Thread

Please explain. It‘s not that complicated. We can freely trade without a third uninvolved person having any saying in it. Where is the scam?

How do you prevent it from centralizing around a few rich, powerful capitalists and they're armies? Some kind of state will emerge, and it will not be democratic. Also, no taxes means no welfare means you are sentencing millions or billions of people to death -- I've never heard a libertarian sufficiently explain what they plan to do with poor people.

Rich people armies… Do you have some good current examples? I only experienced it one time by myself (Thailand - Thaksin) and it was kind of cool. It was a balancing act. He brought ‚power to the people‘ or at least has been perceived that way at that time by 50% of the people. The poor people in this kind of society are not THAT poor. That is the point. They can survive much better than in any other form of society. Prosperity and wealth distribution is a natural process. That process always starts with one human being greedy and more clever.ä than the competition. Btw: No taxes means no welfare is obviously wrong too. The donations of the super rich by far succeed all the welfare-tax-spendings.

Exactly. I am just waiting for a decent explanation of how this would be prevented feom happening. Every time I ask I get... silence. In today's world, capital = power, so unlimited capital = unlimited power (more or less). Trusts already lobby and pressure governments to kill competition. Would they stop killing competition if they had even less limits? Is it more likely thats for instance Apple and Google would be kinder to independent devs and comply with private justice or just establish their own justice?

Maybe it is not obvious, but many military interventions in history were lead by private capitalist companies pr rich men armiea. From civil wars in the Roman empire to colonisation of Central America, India, etc. and more recently western interventions on Africa serving private interest (intricated with geopolitical ones). Depending on the donations of the super rich is like depending on the will of kings... You do not agree? You loose it. This has also always happened in non capitalist contexts, but they are/were not anarchist.

You see that in the capitalism-power-process the power can shift to someone offering better product snd everything in that process is free, voluntary and without force? See how fast Nokia got ‚killed‘ by Apple? Nice peaceful power-shift to the one player with the product the people/market wants more. See that Meta has to peacefully offer money to Instagram to buy it? Nice way, better than fighting and killing people… don‘t you think? You just named the main problem in your post: Government. For me it’s the exact opposite of anarcho-capitalism/freedom.

I think the main and important difference between kings and super rich is the amount of force needed and used. A super rich can fuck himself if I decide to take that stance. A king would take my head and throw it to the crocodiles for that thought.

Anarcho-capitalism is an oxymoron. Nokias army would just murder Steve Jobs. Oh and how many patent infringement lawsuits did Apple file to smash its competition?

I agree. And I don't like governments either. But I think it is a question of balance of power. As long as competition is actually free, this can happen. But there is a shift when one actor get enough power to kill the competition. I think governments/states have played a role in maintaining competition in some areas with antitrust laws, and have also killed it in other areas. I just don't see how private justice could be as effective at balancing power and limit its concentration in an anarcho-capitalist world.

What would prevent a super rich to do the same? Rich mafiosi do that. Rich companies have killed people opposing them and still do, violently or quietly...

Yeah definitely it is kind of an oxymoron but still I like to think about how worse a social democratic system is compared to a fully free anarchic market. Nokias army: But they didn‘t. Why? Because that would be something the society doesn‘t want and you can not force them because you are not government. Patent infringement always includes governments. Without government - no patent enforcement. Means: Without governments - no monopolies.

Yes. For me: Part of the free market. There is always someone stronger and more powerfull arising.

I'm just trying to examine "Apple vs Nokia" as a success by the free market -- but it is anything but that. Not to mention of course the pillaging of natural resources and essential enslavement of labor in the global south to make iPhones competitive in the market.

Nokia could not have an army because governments seized the monopoly on violence and were capable of enforcing it. And maybe Nokia did not evaluate properly the risk for their business, and other reasons. Patent infrigement does include governments, but it was pushed by private companies, especially Microsoft. Big companies use governments as a tool as much as they can. If we were to dissolve governments with no common and strong governance alternative, I think they would just establish new ones under other names. Some nice new banana republics.

