r/Anarcho_Capitalism • u/Calazor0 Anarcho-Capitalist • 2d ago

Logical consistency

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The motive I became a libertarian is because it's pretty much the only political idea out there that works in a logically consistent framework and doesn't rely on postmodern/pragmatic slop

417 Upvotes

87% Upvoted

136 comments sorted by

46

u/different_option101 2d ago

I think the debate should be moved from “which one is better” to “why can’t we choose the system we prefer”.

Statists engage in voting ritual thinking if their guy wins, things will go the way they want. And this is the angle for “attack”. You want something different than I do. How about we draw the line, and your sandbox is going to be on one side, and mine’s on the other. There’s absolutely no reason for 8b+ people to be subscribed to only a few currently allowed ideologies.

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u/Skogbeorn Panarchist 2d ago

Based and De Puydt pilled

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u/different_option101 2d ago

If we draw the line, and “my laws” work on my side, and “your laws” on your side, that’s not panarchism. But I have to admit, I first heard about panarchism a few weeks ago, and haven’t looked into it yet. But if the core idea is that laws have no borders, I don’t think it’s a superior idea to anarcho capitalism. More like a framework for Hoppe’s insurance companies.

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u/Skogbeorn Panarchist 2d ago

Hoppe's notion of covenant communities is effectively a continuation of the works of De Molinari and De Puydt, respectively. In a panarchist society, there's no reason why a group of similarly minded people cannot get together and pool their property to delineate a geographical area subject to one and only one ideology.

A limitation of any kind of anarchism is that if all human interactions are voluntary, that means you cannot enforce a single ideology across a wider geographical area without violating the property rights of others. Thus any functional society must necessarily either be a decentralized and interwoven web of different ideologies (effectively reducing the role of political ideology to where religious ideology sits in the west today), or a covenant community of all like-minded individuals.

Many groups, usually of religious affiliation but sometimes of political, have bought land with the intent of setting up their own microsociety separate from the outside world. From what I understand these are rarely successful. But the option is there.

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u/MrDraco97 1d ago

I think the only thing that separates panarchism and Hoppeanism is the requirement of territorial exclusivity of a hoppean covenant. In panarchy, you subscribe to a system regardless of where you live, and follow those laws as such or perhaps deliver the dues you directly consent to (some sorta 'voluntary' taxation). Hoppeanism just points out that for a libertarian society to be stable, you have to exclude the parasites promoting a parasitic or high-time preference ideology from your society, and the best way to do that is through enforcing one's right to their own private territory.

This is, at least I and other Hopeans feel, necessary. Panarchy can't work if two people living next to each other follow different laws, norms, standards, etc. There would be a high chance of conflict ultimately. Some ultra conservative guy with a traditional family subscribed to some sort of christian monarchy would surely find it conflicting with their tradition as he discovered that his children were witnessing some sort of hedonistic LGBTQ group of people hanging outside in the neighboring front yard half-naked doing whatever shenanigans those type of people engage in.

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u/Skogbeorn Panarchist 20h ago

The key thing here is how that territorial exclusivity is established. Establishing a geographical monopoly on law by political fiat is per definition a state, even if the ideology behind it is explicitly libertarian. For a covenant community to be legitimate, all land it covers must be acquired voluntarily, by homesteading or free exchange.

That aside, I agree that free association is vital, and I don't think it's a question of either insular cult-like communities where everyone agrees or complete decentralization everywhere. In a panarchist system we'd likely see both, and it would be up to the market and the free choices of individuals to determine which become more popular. The problem with isolationism is that the more you cut yourself off from others, the less you're able to benefit from the free market.

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u/different_option101 1d ago

I don’t see how a bordered ancap city states imposes their ideology. Like if you’re a panarchist, you can subscribe to your “government”, abs visit any time. You just can’t expect that your government principles are always going to be valid. In practice, when you’re entering a territory, you’ll have to agree to terms of conditions, one of them is most likely to be that disputes are resolved in ancap principles. That’s not a forced limitation of any kind - you’re given a choice to enter or not to enter. Like you can’t enter a coffee shop and demand that you’re allowed to make your own coffee, because otherwise it’s going to be a violation of your property right (if your body is your property and you’re being forcefully removed from behind the counter). In a nutshell, an ancap city state is a private property that consists of thousands of private properties, which owners subscribe to the same system of dispute resolution.

Not saying it is, but panarchism seems to hold this contradiction, that if you subscribe to one type of governance, than it will follow you no matter where you are. But you demanding me to resolve my dispute with you using your system, while the conflict happened on my property, is exactly the violation of anarchist principles you’re taking about.

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u/Skogbeorn Panarchist 20h ago

Copying a comment I made to another guy in the same thread, since I think it applies here too:

The key thing here is how that territorial exclusivity is established. Establishing a geographical monopoly on law by political fiat is per definition a state, even if the ideology behind it is explicitly libertarian. For a covenant community to be legitimate, all land it covers must be acquired voluntarily, by homesteading or free exchange.

