Instigator / Pro
8
1761
rating
31
debates
95.16%
won
Topic
#5412
THB: Anarcho-capitalism
Status
Finished
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
Winner & statistics
After 2 votes and with 6 points ahead, the winner is...
Savant
Parameters
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Rated
- Number of rounds
- 3
- Time for argument
- One week
- Max argument characters
- 15,000
- Voting period
- One month
- Point system
- Multiple criterions
- Voting system
- Open
- Minimal rating
- 1,692
Contender / Con
14
1740
rating
23
debates
100.0%
won
Description
Full resolution: This house advocates for anarcho-capitalist political/economic philosophy in which all states are abolished.
Definitions
• Anarcho capitalist - Anarcho-capitalism (colloquially: ancap or an-cap) is an anti-statist, libertarian political philosophy and economic theory that seeks to abolish centralized states in favor of stateless societies with systems of private property enforced by private agencies, based on concepts such as the non-aggression principle, free markets and self-ownership.
• State - A nation or territory considered as an organized political community under one government which is funded by taxation and is, amongst other functions, the sole arbiter/provider of certain goods and services (e.g, police, writing of law).
• Advocates - actively supports or favors a cause
Qualification
• As agreed to prior, this debate concerns whether a stateless society ought to be advocated over a society with states - it does not concern whether such a world is currently feasible.
Rules
1. Apply the principle of charity
2. Only Savant may accept
Round 1
Meta-analysis
Given the complexity of the issue, an analysis on all contingencies is impossible. Thus, I will attempt to offer as comprehensive a case as possible, per the particular concerns Savant will raise in the first round, be it matters of health, law enforcement or education. Voters oughtn't cast votes based on personal or preconceived issues they may have with the proposed system.
Introduction
Protection racketeering was a popular means for crime syndicates in the late 1900’s to extort money in exchange for protection from violence and ransacking. Ironically, such apparatus violate individual rights with threats of antagonism, and then promise to use your payments to prevent further ransacking - that is, they violate your rights in order to protect your rights from being violated.
Prolific as the “Kray twins” or the Sicilian mafia may have been in these practices, the most triumphant perpetrators of such practices are modern day States. Be it the relationship one has with their partner, doctor or attorney, in contemporary society, there is simply no union as intrusive or volatile as the one with the State, who without prior agreement, maintains the right to seize your property and autonomy if their rules are not followed. Within this debate, I seek to critique those societies with a monopolistic body of governance, and envision a world in which we are free from them to pursue the lives our liberty desires.
Roadmap
- Why ought the State be evicted?
- Philosophically unjustified
- Taxation
- What Statelessness can do.
- Evict the State monopoly
- Defence and security
- Trade monopolies
- Conclusion
1. Why ought the State be evicted?
Philosophically unjustified
- Argumentation ethics
- To demonstrate why the State is a hindrance, I will first justify a libertarian framework of ethics, deriving the NAP and property rights a priori, and then showing how this is incompatible with the existence of a state.
- What ingredients are necessary in proposing a sound ethic? First, I propose Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s Argumentation Ethics. As he states -
- In other words, Hoppe recognises that the act of proposing an ethic (argumentation) contains normative presuppositions. These norms therefore must be accounted for in an ethic, for if one's proposal fails to accommodate these considerations, they will be performing a dialectic contradiction.
- Arguments are a persuasive activity. They seek to investigate some matter and calibrate its results towards truthfulness. This project is aided by a non-coercion clause - suppose two interlocutors are in argument, and one agent assaults the other, resulting in a concession. In such an instance, argumentation is forgone truth is not obtained. Thus, a normative precondition of argumentation is non-aggression (herein after the NAP)
- Another precondition for argument seems to be the right to exclusively control and consume external resources - indeed these things are necessary for life itself. Naturally, one must also have the right to occupy a given amount of physical space with his body before he may be able to argue at all. Thus, another normative precondition of argumentation includes property rights.
- What is the mechanism for acquiring property rights? Consistent with libertarian ethics and the, the only way to do such would be original appropriation (homesteading) or voluntary trade.
- Hoppe’s shows that these principles are naturally derived in the following representation;
- justification is propositional justification - a priori true is - statement;
- argumentation presupposes property in one’s body (NAP) and the homesteading principle - a priori true is - statement;
- then, no deviation from this ethic can be argumentatively justified - a priori is - statement.
- Justification schema
- In addition to the NAP and property rights being praxeological presuppositions, a further justification schema can be applied to test its cogency. Three categories are commonly used to test for an ethics soundness.
- Universalizability - Kantian categorical imperative
- Practically achievable
- Cannot conflict with the norms presupposed in discourse (argumentation ethics)
- Notably, both libertarian principles pass the three requirements. There is no contradiction in everyone abstaining from aggression and occupying some space, these states are very much achievable and they do not conflict with the norms of argument.
Thus, the NAP and property rights are derivable a priori, and also pass the justification schema of ethics. An implication of these principles are its incompatibility with the State.
- Decision making
- The State holds the exclusive right to arbitrate the outcomes of private conflicts. Yet, any uninvited initiation of force is disavowed by the NAP, hence, the States unequivocal force is illegitimate.
- Rule enforcement
- The State intrudes the private lives of individuals, historically dictating what gender people can sleep with and what substances they can consume. These violations of bodily autonomy are then enforced with might, and hence violate the NAP.
- Taxation
- The issue with taxation will be expanded on below, but in brief, taxes appropriate ones property (their earnings) without consent, and hence violate both the NAP and property rights.
- Property
- With the only ways of acquiring property being original appropriation and trade, it is clear that the State has done neither, outside of merely declaring such to be so. Thus, the States jurisdiction on property which is not theirs is unfounded.
Thus, having deduced that libertarian ethics is sound from first principles, its entailments that the state is an immoral apparatus which oughtn't govern individuals follows.
Taxation
- Taxation is slavery
- One's income ceteris paribus arises from labour. Thus, for the state to nonconsensually expropriate some part of this income is for them to take part of one's labour, which is akin to slavery. At the very least, in the circumstance that one disallows it, taxation is the theft of one's property. Regardless of what good the money is being spent on, that taxation nonconsensually takes some income is still theft. Thus the State ought to be evicted from its unequivocal use of crime.
- Taxation slows civilisation
- All societies have time preferences for certain goods or services.
- A high time preference can be understood as wanting some item immediately, whereas a low time preference can be understood as being able to hold off on wanting the item (perhaps in the form investing money for future returns as opposed to spending it immediately). Two things are of note
- Often, those with lower time preference have a greater supply of present goods, hence they have excess resources to dedicate into the future.
- Often, a society with high time preference is less advanced, because it moves towards bare subsistence and immediate satisfaction, as opposed to having concern for more than the mere future.
- Taxation most heavily impacts those homesteading, producing and trading in large quantities (property, business).
