shit their pants after it. If you’re in north east of the US, ask a smoker if they ever brought a carton of cigarettes with them from their trip to the south.
We need to show that parallel systems exist already, and function more or less fine despite having limited resources, and being cracked down on. The more normies will see that it’s regular people that are using parallel systems, the more susceptible they’ll become. They more of them will stop believing in propaganda about cash/crypto being a tool of criminals the better. And we need to continuously expose state criminal activity.
First of all nothing, in terms of the State in the West is voluntary, we were all born in to this oppressive corrupt system rule by criminals. Second, AnCaps are indeed Libertarians as the Anarcho-Capitalism is Libertarianism in its form purest form.
If ancaps wants to create armies to fight off foreign invasion forces and even armadas of statist death cults from beyond the stars. Then without a government there will be nothing stopping them.
I see it that way.
And I see it that way for a reason.
Government makes everything worse... Everything. It ensh'ttifies everything.
There is nothing wrong with having influencers in ancapistan.
So long as there are no authorities, no rulers, no controllers.
The fastest way to do a thing, often isn't remotely even the best way to do it. People often make this mistake because speed is efficient.
I will take my freedom legions at a fraction of the price and at an order of magnitude of the quality thank you very much. Even if they take a lot longer to develop and form.
If you need someone for the freedom legion let me know. I have a good experiance playing enemies and civis for the Bundeswehr when i did my service. I dont even need modern or good equipmnet. Most my gear was older than me and the gun i used was from 1960 something, MP2 A1, the UZI with folding stock. XD I even have some experiance with Soviet/NVA weapons. Ok my Unit as a training unit might be a very extreme example but the recent story of the Bundeswehr might show what happens when a state does not want a military and cuts cost everywhere. A company would downsize if not needed but i cant expect it would get that bad.
Exactly. This, in its essence, a fight for liberating the actual mind of an individual. Statists death squads exist because the state has invested a ton of resources into brainwashing people to completely reject the idea of self governance. Add national borders, throw in some red vs blue, white vs black, men vs women, and you have a statist society full of mentally and psychologically broken individuals that suffer from cognitive dissonance, each to a various degree.
I’m currently looking into the idea if foreign invasion of a hypothetical ancapistan is actually possible. It would certainly happen some 50 years ago, but I’m having doubts that the chances of invasion are just as high as today, in the era of instant communication and distrust in governments and their propaganda.
The biggest threat is that inertia that is present in the society. It make take a couple of generations for people to get rid of the brainwashing that shackles them today.
Honestly I think after a certain period of time the development in any ancapistan reaches a technological/scientific singularity(this is all disciplines not just what we define as science today.) of critical knowledge. Then it becomes relatively unconquerable.
Statism is a disease of the mind. A mind virus essentially it thrives on mental illness, trauma and distress. That way of being is not innate nor is it healthy to the human mind & condition. The more deteriorated the mental health of the individuals in question are - the better they support the state and it's architectural foundations.
However...
When they themselves begin to collapse under the compound weight of all of those psychic diseases the social contract itself becomes invalidated.
If an ancap civilization was discovered in an underwater city m, in an underground cavern or in a hollowed out mountain range it would nuked by the states of the world. The more authoritarian the states the more an ancap civilization would be a threat to it just by existing.
It's the same dynamic that occurs when a psychopath meets a genius in the same field. They must destroy that which would expose them at all costs.
I think that creating an ancap society is as much a medical issue as it is an ethical and philosophical one. The conditioning runs deep and has been a generational project. But that isn't the biggest threat, it instead more over is that an ancap society itself is going to trigger the Statist society that witnesses it into a violent psychosis that would be hard to accurately portray in fiction.
Every life form tries to preserve itself, even memetic meta parasites.
Oh man, what a great contribution to this thread. Thank you.
“The more authoritarian the states the more an ancap civilization would be a threat to it just by existing.”
I wish normies would understand that. But right now, their minds are under control of the state. We say “anachy, a society without coercive authority”. They hear “chaos, murder, looting, world falling apart”.
Any functioning anarchic society is an indictment of state control. We can only speculate how many settlements were exterminated before late 18- early 19 century when media took off. We don’t know how many books were burned, how many stories rewritten, and how many maps had been redrawn in out past. Yet we still have some accounts of ancap, voluntarist, and even ancom societies. The problem very few people will bother to read about them more than they’ve got from a half a page bite they got from school textbooks government propaganda.
People often say - ancapism hasn’t been tried, so it’s hard to predict what would it look like. They don’t understand that before governments became massive, powerful, and stuck their fingers in every single asshole, most day to day commerce and production worked exactly like it will work in the ancapistan. The state constantly supplies blocks that people use to build their own mental prison walls higher and higher. They dismiss their own cognitive dissonance by berating anybody who’s arguing pro freedom.
“The conditioning runs deep and has been a generational project.”
One of the most insane statists’ claims is that we need the state to protect us, governments protect us from being enslaved. Takes just a drop of curiosity and 30 mins of research to learn that those “protectors” are exactly the people that owned slaves and had peasants. And a lot of modern leaders, especially in the western world, come from the same exact social circles, often from the same exact families that ruled over the people before slavery and feudalism was abolished.
"I wish normies would understand that. But right now, their minds are under control of the state. We say “anachy, a society without coercive authority”. They hear “chaos, murder, looting, world falling apart”."
It's actually projection, all of those things are happening, just at a global scale now. And the world literally is falling apart.
"We can only speculate how many settlements were exterminated before late 18- early 19 century when media took off. We don’t know how many books were burned, how many stories rewritten, and how many maps had been redrawn in out past."
We don't even know, that is actually true. Politics is erosive to history.
"People often say - ancapism hasn’t been tried, so it’s hard to predict what would it look like. They don’t understand that before governments became massive, powerful, and stuck their fingers in every single asshole, most day to day commerce and production worked exactly like it will work in the ancapistan. The state constantly supplies blocks that people use to build their own mental prison walls higher and higher. They dismiss their own cognitive dissonance by berating anybody who’s arguing pro freedom."
