7 ms·

>As a libertarian / ancap who believes taxation is theft, I don't support anything involving spending tax dollars, no matter how noble the end. That's pretty h

by thoth 12y ago

>As a libertarian / ancap who believes taxation is theft, I don't support anything involving spending tax dollars, no matter how noble the end. That's pretty hard core. How would you fund services like police/fire departments or infrastructure improvements (roads, electricity), basically anything where its existence benefits many (as opposed to say redoing education to require parents to pay for individual tutoring of their children) - voluntary tipping, usage fees? How would you pay for courts and enough government to enforce contracts?

atom-morgan 12y ago
> How would you fund services like police/fire departments or infrastructure improvements (roads, electricity), basically anything where its existence benefits many Wouldn't food also fall into this category? Its existence benefits many. Would you want to nationalize food production?
- jimmaswell 12y ago
  Food meshes well with the market while some other servives are market failures.
mmanfrin 12y ago
> How would you fund ... fire departments Well you'd just wait for Marcus Crassus to come down with his fleet of slaves to offer you a rock-bottom price for your home in exchange for his firefighting services -- so you can at least get your possessions out before it burns. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_firefighting#Rome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_firefighting#Rome
v64 12y ago
The Wikipedia entry on Anarcho-capitalism[1] dives into these details. It's a fascinating philosophy that, in my opinion, severely underestimates the human affinity for greed and manipulation. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism
- ashark 12y ago
  Over all my other problems with anarcho-capitalism and minarchism, the biggest is how much more time I'd waste and how much more anxiety I'd have. Just thinking about all the new stuff I'd have to keep up with to avoid getting screwed gives me a headache. Food safety guarantors, some sort of court and law associations, drug safety certifiers, all kinds of insurance I don't have to worry about now, and so on. Having to keep track of all that, who's best, who's had scandals and should be avoided, who's (known to be) subject to regulatory capture (think only the government is vulnerable to that?) or various other forms of corruption. Which ones give me bundle deals, are those actually better than buying the things individually from other providers. Ugh, it'd be miserable. Like all the problems of government and all the problems of real-world, imperfect-information markets in one. In my head it's like shopping for individual health insurance in the US (which is please-kill-me bad) or buying cars, but having to do that every. single. day. for one thing or another. But I guess in all the relaxing free time I'd have left after that stuff (none, to be clear), I'd be really, really free to do whatever I could manage to pay for? I don't see the appeal.
  - eropple 12y ago
    > I don't see the appeal. Disenfranchisement, as per most modes of radicality. I have observed as a near-universality among ancap types that they have identified at formative times of their lives as being "othered." They're not the in-crowd and they're not fundamentally of it. My suspicion is that they have a secret (or unsecret) opinion of themselves as misunderstood ubermenschen. (I recall that phase of my life, but then, I was fourteen.) With emotional and social development it became obvious to me, and to most recovering right-libertarian/ancap types I know of, that countless people helped me along the way because we decided, structurally and socially, that people should be helped. (We don't help everyone equally or sufficiently, and an expansion of it is decried by the you-got-mine, pulling-the-ladder-up-after-me types, but we try.) I have made a pet interest of confronting the ancap types I occasionally run into--in tech, you sometimes stumble across enough of a True Believer to let their flag fly high--with questions of, what do you do when you're born into poverty? What is your recourse when you have nothing to sell? What do you do when somebody--but not the state, because the state doing it is Wrong, but Jim down the road with a real big gun and a couple muscley friends is just participating in economic activity--takes everything from you? The answers start evasively, but I've read as much von Mises and Rothbard as most of the vocal adherents and I can speak their language enough to fight on their