This is a question I’ve asked myself before, funnily enough, when arguing with anarcho-capitalists. For those who do not follow the ins and outs of libertarian sectarianism, anarcho-capitalists want to replace the state with private institutions, with insurance companies and private security forces substituting for most current government functions. But when I’ve probed into the actual mechanics of this, I’ve often found that anarcho-capitalists end up describing something unpleasantly like a police state, only not called “the government” -- like giving insurance companies and private police forces the ability to perform warrantless at-will searches in order to prosecute crimes. One way or another, society is going to protect itself against theft and violence, rape and murder, and putting those tools in the hands of private parties causes much the same trouble as they do in the hands of the police.Alas, no. The problem is, when the state oversteps its role, there is at least a formal mechanism for addressing that problem -- you can throw the bums out. (Yeah, I know it's not a perfect recourse, but if it were useless why would all those people spend so much time and money trying to achieve electoral results at all?) Once this social contract is swapped out for something more like Facebook's terms of service, however, you get only what you can negotiate -- and with collective bargaining being swept away, you can't negotiate shit.
So when McArdle says, "there may be trade-offs: The price of safely enjoying our vices may be surrendering some of our civil liberties, either to the government or to private parties," it doesn't mean she's had an epiphany; it just means she's gotten smart enough to do false equivalence with a straight face.
One thing you can say about Mme. McArdle, she's not all uptight about The Constitution.
ReplyDeleteBut when I’ve probed into the actual mechanics of this, I’ve often found that anarcho-capitalists end up describing something unpleasantly like a police state, only not called “the government” . . .
ReplyDeleteAnd since all your little glibertarian friends are also pushing to eliminate the concept of liability so corporations cannot be made to answer for anything, well, I think we've moved beyond any concept related to contracts, liberty, freedom, or any of the other buzzwords you and your friends use but do not understand.
Founders original intent: keeping America safe for rich white men who own slaves.
ReplyDelete...and with collective bargaining being swept away, you can't negotiate shit.
ReplyDeleteHey, you've still got arbitration! Your odds of getting something from an arbitrator are technically not zero, what more do you want?
Reading Megan McArdle is like watching a very small child learn how to lie.
ReplyDeleteIt's amusing how, even when she achieves a small measure of self-awareness, she still manages to fail to grasp the big picture. To wit: perhaps the biggest reason you don't want private parties policing is they have a profit motive to find people "suspicious" and/or frame them for all kinds of nonsense. And this is a very different kind of "trouble" than we have with our admittedly in-need-of-much-improvement public police forces. IOW, not "the same trouble" at all.
ReplyDeleteOne way or another, society is going to protect itself against theft and violence, rape and murder, and putting those tools in the hands of private parties causes much the same trouble as they do in the hands of the police.
ReplyDeleteOr way, way more. As much as I hate the cops these days, I'd hate them way more if they had a profit motive for, say, incarcerating children for penny ante bullshit. LIKE PRISON CO ALREADY DOES. Hate hate hate libertarians.
Yeah. It's not like when you give someone a green light to, for example, take other peoples' stuff without due process simply by saying you believe the stuff or money represents the proceeds of, let's say drug trafficking, that anyone would abuse that kind of power to enrich themselves.
ReplyDelete"For those who do not follow the ins and outs of libertarian sectarianism"
ReplyDeleteHuh. So libertarianism does not have a coherent blueprint? UNPOSSIBLE.
It's true, I LOL when my six-year old tries the diversion, denial or destruction of evidence routines. Unlike McMegan though, I fear for the day when young Ms Slacker masters the skills.
ReplyDeleteScratch a libertarian, find a fascist every time.
ReplyDeleteWhen the criminal justice system is privatized,the 4th,5th and 6th amendments will become just another Big Government intrusive regulation on job creaters.
ReplyDelete... I’ve often found that anarcho-capitalists end up describing something
ReplyDeleteunpleasantly like a police state, only not called “the government”...
Megan could not be more right, unless she replaced "unpleasantly like" with "infinitely worse than" and "anarcho-capitalists" with "fucking assholes".
it's like the enlightenment never happened
ReplyDelete"anarcho-capitalism" = "whoever can afford the best private security wins." It's so cool and free and different from our present system, man.