- Because these activities require prior supply of goods, these activities are often done by those with low time preference.
- Thus, taxation heavily affects those activities pursued by low time preference activities, thereby promoting high time preference activities, which is necessarily decivilising.
- The States perpetuation of tax thus ought to exempt it from consideration within society.
2. What Statelessness can do
Evict the State monopoly
- Economics
- In addition to the moral violations, the existence of the State is pragmatically unbeneficial for the people.
- The majority of economists agree that monopolies are deleterious to consumers, given they blockade the “free entry” into a line of production and prevent quality improvement.
- Here, monopolies are understood as an apparatus with near exclusive privilege in the production of a services or product.
- The function of the State is to be the sole provider of certain amenities, such as the writing of law and its enforcement, security, infrastructure developments and the distribution of taxes into fields of research and expansion.
- Because the States function satisfies the definition of a monopoly, it must be so that the State is thus not beneficial to the people.
- Incentive
- Because the State can never be evicted, it has no incentive to provide desirable goods or services to individuals. No matter how poorly and untimely the police respond, it has no external pressure of eviction, and hence no real imperative for improvement. Contrast this to a provider on the free market, who would be negatively impacted if such an attitude was adopted.
Defence and security (D&S)
- Currently, the State is the sole provider of the sort of defence and security which can perform their job without being reprimanded (contemporary private security are afforded far less flexibility to perform their job than the police). This monopoly faces huge issues.
- Economic calculation problem
- Because D&S is paid for via compulsory taxation, there exists no market price for individual sectors and pursuits, meaning the state lacks an accurate pricing mechanism which evaluates the profitability of its operation. Thus the State cannot calculate the cost of producing each service, thereby necessarily wasting resources, failing to represent what people want, and being inefficient.
- What is worse is that the State bears no incentive at all - because they are fuelled by taxes, and hold a monopoly of power, they can provide as bad a service as they desire, whilst maintaining the same level of income.
- What does incentivise the State is the maintenance of power ie re-election. Thus, because the State holds ultimate authority over the law and the means for its enforcement, it is not difficult to imagine an exchange of favourable policy decisions and campaign funding between special interest groups and the government.
- The State is contractless
- The State offers no guarantee of providing any services to you - they face no legal repercussion if your call for emergency services is denied, or if they offer inadequate services to you. This is because the relationship with the state is contractless, with the only thing being certain is that you must pay them taxes for the service. As Hoppe put it, the offer on hand is as follows - “I will not contractually guarantee you anything. I will not tell you what specific things I will regard as your to be protected property, nor will I tell you what I oblige myself to do if, according to your opinion, I do not fulfil my service to you but in any case, I reserve the right to unilaterally determine the price that you must pay me for such undefined service”
- Privatisation of D&S
- Unequivocally, the stateless solution of privatisation necessarily solves the issue of incentive, the economic calculation problem and the issue of contracts. All agencies clearly have an incentive, they are priced within the market and offer contracts guaranteeing some service.
- In addition to sidestepping the above issues, a privatised model would come with huge benefits.
- Because these agencies themselves want profit, and their business is the safety of people, all of their actions would be calibrated towards the maximum safety for the people. Some actions taken may include
- Incentivise people to live in safe and easily defensible areas.
- Incentivise good behaviour by offering higher and lower prices to those poorly and well behaved.
- Incentivise people to be defensively capable, thereby promoting general safety.
- Contrast this to the State, who would actually profit from you being harmed and hence pursuing action in the costly legal paradigm which they so happen to own. The Stateless solution thus not only provides superior service, but also promotes good conduct.
Trade monopolies
- One major concern which is frequently raised is whether a Stateless society would result in uncontrollable monopolies, who act as a defacto fascist state which has the ability to arbitrarily control prices, enforce edict and ideology, and violently hold their dominance with arms.
- Ironically, this description matches that of the current State - thus, the critique amounts to disregarding a stateless society because it will result in the status quo.
- However, there are multiple reasons to suppose this would not happen.
- Lack of state intervention
- In a truly free market, the absence of aggressive barriers to entries, as are currently issued by the state, will create a larger threat of competition.
- Worst case
- Even consider what happens if the worst case actualises - a water company unjustifiably triples their rates because of their monopoly.
- Such a state is unsustainable - suppose you have achieved a monopoly. These bankrupted parties will sell their equipment for low prices, allowing new competition and undamaged investors to capitalise on the opportunity to undercut the monopoly
- People will adjust their lifestyles and be more conserved with the water they have whilst utilising water tanks, hence minimising the demand for water and lowering profits for companies.
- If original rates are not restored, competing companies will enter the market with more competitive prices.
- Future customers will be deterred from moving into this dominion, which results in a loss of business.
- Even if original rates are restored, people may have adapted, and the demand for the water would have permanently dropped.
- For the monopoly to even be achieved in the first place, the company would have needed to gain the trust of consumers. This would mean throwing away all the efforts that had gone into creating this image, which is far more valuable than brute money.
Conclusion
Westerners often look at Chinese media and laugh at how blatant the propaganda is - how the fantastical portrayal of aircraft and naval victory inculcates citizens into believing their system of governance to be superior. That is, until they remember the success of Top Gun: Maveric. The reason for such stumbling contradictions is because people who have been indoctrinated seldom know it. Although the idea of a Stateless society is radical and ostensibly silly, I urge all readers to consider it as not only a viable alternative, but the preferable one.
Framework:
Definitions
Is-ought fallacy: Assuming fallaciously that because things are a certain way, they should be that way.
Non-aggression principle (NAP): The principle of having the freedom to do what one wishes except using force on someone else
Presupposition: Something one already believes is true
Prima facie: Under default circumstances
Universalizable: Applicable to every similar situation
Burdens
The value that should underpin this debate is the common good. This will give a better picture of the interests of society than the non-aggression principle alone. Both a stateless society and our current society will inevitably involve many cases where the non-aggression principle is violated. Respecting liberty and property rights often leads to a better society long-term, but sometimes it is necessary to sacrifice some liberty for the common good. Furthermore, there are several factors that Pro is not taking into account.
Good outweighing bad - Pro gives moral imperatives throughout his case. They hold that unjust systems ought to be evicted and that society as a whole ought to encourage this transition. If someone ought to take action, then it is likely that the moral good from said action will outweigh the bad, even if it comes at the expense of liberty.
Take the case of stealing bread to feed a starving child. The good from feeding them is saving a life, which is a much stronger consideration than a commodity like bread.
Moral duties - Individuals and society have a social responsibility to help severely disabled people and orphans who can’t survive on their own, through taxes or other means. None of us would survive if no one had helped us as children, so it is both fair and practical to acknowledge a social responsibility toward others, since this kind of cooperation is necessary for everyone.
