Anarcho-Capitalist in /r/Anarcho_Capitalism posts that he is losing friends to 'statism'. Considers ending friendship with an ignorant 'statist' who believes ridiculous things like the cause of the American Civil War was slavery. (self.SubredditDrama)
SubredditDrama
237 ups - 100 downs = 137 votes
A lonesome anarcho-capitalist states he lost a lot of respect for a friend because he advanced "statist" ideas like "The Civil War was fought because the South didn't want to end Slavery" (How this is wrong is never actually elaborated. Neither are any of the other 'statist' ideas).
He does not believe he can still remain friends with the 'ignorant' statist friend.
The thread is full of great popcorn, starting with the obvious here:
>...If you are going to give up your friend over this kind of thing ... you are going to live a very lonely life. You need to learn to deal with it cause the reality is that anarcho-capitalists are an extreme minority and statists are the extreme majority. Life is too short to be so stubborn that you isolate yourself from people who disagree with you....
and here >Why would you want to cut off a friend over political beliefs? That's quite ridiculous...
and a fight over if slavery was the cause of the civil war here. Which was great posts like:
>...the civil war was about slavery, but not about black slavery, that just fit nicely into the bankers version of history, black slavery was an issue, but the real issue was the incorporation of the united states and by doing so it would allow the corporation to collateralize its capital, that capital is YOU!!!...
There is more and it gets more... out there.
This is followed up with comparisons to the "kids" in /r/atheism here: >Not gonna lie, you sound kind of like one of those kids from /r/atheism[1] going "I just don't know if I can stay friends with him now that I know he believes in a magical talking sky fairy!" There's more to life than politics. If it bothers you that much, just don't talk about it.
and there is this helpful redditor who points that:
>You might want to fill out this checklist and see how many you get. Seriously. Breaking off friendships over things like this is a recognized psychological warning sign. Get help before it's too late.
There is also the insulting: >If you can't be friends with someone whose beliefs differ from yours; you are not a very intelligent person
Summary: This thread is both sad and hilarious. Enjoy.
EDIT: As usual butthurt ancaps/libertarians have decided to heavily brigade this thread in violation of private rules of this website. So much for respecting private property.
564 comments submitted at 13:34:33 on Aug 26, 2013 by sirboozebum
> 1) him giving a statist argument 2) me dispelling that argument with truth
Lol. That's a sure way to end any discussion.
People's lack of understanding of confirmation bias is frightening.
I found that confirmation bias is much more common among people who don't hold my opinions and values.
Excuse me, what's anarcho-capitalism?
> Anarcho-capitalism (also referred to as free-market anarchism, market anarchism, private-property anarchism) is a political philosophy which advocates the elimination of the state in favor of individual sovereignty in a free market. In an anarcho-capitalist society, law enforcement, courts, and all other security services would be provided by privately funded competitors rather than through taxation, and money would be privately and competitively provided in an open market. Therefore, personal and economic activities under anarcho-capitalism would be regulated by privately run law rather than through politics.
[Wikipedia] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism)
Thank you.... methinks this system would be incredibly hard to keep on it's legs. It would topple under it's on weight....
There's an entire sub dedicated to refuting that argument :)
/r/Anarcho_Capitalism
Well, I was skeptical at first, but I guess as long as it has a subreddit it's probably ok.
Kinda like spacedicks is OK!
I'm an anarcho-capitalist. This subreddit is really bad about having certain discussions but if you ever want to know why I would advocate for such a crazy position I'd be more than happy to listen to critiques and give you my take.
I've been having an extended conversation with another ancap and I'd be interested in hearing your response to my problems with anarcho-capitalism (whether by PM or in that thread). It would be nice to get some other perspectives.
The post you linked specifically? Or did you want to raise specific concerns?
The post I linked gives a broad overview of most of my concerns with anarcho-capitalism. It was written as a response to one of the sidebar links on /r/anarcho_capitalism.
Gotcha, I'm getting lots of little replies but I'd be happy to address it. If I don't get back to you today please please remind me and I'll give you a decent answer.
> This subreddit is really bad about having certain discussions
Are you kidding me? Like what?
I thought he meant this sub not /r/Anarcho_Capitalism ?
Oh gotcha!
To be fair /r/anarcho-capitalism isn't much better.
Generally anything outside of a liberal paradigm but it can be understanding for moderate conservatism.
Really any minority/fringe position is mocked mercilessly while comments like "lol libertarians lol" get upvoted because of how insightful they are. Watch when MRAs get brought up as an example. Sure, perhaps the subreddit is ridiculous at times. But I'm generally I'd the philosophy that engaging people intellectually, if they're willing, is never a bad thing even if they hold an extreme view. SRD generally prefers to mock and downvote everyone who isn't on the same page.
I think a lot of it has to do with the greater disconnect between more closely hegemonic discourse and "fringe"/extreme discourse. Very often the more extreme standpoint comes from such a different paradigm, that the majority can't even entertain the idea as valid. You will have a few open minds who can at least try to see things from the extreme minority perspective, but even they will find major cognitive barriers to being anything more than tolerant of those views. Especially in groups, we humans are very quick to dismiss wildly different paradigms.
Those who can, create. Those who can't, try to tear down what everyone else has created.
I misunderstood which subreddit you meant.