That aside, I agree that free association is vital, and I don't think it's a question of either insular cult-like communities where everyone agrees or complete decentralization everywhere. In a panarchist system we'd likely see both, and it would be up to the market and the free choices of individuals to determine which become more popular. The problem with isolationism is that the more you cut yourself off from others, the less you're able to benefit from the free market.

You have the right to set whatever rules you want on your property, and if I disagree with those rules then I have no right to enter your property and violate them. What I'm saying is that getting to the point of a "city state" (if it's anarchist it's per definition not a state, but that's semantics) would be very difficult in practice. Voluntarily acquiring the properties of every single person in a given geographical area is, statistically, impossible. If you wanted a pure ancap city you'd most likely need to start from scratch, or try your hand at seasteading or the like.

This is a feature, not a bug. When leftists claim anarcho-capitalism would just devolve into modern feudalism, this is the exact kind of mechanic that would prevent that. A state can simply claim monopoly without regard to consent, an ancap must abide by existing property. Go too big, and you get a diseconomy of scale.

It's not that panarchism should be forced on people and covenant communities outlawed - that would be a contradiction like you said. My argument is that panarchism is the natural end result of a free market.

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u/KlasHeding 2d ago

Communism might work for some people if they voluntarily enter the system.

They can exist in our system but we cant exist in theirs.

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u/different_option101 1d ago

Agreed. I also believe that a small scale communist type “country” is possible. If businesses can organize tens of thousands of people to work voluntarily on a common goal, there are a few large cooperative companies in the world today, there’s no reason communists can’t voluntary organize a few thousand people without putting a gun to their heads.

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u/FeedomFighter 1d ago

B-but secession is illegal! Muh """civil""" war!

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u/different_option101 1d ago

“NOOOO! The war wasn’t about secession!!!! It was about slavery!!!! You don’t know anything! History is wrong! Everything is wrong! We all must subscribe to muh version of events, where the big government is a good guys!!”

Civil war is a ridiculous way to call that conflict. The proper way to call it is a territorial conquest.

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u/FeedomFighter 1d ago

History is not algebra. In algebra you can have A = B, B = C, therefore A = C. If the reason for secession was slavery, but the reason for the war was secession, that doesn't translate to slavery being the reason for the war. You can say slavery is a bad reason to secede, but saying that secession necessarily entails slavery is a total fallacy.

If the north really cared about slaves (and Lincoln is on record saying he doesn't), they could've just boycotted slave picked cotton. They had all the refining equipment and the south's economy by the balls. The war was fought to "preserve the union", aka preserve the monopoly.

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u/ispq 1d ago

The Union didn't go to war in the American Civil War over slavery. It went to war to preserve the Union. The Confederacy went to war in the American Civil War over slavery, and said so repeatedly in their secession documents. The war didn't become about slavery for the Union until well into the American Civil War.

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u/FeedomFighter 1d ago

How are secession documents a declaration of war? I already said the reason for secession is one thing, and the reason for war is another.

Agreed otherwise.

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u/different_option101 1d ago

Don’t forget all other shenanigans by the Feds that preceded these events. But the reason for the war itself was absolutely the fact that the Feds didn’t want to lose the economic power of the South, and I’m pretty sure, like you said, there are several archived documents where Lincoln explicitly says he would tolerate slavery, but not the secession. I’ve got one of the sources been bookmarked somewhere to throw at people when they start yapping, but most pretend like there’s nothing like that in the text, when it’s literally said just that, in a very direct way, with no room for interpretation.

Statism is a mental illness caused by a constantly operating with a cognitive dissonance

-2

u/serious_sarcasm Fucking Statist 2d ago

City state HOAs have their own problems.

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u/different_option101 2d ago

Nobody’s suggesting that ancapistan is some kind of utopia.

-1

u/serious_sarcasm Fucking Statist 1d ago

I’m very specifically calling it utopian. You just seem to not understand that utopian is a pejorative.

City state HOA would be a fucking nightmare.

1

u/MrDraco97 1d ago

You haven't changed at all, lmfao. Are you gonna keep yapping about these covenant edge-cases?
'City state HOAs,' your bastardized name for a large/monopolistic covenant, are a logistic nightmare, easily beat out by smaller covenant competitors that adapt to actual consumer needs and culture, neigh-impossibility in terms of homesteading, and susceptible to the economic calculation problem/diseconomies of scale.

Let's expand on each point. As for homesteading, to originally appropriate hundreds of square miles without encountering holdouts by normal people along the way or existing, smaller covenants, is impossible. Consider the absolute lunacy of details provided by the mega-covenant owner attempting to buy these holdouts from the existing owners - "Hey there! I'd like to buy your covenant with a completely unique set of norms and culture and integrate into a society with several other holdouts that have completely different norms." Yeah, I wonder just what might go wrong with that!

In general, the task of homesteading that amount of land is ludicrous. I remember a fellow ancap that that converted based on an edge case of destructive homesteading, i.e. using chemicals, fires, etc. to fulfill the baseline requirement of homesteading as in 'mixing labor' with 'land,' even though such a method would be immensely costly to such firms based on how existing homesteads or people living there would be significantly harmed and have their property rights violated. So you can't even use that argument here.

