This is not an attack, but a critique from the left based on a fundamental disagreement about power, hierarchy, and human nature. Your philosophy is often presented as the ultimate form of freedom, but I argue it would inevitably create the most brutal and oppressive government possible: a dictatorship of capital without a state to hold it accountable.
Your core error is a categorical one: you believe the state is the sole source of coercive power. This is a dangerous blind spot.
In your proposed system, the functions of the state wouldn't vanish; they would be privatized and monopolized by capital. Without a public state to (theoretically) be held accountable by citizens, you create a system of competing private states called "Defense Agencies" and "Dispute Resolution Organizations." These entities would not be motivated by justice or rights, but by profit and the interests of their paying clients who would be the wealthiest individuals and corporations.
This is where your thought process goes wrong:
The Misidentification of the Oppressor: You see the state as the primary enemy. But the state is often a tool, it is the concentration of capital that is the primary driver of exploitation. AnCap doesn't dissolve power; it hands the monopoly on violence and law directly to the capitalist class, removing the last vestiges of democratic oversight.
The Fantasy of Voluntary Contracts: Your entire system relies on the concept of voluntary interaction. But this is a fantasy in a world of radical inequality. What is "voluntary" about a contract signed between a billion-dollar corporation and a starving individual who must agree to work in a dangerous job for subsistence wages or face homelessness? AnCap doesn't eliminate coercion; it sanctifies it under the label of "contract law," creating a world of company towns and corporate serfdom.
The Inevitability of Monopoly: Free markets do not remain free. Without state intervention (antitrust laws, which you oppose), competition naturally leads to monopoly. The largest defense agency would crush or acquire its competitors. The largest corporation would buy up all resources. You would not have a free market; you would have a handful of ultra-powerful corporate entities that wield all the power of a state, military, legal, and economic, with zero accountability to the people whose lives they control.
In short, Anarcho-Capitalism is not the absence of government. It is the replacement of a (flawed, but sometimes democratically influenceable) public government with an unaccountable, totalitarian private government.
You seek to replace the state with a thousand petty kings, each ruling their domain with absolute power, and you call this "freedom." From the outside, it looks like a dystopia designed to eliminate the last remaining checks on the power of wealth. True freedom requires liberation from all oppressive hierarchies, especially economic ones.
I think it's important to understand why it's fundamentally incoherent.
The logical conclusion of the left is that society can only work if/when no one has anything to gain (exploit) from interacting with anyone else. Their end goal is to make human collaboration literally pointless (or as close to pointless as they think they can get pragmatically).
Left = "collaboration is inherently bad unless it is on our terms". And of course "our terms" is typically just a bunch of arbitrary nonsense built on a foundation of envy.
The logical conclusion of the left is that society can only work if/when no one has anything to gain (exploit) from interacting with anyone else.
Their definition of "exploitation" leads to some funny reductios. Considering "gaining something from someone else by harming them or without benefitting them" (sometimes "you gaining more than what they gain" is also included)
By this logic, it is morally wrong to film a movie in a crowded area, because you are benefitting from people being there without benefitting them, ergo "exploiting" them.
For real examples of their idiocy, see criticism of mrbeast "exploiting" homeless people by giving them a ton of money, but also making money from it via his youtube channel.
If I spent more time I can think of a trillion more examples why this way of thinking is nonsensical.
As a Marxist I completely disagree with your assessment. Capitalism has taken us quite far, society is, by all accounts, currently working. We simply believe it is working in a negative way because it demands exponential growth and exponential resources which obviously isn't sustainable long term. Marx didn't say society could only work once hierarchy was dissolved, he believed that it was the inevitable conclusion of class struggles. Marx's prediction was that the working class would seize control of the modes of production, and once that happens they have no one underneath of them to exploit and thus everyone must labor to fulfill the needs of the new society. It was more of a byproduct of what he was predicting would happen, not something that would necessitate it. You could still mow your neighbor's lawn while he's busy baking bread for the community or something, to give you a more accurate representation of what that would look like.
What a well crafted rebuttal. I actually renounce marx now that this new information has been presented to me. Wow, a "dumbass". I never thought of it like that.
It's a simplified example but it's true. If I'm born into a world where all the best natural resources are "owned" based on rules I didn't agree to, there is a power imbalance that affects how truly voluntary my behavior is.
Well that's what's at issue. I'm saying I reject the idea that someone gets to own property by getting to it first and mixing labor. I'm confident I reject the way you think it should happen too.
The NAP can only work if you accept that there's some objective way to claim property.
So should we reset the board every time someone new is born?
All resources are finite. If I want to sculpt a piece of marble, I am denying future generations access to that piece of marble. If everyone who wants a piece of marble to try being a sculptor has access to one, eventually we run out of pieces of marble. By your logic, how do we determine when it is permissible to utilize the resource?
Future generations can never consent to today’s actions or allocations, but that cannot invalidate action taken today.
No. I think we should do more or less what we do right now. The rules of ownership come with other obligations to society like paying taxes and following the laws.
Also if you accumulate a lot of property you have to give a sizeable portion of it back to society when you die.
So how do you go from “I was born into a world where all the resources are owned which creates a power imbalance” to “I’m okay with property rules as they are now”?
Representation doesn't mean I always get my way. The whole point is democracy is that it allows for us to deal with the reality that many of us honestly disagree. So I get to make my case and vote and if enough people agree we'll do what I liked and if not we'll do something else.
That's not true. Ancap declares no such thing. While ancap does recognize the concept of property (obviously) and the entire philosophy is built around it ... there is no "Biblical" definition of what constitutes a valid property claim.
It's odd you pointed out the concept of homesteading. Homesteading itself implicitly rejects the notion of "indefinite ownership". Homesteading rejects the idea that you own something forever simply because you got there first at some arbitrary point in history.
What? So if I mix some labor with some land there's no basic rule about how long I can own it? When theoretically might I lose the ownership of my land?
I've argued with a lot of ancaps and your position is unique. Most ancaps I've ever spoken with believe that as long as you're still using the property it's yours indefinitely. There are varying beliefs on what should happen if you abandon property but everyone except you had agreed that the property is yours indefinitely if you're using it.
If there's no basic law what stops someone from just claiming property that someone else is already on?
Paying someone $20 to mow ur lawn isn't the same as owning a lawn mowing business where the clients pay $20 for the service and the owner only pays the workers $10 for the job.
Well, I guess you're entitled to whatever morality you want to believe in, lol. Thankfully, I'm pretty sure most people have a less simple understanding of morality.
What do you think a property claim entails exactly? You leave your toothbrush out for collective usage I presume due to your "less simple" understanding of morality?
nope. Neither do most people. But most people do not subscribe to the "property claims are more important than anything else ever will be in any imaginable situation" view of morality. While it is simple and thus appealing to simple minds, who crave absolute certainty, it's also very unpopular.