I meant SRD
Gender politics, though I think the guy you are responding to is referring to general politics.
Africa. No property rights and no laws leads to Africa. Whoever can acquire the most thugs and clubs gets to call the shots.
Ah yes, that monolithic country of Africa.
Somalia!
Aw crap. Does this mean we're not allowed to invoke Somalia or other failed states in arguments with Ron Paul supporters any more?
Calling Ron Paul an Anarcho Capitalist is like calling Bernie Sanders a Communist. It's nonsensical.
They put it in the header of /r/Shitstatistssay so that means its been debunked. Obviously.
Well, I mean, not all failed states are Somalia, so, I mean, each example is different, as they are different countries. But nice try, I give it an A for effort!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QDv4sYwjO0
It is, which is why most capitalists tend not to be Anarcho. We understand that a functioning government is required for a society, but think that certain facets may be better run by private individuals and corporations instead.
>a functioning government is required for a society
Only someone ignorant of history could believe this. Polycentric legal systems have succeeded in maintaining civil order throughout history. The actual content of some of the laws that ancaps advocate are, of course, going to be different than places hundreds of years ago, but the same sort of economic analysis applies.
Medieval Iceland
Medieval Ireland
The Law Merchant (throughout Europe)
Somalia (more on how standards of living have increased throughout he last 20 years of anarchy)
Zomia
Libertarianism on steroids.
>Libertarianism ~~on steroids.~~ that needs anti-psychotic medication.
Or at least higher doses.
The solution for teenagers who picked up their upper-middle class parents conservative ideas, but also really like pot.
This seems to be a common idea, but it is completely inconsistent with every ancap I know. Textbook progressive liberal or bible-thumper/poor-conservative families are by far the most common backgrounds ancaps come from.
Correct.
Of note, however, is that Latin American countries have quite a few ancaps as well (count me there), of course all way poorer than dwellers of "First World" countries.
And, unlike "First Worlders", there's a lot of sleeper ancaps -- ancaps who don't know they are ancaps yet, merely because they don't know the name of the philosophy -- in Latin American people. Why is that? Because Latinos understand at a much more profound level that politicians are just rats, lying opportunist scum, and that all politics is very dangerous bullshit. There, the joke punchline "...nono, I'm an honest man, I've never even had a government job" draws laughter every time.
>Of note, however, is that Latin American countries have quite a few ancaps as well
Numbers please because I smell some funk.
+11111111
I would have to say that more likely describes all of the edgy libertarians I've seen than the ancaps I've read about.
People who believe that eliminating government and shoving all power and responsibility into the hands of private corporations is the best course. They blame all the ills of society (and even the negative actions of corporations) on the existence of the state and believe if you eliminate said state everyone will happily live in a perfect utopia of free market competition.
Aka what happens when libertarians get extra crazy
I think a-c's are divided on corporations, especially limited liability ones. Torts are the universal answer to all obvious deficiencies of anarcho-capitalism, so some have reasonably concluded that limited liability can't be a thing.
That's true, though replacing "corporations" with "large conglomerations of capital controlled by a few in an organized manner" doesn't really change all that much of substance.
It would, if
also,
Both these things are taken as self-evident truths by anarcho-capitalists.
Two assumptions that I see are 100% based on reality...
Ancaps argue that in the free market monopolies aren't sustainable. As an economics student I'm inclined to agree.
What about natural monopolies? And you don't need monopolies to end up with crap outcomes.
Name a natural monopoly.
Operating systems for computers. The initial cost is too high for a small company to come in and compete with something established. (Of course this is assuming no open source etc., but I think that can be assumed, given anarcho capitalism)
> (Of course this is assuming no open source etc., but I think that can be assumed, given anarcho capitalism)
I am really confused why this could be assumed. What am I missing?
I guess the system doesn't necessitate it, however I feel if you are in a system of anarcho capitalism, then the people are gonna be much less inclined to do work/help others for free, which is in essense what open-source is.
I know it is a hobby for most of the developers, but in such a society, if someone developed something, wouldn't they want to sell it?
Which is why Windows keeps losing market share, right? Some monopoly.
>Of course this is assuming no open source
That is a pretty big assumption. Why do you make the assumption that there wouldn't be open source given anarcho-capitalism?
Cable and internet providers, oil companies, rail roads, shipping companies.
Basically anything with a significant capital investment.
Cable and internet providers are heavily regulated by government. You have to buy the right to sell internet to large swaths of land within the United States.
Are you insinuating with the list of all of those that there is no competition and only one internet provider, oil company, rail road company and shipping company exist?
Obviously not on a national level, but on a local levels monopolies happen all the time. Even on a national level the market is hardly free, it's structure oligopoly.
Free market means many small buyers and many small sellers. That's not true for the current capitalist system at all.
Utilities?
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly
The first example listed under that article is a perfect example of an unnatural monopoly.
Read on
Can you list a utility company that exists that is an example of a natural monopoly?
We're talking about monopolies existing in a market state that doesn't exist, how can we give examples of it? Any examples given from history or today can be shrugged off as not being a free market. You're making entirely theoretical claims in saying that free markets don't sustain monopolies, and I'm making a rebuttal on similar grounds. Natural monopolies are an accepted thing, when a subset of the market has high enough capital costs to enter or if there is a natural limit on who can enter the market (if say its dependent on a single or small number of sources for a resource), monopolies can be formed without regulation.