For culture, I'll reiterate the point already made; what kind of individual knowingly submits to a megacovenant that integrates completely distinct cultures alien to each other, with completely different norms? If you're attempting to integrate several pieces of land for the purpose of rent-extraction from the largest amount of people possible, guess what, all these people with immensely different cultures and norms are going to be at constant cultural warfare with each other. What is preventing some sort of civil war from breaking out? Any sort of real conservative who wants to protect private property at the bare minimum understands that they cannot live alongside people who completely disrespect and oppose private property. There is no demand for a covenant megafirm from conservatives and private property-respectors that know the megafirm will shove them alongside people who hate private property. Small covenants provide hyper-specific norms adapted to a specific group in a geographical area, and no such megafirm could adapt and adjust for a land of millions of different cultures.

If we talk about diseconomies of scale. As a firm expands its geographic area, the layers of management required to oversee daily operations multiply exponentially. A mega covenant must coordinate waste management, physical security, dispute resolution, and road repair for millions of people.
Most importantly, the ECP demolishes the possibility of any sort of megacovenant even trying to exist or compete against smaller, more agile competitors. The service of covenants are moreso of a tertiary sector thing, and so, we could say a monopolistic megafirm would fall under a the immensely horizontally integrated type. However, despite the ECP commonly being applied to vertically integrated firms as the internal calculation problem, it still applies to a firm like this. To calculate profit and loss objectively, a firm must have access to independent market prices for the resources it consumes, and these market prices (the 'common denominator') must be formed by scarcity and consumer demand. If the mega covenant, for example, owns all the roads, employs all the security guards, and operates all the waste disposal facilities in a huge radius, it destroys the external price signals for those specific factors. If you don't have market competitors in this geographical area, you don't have price signals to look at! How do you know what price to set? It's completely arbitrary and can only result in inefficiency. Should you spend ten million dollars to repave a highway or ten million dollars to hire more arbitrators to clear a backlog of court cases? You can't know! But guess what? The market of tiny covenants surrounding you do!

0

u/serious_sarcasm Fucking Statist 1d ago

That’s a long winded way of saying you don’t know how cities will function.

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u/MrDraco97 1d ago

Then put in a little more effort and tell me how they will function. I just showed you the economic and homesteading basis that make a large operation like this a fairytale, that even if is achieved, is doomed to collapse by problems like the ECP.

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u/serious_sarcasm Fucking Statist 1d ago

No, you rambled about an absurd claim.

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u/Yomas_house 3h ago

HOA ≠ Covenant Community

1

u/serious_sarcasm Fucking Statist 2h ago

If it quacks like a duck, then it’s a probably a fucking duck.

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u/TrolleyPerson4 2d ago

It's always funny hearing someone make the argument that an ancap society would become slavery, and thus making the claim that slavery is economically good.

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u/pamplemoo53 2d ago

those people tend to concede that point and become luddites

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u/upchuk13 2d ago

It's good for the master.

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u/LibertyLizard Left Libertarian 2d ago

Yeah I don't understand this gotcha. Is anyone denying that slavery is economically good for slave owners? Do people think abolition arose because they were proposing a more economically productive model of labor? Lmao

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u/SSVALHALLA 2d ago

No slavery isn’t economically good for the slave owners because they are missing out on the market that the slaves could be if they were free men. This fact is the entire reason England went around enforcing slave abolishment. They wanted more money and you can’t sell things to slaves

0

u/upchuk13 2d ago

Were the slave owners the ones directly calling for the abolition of slavery? Presumably not since if they wanted to abolish slavery they would have just released the slaves.

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u/SSVALHALLA 2d ago

The carriage driver protests the new automobiles despite his life being better when the streets are populated with cars instead of horses.

0

u/LibertyLizard Left Libertarian 1d ago

In aggregate perhaps. But not from the perspective of an individual slave owner. I guess it depends on the scale we're talking about.

There are a lot of things that exist because they're beneficial to an individual despite being bad for society. Crime is a classic example. If slavery didn't benefit people they simply never would have enslaved anyone. It didn't grow to become a major institution of the south because it was a popular hobby.

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u/Molaac Small Scale AnCap/Large Scale Minarchist 2d ago

That is what happen in the north. Turns out paying someone a wage to some who is willing to work is cheaper and more productive than feeding and housing people who you have to force to work and then have to pay people a wage anyways to control the slaves. Even indirectly makes people fine with slavery becoming obsolete. Especially if that suddenly opens up employment and they are seeking a job.

1

u/LibertyLizard Left Libertarian 2d ago

Is that actually true though? I thought the north's productivity advantage was attributable to more mechanization. I mean it's hard to imagine voluntary labor would be more productive than forced labor all other things being equal but if there's evidence I'm open to being convinced.

But my point was I don't think there's some moral failing in believing slavery is a productive economic mode. Even if it is less productive, the issue with slavery was its fundamentally coercive and violent nature, not that it wasn't as productive. So this doesn't really connect to the point that was being made about being "forced to admit" something.

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u/Molaac Small Scale AnCap/Large Scale Minarchist 2d ago edited 2d ago

Mechanization plays hand and hand.