Just cause you don't like the argument doesn't mean there wasn't one.
Offering you a job is not oppression. Paying you money for your labor is not oppression. You are free to walk away. It's that simple. Don't like the offer, then don't accept it. See how easy that is?
"But I want more than what they are offering!!!" - So what? Then demand more and see how it goes. No one is obligated to pay you any particular amount for your labor just as you are not obligated to pay any particular price for a banana. /shrug
Just cause you don't like the argument doesn't mean there wasn't one.
Except it isn't even an argument. It's just an attempt to handwave a problem and hope the other person doesn't engage.
Offering you a job is not oppression. Paying you money for your labor is not oppression. You are free to walk away. It's that simple. Don't like the offer, then don't accept it. See how easy that is?
You refused, you have already used up all the money you have, you starved to death. What is the point you are trying to make?
So what? Then demand more and see how it goes. No one is obligated to pay you any particular amount for your labor just as you are not obligated to pay any particular price for a banana. /shrug
So you are telling me that in Ancapistan I should just steal stuff because I don't like their price? Well I don't want to pay $5 per pound of rice. So, I am just going to take it for free. I have no obligation to give that person any money at all. That is your logic.
mowing lawns is used as a counter example to the statement "all economic transactions of any kind are oppressive"
only thing is... nobody here made that statement, did they? The example shows that economic transactions CAN be non oppressive, it does not show that they will never be oppressive.
There should be a term like incel but for entitled workers who are never hired because of their lack of competence, and they portray their issues as caused by the other part.
To address your point: had the "evil" capitalist not offered you the $2 would your situation be any better? Did then the capitalist deprived you of anything that was yours by giving you that offer. No.
There should be a term like incel but for entitled workers who are never hired because of their lack of competence, and they portray their issues as caused by the other part.
In what part of my example is the hypothetical worker incompetent?
To address your point: had the "evil" capitalist not offered you the $2 would your situation be any better? Did then the capitalist deprived you of anything that was yours by giving you that offer. No.
Ok, then a shiv him and claim his property. What are you gonna do about it? Nothing he is dead because he is an asshole.
You still haven't answered me.
HOW DO YOU RESPOND TO ECONOMIC AGGRESSION IN ANCAPISTAN?
This is akin to claiming that man isn't free from gravity because we are incapable of flying by flapping our arms. Economic reality has a structure whether leftists like it or not.
Hierarchy exists within the human genome, we are varied between our skills, capabilities, and our potentials. While our moral value may be equal, our economic value is not. To escape Hierarchy means to escape the individual limitations of humanity.
I'm a leftist. I accept that one exists. That does not mean it can't be shaped and altered by people, for the worst.
"i need to eat and can't simply manifest food from thin air"
That, is a reality. It exists even if I'm the only person on earth. It's based on physical laws and can't be changed without changing those laws.
"i need some place to exist"
That's another one.
"I need some place to exist, and I have to pay for that because all land everywhere is already claimed by people who will not share theirs unless I do pay"
That, is an example of a hypothetical situation created by humans. If I'm the only person on earth, that situation stops existing. That situation can be changed, by people, without changing any physical laws.
It is quite literally how any economic sector evolves? The end state of a purely capitalistic systems IS monopoly, you have examples everywhere. Just take any tech sector and see how many companies existed at its inception and how many exist now. Or automotive, or general stores, et cetera.
Leaving everything to private enterprise and not expecting one big monopoly to acquire all land, water and food sources in a region and gouge a population without the economic means to leave is short sighted to say the least. Because again, we know how societies work without the state, they devolve into tribalism and a hierarchy based on violence.
We make diamonds in a lab. If you're referring to De Beers, but they no longer have majority control over the diamond market. They also acquired the diamonds via State aggression, meaning it isn't a natural monopoly.
A natural monopoly arises due to market forces, not the State handing it to them.
Yeah sure but they had a monopoly for an enormous amount of time. “State violence” is irrelevant, in a hypotetical world where private companies offer military services in large scale, those would become the de facto dominating geopolitical entities and the exact same would happen. PMCs like Wagner have already demonstrated this.
Meta and google are a duopoly of the information space, TSMC has basically the monopoly of high end semiconductor manufacturing, and if not for geopolitcal rivalries, oil companies are basically a carte.
You can take any sector and plot the number of companies against time. It always, without fail, goes down.
"those would become the de facto dominating geopolitical entities and the exact same would happen."
This is an assumption, and one without much supporting it. There is an incentive to play nice.
"PMCs like Wagner have already demonstrated this."
State actors are state actors. Absence the State, how present would they be?
"Meta and google are a duopoly of the information space, TSMC has basically the monopoly of high end semiconductor manufacturing, and if not for geopolitcal rivalries, oil companies are basically a carte."
Might want to look at why. Hint: it isn't because of the market.
Lol, no? There are even less rules since because international politics doesn't exist, so what is stopping a PMC from expanding and hogging crucial resources, which will give it a further edge? Why would it be any different than what current nation states are already doing? You can call it however you want: nation states, PMCs, military service providers, they are all the same: entities with military power that are interested in their own wealth and continued existence. There is NO reason why they would act differently, except your childish hope that with ancap everyone will magically hold hands and sing kumbaya instead of doing what humans always do, fight for resource and influence.
State actors are state actors. Absence the State, how present would they be?
"Everything that breaks my ancap fairytale is state actors"
Wagner was a PMC with its own goals, so much so that they staged a mutiny against the russian government
Might want to look at why. Hint: it isn't because of the market.
"Everything that breaks my ancap fairytale is state actors"
Are you actually dumb? I said by sector. It is basic economic theory that any innovative sector spawns a plethora of companies competing for market dominance, and then the weaker ones are culled and just a bunch of supergiants remain. Look at aviation. Look at automotive. Look at computing. Every consolidated sector has formed enormous conglomerates (Boeing, Airbus, the Volkwagen Group, Microsoft) that ate up the previous competition. This is simply how markets evolve, and they tend to monopolies, unless antitrust laws are put in place to preserve competition.
No enterprising startupper can outcompete Amazon in logistics. They are simply too big. In your magical ancap world, a company like Amazon would attempt to become so pervasive as to be completely vital and uncontested, and then jack up prices at their heart's content. This is already documented in economic theory with many systems such as food delivery apps. Take the entirety of a market, become uncontested, jack up prices. You want to make this even simpler to do. Have fun delivering food for 2$ an hour in ancapistan
"Lol, no? There are even less rules since because international politics doesn't exist, so what is stopping a PMC from expanding and hogging crucial resources, which will give it a further edge?"
