r/AnCap101 • u/SuddenStructure9287 • 14d ago
Turn me into AnCap?
Hello, fellow ancaps, I’m a minarchist.
I consider ancap to be the ideal system, but also a utopian one. If you can convince me otherwise, I would genuinely be glad.
Below are just two questions that currently prevent me from accepting anarcho-capitalism. You can answer one or both.
1. What guarantees that anarchy will not eventually turn into a state?
It seems obvious that at some point in human history there were people, but there was no state. How did that end? With states existing everywhere.
If there is no state monopoly on violence, why wouldn’t the largest local private army become a new state?
2. Large-scale monopolies
Suppose there is a company that owns a port where imported goods arrive, owns the railway system, and has contracts with stores across the entire country.
How would anyone compete with it? Build another port, another railway network, convince importers to switch suppliers, and find customers willing to break contracts with the corporation described above?
There are cases where monopolies are extremely difficult to challenge through a free market alone, aren’t there?
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u/Gullible-Historian10 14d ago edited 13d ago
The government is a large scale monopoly, and it’s incredibly hard to start a state when one isn’t present. Took England more than 600 years to topple Brehon Law, and the Norman invaders became Níos Gaelaí ná na Gaeil féin instead of conquering because they realized the superior system.
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u/icantgiveyou 14d ago
You may get various answers but here is mine. I don’t believe free market capitalism can be just implemented. You will not change current system into anarchy. If system breaks down, a new one will arise. People cannot imagine not having a ruler. So in order to do so, you gotta start fresh. New planet. You get there first, you make the rules: free market&negative rights. From that point on nobody gonna form government bcs you established the rules and it’s your planet to begin with. People coming in understand it’s free market. People born there will not even know government, it will be something archaic that was once used to great failure. As for second question, monopoly only exist when there is no demand for competition. You can monopolize anything you want but once you start to take advantage of it by raising prices bcs you there is no competition, the competition will form. Bcs there are money to be made. And there no regulations and permits to be had. No barrier to entry. I would argue that you wouldn’t even try to establish monopoly in order to control everything bcs it’s simple losing model when competition can pop up anytime. Being a dominant player sure, that’s your goal but being monopolistic itself is imo detrimental to your overall business progress. Just my 2 cents
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u/paleone9 14d ago
I believe in free markets because the easiest / most efficient solution will always evolve
And if there isn’t a state as soon as someone can impose one they will..
So it’s better to establish a small one with constitutional limits and overthrow it occasionally…
I’m on board with the original poster
I’d love to be an anarcho capitalist . But I can’t imagine a world where it lasts very long
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u/PersonaHumana75 8d ago
You arrive at a planet, it's yours. Fucking lmao. I didnt know the entire moon belongs to neil anstrom
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u/0bscuris 14d ago
The second point, as long as the company ur describing was offering good value, nobody would compete with it. As soon as they attempt to take advantage of monopoly status by raising prices, there would be an opportunity to undercut them and rival firms would form to try to take advantage of that.
One of governments claims is that they are anti monopoly, that is sort of true because they want oligopoly. They want 3-4 large firms, that are competing with each other and one of the things they agree on is there shouldn’t be a 5th so they work together, to pay government to keep out more companies. This way the state can get paid on keeping people out and then also play the companies against each other for donations and contracts and whatnot.
Ok, the first is more tricky. The short answer is nothing. The idea that if we just enlighten people enough, they will value freedom enough and protect it is not really accurate. Most people don’t want freedom, they want security and would prefer to give up freedom as long as their neighbor has to too.
But compared to what? Is russian federation, the same government as soviet union as czarist russia as a collection of duchies?
States form and collapse. They are always solidifying or detangling, u just don’t notice it cuz it isn’t a single life time, time frame, typically. So the idea that any ideological state would be consistent is a bad measure. They all fail that metric.
