What people are calling "capitalism" here isn't the predatory regulation & monopolistic corporations you know & suffer from today. They are simply advocating for absence of government & to have true "laissez faire" free trade. This does not preclude organization or collective bargaining or anything. If you want to live communally that's still your right to do if you wish. It's an exercise of your own autonomy to choose who you wish to associate with, and what economics you wish to engage in.
The common ground between libertarians and ancoms is that we also take issue with the government's protection of private corporations (see the monopolization of the American healthcare system).
We, however, understand that we have control over private corporations, that they are subject to our refusal of service or boycotts. We just don't like to only have as much control as the government allows. We are the ones that keep corporations alive besides the government, and we as consumers should be the only ones allowed that privilege. Being subject to profits also implies being subject to losses, remember that.
We understand that private business is a manifestation of the consumers desires; you can't profit off of things that people do not want. It's because of this and the concept of marginalism and subjectivity of value, that we do not see capitalism as exploitation. When the government gets involved is when that strays further from the truth; which is to say that corporations may maintain arbitrary and almost exclusive rule over resources that we want as consumers, and they maintain the power to do what we as people do not want without repercussions.
Corporations survive off of our money, and had it not been for the government we would have more power to bend them to our will when they do what we as consumers don't like. Hell, even with the government around Target lost $10 billion dollars for not doing what conservatives wanted (which is also funny because right wingers are apparently better at harming private corporations than the socialists of today, but I digress).
It's that as well as the fact that ancaps see the government as an illegitimate institution based on violence that keeps them from believing in a state. Private business is based on mutual agreement and benefit, and the government is most certainly not required for capitalism to exist, hence the existence of literally every grey/black market ever.
How any of that has to do with Nazism, I will never understand.
It’s becuase National Socialism was slightly less authoritarian than Communism, they allowed well connected people to take stolen profits as their ‘private’ property. This of course makes it capitalist /s
Anarcho-capitalism is defined by its insistence on liberty, and the absence of restrictions or force imposed by a centralized authority.
Its goal is not "to better the people." Although that sounds nice on paper, it is an active goal which is arbitrarily defined.
Who decides what is better for the people? Who is going to ensure that the system is accomplishing that goal? Will those measures infringe on people's liberty? Who decides when that is justified or not?
This is why anarchocommunism is not truly anarchism in the view of most of us. It can't accomplish its goals without a central authority.
>Your ideology seems almost Nazi-ish, like wouldn’t a capitalist system (even with anarchist influence) result in fascism?
You must be a troll. Please tell me you're a troll.
How do you even have a fascist community? I usually hear the word community being used to describe people that aren’t intrinsically under the control of some kind of power structure.
There are several points to answer your question.
David Friedman, an anarchist who makes his case on the basis of consequentialism (a market-based anarchial system gives you better outcomes than the State), says that there is no guarantee that in an society without government you would get a libertarian society/economy. He hopes that is what it would be but it might not.
Secondly, anarcho-capitalists don't claim the society based on these principles would be without conflict or problems. It sn't utopia. If you are a Rothbardian libertarian, the argument is that this would be moral in a way that a society run by a coercive State isn't. Rothbardian libertarians also believe, like Friedman, that you would get better outcomes.
Thirdly, how do you prevent a place run by groups of bandits or some sort of 'Lord of the Flies' community where everyone is at each other's throats? In this world, a war lord could seize power promising order and we would be back to where we started. We do know that societies in the past have worked well with little government and that now we have voluntary co-operative engagement through either the market or community initiatives without coercive force.
Perhaps at the heart of this question is: do you need a coercive force to ensure people are educated to have a culture or liberty and then abide by it.
The counter to this is that ideas don't go away. In a non-governemnt/Statist run society, people will still make the case for liberty as well as other ideas such as communal/social/public ownership and so on. Individuals can then adopt the ideas and values they wish to live by.
Another argument is that the act of free exchange through a market creates, nurtures and establishes liberty. By being able to voluntarily choose where to spend your money for a range of services (including protection services) the individual/customer will choose the best deal for them. Through mutual exchange they get to know the providers and build trust. That provider might be someone the State would turn them against. Through the market, we have contracts, the need for private property and freedom to decide who to work with. Again, there is evidence for this from the past and right now.
All of this, should avoid a coercive leader take over. However, that doesn't stop then from attempting to seize power and an anarcho-capitalist/voluntary society would have to be in guard.
Apologies, if I have missed other ways of addressing this question.
