The biggest problem with Anarcho-Capitalism

[u/LeonRusskiy]

The problem is power vacuums.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian government sold off state assets at dirt-cheap prices, partly because those assets didn’t have real prices due to the Economic Calculation Problem.

This led to the rise of the Russian oligarchy, since the people who got those assets weren’t the most capable or productive. Just random insiders with government connections.

Sure, that was my government’s fault. But it didn’t have to be that way. If you’re going to privatize state-owned resources, you need smart government policies, like selling them through open and competitive auctions, so that ownership ends up with people who can actually afford and manage them, not just whoever got there first.

And if you’re an anarchist who wants to abolish the state entirely, then you’re removing the very institution that can legally and transparently transfer ownership. Without a state, property doesn’t disappear — it becomes determined by power rather than law. The economy degrades into a game of “who controls what” instead of “who produces what,” where property is seized rather than earned. That’s exactly what happened in post-Soviet Russia. That’s not freedom — that’s oligarchy.

Murray Rothbard assumed that state-owned enterprises would be simply given to their workers. Though, why didn’t it happen in post-war countries like Iraq? By dismantling the Iraqi state, together with its Law and Order system, the US created a power vacuum that allowed local militias and former elites to seize public assets (and private assets also). The result wasn’t a free society — it was yet another form of oligarchy built on chaos and force.

This explains why Israel started bombing Syria after Assad’s regime was ousted. There were concerns that his empty military bases would be captured by hostile armed groups.

Conclusion

Originally, I thought that Rothbard only pretended to be a deontologist obsessed with ethics, for popularity. Though reading something from his biography made me less certain about that.

As a kid, Rothbard was shy and felt oppressed at his public school. He was bullied and beaten by older boys, had to endlessly repeat concepts he had already mastered because of slower kids, until his parents transferred him to a private school. In my life, the situation was the opposite, but I can understand what caused his hatred towards the state, and made me feel sorry for him.

He was originally a minarchist, and the reason why he stopped being one is the question he asked himself: “If the state should only provide police, courts, and defense, what principle would prevent it from providing anything else?”

This question led him to an all-or-nothing conclusion: he was either an anarcho-capitalist or a state socialist, and any nuance would be weird.

However, his childhood trauma doesn’t change the fact that the idea he and David Friedman were actively promoting was very dangerous. As we figured out, state collapses lead to dangerous power vacuums, which is why even Milei acknowledges that he operates as a minarchist in practice.

Imagine if Iraq actually had weapons of mass destruction in 2003. Imagine America would have a second civil war—where nukes would be involved—as a result of its state being abolished or the country being highly divided and polarized like it is now? Even if completely free markets worked better than the regulated markets we have right now, would abolishing states be worth it?

Abolishing states won’t make your life better.

[u/geekmasterflash]

The biggest problem is pointed out by Ayn Rand of all people:

If a society provided no organized protection against force, it would compel every citizen to go about armed, to turn his home into a fortress, to shoot any strangers approaching his door—or to join a protective gang of citizens who would fight other gangs, formed for the same purpose, and thus bring about the degeneration of that society into the chaos of gang-rule, i.e., rule by brute force, into perpetual tribal warfare of prehistorical savages.

The use of physical force—even its retaliatory use—cannot be left at the discretion of individual citizens. Peaceful coexistence is impossible if a man has to live under the constant threat of force to be unleashed against him by any of his neighbors at any moment. Whether his neighbors’ intentions are good or bad, whether their judgment is rational or irrational, whether they are motivated by a sense of justice or by ignorance or by prejudice or by malice—the use of force against one man cannot be left to the arbitrary decision of another.

A recent variant of anarchistic theory, which is befuddling some of the younger advocates of freedom, is a weird absurdity called “competing governments.” Accepting the basic premise of the modern statists—who see no difference between the functions of government and the functions of industry, between force and production, and who advocate government ownership of business—the proponents of “competing governments” take the other side of the same coin and declare that since competition is so beneficial to business, it should also be applied to government. Instead of a single, monopolistic government, they declare, there should be a number of different governments in the same geographical area, competing for the allegiance of individual citizens, with every citizen free to “shop” and to patronize whatever government he chooses.

Remember that forcible restraint of men is the only service a government has to offer. Ask yourself what a competition in forcible restraint would have to mean.

One cannot call this theory a contradiction in terms, since it is obviously devoid of any understanding of the terms “competition” and “government.” Nor can one call it a floating abstraction, since it is devoid of any contact with or reference to reality and cannot be concretized at all, not even roughly or approximately. One illustration will be sufficient: suppose Mr. Smith, a customer of Government A, suspects that his next-door neighbor, Mr. Jones, a customer of Government B, has robbed him; a squad of Police A proceeds to Mr. Jones’ house and is met at the door by a squad of Police B, who declare that they do not accept the validity of Mr. Smith’s complaint and do not recognize the authority of Government A. What happens then? You take it from there.

-Ayn Rand, “The Nature of Government,” The Virtue of Selfishness, 108-112

And of course, the next biggest problem are the anarcho-capitalist thinkers themselves. Did you know that mocking them with "what if the child consents" is actually not a strawman?