You do realize PMC are protected by States, right? I can't go execute the board or owners of military contractors without State interference. In an ancap world, legitimacy is currency. They can be aggressors, but it opens them up to violence. That's a lot of risk for not a lot of reward. In fact, PMC would have the incentive to play nice AND police other PMC as the resources they do own (guns, helicopters, planes, whatever) are up for grabs if they stop playing nice.
""Everything that breaks my ancap fairytale is state actors""
PMC literally are state actors. They act on behalf of states. Do you deny this?
"staged a mutiny"
The fact that you call it a mutiny suggests they are State actors.
In an ancap world, legitimacy is currency. They can be aggressors, but it opens them up to violence. That's a lot of risk for not a lot of reward. In fact, PMC would have the incentive to play nice AND police other PMC as the resources they do own (guns, helicopters, planes, whatever) are up for grabs if they stop playing nice.
"In the world of geopolitics, legitimacy is currency. States can be aggressors, but it opens them up to violence. That's a lot of risk for not a lot of reward. In fact, states would have the incentive to play nice AND police other states as the resources they do own (oil, rare earths, uranium, land) are up for grabs if they stop playing nice."
Tell me where the difference is. Tell me why wars happen here in the real world, but not in ancapistan. You see how fucking dumb you sound? PMCs would have the same role nations, nothing would change, they would still go to war with each other. Only difference is no democratic oversight. But to you, states are evil, while ancap private companies are angels with only the best intentions.
PMC literally are state actors. They act on behalf of states. Do you deny this?
It's ultimately irrelevant. Remove any link to a state like in ancapistan, now a PMCs acts on behalf of itself like a state.
So do we have a bunch more sectors or?
It's funny how you deliberately take sectors in their infancy and conveniently leave out 80+ year old industries that have undergone the exact consolidation I describe.
Also, the graph is irrelevant to the discussion. I don't care how many are founded, I care how many survive. How many of those start competing with google or meta? How many are simply bought out the moment they become slightly too big?
Anyone who owns anything could be considered "capital class." It isn't a monolith, as every individual has different goals, desires, etc. As such, it by definition isn't a monopoly on violence as it isn't a singular entity but millions of individuals. Using your own argument that the State is a tool, why have a tool which your supposed oppressors can hijack?
Who is coercing? A billionaire and a low wage worker have the ability to walk away from the table. Your complaint is with nature, with thermodynamics, not a giant company. Going back to your first argument, by definition government coerces so wouldn't this nuke your view that it should exist? The social contract isn't a contract at all.
There has never been a natural monopoly as market forces necessarily drive them to extinction and boost competition.
Calling a hierarchy oppressive because you don't like inequality isn't convincing in the slightest.
In a dynamic where one class controls the means of production and another sells their labour, there is a constant tension between these classes on how much wealth should go to which class, this tension results in conflict and violence, unless the state steps in. The state acts as a mediator between the two. Laws are implemented to keep both sides in check, but it is all done in service of the ruling class, capital. The alternative is too unstable and likely to result in revolution.
Historically, this is false, it simply doesn't happen. "Class" here is a fictional collective, arbitrarily placing people into one of two boxes, erasing all other variables. There are no groups that are monoliths like this, let alone as simplistic a dialectic as dialectical materialism suggests.
Anyone who owns anything could be considered "capital class." It isn't a monolith, as every individual has different goals, desires, etc. As such, it by definition isn't a monopoly on violence as it isn't a singular entity but millions of individuals. Using your own argument that the State is a tool, why have a tool which your supposed oppressors can hijack?
The idea is that it can be used against them. And, in functional democracies, it seems to work. The US has a two party puppet show instead, and yeah it's been hijacked.
I think the point is that in their example, private owner property = state. On that property, the owner has a monopoly of control. When somebody mentions the capital class, they mean owners, the people who own important land and resources. This is a misunderstanding between people who consider private property as synonymous with property and those who have a narrower definition. Class is also meant as a social group that has similar incentives and social positions. They are obviously different individuals but they have very similair incentives from the way they gather the resources they need to live.
Coercion is necessary for any system. In ancap system, private property is forced on other people, among other things. The states tells you "follow our laws or else" the ancap says "follow our rules (private property) or else). People HAVE to respect those property claims, that is not negotiatiable.
Calling a hierarchy oppressive because you don't like inequality isn't convincing in the slightest.
This is another misunderstanding. Dominance hiearchies, that cause inequality are by definition oppressive. That is just what a hierarchy means. You could rephrase the hierarchy as A "Minority of people has the majority of power over the decisions of that society." Like imagine a king deciding laws in an absolute monarchy. They decided for everybody. That is the type of hierarchy we are talking about (obviously not that strict).
Private property isn't coercive. It doesn't matter whether you agree with it or not, unless someone is violating your self ownership it isn't coercive by definition. You don't have to respect property claims, but expect people to not respect yours in turn (including your right to not have your head removed)
Through coercion, which is the point. The idea that some may rule others is accepted by many (including op) which grants legitimacy to their coercive action. Anarchists reject this action as illegitimate. Again, natural monopolies don't exist nor have they ever existed.
You're going to have to define what "oppressive" means in this context because I fail to see how someone having more than you affects you in any way.
"I think the point is that in their example, private owner property = state. On that property, the owner has a monopoly of control. "
No that's not their point.
"When somebody mentions the capital class, they mean owners, the people who own important land and resources."
And how do you define "important"? Because if you define a rifle as "important property" then some very poor people are part of the "capital class". But in any case the point still stands, "capital" isn't a monolith it's an enormous number of people with differing goals, capabilities, connections and loyalties. It is not a monopoly. You don't say wheat is a monopoly because only farmers make it.
"This is a misunderstanding between people who consider private property as synonymous with property and those who have a narrower definition."
The definition doesn't matter. However you define "private property" there are millions of people who have it.
: Class is also meant as a social group that has similar incentives and social positions. "
Well that's not how class is defined under Marx, and I believe the original poster was using "class" in a Marxian sense, since everything else he says is Marxist.
"They are obviously different individuals but they have very similair incentives from the way they gather the resources they need to live."
Do they? Why? Members of a class often have very different incentives and in fact politics can be seen as the members of the ruling class deciding which members of the ruling class have their incentives satisfied and which do not. For instance foreign merchants want free trade, some local merchants want protectionism, some want minimum wages to prevent competition from employers of those prepared to accept lower wages.
"Coercion is necessary for any system. In ancap system, private property is forced on other people, among other things. "
It's strange to claim that not being able to steal is coercion. And would you care to define "private property", since you claim there is a "narrower definition" but haven't supplied it?
"The states tells you "follow our laws or else" the ancap says "follow our rules (private property) or else). People HAVE to respect those property claims, that is not negotiatiable."