Branding creates monopoly. Example - only one Microsoft that does what Microsoft does. Only one ben and jerrys. Ect.
Why? What happens to the marginal profit?
[deleted]
>On the other hand, many Ancaps believe that the only thing prohibiting businesses from committing immoral behavior is rational consumers with perfect knowledge.
I don't advocate that perspective of the term rational as it applies to economics.
I believe monopolies will fail as long as people have personal preferences. They don't even have to have perfect information.
On the other hand, Luxittica has been in business for some time while having a near-monopoly on the sunglasses market.
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50149025n
http://www.luxottica.com/en/brands/proprietary-brands
http://www.forbes.com/sites/deancrutchfield/2012/11/27/luxottica-sees-itself-as-king-raising-questions-about-brand-authenticity/
In the second source, yes people have a personal preference for Ray-Ban or Oakley sunglasses. But it's made by the same company.
Ok, I've thought about this.
Tort law being used like this would result in a larger government than the one we have today. It would make things like hurricanes where the insurance companies refuse to pay out to people who have insurance be an impassable morass of litigation. Imagine a "society" w/ no ability of the government to regulate insurance. Insurance companies refuse to pay millions of claims, millions of lawsuits are filed instead of the government stepping in. So a single disaster creates the need for literally 100's of thousands of judges, juries etc. It is nuts.
I'm sorry but having the government to be able to regulate industry is what I like to call, sane.
Thanks :)
No problem.
As an aside, are you intentionally removing your upvote, or is it just showing up weird for me?
Yeah, it's a habit, forget about it xP
Here is a video for those curios about anarcho-capitalism:
The Machinery Of Freedom: Illustrated summary
The bastard child of the worst parts of Capitalism and the worst parts of Anarchism. It's effectively neo-feudalism disguised with pseudo-revolutionary rhetoric.
English not being my native language...
That's a pretty poor understanding of the philosophy, I mean, I get it if you're just feeding this subreddit's cricketers but the big counter argument would be that it's utopian and unrealistic. The pursuits are admirable, most people just don't believe it could work.
Which of their pursuits are admirable? Serious question, if it's just "improving people's lives" then I get what you're saying but it seems kind of meaningless.
The notion is that governments, whether authoritarian or democratic, rest on the fact that you have to subvert the will of another human being. Democracies can say "We, the 51% have the authority derived from the social contract to gouge out the eyes of the 49%." Now I'm using an extreme hyperbole but understand that the reality isn't far off. So in one region governments decide that some people don't get a vote and in others they decide that a contrarian moral or religious philosophy itself should be illegal. Some argue that they to decide what you put in your body and others tell you what you can and can't do in your bed.
Anarcho-capitalism takes a step back and asks: who are we to force our will upon others. Its called the nonaggression principle, namely that no one has the right to initiate force.
Such views are commendable. The counter- argument is that government is a necessary evil.
No, the counter-argument is that government is not evil.
> ...the counter-argument is that government is not evil.
That is not an argument. That is an unsupported value statement.
The counter-argument is not that government is a "necessary evil". Most political philosophies do not consider any given government inherently "evil". There can be evil governments, but that does not make the institution itself evil. Only the most fringe philosophies (such as anarchism and AnCapism) consider the government inherently evil because they reject ideas about distributive justice and the benefits of organization.
The thing that makes government immoral (not necessarily evil) in the minds of AnCaps is the problem of political obligation. How does a person become obligated to follow the laws of a state they were born into? Not a single political philosopher has come up with a satisfactory answer, and most of them will pretty readily admit that. Therefore, the pro-government group usually argues that government is a necessary evil. It's a more easily defensible position than "government is moral."
I personally find that most of those counter-arguments fall flat pretty quickly, usually dying the death of a thousand qualifications.
I believe fatty foods are bad for you therefore I am justified in regulating what you eat. I believe weed is a waste of money therefore I am justified in making it illegal. I believe that Bob the banker knows how to spend your money better than you do so I'm devaluing your money and passing the profits to him. I believe that the poor deserve X amount of your hours of labor and even if you believe that I'm actually doing more harm than good I'm still completely justified.
Someone does harm to you then they somehow owe society and you pay to keep then locked up. So you ate wronged and then are wronged again.
But how much distribution is justified? Can I take 25% of every person's wealth? What about 50%? What about 100%? When did it suddenly become wrong and how do we pick a percentage at the expense of all conflicting theories?
John Rawls wrote a whole book on distributive justice, you might want to check that out. And there are countless books on political philosophy as well as ethics that attempt to answer some of the questions you raised. If you're asking what I personally think, then I would say that communities are responsible for working out what is fair - whether it be laws, taxes, ordinances, etc. Society is all about compromise in the interest of improving the lives of its members.
Then again, from your post history, it seems you're an AnCap, so I wouldn't be surprised if you just dismiss all that out of hand because it doesn't jive with the ideology.
You keep calling people out for employing rhetorical fallacies, and yet this post is a slippery slope argument.
> The notion is that governments, whether authoritarian or democratic, rest on the fact that you have to subvert the will of another human being.
Right, and this is a fundamental principle in understanding all politics, and obviously very important to anarchists.