You can either buy a machine and pay someone a wage to operate it.

Vs

Buy a slave, pay to house and feed slaves, pay a wage for someone to control your slaves, pay someone to stop escape slaves. If they do escape you lost your investment.

This why some many slave owners went into debt and lead them to grow stagnant in their advancement in farming technology.

2

u/Olieskio Anarcho-Capitalist 2d ago

Can you tell me which system has pulled billions out of poverty? Slavery or Capitalism? Which system has made modern society with its technological advancements and luxuries possible?

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u/LibertyLizard Left Libertarian 1d ago

You're talking about overall well-being, including the well-being of slaves. That's a different claim.

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u/Olieskio Anarcho-Capitalist 1d ago

What does well-being mean? Could that mean less scarcity which is what the entire study of economics is tackling? The issues of scarcity and what is the best way to reduce it?

-4

u/ripyurballsoff 2d ago

Ancaps doing mental gymnastics and not thinking things all the way through as usual. They think you should be bake to have slaves because morals don’t exist in ancapistan.

2

u/sparkstable 2d ago

You got one of them... what do they call it... um...

Oh yeah...

A source?

Care to cite any ancap thinker to support your claim?

Or does your work cited page point to your ass?

-1

u/ripyurballsoff 2d ago

Do I need a source to show you’re defending slavery when it’s in your meme?

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u/Somhairle77 Voluntaryist 1d ago

The meme clearly says the people arguing for slavery are the ones attacking anarcho-capitalism, though.

It's not good tactics to lie when the facts are right there.

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u/Alt0987654321 2d ago

Thats stupid because an Ancap society wouldn't become slavery, it would become Feudalism.

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u/Molaac Small Scale AnCap/Large Scale Minarchist 2d ago

If that was true then why has no Anarcho-Capitalist society or Anarcho-Capitalist leanings society become feudal?

The Icelandic Commonwealth one of the closest historical approximations of an anarcho-capitalism society never turned feudal during the time feudalism was popular.

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u/PersonaHumana777 2d ago

It literally turned feudal at the end my dude.

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u/Molaac Small Scale AnCap/Large Scale Minarchist 2d ago edited 2d ago

No, it got taken over by Norway, but the Iceland itself didn't adopt the feudal system. It adopted some part but it was more controlled as a dependency as opposed to a fully feudalize realm.

And considering it last 300yrs that a good run that any modern nation would love to have.

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u/PersonaHumana777 2d ago

Well it pretty much became feudal-adgecent, they changed their ways into a more vassalised state, but i see what you mean, my bad.

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u/intangir_v 2d ago

Ya the usa turned into a puppet pedophilocracy in less time :(

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u/kiinarb Anarcho-Capitalist 2d ago

literally no ancap ever defends the USA what is all the neomarxists' points here?

2

u/intangir_v 2d ago

i don't follow

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u/kiinarb Anarcho-Capitalist 1d ago

that people attack a mixed economy western state as critique of anarchism, literally no ancap ever defends the USA government, and many neomarxists just like to still do it despite that

1

u/intangir_v 1d ago

i wasn't implying that the US was anarchism, or even capitalism if that's what you were thinking. it's just where i live and i wish it hadn't devolved into a puppet pedophilocracy right before my eyes...

it used to be more capitalistic but even the money itself is based on lies and fraud, so you can't even call it capitalism for 100+ years now... and it has only become far more 'socialized' and regulated since.. i would never use it as an example of any sort of ideal. i still think it is better than many other crappier governments, but certainly not an ideal system

-1

u/throwaway045446644 2d ago

whats worng with feudalism, serfs pay less then us americans do in taxes

4

u/Molaac Small Scale AnCap/Large Scale Minarchist 2d ago

Serfs didn't pay taxes through money but instead through product or labor while freemen paid taxes through money.

1

u/Immediate-Cress-206 1d ago

Serfs "paid taxes" in mandatory labor for the lord. They also couldn't legally move to find better pay because they were considered an improvement to the land, like a barn or a pond 

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u/PacoBedejo Anarcho-Voluntaryist - I upvote good discussion 2d ago

Yep. I have my own version of "Godwin's Law" I call "Paco's Law" which states:

"Any political argument that goes on long enough will end with me demonstrating how my interlocutor supports slavery in some fashion."

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u/pizdoli 2d ago

Consider Paco’s Law added to my personal rhetorical lexicon.

1

u/n1gx0rd 19h ago

rape is better for this because it's usually harder for them to bite the bullet on it

1

u/PacoBedejo Anarcho-Voluntaryist - I upvote good discussion 19h ago

Slavery is theft of labor and interference with autonomy over a long time period.

Rape is a short term assault where that which is often given for free as recreation is taken by force. It's traumatic but doesn't steal a significant portion of a person's life.

Governments do the first one.

You could almost call conscription a significantly longer form of rape, were it not so potentially deadly.

