Would anarcho-capitalism work?
Whether it would work is a really relative question. Almost every political system works for *somebody*. Perhaps a more pertinent question would be: who wouldn't it work for.It would definitely not work for those without land. With capitalism, and without a state, all the land would become privately owned, there would no longer be public space or public accommodation… If you found yourself among the unfortunate masses who dont own any property, you would find yourself with nowhere to exist and no way to make your own money but selling yourself in favor of sustenance and shelter, much like the relationship between European lords and serfs in the middle ages, American plantation owners and slaves in the 1800s, or bosses and workers living in company towns in more recent times. And that's if you get a hospitable landowner in need of labor, you might just get shot on sight —you're trespassing on private property after all.If history teaches us anything, it's that these sort of self-serving arrangements can only allow disparities to proliferate. Without a government, capitalism becomes even more repressive, because it doesn't have to heed to the sometimes competing interests of state bureaucrats.If you abolish the state without addressing the fundamental problems of property and hierarchy, landowners simply become the new ruling class. This is the problem of confusing the lasseiz faire call for “less government” with the anarchistic call for “no government”.Less is not always better… quite the contrary. The move from subjugation under state bureaucrats to subjugation under land owners is not anarchism.As Bakunin put it:We are convinced that liberty without socialism is privilege, injustice; and that socialism without liberty is slavery and brutality.“Anarcho-capitalism” —like “state communism”— is a misnomer.
Is the Libertarian Party anarcho-capitalist?
No.Both main branches of Libertarianism, Consequentialist and Deontologists, believe in some kind of small government to be a referee. However, deontologist libertarians (DL) have a lot more in common with anarcho-capitalists than consequentialist libertarians (CL).DL’s a firm in the belief that taxation is straight up theft. If you have to resort to coercion/force to get anything done, whether it be to build a library or a school using taxpayer money, your actions are inherently wrong.Of course, that’s the ideological extreme but you can see where the line blurs between DL and ancaps.CL hold the libertarian stance until there is empirical evidence that government would be better for a certain situation where you do not want there to be a free market running the show, or the free market would take too long, like law enforcement, emergency service, and defence. Outside of those responsibilities, the government should not be involved in anything else. They can only be a referee to protect intellectual property and provide a level of security that allows suppliers and consumers to trust each other to do trade properly.AnCaps is the ideological extreme of libertarianism, and probably the most ideologically consistent ideology than anything else, but its practicality is most certainly questionable. No government. No one should have the power to laud over someone else. The free market will take care of everything. However, human nature is too complex for one pure ideology to work wholesale. Without government, there will be a power vacuum and someone will rise to fill it.Still, anarcho-capitalism isn’t oxymoronic and makes more sense than anarcho-communism or libertarian-socialism.
Pros and cons of anarcho-capitalism?
To someone who believes in the anarcho-capitalist ideal, there would be separation of economy and state, and there would be no restriction on how wealthy one person can become, relative to everyone else. The problem with this analysis is that quite often, the people who become extremely wealthy suddenly develop a taste for state power as well, and they then use their massive wealth to dominate the politics of the region. Silvio Berlusconi is one example - he is one of Italy's wealthiest people and controls vast amounts of the mass media there. With propaganda tools like this at your disposal, it isn't very hard to get yourself political power, which Berlusconi has done - many times. The separation of economy and state is an illusion. Anarcho-syndicalism is much more workable in my opinion. This means democracy in the workplace. Company security is provided by the employees themselves, democratically - thus you avoid the rise of dictator-like figures.
How would the transition to anarcho-capitalism look like?
Look around youWe don't need to "transition" to anarcho-capitalism, for all practical purposes we are already there.Every major government (bar maybe China) does what its told by a tiny minority of super wealth people.
Would an anarcho-capitalist society fall to warlordism?
There are anarchists that assert (often in the context of dismissing minarchists as naive) that any size of government, no matter how small, will inevitably lead to ever larger and larger government. Many of these seem to believe that a truly anarchist society will magically avoid devolving into statism.My view? “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”
Is Capitalism good or is it a farce?
Capitalism is the greatest farce ever pulled on the economically downtrodden. It is a magnificently simple Ponzi scheme at it's base level and completely glorifies and even rewards the very darkest part of human nature and encourages mankind to be the most absolute vile greedy creature he can be, because after all it will make him a fortune if he does it correctly and to heck with anyone else not capable of doing the same thing. It is as completely flawed of an economic system as anarchy would be as a system of government. I don't believe any country practices true capitalism at it's very elemental base, except perhaps one could argue that certain countries in Africa practice the purest form of capitalism in the world today. The US is far from true capitalism, it is more like a capitalist corporate fascist economic system wheren the corporations control our government and our government promotes legislation to the benefit of said corporations to the detriment of the average American citizen. Were we not such a thing, no bank would have been bailed out, no auto company would have been bailed, no corporation would have been bailed out by the government under the guise of "too big to fail", they would have been allowed to collapse and go under with no intervention and eventually a stronger leaner more worthy company would rise to fill in the gap left by the corporations who failed.
Anarcho-Capitalism: What stops monopolies and cartels from forming if anarchocapitalism is the dominant ideology in the world?
In answering the question we have to distinguish between monopolies per-se, and consumer-harming monopolies. The former could indeed rise in a capitalist economy. Depending on how broad one defines the relevant market to be, monopolies per-se are, in fact, commonplace even today. For example, Apple has a monopoly over production of iPhones. I live in a village in which a local store has a monopoly over milk sales, while in the nearby market town, a single supermarket holds a monopoly over the sales of many useful and even essential items. But so what? Each of those faces material competition as soon as one expands the scope of the relevant market to, say, smart-phones or a slightly wider geographical area. The genuine concern is that a monopolist would use their position to exploit consumers by charging excessive prices. Set aside the impossibility of even defining what might constitute "excessive" in this context. Ample historic evidence shows that even the baddest and most successful monopolist in history, including those operating in the dark ages that preceefed anti-trust legislation (think Rockeffeler's Standard Oil) never actually raised their prices. In fact, the could only maintain their monopoly status by aggressively lowering their prices, expanding production and otherwise out-doing their competition in providing outstanding value to their customers. The scenario of a monopolist lowering prices to drive its competitors out of business and then raising their prices again to harm consumers is a pure myth. It has never ever happened in the history of humanity. Finally, let's assume that such scenario could really happen. If one is genuinely concerned about the evils of monopoly, the very last thing one would want is government, an organization which isn't just, by definition, a monopoly over a wide geographic area and one considered legitimized (even by non-anarchist libertarians such as Rand) to use violence to maintain that position, but also one historically and to-date regularly using its power to grant and maintain monopolies by both its own organs (think Post Office) and its cronies (think Intellectual Property).If you are worried about monopolies, the last thing you want is government.