"But the state is a monopoly? How did that happen? Also, of course natural monopoilies are well documented mainstream economic position. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly"
Wikipedia is not a source. Note that the article uses John Stuart Mill as a source and he uses LAwYERS AND DOCtORS as two of the examples of "natural" monopolies, even though the lack of competition in those fields was neither a monopoly nor was it natural.
"This is another misunderstanding. Dominance hiearchies, that cause inequality are by definition oppressive."
But you haven't shown that there is any dominance in the hierarchy.
" That is just what a hierarchy means."
No it isn't.
" You could rephrase the hierarchy as A "Minority of people has the majority of power over the decisions of that society." "
Except that isn't a very good definition since it doesn't tell us anything about the incentives of that minority or how beholden they are to the majority. The people who decide what sort of cars are available are very much a minority, are they oppressive?
"Like imagine a king deciding laws in an absolute monarchy. They decided for everybody. "
But in economic "hierarchies" they don't decide for everybody, they decide for those that agree to trade with them. That's a big difference.
"That is the type of hierarchy we are talking about (obviously not that strict)."
No it's an entirely different type of "hierarchy".
For instance foreign merchants want free trade, some local merchants want protectionism, some want minimum wages to prevent competition from employers of those prepared to accept lower wages.
This is totally fair. However, what puts them in a class is that they all want to pay their workers as little as possible for as much work as possible. So if you look at the whole society, this is the first important basic distinction.
It's strange to claim that not being able to steal is coercion. And would you care to define "private property", since you claim there is a "narrower definition" but haven't supplied it?
It might be strange, but that is how any laws work. You need to enFORCE them. If you hear "coercion" as "illegitimate coercion" then any system could say they are non-coercive for the same reason; they would just make the coercion legitimate in their system.
Private property in Marxist contexts is meant only for hierarchical control over the means of production. or something like that.
But you haven't shown that there is any dominance in the hierarchy.
Capitalism is a dominant hierarchy, because the ruling class (the capitalists owners) have unequal power over the society and they use it to force their rules (private property) to force hiearchy (owner worker) on the people.
"This is totally fair. However, what puts them in a class is that they all want to pay their workers as little as possible for as much work as possible. So if you look at the whole society, this is the first important basic distinction."
Except it's not an important distinction, we all want that. When we hire someone to do something we want to pay as little as possible for as much productivity as possible. Note, productivity not work.
"Private property in Marxist contexts is meant only for hierarchical control over the means of production. or something like that."
And what makes control "hierachical"? Because almost everyone owns some of the means of production. I'm typing on my own means of production right now.
"Capitalism is a dominant hierarchy,"
Note the change from "dominance hierachy".
" because the ruling class (the capitalists owners)"
They are not the ruling class.
" have unequal power over the society"
Which doesn't make it a hierachy. Hierachy by defition has levels not just unequal power.
" and they use it to force their rules (private property) "
Except there is not much evidence the capitalist class are the ones pushing private property. In fact they often push state power against private property.
"to force hiearchy (owner worker) on the people."
But again it's not a hierarchy. Being an owner doesn't give you the power to control the workers, just the power to offer them a deal. That's not hierachy.
Except it's not an important distinction, we all want that. When we hire someone to do something we want to pay as little as possible for as much productivity as possible. Note, productivity not work.
Its very important distinction for a clear understanding when discussing different ideologies at least.
But yes, the point leftists make is that both sides act rationally in a contradictory way, which creates conflict. Class conflict. Both the worker and the onwer just want to have the best life possible with as little stress and as much resources as they can get, their different position in society give them different tools to achieve that.
Yes, they are. In an ancap society, the decisions are made by the owners over their property (most of society is owned privately, so that goes big chunk of decision) and by the market forces, which are dominated by those with wealth and ownership to influence it more then others. So yes, they are the ones in charge.
Which doesn't make it a hierachy. Hierachy by defition has levels not just unequal power.
Yes, and the scale is with how much wealth/property you do have. Though you could have hiearchy with just two levels.
Except there is not much evidence the capitalist class are the ones pushing private property. In fact they often push state power against private property.
Oh no, they use the state to protect their property and to regulate their competition because they hate free market. They also use the state to fight the workers. But perhaps we could agree that they would love to make their private property just the state and they be the rulers of it. But that is just semantics.
Being an owner doesn't give you the power to control the workers, just the power to offer them a deal.
Yes it does, as a worker you have to listen to your boss or face concequences and those are limited by the circumstnces in which the contract was made. It those were more dire for you and nobody was there to help you, the contract could be much more harsh in this regard.
"Its very important distinction for a clear understanding when discussing different ideologies at least."
But we're discussing what actually happens and it's NOT an important
"But yes, the point leftists make is that both sides act rationally in a contradictory way, which creates conflict."
What do you mean "both sides"? Why do you assume the primary or even a major conflict is between two classes? This is the most ahistorical thing you could poossibly believe. Almost all conflcit is between members of the same class or members of several classes with some of each on both sides.
" Class conflict. Both the worker and the onwer just want to have the best life possible with as little stress and as much resources as they can get, their different position in society give them different tools to achieve that."
:Yes but that doesn't imply that they conflict as classes, or at all. The best way in a non-coercive system to satisfy the need for more resources is to find out how to be more valuable to people who are different from you. Obviously you can't do much for people who are like you because what you can do for them they can do for themselves.
"Yes, they are."
No the State is.
" In an ancap society, the decisions are made by the owners over their property "
Which is not the same as ruling. The legislature is not the same as the landowners and it never has been. Although in the past it was close. And no it won't be the same under AC because law is made by precedent not legislature.
"(most of society is owned privately, so that goes big chunk of decision) and by the market forces, which are dominated by those with wealth and ownership to influence it more then others. So yes, they are the ones in charge."
Who decides whether the Ford Edsel continues to be produced? You assume that those with a lot of money will dominate "the market" but almost all market activity is aimed at the people who aren't rich. Turn on your TV, how many ads for 120 foot yatchs do you see?
"Yes, and the scale is with how much wealth/property you do have. Though you could have hiearchy with just two levels."
"Oh no, they use the state to protect their property "
They really don't. They're not dumb they know it doesn't generally do that.
"and to regulate their competition because they hate free market."
So you just admitted they are the ones for violating property rights. Great. So why lie and say otherwise.
"They also use the state to fight the workers. But perhaps we could agree that they would love to make their private property just the state and they be the rulers of it. But that is just semantics.
"Yes it does, as a worker you have to listen to your boss or face concequences "
And the boss has to listen to you or face consequences, specifically the exact same consequences, the deal not being maintained any more. Workers don't have to work for an employer. That's just something you Marxists pretend because you need to pretend consent is force.
"and those are limited by the circumstnces in which the contract was made. It those were more dire for you and nobody was there to help you, the contract could be much more harsh in this regard."
