You got yourself a world record. :3
I’ll say upfront that I am not going to debate here. But it can’t hurt to post my worldview, in the hopes that others will be interested and want to research it on their own.
I am a Libertarian / Anarcho-Capitalist.
Anarcho-capitalism is a stateless, yet organized and civil society which looks no different than the world of today. In that stateless society, there would be no government, but enterprises/businesses/firms which would compete in a pure free market. I came under the conviction that this would be a viable society through my education in economics. The rise and fall of socialism has already happened. All government is nothing but socialism – the roads are socialized roads, the police socialized security, the courts socialized legal system.
The way I see it, civilization can be held up on two main rules of conduct.
Do Not Encroach Upon Others – steal, murder, rape, blackmail, harass, etc.
Do All You Have Agreed To Do – simple as it sounds; if you shook hands on it or signed a contract, go through with it.
Nobody but a sociopath would contest such a code of conduct, and it is clear how they could hold up civilization on their own. All other laws are either redundant or pointless encroachment on personal liberties.
I see two types of leaders in the world: those who lead by force and coercion, and those who lead by choice or voluntarism, and that is the fundamental difference between government and enterprise. I believe that no state/government can survive in the long-term without unrest and rebellion, as they function on coercion and force, which through the ages have proven to be intolerable by the human species. I also believe that, no matter how carefully and wisely a government is set up to protect the natural rights of its citizens, it will be inevitably eroded by malevolent forces in pursuit of their own selfish goals (example: the United States Constitution/Bill of Rights).
Now, of course, everybody who reads this will be at first rather incredulous I’m sure. I was too when I first encountered the concept. Despite how radical it sounds, however, I can’t help but see the theoretical validity of the idea, as well as the fact that it fits very well with what I have observed in the world.
If you’re interested in learning more, here is some short recommended reading that got me first interested in the concept.
There are multiple inaccuracies in the provided link, but I’ll leave it to the debating hall.
Oh, wait. We ARE in the debating hall.
One of the biggest inaccuracies is about what “government” is. The claim that “we as the government is statist” is laughable in the best of circumstances and completely libelous and slanderous in the worst of circumstances. Statism claims that sovereignty lays not on the people but on the state. “We as government” cannot be statist because sovereignty lays on the people. “Government” is not a separate entity existing in the abstract away from the population. It IS the population.
This 8a “myth” is actually one of the most insidious myths of all time because it’s what leads to corruption of government and fear and mistrust of the people. Reagan’s “I’ve always felt that the nine most terrifying words in the English were: I’m from the government and I’m here to help” claim is virulent and, if I may say so, anti-American.
Read the United States Constitution.
This states that the United States government is not royalty; it’s not a monarchy; it’s not handed down by some deity through the “divine right of kings”…it’s a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
The entire page is full of so many misrepresentations and distortions that I can’t get into all of them here, but I just picked one of the biggies out.
i belong to the PNR party, we go around puking on people’s porches and then running away. thusly PNR, Puke ‘N’ Run
How about the FBS party? Flaming bag of…
of you truly believe that the current us government is by the people and for the people you are naive beyond belief
That’s the intention of the Founders, anyway. I wish we could get back to it by, among other things, eliminating monied interests from the political realm. But, maybe I’m a pie-in-the-sky idealist, but I do know that the utopian ideal of anarcho-capitalism, like socialism, communism and fascism, does not work in reality. We need a mixture of all of them to succeed. Any pure system will unfortunately fail. And fail spectacularly…
Anarcho-Capitalism is a theoretical idea at this point, it has never been tried in the real world like fascism and communism (other failed ideologies) have. Because of this, I’m not going to argue that I know for certain that it would work.
What I do know, however, is that no government has ever accomplished simply not hurting, working against, or violating the basic natural rights of its own citizens, and that all governments function on the basis of force and coercion. Conversely, enterprise in a free market has never done either, because it is based on choice and competition for the favor of people.
