Anarchists always miss the argument from logical necessity, which I won’t actually make because it is too much effort, but in summary, politics abhors a vacuum. If there is not a formal power you must consent to, there will be an informal one. If there isn’t an informal one, you will shortly be conquered.
In these proposals, what is to stop these security forces from simply conquering anyone and everyone that isn’t under the protection of one? Nothing. Security forces have no reason to fight each other to protect your right not to belong to one. And they will conquer, since the ones that don’t, won’t grow to keep pace. It is thus the same as the example given of a job offer you can’t refuse, except that here the deal offered likely is terrible (since they have no reason to give you a good one.).
Why give up a modern, functional government, where you have an actual say, for an ad-hoc, notably violent one where you have no say? I have a lot of problems with the way governments operate, but this isn’t better. You can always just support getting rid of or reforming nonfunctional and bad governments, and not be an anarchist.
In these proposals, what is to stop these security forces from simply conquering anyone and everyone that isn’t under the protection of one? Nothing. Security forces have no reason to fight each other to protect your right not to belong to one. And they will conquer, since the ones that don’t, won’t grow to keep pace. It is thus the same as the example given of a job offer you can’t refuse, except that here the deal offered likely is terrible (since they have no reason to give you a good one.).
Channeling Huemer, I’d say that the world’s states are in a kind of anarchy and they don’t simply gobble each other up all the time.
Except that is clearly not real anarchy. It is a balance of power between the states. The states themselves ARE the security forces in this proposal. I’m saying that they would conquer everyone who doesn’t belong to one.
Yes, anarcho-capitalists accept that ~everyone will hire a security agency. This isn’t a refutation of anarchism.
The point is that security agencies have incentive to compete on quality, whereas current governments don’t (as much), so the quality of security agencies would be higher than the quality of governments today.
So the example given to decry a hypothetical, obviously bad situation applies even better to what they’re proposing. It’s every bit the same coercion as they’re decrying, but with less personal benefit and choice (you get nothing out of this deal.). And they admit this? This is self-refuting.
Security agencies don’t have any more reason to compete on quality than countries do, it’s actually less, because they have every bit as much force, and you don’t really have any say. What, you’re in the middle of a million people with company A security, and you think you can pick B and they’ll be able to do anything?
Anarchists always miss the argument from logical necessity, which I won’t actually make because it is too much effort, but in summary, politics abhors a vacuum. If there is not a formal power you must consent to, there will be an informal one. If there isn’t an informal one, you will shortly be conquered.
In these proposals, what is to stop these security forces from simply conquering anyone and everyone that isn’t under the protection of one? Nothing. Security forces have no reason to fight each other to protect your right not to belong to one. And they will conquer, since the ones that don’t, won’t grow to keep pace. It is thus the same as the example given of a job offer you can’t refuse, except that here the deal offered likely is terrible (since they have no reason to give you a good one.).
Why give up a modern, functional government, where you have an actual say, for an ad-hoc, notably violent one where you have no say? I have a lot of problems with the way governments operate, but this isn’t better. You can always just support getting rid of or reforming nonfunctional and bad governments, and not be an anarchist.
Channeling Huemer, I’d say that the world’s states are in a kind of anarchy and they don’t simply gobble each other up all the time.
Except that is clearly not real anarchy. It is a balance of power between the states. The states themselves ARE the security forces in this proposal. I’m saying that they would conquer everyone who doesn’t belong to one.
Yes, anarcho-capitalists accept that ~everyone will hire a security agency. This isn’t a refutation of anarchism.
The point is that security agencies have incentive to compete on quality, whereas current governments don’t (as much), so the quality of security agencies would be higher than the quality of governments today.
Yes, but they also have an incentive to use coercion directly, ie. to offer protection from themselves.
So the example given to decry a hypothetical, obviously bad situation applies even better to what they’re proposing. It’s every bit the same coercion as they’re decrying, but with less personal benefit and choice (you get nothing out of this deal.). And they admit this? This is self-refuting.
Security agencies don’t have any more reason to compete on quality than countries do, it’s actually less, because they have every bit as much force, and you don’t really have any say. What, you’re in the middle of a million people with company A security, and you think you can pick B and they’ll be able to do anything?
Both are half true. States do gobble each other up some of the time, and there is some sort of world order, not pure anarchy.