Feasibility - I agree that aggression is bad prima facie, but avoiding things that are wrong prima facie in even extreme circumstances leads to some absurd conclusions. For example, speeding is wrong prima facie because it puts people at risk, but if you’ve been stabbed and need to get to the hospital quickly, that risk is acceptable. Driving a car causes some harm to the environment, but many people live in places where not using a car isn’t feasible.
Equality - The “every man for themselves” system of homesteading allows individuals to claim large amounts of a limited resource and disproportionately harms those born in bad situations such as orphans.
Strong foundations for common good - Significant research on dual process theory has found that the decision to prioritize the common good is usually driven by logical thinking, whereas the decision to follow the NAP under even extreme circumstances is usually driven by snapshot emotional thinking. Hence, potential moral knowledge supporting a common good framework has a stronger foundation and is more likely to be sound.
I will note that experts in certain fields can sometimes develop strong instincts such that their emotions have some weight, but this requires a strong feedback loop. Until I’ve won and lost a lot of chess games, my gut instinct about what move to play next is way less reliable than thinking through possible moves logically. Since a similar feedback loop does not exist for moral decisions (no answer key will tell me if I was correct in a moral judgment), we are choosing between unreliable emotions that support libertarian ideas vs more logical reasoning in support of the common good.
“argumentation presupposes property in one’s body (NAP) and the homesteading principle”
I dispute that proposing a moral framework presupposes this. Pro argues that one must have these rights before they can argue at all, but this is an is-ought fallacy. The fact that someone is doing something when making an argument does not mean they are justified in doing that thing.
“these things are necessary for life itself/may be able to argue at all”
I do agree with Pro that the ideal moral framework will likely yield a world where people have resources necessary for life and are able to argue effectively. Hence we should seek to maximize the common good through safety nets and education, to ensure that people have the resources necessary for life and are educated enough to make good arguments.
“Universalizability”
The NAP is not universalizable, since libertarians already concede exceptions for self-defense. So why not make more exceptions for the common good? Universalizability is less efficient at reaching moral conclusions than just prioritizing the common good in the first place. The most common defense for universalizability is that we should only follow rules if following them at all times makes society better off. But if the end goal is to make society better off, we should just cut out the middleman and follow a common good framework. Stealing to feed a starving child is not an endorsement for people to steal for selfish reasons, because one case helps the common good while the other doesn’t.
Universalizability, ironically, is not universalizable. Taken to its logical extreme, it would lead to absurd conclusions. It wouldn’t make sense to say “you shouldn’t ever drink water, because if everyone always drank water every moment of the day, they’d have no time to do anything else.”
Common good theory leaves more room for nuance. Sometimes declaring war is necessary, and other times it is crazy. Details and circumstances can affect whether a decision is good or bad.
“Practically achievable”
Practicality refers to usefulness, and trying to improve the common good is the system that will be the most useful in helping society. Even if achievable, abolishing the state is not useful in meeting people’s needs if governments are a net benefit for the common good (and I will show that they are).
Criteria
Three metrics will be important when valuing the common good. Measuring range of opportunities weighs legal restrictions against increased opportunities offered by government programs. Measuring the effect of state actions on crime rates allows us to see which system reduces the most severe forms of aggression. Finally, measuring poverty reduction allows us to see which system can meet individuals’ basic needs.
1. “Why ought the State be evicted?”:
“Decision making/Rule enforcement”
Many laws are akin to self-defense (such as laws against murder). Furthermore, the private defense agencies Pro advocates are more likely to violate rights unjustly than the state. Most groups that arise would likely be terrorist organizations taking advantage of the lack of government. Power vacuums in the middle east have seen the rise of terrorist groups like ISIS and the Taliban without strong governments to combat them. Europe has seen several terrorist attacks per year, with the majority of attempts being foiled by the government. In the absence of formalized governments, terrorist groups can violate human rights and civil liberties on a huge scale without providing for the common good.
“dictating what gender people can sleep with”
Honor killings have become more prominent in Europe and are extremely common in Pakistan where they are rarely enforced. In the absence of governments, this practice is likely to become widespread. ISIS and the Taliban have spread and enforced sharia law during power vacuums, so abolishing current formalized states will exacerbate the issue of killings based on sexual relations.
“Taxation/slavery”
Slavery is being owned by someone else. Taxing someone’s paycheck is not the same as owning them. Taxes contribute to the common good by increasing opportunities, especially for the poor.
“Taxation slows civilisation”
Pro argues that taxes punish those who invest and hold off on buying things. On the contrary, investments in R&D often come with tax savings, and those with high time preferences will pay sales taxes, which are even higher if they buy harmful substances like cigarettes. These tobacco taxes have been found to help reduce smoking.
Money has diminishing marginal returns in creating happiness, meaning that huge wealth disparities are not the most efficient way for money to be allocated. Higher income earners pay more taxes, and this money can be spent on highways, public transport, and public education, which can help increase opportunities for disadvantaged groups. Hence this new allocation of resources is more efficient in providing for the common good.
2. “What Statelessness can do”:
“Evict the State monopoly”
Not all monopolies are bad. Natural monopolies like utilities are more efficient as a regulated monopoly than as a mess of competition. Government regulation can prevent them from abusing their power. A government isn’t comparable to a monopoly anyway because laws and regulations aren’t commodities. Areas that impact the common good, such as research and development or highways, suffer from the free rider problem on an open market. Individuals can donate to these causes, but donations alone aren’t enough to fund them. So not only is government research not a monopoly, it’s necessary for the majority of R&D to actually get done.
“Incentive”
The state does have an incentive to keep the people happy, because leaders can be voted out (in democracies) or deposed (in oligarchies). Governments cannot survive long-term without support from the people. Harvard political scientist Erica Chenoweth has calculated that on average only 3.5% of the population of a country must be willing to protest to depose an unpopular leader.
“Defence and security”
Private defense agencies suffer from the free rider problem. The main benefit of the police is deterring crime in general, so an individual paying a private defense agency does not specifically help that customer. Criminals will have no way of knowing whether the person they are attacking belongs to a private defense agency, and these agencies won’t necessarily know if the criminals they catch wind of are specifically targeting their customers. Hence, there’s no significant incentive for individuals to pay these agencies, and they will not have enough funding to catch criminals (a tragedy of the commons).
Furthermore, countries with large power vacuums have seen the rise of terrorist groups but not the rise of effective private defense agencies. International cooperation has been the greatest driving force behind fighting terrorism, yet none of these crises have led to the emergence of non-insane private defense agencies that Pro believes will emerge when need for them arises. Private military contractors have been hired by governments and sometimes as security for large corporations but have not succeeded in marketing their services to individuals on any noticeable scale.
“Trade monopolies”
Pro argues that monopolies will be less prevalent in the absence of regulation. But this is not true. In the US, many monopolies engaged in price fixing and placed unreasonable restrictions on interstate and international trade until antitrust laws were passed. These laws have restricted harmful monopolies while allowing beneficial monopolies like utilities to continue subject to regulations.
