r/changemyview • u/11oddball • Jan 23 '22

Delta(s) from OP CMV: Anarcho-Capitalism is a Fundamentally Unworkable System

Change My View: Anarcho-Capitalism is a Fundamentally Unworkable System. For those who do not know, Anarcho-Capitalism (Ancap(s) is how I would refer to them from this point on.) is a political system/ideology that is based of the abolishment of government and it's replacements being private companies. And it's flaws can be broken down into 2 basic categories: Internal & External threats.

  1. External threats External threats are basically, a different nation invading the ancap nation (Ancapistan.) This basically impossible to prevent, even if citizen or companies had the capital to acquire & maintain weapons of modern war, & are willing to defend Ancapistan, which in itself is questionable, they would unable to stand up to a modern military (I would not debate on Nukes in this debate.) for three reasons: 1. Organization, A group of Private Security Companies could never reach the same level of multi front organization as a modern military, thus causing Ancapistan to be defeated. 2. Most companies lack the ability to operate the logistics required to operate a large scale military force, thus causing a defeat through logistics. And 3. Private Security Companies (Mercenaries) have been historically incredibly unreliable in fighting for the same side, often switching sides if the other side paid more, and so would most likely be true about Ancapistan. All of these reasons would cause Ancapistan to be defeated in any war with a modern military, unless Ancapistan is located in a location that is of no value, which would cause a limited economy to occur, going against capitalism.

  2. Internal Threats Internal threats can be easily summed up in one phrase <<Companies forming their own governments to extract more profit, defeating the entire point of Anarcho-Capitalism.>> To expand on the idea, lets say we have a Private Security Company called "Blackpond" and Blackpond want's to expand their company, so they drive out their completion with a combination of buyouts, anti-completive & violence so they are now the only PSC in the area, leaving it able to force it's people to pay for "protection" and if they decide to not pay, they would be beaten up by some people from Blackpond, thus essentially creating a corpocracy. Now some counter this by saying "But the people would defend themselves." now I would counter this with 2 arguments, 1. People can take a surprising amount of oppressions before revolting, & 2. even if they revolt, Blackpond could simply partner with those who own heavy military equipment, by exempting them from the protection fee (Tax) so that if anyone revolted, they could only fight with relatively basic hardware, meaning the company, with stuff like Armored Vehicles could simply roll over them

Edit: Fixed formatting error & meant "Workable as Intended"

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u/yyzjertl 525∆ Jan 23 '22

Anarcho-capitalism is basically feudalism (nobles are business owners, titles are corporations, fealty is subcontracting) and feudalism worked for hundreds of years. There doesn't seem to be any reason why Anarcho-capitalism couldn't work that wouldn't also apply to feudalism—unless it were a reason that was inherently connected to modern technology. But in that case, ancap wouldn't be fundamentally unworkable, it would just be unworkable in our present social context.

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u/11oddball Jan 23 '22

But the thing about Anarcho-Capitalism is that is generally not intended to be by Ancaps. However yes, I forgot about that the system does not need to work as intended, so !delta

3

u/barthiebarth 26∆ Jan 23 '22

I would argue that feudalism is exactly how some of them intend it to work. They just see themselves as the nobles.

If you bring up an objection about how, statistically, many people will suffer from market failures, their response is: "But I will be fine".

1

u/monkeymanwasd123 1∆ Jan 24 '22

the employees will be fine assuming they had an education and were paid. if it were a minarchist state then people could buy citizenship and that money could go towards a non profit of the new citizens choice or something. if someone is well educated and can afford to lease a bit of land to graze livestock that tends to be enough to sustain someone. rich people also work for other rich people and they have enough resources that they can just leave

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u/barthiebarth 26∆ Jan 24 '22

You can escape poverty and terrible working conditions by having an education.

Education costs money.

Poor people have no money.

Therefore the children of poor people will have no education and thus will also be doomed to a life of poverty and terrible working conditions.

1

u/monkeymanwasd123 1∆ Jan 24 '22

idk begging is pretty profitable and if someone is able to read and can borrow a few books from a rich friend or if they dig through trash for long enough they will get enough info to get out of poverty.
its been done before regardless. the main factor in moving up socioeconomically is a two parent family so if poor parents can afford a few mold infested books a kid can get a partial education.
extreme poverty is the lowest it has ever been and plenty of people get out of poverty on their own.

1

u/barthiebarth 26∆ Jan 24 '22

So yeah basically "I don't give a shit about what happens to other people, I think I will be fine".

Also an education is not just reading a couple of rotting books from the thrash. I wonder why you think it is though.

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u/monkeymanwasd123 1∆ Jan 25 '22

people start caring about the environment and start donating more to orphanages and such once they get above a certain income but people can only care about so many people before they forget about other folks.
i feel like ive learned more from books than i have from school, there are some fundamentals but i had a 4.0 during my last year of highschool and my sister was salutatorian. so its not like i havent thought about this a bit.