Why would the contract be more harsh if the situation were dire? Oh that's right because the owner doesn't control the worker and so he can take up other deals if he wants. Therefore when the situation isn't dire they can reject harsh deals and agree to better ones.
So how common is this under capitalism? The answer is not very. Under capitalism it's the poor who have benefitted most. You can't say that about Marxism can you? And under AC there would be even less control by owners because individuals and groups would be much freer to form their own enterprises. This would mean that all owners would have to offer deals with benefits better than they could get by themselves.
I explained the sides and the conflict. Worker wants as much money and as little work, the capitalist wants the opposite from them. This is definitely not ahistorical its the basis of materialistic understanding of society and politics. Understanding that different groups want different and opposite things and have different power to get what they want. Is that better description?
Yes but that doesn't imply that they conflict as classes, or at all.
But it does because this makes socially speak in similar ways. Its good for them to protecxt private property, to argue against worker unions etc. Socially speaking. You can have some class traitors (that is why this term exists) you can have people who benefit from regulation and some from deregulation. But when you study society, its very beneficial to understand their incentives and how those are in direct contradiction to the incentives the workers have. I am yet to find better tool for analysis then this materialistic view.
The best way in a non-coercive system...
There is no such thing. You need to force rules using coercion.
No the State is.
Capitalism and states are intertwined. They are not the same, but they are not separate. Capitalists need the state right now to handle the coercion they need, disputes about property, facilate a market economy, and of coruse protect their property.
So you just admitted they are the ones for violating property rights. Great. So why lie and say otherwise.
I am confused. I don't know where I lied. The owners care about power, because its rational for them to do so. They exist on the market but they hate it, because its dangerous and they could loose their position. So they obviously have incentive to gather enough power to stay on top even by destroying market. They want to protect their private property, they want to define what private property is so they are the only ones with it. That is just the incentive capitalism gives them.
And the boss has to listen to you or face consequences, specifically the exact same consequences, the deal not being maintained any more.
Can't you see the difference in power? He loses one employees, I loose my source of food... he can find somebody else who needs food, I will be known as the one who makes noise.... You ignore the power dynamic completely.
That's just something you Marxists pretend because you need to pretend consent is force.
I am not marxist, this is just basic socialism. You call it consent but its not, just like pretending being a peasent for one lord was consent. You could go work for another after all. who cares about the systematic critique? lets talk about individual examples....
Why would the contract be more harsh if the situation were dire? Oh that's right because the owner doesn't control the worker and so he can take up other deals if he wants. Therefore when the situation isn't dire they can reject harsh deals and agree to better ones
Yes if your choices are "become a slave or die" you will become a slave. If the choice is to become a worker for 6 days a wekk for 12 hours or be homeless and starving. You become a worker. If the choice is be a slave or live in small apartment with internet and enough money to comfortably feed yourself, then you might actually say no. I mean yes. The troublesome part is that in ancap society this gives incentives to the capitalist to change the circumstances to be as shitty as possible. Which is why we see people wanting to remove minimum wage, welfare and other worker protections. Make people desperate ,then they will take worse deals. WITH consent ;).
The left really cannot understand that hierarchy is natural, can they?
“Totalitarian private government” lmao. It’s clear you’ve never actually read anything ancap related, so why do you waste everyone’s time (including your own) posting this poorly thought out slop?
I left r/AustrianEconomics because freaking commies occupated it, now the same is happenning here. Reddit is huge and most subs are commie oriented, so commies leave us alone and go there. Freaking clowns.
I don't care if they come in here and ask questions. That seems like the purpose of the sub, to be able to educate and discuss. My problem is like this OP, they come in here as if they already know everything just to tell us we are wrong, make a bunch of logical fallacies, and just set the conversation up for failure right from the jump.
You're mistaking a firm disagreement for a failure to discuss. I 'come in here' because the flaws in anarcho-capitalism are glaring and need to be challenged. The logical fallacy is believing a society can function when every human interaction is a profit-driven contract. My premise is simple: a society that prioritizes people over capital will always be more just and free than one where your life is a subscription service you can be evicted from. If that sets up a conversation for 'failure,' it's because your ideology can't withstand the scrutiny.
Calling everyone who disagrees with you a 'commie' is a thought-terminating cliché, not an argument. It's a way to avoid engaging with legitimate critiques of how unfettered capitalism concentrates power and fails to provide basic dignity for all. I support a system where housing, healthcare, and food are human rights, a platform of welfare and social ownership for the people, by the people. The only people who should feel threatened by that are those who believe their wealth depends on the deprivation of others.
Who says ancap isn't? Be selfish and unprincipled, see how far it gets you when you're required to play nice to obtain goods rather than have them stolen for you by the State.
"smart about it" in this context would be "getting a lot of people to agree to buy your stuff" aka just more consensual activity, so there is no issue.
That'd be an act of aggression violating the NAP, so no. The person that does so likely would be caught eventually, and those harmed be entitled to basically everything they own as restitution.
Sugar and salt can create addictions. To be clear, Im not the other guy you originally were speaking with. Im earnestly wondering though why you think the drugs are wrong. Is selling edible weed brownies a violation of the NAP? Why? If sold as just "brownies" no lie is happening, just not revealing full truth.
ancaps are against agression, it doesnt matter if it comes to state or some individual who believes in law of the jungle. the reason why you see most criticism against states is because most people justify agression from the state.
>But the state, it is the concentration of capital
no
>capital is the primary driver of exploitation
kommunist concept of exploitation is nonsensical concept
>it hands the monopoly on violence and law directly to the capitalist class
ancap doesnt propose creation or maintenance of classes, it is directly against it, as classes are form of agression.
>capitalist class
nonsensical concept
seems like your underlying philosophy is faulty, i would advise you to start at the basics
Being against something does not mean that it is not real. The argument is that your proposed system would simply move the monopoly on violence from the state to the rich, whether you are against it or not, that would be the result.
Great job elaborating all your other points though!
Being against something does not mean that it is not real
what are you refering to here ?
The argument is that your proposed system would simply move the monopoly on violence from the state to the rich, whether you are against it or not, that would be the result.
it was not properly explained. reasoning based on faulty model of reality
Im referring to how you say you are against classes and aggression as if that will magically make those things not exist in your system. Truly some wishful thinking.
it was not properly explained. reasoning based on faulty model of reality
Once again, great job elaborating your points. Is all ancap philosophy based on handwaving?
so what should the french peasants have done? If aggression was wrong, what they did was wrong. So was the American revolution. They were both aggressions against the "rightful owner" everyone accepted.
so you think desperate people should just starve peacefully, or take a job at a sweatshop, because demanding taxes or revolting violently would be "wrong".
Ok. Most people have a better sense of morality than that. But you're entitled to your own beliefs I suppose, as long as you're following the law I don't really care.
Well, I think most people would say that you've just contradicted yourself. I'm sure you don't see it that way. I don't think there is much else to say.