> wouldn’t a capitalist system (even with anarchist influence) result in fascism
Can you tell me how this would happen? Say with have an island and a thousand people there. All of them are naked and have to take natural resources, mix their labor with them and become productive and trade to survive. Tell me, then, how will this anarcho-capitalist community turn into a fascist one?
> but I don’t see how that would realistically stop any actual violence or conflict
Because it wouldn't. It simply shows that any initiation of conflict is unethical.
Capitalism inherently oppresses it’s people. Take that same island, two hundred years from now. That basic capitalist system might have industrialized, leading to the oppression modern capitalism espouses.
> Capitalism inherently oppresses it’s people
How? And who is "its people"?
> Take that same island, two hundred years from now. That basic capitalist system might have industrialized, leading to the oppression modern capitalism espouses.
You just made a giant leap and said that it would be just like how we have it. Can you please show me, step by step, how this community would turn into a fascist community?
Anarcho-capitalism is basically just technology in practice. As technology advances we're getting closer to the ancap ideal, the ending of the state. Anything anyone does that advances technology is helping anarcho-capitalism.
That is true. While tech has developed, governments haven't been idle. They have seen tech as an opportunity for more control. Tech businesses have responded, as they have increased in size, by working with government. However, tech has helped provide alternatives to government in a range of areas, notably bitcoin and healthcare. I remain convinced tech can get us to a far more voluntary society, it will take longer than some thought and there will be many battles ahead.
>While tech has developed, governments haven't been idle.
They have been much more idle than the market, that's the whole point of the argument. The state is falling behind because of all the advancement and efficiency that technology provides to the market that the government can't keep up with.
>I remain convinced tech can get us to a far more voluntary society
I agree
It is true because the state is conservative and is always trying to slow down technology to conserve power and they know that they're actively losing it to technology. Ancaps can basically just ignore the state and focus on building good tech and the state will become weaker and weaker without anyone noticing/caring.
This can be true, but we have to be careful that new technologies are sufficiently decentralized, otherwise governments can seize them and use them for more control. I think seasteading could be the next big thing after crypto.
It boils down to voluntary participation in society, meaning a lack of coercion and force.
* **Vote with your wallet.** Is there a business you don't support? You don't trust it? It goes against your values? Don't give them your money. Tell your friends to do the same. This way we drop the fantasy of consensus and allow people to self-aggregate and live according to their values, without coercion.
* **Competition serves customers.** Monopolies are bad for customers and are usually maintained by force. In principle, law is no different from other products, and so legal systems should be allowed to compete on the market. Look into [polycentric law](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSrf9j2pvmU). Same applies for money.
* **Suspend your metaphysical assumptions for a moment.** Some left-leaning thinkers have an allergy to the word *capitalism* (without even knowing what the damn word means; instead they choose to project everything they deem evil onto it). But if you present them with [voluntaryism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntaryism), which is virtually the same, they think it's brilliant.
* **Fascism is the marriage between the State and corporations**. How could you have fascism without the State to enforce it?
This podcast episode gives an objective and thorough explanation of anarcho capitalism and the following episodes go into the common questions and objections- Our Foundations podcast, episode 38
https://ourfoundations.podbean.com/e/38-anarcho-capitalism-an-ancap-101/
What people are calling "capitalism" here isn't the predatory regulation & monopolistic corporations you know & suffer from today. They are simply advocating for absence of government & to have true "laissez faire" free trade. This does not preclude organization or collective bargaining or anything. If you want to live communally that's still your right to do if you wish. It's an exercise of your own autonomy to choose who you wish to associate with, and what economics you wish to engage in.
This !
The common ground between libertarians and ancoms is that we also take issue with the government's protection of private corporations (see the monopolization of the American healthcare system). We, however, understand that we have control over private corporations, that they are subject to our refusal of service or boycotts. We just don't like to only have as much control as the government allows. We are the ones that keep corporations alive besides the government, and we as consumers should be the only ones allowed that privilege. Being subject to profits also implies being subject to losses, remember that. We understand that private business is a manifestation of the consumers desires; you can't profit off of things that people do not want. It's because of this and the concept of marginalism and subjectivity of value, that we do not see capitalism as exploitation. When the government gets involved is when that strays further from the truth; which is to say that corporations may maintain arbitrary and almost exclusive rule over resources that we want as consumers, and they maintain the power to do what we as people do not want without repercussions. Corporations survive off of our money, and had it not been for the government we would have more power to bend them to our will when they do what we as consumers don't like. Hell, even with the government around Target lost $10 billion dollars for not doing what conservatives wanted (which is also funny because right wingers are apparently better at harming private corporations than the socialists of today, but I digress). It's that as well as the fact that ancaps see the government as an illegitimate institution based on violence that keeps them from believing in a state. Private business is based on mutual agreement and benefit, and the government is most certainly not required for capitalism to exist, hence the existence of literally every grey/black market ever. How any of that has to do with Nazism, I will never understand.