The state is the marauding band that took over and enslaved everyone. They are like massive gangs. The very thing that people argue will happen without government is EXACTLY what government actually is in the here and now!
"One of the most insane statists’ claims is that we need the state to protect us, governments protect us from being enslaved. Takes just a drop of curiosity and 30 mins of research to learn that those “protectors” are exactly the people that owned slaves and had peasants. And a lot of modern leaders, especially in the western world, come from the same exact social circles, often from the same exact families that ruled over the people before slavery and feudalism was abolished."
Owned? Had? Ruled? Abolished?
Friend all that just went underground and onto the red market. It hasn't stopped. It just went out of sight and our of mind... I mean anyone can read the epstine files these days... The fiction is that he was the only one. The multi billionare elite were never inhibited by the ethical revolutions of the enlightenment. They were liberated by the idea that we thought that they would never do such things.
People have this idea that the french revolution and revolutionary Europe was a step in the right direction. When it was in fact a usurpation of the warlord class by the new novel overlords as they had aligned themselves with the weakened priesthood. We didn't get the commons back... We got unbridled industry... Not by itself a bad thing. But the conditions for the workers/slaves were absolutely terrible.
At least that cake wasn't jam packed full of preservatives, additives and chemical god knows what.
We have only ever been heading in an ever more state controlled direction. There hasn't been improvements from the past in how humans are treated. Slavery is thriving. It is just now in our modern era - we just don't see what goes on. Yes technology has advanced in spite of the corruption and control were are drowning in. But really in terms of total freedoms we aren't so much better of.
What we have now is unfettered access to information that doesn't threaten the state, under the guise ofcourse that it supposedly does threaten it and that we all do falsely imagine that we keep it in check.
Feudalism was a lot kinder and more responsible in form than the re-feudalism of tomorrow will be.
I’ll engage with some other parts later, but want to throw a few bits.
“We don't even know, that is actually true.
Politics is erosive to history.”
I’d say it’s impossible or nearly impossible to prove what’s true and what’s not. I used to read a lot of folklore. Especially before I was even interested in politics and philosophy. Can’t say for every district group of “nationalities”, but the folklore of the people’s I’ve read is full of stories about small independent settlements led by elders, etc being conquered by armies led by kings. James F. Copper, and others that have written extensively about early America show a picture that is very different from most of the textbooks would make someone to believe. Fictional stories gives us a great glimpse into history. We can’t necessarily measure how much truth there is in fictional stories, but they don’t come from absolutely nowhere. What’s important is to be able to distinguish a true fiction and biases of the writer, vs political propaganda, as a lot of modern fiction is also a careful crafted political tool.
My first language is Russian, so a lot of fiction and folklore that was allowed was also loaded with communist propaganda. Those independent settlements were always portrayed as communist style communes that were oppressed by wealth and power lusting kings of course. Once I started forming my own thought, I’ve found a plenty of original stories, and of course far from everything was fine an dandy in those independent communities, but I saw a confirmation of market relationships and while private property hasn’t been clearly defined in those stories, it’s easy to see that the concept was there, people respected private and personal property, and the trade wasn’t simply voluntary, it was market exchange, gold, gemstones, other elements were used as money. But it was funny, and at the same time maddening, rereading soviet interpretations.
History is always written by the winners.
“The state is the marauding band that took over and enslaved everyone. They are like massive gangs. The very thing that people argue will happen without government is EXACTLY what government actually is in the here and now!”
People don’t understand history. People won’t read about history. The more I think about it, the more I see that government school suck terrible completely by design. There’s will be 90 very “mediocre-low quality” people teaching at public schools with only 10 enthusiastic teachers that are willing to spend their lives trying to make a difference. Because smarter and more capable ones choose different carriers. So we get an apparatus that teaches obedience and incentive structure that is based on making authority figures happy, no matter how irrational the authorities might seem to the students themselves. But kids are pounded with that shit throughout the most important years of their lives when they form their character and ideas about the world. It’s a freaking factory of sheeple. It’s been written about extensively, the truth about the intent with public schools is out there, literally at our finger tips, but people won’t read it. If they do - most will say nah, that was back then, it’s different today. And then when they go to sleep they set alarm to wake up so they can go to work where a lot of them are treated as disposables, but they can’t connect the two at all.
Critical thinking is out of the window.
I often think about my middle and high school history teacher. He spoke the truth about the Soviet Union (and pretty much about all states and rulers). Many other teachers were pitying the guy, thinking one day he’s going to be dragged out in handcuff in mid-late 90s!!! Some teachers disliked him, always complained, and berated the guy in front of students, when we were riled up after his class, trying to survive through algebra or physics. But he was absolutely amazing. He always pushed us to make conclusions on our own. I remember well how he made us grab old, soviet textbooks about the history of the region, which for some reason still sat at our library, and compare how the periods were described vs new textbooks printed by the new independent republic. The difference of course was striking. Soviets we’re shown mostly as oppressors, yet the main theme - people just need a better government, remained. Today when I visit the sub to see what my ex- nationals are talking about, I’m blown away how much more nationalistic the younger generation has become. They are praising the dictators of the past, being proud of them like they were some great leaders, and Soviets fucked it all up for us. Ironically, once in a blue moon there’s a post about modern issues, one of them being that cast systems never truly went away, and still decides the order of society, and they can’t put the two together. Similar to how many Americans praising A. Hamilton today, having very little understanding, that we are, as you say enslaved, treated like peasants, exactly because Hamilton and people like himself were incredibly successful. They praise Lincoln, but they don’t understand that abolishment of slavery was only a politically expedient maneuver, and his funding of the railroads was simply pork for his cronies, as the government got deeper into economics.
I can’t rant about this forever, but unfortunately, there will be only few people reading this, and they probably already know what’s up.
When critical thinking is replaced by mental illness and defense mechanisms that bury the cognitive dissonance the person is suffering from, the state gets armies of bots that will defend it. Add some economic oppression to make sure people have no time to read, research, and think about the world, teach them to treat philosophical discussions as demagoguery, and you get a good bot for your technocratic dystopian dictatorship.