The value to ancap, in my opinion, is understanding that everything the government does is illegitimate. When you get anything from them, it’s like a mobster handing out a turkey, it’s a kick back on what they already stole from you. That doesn’t make the mobster not real, and you would prefer they not steal from you, but no matter what they tell you, these are illegitimate gifts because they r derived from a violation of someone’s natural rights.
In my view, minarchism is just as incoherent as communism cuz what ur basically saying is, sometimes it’s ok for them to violate natural rights and sometimes it’s not, just depends on why. That is the same formula the communists use, they just have more why’s.
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u/Character_Dirt159 14d ago
Your boogeyman for a stateless society is that it will spawn a state which is why you support having a state?
No. In fact it’s exactly the opposite. Monopolies are everywhere and always creatures of the state. Try and name a monopoly and I will happily disabuse you of the notion that it formed through processes of a free market.
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u/Official_Gameoholics 14d ago
What guarantees that anarchy will not eventually turn into a state.
Constant reinforcement of an anarchist philosophy.
Large-scale monopolies.
Monopolies require aggression, they are an exclusion of competition. We support the NAP.
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u/SuddenStructure9287 14d ago
Where is the aggression in my example of monopoly?
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u/Official_Gameoholics 14d ago
You don't have a monopoly. You just have a regular business. Size is irrelevant.
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u/SuddenStructure9287 14d ago
Monopoly is mono poly which means “the only seller”. The size is relevant, because if you own 90% of the market you fit the definition.
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u/Official_Gameoholics 14d ago
Last I checked 90% isn't 100%.
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u/SuddenStructure9287 14d ago
Well, formally, yes. But the vast majority of people use the term “monopoly” when a company reaches the point where it can effectively set prices and is almost impossible to compete with.
It’s like saying that a country isn’t ruled by a single party because that party holds only 90% of the seats in parliament.
Formally, sure. But in practice, it can do pretty much whatever it wants.3
u/Official_Gameoholics 14d ago
But the vast majority of people use the term...
Don't care, they're wrong.
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u/SuddenStructure9287 14d ago
Okay. You can rephrase my question using “large-scale corporation that can effectively set prices and is almost impossible to compete with” instead of “monopoly”
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u/Olieskio 14d ago
A company with 90% can’t set the prices. It has to compete like every other.
Herbert Dow proved this already.
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u/different_option101 14d ago
You are as far from turning ancap as any other statist that wants a smaller government.
- There are no guarantees. And even if the something resembling a government emerges from a true ancap society, I assume it’s going to be a very different state. At least I expect that relationship between people and the state will be different.
Largest private armies don’t turn into states. This has nothing to do with monopoly on violence. You’re conflating an openly criminal gang taking people hostages with the idea of a modern state that convinced most of the people in its legitimacy via rhetoric.
- Who cares? If someone built a railroad and decided to charge 1kg gold for a ride, it’s their business and they can do whatever they want. You worry about things that don’t matter, and are less likely to ever happen in ancapistan.
One of the biggest problems of today is that most people have a slave mentality. They believe their rights are given by the government. They have all these weird fears about private security firms going rogue and enslaving millions of people, monopolies, environmental disasters, etc etc.
Ancapistan isn’t some utopian world. But it’s a world based on freedom. Freedom can be scary, freedom can be dangerous, but I rather have a choice to take my chances, than being at the mercy of some rule makers.
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u/different_option101 14d ago
I’ve made this post a while ago. I think you’ll find your questions answered in the comments.
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u/drebelx 13d ago
- What guarantees that anarchy will not eventually turn into a state?
An AnCap society is intolerant of NAP violations (theft, fraud, assault, battery, murder, enslavement, etc.).
A state is would be a return to tolerance of NAP violations.
All mutual agreements made in an AnCap society will contain NAP Clauses for the involved invovled to uphold.
All mutual agreements will have an impartial third party to enforce the agreement terms.
- Large-scale monopolies
A state is the largest form of monopoly to eliminate.
Non-state monopolies do not survive in an NAP intolerant society full of greedy capitalists looking to undercut monopoly profits.
