Let us be clear of one thing, for all of the rhetoric slung about by the an-cap community, capitalism cannot survive on it's own, without the state it is divest of power and cannot be sustained. This is a truth that seems to not penetrate the minds of the anarco-capitalist frame if mind. They seem to believe that individuals are capable of forming a capitalist society without the force of the state or any of the state's regulatory and infrastructure base; this is an absurd claim. Capitalism relies on the state to enforce the value of the currency that it provides by force. A twenty dollar bill is worth twenty dollars because uncle Sam says so, gun extended. Binding contracts are held together by the state through state law and the enforcement of said law by the state, the contract must be abided by because uncle Sam says so, gun extended.
Without the state to enforce the very concept of 'property rights' or any other rights, gun extended, the very concept of capitalism, not to mention laws, social contract, or money, falls apart. One can argue that the 'state' and 'the workplace' should be heavily democratized, and that that would help allow for proper checks and balances so as to diminish the power of hierarchy; a policy that I would agree with. However many of the institutions and systems that we covet as inalienable would be hard pressed to exist without a rule structure and enforcement of said structure; with force of law. Arbitrary, yes, but at this point I cannot see people working together without a system by which they can operate with a level of stability and regularity.
More often than not I am perplexed at the lack of nuance when the an-cap community argues against the use of force. I do not understand their argument. Force is immoral by definition? This is a nonsensical thing to state and not event he anarco-capitalists believe this; because they will accept the idea of 'self defense' as within the moral and legal rights of the individual, these things can be extended and retracted arbitrarily based upon said an-cap. Now, if said anarco-capitalist was a pacifist than I would say that they were more honest with their ideological beliefs, but since the entire idea of 'property rights' would be void if people could not use force to maintain property; well let's say no one would have any property but the brutes, as history has shown.
Capitalism requires the state, this is not an opinion, it is just a basic reality. There is too much that the state does, that the capitalist system does not do, that is required for a symbiotic relationship of mutual benefits. The state grants contract protection and property protection (patents and so forth for intellectual property) and in return the capitalist system sustains the government with a level of a tax base so as to maintain those systems of force, military, police, judiciary, prison, ect ect... This is why those things balloon while social programs are cut and shrunk under capitalist regimes; it is easier to maximize profit with a subdued and powerless mass of people than to work within the complexities of the human climate of society and the overarching social contract that allows us to thrive.
In other words, the capitalist system requires and enjoys force because of its obvious benefits bequeathed. However, because of the capitalist system, the state is required to create and balloon these protective measures of the capitalist system. These ballooning protective assets both put a strain on the capitalist system and the state, and they will continue to grow to excess and over burdensome traits due to the basic desires of both the state and the capitalist system. The state, however, will in time develop a basic social safety net; in order to maintain a basic level of social cohesion and control. This is a result of the capitalist system creating vast sums of inequality and the state having a basic duty to maintain a cohesive structure so as to grant order/security to the mass of people and the capitalist system; this is of great importance to both the capitalist and governing systems. The problem is that the capitalist system is too short sighted to understand that inequity is a threat to the capitalist system itself. As such, the shortsightedness blinds them to the fact that the social programs are needed and the excess of the police state is already bloated beyond reason and capacity; however the capitalist system demands the gutting of the social programs to create an even larger influx of money, either into the police state or back to themselves.
This unreasoned conflict of both the state and the capitalist system, not to mention the mass of people caught in the middle of the conflict/symbiotic/parasitic relationship, will threaten all three of the occupants; the public, the state, and the capitalist system. This is a great threat to all of the people/systems involved. As such one must question the problematic reality of the relationship between the capitalist system, the state, and the people, we must come to terms with the fact that a capitalist system requires a powerful state, without a powerful state the very system is under threat or is either too weak to be maintained, or will devolve to barbarous mercenary/mafia practices. Capitalism cannot be sustained without force, no patent could be enforced without it, no property rights could be maintained without it, the reality is that all capitalist institutions need a forceful institution to compliment it; this seems the only option.
The reality is that the hierarchy of the capitalist system begets a complicated hierarchic system within the state to protect and enforce the will/desire of capitalism itself. When we come to think of it, the most complex and unwieldy systems within the state are more often the most forceful, police, military, and judiciary, as stated before. It costs a lot to create/build/maintain these systems of the state, as such the capitalist system really doesn't dislike thee institutions nor find them a threat; at least until they are used against them to reign in their excess, a thing that causes them to regret their demanding to build them so large to begin with. Now, of course, the capitalists themselves do not necessarily personally demand the growth of the power/force institutions, however they benefit largest from them and would not exist without them; they do complain of them as such systems do cut into their profits, but rarely will they demand their cutting as to do so would threaten their safety both abroad and at home.
In international affairs the systems of force are used to secure, through violence or threat thereof, the economic interests of the capitalist system world wide. At home a police state is used to secure internal stability against the mass of people, where in the capitalist system resides as a base of operations, who are subjected to the brutality of the system from within. As obviously would happen the force deployed abroad is far more bloody and brutal than the force deployed at home, as they do not reside abroad in those 'savage places' and therefore do not care about the people or the level of violence perpetrated. At home the system 'tolerates' the mass of the public, but as time moves on the systems of force used abroad migrate back home and the brutality used on foreign soil begins to showcase itself more and more at home; along with the policing force beginning to behave more like an occupying force rather than a police force of the public, this is no surprise as they are occupying the country on the behalf of the corporate state rather than the public or event the state itself.
These costly systems of hierarchy beget each other, they require one another to live, so creating a system of democratization and checks and balances throughout the systems themselves would highly modify the behavior of all involved. Again, if we use things like unions, worker coops, and mandatory government service along with public education/civics to instill a level of societal responsibility throughout the masses, than we could perhaps achieve a more just and verdant society. The natural stratification of life towards hierarchy makes this difficult, capitalism magnifies and increases the problem significantly, and so one perhaps cannot stop stratification completely, but perhaps can minimize it enough so as to render it annoying but tolerable. Again, this is a difficult problem to confront based on the fact that the human condition is often riddled with awkward elements of counterintuitive fixtures throughout the human social stratum; thus making it difficult to know if democratization is the proper answer to all problems of hierarchy. However, as of yet there is one thing we do know, capitalism magnifies hierarchy to the point of absurdity and excess thereby making systems of hierarchy balloon out of proportion in an attempt to protect the hierarchic system of capitalism with even more bureaucratic systems of hierarchy branching farther and farther out from the source.
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