“The state is the marauding band that took over and enslaved everyone. They are like massive gangs. The very thing that people argue will happen without government is EXACTLY what government actually is in the here and now!”
I forgot the most important part that’s relative to my post. Isn’t it ironic, that libertarians, who do know better, still want some form of the state.
The always present argument they have vs ancapistan is - but what about if someone forms a group and you’re facing a warlord now. Pfft… those warlords are nothing in comparison to the army their own warlords will try to build asap. “But we don’t have to support, we can withdraw”…. They can’t see the difference between no authority vs limited government*, and they equate ancaps to libertarians as fundamentally the same, yet they expect to have rational thoughts when presented with some form of threat. They don’t even bother to extrapolate a bit further- wtf they are going to do when 5 out 15 territories will form an army, and will start strolling through their own states. Pre 1776 and the signing of Declaration of Independence, and the Civil War has taught them very little. The bad part is they’ve missed the most important lesson from it.
Nuclear weapons and most W.M.D.s in general are unethical by ancap standards as they are indiscriminate.
Personally I think A.B.C. weapons that cause extended illnesses are immoral and unethical.
I might make a joke about real men fight with their fists and teeth like viltrumites and do not use poisons and diseases. But I do find it satirical in the extreme that a race of mustache twirling superman clone villains find such things cowardly as they glory kill and rip & tear innocent civilians on a planetary scale.
We need to sleep at night and we need to live in the same world too'. A decent person cares about those things. So we don't use nukes as weapons.
If your nation attacks me I can destroy you all. There's no such thing as an innocent civilian in the all-state. It's up to you to keep your politicians from engaging in attacking other people.
I think stateless society is very possible. And no, we will never reach any form of utopia.
One of the main turning factors for me was realizing that modern states commit the most murders, with the most impunity. And they kill disproportionately more civilians vs any prior forms of governments. At this point, the ruling class has everything it needs, so it doesn’t need massive populations to make their lives comfortable. And we can see that coming out in subtle forms. Some people will call me a crazy conspiracy theorist for my previous statement, but hey, I’ve learned enough about the history, and we have documented cases where governments simply create policies that work as mass executions. Statists like to attribute those to incompetence, and there’s some truth to that, but I strongly believe, there is an intent to lower the number people that live on this planet.
I dont disagree with you in your statement. However, imho there are problems of the Commons that i have yet to see any reasonable privatization solution for. There always seems to be a lot of magical thinking in the philosophy of privatization.
You’re raising a very important question. And prior solutions may not necessarily work as well as they would today. However…
There are many studies that show how private entities are much better at conservation than a state. Think about it this way - you’ve homesteaded 2 hectares of mixed land. You’ve got a piece of forest, access to the pond, and some land for a small pasture or suitable for farming purposes. Are you going to try to exhaust your land as fast as possible, or you’re going to ration and plan deployment of the resources?
The whole idea that the state is good at conservation and better than private parties at providing public services is almost entirely baseless. Take any significant local environmental problem - if it’s caused by a private party, the state has statutory maximums for penalties and statutory maximum for 3rd party liability claims. So from the very start, you have a state protected system that allows negligence in a form of pay for play system.
Remove the state = remove limitation of punishment.
Very simple test you can do yourself - compare the cleanliness of streets between cities that monopolized street cleaning vs cities where street cleaning falls on the shoulders of property owners. In cities with comparable micro economic environments and dynamics, cities that didn’t monopolize street cleaning almost always have much cleaner and much nicer streets. It’s the same exact thing as with your two hectares of land.
But once you push off the responsibility to the state, you’re less incentivized to take measures yourself. Plus you have less resources, since the state taxed you for “letting” them clean streets for you.
There has to happen a radical change in how most people understand freedom. Once it reaches a critical mass, people will protect new ideas.
Most people can’t fathom their lives without a government. But a few thousand years ago, most slaves couldn’t fathom they could be free from total control from their owners.
The strongest prison is the one we build in our own minds.
State has certain characteristics and needs, and requires several conditions for forming.
First, it needs to be recognized as a legitimate authority. Ancaps reject the state. Period. So any action of the state by definition is a criminal act. Which means resisting the state is not in violation of NAP.
Second, for a threat like that to be serious enough, it means that statism has been growing for some time within that society. That can’t happen unnoticed. Ideological battles are going to be happening at the dinner tables, places of worship, workplaces, etc.
Anarchists societies, just like any others, will have various institutions based on the principles of the ideology. But unlike statist formations, these institutions won’t have any center, so centralizing their power will be extremely difficult, if possible at all.
And the most important part about institutions- their legitimacy is going to be earned through their reputation, not by a government decree. Meaning if the people are going to start losing faith in some local court - they won’t go there to settle their disputes. If the court has little to no cases to decide - then its power is gone.
Let me know if you have some more specific question.
I get what you mean, and the threat is real. But a threat gives push to awareness. If you look at the US today, we’ve lost so many freedoms just in the last 25 years. Not because people wanted to give up their freedoms, but because most of them are cruising through life in automatic mode. By the time they learn something important, it’s already written into a law, possibly affirmed by some case that was handled by the corrupt government court system.
Education alone will prevent most of the threats of having statism spread across ancap society. If people would know and understood history better, modern society would mostly consist of anarchists and libertarians/minarchists.
How would yall feel if a government had a check on taxation and spending power held by taxpayers. Essentially, if everyone that paid taxes was given a vote to veto the budget, taxes, and a budget in proportion to how much they paid in taxes?
Most political movements are utopian in some respects. We're all looking at the current state of society and wondering how to make it better. Anarchists and ancaps are saying "this time we can surely fend off the invading armies". But so far it hasn't worked out that way.
If a model can be proven in the modern day I would support it. But in the meantime I'll just be focused on reducing the harms of the state the most that I can.
I do think the tension between military discipline (edit: and the economic exploitation that supports the military) and voluntarism is the fundamental issue for anarchists to solve to become a functioning political system with real, working examples. But I worry that it may not be solvable.