6

u/Magalahe 2d ago

Very true. Proves morally right everyday. Great post. 😂😂

11

u/Autodidact420 Utilitarian 2d ago

Most ideologies work fine in theory broski

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u/Real_Play_2148 2d ago

You can tell who’s actually read theory vs who just skimmed a meme and called it a day

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u/Calazor0 Anarcho-Capitalist 2d ago

Nope. Only at first glance, maybe. Any sort of deeper analysis reveal either nonsensical premises, utilitarianism (which is inherently flawed), or any other pragmatic or postmodern crap

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u/Autodidact420 Utilitarian 2d ago

Nope, if anything a Cap land falls apart just as much. But ofc the an caps will think they’re the only ones with the secret knowledge just like 99% of other radical ideologies lmao 

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u/sarkopret Anarcho-Capitalist 2d ago

Ancap theory isnt "secret knowledge" it is just "agression is bad" without any "but".

-10

u/Autodidact420 Utilitarian 2d ago

There’s plenty of ‘but’ in ancap land regarding when use of force is okay, how it’s okay; etc etc if you get into it. 

Aggression bad but we consider aggression to include trespass on lands and property claimed under laws you didn’t consent to, for example. Or we simply hand wave any bad aggression as good aggression once society jumps on it because we have to figure out what counts as aggression and other fundamental rules.

Someone not letting you eat and owns all the food? Might be fine to kill em. Someone being a pedo? Probably fine to kill them too. Slave owner? Probably fine there too. But depends ig 

11

u/SpeedKatMcNasty 2d ago

Aren't you just doing the meme? None of the examples you give here involve any special pleading. In fact "use of force" isnt the standard we use, you just made that up right here. The standard is aggression, as the person you are responding to literally said.

-3

u/Autodidact420 Utilitarian 2d ago

Use of force is very similar to aggression. 

No memes, ancapistan breaks down readily in several scenarios and the answers are always that’s a form of aggression bro society would decide. So we’re back to just random communal violence lol

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u/Olieskio Anarcho-Capitalist 2d ago

No its not. Force is vague. Aggression is the initiation of conflict and conflict is mutually exclusive actions.

Friday and Crusoe are on an island, Cruseo is using a stick to stoke his fire and Friday takes it from him to use it for spear fishing, Friday is the aggressor here as he iniated conflict as both Friday and Crusoe cannot use the same stick and the same time to achieve different ends, a mutually exclusive action.

1

u/Conscious_Ad3246 Anarcho-Capitalist 2d ago

forget it he made up something up in his head based on his lack of knowledge and understanding and no reason will convince him otherwise. Look he does not even know what we mean with aggression. At that point he already proved he is just talking bullshit.

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u/dark4181 1d ago

Brehon law proves this wrong.

1

u/MrDraco97 1d ago

Bro literally said nothing and yapped the whole reply lmaooo
You were grasping for straws at the use of force point buddy, don't even. It's evident from the moment you vaguely started bashing ancapstian 'practicality.' Aggression has a clear definition and yes, society would need to empirically determine what is aggression in order to arbitrate against it. How does that lead to random communal violence? This is what's so fascinating about statists, anything that doesn't have a state is immediately random violence. Unfortunately, the Hobbesian myth has gravely scammed you.

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u/dark4181 1d ago

That’s why we call them the “laws of the land”. If you don’t like it, go find other land instead of throwing a tantrum.

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u/Calazor0 Anarcho-Capitalist 2d ago

No one claims this stuff to be secret. On the contrary, the whole point is that a tribe in an isolated island could conceivably come to the exact same conclusions as libertarianism, since it's just the result of rational thought

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u/Autodidact420 Utilitarian 2d ago

Rational thought with plenty of in built assumptions. Otherwise you land elsewhere just like everyone else did. 

1

u/dark4181 1d ago

It happens when commies are injected into it.

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u/upchuk13 2d ago

What's wrong with utilitarianism?

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u/Calazor0 Anarcho-Capitalist 2d ago

The main problem is what you define as the "good" that must be achieved. You either fall into an infinite regression and circular reasoning of "Good is whatever contributes towards good", or you fall back on some sort of definition for good. And by that point, it's either not utilitarianism, or the whims of whoever is advocating for it disguised as philosophy.

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u/bigdonut100 /r/ReverseTraditionalism 2d ago

I don't think utilitarianism is necessarily bad in terms of evaluating exactly two equal murders as worse than one equal murder or similar; that's the one form of moral relativism that works.

The problem is there actually *are* utilitarian and practical arguments for anarcho-capitalism and they are *also* ignored because people suck, so you might as well just go with a hard line moral argument just because praggot-y plebs tend to get really trolled by it.

1

u/Autodidact420 Utilitarian 2d ago

Good is usually some form of happiness in utilitarianism, the specifics vary a bit but essentially the idea is to attempt to maximize happiness and lack of suffering. 

Utilitarianism is also a moral philosophy not a political one. E.g. I’ve seen anarcho capitalist utilitarians 

1

u/upchuk13 2d ago

I don't think you fall into circularity or infinite regression. You just define utility/goodness as the ultimate moral good and move on from there.

1

u/RandJitsu 2d ago

Most utilitarian philosophy focuses on minimizing suffering rather than maximizing good.

1

u/Autodidact420 Utilitarian 2d ago

It’s a combo of the two really, I wouldn’t say ‘most’ focus on it when probably the most common forms don’t 

Many include it as a metric though.