own terms. Laughable handwaves of insurance companies and private security aside--and we called these "barons" in a prior age, but history and economics have already been laid aside to get into their weird twists of philosophy, so no it will not turn into feudalism, that's a silly notion--the answer is and will always be "and then you lose and you die". What chills me is that while most seem to have enough of an emotional intelligence to know that this argument doesn't win, I rarely hear even a shred of doubt when you finally get to that hard little core--because the idea of losing so totally as to be rendered economically incapable is not part of the equation. Other people lose, not them. This is also why there is so much overlap in this crowd of the worship of eat-your-dead meritocracy; that ancap nonsense devolves inevitably into feudalism is a feature, not a bug. Because they believe, as is their right, that they will be the knights, if not the barons and dukes and kings, of their new order. I've run a few drafts of this post to leech out most of the pejorative nature I feel the ideas and the ideologues are due, and what remains should be taken more to be a mark of how truly alien (and I mean that in the sense of "inhuman") you have to get and how much reality you must pitch out the window at highway speeds to bend into a mode where the ancap arguments even make sense, let alone appeal. I am convinced that there is something rather fundamentally unwell about the whole thing. I have tried very hard to relate to it for years and my conclusion inevitably ends up being something around a predilection for cultish predations or never-outgrown teenage immaturity, and neither are satisfying but both fit the facts in evidence. I mean, I can have a discussion with a Communist. A Marxist and I are operating in a fundamentally relatable frame of reference. I don't agree with where they're going, but Marxists do not eject the entirety of human history to reach their conclusions--we can talk and actually agree what words mean. Every ancap I have ever met has washed their brains and adopted the weird sublanguage of the movement (Orwell was right...) and I can't do a thing with them except hope like hell they never stumble on a lever of power.
coupdejarnac 12y ago
Reminds me of the recent cases that made national news where a property owner didn't pay the fire department fees/taxes, and when the property caught on fire, the local fire department watched it burn to the ground. Oh, here we are: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/firefighters-watch-home-burn-owners-didnt-pay/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/firefighters-watch-home-burn-own...
mindcrime 12y ago
This is, unfortunately, not something where I can easily give you a short, sweet and concise answer. There's a massive body of literature (and much debate) on the answers to those questions. I guess the most concise answer I can give here, without having to write a huge essay, would be to say "a combination of all of the above" (that is, "voluntary tipping", "usage fees", and "other").
- jordache 12y ago
  Does the libertarian anti-tax concept go to the extend of HOA fees?
- smacktoward 12y ago
  > voluntary tipping "Looks like 341 Maple Street is burning down." "Eh, let it burn, they're terrible tippers." > usage fees "We'd be happy to put out your house fire, sir. Just swipe your MasterCard here."
  - pavel_lishin 12y ago
    I imagine that fire services would work more like insurance companies, most (all?) streets would be come toll roads, etc.
    - k-mcgrady 12y ago
      And when you can't afford the insurance for the fire department? How are these people taken care of by such a system? I'm sure we all know people who've hit very hard times at some point in their life through no fault of their own. As much as I like the idea of Libertarianism it can't see how these people would make it through those times.
      - pavel_lishin 12y ago
        For the record, I'm not not a libertarian, and I'm not proposing or defending this system - but smacktoward's comment was just too silly to even be called a strawman argument.
copperx 12y ago
OP is an idiot/troll. I don't understand why so many take the trouble to respond.
- refurb 12y ago
  Because people like to debate on HN? Your "idiot" comment adds less value than the OPs.
ahomescu1 12y ago
Slightly off-topic, your questions remind me of this satire: http://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/l-p-d-libertarian-police-department http://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/l-p-d-libertaria... (never fails to make me laugh)