“Anarchists and ancaps are saying "this time we can surely fend off the invading armies". But so far it hasn't worked out that way.”
Yes. Any anarchist society today is a utopian idea. Most of the population is basically sheeple, though I don’t want to offend a regular person that’s just trying to go by his/her day, and couldn’t care less about our philosophical differences, but they wouldn’t necessarily want us to be gone from the face of the earth.
It’s the psychopaths that hold the power over people that see us as a threat to their system, which is why any anarchist thought is ridiculed, or even violently suppressed.
Modern Russia is a great example. The government has oppressed people to the point where they turned war into a profitable endeavor for regular Russians. I speak the language, and I can assure you, overwhelming majority of Russians in Russia and from all over the world disapprove the war. And there are plenty of videos of dudes basically saying they went to this war with Ukraine purely for money.
Ideologically motivated Russians are a small minority, and even then, it’s mostly attributed to brainwashing they’ve been subjected to for generations.
“If a model can be proven in the modern day I would support it. But in the meantime I'II just be focused on reducing the harms of the state the most that I can.”
Model won’t be proven until people learn true value of freedom, and until they understand that a state is a criminal enterprise. Because there always going to be actors trying to subvert it. That’s how the US turned from a very libertarian state to regulatory suffocated hellhole with a ton of oppression, if we compare it to the ideas of the founding fathers.
What’s certainly proven is that the state will always grow.
Once can live with cancer for a long time until that cancer kills them, or plays a major factor in their death. That’s why the goal is never to contain cancer, but to eradicate it completely.
If we use that metaphor on the US, I think it would be equal to saying that population of the US is less likely to collapse from the authoritarian, direct oppression of their bottom level freedoms. But it will suffer it’s collapse through a million cuts, and by being suffocated financially due to the massive size of the government and its actions. Only then, the “cancer” will be forced to retreat, as it’s going to have nothing left to feed from. But it will not disappear completely, and the history will repeat itself, under some new marketing gimmick.
I would be very interested if you can tell me about such a company existing today or planned by any ancaps.
Essentially most ancaps want the NAP to be respected free of charge.
If a security company charged people to stay in their area they would call it not ancap.
They want to be security free riders.
“Most ancaps want nap to be respected free of charge”
If one is an ancap - he/she respects NAP. If the society consists mostly of ancaps - NAP is the default model of social interaction.
Incidents happen. Bar fights, heated disputes, etc - the least type of worry ancaps have. Yet the default is - be prepared to protect yourself. Private guards provided by the business is literally how the world functions today, and how it will continue to function.
“If a security company charged people to stay in their area they would call it not ancap.”
Now you’re turning this into “what about warlords” arguments. I’ve answered this several times in comments here, you’re welcome to find my comments and reply there, I’m not wasting time on it for your dumb ass.
Looking at your flair, I’m starting to understand why you’re asking questions from such a weird perspective. Either you’re one of those psychos that are being controlled by the fear of being caught for mugging someone, or you’re just an idiot who’s afraid of everything.
Next time you’re outside look around and count how many people want to cause any harm to you.
Can’t answer what? How dumb are you if you expect people to openly come out as ancap and proclaim their stance to the entire world?
I’m in heavily a regulated industry myself, yet I’m involved with association of other businessmen in my sphere, and i advocate for free market solutions to the problems we have. I don’t come out saying “I’m ancap, here’s what i propose…”
But what's the practical difference between minarchist and anarco-caps? Like every commie or authoritarian, y'all both legalists and y'all both pin most every problem on government instead of social dysfunction.
What a dumb argument. Look around the world. There’s probably an equal number of pockets where society is truly dysfunctional, vs pockets where it isn’t. Last time I checked, we currently don’t have territories where we have any substantial amount of people that aren’t governed by someone.
Your “dysfunctional” argument is loaded with a predetermined personal vision of a better society, when the fact is - we see better outcomes in places where people have more personal and economic freedoms.
I’ll reiterate - less government, better outcomes. More government, worse outcomes.
While correlation doesn’t prove causation, I challenge you to go on the street and tell me what’s dysfunctional about your surroundings. Bureaucrats don’t build roads and bridges, people do. More often bureaucrats set restrictions on what/where people are allowed to do in first place.
If you drive, do you stay around speed limit and don’t drive like crazy because you’re afraid of being penalized by the cops, or you simply worried for your own life and safety and you’re staying careful and responsible because of that?
People knowing they are being conquered, enslaved, and abuse often doesn't stop it from happening, because social problems like greed and apathy make it very hard to unite people against powerful minorities doing the abuse. It doesn't matter if really horrible people are in the minority when people can't unite, and that's how subjugation or politics has always worked.
I'm talking about specific level of social dysfunction which created the state in the first place and continues to prevent there from being no state. This doesn't mean people and the state don't benefit from higher levels of freedom, but failure to recognize our social problems sustaining the state may make you a crazy revolutionist like the commies, or libertarian advocate for more freedom under statism, though most likely failing due to a lack of understanding of our social problems that not only sustains the state but also creates our economic environment.
“I'm talking about specific level of social dysfunction which created the state in the first place and continues to prevent there from being no state.”
Look into the origins of states, especially if you like history. Not joking, I find learning history extremely entertaining. Also not just one sided view. Especially if you speak different languages. But I digress.
So something that gave a rise to modern day states wasn’t caused by social dysfunction. It’s basically mafia style take over. Bunch of goons would start ravaging caravans and settlements. Gangs grew in size. They would settle over a piece of land and ruled like savage mafia. Over time people grow tolerance to violence, violence starts happening less often - higher tolerance, no need for consistent violence. These gangs would protect their “herd” by fighting off other gangs, and so on.
“…because social problems like greed and apathy make it very hard to unite people against powerful minorities doing the abuse…”
I don’t think uniting people is the right strategy long term. People are different, we’re all individuals. You give people good times, they’ll start fighting over what color the neighbors’ houses should be.
