Monday, March 05, 2018
A Problem With Anarcho-capitalism
It's spring break at [redacted]* and I've returned to reading things not directly work related, mostly newer stuff on Austrian economics. It's only a short step from that to recent writings on anarcho-capitalism (AC). Ugh. What surprises me about AC writing is how little it deals with political reality.
I would suppose that, having laid out the basic ideas, anarchists would next explain 1) how their utopian system actually might be brought about, and 2) how it would deal with some obvious real-world challenges. Perhaps such writing exists, but I haven't seen it. Instead, AC writing mostly seems to be the Nirvana fallacy, invective directed against non-believers, equivocation, and kicking up dust to confuse the issues. I used to take anarcho-capitalism seriously, and even considered myself an anarcho-capitalist (although not a very good one because I also liked the minimal state idea and wasn't so sure an anarcho-capitalist society could defend itself against a USSR or a Nazi Germany), but increasingly I think that most adherents are just espousing a religious faith, and a rather silly one at that. There's no point in considering it a viable system if adherents can't come up with reasonable answers to questions and objections. Here's an example.
How will we get to an anarcho-capitalist system?
This seems a crucial question. If someone tells me "I have the perfect system, but there's no way to make it actually come about," I'm inclined to think they do not have the perfect system, or even a better system. A better system will actually solve real world problems, and to do that, it must be attainable. I'm uninterested in performance on the blackboard.
Anarcho-capitalists such as Murray Rothbard describe how their system would work in an ideal world. Rothbard proposes that private protection agencies (PPAs) would sell defensive services such as protection of life, liberty, and property, or contract enforcement, or legal proceedings, etc. in the free market. And since private enterprise in the free market works better than government for provision of the usual goods and services, it would similarly excel here. I dispute this, but let's grant Rothbard's argument. The proper response is "so what?" So far as I know, no one has ever explained how we could transition to this allegedly superior system.
Let's put some teeth in this criticism. What is the anarcho-capitalist solution for South Korea? Suppose everyone in RoK reads Rothbard, sees the anarcho-capitalist light, and agrees the state should be abolished. Should they do it? Vote in a national referendum to immediately disband the state, including the military? And watch as DPRK troops pour across the undefended border?
Perhaps that's not a fair question. Instead of voting to abolish the state, everyone in RoK instead agrees that all state branches will be auctioned off among themselves. Buyers of defensive agencies like the police, military and courts, can then start enrolling subscribers, and competing agencies can spring up as well. I suppose Kim Jong un shouldn't be allowed to bid, and the authorities will have to screen for straw buyers, but otherwise this should work well, no?
Well, probably not. A South Korean entrepreneur contemplating buying the RoK Army, say, would be faced with the problem of figuring out how to collect payments for defensive services. S/he'd also be faced with staffing problems, since RoK currently has universal conscription for males. Let's assume there could be solutions (I have no idea what), but they'd be costly and time consuming to set up. The same goes for police, courts, and law. In the interim, Kim Jong un, miffed that he was blocked from bidding, invades. And remember, I'm assuming everyone in South Korea has converted to Rothbardianism, so by assumption we rule out that bidders would use the army or police for nefarious purposes, like robbing their fellow citizens, or that the high bidder would simply turn and sell all the military hardware abroad and retire in the Bahamas.
Again, maybe this isn't fair either. Maybe anarcho-capitalism would just arise, "spontaneously," on the market, and eventually displace the state. Well, if AC is so superior, why doesn't it do this?
And there's my real point. If anarcho-capitalism really is superior to state systems, why don't these AC systems spring up "spontaneously," either overnight or gradually. Because the state won't let them? So far as I can tell, anarcho-capitalists believe that a society that adopts anarcho-capitalism would be able to fend off attacks by states, and that it would be superior in this regard than if it had a state organizing a national defense. Yet we don't see anarcho-capitalist systems emerging anywhere.
Perhaps there's an "infant industry" argument so it would be too much to expect AC to emerge where there are established and well-functioning states (although I think that would be an admission that anarcho-capitalism really doesn't work), but then why not in places where there's no state to speak of at all -- e.g. Somalia, Afghanistan, or Syria? Or some isolated tropical island, like the Republic of Minerva?
The whole AC theory seems mostly a religious faith, held regardless of empirical evidence or logic, mere "assurance of things hoped for, conviction of things not seen." A utopian political theory is a weird thing in which to place one's faith.
