We're Anarcho-Capitalists, ask us anything!

Hi there! Good questions.

It might be helpful to start with the assumption about a stateless society….

Anarcho Capitalists don't presuppose a stateless society is required to make things work. All that is required is two or more people entertaining the idea of engaging in some kind of activity without a third party trying to dictate what is allowed or to demand a tax for an exchange. That’s all.

There is no assumption of perfect outcomes that requires entertaining. There will always be conflicts of one form or another, even if they aren't evident through things like the state, or nationalism. Liberty advocates seek more liberty and argue for a principle against the initiation of aggression not because they believe they can make it cease to exist, but because it does exist and is part of human nature.

How you choose to act, even if you have a goal based on a particular ideal, must be done in appreciation of and in respect to the current reality you find yourself in. That said, Anarcho Capitalists believe that treating your neighbors with respect and conducting voluntary exchanges will lead to an abundance of wealth, rather than needless fighting and reaping the consequences. That’s where Bastiat’s broken window fallacy is particularly important to consider. If no windows are broken, if no one is cheating or undermining someone else, then assets can be put towards entirely new uses. Of course this is the principle of the matter, and the reality is that upkeep or security are desirable things which help in the prevention of deterioration or the looting of property.

As it relates to military defense, since there is necessarily a transitional phase in which people would need to internalize the values of a libertarian philosophy, solutions within the anarcho capitalist society would be based on what is practical to achieve at any given point.

Nationalism, including borders, aren’t really a factor for anarchists in general, but AnCaps do believe in the liberty to assign value, which can include property, and property recognition or registry services are an important aspect of maintaining a civil society.

Wouldn't you agree that the concept of nation-state should be kept alive to some extension, in order to uphold any principles or values (like, for instance, AnCaps itself)?

Principles can be advocated for without the need of a nation state. If I might paraphrase your borders question to one of property: Effective control of a property is different from ethical claim. Ethical claim comes from cooperating with others to establish a conventional system of recognizing claims and minimizing the harm that can arise from conflicts. When it comes to individuals and their claims it is much easier to obtain, in a voluntary society, an arbitrator who can effectively assist in resolving disputes. However at the nation-state level only a pretense of order is formed through groups such as the United Nations. The UN has a terrible track record of preventing border incursions or intra-national genocide incidents, and it must be viewed in this context rather than simply trying to judge two nations as entities at dispute with one another.

The kind of voluntary society an AnCap would aspire towards functions for a number of reasons, including the fact that you want security and someone wants to provide security to you. Everybody is a minority in some form or another according to their preferences and values, and since you can’t survive in a barter economy alone, the interconnected nature of a marketplace provides the spider-web of interlinked social relationships that would be conducive of a peaceful and self regulating society. No need for a nation state, but certainly there would exist experts who, rather than through politics but through satisfying customers, would provide the kind of security you were willing to pay for, as opposed to be taxed without consent to provide.

In practical terms I’m sure you’re wondering how an anarcho capitalist society would work if it existed side-by-side with nation states, and there is certainly a kind of asymmetry in such a relationship. If you were to entertain the idea of an Ancapistan, then you’d have to ask what prevents any kind of nation from being attacked, and there are at least two good reasons:

  1. Economic prosperity. It is much better to trade with a nation that provides desirable goods than to take it over.

  2. Military deterrence. Hitler didn’t invade Switzerland because it had an armed citizenry with a practical policy on firearms. A free society is necessarily a society that is capable of defending itself from outside threats, and part of that involves not being a threat to others.

I'll stop here. If you have any other followup questions feel free to ask.

/r/brasil Thread