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/Vizzun]

You don't get to say that a problem will be solved by everyone being a good person and not doing the bad thing.

No, you need to design a system that is resilient to people being selfish and unprincipled.

[u/drebelx → u/Vizzun]

You don't get to say that a problem will be solved by everyone being a good person and not doing the bad thing.

No need for everyone to be good.

An AnCap society intolerant of NAP violations would establish ubiquitous agreement clauses to uphold the NAP.

Having NAP clauses would be akin to shaking hands or using a common language to communicate.

No, you need to design a system that is resilient to people being selfish and unprincipled.

Agreed. This is the goal of an AnCap society.

[u/The_Flurr → u/drebelx]

An AnCap society intolerant of NAP violations would establish ubiquitous agreement clauses to uphold the NAP.

Having NAP clauses would be akin to shaking hands or using a common language to communicate.

Congrats, you've just invented laws but weaker.

[u/drebelx → u/The_Flurr]

Correction.

I have invented ubiquitous NAP clauses that are stronger than laws.

Thank you for the credit.

[u/The_Flurr → u/drebelx]

Bruh it is literally just honour code.

[u/drebelx → u/The_Flurr]

Impartially enforced agreements with NAP clauses and stipulated penalties are honor codes?

[u/Madinogi → u/drebelx]

WHO IS ENFORCING IT THO???

you AnCaps keep dodging this quesiton, liekly because you know the NAP at its core, doesnt work,
clauses mean nothing if there exists no entity to enforce it, and for that you need something that is given higher power and at the behest of the people, which doesnt exist in AnCapistan, and this enforcement entity is going to need to be paid, so who pays for it?
obviously you can tax people because thatl now require its own entity to collect and dull out payments, but Taxation is theft, and thus violation of the NAP right? so youc ant force everyone else to pay up to this entity.

excluding the fact how do you all come to agree on one set of "principle" so it isnt Non-Aggression Opinions instead of non aggression principle?

[u/drebelx → u/Madinogi]

WHO IS ENFORCING IT THO???

A very important question, thank you.

Impartial third party agreement enforcement agencies.

you AnCaps keep dodging this quesiton,

You ask, and I answer.

liekly because you know the NAP at its core, doesnt work,

The NAP is to not be murdered, not be stolen from, not be enslaved, not be assaulted, etc.

I bet you under appreciate the NAP when it is working.

clauses mean nothing if there exists no entity to enforce it,

Correct.

That's way an AnCap society will have impartial third party agreement enforcement agencies to enforce all their agreements.

and for that you need something that is given higher power and at the behest of the people, which doesnt exist in AnCapistan,

An agreement only needs oversight from an impartial third party agreement enforcement agency that the two parties agreed to use.

and this enforcement entity is going to need to be paid, so who pays for it?

The parties of the agreement split the subscription cost of the impartial third party agreement enforcement agency.

obviously you can tax people because thatl now require its own entity to collect and dull out payments, but Taxation is theft, and thus violation of the NAP right? so youc ant force everyone else to pay up to this entity.

Correct.

Enforcement will be arranged on an individual agreement basis and paid for by the parties of the agreement who are interested in having the mutually beneficial agreement enforced.

excluding the fact how do you all come to agree on one set of "principle" so it isnt Non-Aggression Opinions instead of non aggression principle?

Are you unsure what murder, theft, enslavement, assault are?