> Anarcho-capitalism takes ~~a step back and asks: who are we to force our will upon others~~ differs from real anarchism because it says it's ok to deprive others by force of the world's natural resources (i.e. property).
FTFY.
It's euphemism for neo-feudalism.
No government but we still live in a capitalist society.
how about you go into the subreddit and find out? :)
They want to get rid of the government and instead use private security forces as police because that could never turn out badly.
And courts. And no taxes! And an adherence to the non-aggression principle, which will NEVER. WORK. EVER.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism
Well that was easy
Some people prefer to learn through personalized discussion.
Then why ask SRD?
anarchy means that you don't have people forcing you to obey them simply because they point guns at you.
Capitalism means property is exchanged voluntarily and not allocated through political means.
Well, no. It just means if people are pointing guns at you, forcing you to obey them, there won't be any cops around to help you out.
> pointing guns at you, forcing you to obey them
Isn't this precisely what law enforcement does in the first place?
Property doesn't exist without "the threat of people pointing guns at you."
How to sniff out a dirty rotten statist:
> Ask him if he, personally, would murder you for not obeying (insert unjust law he agrees with but which has no victim). Then base your decision on his answer.
I can't see at all how this could fail under the scrutiny of real-life situations!
That's pretty generous. If the definition of a statist is one who would say yes, I'd recommend cutting off all ties too.
So you will not advocate that I be forced to pay taxes then? Because ultimately it ends the same way.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGMQZEIXBMs
Prison for breaking a victimless law? Yes.
Asking if I, a person with no authority, would commit an unsanctioned execution for a victimless crime? No.
It does not ultimately end the same way.
To the same extent that I wouldn't advocate that you be forced to pay at a restaurant. Unless that is you ate at the restaurant.
And no, I don't believe Alvin owns the land on which he built the hut simply because he was there first. I don't accept the homestead principle as basis of property ownership. Alvin's assertion of ownership is as much aggression to me, as the state's assertion of ownership is aggression to you.
You're not forced to pay taxes. You have social contract with the US government. If you don't like the service you are currently receiving you have approximately 200 other countries you can choose to emigrate to.
Until you emigrate to another country you'll have to pay your fair share like everyone else does or go to jail. That's the way it works.
That may be the most simplistic and poor analogy I've ever heard.
I mean, it essentially assumes that George has never benefited from the advantages that come from living in a society that is not entirely anarchistic (e.g. protection from foreign powers, protection from domestic threats, has never driven on a public road, has never received any form of public education, has never utilized public infrastructure, has never consumed a product certified to be safe for human use by a governing body, etc.).
A more apt analogy would be George having been given money by a bunch of other people with the implicit agreement that when given the opportunity he would do the same, which in turn allowed him to acquire his own money, and then refusing to use any of that money that he acquired via the help of others to help others have the same opportunity provided to him.
As a dirty rotten statist, I can confirm I would do this.
I wonder what they think of drunk driving.
I'd imagine that it would be something along the lines of: Driving on a private road would likely entail agreeing to a contract that states that drunk driving is explicitly allowed on the road (perhaps restricted to certain times) and that other users if the road drive at their own risk, or that drunk driving is disallowed, and any drunk drivers will be in violation of the contract that they entered into willingly and are now subject to whatever penalty is outlined in the contract.
But I could be wrong.
Yeah, basically this. Contracts. I know. It's astounding.
But they're driving on everyone's rooooaaaads!
As a statist, I've personally murdered over 300 ancaps for disagreeing with me on the internet
I like this post in particular:
>the civil war was about slavery, but not about black slavery, that just fit nicely into the bankers version of history, black slavery was an issue, but the real issue was the incorporation of the united states and by doing so it would allow the corporation to collateralize its capital, that capital is YOU!!! by incorporating it allowed the federal government to "register" your birth, this is a fancy way of getting your parents to fraudulently sign you over to the state as collateral, once you are collateralized the state and or government can then monetize you and turn you into a bond. This is why americans can get a COPY OF THEIR BIRTH CERTIFICATE BUT CAN NOT GET THE ORIGINAL, the original sits in one of the 12 member banks of the fed as proof of ownership {as they, the private for profit bank are in charge of the money creation} your BOND IE BONDAGE to the state is sold as a product on the open market, when they are selling us savings bonds, they are in essence selling you. This was Abe babes quick way to come up with cash to pay off the banks of England and France to which were greatly indebted to. so the war was about slavery, the south opposed because not only would the slaves become property of the state, but their sons and daughters as well....but like the American way, you opted for the credit escape, and you have been slowly maxing out the card since then.
>The civil war was a fight over to or to not incorporate. Of course your not supposed to know any of this and the bankers just love using race as a "Chareter" in the story they would like to sell you
> the bankers version of history
Well dip my feet in matzo and call me a dog-whistle...
There was thread on their I saw that was about popular entertainment being statist propaganda and the word Hollywood elite was used similarly.
His argument has strong parallels to redemption theory, except this guy doesn't mention jews often enough.
I think it is redemption theory, which, having just looked up, I discovered is quite a doozy.
That fucking guy... Looking at his account history, he seems for real, posts boring comments to /r/conspiracy regularly etc. And the Sovereign Citizens who believe that kind of shit and more are real for sure.