ReplyDeleteThe Gigantosaurus lurking just behind the curtain is that there would be thousands of private security forces and armies and fire departments contending with each other, seeking to enforce the sovereign wishes of the Little Platoon that paid them. I'd pay to watch that.
ReplyDeleteCertain people will remain in the dark all of their lives.
ReplyDeleteIf you didn't get justice from the first warlord you paid, you could hire a competitive warlord who offered more effective service.
ReplyDeleteBut think how the market would produce the cheapest best fire departments via healthy competition for fire-protection dollars!
ReplyDeleteWhat do you mean? Why just the other day I was talking to the chief brigand of the local mob and offered a fair price for them to kill the husband of the woman I fancy.
ReplyDeletei think you meant, "whye juft the other daye..."
ReplyDeleteAnd that kind of competition really does keep costs down.
ReplyDeleteVerily, I wouldst pass the tyme conversing in bad, Renfair English accents with this comment, prithee good Sir.
ReplyDeleteUnpossible!
ReplyDeleteEssentially, they'd be multiplying government by a hundred million or so, and instead of just lazily voting every two years they'd be going to endless meetings seven nights a week. Couldn't we just turn them loose in North Dakota and watch?
ReplyDeleteNo no, of course not! *phones Cable TV station to pitch "Dakota Dystopia" reality show*
ReplyDeleteGotta admit, watching corporations literally going to war with each other would be fun to watch -- as long as I can maintain a safe distance, of course.
ReplyDelete"One way or another, society is going to protect itself against theft and violence, rape and murder..."
ReplyDeleteThe problem here is that private corporate security forces will only care about wrongdoing that affects the corporation. No force employed by a corporation gives a shit if private citizens steal from, rape, or murder each other, as long as the bottom line isn't affected. If private citizens want protection, they can hire their own goons, if they are rich enough, or take some martial arts courses and firearm instruction and arm to the teeth. And for civil legal disputes... hey, get yer OWN lawyer, chump, the best you can afford, and then pay to have your case heard before a private, fee-for-service mediation board. And if the verdict doesn't go your way, well, how many guns and goons do you have? More than the other guy? Jesus, Libertarians want society at large to run like Lord Of The Flies.
Exhibit A: Harpersville and Childersburg blame private probation company for debtors' prison claims
ReplyDeletehttp://www.al.com/news/birmingham/index.ssf/2015/02/harpersville_and_childersburg.html
Yeah, "anarcho-capitalist" is doublespeak for fascist. You can put a candy coating on a rabbit turd, but that doesn't make it an M & M.
ReplyDeleteAnd if we can scrap the criminal code, we can get rid of those pesky arson laws!
ReplyDeleteJust wondering, do any of these libertarians, who I'm guessing aren't suffering for anything in life, ever think anything through, even for thirty seconds?
With maybe a little industrial espionage thrown in. That's the best part about the libertarian brigade - they assume that everyone will follow the rules even when no one is enforcing said rules.
ReplyDeleteAnd they're working hard to spread the endarkenment.
ReplyDeleteNo thank you. GE has a seventy year head start on making giant machine guns and atom bombs. Do Not Want.
ReplyDeleteI was thinking more neo-feudalist - because when there are enough private fiefs, there's got to be one that will accept you, right?
ReplyDeleteIf you didn't get justice from the first warlord you paid, you could hire a competitive warlord who offered more effective service.
ReplyDeleteI would have tried this, but the first warlord took all my money, all my other worldly shit, kicked me out of my house, and sold my kids into slavery. He's just that kind of capitalist.
McArdle always feels like a spoiled little princess who's just started in a public middle school and can't grasp that the world doesn't revolve around her. Type of kid who's not really cruel, just so self-absorbed that she doesn't even acknowledge that other people have needs. And now Princess Megan is in high school and has finally figured out how to paper over the worst aspects of her personality...and wants to be rewarded for it.
ReplyDeleteAnd if her moral evolution continues, in sixty or seventy years, she might write something worth reading.
ReplyDeleteAll we need is an Angie's List for local warlords and their territories.
ReplyDeleteThe libertarians I've met in real life tend to be middle class or lower middle class. They lack for many things--at least in their own minds. And they're convinced that somehow it's government that's preventing them from making their millions.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite is a pilot who works for a company that does nothing but military contract work. His paycheck is cut directly to him by the Navy. He's convinced he'd be rich if the government would just stop with all the regulations. Just how he'd get rich is a mystery to both me and him.
