Anarcho-Capitalism: A Predictable Ride

 

I have a basic complaint against the concept of the 'free market' as it seems to me to be a thought experiment gone awry. We must acknowledger the basic fact that markets are systems made and enforced through law; thereby the state. Without the force of law, in modern economies, the monetary system would be difficult to enforce; as, in todays economy the currency is backed by the full faith and credit of nation states and the force they employ t defend said value of currency. However, there seem to be some people who think that one can establish a society based upon the 'free market' and this seems, to me, to be a very brutal proposition.

I cannot see how one could structure a society based upon market rules. To privatize all functions of the government would lead to a chaotic system of exploitation and mass failings of institutional priorities; aka, the systems of law and force would side with the highest bidder due to the fact that they are the most lucrative customers and they would wish for their patronage again. Also, the lack of an overarching system or rules would make the 'private court' system ununiformed and, along with the problem of 'wealth capture' creating rulings toward the wealthy, create a multisided justice system that would disproportionally side with the wealthy; as it would be more profitable to do so. I am left wondering how one would enforce any laws/guidelines/rules without a basic monopoly of force and overarching law; yet the problem of 'capture' in a 'market based society' makes this a nearly impossible to ensure this.

'Free market' based rules would produce a perverse incentive to side with wealth; as they would pay the bills; for privatized institutions of power, who would be charged for 'keeping the law'. The 'law on demand' produced by such an institution would be a terrible system. Also the level of redundancy would merely create a 'big private sector' whose scope and scale would be just as problematic; if not more so. Also, the problem of no over arching 'federal' rule system of basic law/rights having been established as how the 'overarching' legal framework of laws/rights is not even discussed by such persons; they seem to merely assume that humans will 'collectively agree' to an anarcho capitalist society, I do not know where this idea comes from.

Another issue that I see in the flawed thinking of the anarcho capitalist system/free market fantasy is the problem of how money would be distributed and how one would enforce it's value. As currently our money is backed by the force of the federal government, it's faith upheld by us arbitrarily saying so, I again am left with a gigantic question mark on the problem of the enforcement of value without an institution of force to impose it. The argument against an 'absolute monopoly of force' as an argument against the state's existence ignores the basic reality that the state does far more to protect property and create a basic infrastructure that can allow commerce to flow, than one often thinks about. Money and it's value is arbitrarily determined by the state through force; I see no other way to determine wide spread value other than through the use of important resources, like food and water, and holding them hostage/withholding them in the use of basic exchange for necessary goods for survival; these would be the closest things to having any 'intrinsic value' in a human society. Gold, like paper or plastic, is worthless barring the use of force to enforce the concept of value upon them.

This brings me to the most important criticism of anarcho capitalism; that is will foster fascism or feudalism in one form or another. A common retort is that 'well violence is costly' this however bellies historical ignorance. The idea of 'violence is expensive' not acknowledging that obviously someone is making a profit off of that expense; in our modern world. This brings me to the argument that private military like agencies would eventually be used to enforce ''property rights' and even acquisition property through use of force; as the larger they are the more power they would have. Also, they could just confiscate the land they took, and what, some bigger group would fight them? Where would they be? What if the more powerful person bought out most of  the 'employable  institutions of force'? Remember, historically, conquest is about acquiring resources, not mindless conquest; it' profitable to conquer if you do it right. Imperialism is the conquest and subjugation of land; and capitalism is intrinsically linked to it in many ways, as was/is slavery and feudalism, even fascism if taken to the extreme. Government as the exclusive monopoly of force, if removed will create a power vacuum and an equal force of capability and or scope will take it's place; cartels or otherwise. As using imperialist force is not intrinsically just a 'government' interest due to the fact that expansion and acquisition of resources is costly but the gains outweigh the cost in the long term.

Violence can be a very good method for acquiring things, especially if no greater force should be concerned of. In an an-cap society, what is to stop people from freely getting together and say 'killing Steve" and taking his stuff? This isn't a lone person, this is a group, and let say the group is big, far larger than most, what will stop them? Say that group is a competitor with Steve, they want Steve gone, they want his things so as to expand their influence; who will stop them? If they are expertly trained and hire experts at implementing force, as we have described that there will be for hire institutions of force in this nongovernment economy based world, and they expand and take things for their own growth. Also, if we have 'private' institutions of contractible force (mercenaries) they are trained to implement force, average people who aren't trained fighters would be ineffective combatants. As trained killers can, compared to untrained ones, kill millions with fewer than hundreds if they're good at it. War/expansion is a profitable business, we wouldn't have contractors who do so if it weren't.

 

One must understand that empires were built by tribes fighting, some dying off while others expanded, in a war of attrition that was designed to remove competition for recourses; and it worked. It's an effective strategy when no one is big enough or strong enough to stop you. People don't have to adhere to the 'nonaggression principle' as it seems to be a general guideline, other humans can simply disagree and form a large enough group, build recourses and infrastructure and take over, its been done over and over again throughout history, failures of course, but plenty of successes. The French revolution, he Russian revolution, the American revolution, and many other war's for independence; all bloody revolutions against a system that a mass of people disagreed with, for whatever reason.

 

The concept of self ownership can also only be enforced through force, however, if someone with greater force decides to use force to take your property and 'make it theirs' than only another force of greater or equal power must be there to meet them. As those with greater wealth/power will amass larger monopolies of force through attrition, I again am left with the basic argument that an an-cap world would either be feudalistic or fascistic. Competition is a war of attrition, when competitors beat their opponents they take their market share; thus expanding. Again, imperialism may be expensive, but if you gain enough territory and resources the benefits outweigh the costs in the long run; as history shows, it's how empires form, they may fall but that takes time, and for that time they reign supreme. Social Darwinism can be perpetrated on a mass scale, no government required, again I point to guerilla warfare, no state required just basic organization and the fighters willing to do so. This seems an inevitable aspect of an anarcho capitalist system; due to a lack of a monopoly of force creating a power vacuumed.

Wage slavery would be an inevitable outcome because of this as there is no control against monopoly, again, it's a war of attrition and they take the market share of their competitors; the larger an institution becomes the harder it is to apply 'small business' style economics on them, it's almost impossible to boycott on a mass scale an international company. Also, the bigger they get, the can just buy out their competitors and ensure their market share. Remember, the American government was what broke up the monopolies in the gilded age, not the market. Wage slavery is easy as the larger the company will pay less, and the smaller companies can't afford to pay much more, as they

don't have the funds, and the larger companies will get rid of the smaller ones; no wage competition.

 

You cannot operate on the idea of non-force because someone will see the 'opening of opportunity' in the idea that "hey, I can take things and no one will stop me; all I need are numbers" we are not all hive mind drones, we have opinions and feelings, and  an anarcho capitalism system would foster one of the most negative human attributes on the planet; greed. Selfishness is not a virtue, but not everyone sees it that way, our scummy friend Ayn Rand taught us that; admiring psychopaths as superhuman, disgusting bitch she was.

 

The problem is that I cannot see any system working without a certain level of organization through a government like entity that would do all of the nitty-gritty behind the scenes work of bookkeeping; patent, trademark, copyright law, not that I like these things, but corporate institutions would hate their removal and so would small business owners. We, unfortunately, require systems of structure to survive and thrive here in the world. I believe a much more democratize/socialized system would help curb these extreme negatives set by the capitalist system; archaic thing that it is.