On the other hand, in this comment suggested buying out Detroit and living agrarian lifestyle there (I actually have trouble hitting the right keys right now), then really nonchalantly said "we can then work on doing our best to cut ourselves off from "the evil ones" currency supply and establish our own community based debt free currency using legal tender status, we can use what ever we want, I will suggest tally stick currency system." (emphasis mine).
What the fuck is he?
Tally... Stick... Currency? Why would you need that when you have, you know, computers and printers?
Honestly I hope the NSA knows when guys like that are having their bowel movements. Dude is a mental breakdown away from becoming Timothy McVeigh.
This should be copy pasta.
>This should be copy pasta.
It is. /r/libertariancopypasta
Adding that "the civil war was about slavery, but not about black slavery" to /r/libertariancopypasta, that's frightening idiocy right there.
also got posted in r/badhistory. fun times with some of these people
Send all anarcho-capitalists to Somalia, everyone wins.
lol libertarians lol
Anarcho Capitalists are the people who libertarians call crazy and anarchists refuse to be associated with. And it seems /u/TheSliceman is too extreme even by their standards.
In my view Anarcho Capitalism is "let's turn the world into a cyber-punk dystopia."
Also, can you believe the founded a fucking political party in Brazil? (Or are trying to, I don't quite remember).
I am an anarcho-capalist because I have always wanted to be a pizza delivering ninja hacker for the mafia.
Hiro Protagonist
I don't think these people really understand the whole 'anarchism' thing if they're trying to start a political party.
It's all the nastiness of the fascist right wrapped up in leftist revolutionary rhetoric. It's quite the laugh.
Do you even know what fascist means? We ancaps may be crazy but I don't see how you can label us a fascists.
Having the "nastiness of the fascists" != being fascist, it just means being comparably nasty.
How are they comparably nasty that can't be found in people of every political persuasion?
Every political orientation has its extremists, sure; but the claim is that the label in question explicitly describes the extremists of the corresponding orientation.
Do you even know what anarchist means? I don't see how you can label yourselves anarchists.
Still greedy selfish people.
I too like to make ignorant generalizations. We should get together and use our collective ignorance to avoid all threat of challenging thought.
What isn't greedy about libertarianism? They want to pay no taxes and not have to pay for anything they don't need that helps others out.
"My system is I keep 100% of what I earn, and you keep 100% of what you earn. Now why don't you convince me of exactly how much of what I earn is yours and why."
"It never fails to baffle me that it is greedy to want to keep what you earn, and not greedy to want to take what others have earned away from them."
And it never fails to amaze me that people assume that "what they earn" is entirely earned and not at all to do with luck.^1 It also never fails to amaze me that people forget all the help and the leg up that they received when starting out after they've got it made. It further never fails to amaze me that people think that one "pure" economic system (pure capitalism, e.g. objectivism or ancap, or pure communism) will actually work outside a vacuum.
You know all that shitty stuff that you hate WalMart and Monsanto for? (You, uh, do hate them for the shitty stuff they do, right?) Without a governing body overlooking them, it'd be a fucktonne worse. Is what we have perfect? No. Is deregulation the answer? *Fuck no, and how the hell could you be so blind as to think it is?
^1 As a footnote, yes, people who work hard will do better for themselves than people who don't, all else being equal. But 1) all else isn't equal, if you have a head start, it's much easier to compound that than to build up from behind, and 2) even with all else equal, and two people working exactly as hard as one another, one of them is going to be more successful than the other, potentially MUCH more successful. That is what I mean by luck being a factor.
"My system is I keep 100% of what I earn, and also 95% of what you earn, since that's what the agreement that you 'voluntarily' signed says. Nevermind that not signing it would have resulted in the starvation deaths of you and your family. Also ignore the large number of armed thugs that I have hired to protect my property, which you are now living on, also per our 'agreement.'"
"Finally, ignore the fact that I can protect my property by force, and, if someone were to be trespassing (which I can decide that you are doing at a whim, based on the contracts you and all of my other 'employees' signed), well... let's just say it wouldn't end well for yo... I mean, them."
"Have a nice day."
Such a shallow, shallow critique of libertarianism. It's a kindergarten level statement. It's one thing to disagree with libertarians but it only shows your own shortcomings by dismissing it as greedy and selfish.
Yeah, because your comment is bursting with content.
Libertarians are absolutely selfish. Anyone that subscribes to laissez faire economics would tell you that the mechanism that runs capitalism is the individual pursuing their own self interest, and they'd say it like it was a good thing.
Total logical rebuttal right there. Checkmate AnCaps!
Edit: /s
Here's some logic for you:
>1) him giving a statist argument 2) me dispelling that argument with truth
ANCAP == TRUTH
EVERYTHING ELSE == LIES
Checkmate, Statists!
Absolutely hilarious. Totally killer. You should take it on the road.
I am no longer your friend because I prefer to be friends with the State.
this was obviously meant to be a thorough critique of anarcho-capitalism. Well done dismantling that argument that clearly had so many people fooled.
One thing bothers me the most about them; libertarians abhor democratic institutions because their ideology is anathema to the methodology inherent in a consensus seeking political model, let me explain.
In a libertarian society the maximization of political liberty is only possible as a libertarian. Anyone who has taken the liberty of not being a libertarian will be violently resisted by libertarians. So we have an anti-authoritarian ideology that is only possible in an authoritarian state. It is wholly incoherent because for their society to function it must destroy ours and they are the minority. The minority does not get to dictate to the vast, vast majority how a society organizes itself.