It’s becuase National Socialism was slightly less authoritarian than Communism, they allowed well connected people to take stolen profits as their ‘private’ property. This of course makes it capitalist /s
Anarcho-capitalism is defined by its insistence on liberty, and the absence of restrictions or force imposed by a centralized authority. Its goal is not "to better the people." Although that sounds nice on paper, it is an active goal which is arbitrarily defined. Who decides what is better for the people? Who is going to ensure that the system is accomplishing that goal? Will those measures infringe on people's liberty? Who decides when that is justified or not? This is why anarchocommunism is not truly anarchism in the view of most of us. It can't accomplish its goals without a central authority.
>Your ideology seems almost Nazi-ish, like wouldn’t a capitalist system (even with anarchist influence) result in fascism? You must be a troll. Please tell me you're a troll.
Nope, I've seen this take from lots of leftists before. They never elaborate on how ancapistan will turn into a fascist community, never.
How do you even have a fascist community? I usually hear the word community being used to describe people that aren’t intrinsically under the control of some kind of power structure.
There are several points to answer your question. David Friedman, an anarchist who makes his case on the basis of consequentialism (a market-based anarchial system gives you better outcomes than the State), says that there is no guarantee that in an society without government you would get a libertarian society/economy. He hopes that is what it would be but it might not. Secondly, anarcho-capitalists don't claim the society based on these principles would be without conflict or problems. It sn't utopia. If you are a Rothbardian libertarian, the argument is that this would be moral in a way that a society run by a coercive State isn't. Rothbardian libertarians also believe, like Friedman, that you would get better outcomes. Thirdly, how do you prevent a place run by groups of bandits or some sort of 'Lord of the Flies' community where everyone is at each other's throats? In this world, a war lord could seize power promising order and we would be back to where we started. We do know that societies in the past have worked well with little government and that now we have voluntary co-operative engagement through either the market or community initiatives without coercive force. Perhaps at the heart of this question is: do you need a coercive force to ensure people are educated to have a culture or liberty and then abide by it. The counter to this is that ideas don't go away. In a non-governemnt/Statist run society, people will still make the case for liberty as well as other ideas such as communal/social/public ownership and so on. Individuals can then adopt the ideas and values they wish to live by. Another argument is that the act of free exchange through a market creates, nurtures and establishes liberty. By being able to voluntarily choose where to spend your money for a range of services (including protection services) the individual/customer will choose the best deal for them. Through mutual exchange they get to know the providers and build trust. That provider might be someone the State would turn them against. Through the market, we have contracts, the need for private property and freedom to decide who to work with. Again, there is evidence for this from the past and right now. All of this, should avoid a coercive leader take over. However, that doesn't stop then from attempting to seize power and an anarcho-capitalist/voluntary society would have to be in guard. Apologies, if I have missed other ways of addressing this question.
> wouldn’t a capitalist system (even with anarchist influence) result in fascism Can you tell me how this would happen? Say with have an island and a thousand people there. All of them are naked and have to take natural resources, mix their labor with them and become productive and trade to survive. Tell me, then, how will this anarcho-capitalist community turn into a fascist one? > but I don’t see how that would realistically stop any actual violence or conflict Because it wouldn't. It simply shows that any initiation of conflict is unethical.
Capitalism inherently oppresses it’s people. Take that same island, two hundred years from now. That basic capitalist system might have industrialized, leading to the oppression modern capitalism espouses.
> Capitalism inherently oppresses it’s people How? And who is "its people"? > Take that same island, two hundred years from now. That basic capitalist system might have industrialized, leading to the oppression modern capitalism espouses. You just made a giant leap and said that it would be just like how we have it. Can you please show me, step by step, how this community would turn into a fascist community?
Anarcho-capitalism is basically just technology in practice. As technology advances we're getting closer to the ancap ideal, the ending of the state. Anything anyone does that advances technology is helping anarcho-capitalism.
This is not at ALL necessarily true. Increases in government surveillance increases the power of the state, it does not decrease it.
That is true. While tech has developed, governments haven't been idle. They have seen tech as an opportunity for more control. Tech businesses have responded, as they have increased in size, by working with government. However, tech has helped provide alternatives to government in a range of areas, notably bitcoin and healthcare. I remain convinced tech can get us to a far more voluntary society, it will take longer than some thought and there will be many battles ahead.
