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You forget that there wouldn't be just one private police force but many service providers. So if one offers bad service (by robbing you) you just hire one of t
by kybernetyk 14y ago
You forget that there wouldn't be just one private police force but many service providers. So if one offers bad service (by robbing you) you just hire one of their competitors.
- georgemcbay 14y ago... and pay them with... ? This kind of cuts to my biggest problem with objectivists and anarchist-capitalists, no sense of time context or history. "Let's abolish the government and all that stuff, it is bad and not natural", ignoring the fact that without the sort of government-structured society we've already made, they'd be in no position to have the wealth they are so afraid that taxes are going to "steal" and it works forward too in the sense that without the protections we take for granted from tax-sponsored government, they'd be robbed blind very quickly by those with the means and will to do it.
- jiggy2011 14y agoI guess the police force would be worried about having a negative reputation, so robbing a small time person might not be worth the risk if it meant you wouldn't get the contract for the bigger fish. But at some point you could always just cash out by robbing your client. I would also guess that the people you hire to protect your stuff would probably also accept payment to take other people's stuff so you would have a similar set of problems to medieval kings and their armies.
- kybernetyk 14y ago> This kind of cuts to my biggest problem with objectivists and anarchist-capitalists, no sense of time context or history. No one attacked your person so I don't really understand why you get personal here. As it's my policy to avoid such poisoned discussions I'm going to leave this sub thread.
- jiggy2011 14y agoI don't think he got personal. He simply attacked a position which may or may not be your position.
- jacoblyles 14y agoI enjoyed David Friedman's discussions of the incentives present under market anarchy in "The Machinery of Freedom", now available in its entirety online[1]. Your objections are not new and have been discussed at length by market anarchists. Whether or not you find the responses satisfactory is up to you. David writes for a mainstream audience which is assumed to have some familiarity with concepts of economics and property, but does not need to already be a libertarian. I feel he is the best representative of market anarchist thought. [1]http://daviddfriedman.com/The_Machinery_of_Freedom_.pdf http://daviddfriedman.com/The_Machinery_of_Freedom_.pdf
- subsystem 14y agoOne thing I don't get with libertarianism is why this, second paragraph of the book, doesn't apply both ways: "People who wish to live in a 'virtuous' society, surrounded by others who share their ideas of virtue, would be free to set up their own communities and to contract with each other so as to prevent the 'sinful' from buying or renting within them. Those who wished to live communally could set up their own communes. But nobody would have a right to force his way of life upon his neighbor."
- nijk 14y agoObjectivist theory clearly states that government's one legitimate function is to protect an individual's wealth from usurpers. I am not making this up.
- agrostis 14y agoRight, but it works the other way round, too: if your police thinks YOUR competitors (and this may mean, well, gangs) pay better, nothing would prevent it from turning over to protect their interests rather than yours.
- vijayr 14y agoThis kinda sounds like phone and cable companies - sure, there are a bunch of them around, but nearly all of them suck.