I also simply disagree that geographic monopolies will not occur. Rural areas and sparse population don’t encourage business diversity, especially for something with a high market entry cost like defence. Of course even if you could absolutely guarantee, not just make geographic monopolies unfavorable, you would still incur the problem already discussed.

Well, I don’t think any anarchist - definitely not this one - thinks that you can absolutely guarantee the non-existence of geographic monopolies; the best we can do is structure incentives in such a way that they are unlikely to arise.

As for your claim that “Rural areas and sparse population don’t encourage business diversity”, I completely agree - all the more reason not the live in rural areas with sparse populations. This is an argument frequently made against privatizing things like the Postal service or public schools or roads. No one is entitled to live wherever they please. There is no reason why urban dwellers should have to subsidize rural communities. Part of the cost of choosing to live in a rural community is doing without some of the same services enjoyed by more concentrated populations.

One of the biggest of which is without uniform justice we have no guarantees that our DROs won’t simply enslave us.

But we have no such guarantee now regarding our governments. Demanding such a guarantee is utopian, for there is no higher authority to turn to to reign in the lower authority, for if there was such a higher authority, the problem would be recreated one level higher. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? The relevant question is not which system makes a guarantee possible, because no system does that. The relevant question is whether electoral democracy or market competition act as better checks on power.

All the arguments I’ve seen in favor or a just anarchism rely on a miracle of fine-tuning, to keep all DROs perfectly in line with each other, each individual signing up to a large bureaucracy of overlapping protection, and voluntary regulation.

And this differs from electoral democracy…how?

you would still incur the problem already discussed.

Correction: Problems already discussed above.

“Notice the disconnect between the first sentence and the second two sentences. You first acknowledge that a free market in the use of force exists on an international level, but then immediately claim that a free market in the use of force (e.g. anarchism) is utopian. How is it that, under the international anarchist order (for there is no central state), the rights of weak countries remain protected against the will of stronger countries?”

Anarchism is more than just a market on the use of force and you’re right, the current scenario of international competition is apples and oranges.

I also simply disagree that geographic monopolies will not occur. Rural areas and sparse population don’t encourage business diversity, especially for something with a high market entry cost like defence. Of course even if you could absolutely guarantee, not just make geographic monopolies unfavorable, you would still incur the problem already discussed. One of the biggest of which is without uniform justice we have no guarantees that our DROs won’t simply enslave us. All the arguments I’ve seen in favor or a just anarchism rely on a miracle of fine-tuning, to keep all DROs perfectly in line with each other, each individual signing up to a large bureaucracy of overlapping protection, and voluntary regulation.

“I’ve been thinking through this myself; I have an idea that short of some compelling justification, there is no reason to use force against people,”

The justification is that business interaciton between strangers can only be maintained through the threat of force.

Then that itself provides the compelling justification the person to whom you were responding is looking for. But that is not a justification for government, only a justification for using force in self-defense against contract violation.

Whats funny about wanting the ability to opt for another provider of force is that they can already do so, by moving.

Well, no, that’s not funny. The Coase theorem taught us that what is most important for efficient market outcomes is transaction costs. When I want to switch cell phone providers, I just pick up the phone and make a call. That low transaction cost provides the check of competition on regulating cell phone providers. But if I have to move in order to switch governments, the transaction costs of switching are much higher, and thus the regulatory check of competition is much lower. Which is one of, if not the major reason we get piss poor government.

It is most likely that you will have to move in order to acquire the services of different arbiters of force in an anarchist system, but they see no problem with that.

Absolutely untrue. A central tenet of free market anarchism is that there is no need for granting firms geographical monopolies on force. The territories would overlap in the absence of monopoly. Search Google for the term “polycentric law” or “polycentric legal order” and read the work by Tom Bell and Randy Barnett on this issue.

We already have a free market on force, it’s call the world and there are many nations to choose from.

As to anarchism, I think it is utopianism. There is nothing in anarchism to protect your “rights”. With anarchism the strong will always prey on the weak.

Notice the disconnect between the first sentence and the second two sentences. You first acknowledge that a free market in the use of force exists on an international level, but then immediately claim that a free market in the use of force (e.g. anarchism) is utopian. How is it that, under the international anarchist order (for there is no central state), the rights of weak countries remain protected against the will of stronger countries?