Pro argues that if monopolies jack up prices, people will be less willing to buy from them. This is a misunderstanding of why monopolies are harmful. Monopolies do respond to demand, but they control the price of goods and profit more from selling to less people for a higher price. Unless regulated, monopolies will not achieve allocative efficiency. They will charge above both the socially optimal price and the fair return price.
3. Range of Meaningful Opportunities:
Personal Preference
Most people aren’t libertarian [1] [2], and an even smaller fraction of the world is anarcho-capitalist. Hence, the opportunities under anarchism are not opportunities that people want and hence not meaningful to the vast majority of the population.
Education
Not attending high school has been shown to increase crime and poverty while reducing employment opportunities and health. Expansion of education to specific populations has been shown to improve life expectancy. Public education can increase GDP and reduce inequality. Many investments in public education pay for themselves. Education has been shown to reduce systemic barriers for girls and child marriages while also reducing vulnerability to HIV and AIDS.
Foster Care
Almost 3 million children globally rely on foster care. In ancient societies where foster care and adoption services were not offered, infanticide was a common practice. Furthermore, infants would not be capable of hiring private defense agencies to protect them.
4. Crime Rates:
Government abolition is akin to legalizing every crime. It would effectively mean dissolving law enforcement entirely.
Police Hiring Reduces Crime
In 2002, economist Steven Levitt published a paper showing that a 10% increase in the number of police leads to an expected 3-10% decrease in crime.
Reductions in Police Funding and Increases in Crime
As a result of “Defund the Police,” and other similar movements, crime rates increased dramatically. Aggravated assaults rose by 12.4%, while the murder rate increased by 29.4%.
Welfare Reduces Crime
One study found that a slight reduction in welfare for those on low incomes with disabilities was found to increase their number of criminal charges by 20% and increase their incarceration rate by 60%.
Criminals Currently in Prison
The US holds one fifth of the world’s prisoners and arrests about 495,871 people for violent crimes a year. So even ignoring the likely spike in crime rates under anarchism, 2,479,355 new violent criminals would go uncaught around the globe per year. Recidivism rates are significantly higher with lower sentences, criminals could not be sentenced at all under anarchism.
Child Abuse
In Yemen, there is largely a power vacuum and children do not have specific legal protections. 21% of children in Yemen between the ages of 5 and 17 are employed, and the majority of them work at dangerous jobs. Furthermore, 92% of children in Yemen suffer from psychological abuse. In a stateless society, there will be a similar power vacuum and nothing to stop child abuse.
“Protection racketeering”
In contrast to states, racketeering does not help the common good. Organized crime bosses were foiled due to law enforcement and tax laws, both of which Pro seeks to abolish.
5. Poverty Reduction:
Safety Nets
Safety nets in the US alone keep millions of Americans out of poverty. Social safety net programs in middle and low income countries have been found to reduce the poverty gap by about 45 percent.
Education
UNESCO estimates that if all students in low-income countries had just basic reading skills, an estimated 171 million people could escape extreme poverty.
Food stamps
Every dollar spent on SNAP (food stamps) resulted in about $1.60 in economic activity, making the program very efficient. This program also reduced hunger by 30 percent and by even more among children.
Round 2
Thanks Savant,
1. Why ought the State be evicted?
Philosophically unjustified
- Argumentation ethics
- "Is-ought fallacy"
- Two responses
- As shown in r1, no ought statements are made in Hoppe's rendition - rather the conclusion is arrived at by two a priori descriptive statements - no ought derivation is necessary.
- I propose bridging the is-ought gap is possible. Either one must follow the NAP or they mustn't - this is true via the law of excluded middle. We know that argumentation presupposes certain libertarian values (NAP, homesteading), and so to argue one mustn't follow the NAP would be to commit to a dialectic contradiction which is necessarily false. Syllogistically;
- P1. It is either the case that “I ought not follow the NAP” or “I ought follow the NAP”
- P2. It is not the case that “I ought not follow the NAP”
- C1. Therefore I ought to follow the NAP
- Because Savant only offers one criticism to this section, readers must assume they agree with the entailments of such an ethic outlined in r1. It thus stands that the anarcho-capitalist framework and by extension its subsequent incompatibility with the state are true.
- Justification schema
- "Universalisability vs self defence"
- The NAP is the prohibition of the initiation of aggression (you can retaliate), thus it remains universalisable, for it is possible that all individuals abstain from initiating aggression against other people.
- "Stealing to save a starving child"
- Partaking in such an instance may seem to be beneficial in the short run, yet negates the long term harms. Such a phenomenon is known as dynamic inconsistency, where what is deemed to be optimal in the present may not be so in the future. Savants proposition is short term, yet if adopted at a societal level, would justify stealing to mitigate all uncomfortable circumstances.
- "Anarcho-capitalism is not achievable"
- Savant mistakes the conclusion for the premises. PRO simply put forth two principles (NAP & property) and found them both to pass the schema. Given the cogency of these (premise), it follows that the State is incompatible (conclusion). Savant must either argue that non-aggression and self-ownership is somehow not achievable, or deny the entailment on the State.
- “Decision making/Rule enforcement”
- Savant introduces the necessity of the State in defending its citizens. It ought be noted that PRO's point was that the State impede the established NAP and property rights through these two avenues. This point stands irrespective of the anarcho-capitalist solution.
Taxation
- Taxation is slavery
- "Taxation is owning someone"
- As aforementioned, income is ceteris paribus obtained through labour. By hypothetical syllogism, if income is a transformed labour, and one non consensually expropriates income, they are conversely non consensually expropriating their labour, which is slavery.
- Even if I were to concede this point, it stands unequivocally that taxation is at absolute best theft.
- "It's for the common good"
- Often, the money is not going to the common good. The United States has sent 150 billion dollars to Israel, despite half of the population disagreeing with such a decision.
- Stealing is the act of taking something without intent of returning it - this is so irrespective of where the money is going.
- Taxation slows civilisation
- "R&D tax savings"
- Often these are hardly obtainable, involving many hurdles such as having an accepted permitted purpose, be technological in nature, eliminates uncertainty and have had process of experimentation.
- Even if all people can obtain a tax saving, such often write off under half, meaning that companies still pay a huge amount of taxes (thereby the issue of time preference is still present.
- Even if they are, it remains so that "savings" is relative only to the initial taxable income - it is still the case that there is taxation and hence decivilisation.
- "Taxes help mitigate smoking"
- Just like the contractless nature of the state, there is a contradiction at play - the proposal is essentially "I will take your money without asking, and use it to fuel my ability to then take more money from you when you want to engage in free trade with some individual that is not me"
- Similar to the "stealing for the hungry" paradigm, the use of such force, even if for the good of people, is dynamically inconsistent. Why is it that stealing, as opposed to education or personal accountability is the option for amelioration?