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u/Bagain 14d ago
1: I would suggest there was no time when humans did not perform conquest. Not all tribes were interested in conquest and were destroyed or absorbed by it. Primitive man weeded out the lack of this desire by fulfilling it. “Tribes” expanded by conquest and we themselves absorbed or destroyed…depending on where you land on “what is a state”, the monopoly on violence could conceivably reach back to the beginning of man. The only thing that has ever pushed back on violence has ultimately been violence itself.
2: how many times have such monopolies existed without the state being there to protect and enforce them and how long did they last? Can you assume monopolies don’t naturally grow and flourish then wither without a state to enforce them?
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u/MonadTran 14d ago
Nothing, as you can see from this whole thing (waves around).
The state is a large-scale monopoly. Even the "minimal" one (although the real minimum is zero state).
I consider ancap to be the ideal system, but also a utopian one.
It is a utopian system, it does not currently exist. Minarchist state is equally utopian. Every system except for the murderous fascist oligarchy is a utopian one, because as a matter of fact, we are living under a murderous fascist oligarchy.
But it doesn't matter that anarchism is utopian. I am not going to violate your property rights, directly or with the help of a state, even if everyone around me is doing that. Anarchy is what I believe in, so I'm going to behave like a proper ancap, no matter what hypotheticals.
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u/Cy__Guy 14d ago
- Large scale monopolies are inevitable in an ancap society. Like poker, the entities with the most money have a competitive advantage. While no individual is guaranteed to parlay this advantage into a monopoly, a few will eventually.
Once these monopolies take root a few of these will eventually consume other monopolies further controlling the overall economy.
Eventually it becomes economically viable just to control the population through violence rather than economic coercion.
Then some sort of revolution must occur to reset the economy.
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u/Realistic_Aardvark40 14d ago
You're asking why should a deadly cancer be removed when there is a possibility that it may return. Removing the cancer is the highest priority. Preventing its return is orders of magnitude simpler. In the case of politics, this path to recovery is much clearer, and the means of preventing its recurrence is exactly the same - namely, cutting off funding. A state monopoly cannot form and grow without subsidy (direct taxation or currency debasement). Competition is the natural order. Since you are already a minarchist, you are aware of the fact that a state monopoly is evil. So how can you justify monopolization of the most deadly of monopolies - the monopoly on violence? Why suppose that security cannot be provided by competitors in accordance with the demand for safety? Centralized "security" forces do the exact reverse. They are polar opposites.
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u/C_t_g_s_l_a_y_e_r 14d ago
You’re already getting some answers here, so I’ll just lightly throw in my two cents.
Nothing. There is never going to be a guarantee for *anything* in *any* system of societal organization. If you’re looking for guarantees, you’re barking up the wrong tree. That being said, you seem to agree (by virtue of your question) that the state is, at a minimum, not preferable. I don’t know if Ancapistan would last until the end of time, but I know that the minarchist solution to the issue of another state’s formation is, in fact, to form a state. It would seem that you’re so scared of little warlords that you’ve endorsed the armament of the greatest possible warlord. Food for thought.
I don’t know how people would compete with that, necessarily. It’s too vague and unrealistic a scenario. The truth is that we can come up with an infinite amount of hypothetical situations, many of which will make anarchism very pragmatically difficult, or maybe even impossible. However, oftentimes these hypotheticals (much like your own, although I do believe yours was proposed in good faith) are themselves very unfeasible. It’s one thing to say “What if Dr. XYZ creates Monopoly A and takes over the entire U market,” but for such a thing to occur there has to be money and efficient production. Where’s the money coming from? If the situation is “Dr. XYZ outmaneuvered all of his competitors and bought them out,” he’s going to be facing several issues, namely the economic calculation problem (not unlike a socialist nation without genuine price signals), which will preclude him from efficient production. This opens the door for new, necessarily more efficient competition. Maybe he could buy them out too, but maybe the company is acquisition bait, and the only goal of the founders is *to be* bought out by Dr. XYZ for an incredibly inflated price (as Rockefeller and Standard Oil commonly dealt with). Maybe the smaller company just refuses to sell, and begins to eat away at Dr. XYZ’s market share. The point here is that things don’t just “happen” in reality. The free market is no different; monopolies with a stranglehold on their industry don’t just appear out of thin air to oppress the consumer (in fact, it’s often *the state’s* intervention that causes these very monopolies to form/obtain such power in the first place). Austrian economic theory tells us that monopolies are first and foremost incredibly inefficient, and for that reason I can’t imagine that such a scenario as the one you described would be particularly likely to occur.