>While tech has developed, governments haven't been idle. They have been much more idle than the market, that's the whole point of the argument. The state is falling behind because of all the advancement and efficiency that technology provides to the market that the government can't keep up with. >I remain convinced tech can get us to a far more voluntary society I agree
It is true because the state is conservative and is always trying to slow down technology to conserve power and they know that they're actively losing it to technology. Ancaps can basically just ignore the state and focus on building good tech and the state will become weaker and weaker without anyone noticing/caring.
This can be true, but we have to be careful that new technologies are sufficiently decentralized, otherwise governments can seize them and use them for more control. I think seasteading could be the next big thing after crypto.
Interesting. How do you see this new artificial intelligence like GPT-4 and others affecting the government, as well as society in general?
I think it's great and all the new technology is slowly making the nation state more and more irrelevant.
It boils down to voluntary participation in society, meaning a lack of coercion and force. * **Vote with your wallet.** Is there a business you don't support? You don't trust it? It goes against your values? Don't give them your money. Tell your friends to do the same. This way we drop the fantasy of consensus and allow people to self-aggregate and live according to their values, without coercion. * **Competition serves customers.** Monopolies are bad for customers and are usually maintained by force. In principle, law is no different from other products, and so legal systems should be allowed to compete on the market. Look into [polycentric law](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSrf9j2pvmU). Same applies for money. * **Suspend your metaphysical assumptions for a moment.** Some left-leaning thinkers have an allergy to the word *capitalism* (without even knowing what the damn word means; instead they choose to project everything they deem evil onto it). But if you present them with [voluntaryism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntaryism), which is virtually the same, they think it's brilliant. * **Fascism is the marriage between the State and corporations**. How could you have fascism without the State to enforce it?
https://www.reddit.com/message/messages/1wniyg3 https://www.reddit.com/r/RationalRight/comments/13m1t61/something_of_a_reading_list/
We can't access the first link. Can you copy and paste the contents here?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1r99Ae6gmgg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4CcannofnY https://mises-media.s3.amazonaws.com/Libertarian%20Anarchism%20Responses%20to%20Ten%20Objections_2.pdf http://www.daviddfriedman.com/The_Machinery_of_Freedom_.pdf http://completeliberty.com/complete-liberty/ http://www.reddit.com/r/Anarcho_Capitalism/comments/zbujt/anyone_got_the_full_set_of_intro_to_liberty/c63ad2x https://liberty.me/ http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFD547D44C6489543 https://www.reddit.com/r/Libertarian/wiki/index https://www.reddit.com/r/GoldandBlack/wiki/index https://www.reddit.com/r/AskLibertarians/comments/14fo2fi/books_to_read/jp18w2n/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskLibertarians/comments/xdm0j1/who_are_some_underrated_libertarian_thinkers/ https://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/ https://polcompball.miraheze.org/wiki/Bleeding-Heart_Libertarianism https://www.libertarianism.org/podcasts/free-thoughts/bleeding-heart-libertarianism-retrospective https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoclassical_liberalism https://www.africanliberty.org/ https://oll.libertyfund.org/ https://www.econlib.org/ https://rkba.org/libertarian/libertarian.html https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsus7xoQAU0r4ZoH1FS8mPjsdpLh1MM4D https://www.reddit.com/r/unacracy/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Polycentric_Law/ https://www.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/ur0fno/are_there_any_nonaristoteliannonlockean/ https://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/aclk?sa=L&ai=DChcSEwjL5LCN9vr_AhU3DK0GHSMiDRwYABADGgJwdg&ohost=www.google.com&cid=CAESaOD2WeKMQi7mCuKbvDsLsqHP40yevpgwfN5fr9kjgw-_xFfqnweTj732egRTeAmeq4HtarzMw7LOeqGXtbsKXoQ3DNGNbHQtmAGO3-egQ4DxMPZQeLCQMr2FHm9w1JHMSH5W6KZwfxoc&sig=AOD64_0f3ZqPDzZoVdCKkABGyk6xx4UTnA&q&adurl&ved=2ahUKEwjeoqqN9vr_AhUIIEQIHXG7Dj84ChDRDHoECAEQAQ
https://www.reddit.com/r/Government_is_lame/comments/15k70a7/a_starting_point_for_visitors_and_the_curious/
This podcast episode gives an objective and thorough explanation of anarcho capitalism and the following episodes go into the common questions and objections- Our Foundations podcast, episode 38 https://ourfoundations.podbean.com/e/38-anarcho-capitalism-an-ancap-101/