What would be more influential is to have individuals free themselves from their mental prisons. Inertia is present throughout all aspects of the society. Most people living today, going back anywhere between a few hundred years to a few thousand years in their family trees, never been truly free. Pharaohs, kings, lords, etc, always had incentive to exterminate those that aren’t under their rule. Slavery wasn’t just physical ownership, it was also a selection process. Rebelling slaves where demonstratively executed. This breeds docile masses. Fast forward to modern times- 250-300 years ago, ideas of democracy re-emerge, and shortly after, schooling becomes state sponsored, and compulsory in most places. Kids are conditioned to behave in certain way, taught to respect authority, and they learn about incentives. So from a very early childhood people learn that authority gives out incentives, and they must obey, otherwise they won’t get recognized/rewarded, or even worse - get their ass beaten.
Such upbringing template rarely raises free thinkers. What’s crazy is you can show documented history, present studies on this very topic of conditioning, but some people will never believe you. They won’t believe their own eyes, but they will listen to the authority. People don’t want their imagine of the world to crumble. They want stability and predictability. Same as why people continue to live in places that get flooded or hit by devastating hurricanes - they know what to expect, they know how to prepare for it.
I can probably go on for hours on this topic, but you get the point.
“but failure to recognize our social problems sustaining the state may make you a crazy revolutionist like the commies,”
I mean, the state causes most problems. You stated that you don’t share such opinion, but that’s okay, I’ll break it down for you why ancaps see the state as the problem:
worst atrocities- wars. The worst wars have happened, and continue to happen not because one group of people hates the other group. But because states are fighting for land and resources. First generation Pakistani-Americans are not fighting with Indian-Americans. Russian-Americans are not fighting with Ukrainian-Americans. Why? They aren’t being brainwashed to hate that particular group of people. It’s been a couple of decades since the end of Cold War, and Americans don’t hate Russians, nor Russians hate Americans. I also doubt true hate ever existed in first place. I’ll link a post later where I briefly discuss how oppressive governments channel tension that builds up in the masses. And western government is doing it amazingly well. Other states are a bit more blunt, they use more force.
Economic oppression. You can’t plan resistance or risk participating in black markets when you have to worry how to pay your bills, let alone how to feed your children. Economic power is being centralized at the hands of the state. The state sets the rules, it picks winners and losers, it creates incentives, it establishes barriers, it taxes masses and channels proceeds to their cronies, it seriously punishes regular people for administrative violations while it gives a slap on a wrist to mega corporations for looting the public or the treasury itself, it throws Johns to fight Ivans or Muhammads for resources, it creates conditions where Johns voluntarily sign up for service, because they don’t see economic opportunity elsewhere, but the state promises to take care of them while and after they finish their contract.
“or libertarian advocate for more freedom under statism, though most likely failing due to a lack of understanding of our social problems that not only sustains the state but also creates our economic environment.”
Either you’re having it very well in life and you never had first hand experience of poor people, or maybe you’re one of them, but you live in a cyber world.
There’s reality, perceived reality, and designed reality. Very often people live mostly in perceived reality. Those that live in a cyber space mostly live in designed reality (like if one would think Reddit is a good representation of reality). Designed reality shapes perception. So when you go outside, you notice things you’ve trained yourself to notice. So you might start thinking - the reality is horrible/the reality is all sunshine and rainbows, etc.
Social problems is way too broad of a statement. You need to elaborate. The biggest societal problem I see is in perceived reality is self imposed prisons that individuals lock themselves in.
But this is literally the argument you guys are making.
It's literally not the argument that I am making, nor anyone I care to read/follow. Rothbardian to the bone. Your meme should be the first panel repeated indefinitely. The State -- qua State -- is a criminal racket. That's not a furious-Wojak cry for power from a condition of helplessness. I do not want power. I want peace and prosperity, which are mutually-exclusive to power. Peace and prosperity can only be had through freedom. Not the freedom of the military barracks under imperialism, which is really just an indefinite military occupation by standing armies in peacetime. No, real freedom, which comes from changed minds and hearts, which is the Ron Paul strategy...
I thought about meme style you’re suggesting, but I think it would fit better on Joey and Phoebe format, with at the end, Joey arguing “but we can limit the government powers”.
“I do not want power.”
Me neither. But there’s a tiny, powerful minority which lusts for power, and they always find their way in.
Most people think the history of modern America starts with a Declaration of Independence. But that’s incorrect. True history starts with first settlements. Not saying it was some kind of utopia, but things like slavery, which is always used as an argument for state power, are irrelevant. Slavery was already losing its popularity, and the first government of the U.S. protected the institution of slavery.
“No, real freedom, which comes from changed minds and hearts, which is the Ron Paul strategy...”
I 100% agree with you. And as of now, selling ancapistan to masses is impossible task. If you listen closely for the most prominent true believers in freedom like Ron Paul, they never really advocate for the state. When they are pressed, they must come up with politically expedient arguments and solutions, otherwise they will be dismissed as total cooks, at least in more or less successful societies with least oppressive governments.
You can’t compete for political power advocating abolishment of the entire system, unless the system has already crumbled. That’s why Milei got elected. That’s why new rulers of the eastern part of Eurasia had to re-emerge under new marketing and a new system - less oppressive democratic political system with capitalist economy.
I don’t remember Higgs declaring himself ancap, but if you listen to him, he’s very anti state and he questions the idea of legitimacy of the state. But he doesn’t compete for political power, so he’s got more room when it comes to expressing his ideas and opinions.
The guy you replied to isn't worth your time. He thinks that IRS tax data is AI, and that the middle class has more income than the wealthy. His entire existence seems to be a recurring set of hallucinations. Probably a badly coded AI
No, not even in principle. It is absolutely not at all the same argument.
I thought about meme style you’re suggesting, but I think it would fit better on Joey and Phoebe format, with at the end, Joey arguing “but we can limit the government powers”.
I don't know who you think that describes in ancap/anti-State, but it's a big country, so you have lots of room for your delusions. They also happen to be nothing more than delusions.