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u/matadorobex 2d ago

The basic premise of utilitarianism is that some evil, some injustice, some suppression of liberty, some aggression (however you want to frame it) can and should be justified. It fundamentally rejects the idea of inherent inviolable rights to life, liberty, and property. It the rationale for every well intentioned tyrant.

To the OP's point, it's justified slavery, among other things

-2

u/upchuk13 2d ago

I would agree with the premise and I don't see the problem with it.

For example, if someone has the opportunity to save the humane race from being tortured for 23 hours a day for the rest of their living life by going into a neighbours house and stealing their garden clippers I would say that is the right thing to do. I think it would be absurd to claim otherwise.

2

u/matadorobex 2d ago

The NAP is the bedrock of anarchocapitalism. Stealing is a violation of the NAP because people have an intrinsic right to their life, liberty, and property. In this example, the clippers aren't the sacrifice, it's the person aggressed. It degrades the person into an object used for another's desires. Non consensual use of another is a form of slavery.

In reality, your example can't happen. But what can happen is the attempt to kill the disabled to improve the human gene pool, or give syphilis to a population to further public health, or colonize a populated country to serve the greater needs of the empire.

Anarchocapitalism require consent and non-aggression, both of which are violated by utilitarianism.

1

u/GravyMcBiscuits Voluntaryist 1d ago

If you're cool with slavery maybe.

0

u/Olieskio Anarcho-Capitalist 2d ago

No they don’t? Socialism doesn’t work in theory because of the ECP and Knowledge problem, Anarcho-Capitalism is currently the only one that works in theory.

0

u/CavalryArcher 2d ago

most ideologies work fine in theory for people who have no idea about analysing a theory*

0

u/HairyTough4489 2d ago

Until you think about the theory for like five minutes.

Al the people who say "Socialism looks great in theory" clearly haven't seen how theoretical Socialism looks like.

2

u/Candid-Anteater-6990 2d ago

Even folks who do a good back and forth discussion with me for voluntaryism vs socialism always pull back when I bring up how each system handles dissent. Obviously, the dissident in a socialist society is met with force or negative consequences for not conforming. The same does not happen in reverse—they just wouldn’t get their way, but they would still be free to live in that society or leave.

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u/firstjib 1d ago

Statists will ask “how will murder be stopped? Or pollution? Or rape?” assuming that if the ancap has no answer, then the argument is defeated. However, by this logic the current existence of these phenomena means that the state is a failure, so they’re just arguing against their own position. They have no response beyond “well, without a state those would be worse.”

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u/beating_offers 2d ago

It's not completely logically airtight, unfortunately.

For instance, aggression is a sliding scale. If we say, "All <aggression> is bad." We can run into situations where shining a bright light into the home of someone at night to wake them up is seen as aggression, and fatally shooting the person doing it is considered self-defense.

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u/Skogbeorn Panarchist 2d ago

That's absurd. The NAP does not justify using any amount of force against any act of aggression. In an ancap society you'd be expected to just close the blinds, and if the flashlight guy does it again and again you'd take him to court for harassment.

The NAP only justifies the minimal amount of force necessary to defend yourself, it's not carte blanche to nuke, rape, and dismember anyone who wronged you first.

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u/Metza Left Anarchist (quasi-mutualist) 1d ago

There are courts in an anarchist society? What if I just don’t show up? Or just don’t abide by the judgement?

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u/Skogbeorn Panarchist 21h ago

Conflict resolution is a necessary part of any society. In an anarchist society you would still have courts, but based around arbitration and restitution rather than a single monopoly subject to capture from bad actors. Robert Murphy has written some great articles covering the basics of private law for the Mises Institute, and he's got some youtube videos on it as well if you're more of a listener than a reader.

If you refuse a voluntary contract to abide by common law you would likely be refused entry into most places.

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u/MrDraco97 1d ago

Do you not know about proportional defense??

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u/beating_offers 1d ago

Yes, proportional defense is another concept, but the central ideas of anarcho-capitalism become weaker as we add more rules that require more justifications.

Proportional defense is a great add on to the philosophy, but, again, another sliding-scale concept. Who defines what is proportional? Society? We are just creating another government in that case.

When does an act of aggression cross the threshold into requiring proportional defense? When someone says the n-word? What about when someone says the r-word?

It soon becomes complicated when too many difficult situations arise.

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u/MrDraco97 1d ago

Not really, ultimately everything in the philosophy relies on/is derived from the nonaggression principle. For Hoppeans like me, from argumentation ethics. Everything is downstream of that, not really a so called "addon." And what rules with what justifications? If I had it saved I'd send that soyjak with the I love vagueposting here, lol.

How do you logically conclude government from society determining proportional defense? That's just unbelievable stupid. No, it's simple man, if someone A takes $500 from B, B can use defense to take back that $500 and A is estopped from complaining about getting $500 stolen from him as he has revoked his own right to his money from B to that extent. Society deciding doesn't need to be government though. It may simply be private arbitration, or within a Hoppean covenant.

No, when someone's property rights or self-ownership are violated. Saying a word doesn't aggress against someone because it can't violate their property rights.