>In a libertarian society the maximization of political liberty is only possible as a libertarian. Anyone who has taken the liberty of not being a libertarian will be violently resisted by libertarians. So we have an anti-authoritarian ideology that is only possible in an authoritarian state. It is wholly incoherent because for their society to function it must destroy ours and they are the minority. The minority does not get to dictate to the vast, vast majority how a society organizes itself.
Libertarianism is a broad category in political philosophy. So, the term "libertarian society" is nonsensical, because there could be many libertarian societies, all radically different from each other. However, if you are referring to an anarcho-capitalist society, then this entire statement is completely false. I recommend actually reading up on libertarian and ancap theory before offering such a straw-man critique of it.
You did a bunch of hand waving and I reject your criticism.
Libertarians don't believe you should violently oppress people of different political persuasions.
Your initial comment demonstrated a lack of understanding of the perspective you were criticizing.
>Libertarians don't believe you should violently oppress people of different political persuasions.
Then how do they arrive at a libertarian society without killing the 99% of us who don't want one within our national borders? Magic‽
If you're not going to violently stop us from having one, we can have one without killing you. If you are going to violently stop us, you're a violent thug.
We don't need you to have a libertarian society for us to have a libertarian society. We just need you to let us.
>We don't need you to have a libertarian society for us to have a libertarian society. We just need you to let us.
Well we are not going to, so deal with it.
So you're gleefully refusing to extend political liberties to certain people, while complaining that we would do the same (though we would not). Explain how this is not massive hypocrisy, please, because I'm not seeing it.
>So you're gleefully refusing to extend political liberties to certain people, while complaining that we would do the same (though we would not). Explain how this is not massive hypocrisy, please, because I'm not seeing it.
We live in an Open Society, one in which changes of power do not hapen with violence and anyone including An-caps can participate in the democratic process to institionalize their idealogy.
An-caps have potentially as much political liberty as anyone else in our society.
An-caps can redefine taxes and the need for medical and driver's licenses as violence all they want, it does make it so.
If you disagree with me and want to form a government with a bunch of people who agree with you then you can do that.
The issue is when you try to impose your will on someone who disagrees.
That was.....verbose.
>Anyone who has taken the liberty of not being a libertarian will be violently resisted by libertarians. So we have an anti-authoritarian ideology that is only possible in an authoritarian state
This makes no sense.
Voluntary socialist communes could freely exist in a libertarian state.
>The minority does not get to dictate to the vast, vast majority how a society organizes itself
So majorities get to dictate minorities?
>So majorities get to dictate minorities?
...isn't that basically how democracy works?
In all seriousness, it's worth noting that in the US, at least, there are legal protections for the minority from the majority. This is why there is a Bill of Rights and the Supreme Court, among other things. They help determine when the majority's will is conflicting with the minority's rights.
However, there's an even bigger problem here. You're setting up a dichotomy between either the minority ruling the majority or the majority ruling the minority. There isn't a dichotomy, as there are things that can happen that are neither of those. Even more than that, you're forcing someone to choose one side of your dichotomy as better than the other, when, once again, they're making a choice that doesn't exist in the first place. It's like offering someone ice cream and saying the only flavours are chocolate and vanilla when, in fact, you've got a big tub of cookies and cream and neapolitan in the freezer.
>There isn't a dichotomy, as there are things that can happen that are neither of those.
I agree. Like self-sovereignty. To your earlier point:
>The minority does not get to dictate to the vast, vast majority how a society organizes itself
Libertarians aren't interested in dictating the majority. They are interested in dictating themselves.
>Voluntary socialist communes could freely exist in a libertarian state.
That is not in question. You can't arrive at a libertarian state without killing a bunch of people, including me. I would fight you in the streets if you tried to overthrow the United States. Look at sovereign citizens who have planned to murder police, judges, etc to get their libertarian society.
>So majorities get to dictate minorities?
Not in every instance, in a just system majorities protect and extend rights to the minorities. We simply have not recognized a right for anyone to setup their own government within our nation. How do you justify such a right? It is looney tunes, if you recognize such a right, this happens.
A. United States graciously allows Libertarian Society Supersnatch to be founded in Detroit because they recognize the right to political sovereignty as more important than 100's of years of political institutions.
B. Libertarians create society which also grants the right for political sovereignty.
C. Libertarians begin creating their own societies within their society until children have their own set of laws within the bedrooms of their parents' houses and every single house has its own set of laws, every street is a fragile alliance protecting themselves against other streets etc.
If you do cursory thought experiments on libertarianism it is pretty easily discredited.
>You can't arrive at a libertarian state without killing a bunch of people, including me. I would fight you in the streets if you tried to overthrow the United States
Okay, okay, let's just calm down.
The current metagame of the libertarian party is to achieve a minarchist society through legislation and education. Inform people as to the benefits of liberty and small government, then let the change happen organically. I'm sure there are crazies thrown in the bunch, but the Libertarian movement does not advocate the violent overthrow of the US Government (unlike some socialist groups).
>We simply have not recognized a right for anyone to setup their own government within our nation. How do you justify such a right?
