It has come to my attention that within the anarcho-capitalist and minarchist movement the term of a night watchman state is used to describe the 'small government' necessary in order to maintain a capitalist society with little to no state beyond the night watchman state required. Firstly, this is absurd; to say that a night watchman state would be 'small' in scope and cost and second, it is also inefficient in the sense of accomplishing the desired goals, even within a capitalist system; which thrives on a big government nanny state/aggressive force.
From the get go one must recognize the basic cost of what a 'night watchman state' would entail. The night watchman state would be said to be in charge of protecting persons and property above all other duties; no roads, bridges or social programs, just protection. Let me go down the list of protective institutions. Fire department, police, military, judiciary. Now, ignoring that the state is the institution which prints and distributes money and would require an internal revenue service to be able to collect on the taxes required to sustain the night watchman state whose only goal is protection through coercive force, along with the problems of 'defining what protecting people' means. We are off to the races of understanding what such a government would be like.
Starting off, as everyone knows, a military isn't cheap. They are also a coercive force which would break the 'nonaggression principle'; but no one really cares about that. An army, a navy, an air force of any and all kinds requires vast sums of funds, it also requires a large number of people working on the front lines and behind the scenes; cleaning toilets, doing paperwork, medical work, trainers, weapons makers, engineers, pilots ect ect. A military, even a slim one would have to in the very least be able to provide an adequate defense; which would take a considerable budget depending on the size of the nation. Now, some small thinker may argue that a private military would work better, you know because competition, but than we would have competing institutions of coercive force vying against one another for employment; and, ya know, that might be a bit dangerous to have a bunch of institutions who make their living by using force feeling threatened that they won't have an income stream, they might violate the nonaggression principle, it's what they do after all, but as I said, no one cares about that.
We then go to the police force, and again we are confronted by the same problem in scale, but also with another issue, the law itself. Who is writing the law? This rolls in well with the next thing on the list which is courts. As the legal system is vast, requiring lawyers, bookkeepers, prison workers, officers of the peace, judges, and enormous institutions to determine and establish patent and trademark law and on and on it goes. The entire judiciary, police, bookkeeping institutions ect, would be required to be vast in scale and scope; perhaps more so than the military. This is, as one could imagine, very expensive. And again, some small minded person might say 'we could privatize them' and again I would ask 'do you want institutions who's sole job is using and enforcing coercion competing with one another?' might lead to a nasty violation of the nonaggression principle that we don't really care bout.
Next comes the fire department, which I could wholeheartedly see these people privatize, thus requiring people to take out fire department insurance in order to secure themselves and their neighbors from an uncontrollable blaze. What if the person doesn't have the insurance, will the department just let their house burn down and allow the flames to spread to other houses? Even if the other houses are insured they certainly would rather the blaze was contained, why wait for it to spread to their house; or surrounding houses? This is just inefficient.
Coming back to the problem of the judiciary though, no small thing, how will one determine/pass laws? What institution will govern these things? Who sets the rules and why? These things, like everything else, seem to go 'private sector...things work' no explanation as to how to achieve it. Competition seems good, but than you wouldn't want competition in the judiciary, than no law could be concrete because if you can just go court hopping until you find the one with the 'right laws' than how can you enforce those laws in another court's jurisdiction? If no overlapping singular law applies than how do you apply law? If the 'right laws' are always rulings in the direction of the richest, as the system would naturally evolve; due to the fact that that would be how the courts would make their money, if the wealthy are paying their bills, they will be hard pressed to rule against those who enrich them. How would justice reign at all if greed becomes the creed of all courts in the land, and if one court says different, they'll go fish for another one.
Also, let's get this out of the way, all of these institutions violate the 'nonaggression principle' in that they enforce the law and property rights by use of force; barrel of a gun. Now everyone will default to 'self defense doesn't count' when speaking about aggression against others. However, property damage is not defense of the self, it is defense of property, and since property is inanimate, one cannot use the argument of self defense, unless the person is making the argument that all property is an extension of the individual and thereby afforded the same rights thereby; as I believe most anacro-capitalist truly do believe. This would not be sound if we are to apply 'self-defense' as an argument, as I cannot see the an-caps saying that the institutions of force only can use force against those using force against actual people rather than property. If the an-caps wish to make this argument than they may as well wrap the entire thing into 'the only duty of the night watchman state is to protect people/property on the same level' and this would be a disastrous thing indeed.
It is at this point that the night watchman state would become the brute of the public and the enforcer of property. As the wealthy can acquire more and more property than those less affluent, the mass of people would inevitably become subject to an ever growing private sector whose rights and privileges would eclipse their own by default. Private courts headed by private lawyers all who cost a pretty penny and would be reliable in their servicing those who pay their institutional bills. We would see the inevitable creep of corruption and the use of these institutions through corrupt means to further squeeze the public and thereby further the capitalist system in its goals of profit maximization. The private sector would become intrinsically linked to the night watchman state until a fascist society emerged; this would happen with privatized institutions as well, just instead creating a feudalist society with competing corporate states warring between one another in a battle for influence, and thereby profits.
In other words, the night watchman state is a ridiculous concept in 'creating a small government state' as it uses some of the most costly institutions the government has and removes the most efficient ones in favor for 'making a buck' like roads and bridges. Not to mention that inevitable private capture of these 'weaker' institutions is all but certain, and the utilization of a 'privatized' version would create just as much hazard and just as much capture. Anarcho-capitalism doesn't work, minarcho-capitalism also doesn't work, capitalism is naturally a big institution and requires bureaucracy by its very nature; this is an obvious reality. Big companies require big protection on multiple fronts, legally and physically, to say that a 'smaller government' would be preferable to the capitalist system is a joke. Capitalism just doesn't want government to interfere with it's profits, that's about it, beyond that everything else is fair game and since businesses like to treat business like they are waging war, one must remember the old adage 'all's fair in love and war' we must think of this. Capitalism is not benevolent, capitalism is not kind or caring, capitalism is greedy, and greed has no love, greed has no loyalty, greed only wants more.
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