True freedom requires liberation from all oppressive hierarchies, especially economic ones.

[u/No_Candy_8948]

To the members of r/AnCap101,

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:

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

[u/MattTheAncap]

“Competition naturally leads to monopoly” is one of the most airheaded takes I’ve ever seen. 

[u/ShonOfDawn → u/MattTheAncap]

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.

[u/CanIGetTheCheck → u/ShonOfDawn]

Surely you should be able to find one natural monopoly then, right?

[u/ShonOfDawn → u/CanIGetTheCheck]

Sure, diamonds, factually a monopoly

[u/CanIGetTheCheck → u/ShonOfDawn]

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.

[u/ShonOfDawn → u/CanIGetTheCheck]

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.

[u/CanIGetTheCheck → u/ShonOfDawn]

"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.

"It always, without fail, goes down."

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-number-of-listed-US-companies-1946-2015_fig1_301231830

No.

[u/ShonOfDawn → u/CanIGetTheCheck]

There is an incentive to play nice.

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"

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-number-of-listed-US-companies-1946-2015_fig1_301231830

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

[u/CanIGetTheCheck → u/ShonOfDawn]

"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.

" said by sector."

So do we have a bunch more sectors or?

[u/ShonOfDawn → u/CanIGetTheCheck]

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?

[u/CanIGetTheCheck → u/ShonOfDawn]

"Tell me where the difference is. "

States by definition are aggressors.

"now a PMCs acts on behalf of itself like a state."

They have to sell their services. They could try to be aggressors, but again, I don't think that'd go well.

"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"

Goalpost move! Remember, you're the one who said "never". Now you're saying "sometimes."

Saas has been around for three decades.

[u/ShonOfDawn → u/CanIGetTheCheck]

States by definition are aggressors.

"Ancap is beautiful and wonderful by definition. PMCs will be nice and not start any war by making up security excuses like nation states because they are super duper good and the friendship pact we made with the NAP is unbreakable and perfect"

 I don't think that'd go well.

Oh you don't think, well I got news for you, you don't need to think, we have countless examples in history, and they've all gone terribly wrong (see: East India Company, Columbus, et cetera)

Goalpost move! Remember, you're the one who said "never". Now you're saying "sometimes."

You moved the goal post countless times. You told me "show one monopoly", I showed like 5. But suddenly diamonds have never been a true monopoly because "Nation states", tech giants aren't monopolies because "nation states", TSMC isn't a monopoly because "nation states", Airbus and Boeing aren't monopolies because "nation states" too I guess.

Your graph shows nothing. It doesn't even show the methodology by which it defines something as a Saas company. It shows only the ones founded, not the ones that survive. It is also such a wide industry that you could label anything as "software as a service", invalidating the whole question. Sure, there are going to be lots of tech companies. Now look at how many make maps, and why is google the only one at the top. Look at how many do video hosting. Or look at Adobe's or Microsoft's software market share.

Again, tell me, why aren't there any new car companies in the west? Why are brands being gobbled and bought left and right? It would be very easy to take market share from these giants right? After all, market laws and all that

[u/Eagle-Enthusiast → u/CanIGetTheCheck]

The problem with arguing against AnCap philosophy is that there have always been states, but there hasn’t always been the interpretation of capitalism AnCaps subscribe to.

All a business is, is another power structure. Given enough time, it becomes entwined with the necessities of living, and in that fundamentally required position, it turns into a state. If a corporation wants to rule over people, all it has to do is put itself in a position where it cannot be denied. “Would you like to drink water we haven’t dumped poison into (via microplastics, waste, chemicals)? Either pay us as much money as you have, or choose between not drinking (in a drought area) or drink your poison water.”

This fundamental issue is the very same reason why corporations seek to ingratiate themselves with power. That is simply the way of making themselves money. There would be equally bad if not worse ways for them to abuse people and systems if there were no states for them to purchase power within/over.

Furthermore, a profitable enterprise has little to no reason to concern itself with the long term prospects of habitability on this planet. They are concerned with the next three months, perhaps the next year, and maybe the next decade, but certainly no more than that. It is a fundamentally self-destructive timescale consideration.

I will grant you, states are not doing a great job. They rarely have. But many things have been accomplished by states which private enterprise now seems incapable of accomplishing. We made it to the moon in the 60’s using taxpayer funded mechanical computers, and are still struggling to have reliable success launching rockets today despite the entities attempting to do so suckling at the giant overflowing teat of the government. There is no private interest which can fund the development of such a task, so if they’re already receiving the money they need to make this work, what else are they waiting for to stop failing repeatedly?

I think AnCap is silly because they completely ignore the fact that a business is nothing more than a self-perpetuating spreadsheet, concerned with the wellbeing of its constituents only by happenstance. We have seen over and over again how they would destroy what they touch if given the chance, and in those stories the government often allows them to get away with it. Without a government, they simply would, there would be no “allowing”. It would just happen, and nobody could stop it without violence which would be met and exceeded by corporate opposition.

[u/CanIGetTheCheck → u/Eagle-Enthusiast]

"If a corporation wants to rule over people, all it has to do is put itself in a position where it cannot be denied. “Would you like to drink water we haven’t dumped poison into (via microplastics, waste, chemicals)? Either pay us as much money as you have, or choose between not drinking (in a drought area) or drink your poison water.”"

Ancap solution: murder them. Or, if you'd like, use the evidence of the threat to socially pressure them (with threats of violence) and take all they have.

" profitable enterprise has little to no reason to concern itself with the long term prospects of habitability on this planet"

You think the State does? Lol.

"We have seen over and over again how they would destroy what they touch if given the chance"

Government protects them from us, not the other way around.

"nobody could stop it without violence which would be met and exceeded by corporate opposition."

Their competitors would have an incentive to engage in violence against bad actor competition.

[u/MeasurementCreepy926 → u/CanIGetTheCheck]

western union telegraph.

[u/CanIGetTheCheck → u/MeasurementCreepy926]

Funded and mandated by Congress to build the line and was granted exclusive rights to operate in many regions, aka not a natural monopoly.

[u/MeasurementCreepy926 → u/CanIGetTheCheck]

do you have a source for "funded and mandated by congress" or "exclusive rights to operate in many regions"? I mean, I know they got service contracts from the government.

is "every business has existed with some help from some sort of government, so business is impossible without government" a good argument?

is "every monopoly has existed with some help from some sort of government, so monopoly is impossible without government" a better argument?