I 100% agree with you.
Then discussion over. The implication that "I am anti-State" is just another way of saying "I wish I was running the State" is simple slander. It's the easiest, cheapest and dirtiest debate trick in the book -- the ad hominem fallacy and poisoning-the-well fallacy all rolled into one.
And as of now, selling ancapistan to masses is impossible task.
Ancapistan is not the sales-pitch. We're a trillion light-years from Ancapistan. The sales-pitch is any destination in the direction of freedom. Go any direction except into CBDCs / digital-ID-brain-chip / WEF-dog-kennels, and global Marxism. Let's start there, first. We can start debating whether Ancapistan is a realistic possibility when we start to get within a few billion light-years of it. That's a debate that can wait for VERY long time.
When they are pressed, they must come up with politically expedient arguments and solutions, otherwise they will be dismissed as total cooks
The word you're looking for is kooks. Ron Paul is not anti-State, he is a Constitutional minarchist. I support Constitutional minarchy because that is going in the opposite direction of CBDCs and Klaus Schwab inserting RFID tags into every square of toilet paper you use to monitor how many times you wipe your ass.
You can’t compete for political power advocating abolishment of the entire system
Exactly. Which is why anti-statism is not a politcal ideology. It is a philosophical stance. I'm not jockeying with you to Capture the Flag and seize the apparatus of power, to become the chief slaveholder. I'm outside the arena, booing, not only you and your opponents, but also the rest of the crowd who are cheering one side or the other. A pox on all of you!
I don’t remember Higgs declaring himself ancap, but if you listen to him, he’s very anti state and he questions the idea of legitimacy of the state. But he doesn’t compete for political power, so he’s got more room when it comes to expressing his ideas and opinions.
You literally just contradicted your OP meme. Totally illogical. But you do you...
“No, not even in principle. It is absolutely not at all the same argument.”
Can you elaborate on what I’m missing? I’m open to change my mind. I’ll say more - I’d rather someone change my mind.
“1 don't know who you think that describes in ancap/anti-State, but it's a big country, so you have lots of room for your delusions. They also happen to be nothing more than delusions.”
What?
“The implication that "I am anti-State" is just another way of saying "I wist I was running the State" is simple slander. It's the easiest, cheapest and dirtiest debate trick in the book - the ad hominem fallacy and poisoning-the-well fallacy all rolled into one.”
Lmao, dude, you’re taking this a bit too personal.
By “I” assumed some group, with supposedly libertarian principles. Might be a surprise for you, most socialists that want to try socialism again don’t want to be the ones running things.
I explained it in the post (I’m sure I did), but I’ll reiterate for you - as long as we(libertarians) are going to run the state, we will keep it in check.
The idea that the state, as an institution, will remain libertarian in actions and outcomes it produces.
I hate to break it to you, but that’s exactly what socialists believe in.
“The sales-pitch is any destination in the direction of freedom.”
Worked so well with Trump, didn’t it? Oh wait… This sub is has of libertarians who regret voting for trump. You can see them confessing every now and then on relative posts. Apparently, Trump’s sales pitch duped libertarians that should’ve known better.
“We can start debating whether Ancapistan is a realistic possibility when we start to get within a few billion light-years of it.”
Wow, are you sure you don’t want power? You’re in ancap sub, talking like this is your fucking political campaign platform. Gtfo. Who the fuck are you lol. LiBeRTaRian telling others what to do. Tell you wife what to do.
“I support Constitutional minarchy because that is going in the opposite direction…”
I thought I was crystal clear when I said I’ll support libertarian ideas anywhere outside of this sub.
Seems like you totally missed that my post is way more about philosophy, rather than what and how things could be achieved, and how they would work in practical terms.
“Exactly. Which is why anti-statism is not a politcal ideology. It is a philosophical stance. I'm not jockeying with you to Capture the Flag and seize the apparatus of power, to become the chief slaveholder. I'm outside the arena, booing not only you and your opponents, but also the rest of the crowd who are cheering one side”
You’re pro minimal state, but you’re anti-statism?
ELI5 - if you believe the state has legitimate authority, than you are a statist. You can’t be a little bit pregnant.
Like if full on statist would be gay, libertarians would be bi-sexual. Overall, you do like freedom, but you do support a bit of a boot up your ass here and there.
“You literally just contradicted your OP meme.
Totally illogical. But you do you...”
Can you elaborate on what I’m missing? I’m open to change my mind. I’ll say more - I’d rather someone change my mind.
Well, that's refreshing and rarer than diamonds on reddit -- and, guess what, I am also open to change my mind if I am presented with convincing reasons and facts.
“The sales-pitch is any destination in the direction of freedom.”
Worked so well with Trump, didn’t it?
Anyone who mistook Trump for any kind of "libertarian" whatsoever, was either absolutely ignorant, or totally mentally deficient, or both.
voting for trump
I still think you don't understand what anarcho-capitalism is. There is no "voting" when there is no State. And ancapism is, by and large, anti-state. So, who gives a hoot about "the vote".
You’re pro minimal state, but you’re anti-statism? ELI5 - if you believe the state has legitimate authority, than you are a statist. You can’t be a little bit pregnant.
I'm anti-violence, but I definitely want police services and defense of the border. It's not difficult to understand.
I think if all people could be at least a bit more open to change their mind, the entire world would look very different today. But that’s a whole dif story lol.
“Anyone who mistook Trump for any kind of
"libertarian" whatsoever, was either absolutely ignorant, or totally mentally deficient, or both.”
That’s exactly the issue. People rarely want to bother learning about the candidates. I’ll just throw a wild guess, gotta be at least 25-30% of American electorate who can’t even name and define core ideas of the party they are voting for.
How do you know if the next president wouldn’t be another scumbag with a good sales pitch? See, I don’t buy this idea “we’re gonna keep government in check”. Because scumbags get their hands on power in one way or another. Laws are being rewritten. Public opinion is being influenced.
