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“AnCap Has Never Been Tried!” and Other Myths
One of the great myths I hear from people who believe in a utopia is that things like Communist, Socialist, and, yes, Anarcho-Capitalist (AnCap) societies “Have never been tried”. This is, of course, nonsense. The USSR, China, Venezuela, Romania, Cambodia, and countless other nations give lie to the idea that a Communist Socialist society has not been tried. Dr. Jordan Peterson says it well here:
I really like his point, that this is an arrogant position: If I were in charge, I am so good and so competent I could usher in the utopia. I apply it to anyone making any utopian claims.
That brings us to the anarcho-capitalists, and the claim that their version of utopia has never been tried, either. This is also nonsense. We have seen, time and again in history, that when there is no state, there is not anarchy for long.
“Anarchy is the least stable of social structures. It falls apart at a touch.” — Larry Niven
What made me think about all this is this article today, on the death of an AnCap promoter: John Galton Wanted Libertarian Paradise in ‘Anarchapulco.’ He Got Bullets Instead
Galton and Forester were anarcho-capitalists who slipped U.S. drug charges worth 25 years in prison, they said in a YouTube video that night. They’d hopped the border and resettled in what Galton called one of the world’s “pockets of freedom,” a community billed as a libertarian paradise.
Almost two years later, Galton was murdered.
Last week, gunmen burst into the couple’s mountaintop home, killing Galton on the spot, and seriously wounding one of the couple’s friends. (Forester survived, badly shaken.) The killers are presumed to be a drug cartel; Mexican authorities say Galton grew marijuana at the home
Wow. In the absence of a strong government, a gang burst into his home and killed him.
Galton was part of a small community of fellow anarcho-capitalists formed by Jeff Berwick, who promised a drug-friendly haven and hosts the annual “Anarchapulco” festival. Berwick says Galton and Forester should’ve known what they were getting into.
“They started up a competing conference to Anarchapulco, called Anarchaforko and John continued to be involved in one way or another with the production or sale of plants,” Berwick told The Daily Beast in an email. “Unfortunately, that is the one thing that is very dangerous to do in Mexico as the drug cartels will attack anyone they see as competition and that appears to have happened to John.”
So, even in the AnCap utopia, you cannot grow weed in your own home and you cannot sell it because some other group, one with more guns, will come kill you. And there is no government to even punish them for it. I guess this really does mean might makes right in the AnCap world.
This whole story demonstrates, once again, that any real moves towards a libertarian AnCap utopia will always collapse into what I call “Warlordism”: He who has the biggest guns, wins.
Anarcho-capitalists who complained of robberies or street corner assaults faced ridicule, Mike claimed.
“Because this is a very ideological group, everything Jeff says is dogma,” he said. “If you said anything contra to the dogma, you’d be ostracized and in some cases doxxed. I know people who moved there and got robbed… However, when they publicly state this, the whole community turns against them and treats them as some kind of informant or spy.”
Heh. Cultish following of a leader. Not like communism or socialism at all, right? I love the way it closes:
“Anarchists understand that the government’s prohibition of plants and substances cause these problems and if anything it just makes events like Anarchapulco even more important in order to change the world and get rid of the violence and chaos caused by government,” Berwick said.
Blaming the government for everything is just like the socialists blaming racism for every ill under the sun. With no government, do we really think organized crime gangs would stop doing what they are doing? The price would drop? Somehow, I think the would just go into “legit” business, and their anti-competition behavior would go right on. No government to stop them. Heck, the one in Mexico right now is so weak it cannot.
Utopia is not coming to this world, not for communists, not for socialists, and not for AnCaps. Any attempt to create a utopia will always result in tyranny. Always.
Published in Economics
You could peruse several of my posts. I’m something of a strange libertarian. I have a much more complex model for figuring out when it’s ok for someone to do something. And it’s never so simple as applying the “non-aggression principle,” or some such.
A common joke is when you ask 3 libertarians to tell you what libertarianism is, you’ll get 4 answers, with each claiming they are the only true libertarian. There’s a lot of truth to that, and I think much of the reason is at its core, libertarianism is trying to solve objective moral philosophy and apply it to the world. And we’re still figuring out what correct morality is. Each libertarian seems to enjoy emphasizing specific parts, sometimes discounting other parts. Also, I think a really big problem with most libertarians is they make rules based on them being correct in 99%+ of cases and then assume they must be true in 100% of cases.
http://ricochet.com/228462/archives/harm-principle-hypotheticals/
This is largely over my head. I think the problem with this is there are many different versions of it. That’s partly why it never gels. Objectivists, Austrians, I suppose the rest of it can be divided by who their favorite authors are.