Uhhh, ok. I guess you and me we have super hardcore different world views. 😅 For me there is no enslavement of the labor of the south. I remember that example of these kids in india. The EU/UN tried hard to get them of this garbage dump places just to (in the end) push them into the only other option they had: prostitution. Natural resources for me are just that: Natural resources. It‘s awesome and good that we have them and bringing them up the cheapest way is exactly what we all want. Producers, consumers AND workers. 🤷‍♂️

So, nothing would change 😁

Free market alone does not prevent violence without something ensuring balance of power. Otherwise, any way is good to arise, and if it is violence, violence it will be. I am sure we can have a free market of violence in an anarcho-capitalist world, but is it what we want? In a way we already live in this world, anarchy among countries with the ones with more capital dominating the others, and being replaced as new empires arise...

Yes, maybe Banana Republics … OR just many little peacefully existing self organizing little kantons with a nice range of wonderful products available, the capabilities to self defense and a lot of trading.

Anarchy among countries. Yes. True. I see that too. And is it that wrong? Maybe yes. Maybe no. I think it is as close to ‚human nature‘ as it can get. Even this specific things looking cruel and unfair to us are in the end just normal and usual.

I would love that. Just not seeing this happening without limitating power (meaning capital) for everyone at some point, or developping outstanding self defense guaranteed for every one, making attack always excessively expansive. But still waiting for it...

Come on… who should limit who and by what standards? It is already self-regulating!

How is it self-regulating? The current growing concentration of wealth is a very documented and aknowledged thing, seen as a risk for global stability. Do you call that self-regulation?

Yes. 100 % This will shift and in a few years (doesn’t matter how hard someone clinches to the power) and the power will be concentrated somewhere else. One company can make a better product and become rich without force… One government or state can conquer another government or state. One human can kill or fight another human. That all in itself is already self-regulating enough. No need for artificial and best purpose intervention or redistribution attempts. These usually make everything worse.

How does the state-free free market protect air and water for people that can not afford to physically defend their local resources when a capitalist with an army comes to take and/or pollute everything they need to survive?

They don’t need to at all. Capitalist armies are extremely inefficient. They cost too much and bring no profit compared to free markets. Reputation is part of running a company too. It‘s much to easy to compete with someone perceived as evil.

Ok. Fundamental disagreement. Consumers don't care about evil they care about price, and those who can afford it care about quality.

Yes. Fundamental disagreement is awesome. Nice to have a discussion with you :) To an extend. I think: If a specific line is crossed they usually do care about morals too. And even if they don‘t: Who are we to tell them what to do?!

Ok so I understand you are not actually defending an idea of anarcho-capitalism but capitalism and rotation of power, just as it is right now, is that correct? I agree that interventions can make things worst, but I think this is especially the case when it enables a minority to take power. Also, there is a sweet contradiction here as every shift is the result of some people (in a given context) wanting to intervene to realise their vision of the world.

I am sorry but I am not that educated … I am usually just against the overreach of governments onto trades/markets. Is that far away from anarcho-capitalism?

It's ok, nice of you to admit. From what I understand, combining anarchism and capitalist makes you abolish the state and let free markets organise all aspects of society, based on the foundation of private property. So on top of that everything is based on private interactions (private courts, private police, etc.). Being closer from this or other forms of anarchism is your say. For instance you can have anarcho-communism, which is based on commons but with no centralization by a state. And a lot of possibilies between the two. Other people argue that the state is inevitable if defined as how people organize together as a society... In this case the question becomes how to have an anarchist state, ie a state without a ruler.

Coming back to this question, I had a personal breakthrough thinking of limits, thank you! My main point being that no limit to power makes anarchism impossible, in that case power being essentially capital, how would you limit the concentration of power-capital without governements/states? If you could design the main asset of such a society to be anti concentration, you might have something that holds. If the main asset is money, and you distribute its creation for ever, then no one can cease it all (or an overwhelming part of it) and you get a balance of power by design. Cryptocurrencies give a great advantage to defence via personal holding of private keys. Bitcoin does that. This advantage is reinforced by privacy. As for distribution/creation, it should be infinite but with strictly limited inflation. Monero does that, but the more advanced work I have seen on this topic is "the relative theory of money", only in french here: http://trm.creationmonetaire.info/index.html All of this makes me actually think that under certain conditions, anarcho-capitalism could be a thing... Great talk haha!

There is actually an english version: https://en.trm.creationmonetaire.info/