A simple sort of real-world illustration (or, maybe even a joke) I sometimes tell people when discussing this sort of topic is: Send a letter to a firm about their product, like a company that makes fish food for example, either praising the food or making a complaint. You’ll get a prompt reply with either thanks or profuse apology and probably a whole bunch of coupons for free fish food in either case. Write to your representative, however, and you probably won’t get a reply, and if that representative doesn’t already agree with what you want, he/she will most likely never change anything. Write a bureaucracy, and you’ll wait 6 months and get a letter back re-iterating the problem/rule that you were complaining about in the first place.
Why? Because again it’s the fundamental difference between enterprise and government - enterprise can lose your support, money, patronage, and good favor. Government has you if you like it or not, and it will definitely not go without taking your money.
Ah, anyways, I said I didn’t want to debate but here I am anyways. :fffuuu:
Restless, despite what I am going to write, let me tell you that ANYONE in favor of a pacifist system, and anarchism is without doubt against warfare of larger scale, is my personal friend and brother.
But just saying “I will never encroach on anybody’s rights” and then, despite honest attempts, hoping it will never happpen is … IDEALISTIC, just like saying “Everything belongs to everyone”. You can usually spot idealism in a sentence using “never”, “anybody”, “everyone”, “everywhere” etc., using unrealistic absolutes.
ENSURING that you will not encroach on the liberty of others and if you fail to do so, by pure accident for an instance, reestablishing the liberty of others, IS the task of a social organisation like a court, a council of elders, SOME form of publicly accepted authority. Otherwise we will fall back to vendettas, feuds and vigilantism, which I do not think you find acceptable. In other words, even a private court or company, is already a form of government, because it governs, it steers the actions of others and exercises force (over its employees and consumers, or accused). And once you live in a town with 12 million inhabitants I want to see the the man doing honorary work all day and not charging you money for it, maybe even a tax for the protection its more or less arbitrary statutes offer you.
Also: This whole notion of “All men are bad” vs “All men are good” in the linked webpage you provided is DANGEROUS and any theory using this dichotomy is a danger to society. Good or bad are relative, and constructed, and judging a man by these standards unhelpful.
All men are, they are full of desires and they have been born with little knowledge. And all men try to rectify that differently. Even the “all men are bit”. 
I have written several letters to my representative, if you want I can put his answers in here.
I don’t understand it. Men with a sense of justice and equality like you Should BE in the government, not try to undermine it.
The problems you point out are serious ones. However, I think that under an anarcho-capitalist society, private law and security (we already have examples of those in attorneys and insurance) could protect people - and they’ll pay for them with all the money they’ll save NOT paying taxes to ineffective government.
There is a lot of rather comprehensive literature regarding this specific topic, and I encourage people to look into it (I believe there is some in that “FAQ”) as I obviously don’t have the time to write everything up myself.
I will say, however, that anarcho-capitalism is NOT in any way based on the idea that people are inherently good or will leave each other alone on their own. It’s based on capitalism, which in turn is an economic system based on the fact that all people are inherently selfish, and turns this tendency into a force for the good of all society through competition and what Adam Smith (who is to economics as Einstein is to physics) calls the “Invisible Hand” of the free market - which, as fruity as it may sound, is the foundation for the capitalist economy everywhere in the world. 
Because of this, anarcho-capitalism is MEANT to be a system used by selfish human beings, certainly not in any way anticipating any good to come out of them, as the system wouldn’t work without them being selfish!
I agree
Well maybe I am just afraid of the unknown…
Take away my fear, oh anarcho-capitalists!
How does your inclination towards anarcho-capitalism influence your every day life and contact with the authorities and people in general? There must be a difference otherwise this whole theory business would be ridiculously futile.
RestlessMind: My question regarding a liberterian anarcho-capitalist society is: How does one define “harm”? And how does one find a mutually agreeable arbiter if someone doesn’t want to be agreeable? And why should said arbiter have any power whatsoever? What if the arbiter judges that a party shall be “harmed” moreso than that party believes he should be “harmed”? Should the “harmed party” be required to submit to that harm? If so, by what mechanism should that “harm” be applied?