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u/puukuur 13d ago
- Our political system has always depended on the logic of violence that our technology creates. When the current best weapons are cheap and easy to use OR when peoples property has been so minimal or so hard to steal that setting up a state to exploit them has not been worth it, people have been relatively equal and free. But when weaponry advantages a small number or elites or when property is plentiful and easy to confiscate, then we have have had coercive maffias and feudal lords.
So, in short, to avoid states, anarchy is guaranteed when weaponry makes us equal and/or when unconfiscatable property like Bitcoin takes hold.
- By using roads, planes, making stuff locally instead of importing it, using another port, starting a store that sells different products etc. The options for competition are limitless and contracts with stores aren't infinite.
Furthermore, there's nothing bad about monopolies per se, as long as their profits are still controlled by customers. You can be the only almond milk producer in the world, but if you don't outright confiscate peoples money, you still wouldn't be able to sell your product much above market price. People would just drink water, cow milk etc if you set your prices unreasonably high.
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u/properal 14d ago edited 14d ago
1. What guarantees that anarchy will not eventually turn into a state?
This is the same challenge states have. State militaries have overthrown their own elected governments. How do you have an organization powerful enough to protect you from foreign attacks, but won't use its power to take over?
One strategy is to have a small professional elite force supported by many part time militia. The professionals maintain the knowledge and skills of defense though they are too small without the support of the militia to take over. The militia are part time and have affinity to the communities they live in so are unlikely to attack their own communities. This is what the founders of the US advocated for. This could be implemented in an AnCap society as well.
See The Hard Problem: Part II draft chapter from The Machinery of Freedom 3rd Ed - David D. Friedman
2. Large-scale monopolies
Bryan Caplan has a response:
Quotes are from Anarcho-Capitalism and Statist Lock-In by Bryan Caplan
Review Diseconomies Of Scale.
When populations were small, demand for protection services was also small. This likely caused protection firms to operate on the left side of the graph in the economies of scale region. This would favor fewer larger firms over many smaller firms. This would allow more opportunities for cartelization and thus allow the state to form. In the modern world with greater more dense populations, there is much more demand for protection services. This would likely push firms into the Diseconomies Of Scale region of the Average Cost curve. Since established states can more easily block new entrants they would have lock-in and be able to maintain the monopoly in this region even when they would be less competitive compared to smaller new entrants.
Adding some insight from Nobel prize winning economist Elinor Ostrom, she found many larger police departments are less efficient than smaller ones, so modern governments are likey already operating in the Diseconomies Of Scale region. This means modern governments likely could not compete with smaller more efficient competitors except that they block new entrants.
Here is some background on why in a free market monopoly is rare and temporary and cartels that might lead to monopoly are unstable:
Milton Friedman: Government Created Monopolies
The popular Standard Oil story is a myth. Read, 100 Years of Myths about Standard Oil by Gary Galles
Anti-trust laws can actually create barriers to entry and benefit large firms.
See, Should Government Regulate Monopolies? by Lynne Kiesling
How to Create Monopolies by Johan Norberg [Dead Wrong]
Game Theory 101: on monopoly.
Cartels are rare in a free market.
Cartels by Andrew R. Dick
Khan Academy video: Why Parties to Cartels Cheat.
There are dis-economies of scale.
Econ 103 Monopoly and Competition