Kevin Williamson is a libertarian, but the way he writes he’s just realistic about where we are. You can say the same thing about Rep. JasonLewis.
My main thing is I’m anti-centralization, I think the financial system is a rip off and it forces centralization and the growth of government, I’m against non-public goods at the federal level, I think every single government actuarial system is a suicide pact after it rips off a bunch people. I think we screw up foreign-policy a lot.
Try arguing with this.
Your questions were good but the answer to each is, It doesn’t legally matter. There is no compulsion to act in Libertarianna, and short of an Absolute Moral Law all morality is arguable. That’s one of the things about Biblical Christianity [edit: as, I expect, in Judaism]: human life is sacred, personal property exists, we are to treat others as we would want to be treated, generosity and goodwill are prime virtues, keep your word even if it hurts, and true justice tempered with mercy is required. And membership in the Body of Christ is free and there is no earthly compulsion to join or worship God. If everyone acted like this, there would be no need of civil law.
But was the Constitution really a basically libertarian document? Would a libertarian world look a lot like English common law? If we stripped away 99.999% of the laws on the books in the US would that be more like a libertarian society?
It stopped illegitimate force and fraud and it’s set up a semi decent financial system. It was anti-centralized government until Woodrow Wilson and case law which I know nothing about. Something like that.
You have to have a government strong enough to protect the people from each other. I thought enforcement of contracts was important to libertarians?
This stuff is a lot of what my own view is of libertarianism.
https://mises.org/wire/were-living-age-capital-consumption
http://financialrepressionauthority.com/2017/07/26/the-roundtable-insight-george-bragues-on-how-the-financial-markets-are-influenced-by-politics/
https://mcalvanyweeklycommentary.com/01_30_19/
If you read those, how in the hell can you expect Conservatism to ever get any traction? You can’t. #MAGA
It has the word anarchy in its title. Don’t pour water on my head and tell me I am not wet.
Furthermore, AnCap is talked about in utopian terms. You may not think that happens, but it does, right here at Ricochet.
AnCaps don’t believe in any agreed upon morality. Indeed, AnCaps don’t believe in anything other than their own liberty. They demand the right to override the wishes of those around them to act any way they so choose. I have seen AnCaps argue that doing something that lowers my property value, a real and honest, measurable event, is not “harm”. I rather doubt they think playing music too loud harms others either.
Be sure to vote! Your vote matters!
It cannot be done. Morality is not objective.
How about we just take out the newest 99.99% of all laws? I could ride a motorcycle at 120 mph on an empty straight Arizona road and wouldn’t be doing anything illegal. And I could still text my friends, and sip a coffee and smoke a cigar. Freedom!
(Short but free.)
I am for speed limits.
Don’t central plan anything unless there’s no other option. Stop illegitimate force and fraud.
I’ve explained my view as well as I can.
Deirdre McCloskey calls herself an Austrian. That’s good enough for me. It’s very hard to argue with her on anything for a bunch of reasons.
I see socialism as the mortal enemy of libertarianism. So when I see libertarians flirting with Democrats, I figure they’re not very good libertarians.
“Anarchy” is in the title because there’s no publicly “owned” government that people usually think of when they hear “government.” The legitimate functions of the state are provided by private entities, but most of the important “nightwatchman” things the government does (as in, the stuff besides transfer payments) would still be done one way or another.
I’m sure it is, when you’re trying to explain something with only a few sentences and paragraphs, you lose a lot of the nuance.
The ones who are doing it right don’t say those things.
I figure a lot of people don’t understand their own politics. Don’t forget the signs at Occupy Wall Street. “Anarchists for a $20/hr minimum wage.”
If morality is not objective, how can we know anything about the universe? You can believe that if you want, but it has some pretty devastating consequences, including raising the question of why you are bothering to argue about anything on a debating website when you believe in radical skepticism.
I’m against speed limits, speed traps, and paying for local government by issuing tickets. Speed limits were set up as a fuel-saving measure and were never rolled back. In Germany I understand there were places with no speed limits and if you caused an accident, then that was a crime, but speeding wasn’t in itself. And I’m against mandatory use of motorcycle helmets, bicycle helmets, divers’ seat belts and regulated maximum sugary drink sizes, and mandatory calorie charts on restaurant menus, and laws against looking at your cell phone — not texting, not dialing, not talking, looking at your phone — while stopped and waiting at a red light. And I’m against laws prohibiting leaving your keys in the car while you’re warming it up and you stay inside in the warmth of your house.
Do we really need to control every act in a person’s day-to-day life? Is this what we have government for?
