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I’m a minarchist libertarian.
-By Caleb Jones
This means that while I hate the concept of coercion and use of force on innocents by an entity called “government,” I grudgingly admit that in the real world, human beings like governments, so we’re forced to put up with them. This is acceptable as long as you keep government as small, local, and decentralized as humanly possible, for as long as possible.
This is not my opinion; this is proven to work; the United States prior to 1913 and Hong Kong prior to the 1990s are clear historical examples of the wondrous things that happen to societies and economies when you keep government as small as you can for as long as you can.
If I dislike government so much (and I do) and know that government is as destructive and harmful as it is, why am I not an anarchist? Or specifically, an anarcho-capitalist, who believes there should be no government and that the private sector can pretty much figure anything out?
Well, my anarcho-capitalist brothers aren’t wrong, in that yes, given enough creativity and technology (and you need a lot of both), I think the free market can indeed take care of just about everything we rely on government to do today. This includes things like roads, courts, military, and so on.
That’s not why I’m not an anarchist. Instead, I’m not an anarchist for the same reason I’m not a communist or true (dictionary version of a) socialist. It’s because anarcho-capitalism, like communism or true socialism, is utopian. Utopia is false. There’s no such thing. There never will be.
You can’t organize large groups (as in millions) of human beings in the real world around utopian concepts. I don’t care if you’re talking about communism or anarcho-capitalism. Granted, I would happily take anarcho-capitalism over communism if those were my only two options, but that doesn’t mean anarcho-capitalism wouldn’t actually accomplish anything.
This is because, as I’ve said before, if you waved a magic wand and made all governments in the entire world disappear, that’s great, but the problem is by 8am tomorrow morning, human beings would immediately start forming governments again. There would be no way to stop them. And most people would accept them. Because humans like government.
I don’t like that they like government. I hate that they like government. But they do.
That’s why anarcho-capitalism will never work on any large scale in the real world. Humans like government too much. That fucking sucks, but those are the facts.
So, based on this undeniable reality, I reluctantly back down one level and instead I’m a minarchist instead of an anarchist. If you want government, okay you morons, fine. But you’d better keep it as small as possible for as long as possible. Unlike anarchy, that’s actually possible. (Certainly difficult, but possible.)
One caveat to all of this is that I said anarcho-capitalism will never work with any large group of people in the real world.
I think it would work very well with small groups or regions. For example, if the USA declared that the state of Wyoming (population of about 500,000) was now an anarcho-capitalist region, with literally no laws, no taxes, and no government protections for anyone at all, instead of a violent Wild West type cluster-fuck that the left wing fears, I think the world would be stunned at how well it would work. I would probably move there myself. Yes, seriously. But that’s just a small state with half a million people inside a civilized, high-tech society. You couldn’t do this with the USA at large, or England, or China. People would just start forming governments again.
I also think that in the far future we will see virtual anarcho-capitalist societies with VR or some future nanotech version of the internet, somewhat like the dark web of today (which I consider a primitive precursor to a virtual anarcho-capitalist “world”).
Take some virtual worlds on some encrypted, international servers using nothing but untraceable cryptocurrency, and boom, there’s your anarchism… just in the virtual world instead of the real one.
I love my anarcho-capitalist brothers and I agree with them completely on a philosophical level. I will even go to Anarchapulco one of these years and I'm sure I will have a great time. But sadly, I’m stuck being a minarchist libertarian instead of a full-blown anarchist.
Facts suck sometimes.
This is not my opinion; this is proven to work; the United States prior to 1913 and Hong Kong prior to the 1990s are clear historical examples of the wondrous things that happen to societies and economies when you keep government as small as you can for as long as you can.
If I dislike government so much (and I do) and know that government is as destructive and harmful as it is, why am I not an anarchist? Or specifically, an anarcho-capitalist, who believes there should be no government and that the private sector can pretty much figure anything out?
Well, my anarcho-capitalist brothers aren’t wrong, in that yes, given enough creativity and technology (and you need a lot of both), I think the free market can indeed take care of just about everything we rely on government to do today. This includes things like roads, courts, military, and so on.
That’s not why I’m not an anarchist. Instead, I’m not an anarchist for the same reason I’m not a communist or true (dictionary version of a) socialist. It’s because anarcho-capitalism, like communism or true socialism, is utopian. Utopia is false. There’s no such thing. There never will be.
You can’t organize large groups (as in millions) of human beings in the real world around utopian concepts. I don’t care if you’re talking about communism or anarcho-capitalism. Granted, I would happily take anarcho-capitalism over communism if those were my only two options, but that doesn’t mean anarcho-capitalism wouldn’t actually accomplish anything.
This is because, as I’ve said before, if you waved a magic wand and made all governments in the entire world disappear, that’s great, but the problem is by 8am tomorrow morning, human beings would immediately start forming governments again. There would be no way to stop them. And most people would accept them. Because humans like government.
I don’t like that they like government. I hate that they like government. But they do.
That’s why anarcho-capitalism will never work on any large scale in the real world. Humans like government too much. That fucking sucks, but those are the facts.
So, based on this undeniable reality, I reluctantly back down one level and instead I’m a minarchist instead of an anarchist. If you want government, okay you morons, fine. But you’d better keep it as small as possible for as long as possible. Unlike anarchy, that’s actually possible. (Certainly difficult, but possible.)
One caveat to all of this is that I said anarcho-capitalism will never work with any large group of people in the real world.
I think it would work very well with small groups or regions. For example, if the USA declared that the state of Wyoming (population of about 500,000) was now an anarcho-capitalist region, with literally no laws, no taxes, and no government protections for anyone at all, instead of a violent Wild West type cluster-fuck that the left wing fears, I think the world would be stunned at how well it would work. I would probably move there myself. Yes, seriously. But that’s just a small state with half a million people inside a civilized, high-tech society. You couldn’t do this with the USA at large, or England, or China. People would just start forming governments again.
I also think that in the far future we will see virtual anarcho-capitalist societies with VR or some future nanotech version of the internet, somewhat like the dark web of today (which I consider a primitive precursor to a virtual anarcho-capitalist “world”).
Take some virtual worlds on some encrypted, international servers using nothing but untraceable cryptocurrency, and boom, there’s your anarchism… just in the virtual world instead of the real one.
I love my anarcho-capitalist brothers and I agree with them completely on a philosophical level. I will even go to Anarchapulco one of these years and I'm sure I will have a great time. But sadly, I’m stuck being a minarchist libertarian instead of a full-blown anarchist.
Facts suck sometimes.
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