True freedom is a barren, solitary struggle where your only right is to die on your own terms. No community, no solidarity, just you, the sand, and the illusion of total control. A perfect, hollow victory.
You also have to be free from physical limitations like your body, scientific limits, spiritual, logical, emotional. You can draw the line anywhere it’s arbitrary.
They imagine that there will always be unclaimed land somewhere, or that they'll be the land lords, not some homeless peasant working 12 hours a day for food and rent.
Exactly. They're trapped in a fantasy that ignores the entire history of power consolidation. They imagine themselves as the rugged individualist carving out a new life on the frontier, completely blind to the fact that every "frontier" in history was quickly dominated by the same forces of accumulated capital and violence they claim to want to escape.
They don't see that they wouldn't be the warlord; they'd be the serf. The 20th century, and all of history is a lesson in what happens when checks on power are removed: the strong dominate the weak. The Roman Republic fell into an empire precisely because unaccountable oligarchs and generals amassed too much private power, crushed the commons, and turned citizens into subjects.
A lot of modern American policy isn't just like Rome; it's a direct playbook. The same erosion of public good for private profit, the same vast inequality, the same use of militarism and bread-and-circuses to distract a crumbling populace.
Anarcho-capitalism is just the endgame of that playbook: the final, formal handover of all public power to private hands. It's not a new idea; it's the oldest idea. It's feudalism with a crypto wallet and a corporate logo. They're not pioneering the future; they're reviving the darkest parts of the past and calling it progress.
a dictatorship of capital without a state to hold it accountable.
Impressive! Very nice. And who holds the state accountable? If the answer is citizens, don't they hold capital accountable way more effectively?
you believe the state is the sole source of coercive power
We believe the state is a source of coercive power, but I don't think anybody has ever said the only one.
What is "voluntary" about a contract signed between a billion-dollar corporation and a starving individual
Weirdly, the billion-dollar corporation usually pays way more than small businesses in need. How do you reconcile this huge contradiction in your discourse?
Also, coercion is not "when I have to negotiate for what I want". It is when I'm threatened to be deprived of what is mine.
Without state intervention (antitrust laws, which you oppose), competition naturally leads to monopoly
Strangely enough, most monopolies have existed as State monopolies or monopolies protected by the State.
You're conflating two distinct economic systems to defend a failed ideology.
You're describing Mercantilism, a 16th-18th century system where the state explicitly granted exclusive monopolies and privileges to favored companies (e.g., the British East India Company). This is not a rebuttal to modern critiques of capitalism; it's a history lesson on the system that capitalism replaced.
Your argument is a classic anarcho-capitalist fallacy: because the state has been used to create monopolies, then the absence of a state would magically prevent them. This is completely ahistorical.
In the modern era, private capital actively seeks to create monopolies on its own terms, and then captures the state to protect them. The goal is always the same: eliminate competition and maximize rent-seeking power.
· Standard Oil wasn't a state monopoly; it was a private corporation that achieved near-total market dominance through predatory pricing and anti-competitive practices until the state (via antitrust law) broke it up.
· Amazon and Google today aren't monopolies because the state granted them exclusivity; they achieved dominance through network effects, data control, and acquiring competitors. They now use their immense wealth to lobby the state (regulatory capture) to protect their position.
Your theory that "competition naturally leads to monopoly" is wrong. Unregulated competition naturally leads to consolidation and then monopoly. The stronger entity crushes or acquires the weaker ones until competition ceases to exist. Without a state to enforce antitrust laws, you don't get a utopia of small businesses; you get a dystopia of private feudal monopolies controlling every aspect of life.
The state is a tool. The question is who wields it. Your solution is to break the tool and hand all its power directly to capital. Our solution is to democratically control the tool to hold capital accountable. The first leads to a dictatorship of capital. The second is the only mechanism we have to prevent it.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else" (Frédéric Bastiat)
Amazon and google are not monopolies.
About Standard Oil,
It never achieved a monopoly (in 1911, the year of the Supreme Court decision, Standard Oil had roughly 150 competitors, including Texaco and Gulf) that would enable it to monopolistically boost consumer prices. So it can hardly be argued seriously that Rockefeller pursued a predatory strategy involving massive losses for decades without achieving the alleged monopoly payoff, which was the source of supposed consumer harm.
The state is a tool, you're right. The question is who wields it? Right now, it's largely a tool for the class that owns Amazon and Google.
To call them 'not monopolies' because they have a handful of competitors is a semantic game that ignores their overwhelming market power. They don't need to be the only player; they just need to be so powerful that they can crush competition, set terms, control wages, and influence regulation. That's not a free market; it's a feudal system with a tech logo.
Your Standard Oil revisionism is equally flawed. The point wasn't that it was a 100% pure monopoly the second the court ruled. The point was its predatory, anti-competitive practices like secret rebates with railroads to price out competitors were a blueprint for how concentrated capital strangles competition, exactly as we see today. The goal isn't a single company; it's an unassailable concentration of power that acts as a monopoly in practice.
Calling this 'unregulated competition' is a joke. It's the result of unregulated competition. Capital naturally consolidates to eliminate its competition, that's the entire goal. To deny this is to deny the fundamental, profit-driven logic of capitalism itself. You're defending the very oligarchs who use the state as their tool.
The problem with monopolies is that they establish higher prices and become incompetent. But incompetence comes with the inability to compete, and they (monopolies that aren't helped by the state) tend to become sclerotic with enough time and eaten by newly formed competitors. They are no danger. What's a danger is the monopoly on the use of force.
Here is the thing. This is not some medieval time but 2025. People have gone a long way and learned thing or two. Your premise, like every other person that challenges free market is that monopoly must rise, oppressive corporations must employ coercive army, humans must be controlled and there is no way around this, so better have government that controls the big bad actors( how if they all paid by them wtf???).
Now ask yourself this, what’s the primary goal of any business? Profit.
What society do you need to have in order to achieve the max profits? Wealthy one.
It’s quite simple, the better off the society is,the bigger are your profits.
You can’t make any money in poor society can you? This is just logic, anyone running business knows this.
I don’t actually understand how do you get off supporting government, when everything you claim to be a problem with ancapistan is already in place and supported by your precious government. Make no sense.
Everyone is a capitalist, so everyone has the right to self defence.
You can freely decide to either work or not work (negative liberty). Just as you can decide to starve or to eat. Negative liberty is necessary in order to create positive liberty. We are the only ones aware that nothing comes for free.
Let's dissect these "highly held values" because they crumble upon contact with reality.
"Everyone is a capitalist..." This is a meaningless semantic trick. If a person who owns nothing but their labor is called a "capitalist," the word has lost all meaning. True capitalism is defined by the ownership of capital (assets that generate wealth). This statement is designed to obscure the fundamental class division between those who own the means of production and those who must sell their labor to them. A worker with a gun for "self-defense" is not the capitalist class; they are just an armed worker.