Increasing individual liberty doesn't require everyone having their own government.
>have their own set of laws within the bedrooms of their parents' houses and every single house has its own set of laws, every street is a fragile alliance protecting themselves against other streets etc.
Here's the problem with this; the USA and Canada share the largest border of any two nations on Earth. They have separate laws, governing bodies, and populations. Yet they trade and coexist peacefully, neither country paranoid to the other's aggression (even though the US could easily conquer Canada from a logistical standpoint).
If the countries of America and Canada can coexist peacefully without sharing a governing body, why not the states of New York and Massachusetts? Why not the cities of Boston and New York? Why not even smaller societies?
Do people become more violent as states scale down their size?
A stroll in /r/libertarian would show that most libertarians endorse democratic institutions. That's besides the point, however, as democratic systems are not focused on acheiving a consensus. Also, I'm not sure where you get the idea of violent resistance to non-libertarians where deontological libertarianisn is founded on the non-agression principle and consequentialist libertarianism doesn't tend to advocate violence.
>A stroll in /r/libertarian[1] would show that most libertarians endorse democratic institutions.
No, they don't; or they would allow non-libertarians the political liberty to decide to enact taxes on libertarians, to require libertarians to register their concealed weapons, for libertarians to register for the draft etc. Libertarians want to be able to force others to live under libertarian laws undemocratically, that is the only way libertarianism can exist, it is less than 1% of the political spectrum.
>Also, I'm not sure where you get the idea of violent resistance to non-libertarians where deontological libertarianisn is founded on the non-agression principle and consequentialist libertarianism doesn't tend to advocate violence.
Libertarians in their society deny the liberty of others to not be libertarian, that is not liberty at all.
Rawls (liberal) thinks of society as a cooperative venture for mutual gain, while Nozick (libertarian) thinks of society as a means to maximize individual liberty. Yet, unless the plurality of people in said society are actually libertarians than libertarianism is only possible through force, which makes it incoherent. I am going to go with the kludge of Rawlsian value pluralism which monotonously plods forward over a radical reconception of society as individuals' means to an end.
Long term change in humanity is not through the individual as libertarians believe, it is through the institutionalization of long term and often dearly held cultural beliefs. Libertarians do not get to change how society works because in the free marketplace of ideas, theirs fail.
> Libertarians want to be able to force others to live under libertarian laws undemocratically, that is the only way libertarianism can exist...
This reminds me of the religious people who get mad at atheists for "taking away their freedom of religion", when really all the atheists want is to not have religion shoved down their throat to begin with. No libertarian is forcing their rules onto you. They just don't want you forcing your rules on them.
>No libertarian is forcing their rules onto you. They just don't want you forcing your rules on them.
Then where does the physical land for libertairianland come from? Because taking land from anyone unilaterally is an act of violence and that is according to Lockean property rights. So libertarians don't get to take land from the United States because such an act would be considered an act of war.
> Then where does the physical land for libertairianland come from? Because taking land from anyone unilaterally is an act of violence and that is according to Lockean property rights. So libertarians don't get to take land from the United States because such an act would be considered an act of war.
Libertarians who accept many of Locke's principles will probably also agree to the Homestead Principle. These libertarians probably see the US claim to most of it's land as illegitimate. For more on the illigitimacy of the state's land, see this guy's video, "Planting a Flag and Calling Dibs."
> Anyone who has taken the liberty of not being a libertarian will be violently resisted by libertarians.
Allow me to decode this (a little unkindly, but then, Vroome isn't being kind).
First, three short observations:
He's confusing AnCaps an libertarians but whatever.
Almost all AnCaps are opposed the initiation of violence - to the extent that that some of them derive their whole philosophy from this Non Aggression Principle, or NAP.
only some AnCaps are pacifists.
So ...
> Anyone who has taken the liberty of not being a libertarian will be violently resisted by libertarians.
Can be read as:
Anyone who initiates violent aggression will be violently resisted by AnCaps.
Or to put it another way: AnCaps believe in the right to self-defence.
Is that meant to be radical? Or contentious?
I'm not confusing them. Miniarchism is the endgame of any libertarian society as the maximization of Lockean property rights entails it.
Anything else isn't even worth discussing as libertarianism cannot be about picking and choosing which parts of collectivism like roads and public schools over others like food stamps and welfare. It just can't or it is an antidemocratic dictatorship where libertarians prevent non-libertarians from enacting certain social programs. That is not liberty, it is the dictatorship of the libertarian elite.
Buffet libertarianism is intellectually lazy, does not pass the smell test and I reject it.
Thanks for staying engaged and not just posting snark or abuse.
> Miniarchism is the endgame of any libertarian society as the maximization of Lockean property rights entails it.
> Anything else isn't even worth discussing as libertarianism cannot be about picking and choosing which parts of collectivism like roads and public schools over others like food stamps and welfare. It just can't or it is an antidemocratic dictatorship where libertarians prevent non-libertarians from enacting certain social programs.
[emphasis added]
You're right. I (and most AnCaps) are rejecting all enforced collectivism. There's no cherry picking. All involuntary collectivism is out. Completely. Theft funded roads, schools, cops, welfare all of it. If you want, you pay for it or convince someone else to voluntarily pay for it. However you can set up an orchestra and I won't stop you. Or your associates can set up a commune (unless you try and force people to work in it, which would be slavery, like communism).