They tried to take over New Hampshire a few years ago. Remember the Free State Project? Then they decided that was too much work and started talking about seasteading before finally settling on Bitcoin as their great liberating force.
ReplyDeleteJesus, Libertarians want society at large to run like Lord Of The Flies.
ReplyDeleteCurrent actual libertarian experiment--Somalia. No government, no taxes, no regulation at all. Just a good, strong religious ethos and bare-knuckled two-fisted every man for himself.
Very kind of you Helmut, I don't share your optimism, however
ReplyDeleteJulie & the Warlord: An Original Short Story by B.J. Novak
ReplyDeleteOkay," she laughed after three complicated cocktails. "Now you, sir…."
"Yes."
"You, sir…. Now…I am…. Okay. I feel like we've only talked about me. But I don't know anything about you. Other than that you're very, um, charming and, well, very cute, of course. Ha, don't let that go to your head! Shouldn't have said that."
http://playboysfw.kinja.com/julie-the-warlord-an-original-short-story-by-b-j-no-1503699838
There's a cluster of libertarian types in SE Kansas, mostly clustered around the remnants of the state's manufacturing base. Of course, manufacturing in Kansas owes a lot to the Cold War-related boom in aerospace, which is why Wichita has been in decline for close to two decades. Most of them are comfortably middle class (for now, at least) - but they all seem to assume that they'd be rich if the Gubmit would go away.
ReplyDeleteActually, I think they're chomping at the bit to break the rules, but lack the empathy to imagine others trying the same strategy too.
ReplyDeleteHey man, not everybody's always going to come out on top in a free market! You just need to stop complaining and boost your competitiveness on the serf market.
ReplyDeleteIsn't this just precious?
ReplyDeleteThose could be M & Ms if not for damn government regulations.
ReplyDeleteThat was a market correction. It's natural.
ReplyDeleteSeasteading. Brings back memories.
ReplyDelete"WTF do you mean you won't deliver groceries to an abandoned oil platform?"
"How DARE you not accept my Ronnies, issued by the Sovereign State of Ron on the Ocean!"
I thought it was the spread of the endarkenment after Obama's election that had their panties in a twist to begin with.
ReplyDeleteAlso: Stonewall Nation. It never seems to work.
ReplyDeleteAs long as he didn't take your bootstraps, you'll be fine.
ReplyDeleteLike the old fire brigades in New York, ripping up rival companies' hydrants, beating the shit out of each other, and setting fires to maintain cash flow.
ReplyDeleteIt's also (speaking from a practical economics perspective) incredibly inefficient. Every dollar that gets spent on policing is a dollar that doesn't get spent on health care or big screen TVs or live music shows or anything that people might enjoy. Socializing the police like every civilized country does is about the best deal you can get, which is why we all do it. Private security for all would require so much duplication of effort* (competing security firms, legal arbitration, prisons, etc) that the economy of this hypothetical libertarian paradise would quickly fall behind everyone else on the planet. I don't see how they could keep their standard of living out of the 14th century, frankly.
ReplyDelete*Not to mention the competing private roads, private air traffic control systems, water and food testing labs, bitcoin verification services, ad nauseum. What's to stop Tepco from renting a warehouse in Libertopia, trucking in half of the Fukushima complex, and bailing on the lease? Good luck arbitrating your way out of that one.
See also: Every aerospace worker in SoCal, libertarian or not. "I got a cushy union job on the gummint tit 30 yrs. ago, why don't you get a good job?"
ReplyDelete"No one could have foreseen...."
ReplyDeleteIt's like she's learned not to pick her nose and eat it, and now uses a tissue to dig out the booger and...doesn't quite put it in her mouth.
ReplyDeleteNot to worry, Megs, we know you for a booger chewer and always will.
Honestagawd, you'd think even the dumbest fuck attached to their 'phone & the iNternet would get that net neutrality is a good thing. I do not get what the keyboard commandos are up to here beyond blind corporate loyalty.
ReplyDeletesomething unpleasantly like a police state, only not called “the government”Now I see why the ultimate dismissal of, for lack of a better term, leftist/ish economics from certain elements is "Won't work, you can't change human nature." The sword cuts both ways.
