Re: Anarcho-Capitalism Stability

Lee Daniel Crocker (lcrocker@calweb.com)
Mon, 24 Feb 1997 11:04:09 -0800 (PST)


> The most common concern about PPLs is that is that local competition
> will soon result in local authoritarian monopolies, which may be
> difficult to get rid of. This seems to be the result of protection
> agency like competition now in Russia. Another concern is defense
> free riding among PPLs making an area vulnerable to invaders. So it
> is not *obvious* we aren't better off with some sort of minarchy. And
> given minarchy, its not obvious how small a government we can actually
> have.

In what way is it "difficult" to simply stop paying a private business?
If you're going to raise objections to A-C, how about raising some that
might actually exist instead of making them up? Russian mafias believe
in territoriality; they are not a free market. Free riders are a minor
nuisance of the market that is exaggerated to the scale of major failure
to discredit it because the opposition can't come up with much better.
Lighthouses, dams, roads, and bridges get built with private money now,
despite both the free-rider "problem" of the market and the confiscatory
tax rates of the state. We can get rid of the latter problem, but that
doesn't make the former problem worse, it makes it better.

-- 
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com>
<http://www.piclab.com/lcrocker.html>