My brother-in-law is like that. He voted for Bernie, but keeps bitcoin because he doesn’t trust government. He’s against socialized medicine because he has a goldplated health insurance plan (that is family absolutely needs) from work. He hates Devin Nunes but try asking him to explain in plain English why he hates Devin Nunes. It’s not happening.
How you stop illegitimate force is a worthy discussion.
Like I said before, my main beef is centralization and the financial system. It’s also very hard to make the case that we actually know how to finish a war to a positive end.
So in other words, the government is directly owned and controlled by the entirety of the populace. Who writes the checks? The king? :)
You know (assuming you’re an AnCap) it really sounds like you’re just trying to create another government much like ours or any other, and tweaking it the way you personally will be happiest. All these things can be done now in the US if people will just get together and do it. You’ll still have you local town supervisor and town accountant paying the sheriff and paving the roads — or would all roads be private?
How would the minimal functions of “government” be paid for? And would there be any civil servants? And what would stop the building of a town hall, or a town library, and then a town hospital and then a town airport? What checks this kind of civic growth?
And I guess, finally, how does an AnCap government differ in any way from a pure democracy?
Not to get into the weeds, but there wouldn’t be just one entity. It would be a bunch of competing (perhaps HOA-analogous) entities that provide protection services, probably among other services, at which point normal people say, “well, obviously those entities would just be at war with each other constantly, so it fails right there.”
I don’t believe it’s nearly so obvious, but that’s why I’m strange.
People need to look up the definition of “public goods” and figure out what they believe about that stuff. No one ever puts it that way, but in my opinion it’s pretty critical.
Regarding AnCaps. And then, what if the strongest, smartest, most productive 10% of the population want to run things. What would you do? Civil war? Rely on an eloquent spokesman to convince everyone to go along? Begin a campaign to teach people that your way is the moral, social, civil and ethical best way and exile those who don’t agree?
And how would this all differ from what we should have today; small frugal local governments, the states doing what the locals can’t do, and the feds minding the corporate interests of the various states? (Maybe we could create a, uh, I don’t know, we could call it a 10th Amendment!, and devolve power back to the smallest groups.)
:)
Democrats or leftists will always say that if you’re against socialism, or for libertarianism, you are against fire departments. If everyone stays so stupid about economics and civics, we are doomed.
Would my homeowner association tell me that I could only paint my house pale grey?
Unfortunately, that “if” does all the heavy lifting. Yes, the roads would be private. And I have no idea if it would end up making a world more closely to my preferences. All I know is that a world that was ran this way would consist of far less trampling of other people’s rights.
Before AnCap is sustainable, people would have to believe it would work. The same as how democracy doesn’t work when you impose it on a people who believe the first people who get elected are just going to become a dictator. The thing that would stop people from “creating a town hall” is it will be much more generally agreed that voting doesn’t give you the right to confiscate other people’s money for your purposes.
The people who are willing to spend more money would have somewhat larger influence on the laws. And no, this doesn’t mean the person who has the most money makes all the rules. It would be prohibitively expensive to oppress large numbers of people in pure free market.
It’s entirely possible. Some of them probably would and it would hopefully attract people who want that, allowing other people who don’t care about house colors to live elsewhere.
At bottom, what I’m asking here is who controls the money? And who tells him what to spend it on? And while I’m at it, I keep wondering how anyone knows who owns what land and by what authority is this land owned?
Will police services be like what we saw with private fire departments that fight a fire a at one house and let the other burn? How would laws be made to prevent this, or would they not? And who would make the laws, and who would interpret the laws and who would judge the transgressor?
It sound like your talking about small town government and giving it a new name.
When you figure out how to do that, let me know!
Original land ownership is always a tricky problem, but it would mainly be done by improving and settling it for an extended period of time or purchasing it from someone else. A lot of the how it would work is going to be speculation by its nature because we can’t be sure what it would look like until the spontaneous order forms.
I’m not sure. Fire isn’t nearly as much of a problem nowadays. It would certainly be permissible to let it burn. Perhaps they would put it out and try to charge people for the service after the fact if they haven’t bought fire insurance? Perhaps it would be a requirement if you wanted homeowners insurance?
Judges/arbitrators. Most disagreements are decided by binding arbitration now anyway. The country would be a better place if government judges would simply rubber stamp binding arbitration decisions now. The courts actually get a lot of jurisprudence from private arbitrators already. Under AnCap, the judges/arbitrators with the best reputation for fairness would be the ones getting the cases and thus the only ones that could stay in business.
Well, most of the functions of even local government wouldn’t be performed. Roads probably wouldn’t be a smooth and paved where practically no one drives because the people don’t want to pay for that unless it’s done through taxation. Traffic would probably be a lot less too because there would be higher costs to use the roads during high use time.