For example: Bob decides to hire Steve to mow his lawn. While mowing, Steve’s lawnmower kicks out a rock and damages Bob’s car. Bob and Steve go to a mutually agreeable arbitrator and the arbitrator decides that Steve owes Bob $5,000 for the damage. Steve doesn’t believe that “such minor damage” should cost $5,000; that damage of that sort should only cost $1,000.
By what mechanism should Steve be forced to pay $5,000? Is the arbitrator “harming” Steve? If so, by what mechanism should the arbitrator be ‘punished’?
As an American, I have a much greater respect for local and state governments than the federal government, as it has become extremely clear to me that the federal government has become the instrument of those wishing to dismantle the Constitution and Bill of Rights, basically since the early 1900s. I don’t automatically consider government authority figures - such as police for example - “enemies” or anything like that.
When it comes to dealing with people in general, I do my best to just be nice to them. I don’t typically instigate conflict or “mess” with anybody, because society would be a lot safer if people were less confrontational and more considerate; so I do my part.
I basically have a “you can do whatever you want as long as it doesn’t stop me/somebody from doing what they want” philosophy; true liberty. I don’t believe in victimless crimes.
Well, I usually define an offense as encroachment (as I defined earlier) on someone, or failure to follow through with an agreement/contract.
The answer to your scenario is quite simple. There would be no need for an arbitrator. Steve didn’t actually intend to damage Bob’s car, he was just doing a job and an accident happened; there’s no crime committed.
So, as would happen if the scenario were real, either Steve or Bob’s very good insurance (they’d be able to afford it much more easily, as they aren’t giving up any money to taxes) would end up paying for the damages.
If Bob was a particularly spiteful kind of guy, he might not pay Steve for the lawn job, and might not hire him again, and might tell all his friends that Steve is a crappy lawn mower. Steve might in turn not offer any more services to Bob, or tell all his friends that Bob is a big jerk.
Because this would only be mutually assured disparagement, Steve and Bob would have somewhat of an incentive to work things out more civilly.
Like communism, that would work in the small scale, but it doesn’t work if you get more people involved.
In a country the size of the United States, it’s quite possible, and extremely easy, to “hide” wrongdoing in a nation without a government or very small governments. Even if it were as small as a state, it’s still very easy to “hide” wrongdoing.
The problem with your scenario is that it assumes a GREAT many things that, while they look possible on paper, cannot and will not work in the real world. The cost of living ‘without taxes’ would be a HELL of a lot more than ‘with taxes’.
What exactly do you mean by “hide wrongdoing”? You can dent somebody’s car and run off and not have to pay for it if there were no witnesses, in today’s world just as well as in an anarcho-capitalist world.
I “assume” nothing in the scenario except that Bob and Steve are regular people, and have insurance, like most everyone in today’s world that have cars and can afford to pay other people to mow their lawns.
Though I don’t see any major flaws in the reasoning I have presented to you, I will say that in no way am I implying that an anarcho-capitalist society would somehow result in a utopia. Far from it, I’m only saying that it would rid humanity of the socialism, tyranny, and mob rule of government.
After all, simple logic dictates that the entire idea of government is completely irrational. The justification for its existence is that people are selfish, power-seeking and immoral, and yet it is made up of the very same sorts of people! Government is simply an instrument, a wide-open door, for people or organizations to enforce their - in many cases quite malevolent - will upon the people.
Wow, that is exactly what I do. Makes me think …
It’s nice to know there are others. 
more like 2% of the world
Somehow I doubt the validity of those statistics, but I don’t see what you’re getting at anyways.
How do you guys pull it off there?
I’m honestly a bit confused, because I see Belgium listed as a “federal parliamentary democracy under a constitutional monarchy”.