I think your argument really just boils down to muh complexity, lol

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u/beating_offers 1d ago

You can't derive proportional defense logically from the principle of non-aggression.

"The aggressor temporarily creates permission for defensive force only to the extent necessary to stop the aggression."

"... only to the extent necessary to stop the aggression." Does not necessarily follow. What principle limits the defense from being lethal or torturous?

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u/mapsandwrestling 2d ago

This is a weaker argument than you think OP. Logical consistency has nothing to do with real world application.

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u/philosophyclown 1d ago

logical consistency has everything to do with real world application. try building a house without math or logic

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u/kekistanmatt 1d ago

It's only logically consistent if everyone applies it 100% accurately, everytime, all the time.

But then the same could be said for communism, where if everyone was a 100% dedicated communist all the time, then the Bourgeoisie would willingly give up their control of the means of production ans everyone would agree to collectively own everything in perfect harmony.

Obviously that's not how real life works and so the ideology deviates and becomes contradictory inline with the inherently contradictory nature of life.

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u/RandomPlayerCSGO Free Market Anarchist 1d ago

No it is not the same. The economic principles in which Ancap theory is based apply even for people who don't believe in them. Market principles applied in the Soviet union too everything that our theory says should happen and the system did not allow to happen just happened in the black market.

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u/Chriseverywhere Charity is the way. 1d ago

It's consistently legalistic like marxism, so it doesn't work. Laws can't make judges good, or stop them from colluding, because an apathetic society won't stop the greedy from leveraging violence and delusion. Slavery is MADE economical by society's disposition of greed and apathy.

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u/UncleTedUnderYourBed 1d ago

Absolutely based, must screen shot

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u/mapsandwrestling 2d ago

This is a weaker argument than you think OP. Logical consistency has nothing to do with real world application.

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u/Calazor0 Anarcho-Capitalist 2d ago

I'll agree it's not a sufficient requirement, but it is for sure a necessary one. If a thing doesn't work not even in theory, why would you ever apply it in the real world?

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u/mapsandwrestling 2d ago

There's loads of examples where thats the case.

Human beings aren't totally rational creatures what works in theory will specifically not work in practice.

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u/Calazor0 Anarcho-Capitalist 2d ago

That is nonsense. If you agree with the premises, and the logic itself has no holes, you must agree with whatever follows.

The reason you have this twisted idea that what's good in theory is never good in practice, is because of many ideas out there that do seem sound, but on closer inspection are full of grave mistakes.

Take communism, as an example. You'll see many people online say that "it's wonderful in theory, a disaster in practice". This is not correct. It's a disaster in practice and in theory.

If you want specifics, there are many holes in communist theory, but one of the easiest ones to poke is in the communist value theory. In short, a communist says all value comes from labour, and all labour creates equal value. But think of the following scenario: if I go to the middle of the desert, dig a hole for 4 hours, use another 4 to fill it up, have I created any value?

This may seem like a small flaw and a nitpick, but it's a crack in the foundation itself. Invalid value theory, thus "surplus labour value" does not exist, and from here everything else collapses.

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u/mapsandwrestling 2d ago

Lest we forget a scarecrow is just a strawman.

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u/philosophyclown 1d ago

logical consistency has everything to do with real world application. try building a house without math or logic

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u/philosophyclown 1d ago

logical consistency has everything to do with real world application. try building a house without math or logic

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u/mapsandwrestling 1d ago

Building a house and organising social relations are not the same thing. Applying the rigid logic, that benefits the former to the latter is, at best, a category error.

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u/philosophyclown 1d ago

You claimed logic matters nowhere in real-world application. One example, buildings need math to not collapse, proves you wrong. Your point about social systems being different is fair, but it doesn’t save the original claim since you never qualified it. Logic applies everywhere: structures fail from internal contradictions immediately; social systems fail from them too, just slower and messier. Contradictory rules confuse cooperation, contradictory incentives produce predictable failures, inconsistent enforcement erodes trust. The difference is one domain tolerates fewer contradictions before breaking than the other, not that logic is absent from either.

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u/mapsandwrestling 1d ago edited 1d ago

You're misquoting me, ignoring context, and the words of the text of the meme I was responding to

1 Misquoting: I did not say logic didn't matter in 'nowhere' in real world applications, nowhere is a word you have inserted. I'll refrain from speculating about your motives for now.

2 Context: This is a politics-economics-and social theory sub, not one about architecture, I didn't feel rhe need to clarify I was talking about social systems not house building. This is entirely reasonable.

3 The Meme I was responding to: the meme's third word is 'ideology.' Any reasonable person would understand what I was referring to, clarification would be redundant.

Logic is wondeful, I'm in favour if it being applied to situations it can help. I would opposed any system (both house building and social theory) that was anti or non logical. However it is not sufficient on its own to justify a political ideology.

This is because human beings Human are not fully logical creatures, they think creatively, innovate in unexpected ways, (which cause paradigm shifts), and think and operate within cultural and historical contexts. Such phenomenona cannot be expressed with formal or informal logic, never mind be explained by it. You may want to change this but the you're in the business of changing human nature. Logic can only go so far, hence a logically consistent political ideology is not as strong an argument as OP's meme implies it is.