ReplyDeleteThe real "tell" which gives the Libertarian game away is that they claim that lawsuits could take the place of a sound regulatory structure, while they support candidates who vote for "tort reform".
ReplyDelete"William Gibson and Neal Stephenson proudly present..."
ReplyDeleteYes they do! It's all set down in Heinlein/X-Men/latest video game!
ReplyDeleteSUBURBAN/RURAL WISCONSIN FUCKWIT: Absolutely nothing. And we like it that way.
ReplyDelete(Think of all the free energy we're missing out on, not having electromagnets on Robert La Follette's corpse.)
He's just that kind of capitalist."That kind"?
ReplyDeleteThisse comment has faire mayde me swoon
ReplyDeleteSteale off with me now; I fain woulde lye doon...
"I wouldn't be a member of any fief that would have me as a member." —Sir Groucho Marx
ReplyDeleteI remember seeing a Free State Project on a bumper sticker here in South Dakota and thinking, "What, this glibertarian 'paradise' isn't enough for you?!"
ReplyDeleteSome people really, really deserve to get what they wish for. Unfortunately, they tend to take the rest of us along with them.
Two things immediately stand out to the libertarian visitor: In some ways, it has the most liberty of any place in the U.S. -- and it also has the country’s most developed surveillance state.
ReplyDeleteThis isn't so much a paradoxical contradiction between two ideas as the second making a complete lie out of the first. I have severe doubts that McArdle will ever give the matter enough thought to figure this out.
Objectivism, the product
ReplyDeleteOf schoolgirl fantasy
She wants it so badly
It only costs daddy
Inside her skull is nothing
But hidden wingnut rage
Ayn Randing psycho now
Says "fuck your living wage"
Don't stand
Don't stand
Don't stand so close to me
Gan.
Never bet against the house.
ReplyDeleteOh, it happened, they just want to repeal it:
ReplyDeletehttp://crookedtimber.org/2005/05/05/janice-rogers-brown-revisited/
I like the cut of this warlord's jib. He sounds like a go-getter.
ReplyDeleteIl Duce was not hurting for corporate support, IIRC.
ReplyDeleteTheir opposition requires no justification beyond Cleek's law.
ReplyDelete"One way or another, society is going to protect itself against theft and violence, rape and murder..."
ReplyDeleteSociety doesn't typically get raped, murdered, etc.
Society's more of a giver than receiver in those fields.
ReplyDeleteNope, sure wasn't.
ReplyDeleteWhat I learned about McArdle today is that she's never read Oath of Fealty. If she had, she'd realize that surrendering your civil liberties to privatized law enforcement actually turns out just fine, because you get a really nice apartment in return, and because the only people who are out to cause trouble are insane hippie terrorists. All we need to do to ensure that it'll turn out this way is to make sure the world is written by Niven and Pournelle.
ReplyDeleteBlind corporate loyalty + eliminate any and all opposition
ReplyDeleteThe Law of the Jungle doesn't have many rules, but one of 'em is "Never touch a man's bootstraps." Ya just don't.
ReplyDeleteDon’t be that whiner.
ReplyDeleteAnd not even the pretense of the Geneva Convention.
ReplyDeleteAllowing the Inquisitors to appropriate any belongings of those they charged with heresy was SUCH a great idea--too good to lie fallow.
ReplyDeleteGeez, remind me how this is ANY different than raw, turbulent, feudal brigandage?
ReplyDeleteIt's the Roman way.
ReplyDeleteFief? Or schtetl?
ReplyDeleteOnly to a certain extent. We can look at real-world examples from either side.
ReplyDeleteFrom the libertarian view, there's Somalia.
From the leftish view, there's Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark--all countries with socialist governments, extremely high standards of living, and producing genuine changes in how people view themselves and their roles in society.
The sword scythes through glibertarianism, but runs in rock trying to cut the other way.
Jonathan! Jonathan!
ReplyDeleteStop Jonathan E, you stop Houston.
I knew once "pushing to eliminate" was in the mix someone would go straight for the turd jokes.
ReplyDeleteIts worse than that. Every dollar that isn't spent on early childhood education, care, and humane support costs us 7 dollars in later prison/judicial/remeidiation costs.