Yes, this is anti-democratic. No matter how much people want to steal, no amount of voting can make it ok. Hold a vote, come and take it. That's how it works right now, for sure. But do you really think that's ok? That that's both morally good and efficient?
Your a smart guy and I know that the AnCap message is a little out there for most people. But do really think that we don't want all of the things you likely want (security, roads, justice, social order, peace, education, reducing poverty)? We just think it can be delivered more effectively and more morally without the coercive apparatus of a state.
(This is not my actual position, btw, just a common view of many AnCaps.)
>Yes, this is anti-democratic. No matter how much people want to steal, no amount of voting can make it ok. Hold a vote, come and take it. That's how it works right now, for sure. But do you really think that's ok? That that's both morally good and efficient?
We live under a constitution, that is not how it works at all.
>Your a smart guy and I know that the AnCap message is a little out there for most people. But do really think that we don't want all of the things you likely want (security, roads, justice, social order, peace, education, reducing poverty)? We just think it can be delivered more effectively and more morally without the coercive apparatus of a state.
Look, I appreciate the idea of reformulating a society in which Lockean liberty is maximized, it is a fun thought experiment; however, it does not fit into how we know human beings act without rule of law. Voluntarism, if it was a pragmatic solution to the significant problem of political participation would be seen throughout brief periods in human society in which a state falls but we see no evidence of such a voluntary society emerging in any consistent fashion. There are notable exceptions but nothing that would convince me that this species is capable of something that relies upon people's individual ethics manifesting into better solutions for:
>security, roads, justice, social order, peace, education, reducing poverty
> We live under a constitution, that is not how it works at all.
I live in England. So not "we". There are 300 million yanks, 6 billion people.
Also, magic papers, nickel and dimed by courts (run by who?, paid for by who?).
>There are notable exceptions but nothing that would convince me that this species is capable of something that relies upon people's individual ethics manifesting into better solutions for: security, roads, justice, social order, peace, education, reducing poverty
Come, on kiss me, you know you want to!
What would convince you? What sort of things would change your mind?
(btw it's getting late where I am. Do you want to keep at it over time? I suspect we've already lost our audience but I don't care about that shit. What about you? I don't want to be your stalker, but if you want to keep talking...
>I live in England. So not "we". There are 300 million yanks, 6 billion people.
You have rights under common law that would be politically impossible to abolish. UK has a de facto constitution, it is just a convoluted one.
> Anyone who has taken the liberty of not being a libertarian will be violently resisted by libertarians. So we have an anti-authoritarian ideology that is only possible in an authoritarian state.
Your fundamental mistake here is thinking that self-defense against an authoritarian ruler == setting up an authoritarian state.
You will have to kill me too.
> You will have to kill me too.
If I'm living happily and peacefully in my woods, and you come to my home with weapons and try to steal my stuff, hurt my family, etc. etc., I wouldn't be instituting an authoritarian state by defending myself, even if it resulted in your death. You were the aggressor here. Self-defense != aggression. Therefore, libertarianism doesn't collapse into itself when it says that aggression(authority) is not allowed, but self-defense is.
Where does self-defense end? Say I come to take your stuff and you are unable to defend it so I take it and claim it is now mine. Now, say you save up and buy a gun or learn how to fight better, or whatever. If you come to reclaim what I took from you in the past, is this self-defense, or is it aggression? What if your child comes after me instead? Or what if you call a couple of friends to come gang up on me to get your stuff back?
Stealing only grants you possession of my things, not ownership. I can get the things whenever I want, since they are mine, unless I don't care about them and abandon them. I can give children or friends permission to use my stuff too, this includes taking it back from you, the thief.
So who decides ownership? You? Your neighbors? The corporate police force nearest you?
And if I no longer have your stuff (I ate it, burnt it, fenced it, whatever), does this now give you the right to take something of mine? Because this is no longer self-defense, but rather vengeance.
> And if I no longer have your stuff (I ate it, burnt it, fenced it, whatever), does this now give you the right to take something of mine? Because this is no longer self-defense, but rather vengeance.
An entitlement to compensation for losses is not the same thing as vengeance. But I'll admit when you dig into specifics it gets tricky and confusing, and not everyone is going to agree on what exactly to do. If this is a problem for libertarianism, however, it is a very different problem than the one Vroome originally proposed (inherent contradiction over initiation of a state).
This sub gets dumber every day
Libertarianism is totally not a safe outlet for white supremacy
Hahaha right. Back when /r/EnoughPaulSpam was a thing, we joked that you could look through endless photos of Ron Paul rallies count the number of women and minorities on one hand. Funny how these things work.
So, how about that brigade?
I have always said that r/anarchocrapitalism is r/neoconfederates under another name.
Even the europeans? Like me?
http://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/1l46e5/anarchocapitalistinranarchocapitalismposts/cbvne8c
(Mirror | open source | create your own snapshots)
How is this not low-hanging fruit? Anarcho-Capitalists are fucking nutjobs.
> Summary: This thread is both sad and hilarious. Enjoy.
But it isn't drama. Aren't there lots of anti-liberatarian/anarchist circlejerk subreddits this could be submitted to instead?
It's more melancholy than drama, he sounds like a lonely guy.
How come I wasn't quoted?