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* We've never bothered to follow our "new policy" before, and aren't about to start doing it now!
I would suppose that, having laid out the basic ideas, anarchists would next explain 1) how their utopian system actually might be brought about, and 2) how it would deal with some obvious real-world challenges. Perhaps such writing exists, but I haven't seen it. Instead, AC writing mostly seems to be the Nirvana fallacy, invective directed against non-believers, equivocation, and kicking up dust to confuse the issues. I used to take anarcho-capitalism seriously, and even considered myself an anarcho-capitalist (although not a very good one because I also liked the minimal state idea and wasn't so sure an anarcho-capitalist society could defend itself against a USSR or a Nazi Germany), but increasingly I think that most adherents are just espousing a religious faith, and a rather silly one at that. There's no point in considering it a viable system if adherents can't come up with reasonable answers to questions and objections. Here's an example.
How will we get to an anarcho-capitalist system?
This seems a crucial question. If someone tells me "I have the perfect system, but there's no way to make it actually come about," I'm inclined to think they do not have the perfect system, or even a better system. A better system will actually solve real world problems, and to do that, it must be attainable. I'm uninterested in performance on the blackboard.
Anarcho-capitalists such as Murray Rothbard describe how their system would work in an ideal world. Rothbard proposes that private protection agencies (PPAs) would sell defensive services such as protection of life, liberty, and property, or contract enforcement, or legal proceedings, etc. in the free market. And since private enterprise in the free market works better than government for provision of the usual goods and services, it would similarly excel here. I dispute this, but let's grant Rothbard's argument. The proper response is "so what?" So far as I know, no one has ever explained how we could transition to this allegedly superior system.
Let's put some teeth in this criticism. What is the anarcho-capitalist solution for South Korea? Suppose everyone in RoK reads Rothbard, sees the anarcho-capitalist light, and agrees the state should be abolished. Should they do it? Vote in a national referendum to immediately disband the state, including the military? And watch as DPRK troops pour across the undefended border?
Perhaps that's not a fair question. Instead of voting to abolish the state, everyone in RoK instead agrees that all state branches will be auctioned off among themselves. Buyers of defensive agencies like the police, military and courts, can then start enrolling subscribers, and competing agencies can spring up as well. I suppose Kim Jong un shouldn't be allowed to bid, and the authorities will have to screen for straw buyers, but otherwise this should work well, no?
Well, probably not. A South Korean entrepreneur contemplating buying the RoK Army, say, would be faced with the problem of figuring out how to collect payments for defensive services. S/he'd also be faced with staffing problems, since RoK currently has universal conscription for males. Let's assume there could be solutions (I have no idea what), but they'd be costly and time consuming to set up. The same goes for police, courts, and law. In the interim, Kim Jong un, miffed that he was blocked from bidding, invades. And remember, I'm assuming everyone in South Korea has converted to Rothbardianism, so by assumption we rule out that bidders would use the army or police for nefarious purposes, like robbing their fellow citizens, or that the high bidder would simply turn and sell all the military hardware abroad and retire in the Bahamas.
Again, maybe this isn't fair either. Maybe anarcho-capitalism would just arise, "spontaneously," on the market, and eventually displace the state. Well, if AC is so superior, why doesn't it do this?
And there's my real point. If anarcho-capitalism really is superior to state systems, why don't these AC systems spring up "spontaneously," either overnight or gradually. Because the state won't let them? So far as I can tell, anarcho-capitalists believe that a society that adopts anarcho-capitalism would be able to fend off attacks by states, and that it would be superior in this regard than if it had a state organizing a national defense. Yet we don't see anarcho-capitalist systems emerging anywhere.
Perhaps there's an "infant industry" argument so it would be too much to expect AC to emerge where there are established and well-functioning states (although I think that would be an admission that anarcho-capitalism really doesn't work), but then why not in places where there's no state to speak of at all -- e.g. Somalia, Afghanistan, or Syria? Or some isolated tropical island, like the Republic of Minerva?
The whole AC theory seems mostly a religious faith, held regardless of empirical evidence or logic, mere "assurance of things hoped for, conviction of things not seen." A utopian political theory is a weird thing in which to place one's faith.
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* We've never bothered to follow our "new policy" before, and aren't about to start doing it now!