ReplyDeleteAlso there are problems with multi-player corporations which are significantly worse than problems individuals have with a single government. For instance the tragedy of the commons or rather the problem of externalities is greatly increased with competition between corporate entities. And responsibility for poor outcomes almost entirely vitiated. We know exactly how this works because Crassus made his money back in Ought63 or so with a private fire department. His slaves would set the fires and then refuse to put them out until the property owner had signed his property over to Crassus. Thus combining firefighting and urban renewal in one grand plan.
ReplyDeleteWhere there is no government competing corporations would both a) destroy the surrounding terrain in their race to the bottom and b) refuse to honor any constraint or practice vis a vis their supposed clients. Who, after all, would make them? In the Crassus style case if you didn't like Crassus's refusal to put out your fire and you tried to choose another fire department the two fire departments would either duke it out while your buiding burned or collude to steal your property.
Beat me to it.
ReplyDeleteThat's how you get, "hey, I'm a left-libertarian! Not like those other guys!"
ReplyDeleteThat dumbest fuck would be that slimy fuckstick Rush Limbaugh.
ReplyDeleteHe could have used Adam Smith's phrase, "guns or butter," but it just wasn't dog-whistley enough.
ReplyDeleteAnd now that capitalism has determined they're in the way, those laws are being eroded. Does anyone want to bet against capitalism here, the system that owns the casino, brings its own deck, shuffles, deals and even writes the rules? I don't.
ReplyDeleteCapitalism only permits this kind of parliamentary shit to happen for as long as it has to. If the opportunity arises, usually via crisis, to wreck it all, beat it back, it will; and those crises are inherent to the system, they are frequent and inevitable.
I really don't see any future for "vote the bums out", because our democracy is simply a part of capitalism. People who are much more resourceful, much more committed, much more organized than we are have tried to beat the system from within, and in the long run they fail. See: Europe, Latin America. What hope do we have then following the same strategy?
Yeah, if you hand around libertarians enough you'll eventually hear them say that, well, you know, a little bit of fraud and deception should be allowed in the marketplace. Or a lot.
ReplyDelete...unregulated.
ReplyDeleteEndarkenment, or endorkenment? I acknowledge that may be a distinction without a difference.
ReplyDelete"It's a fair cop, but society is to blame."
ReplyDelete"Agreed. We'll be charging them too."
—Monty Python, "Dead Vicar on the Landing" sketch
Where should I send your prize for having won all the internets today?
ReplyDeleteIf the opportunity arises, usually via crisis, to wreck it all, beat it back, it will; and those crises are inherent to the system, they are frequent and inevitable.
ReplyDeleteHistorically, such crises have actually produced nearly opposite results. Just look back on 20th century America. The financial panics that opened the century paved the way for the anti-trust laws that broke up the big oil combines. The Great Depression gave rise to the web of labor laws we enjoy today, as well as solidifying and legitimizing the role of unions in our society. The twin-drain crises of the 1960s (Viet Nam and The Great Society) laid the groundwork for EPA, OSHA, an overhaul of FDA and the Department of Agriculture.
So, historically, capitalism can only game the system so far before fear of revolution starts to kick in. Any anyone who thinks "oh, can't happen here" is living in dream land. Each of the events described above had lots of people rioting in the streets before they happened. The extremely wealthy players like the Kochs want to tip the playing field in their favor, but they're smart enough to not knock the table over because they know what would follow would NOT be paradise, and would probably involve their own corpses hanging from streetlights.
Oddly enough, 1981 (when this book was written) was around the time that I lost interest in Niven's work.
ReplyDeletePower bottom.
ReplyDeleteThere's a good article here about the founder of Silk Road and how he started out with libertarian ideals and ended up arrested after he tried to hire the Hells Angels to whack someone who attempted to blackmail him. No gods, no masters, but violent bikers on speed-dial.
ReplyDeleteAs I've said, many times, libertarians (particularly glibertarians) really want exactly as much government as they can personally use. MegMac doesn't really care about what happens to the poors as long as nobody steals her Thermomix.
ReplyDeleteThe libertarians I've met in real life tend to be middle class or lower middle class.
ReplyDeleteSo basically, they've probably always had a roof over their heads (one that can reasonably be expected to not be on fire at any given moment) but can't always buy the latest iphone. Which, in conjunction with a general lack of critical thinking skills, very nicely explains why they never stop to consider whether capitalist systems that work decently to keep down the prices of nonessential consumer goods might not work for basic necessities like fire protection.