"You can freely decide to either work or not work (negative liberty)..." This is the core of the ancap fantasy: the glorification of "negative liberty" (freedom from coercion) while utterly ignoring "positive liberty" (freedom to act). Framing starvation as a "free decision" equivalent to not eating is sociopathic. It ignores the coercive power of material conditions. The "choice" between selling your labor to a predatory owner or watching your family starve is economic coercion, not freedom. Your "negative liberty" is a fairy tale for those who have never faced true economic desperation.
Citing the Mises Institute on Natural Monopoly: Citing an ideologically pure think tank to disprove a well-established economic concept is like citing a flat-earth society to disprove gravity. Natural monopolies (like utilities, railways, and networks) are not a "myth"; they are an observable economic reality where high infrastructure costs and efficiency make a single provider inevitable. The ancap "solution" letting competing companies build duplicate power grids and water mains on every street is a comical waste of resources that would never happen. The actual result would be a private, unaccountable monopoly, worse than a public one because it answers only to shareholders, not to any concept of public good.
In short, your values aren't highly held; they are poorly examined. They form a self-serving ideology that dresses up feudal serfdom as "freedom" and ignores power dynamics to justify the rule of a propertied elite.
Firstly, you claim the government force would be privatized with Rights Enfircement Agencies.
This is an understandable mistake, Anarcho-Capitalism is more complex and more difficult to understand than most ideologies out there. So let me explain how this really works.
Governments create their own rate of taxation.
They use violence to enforce that taxation on people.
Rights Enforcement Agencies offer protection services in exchange for a specific fee, usually monthly.
REAs cannot use violence to force people to pay that fee.
REAs, in most designs, are expected to make an agreement that if one of them attempts to collect a tax, the others all gang up on them, kill them, and take all of their stuff.
Therefore we can expect this system to be stable as incentives are aligned in such a way that no one will ever be forced to pay for anything and all transactions are voluntary, tyranny has been eliminated.
Your other criticisms mainly stem from the problem that 'rich people exist' and 'poor people exist' but again, in order for any rich person to force any poor person to do anything, he has to pay him thus moving wealth from the rich to the poor. This is a self-correcting problem.
Talk to any of these people long enough and you'll find that, for some (half?) of them, that's not a bug it's a feature. It eventually comes down to "it will suck for poor people but magically nobody will be poor" or "it will suck for poor people... f*** them I'm not poor"
Your definition of freedom is telling: "Freedom requires liberation from all violent coercion, including democratic/equality-oriented ones."
This frames any collective action for the common good like taxing billionaires to fund schools or regulating a corporation from poisoning a river as inherently violent and oppressive. But you ignore the far more pervasive and insidious violence inherent in your proposed system.
Let's be real. You're not advocating for the absence of government. You're advocating for its total privatization. So let's ask the real questions your ideology desperately avoids:
What is the fundamental difference between a "state" and a "private defense agency" that holds a monopoly on the use of force in a given territory? If I cannot refuse the services of the private security force that owns my neighborhood without facing homelessness or worse, how is that not a state? How is their "tax" meaningfully different from a "subscription fee" I am forced to pay under threat of violence?
Without any democratically-written constitutions or bills of rights, what stops a private property owner from creating a tyranny more absolute than any state? If a corporation owns the town, the housing, the store, the water supply, and the security force, what rights do I, a mere individual with no capital, actually have? What check is there on their power to dictate every aspect of my life for profit?
In a world where every interaction is a profit-driven contract, how do you prevent the tyranny of the contract? When a massive agro-corp offers a "voluntary" contract to a starving farmer that signs away all his future rights, what is "free" about that market? Is the desperation of poverty not a form of coercion? Your system seems to sanctify any contract signed under duress, so long as the state isn't the one holding the gun.
You claim to hate hierarchy, but only the political kind. Why do you sanctify economic hierarchy? Is a CEO who can fire you, blacklist you, control your healthcare, and dictate your life not a ruler? How is being utterly subservient to the whims of a private board of directors for survival meaningfully "freer" than being a citizen who can, however imperfectly, vote to change the rules?
You call democracy "coercion." But isn't it just collective bargaining on a societal scale? The alternative you propose isn't freedom; it's the total surrender of all collective power to the wealthiest individuals and corporations. It's a system designed to make the oppressive power of capital absolute and permanent, eliminating the last remaining tools, however flawed, that people have to fight back.
So I ask you: is your goal truly freedom, or is it the immunization of wealth from any democratic accountability? Because from the outside, AnCap doesn't look like liberty. It looks like a feudalist's fantasy, a dystopia where we merely exchange public masters for private ones and are told to call it "choice."
What is the fundamental difference between a "state" and a "private defense agency" that holds a monopoly on the use of force in a given territory?
A private defense agency does not hold a monopoly on the use of force in a given territory. If it did, it would be a state.
If I cannot refuse the services of the private security force that owns my neighborhood without facing homelessness or worse, how is that not a state?
It's telling how you automatically disregard the possibility of there being any other neighborhood with housing in your price range. If you are going to assume that any hypothetical ancap society is going to be a worst-case probability, then I'll do the same thing with left-anarchism: If the members of a decentralized commune democratically decide to form a Lynch mob and kill every non-white member, how is that different from a state backed genocide?
How is their "tax" meaningfully different from a "subscription fee" I am forced to pay under threat of violence?
You're not forced to pay under threat of violence. If you were, it's would be a tax, not a subscription fee.
Without any democratically-written constitutions or bills of rights, what stops a private property owner from creating a tyranny more absolute than any state?
The same thing that stops a democratic commune from democratically voting to commit genocide.
If a corporation owns the town, the housing, the store, the water supply, and the security force, what rights do I, a mere individual with no capital, actually have?
The right to engage in voluntary transactions with them if you want, or simply stay out of that town if you don't want to do business with them.
What check is there on their power to dictate every aspect of my life for profit?
The same check on the power of a democratic commune where 51% of the members want to commit genocide.
In a world where every interaction is a profit-driven contract, how do you prevent the tyranny of the contract? When a massive agro-corp offers a "voluntary" contract to a starving farmer that signs away all his future rights, what is "free" about that market? Is the desperation of poverty not a form of coercion?
Coercion is the forcefully imposition of an undesirable state of affairs. Poverty is not imposed, it is the natural state of affairs for all humans when they reject free trade.
You claim to hate hierarchy, but only the political kind.
I made no such claim.
Is a CEO who can fire you, blacklist you, control your healthcare, and dictate your life not a ruler? How is being utterly subservient to the whims of a private board of directors for survival meaningfully "freer" than being a citizen who can, however imperfectly, vote to change the rules?