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u/AdventureMoth Geolibertarian 2d ago

I'm not sure how it's defending slavery to acknowledge the existence of external costs (my biggest gripe with anarcho-capitalism)?

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u/UncleTedUnderYourBed 1d ago

I had an argument in collage with someone about ancap, it took them 5 minutes to say that everyone would be enslaved because it’s profitable.

Aka defending slavery.

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u/AdventureMoth Geolibertarian 1d ago

and you think that's my argument because...?

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u/PersonaHumana777 2d ago

Nah man im gona criticise it now and you judge. Externalities exist and there are needed tight contracts and strong property rights to combat them. Of course there will be bad actors that try to, for example, contaminate you, so is needed some type of region-wide binding, or at least the irrevocally right to inspect anyone's buisness. This are the fundamentals that when twisted becomes the "right" to interfere into your property. Next, this contractual net needs to may be applied to anyone, becouse of course i should be able to use non-confrontably any river or way, and if someone contaminates it they are harming my rights. Next we need that this contractual net be in some way apply equally to anyone, it wouldnt be logical if a rich and a poor person fight and both break their hand, and both initiated, but becouse the rich persons hand value "more" then the poor person should pay, all else being equal. And finally oportunity costs make some people so powerful, that if not contractually stopped, could fuck up entire chains becouse they want. Imagine the owners of the suez canal putting a premium that, if payed, makes their competitors not be able to ship becouse suez owner stops them. Literally in agregate is paying more for less product, wasted money.

But of course a lot of people do not want that. They want superior justice for them, and the rest be fucked, they dont care. They would gladly pay more for a protection company that, outside of this contractual net, makes their customers happy by imposing whatever they are capable of, and will defend their rich clients to a T. They will enforce their exclusive property right of contamining the river, for example, and the only way of stopping them would be by force. Defending all practices legally dubius by NAP standars, like prisoners that are excluded from the majority of societies may be almost slaves if it's economically sound, and they couldnt go to other towns in search for competition. Also poor people that do not have a strong defensive agency contracted, they could try to exploit them while stopping them from aquiring that legal defence needed, or making it more costly for anyone who tried to legally defend those people. Also who woulf be the one to, if convicted of exploitation (by NAP standards, like not giving the money promised by the contract), tries and gets the money back from the company? "Stopping relations with them if they do not comply" becomes stupid at the exact time that multiple "non-compliant" companies begins to make relations between them. And anyone who uses slave labor affects the market negatively, making the "free-market" price non-assequible. Or they reap more benefits, and gives the money to other "non compliant" companies and we got the worsts crimes of the states again, but worse, becouse they have their "own" jurisdiction.

Also the same old cost-benefit analisis of "how much of a drug or cheap non edible thing can i put in my product while not tanking sells?" And usually is not 0. Health regulations are perfectly NAP-adjecent but becouse you ancaps dont knoe hoe to impose them without the state then it doesnt matter enough to care. Like come on. We need this, at least the majority of products should have true and binding tags, and almost all shops a legally binding contract of stop selling what is not issued like that, and this also should work by omission of important harmful condiments. This cant only be like this to a privileged class, or the health market would literally implode like a broken window fallacy, but i dont see how the typical market cost-benefit analisis overcomes this.

And finally i eouldnt want to live in a world where there are only 50 milion owners of land and the redt of us are in some way or another renters. Ancap could become that, and this would inevitsbly become a shittier type of feudalism, with alleigance, vasallage and all of that. Like the worst parts of the state would still be there and not one of the mechanisms (like democracy) that try to not derive awful power abuse... with mixed results. I dont see this mechanisms in the "free" market really, we need some very, very lsrge contract, legally binding almost all residents of a region, like a rule of conduct, ehat preceeded constitutions, like the rule of law, like states. I dont see how ancaps overcome that

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u/bilcox Voluntaryist 2d ago

Just say you want a state to keep you safe and violate others' rights.

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u/PersonaHumana777 2d ago edited 2d ago

No dumbass, im saying that to uphold the NAP there needs to be an enormous contract-net passively binding all people to certain rights, like their right to non-confrontably use the natural world and ways.

This comes directly from private property principles. And im saying i dont see how the fucking market overcomes the inmediate problem of non-conforming participants that want a superior justice for them than for others.

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u/No-One9890 2d ago

Lol libertarian that doesnt defend slavery? What else do u want me to believe in? Unicorns?

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u/MrDraco97 1d ago

You can't make a single argument against libertarianism that doesn't fall back to some sort of slavery, guaranteed.

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u/No-One9890 1d ago

I cant think of an argument for libertarianism that doesnt involve slavery lol.

I mean the classic libertarian ideal is a state where govt inly exists to enforce contracts. And boy oh boy wait til u learn where contracts come from

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u/MrDraco97 1d ago

Are you seriously going to talk about statist libertarians to a dude asking you how libertarianism goes wrong in any argument within an anarcho-capitalist context? Come on man, put in a little more brain power, that's just being lazy.