- Thus, it remains the case that taxation necessarily promotes low time preference activities and is hence decivilising.
- Not only is taxation decivilising, but fundamentally serves the same purpose as slavery and theft - two acts which are necessary in forming the State and it's allegedly good actions.
2. What Statelessness can do
Evict the State monopoly
- Economics
- "Not all monopolies are bad"
- This is definitely true by way of the economics of scale, however, the monopolies which arise under the State are certainly the sort which are bad. Monopolies which are good are those arise naturally and innovate in ways which allow for more efficient uses of resources and lower consumer cost whilst driving competition to work. However, most monopolies are not like this because of the State who impose aggressive barriers to entries, intervention into the free market (purchasing the bonds of failed banks) thus normalising callous risks, the monopolies which actualise are both unnatural and harmful.
- "A state is not a monopoly because laws... are not commodities"
- A monopoly is simply the scenario where there exists an overly dominant sole distributor of a given good or service. It is a matter of tautology that the State fulfils such a definition, in their sole providence of law and its enforcement, security, and the distribution of taxes into fields of research and expansion. Thus, if Savant wishes to initiate the critique that anarcho-capitalism will lead to mob like monopolies, they must explain how such an entity does not currently exist in the form of the State.
- Incentive
- "The States incentive is to keep the people happy"
- Savant equivocates political parties for the State apparatus. Although delegates can be democratically elected, the holistic system of governance cannot be overthrown. As such explained in r1, irrespective of whether the governments services such as the police are adequate or inadequate, they will always receive their pay check through through taxes and never risk replacement. Contrast this to an anarcho-capitalist organisation, in which poor service is directly correlated with poorer performance and risk of extinction.
Defence and security (D&S)
- Economic calculation problem
- N/A
- Savant doesn't offer a critique to the proposed issue. To reiterate, the calculation problem renders planned economies impossible. There is simply no way in which resources can be distributed efficiently without some guiding pricing mechanism which reflects the interest of the people. Because the State is the sole provider of D&S and by extension lacks any market directions, the State has no way to know whether their resources are rightly distributed, nor the ability to distinguish which services are successful and which are not.
- The State is contractless
- N/A
- Savant doesn't respond to this particular issue. Given it's importance, I am compelled to cite Hoppe's characterisation of the folly in contractless services - “I will not contractually guarantee you anything. I will not tell you what specific things I will regard as your to be protected property, nor will I tell you what I oblige myself to do if, according to your opinion, I do not fulfil my service to you but in any case, I reserve the right to unilaterally determine the price that you must pay me for such undefined service”
- Privatisation of D&S
- "Free rider problem"
- First, the free rider problem exists in the status quo - access to roads, emergency services and public spaces can all be enjoyed even if someone doesn't pay their taxes.
- Second, given how important security is to all people, it is undoubtedly the case that the free market, who dislike free riders because of their economic implication, will identify a solution, which may resemble the following.
- Agencies provide customers with identifiers or trackers if they wish, in exchange for lower premiums, and also the ability to be located when in danger.
- Business' require proof of affiliation with agencies. This benefits the business who are insured and serve as incentive and advertisement for agencies, who can use the security of such business as testimony of their success.
- "Vacuums have seen the rise of ISIS"
- First, this is an example of State failure. The reason such organisations grew in prominence was because of the police corruption, extortion, and theft that was present in the Hussein administration.
- Second, this is an unrealistic expectation for the anarcho-capitalist philosophy. Proponents of the theory do not believe that all instances where the State removes its intervention will lead to a positive society.
- Consider living in Mao's China, and having the ability to press a button which instantly creates the necessary preconditions for fair elections and progressive/egalitarian to be imposed. Does it follow that because such a transformation will be met with dismay from a disillusioned population and inevitably failure that democracy and equality is bad?
- Simply put, good ideas need to be accompanied with good execution. The state of Iraq faced far more systemic issues brought about by the failed monopoly of the State that simply abolishing the State is not sufficient in ameliorating the circumstance.
- In a true anarcho-capitalist state, that is, a state which hasn't priorly been ravaged by the failures of the State, creating cartels which Savant describe is not practical. To put in perspective, the United States spent 300 million dollars a day occupying Afghanistan. Even if the richest billionaires wishes to tyrannically control some land, it would be economically unsustainable.
3. Rebuttals
"Range of Meaningful Opportunities"
- "Personal preference"
- As illustrated priorly in the "Mao's China" example, preference is not equivalent to what is good. Per the description, this debate does not consider whether a transition to anarcho-capitalism is feasible, but rather which system is better and hence be advocated for.
- "Public education improves GDP"
- Education left to the market will be more affordable, not only because of competition, but because there would be an absence in mandated regulations, occupational licensing requirements, curriculum mandates, et al.
- We can see this is true in the microcosm of the anarchy - the internet. By 2014, one could enrol in a Bachelor degree's worth of courses entirely for free from MIT, Stanford, Harvard and numerous other prestigious institutions which host their lectures online absolutely free.
- Further still, schools operating in a marketplace have the incentive to acquire as many bright students as possible so as to appear more attractive to a slew of financially-able parents and guardians. The poor, yet bright, student would benefit by gaining access to high-quality facilities and teaching faculty and the school would profit by being able to more effectively solicit its services as a training ground for inquisitive minds.
"Crime rates"
- "Police Hiring Reduces Crime"
- This is not mutually exclusive to the State model. The reduction in crime is simply because there is a presence of security. An ancapistan model does not remove this, rather it streamlines the system such that only the best security deserves to serve the people.
- Furthermore, even if Savant is correct, we can know that via the calculation problem, the reduction in crime is achieved in a wasteful manner - there is no way for the State to know what it is they are doing, besides pouring money, which is yielding the benefits.
- "Failure of defund the Police"
- As expressed in the "Mao's China" example, certain preconditions are necessary for absolutely all theories. The ancap theory does not believe you can have a State apparatus and marginally defund one facet to see benefits. This is not ancap in any way- there still exists a plethora of policy, taxes and societal expectation which are incompatible with the thesis.
- Across the United States, many neighbourhoods saw the vacuum and employed private security [1][2][3}. We can presume then that if removal of the police was accompanied with the removal of what citizens pay them, that this vacuum will be filled.
"Poverty Reduction"
- "Safety nets and food stamps"
- This point has been largely addressed in the "stealing to feed the poor" section. Normalising stealing to be the solution to poverty and hunger (as opposed to education or work) treats individuals as means to others ends. It is unfortunate that individuals are hungry, but just like how I have a right to spend money on my happiness instead of donating it hungry people in the third world, I ought to have the same right over donating to hungry people in my own country.
- But what about those who are simply in a bad place, where hard work cannot help, isn't this unfair?
- It is not clear redistributing wealth helps in the long run, given equalising forces will reduce that efficiency of allocating scarce resources through the economic calculation problem.
