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Me neither; and such a place does not (yet) exist, and to my knowledge humans have never truly created such a place since the dawn of agriculture, if not earlie

Me neither; and such a place does not (yet) exist, and to my knowledge humans have never truly created such a place since the dawn of agriculture, if not earlier. It's entirely in the realm of theory, for now. I'll even admit: we barely have the information-technology today with which to conduct business as quickly, frequently and frictionlessly as it could theoretically need to be conducted in such a place. In places where there is not only a monopoly on the use of unprovoked force, but where the same entity also monopolizes everything else, there is another collection of people who eloquently state why that was a bad idea. If you're wondering what is the difference between an area with all markets free; and an area whose governments merely don't call themselves as such, and tend to compete via (expensive) violence instead of advertising - then this tome should provide a much more eloquent description (albeit as theoretical as ever) than I could ever hope to achieve: http://www.daviddfriedman.com/The_Machinery_of_Freedom_.pdf http://www.daviddfriedman.com/The_Machinery_of_Freedom_.pdf

AnimalMuppet 8y ago
I was thinking of, e.g., Somalia. There wasn't a monopoly on violence, but there was still violence, and lots of it. There were competing warlords, not a nice smoothly-running anarchist market. It's... not a pleasant environment. It's closer to hell than to paradise. The government monopoly on violence has problems (much worse when the government goes off the rails), but in the absence of that monopoly, anyone who wants to do violence can. As that strategy turns out to work against those who would prefer not to do violence, more people turn to violence either for gain or for defense against the violence of others.
- krapp 8y ago
  Anarchy doesn't object to the "violence" aspect of the monopoly on violence, so much as the "monopoly."
  - mmirate 8y ago
    In a way that is true - it merely happens to be that when you don't have the near-infinite resources of a large taxpayer population at your disposal, violence's expensiveness actually becomes relevant.

AnimalMuppet 8y ago

I was thinking of, e.g., Somalia. There wasn't a monopoly on violence, but there was still violence, and lots of it. There were competing warlords, not a nice smoothly-running anarchist market. It's... not a pleasant environment. It's closer to hell than to paradise. The government monopoly on violence has problems (much worse when the government goes off the rails), but in the absence of that monopoly, anyone who wants to do violence can. As that strategy turns out to work against those who would prefer not to do violence, more people turn to violence either for gain or for defense against the violence of others.

krapp 8y ago
Anarchy doesn't object to the "violence" aspect of the monopoly on violence, so much as the "monopoly."
- mmirate 8y ago
  In a way that is true - it merely happens to be that when you don't have the near-infinite resources of a large taxpayer population at your disposal, violence's expensiveness actually becomes relevant.