Security companies (or DROs or whatever) will have geographic monopolies in mos areas,

This is precisely what anarchists deny. Without a government to enforce a monopoly, competition thrives.

The justification is that business interaciton between strangers can only be maintained through the threat of force. There is no reason for my gorcer to honor a deal or a price unless there is the threat of lawsuit. There is no reason for an oil company to honor my property boundries without the threat of police aciton. Without force purely consensual trading only works in tight-knit groups or in a perfect world. Even anarchism supposes the necessity of force, they just want to have multiple arbiters of force to choose from.

Whats funny about wanting the ability to opt for another provider of force is that they can already do so, by moving. It is most likely that you will have to move in order to acquire the services of different arbiters of force in an anarchist system, but they see no problem with that. We already have a free market on force, it’s call the world and there are many nations to choose from.

As to anarchism, I think it is utopianism. There is nothing in anarchism to protect your “rights”. With anarchism the strong will always prey on the weak. Security companies (or DROs or whatever) will have geographic monopolies in mos areas, where their the only game in town. So without another security company paid to keep an eye on the first security company, those with the training and the weaponry can do whatever they want with the citizens. Dictatorships will arise, price manipulation similar to the mafia will occur, and the rich will get away crime while the poor are victimized. Hobbes was right, life in the state of nature is nasty, brutish, and short.

So I think rather than “anarchy vs state” dichotomy the question becomes the granular “lower barriers to migration are better,” combined with “no state should interfere internally with another.”

Thus, as long as we had many jurisdictions with low barriers to entry, we could imagine a mix of states and non-states (eg Disney, La Cosa Nostra) coexisting, all “marketing” themselves to a mobile population as a check on quality and a spur to policy innovation.

I have a question regarding the anarchy/government discussion above. Can it be said that government is the inevitable result of anarchy? After all, government has been the definite historical result this time around.

1. If you cannot provide a good argument for P, then you are rationally required to believe -P.

2. You cannot provide a good argument for P.

Therefore, you are rationally required to believe -P.

The argument’s invalid because 1 is false. It can be rational to believe neither P nor -P.

Sartwell’s argument is of this invalid form.

1) On an island with 100 democrats, 90 of them vote to establish a tax and enforce it with guns. The other 10 opt not to pay the tax; the island police force arrests them under the law.

2) On an island with 100 anarchists, 90 of them band together and sign a contract to pay for common roads. The other 10 opt to use the roads, which go everywhere, anyway. The island’s majority contracts to form a roadways-defense-force to prevent this misuse, and the 10 are locked up in a small POW camp.

One of these is unjustified and immoral coercion, the other is a rightful private action in defense of property. Yet the options available to all parties, and the results—10 people locked up because the 90 will them to be locked up—are exactly the same.

That’s why I think anarchists are talking themselves in circles. If you use the word “government” they imagine themselves in the harassed-underdog role; if you use the word “private militia” they imagine themselves as the self-defending strongman on top.

Anarchism is a very broad category; it means a lot of different things to different people. The main strains of anarchism have been very concerned with means. They have often tended to try to follow the idea that Bakunin expressed, that you should build the seeds of the future society within the existing one…

Further, he claims:

That is what I have always understood to be the essence of anarchism: the conviction that the burden of proof has to be placed on authority, and that it should be dismantled if that burden cannot be met.

With this in mind, it should now be clear that many anarchists believe that violently overthrowing (say) the US government is ludicrous. For one thing, national states control (and use) the greatest means of violence in human history. And even if it were possible, one entirely likely outcome is some form of fascism. Because the culture hasn’t yet cultivated the sort of bottom-up social institutions that would be necessary.

Many anarchists believe in an advanced, industrial society run on principles such as solidarity and worker self-management. When we look at history, doing away with feudalism, chattel slavery, etc, required many generations of struggle and preparation.

If you’re interested in one proposed anarchist vision to use as a frame of reference, Participatory Economics is an interesting possibility for some aspects of society. (Of course, any real improved society would require experimentation. So it’s a vision, not some rigid blueprint.)