by thoth 12y ago

atom-morgan 12y ago

> How would you fund services like police/fire departments or infrastructure improvements (roads, electricity), basically anything where its existence benefits many Wouldn't food also fall into this category? Its existence benefits many. Would you want to nationalize food production?

jimmaswell 12y ago
Food meshes well with the market while some other servives are market failures.

mmanfrin 12y ago

> How would you fund ... fire departments Well you'd just wait for Marcus Crassus to come down with his fleet of slaves to offer you a rock-bottom price for your home in exchange for his firefighting services -- so you can at least get your possessions out before it burns. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_firefighting#Rome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_firefighting#Rome

v64 12y ago

The Wikipedia entry on Anarcho-capitalism[1] dives into these details. It's a fascinating philosophy that, in my opinion, severely underestimates the human affinity for greed and manipulation. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism

ashark 12y ago
Over all my other problems with anarcho-capitalism and minarchism, the biggest is how much more time I'd waste and how much more anxiety I'd have. Just thinking about all the new stuff I'd have to keep up with to avoid getting screwed gives me a headache. Food safety guarantors, some sort of court and law associations, drug safety certifiers, all kinds of insurance I don't have to worry about now, and so on. Having to keep track of all that, who's best, who's had scandals and should be avoided, who's (known to be) subject to regulatory capture (think only the government is vulnerable to that?) or various other forms of corruption. Which ones give me bundle deals, are those actually better than buying the things individually from other providers. Ugh, it'd be miserable. Like all the problems of government and all the problems of real-world, imperfect-information markets in one. In my head it's like shopping for individual health insurance in the US (which is please-kill-me bad) or buying cars, but having to do that every. single. day. for one thing or another. But I guess in all the relaxing free time I'd have left after that stuff (none, to be clear), I'd be really, really free to do whatever I could manage to pay for? I don't see the appeal.
- eropple 12y ago
  > I don't see the appeal. Disenfranchisement, as per most modes of radicality. I have observed as a near-universality among ancap types that they have identified at formative times of their lives as being "othered." They're not the in-crowd and they're not fundamentally of it. My suspicion is that they have a secret (or unsecret) opinion of themselves as misunderstood ubermenschen. (I recall that phase of my life, but then, I was fourteen.) With emotional and social development it became obvious to me, and to most recovering right-libertarian/ancap types I know of, that countless people helped me along the way because we decided, structurally and socially, that people should be helped. (We don't help everyone equally or sufficiently, and an expansion of it is decried by the you-got-mine, pulling-the-ladder-up-after-me types, but we try.) I have made a pet interest of confronting the ancap types I occasionally run into--in tech, you sometimes stumble across enough of a True Believer to let their flag fly high--with questions of, what do you do when you're born into poverty? What is your recourse when you have nothing to sell? What do you do when somebody--but not the state, because the state doing it is Wrong, but Jim down the road with a real big gun and a couple muscley friends is just participating in economic activity--takes everything from you? The answers start evasively, but I've read as much von Mises and Rothbard as most of the vocal adherents and I can speak their language enough to fight on their own terms. Laughable handwaves of insurance companies and private security aside--and we called these "barons" in a prior age, but history and economics have already been laid aside to get into their weird twists of philosophy, so no it will not turn into feudalism, that's a silly notion--the answer is and will always be "and then you lose and you die". What chills me is that while most seem to have enough of an emotional intelligence to know that this argument doesn't win, I rarely hear even a shred of doubt when you finally get to that hard little core--because the idea of losing so totally as to be rendered economically incapable is not part of the equation. Other people lose, not them. This is also why there is so much overlap in this crowd of the worship of eat-your-dead meritocracy; that ancap nonsense devolves inevitably into feudalism is a feature, not a bug. Because they believe, as is their right, that they will be the knights, if not the barons and dukes and kings, of their new order. I've run a few drafts of this post to leech out most of the pejorative nature I feel the ideas and the ideologues are due, and what remains should be taken more to be a mark of how truly alien (and I mean that in the sense of "inhuman") you have to get and how much reality you must pitch out the window at highway speeds to bend into a mode where the ancap arguments even make sense, let alone appeal. I am convinced that there is something rather fundamentally unwell about the whole thing. I have tried very hard to relate to it for years and my conclusion inevitably ends up being something around a predilection for cultish predations or never-outgrown teenage immaturity, and neither are satisfying but both fit the facts in evidence. I mean, I can have a discussion with a Communist. A Marxist and I are operating in a fundamentally relatable frame of reference. I don't agree with where they're going, but Marxists do not eject the entirety of human history to reach their conclusions--we can talk and actually agree what words mean. Every ancap I have ever met has washed their brains and adopted the weird sublanguage of the movement (Orwell was right...) and I can't do a thing with them except hope like hell they never stumble on a lever of power.

coupdejarnac 12y ago

Reminds me of the recent cases that made national news where a property owner didn't pay the fire department fees/taxes, and when the property caught on fire, the local fire department watched it burn to the ground. Oh, here we are: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/firefighters-watch-home-burn-owners-didnt-pay/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/firefighters-watch-home-burn-own...

mindcrime 12y ago

This is, unfortunately, not something where I can easily give you a short, sweet and concise answer. There's a massive body of literature (and much debate) on the answers to those questions. I guess the most concise answer I can give here, without having to write a huge essay, would be to say "a combination of all of the above" (that is, "voluntary tipping", "usage fees", and "other").

jordache 12y ago
Does the libertarian anti-tax concept go to the extend of HOA fees?
smacktoward 12y ago
> voluntary tipping "Looks like 341 Maple Street is burning down." "Eh, let it burn, they're terrible tippers." > usage fees "We'd be happy to put out your house fire, sir. Just swipe your MasterCard here."
- pavel_lishin 12y ago
  I imagine that fire services would work more like insurance companies, most (all?) streets would be come toll roads, etc.
  - k-mcgrady 12y ago
    And when you can't afford the insurance for the fire department? How are these people taken care of by such a system? I'm sure we all know people who've hit very hard times at some point in their life through no fault of their own. As much as I like the idea of Libertarianism it can't see how these people would make it through those times.
    - pavel_lishin 12y ago
      For the record, I'm not not a libertarian, and I'm not proposing or defending this system - but smacktoward's comment was just too silly to even be called a strawman argument.

copperx 12y ago

OP is an idiot/troll. I don't understand why so many take the trouble to respond.

refurb 12y ago
Because people like to debate on HN? Your "idiot" comment adds less value than the OPs.

ahomescu1 12y ago

Slightly off-topic, your questions remind me of this satire: http://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/l-p-d-libertarian-police-department http://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/l-p-d-libertaria... (never fails to make me laugh)