- The subsidy trap, in which subsidising X creates more X is accepted by almost all economic schools, and would see that because welfare subsidies the poor, the state of being poor will be multiplied.
- Anarcho-capitalism isn't a utopia - inequality and poverty is ugly in every system - the philosophy merely proposes a free approach as the most effective and just.
Conclusion
A recurring argument Savant presents is that there exists some example in the world (ISIS, defunding police, Yemen etc) in which power vacuums have been created, anarchy has followed and violence has been created. All instances are ones in which the State has failed and instability has resulted in relative anarchy. Anarchism isn't a utopia which solves the issues created by the State, it is a relationship between people typified by freedom. Just like how you cannot force progressivism on Mao's China, or how you cannot force African American rights on Americans pre 1950, you cannot force anarchism on people who do not want it. That is not to say say progressivism, human rights or anarchy are in anyway bad. Rather, more effort must be employed to increase cognisance of these ideas, such that people wish to embrace these ideas.
Framework:
Burdens
Extend moral duties, equality, car examples, and research on dual process theory.
“no ought statements are made in Hoppe's rendition”
In this case, Hoppe’s rendition only shows that I am making an argument, not that arguing is good. Maybe I’m willing to do bad things. Furthermore, debating is perfectly consistent with the common good, since it allows people to think more critically.
If arguing is a good and logical thing to do, this supports the actions of the state. Argumentation requires that people be safe (protected from crime) and educated enough to argue.
“Either one must follow the NAP or they mustn't”
Pro proposes a false dilemma between always following the NAP and never following the NAP. I proposed in R1 that individuals should follow the NAP unless violating it would contribute to the greater good.
As even libertarians have noted, it’s not contradictory to follow a principle like the NAP in the context of debate whilst infringing on liberty in other contexts, like stealing to feed a starving child.
“Universalizability/dynamic inconsistency”
I dispute that we should follow a principle as strict as the NAP absolutely and in every situation. Dynamic inconsistency holds that the optimal strategy may change over time. Stealing to help the starving child might be beneficial now, but stealing to avoid work would harm society. Strangely, Pro argues that we should always follow the NAP even when it is not the optimal strategy to benefit society. The more optimal response to dynamic inconsistency is to adjust one’s strategy based on the situation.
In effect, Pro argues that we should only follow rules if following them at all times makes society better off. But if the end goal is to make society better off, we should just cut out the middleman and follow a common good framework.
“The NAP is the prohibition of the initiation of aggression (you can retaliate), thus it remains universalizable”
Allowing retaliation is a significant caveat. Shooting someone who is trying to stab me is initiating a form of aggression, but Pro permits me to initiate that specific form of aggression (shooting). If we can add caveats, why not universalize the statement “follow the NAP unless you are contributing to the common good.”
“PRO simply put forth two principles (NAP & property) and found them both to pass the schema.”
As noted with universalizability, I dispute that all principles that pass said schema should be followed at all times. Egoism would be possible to follow at all times and might be consistent with arguing if debating feeds one’s ego, but it would be harmful to society as a whole. Even if we did follow the schema, the common good passes the schema more effectively as it is far more practical (i.e. useful) than following the NAP at all times.
Criteria
Pro does not dispute that range of opportunities, crime rates, and poverty reduction are the most important criteria in measuring effect on the common good.
1. “Why ought the State be evicted?”:
“the State impede…property rights”
Pro also made several moral imperatives that property rights ought to be protected and that action ought to be taken to make this happen (this is the entire point of their case). Violating some liberty is necessary to protect the greater amount of property rights, which terrorists would violate indiscriminately under anarchy.
“Taxation is slavery”
Pro does not dispute that slavery requires owning someone. Taking money from someone is not the same as owning them or even forcing them to work, even if the money taxed was earned through labor. Pro holds that infringing on liberty is never justified, but I have argued against this above in defending the common good framework.
“150 billion dollars to Israel”
This is a small fraction of the US annual budget (total US budget is around 2.67 trillion dollars). Pro’s source about half the population opposing funding for Israel was regarding hypothetical future funding and how it would affect voting. If candidate goals do affect voting significantly, then the elected candidate is likely to mirror the position of the population, again showing that governments are subject to the will and interests of the populace.
R&D tax savings
A majority of economists agree that this tax credit increases R&D spending in the United States. This credit has been claimed many times, with 17,700 corporations claiming $6.6 billion in R&D Tax Credits in just one year. Requirements for the credit such as a permitted purpose are necessary to spur R&D spending that actually helps the economy.
High time preference individuals will buy a lot of goods as well (tobacco, gambling, Netflix subscriptions). Both low time preference and high time preference activities are taxed, but low time preference spending can qualify for tax deductions. Hence, taxes incentivize long term investments.
Smoking
Pro does not dispute that taxes on smoking have improved overall health whilst increasing government revenue. They cast some doubt as to whether this justifies taxation, but it is justified under the common good framework which I have defended above.
2. “What Statelessness can do”:
“the monopolies which arise under the State are certainly the sort which are bad/mob like monopolies…currently exist in the form of the State”
The business monopolies that jacked up prices were harmful to consumers, necessitating state intervention. States aren't harmful in this way, because they aren't in business to make a profit. They can set a price ceiling at the socially optimal price or fair return price. The issues of profit incentives/price discrimination aren't applicable to laws, which are not commodities being bought and sold. Bailouts have been shown empirically to reduce systemic risk, protecting the economy as a whole. This study suggests that recessions and unemployment would be much worse without government interventions.
“A monopoly is…an overly dominant sole distributor of a given good or service”
Monopolies are businesses that sell things. The state does regulate some business monopolies, but those are naturally arising monopolies. The economic downfalls of some monopolies that Pro cites are specifically talking about businesses that sell things to consumers, not countries passing laws. It would be impossible to sell “laws” on the open market anyway. Laws don’t have marginal revenue or market demand in the way that commodities do.
“the holistic system of governance cannot be overthrown”
Leaders can still be replaced with other leaders who change or reduce regulations. This gives them an incentive to keep the populace happy so they can stay in power.
“Economic calculation problem”
The economic calculation problem deals with consumer products that each buyer values differently. But something like public safety is not subjective to a single individual. Paying for a fire department benefits everyone, and selling “public safety” on an open market is unfeasible due to the free rider problem. Furthermore, markets still exist because governments hire people who could choose to sell their services to other governments or businesses. A market for their labor still exists, so economic calculation is still being done efficiently.
“The State is contractless”
Nonetheless, the threat of leadership change still incentivizes the state to appease the people, and government agencies reduce crime significantly.
Free Rider Problem
Pro claims the free rider problem already exists because people can avoid paying taxes. This is the whole point of why taxes are not voluntary and tax evasion is punished. People are incentivized to enter higher tax brackets because a greater income still increases their take-home pay. Paying taxes is required. With anarchy, anyone can choose not to pay a private defense agency.
