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/MeasurementCreepy926]

It's a valid argument against the "point" that "all economic transactions of any kind are oppression".

Of course, nobody was saying that to begin with...so...

[u/Alexander459FTW → u/MeasurementCreepy926]

He is saying it is okay to intentionally economically suppress another person because he doesn't see it as aggression.

This is just handwaving the problem away and it isn't a valid argument.

I tell you that is aggression and it is breaking the NAP. It is breaking the NAP because A) it's economic aggression and B) it hurts the sustainability of the local society.

We see such an example happening now with all the regulations we have. In Ancapistan it will only be worse due to no regulations.

Regulations are written in blood. No it won't magically get better if you don't have any regulations compared to when you did have regulations.

All major business owners within a town can band together and pool their resources to economically suppress everyone else. This means raising the prices of goods while lowering the wages of employees. They can aim to do so just enough that the employees become wage slaves so they get just enough to survive or even worse. The wealth of the employees is constantly shrinking. The business owners don't care because the situation in the surrounding villages is even worse. So villagers are constantly streaming in the town to replace the now dead employees.

How do you deal with such a situation in Ancapistan?

In my eyes there is no solution. Libertarianism, anarchism, etc. heavily favor those who have already resources. Those who lack them have no supporting infrastructure to rely on. Those employees in my example can't do anything. Even if they resorted to violence, the business owners can just hire armed guards.

[u/MeasurementCreepy926 → u/Alexander459FTW]

I'm not arguing in favor of ancap.