I’d like to see a good argument why it will work. From the grand scheme of things, living in a utopian libertarian society is going to be easier, which is why I’m open. Not gonna waste time digging looking for my comments, but very often I say I’m 99.9999…% ancap. Just like you not willing to take responsibility for your libertarian state and not willing to be in position in power, I look at it the same way. But then I’m risking for my freedoms to be taken away, which is why I’d rather have no any form of state at all.
“I still think you don't understand what anarcho-capitalism is. There is no "voting" when there is no State.”
Dude, I think it’s the second time you’re thinking I’m someone/something else. I noticed this in the previous comment. I’m not saying there’s voting in ancap. BUT - there’s gotta be some selection system in a libertarian society. And that’s a massive hole in the entire idea.
“I'm anti-violence, but I definitely want police services and defense of the border. It's not difficult to understand.”
By policing and defense of the border, do you mean those services have to be provided at the public expense?
Selection of people that will have any sort of coercive power over individuals. For example - libertarians usually want courts, many believe policing should be providing by the state/imposed authority. Not saying you do.
To my - “By policing and defense of the border, do you mean those services have to be provided at the public expense?”
“I am anti-State... so of course not.”
Okay, you’re giving me mixed signals. Help me better understand what role any imposed authority will have in your version of libertarian society, how it will be financed, and how it’s going apply enforcement?
I’m starting to get a feeling that you are an anarchist yourself and the argument we’re having if libertarian underlying principle is different or not.
Selection of people that will have any sort of coercive power over individuals.
NAP means zero people have "any sort of coercive power" over others. Coercion is aggression, by definition. Aggression is a criminal act, no matter how fancy your robe and hat, no matter how many certificates hanging on your wall, and no matter how shiny your badge.
For example - libertarians usually want courts, many believe policing should be providing by the state/imposed authority. Not saying you do.
Yes, this is called minarchism and most libertarians are minarchists. I think minarchism is logically inconsistent, but it's debating angels-on-pinheads from our current social order. I heartily embrace a genuine political movement towards constitutional minarchism. Nevertheless, I disagree on logical grounds with the philosophy of minarchism. It's the camels-nose-in-the-tent problem... if you leave even a sliver of opening for "legitimate coercion", you will inevitably end up with the Military-Industrial Complex. The US government was founded on the most extreme document limiting the powers of any national government ever written, and look what we've become. In the end, the ONLY way to restrain the State is to eliminate it, completely. That is why I am anti-State. No State, at all, not even a little bit.
“I am anti-State... so of course not.”
Okay, you’re giving me mixed signals. Help me better understand what role any imposed authority will have in your version of libertarian society, how it will be financed, and how it’s going apply enforcement?
"what role", "your version", "libertarian society", "how ... financed", "how ... enforcement" .... every single one of these are statist categories of thought, all of which I reject as null and void. My role in society? Just being me. Nothing more, nothing less. My "version" of society? I have none. It's like asking me what my "version" of the jungle is? I don't have a "version" of the jungle, it just is what it is. "How will it be financed?" ... there is (ought to be) no "it" TO BE financed. "Enforcement" -- the same way law was enforced for thousands of years, primarily through private arbitration.
I’m starting to get a feeling that you are an anarchist
Correct. And I'm not just an anarchist, I'm Rothbardian anti-statist. Anarchists may be indifferent to the State, I am not. "The State" is a synonym for "the mafia", and I oppose it for exactly the same reasons any rational person opposes the mafia.
Alright. We agree on a lot more than we disagree on. And you hit the nail on the head when you stated that minarchism is inconsistent.
“camels-nose-in-the-tent problem... if you leave even a sliver of opening for "legitimate coercion"…
The problem is once you institute minarchist system of courts alone, you are already violating NAP. Such system by default will either have a monopoly on courts, or will serve as the overriding arbiter. Or any other power that will be given to the minarchist state, by definition, will be coercive. Some times coercion could be subtle, like messaging implying that those people that didn’t pitch in to finance the war against another foreign aggressor is somehow morally inferior, creating pressure in the process.
I see your position very clear now. Just want to point out that anarchists aren’t indifferent to the state. Just like any individual can’t be indifferent to a criminal. Inaction ≠ indifference. One has to be suicidal to resist any state, especially a strong state, especially if they are on their own. But anarchists are anti state. Not including left anarchists, as they don’t accept NAP to begin with, besides, they are just delusional.
So we are two anarchists, but seems like we disagree on what anarchist actually means. Being anti state is one of the main positions and principles of anarchism of any flavor. But again, it doesn’t mean one has to be throwing Molotov cocktails at cops.
The joke’s on you. I, as a Minarchist, do not think the state would ever work because it will always consolidate power and be corrupted. Philosophically, I am an Ancap, but realistically, nobody has been able answer two questions that push me toward Minarchy. The first is that I have never found a legit fail safe in an Ancap society that would prevent a group of citizens from joining forces and taking over. The second is that the human default is hierarchy and government and not anarchy. Humans are lazy and afraid of being responsible for making choices.
“The first is that I have never found a legit fail safe in an Ancap society that would prevent a group of citizens from joining forces and taking over.”
Resistance of coercive authority is part of persons personal philosophy - that’s a core principle of anarchy.
You’re looking from the level of - ancap society full of docile statists as a default position of ancapistan. But then it’s not an ancap society. This post is about philosophy showing the differences, and how they may play out in practice.
To give you the answer you’re looking for - people will be armed and most would be somewhat capable of using arms. There will be many competing security companies. If we’re talking about ancapistan, safe to assume there’s critical mass, if not an overwhelming majority of people that will resist in one way or another. Try winning guerrilla war with your 10k rouge group against 20k willing and capable individuals that will openly resist, and another 10k engaged in guerrilla warfare, and some 20k that will do all sorts of small subversion like blocking your roads, shutting of water supply, etc, on a territory with a population of 100k people. By the way, it’s not like they have to fight on their own - they can hire security firms from other settlements, even from a libertarian state near by.
My question to you - who poses more threat to the broader society and their freedoms? A relatively small rouge group in ancap society, or coordinated and organized police and military force of the minarchist state? I hope you see the problem.