But when are we to say that this parental trustee jurisdiction over children shall come to an end? Surely, any particular age (21, 18, or whatever) can only be completely arbitrary. The clue to the solution of this thorny question lies in the parental property rights in their home. For the child has his full rights of self-ownership when he demonstrates that he has them in nature--in short, when he leaves or "runs away" from home. Regardless of his age, we must grant to every child the absolute right to run away, and to find new foster parents who will voluntarily adopt him, or to try to exist on his own. Parents may try to persuade the runaway child to return, but it is totally impermissible enslavernent and an aggression upon his right of self-ownership for them to use force to compel him to retum. The absolute right to run away is the child's ultimate expression of his right of self-ownership, regardless of age.

-- Rothbard, From The Ethics of Liberty (1998)

If a six year old decides to run away from home what does "full rights of self-ownership" mean if not i.e. 'becomes an adult.'

Does this mean the child can drink? Drive? Vote? Do drugs? Have sex? Join the army? What is the best interpretation of this passage? Because the plain sense interpretation of this passage indicates that a runaway child of any age is to be treated as a full grown adult which suggest the memes are not in fact, unfounded.

And of course, there is also the fact these self-described champions of civil liberties openly tell you they back fascists.

And then there is Hoppe, whose whole schtick can be boiled down to "what if we gave HOAs Covenant Communities the power of a city state and allowed them to physically remove people?

[u/LeonRusskiy → u/geekmasterflash]

Rothbard was an insane dude, but why do you claim that Mises openly backed fascists?

[u/geekmasterflash → u/LeonRusskiy]

Because he did?

"It cannot be denied that Fascism and similar movements aiming at the establishment of dictatorships are full of the best intentions and that their intervention has for the moment saved European civilization. The merit that Fascism has thereby won for itself will live on eternally in history. But though its policy has brought salvation for the moment, it is not of the kind which could promise continued success. Fascism was an emergency makeshift. To view it as something more would be a fatal error."

He clearly believes that fascist stopped socialist take over, and that makes them acceptable.

You can read it in the link I provided?

[u/LeonRusskiy → u/geekmasterflash]

He said that in his book Liberalism, and you didn't show the exact page with that quote, which is the reason why I asked.

I don't like Mises very much and don’t endorse fascism, but what Mises meant was that, in the situation he was writing about, he believed fascist movements had temporarily saved European civilization by preventing socialism/communism from taking power through authoritarian means. He called fascism an "emergency makeshift" and explicitly warned that treating it as something more would be a "fatal error." So I wouldn’t interpret the quote as Mises saying that fascism was a good political system.

Let’s also not conflate Austrian economics with fascist economics. The libertarian economic program of Mises was based on capitalism with a minimal government, while he himself criticized fascist economic intervention and the subordination of private businesses to state objectives.

Whether communists were worse than fascists is a much more complicated historical question, and I don’t think this quote by itself settles it.

[u/geekmasterflash → u/LeonRusskiy]

Liberalism IS Free and Prosperous Commonwealth.)

I know what he meant, and if you read what I said it is "openly backing fascism."

Which he clearly does and spells it out. If you are a champion of civil liberties but back fascist because of spooky scary socialists?

You're a fascist in waiting. That is picking a side, and that side is abundantly clear and there is nothing I said that misconstrues him at all.

"It's only real fascism if it comes from the national syndicalist region of meme economic ideology. Otherwise it's sparkling Georgism."

[u/LeonRusskiy → u/geekmasterflash]

Socialism killed a huge amount of people during peacetime, based on nationality, class, not meeting impossible state quotas, and not being loyal to the regime.

2 sides of the same coin.

[u/geekmasterflash → u/LeonRusskiy]

Look at you, not able to let it go and definitely not defending Mises defense of fascism.

Did you know it's possible to be anti-socialist and not, in fact, also be pro-fascist in the extend that you support their rise?

You are pathetic.

[u/LeonRusskiy → u/geekmasterflash]

You're acting like a self-righteous anime character who thinks that trash is clearly the opposite of garbage.

Yes, Mises made a very questionable consequentialist defense of fascist intervention. But that doesn't make the alternative he was reacting against a bright path.

Wanna talk about how communism also caused mass repression and millions of deaths? Go ahead.

[u/geekmasterflash → u/LeonRusskiy]

I dont want to talk about that, and you should have taken the hint? My comment was about anarcho-capitalist and their thinkers. You are the person who can not help themselves and must shit talk socialism despite the fact your are having that conversation with no one.

Get this....I actually read history, theory and economics. Which is why I would, for example, never claim that the english language source of a document was the wrong document without reading it first.

I don't need the remedial lessons, I just think you can't seem to handle the fact someone is getting judged because they let their anti-socialism become pro-fascism.

So I guess it's a fair question, would you back fascism to suppress socialism? Seems like that is what you want to say?

Should democracies keep fascism in a "break in case of emergency" situation, where if socialism rises it's cool to support the overthrow of democracy to stop it?

[u/LeonRusskiy → u/geekmasterflash]

I can simultaneously say that his defense of fascist intervention was wrong and that communist regimes committed enormous atrocities. Those aren't mutually exclusive positions.

[u/mhuben]

Abolishing the state would not abolish power: it would simply put it in private hands. Modern states are designed to reduce the power of self-interest (the basis of monarchies and feudalism), and to imagine self-interest would decline in power without a state to regulate it is just plain silly.

[u/Sohn_Jalston_Raul]

The biggest problem with [absurd and logically incoherent idea] is that it doesn't work

Well, no shit.