You can see this reasoning writ larger in the GOP healthcare "plans" that have been put forth. Let everyone shop for everything and remove all the constraints!
ReplyDeleteSo, as you lie on the pavement gasping like a fish, you can use your smartphone to get a listing of all the cardiac-care centers within 100 miles. Then you can call each of them to inquire about treatments, rates, ambulance and transport costs, etc. Then you can use your smartphone to do extensive Google research on which treatments work best (after using Google to figure out exactly what your condition is), then do a cost analysis and choose the best option.
Or you could just fucking croak. I think most rightwingers would prefer you do that, but trying to accomplish all that shopping will likely produce the same result.
"The extremely wealthy players like the Kochs want to tip the playing field in their favor, but they're smart enough to not knock the table over because they know what would follow would NOT be paradise, and would probably involve their own corpses hanging from streetlights."
ReplyDeleteDo the Kochs and their fellow bloodsuckers know this, though? I have my doubts. They may not be stupid per se, but ego and hubris can blind even the most intelligent people to actual reality.
Magic 8-Ball sez "Maybe." In the past, they have. As recently as 2008-2009, there were quite a few of the .01% who were clamoring for re-instating some of the regulations that had been repealed. They essentially said, "Save us from ourselves!!!!" Frank-Dodd was the result, though Chris Dodd proved too stupid and venal when it came to crafting the law that would bear his name. He caved to the moron-half of the oligarchs, and as a result the law as not nearly was effective as the smarter plutocrats wanted.
ReplyDeleteMaybe she did the math and it wasn't pretty, even when it was off by an order of magnitude. McArdle has no problem unloading expenses on the government.
ReplyDelete"When I’ve probed into the actual mechanics of this" = "when I overheard Peter and his friends describe their Scandinavian girl bodyguards who protect them in Freedonia."
They don't plan on being around when the lesser elite start to swing. http://www.theguardian.com/public-leaders-network/2015/jan/23/nervous-super-rich-planning-escapes-davos-2015
ReplyDelete(Gefixt:) Artbeit der Andere macht Freistadt.
ReplyDeleteWhat we'll get is a Craigslist...
ReplyDeleteFootfall was pretty fun if you don't think about it too much, and The Integral Trees was at least a good idea.
ReplyDeleteI didn't precisely lose interest with that one, though "think of it as evolution in action" pegged my WTF-O-Meter, bigtime.
ReplyDeleteRingworld 3 (whatever it was actually called) did it for me, because that's when I realized he was pretty much writing for his hardcore fans that do calculus in their heads for fun.
Recall Alan Greenspan being honestly surprised that the financial geniuses of Wall Street would actually take advantage of bank deregulation to enrich themselves in a way that put the entire system at risk of collapse. He really couldn't imagine that could happen. Fucking tool.
ReplyDeleteThe first order of business for a libertarian society will be to auction of the definition of liberty to the highest bidder.
ReplyDeleteWell, that's what he said. Its not so bad to be thought a moron when you're fantastically wealthy. The important thing is to stay out of jail.
ReplyDeleteReminds me of a Georgette Heyer book where one character complains about police directing traffic at intersections. "Why can't a regular person do it?" "Because," the heroine replies "If a regular person did it he'd BE a police man!" "There's something wrong with your argument," person #1 says "But I can't put my finger on exactly what!"
ReplyDeleteI imagine a lot of conversations like that around Libertarians.
COMMENT OF THE DAY!!!!11
ReplyDeleteAnd get rid of Law Enforcement.
ReplyDeleteI'm saving this comment to my hard-drive for future reference.
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking SO HARD about passing a tax on Prison profits to be spent on early childhood intervention.
ReplyDeleteImagine Comcast controlling the entire World Wide Internet.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea that "Evolution in Action" means humanity returning to the Feudal state! We never had it so good as during the Dark Ages.
ReplyDeleteInconceivable!
ReplyDelete"they'd be going to endless meetings seven nights a week"
ReplyDeleteAssuming the guys with the hired muscle don't "encourage" them to stay home and stay out of it.
A real American learns to make his own bootsratps
ReplyDelete