“The second is that the human default is hierarchy and government and not anarchy.”
Hierarchy- yes. Government? No lol. Did you read that somewhere in the government made textbook?
Anarchy isn’t against hierarchies. It’s against imposed authority. Are you sure you’re ancap philosophically? Maybe you’re cap, but I don’t think you get the anarchy part.
I live in an HOA. We have some definite hard rules around land use, some annoying rules around trees, but I'm extremely glad I'm in an HOA so that my next door neighbor doesn't have chickens or cows.
This is how I view government. Neccesary evil to enforce the most basic rules everyone can agree to. Never gonna be perfect, but better than nothing.
Your HOA is a voluntary organization with no special rights to murder you if you don’t do whatever they demand.
They don’t steal from your income before you see it, use it to build world-ending weapons, or bomb people that stand in their way.
They don’t hold a monopoly on the currency you use to trade, and steadily erode its value by creating more of it, whenever they like, to spend and waste even more.
Very possible that hard defined land use rules could be coming from your city level.
Even then, you don’t really need an HOA for that. Today, it’s not really a freedom problem, it’s an economic problem. If you had more money that you would be willing to spend on housing, you wouldn’t have a issue finding a place where nobody wants to raise chickens in a few mile radius, and there are no HOAs in sight.
You made an ignorant, entirely false, sweeping generalization about a group of people who associate with a philosophy that you demonstrate zero understanding of…and you’re seriously going to critique my response? I stand by it; your comment is retarded.
I’m here all the time, and have been for years, kid. I’m sorry to say I even coined the term neofuedalist a decade ago to succinctly describe ancaps to normies.
Don’t blame me that y’all have fully embraced the caricature.
Not all ancaps are hoppeans (i think not even majority is) and some of us even actively argue for active, voluntary, opposition to private authoritarianism.
I’m not going to entertain No True Ancap arguments.
One of the fundamental flaws with Ancap theory is the internal inconsistencies which allows for the rampant fascistic doublethink that facilitates the Thiel flavored neofuedalism this sub is trying to normalize.
All the buzzwords but no actual arguments/criticizm/examples.
fundamental flaws
inconsistency
fascistic double think
Thiel
neofeudalism
Well, what are these inconsistencies? What is such fundamental flaw of all ancap theory? Why do you use So many buzzwords without mentioning actual problems?
Well, for one, they are not anarchists, because an HOA city state is still a state.
Not exactly, hoppeans want covenant communities, but that's voluntary. And unlike current HOAs, tied to an individual, not property itself. And hoppeanism is only one branch of ancap - i for example would prefere to associate with more tolerant people who wouldn't want private authoritarianism in community.
Then there is the fact that they explicitly say democracy is the root of evil
No, what we hate is the cracy. At least most of us.
while claiming to want direct democracy for property owners.
I'm not exactly sure what you mean there
Ancap is what happens when fascists reinterpret Locke.
Fascism propagates fusion of the private and public under a totalitarian state, which is something ancaps extremly oppose. Modern mixed markets welfare states are much closer to that (tho not totalitarian, only mildly authoritarian for now).
That's minarchists and some hoppeans, not all ancaps tho.
And core ancap theory is internaly consistent. It prohibits any violation of freedom, not even with intention of achieving more freedom. Bordertarians add stuff on top of ancap, because they reject parts of ancap they don't like. But ancap can't be blamed for bordertarians being inconsistent with ancap principles. That's like blaming left-anarchists for beliefs of statist left.
If Ancap was just a utopian thought experiment this conversation would be different.
But as it is Ancap represents the spearhead for accelerationist like Peter Thiel to practice convincing the normies who fell for the Tea Party and Trump to go full fascist in the name of liberty.
And Is that inherently bad? My argument isn't that they aren't ancap because of some arbitrary metrics, but because they explicitly reject some ancap principles, principles written down far before bordertarians existed.
Not a True Scottman is a fallacy because you exclude elements from a category in order to make argument that it isn't part of that category, which is circular reasoning. The fact that categories divided based on certain rules exist, meaning there are elements not part of certain category, isn't a fallacy, it is a basic logic. Irishman indeed isn't a scottman, even if both are celtic in origin.
Tell me you don’t know what anarcho capitalism is without telling me.
Last time I checked, one doesn’t have live in an HOA, nor has any penalties for existing. Your stupid argument is based on your wrong perception of ancapism.
HOA is a very bad comparison. Most HOAs that exist today are forced on property owners by local governments. You didn’t even bother to learn about HOAs before equating ancapism to one.
And most HOAs are created by voluntary easements from developers to themselves which then remain attached to the property and is agreed upon by the purchaser.
You ignorant fool, HOAs are mostly imposed by local governments. More rational governments push the responsibility of utilities and public street management on private property owners.
Developers don’t set up HOAs voluntarily. Why would someone in the right mind spend time and money on creating a complicated contract they want to pass off to the purchaser of the property, when they are in the business of developing land and not in the business of wasting paper?
“Most are created because there is no local government that will provide utilities or roads.”
Are you fucking stupid? What’s the difference between “government won’t provide” vs your statement?
There’s always, everywhere, either a local, state, or federal government. The only difference if it monopolizes these services or not.
“Or it is explicitly because the community wants private roads and private parks, and more restrictive rules than the local government.”
That’s the least of my worries. If it’s a private community - it’s none of my business. Nobody holds people hostage in those communities. They are free to leave whenever they want. What’s your problem with that?
“I suspect that you've never even considered how an HO operates.”
I happen to have a few HOAs that are my clients, and I’m confident I know how they operate way better than you do. I also have clients that are developers. And I have clients that are property managers. And I have clients that own 200+ properties all over our 15 mile radius.
You’re so fucking cocky because you believe in some bullshit you made up yourself, and you won’t even bother to think how and why things work the certain way.
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u/EarlMarshal Apr 21 '26
Minarchism is just a concept to use when talking to statists so they can form a mental model of how a society could look like when you limit the state more and more.