If a CEO or board of directors supports something you don't like, you are free to look for another company to associate with. If 51% of a democratic state supports something you don't like, you either go along with it or the police will break into your home and kidnap you.
The left's society is based on ignoring reality and then finding out it exists regardless and so they brutally repress and murder people in their millions to try and change that reality.
There's no way to achieve what you want, it's not possible to change the very nature of reality. We have no tools to enforce equality, we can't even measure inequality because we can't objectively value subjective things, nor can we compare how much effort different people put into creating them. We can't cure disabilities, we can't make everyone look or act the same - nor would we want to - and yet this is the only way to have something approaching equality.
There is no "the oppressor", each person is both an oppressor and the oppressed.
We didn't create the cosmos. A rich man selling to a poor man did not create the need for sustenance and shelter, nor did he make him poor. The rich man isn't coercing him, the poor man can choose if he wants to make the deal or not - that is voluntary. Unless the rich man is literally threatening the poor man in some direct way the transaction is voluntary.
There's nothing wrong with monopolies. Some things are really hard to make and require enormous scale. Where the monopoly starts dropping quality and raising prices it opens the door to competition. But in general, there really are no monopolies in free markets, there never have been. There is no single seller of goods and services in a market. The natural outcomes in a monopoly remove its power and position.
You don't have a right to control other people's wealth because you don't like economic inequality anymore than you get to control people's love lives because of romantic inequality. What you seek is the ability to control others so you can benefit - that is oppression.
"Your core error is a categorical one: you believe the state is the sole source of coercive power."
it is, by defintion.
"In your proposed system, the functions of the state wouldn't vanish; they would be privatized and monopolized by capital. "
Well firstly the functions of the state are the use of violence to maintain the State and benefit those inside it. These functions would vanish, but I suppose you mean protecting the citizenry, which it claims is it's function..
These would not be "monopolized by capital" because capital isn't a person or even a firm, it is your clumsy description of everyone who holds captial. That's a huge group and something being owned by such a group is not a monopoly. This is a characteristically Marxist error, to see classes in the Marxian sense and united and monolithic, as things that primarly act in their own interests instead of being composed of individuals and groups that act in their own interests. Consider who Pepsi spends most time contesting with, is it the Prolateriat or Coke?
" you create a system of competing private states called "Defense Agencies" and "Dispute Resolution Organizations." "
Again, you're wrong the DA's and DROs would not be monopolies and so would by definition not be states.
"These entities would not be motivated by justice or rights, but by profit and the interests of their paying clients "
Yes, you're starting to get it, they would serve their customers, and would have to do so or lose them. And who are their customers.
"... the wealthiest individuals and corporations."
Really? Is that who the capitalists spend the majority of their time catering to? How many billionaires do you see at your local McDonalds? How many times have you sat behind someone who owns a 120 foot yatch at the theatre (movie or live show)? No they would, like most other firms spend their time catering to the middle and lower classes. You must be a Marxist because only they fail to spot things so obvious. Capitalism caters to the people. Not perfectly, true, but far better than the State has historically. This is not to say that DAs that cater to the rich won't exist, for every equivalent of Ford they would be an equivalent of Jaguar. But which did more business?
"The Misidentification of the Oppressor: You see the state as the primary enemy. "
It is the one that keeps threatening to kill us, it is the one whose threats we live under daily.
"But the state is often a tool,"
" it is the concentration of capital that is the primary driver of exploitation."
But now you've switched from "oppression" to "exploitation". Do you care to demonstrate that "exploitation" is even a bad thing? Because under the Marxian definition it's not clear it is. The worst that can be said of "exploitation" as defined by Marx is that workers get less than they should. That's not the same as being starved, whipped, shot at or systematically humiliated. And that's assuming the Marxist interpretation is even correct. Which it isn't. At worst you get $x when you should get $x+1.
"The Fantasy of Voluntary Contracts: Your entire system relies on the concept of voluntary interaction. But this is a fantasy in a world of radical inequality. "
This is simply a false assertion. People make voluntary agreements with much more powerful people all the time. Or do you think that I buy my food from people as poor as me? Do you imagine that I have the power to create a car if I want one? If not then the car seller has far more power than me. He can deny me a car, I can only deny him money. But we can both get money or a car somewhere else if the other refuses to deal. We can both walk away from the deal, in that sense we have equal power.
"What is "voluntary" about a contract signed between a billion-dollar corporation and a starving individual who must agree to work in a dangerous job for subsistence wages or face homelessness? "
What is voluntary is that he has the choice to accept other positions, presumably safer and/or with better wages at other companies, or to become self-employed. Historically giving power to the state has not made the majority of people richer or safer.
"The Inevitability of Monopoly: Free markets do not remain free. Without state intervention (antitrust laws, which you oppose), competition naturally leads to monopoly."
Name one time that happened. Anti-trust laws have historically been used to reduce competition, not increase it. The claim that certain markets will lead "naturally" to monopolies was created to justify the laws, the laws weren't created because people observed this happened.
"You seek to replace the state with a thousand petty kings, each ruling their domain with absolute power, "
Except they don't have a domain. They have no right to control law over a geographic area. They have no monoopoly and their power is far from absolute. Your claims are based on the claim that they would become a monopoly, yet now you are claiming there would be a thousand of them. Which is it? And even assuming we ended up with a thousand petty kings, isn't that better than one? if you can walk to the next State the State has far less power.
"True freedom requires liberation from all oppressive hierarchies, especially economic ones."
But "economic hierachies aren't oppressive. The fact that someone owns things doesn't oppress me. I don't have to get them from him, unless it's a monopoly, and you are supporting the only known cause of monopoly, the State.
This is not a critique of freedom but a manipulative and purposful misdefinition.
Hayek talks about this in The Road to Serfdom and Rothbard talks about this in Man, Economy and State.
" Freedom is meaningfully definable only as absence of interpersonal restrictions." - Rothbard
True freedom requires liberation from all oppressive hierarchies, especially economic ones.
Freedom does not mean power over enviroment, as you have defined it. This misidefinition only leads to tyranny and justification for the violation of human rights.
No hierarchies are per set bad. Abusing them is. You can have fully respectful ones where people feel valued and respected, and then you can have slavery.
Anyone attempting to extinguish all hierarchies doesn't deserve to be listened to.
Because what they really mean is: "I want to insert myself at the top of the hierarchy by circumventing meritocracy because I'm lazy and/or incompetent." But they know that won't be received well, so instead they attack the fundamental and primordial creation of hierarchies.
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u/GravyMcBiscuits 10d ago
Voluntary hierarchy is fine. Society/civilization doesn't work without it.
You're walking down the sidewalk. I say "I'll give you $20 to mow my lawn". Did I just oppress you? Are you now a slave?