As I said in R1, the main benefit of the police is deterring crime in general, so an individual paying a private defense agency does not specifically help that customer. Criminals will have no way of knowing whether the person they are attacking belongs to a private defense agency.
“Agencies provide customers with identifiers or trackers”
Police usually show up after a crime is committed. Their main goal is to deter crime by arresting criminals. If I am being mugged on the street, should I explain to the mugger that I have hired a private defense agency? Anyone could claim to belong to one, and muggers are likely to assume they are lying.
Also, traffic laws would be a nightmare to enforce. Multiple private defense agencies might have different speed limits. And this is another free rider problem, because everyone benefits from safer roads, not just the people hiring the agency.
“Business' require proof of affiliation with agencies.”
Many crimes are committed against individuals, not businesses. Police often go undercover to stop criminals or pretend to be interested in hiring a criminal to catch lawbreakers. These preventative measures benefit society as a whole. This leads to another free-rider problem because every business benefits from cyber criminals being caught, not just those hiring private defense agencies.
Power Vacuums
When vacuums occur, they are typically filled by terrorists rather than by kindly private defense agencies. Pro calls this an example of state failure. But the failure here was that governments did not adequately stop the rise of these terrorist groups and that the police were inefficient. Hence, if governments do not have the capability to enforce order, we will see the rise of rogue terrorist groups. Under Pro’s proposal, law enforcement would have no power at all, empowering terrorist groups even more. International cooperation was the driving force behind combating these terrorist groups.
“The state of Iraq faced…issues brought about by the…State/In a true anarcho-capitalist state…creating cartels which Savant describe is not practical”
Terrorists are rarely logical; many of them are willing to kill themselves just to spread fear. Terrorism in the middle east has existed far longer than the Iranian government, having roots in religious extremism and schisms within Islam. Terrorism will be a threat in an anarchist society so long as ideologies exist; it is not practical to place the blame for these problems on government inefficiencies. Plenty of terrorist groups have controlled large swaths of land for long periods of time (the Taliban, ISIS, Al Qaeda) so it’s practical to expect them to continue that trend.
“the State has failed and instability has resulted in relative anarchy.”
Eliminating the state entirely would force it to fail at all of its duties and eliminate all stability currently provided by the state.
“you cannot force anarchism on people who do not want it”
The resolution concerns a case where anarchism is somehow achieved, but it does not assume that everyone will suddenly be happy with these new living conditions. Since most people are opposed to anarchy, it is safe to assume that most of them would prefer the status quo over this hypothetical.
3. Range of Meaningful Opportunities:
Personal Preference
Pro argues that Mao’s China shows that people don’t always know what makes them happiest. I would dispute that the people under Mao’s regime all supported his policies, given that he arrested and killed millions. The reason for low support of anarchism in the West, in contrast, is not because libertarians are systematically hunted down and killed—it’s just that most people don’t want anarchism.
China is also a good example of states being incentivized to keep the people happy, as the country turned to more capitalist policies to raise living standards. Mao’s rise was largely due to a power vacuum and civil war in China, since the ROC was too weak to enforce order. Essentially, power vacuums and weak governments lead tyrants to take power, but once a government has achieved stability it will gradually become more receptive to the needs of the people to maintain power. Interrupting current stable governments will allow tyrants to seize power.
Education
Many poor people cannot afford private school and rely on voucher programs or public education, both of which are provided by the state. Pro dismisses my sources on public education [1] [2] [3], arguing that the internet and free market is sufficient. But this misses the point. Investments in public education and the expansion of government-provided education was what improved life expectancy and GDP, while reducing systemic barriers. Despite the free market and internet existing, they did not meet the educational needs of children until governments intervened.
Foster Care
Extend.
4. Crime Rates:
Police Hiring and Funding vs Crime
Pro doesn’t dispute that reductions in public police funding spur crime but still advocates reducing this funding to zero through a stateless model. Their examples of private security support my point. If private security was a more efficient way of combating crime than public police departments, then reducing police funding should reduce crime, as people will use the money they save in taxes to hire private security. But this doesn’t happen.
Welfare Reduces Crime/Criminals Currently in Prison/Child Abuse
Extend.
5. Poverty Reduction:
“Normalising stealing to be the solution to poverty and hunger…treats individuals as means to others ends”
Treating individuals or their resources as a means is the right thing to do if it helps the common good. Taxation does not normalize all forms of forcefully taking money, since stealing is still a crime (which police prevent). And the ends achieved from public services can help everyone.
“I have a right to spend money on my happiness instead of donating”
Extend moral duties from R1. Most people are fulfilling their duty to society in some way (i.e. through taxes). And even if I’m not donating my money to starving children, if a starving child needed to steal some of my food, they would be justified in doing so. Moral duties help support a common good framework, but improving the common good would still be justified and preferable even if it was supererogatory.
“economic calculation problem”
People still buy and sell food, and the government is just one customer. Hence, the market is still setting a price and it is not being chosen arbitrarily.
“long run/subsidy trap”
Food stamps subsidize hunger relief, not hunger itself. The example Pro linked to was throwing money at an entire industry rather than specifically allocating resources to the poor.
Poverty is often generational, and growing up poor leads to long term negative effects. Hence, policies that effectively reduce poverty will have positive effects for both current and future generations. SNAP reduces the effects of poverty even in the long term. Food insecurity can lead to many other long-term problems such as reduction in education or less medical care. Food stamps can effectively combat this. Increased funding to SNAP also supports jobs and increases GDP.
Education
Extend.
Round 3
Savants' "burden"
A pressing issue in Savants case is that the notion of "common good", or as they put it who is "better off" is doing the majority of heavy lifting, all whilst no framework dictating what this good actually means is proposed. In citing seemingly good ends such as helping the disabled, stealing bread for the poor and using phrases like "better off" or "good outweighing bad", Savant doesn't actually identify a usable framework, but rather employs intuition of what feels right. This is not what an ethical theory is at all. The point of an ethical theory is to work out right and wrong without relying on intuition or feeling. Imagine if you performed an equation on a calculator, didn't like the answer, and instead of conceding that you were wrong, change the calculator. What is the point of the calculator in the first place if you will only use it when it follows your intuition. In Savants argument, "common good" is a synonym for this intuition - they agree that "aggression is bad", but not when it conflicts with their intuition that aggression is something good.
Savant must identify what exactly a "common good" is and how it can be obtained - what conduct is permissible and what is not permissible? Every single system from communism to fascism would all undoubtedly argue they have made their people "better off".
1. Why ought the State be evicted?
Philosophically unjustified
- Argumentation ethics
- "making an argument =/= arguing is good."
