Some honest questions for proponents of #anarchism, specifically of the individualistic sort (ie, #anarchocapitalism):
🧵
What do you make of the lack of [significant experiments in the real world](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_anarchist_communities) (note that most examples on that page are collectivist societies, communist #libertarians, etc — not experiments where all property is private)?
I get that a modern nation doesn't sell a region or a province to a group of like-minded individuals to let them live and interact as they please, and that even if that were possible, such community would still depend on the “outer world” for lots of important things.
Still, isn't is suspicious that there aren't at least a bunch of long-lasting, functioning libertarian experiments where members voluntarily ditch outer courts and laws, shun subsidies and quotas of any kind, rely on an inner grey market to conceal income and wealth as much as possible, rely solely on voluntary agreements among them, etc?
With so many passionate supporters worldwide, why isn't that happening, at least to the extent it's feasible within the framework of existing jurisdictions?
+bonifartius 𒂼𒄄
@tripu
> Still, isn’t is suspicious that there aren’t at least a bunch of long-lasting, functioning libertarian experiments where members voluntarily ditch outer courts and laws, shun subsidies and quotas of any kind, rely on an inner grey market to conceal income and wealth as much as possible, rely solely on voluntary agreements among them, etc?
>
> With so many passionate supporters worldwide, why isn’t that happening, at least to the extent it’s feasible within the framework of existing jurisdictions?
short answer: because the much larger body of statists send people with guns having no problem with shooting others for not participating.
if you need a central enforcing thing you have just another oppressive system.
e.g. with private streets you need a contract to use them which may include "needs a certificate and insurance". those things aren't unfixable problems, they often only appear this way as we only know how it's done currently.
mutualist cooperations where people have ownership worked pretty well in the past.
anything without ownership ("anarcho"-syndicalism/communism) requires coercion and is not anarchism.
you really only need ownership, universal non violence and _if_ you are attacked by someone not adhering to that the right for proper self defense. everything else follows from that.
I don't understand your answer.
To reiterate: what exactly is preventing a group of hundreds or thousands of like-minded anarchocapitalists from implementing their ideas in a small closed community (within the boundaries of the law imposed by the parent jurisdiction)?
They could trade among themselves using zortskilfs as currency; hire, save and invest using zortskilfs; and convert to/from USD only when they absolutely need to interact with the outer world (eg to buy goods they can't produce internally). All that economic activity would be hidden from fiscal authorities, thus tax-free, since they all reject the authority of outer fiscal authorities and courts of law and nobody would denounce or sue their comrades.
Members in need of, say, a doctor, a teacher or a driving instructor would use the services of other members (regardless of whether they have the degree or are licenced to work).
Comrades who suffered illness or injury would rely on inner mechanisms (charity, a mutual insurance company) or simply resign to their bad fate — anything but relying on social services, well-fare, subsidies, etc.
Members could have guns at will. As long as they're used only internally and other members don't sue or snitch, that should be OK for all.
Violence, trespassing, theft, etc within the community would be handled internally (private court, fellow arbitrator, etc), not via State or Federal law, public courts or prisons, etc.
Why aren't they doing all that?
@tripu
> To reiterate: what exactly is preventing a group of hundreds or thousands of like-minded anarchocapitalists from implementing their ideas in a small closed community (within the boundaries of the law imposed by the parent jurisdiction)?
the boundaries of the parent jurisdication, starting with taxation continuing with other laws about what you can own etc.. you'd have a constant drain of value without anything in return because of taxation.
also, they'll find a reson to fuck with you. no guns for you. no drugs for you. no explosives for you. no distilling alcohol. no growing of tobacco.
after all, what would happen if people notice that anarchy works? can't allow that!
_but_ for a limited amount of time and in limited ways these things work rather well. i went to small/medium music festivals where people were motivated to work together and not be a trouble to others and it worked maybe only because there is much money put into it upfront? still nice!
> _“You’d have a constant drain of value without anything in return because of taxation”_
Taxes would be avoided to a large extent if such community worked as I explained, obscuring much of inner economic activity. (Some taxes are evaded _outside_ libertarian utopias, after all.)
You say “drain” of value. What about the alleged increase in value (as per libertarian ideas)? What about all the things members could do on their own, and with each other, in such a community?
> _“They’ll find a reson to fuck with you”_
The onus is on defenders of #anarchocapitalism to prove that all those things have been tried in libertarian communities, and how _exactly_ the State or outer authorities stopped all that.
I get back to my short list of examples above.
