Both bad driving and bad voting are dangerous not merely to the individual who practices them, but to innocent bystanders.
Source: The Myth of the Rational Voter (2007) #121
Good intentions are ubiquitous in politics; what is scarce is accurate beliefs.
Source: The Myth of the Rational Voter (2007) #616
Critics of anarcho-capitalism sometimes assume that communal or worker-owned firms would be penalized or prohibited in an anarcho-capitalist society. It would be more accurate to state that while individuals would be free to voluntarily form communitarian organizations, the anarcho-capitalist simply doubts that they would be widespread or prevalent. However, in theory an "anarcho-capitalist" society might be filled with nothing but communes or worker-owned firms, so long as these associations were formed voluntarily (i.e., individuals joined voluntarily and capital was obtained with the consent of the owners) and individuals retained the right to exit and set up corporations or other profit-making, individualistic firms.
Source: Anarchist Theory FAQ
[link] #719Left-anarchists and anarcho-capitalists both look upon wars as grotesque struggles between ruling elites who treat the lives of "their own" people as expendable and the lives of the "other side's" people as worthless. It is here that anarchism's strong distinction between society and the state becomes clearest: whereas most people see war as a struggle between societies, anarchists think that war is actually a battle between governments which greatly harms even the society whose government is victorious. What is most pernicious about nationalist ideology is that is makes the members of society identify their interests with those of their government, when in fact their interests are not merely different but in conflict.
Source: Anarchist Theory FAQ
[link] #724The anarcho-capitalist generally distinguishes between initiatory force against person or property (which he views as wrong), and retaliatory force (which he views as acceptable and possibly meritorious). The anarcho-capitalist condemns the state precisely because it institutionalizes the initiation of force within society. Criminals do the same, differing only in their lack of perceived legitimacy. In principle, both "private" criminals and the "public" criminals who run the government may be both resisted and punished. While it may be imprudent or counter-productive to openly resist state authority (just as it might be foolish to resist a gang of well-armed mobsters), there is a right to do so.
Source: Anarchist Theory FAQ
[link] #735Unlike many observers of history, anarchists see a common thread behind most of mankind's problems: the state. In the 20th-century alone, states have murdered well over 100,000,000 human beings, whether in war, concentration camps, or man-made famine. And this is merely a continuation of a seemingly endless historical pattern: almost from the beginning of recorded history, governments have existed. Once they arose, they allowed a ruling class to live off the labor of the mass of ordinary people; and these ruling classes have generally used their ill-gotten gains to build armies and wage war to extend their sphere of influence. At the same time, governments have always suppressed unpopular minorities, dissent, and the efforts of geniuses and innovators to raise humanity to new intellectual, moral, cultural, and economic heights. By transferring surplus wealth from producers to the state's ruling elite, the state has often strangled any incentive for long-run economic growth and thus stifled humanity's ascent from poverty; and at the same time the state has always used that surplus wealth to cement its power.
Source: Anarchist Theory FAQ
[link] #777Anarcho-capitalists are thinking of how competing firms would prevent the rise of abusive protection monopolists in a society where most people don't support the existence of such a monopolist. It is one thing to suppress a "criminal firm" when it stands condemned by public opinion and the values internalized by that firm's employees; it is another thing entirely to suppress our current "criminal firms" (i.e., governments) when qua institution enjoy the overwhelming support of the populace and the state's enforcers believe in their own cause. When a governing class loses confidence in its own legitimacy -- from the Ancien Regime in France to the Communist Party in the USSR -- it becomes vulnerable and weak. Market checks on government could indeed establish an anarchist society if the self-confidence of the governing class were severely eroded by anarchist ideas.
Source: Anarchist Theory FAQ
[link] #808About Bryan Caplan
Bryan Douglas Caplan (born April 8, 1971) is an American economist and author. Caplan is a professor of economics at George Mason University, research fellow at the Mercatus Center, adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, and former contributor to the Freakonomics blog; he also publishes his own blog, EconLog. He is a self-described "economic libertarian". The bulk of Caplan's academic work is in behavioral economics and public economics, especially public choice theory.
Caplan holds a B.A. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley (1993) and a Ph.D. in economics from Princeton University (1997).
Caplan was cited as one of the leading proponents of the open borders position in articles in The Atlantic and Vox. He has also been quoted on the topic of immigration in outlets such as the Huffington Post and Time magazine.
Caplan's anarcho-capitalist views were discussed by Brian Doherty in his book Radicals for Capitalism and in Reason magazine. Caplan has claimed that anarcho-capitalists have a better claim on the history of anarchist thought than "mainstream anarchists", or "left-anarchists", as he refers to them. However, this claim has been disputed by anarchists.
Additional Resources
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