> _“For a limited amount of time and in limited ways these things work rather well”_
If libertarian ideas work only within the very narrow confines of a music festival (a couple of days or a week at most, with only a few hundred quids per person at stake, limited to very specific activities), then it's further proof that libertarian ideas wouldn't work for society.
@tripu
> The onus is on defenders of #anarchocapitalism to prove that all those things have been tried in libertarian communities, and how exactly the State or outer authorities stopped all that.
why does the idea of people being just left alone need a proof? hell, we are on a science instance, for things like mutualism or voluntaryism you literally only need the few principles listed in my previous post.
to defend the existence of a state with armed goons coercing you into obedience you need many more assumptions in place.
i think it's rather self evident that the idea which requires fewer assumptions about the reality and humans is more likely to be correct.
> Taxes would be avoided to a large extent if such community worked as I explained, obscuring much of inner economic activity. (Some taxes are evaded outside libertarian utopias, after all.)
>
> You say “drain” of value. What about the alleged increase in value (as per libertarian ideas)? What about all the things members could do on their own, and with each other, in such a community?
you have taxes which make these things hard like property tax etc. to pay these taxes, you have to create value and exchange that for the outside money. then you have to pay taxes on _that_. this goes on and on. the state just forces so many big and small payments on you, that you don't have a realistic chance of establishing such a community without breaking any laws. as soon as you _do_ break the magic laws, you'll have people with guns at your doorstep robbing you.
> If libertarian ideas work only within the very narrow confines of a music festival (a couple of days or a week at most, with only a few hundred quids per person at stake, limited to very specific activities), then it’s further proof that libertarian ideas wouldn’t work for society.
i never said they _only_ work in these situations, i only said that those were the closest instances to a free peaceful market anarchy where "the law" is largely absent that i've witnessed.
"i think it’s rather self evident that the idea which requires fewer assumptions about the reality and humans is more likely to be correct."
Only if those assumptions are correct...
Clearly enunciate all those “assumptions” of yours and we'll tell you how exactly they are “incorrect” or incomplete as basis for a peaceful and prosperous society.
/cc @ceoln
My fellow humans are like me in some ways, some of the time. There's a pretty wide distribution on some axes.
I'm not sure who is arguing that there will be widespread rape, murder, and robberies; where was that?
Experience suggests that there would be a significant number of people willing to exploit the system for their own short-term benefit, and that there will be even more people who are just bad at cooperating spontaneously on things that require cooperation; see for instance the bears of Grafton.
All of these things cause trouble in the current systems that we have, also! But it seems facially unlikely that they will not happen in something like an ancap system; so people advocating for that should have some story as to how they would be dealt with, if they want to be taken seriously.
(I was once a libertarian, and decided that there was no plausible story about, for instance, how a small government could control a large organized crime organization.)
@ceoln
the rape & murder was in another part of the thread:
https://qoto.org/@tripu/110140219702295161
> My fellow humans are like me in some ways, some of the time. There’s a pretty wide distribution on some axes.
it isn't about food preferences but "not being asshole". which most people are likely not.
> [..] so people advocating for that should have some story as to how they would be dealt with, if they want to be taken seriously.
so, one would have to account for every possibility?
Of course! And, imperfect though it is, we have elaborate institutions (including the government) to reduce their frequency, and to mitigate and reverse and undo the bad effects when they do happen.
It seems intuitively that without those institutions, things would be significantly worse. A claim that that isn't true would seem to require a supporting argument.
Collectivist anarchisms of various kinds can generally at least outline some practices of mutuality (for instance) that would take over for at least some governmental institutions.
I'd be interested in what anarchocapitalism does.
@ceoln @tripu
why should it be significantly worse though?
collectivist anarchisms are a oxymoron. how would you enforce the collectivist part? you'd have a body with the "right" to use violence against individuals.
those things are just communism with a fancy name. you can't disassociate from those things.
If the problems are at a given level with lots of countermeasures and mitigations in place, then the natural assumption is that without the countermeasures and mitigations, they'd be worse.
It's possible to argue the contrary, but it requires an argument, not just a "why not?".
Capitalist anarchisms aren't any better; how would you enforce the ownership relations required for capitalism to work?
@bonifartius
That doesn't say "widespread", it notes (correctly) that those things happen.
'it isn’t about food preferences but “not being asshole”. which most people are likely not': it's not enough that most people aren't. It's that enough people are that any system that can't deal with them, isn't going to succeed.
Practically any system will work if everyone is rational and kind. We need systems that work in reality.
One doesn't have to account for every possibility, but if a system can't handle possibilities that are likely to occur, it's much less interesting.
@tripu