- No claim of goodness is required. Hoppe's argument underlines the necessity of certain norm, wherein objecting would result in a dialectic contradiction, which is false. Savant asking "what if I'm willing to do bad things "doesn't work, because the very argument required to sustain such a position already necessarily presupposes libertarian principles which forbid such actions.
- "False dilemma"
- It is simply true that Pro's premise is a real dilemma. One can only follow, or not follow the NAP. The syllogism proposed in r2 therefore stands.
- "NAP, only if it doesn't contradict the greater good"
- This is an instance of the issue outlined in "burdens" - akin to saying "I like the calculations of the NAP until I don't". Savant must define what overarching theory they are using when identifying acceptance and denial of the NAP.
- "NAP and self defence"
- Savant construes allowing self defence under the NAP as a radical interpretation, when it simply is not [1][2][3][4][5] (are we really to assume that all libertarian thought has been so careless so as to forget about self defence?). All interpretations allow for retaliation, to equalise the aggression which has been committed on you.
- On these grounds, argumentation ethics stands. Readers must be made known just how crucial this argument is in this debate. The success of it finds that the NAP and property rights are necessarily true in all ethics, and by extension, because the State is incompatible with these ideals, that it is impossible to justify. Thus, by way of necessity, the resolution is comfortably upheld.
- Justification schema
- "Not all things which pass the schema are good"
- Savant notes egosim as an example. Without any reasons, it is unclear why egoism - a complex and rich philosophy - is actually wrong. For even under their "moral theory" such an ethic would work - people are self interested and see the common good as best improving their lives, thus acting selflessly effectively satiates self interest.
Taxation
- Taxation is slavery
- "Slavery is owning someone"
- Savant repeats the same argument, so I am forced to reiterate. Income is transferred from labour, so if one nonconsenually takes your income, they are, by hypothetical syllogism, nonconsenually taking your labour which is slavery. Again, Savant hasn't acknowledge that at best, taxation is still theft.
- "150 billion dollars to Israel is a small fraction"
- Even if it the percentage is small, the real number remains high and Savants initial point - that taxation goes to the "common good" - is still false. The money sent to Israel does not represent the common good.
- Thus, it remains that taxation is slavery at worst, theft at best and often used to fuel projects which people do not want. Because these are the entailments of taxation, and the State necessarily requires taxation, the State is by extension an immoral apparatus.
- Taxation slows civilisation
- "Both high and low time preference activities are taxed, but the latter is taxed less"
- This argument is akin to saying "both standing up and sitting down will result in me being electrocuted, but if I sit I will be electrocuted less, therefore I should advocate for standing". The core issue is that there is electrocution in the first place. Likewise, even if Savants argument that taxation promotes low time preference activities, the systemic issue of taxation still remains - its existence necessarily expropriates scarce resources.
- "Tax credit increases R&D"
- This faces the same issue as above - the ostensible increase in R&D is relative to full taxable income and not no taxable income. Even if we concede Savants argument that lowering tax has increased R&D, there would seem to be a correlation between lowering taxes and increased innovation which was my entire initial point.
- Furthermore, Savant lauds the 6.6 billion saved in taxes, whilst ignoring that almost half a trillion dollars was payed in corporate taxes.
- Thus it stands that taxation slows civilisation, and because the State requires taxation, that therefore the State slows civilisation from development.
2. What Statelessness can do
Evict the State monopoly
- Economics
- "The State intervenes in a good way"
- Savant advocates that States must intervene because of harmful monopolies, yet such deleterious monopolies only arise under the State, where aggressive barriers to entry are imposed, and the market is artificially manipulated. As I proposed, there are many ways in which a completely free market battles harmful monopolies and predatory pricing (refer to r1 Trade monopolies: worst case). In short, natural monopolies occur when an entity price gouges or invoke predatory pricing - the former is battled by competition who can perform the same action cheaper, whilst the latter is unstable and battled by consumer activity.
- Sources which suggest buyouts are good therefore "solve" a problem which the State creates.
- "The State isn't a monopoly because monopolies are businesses that sell things"
- Savants own source specifies that a monopoly "assumes a dominant position in an industry or a sector." Again, it is absolutely undeniable that the State assume this position with respect to law and its enforcement, security, and the distribution of taxes. Because of this, the State is the worst kind of monopoly - the sort with absolutely zero competition, zero possibility of eviction irrespective of performance and zero monetary repercussions.
- "Laws cannot be sold"
- Such a topic is too complicated for Savant to dismiss with a single sources. Academics have proposed that a market for law would be superior to the status quo.
- Incentive
- "Leaders can be replaced"
- Again, this fails to address the core issue, being that the State apparatus will never be replaced (characteristic of monopoly), and because they will never be replaced, there is no beneficial incentive. Suppose there is an ice cream shop everyone must buy from, which cannot be replaced nor allows for any other ice cream shops to be open. Let's even assume that the owner of the shop can be democratically voted in. The fundamental issue is the very ontology of such a structure - that if people want different ice cream, or don't want to buy ice cream at all, they will be violently pursued and violated.
Defence and security (D&S)
- Economic calculation problem (ECP)
- "public safety is not subjective to a single individual"
- Neither is eating food or drinking water. Yet, if we adopted a State distributive model of food, the EPC renders such a project unoptimal. Likewise, there being no pricing mechanism for the police makes them unable to understand the market forces, or even if they are allocating resources properly
- Ultimately, all people currently pay for D&S. The difference between Savant and I, is that the former advocates for a system where you must pay a set amount to one sole provider, whereas the latter advocates for the liberty in choosing which provider to deal with.
- The state is contractless
- "There is still incentive to appease people because of leadership changes"
- If Savants proposal really works then why is such a naive system not used in the market? Instead of my lawyer issuing a contract of what services they owe me, why not just remove the contract and use the threat of "a change of lawyer"? Simply because such a force is absolutely inefficient, and any lawyer who doesn't offer a contract would be thought of as inadequate or unconfident. Thus, it stands that the State, as a contactless apparatus, owes you nothing, except the promise of violence when you fail to pay them.
- Privatisation of D&S
- "Taxes stop free riders"
- Savant agrees that free riders exist in both systems. Their mechanism for stopping them is forcing compulsory payments to be made from everyone, whereas Pro's mechanism is simply not allowing them the service they didn't pay for. As detailed in r2, in a free market, where profit is the priority, we can presume that free riders will be eliminated as they cause a decrease in profits (mechanisms presented in r2).
- "Everyone can say they have private security"
- Just like how everyone can tell home invaders or potential muggers they are armed. Does this mean gunless individuals are "free riding" off the firearms institute?
- Bluffing is possible in all scenarios - yet as explained in r2, there are many reasons why individuals would actually want security.
- "Many crimes occur to people not business"
- The initial point I made was that business can require proof of private security and that this benefits them as their space is safer, and also the security firm, as they can use the safety of the organisation as proof of their acumen. The point is thus unaddressed.
- "Vacuums are filled by ISIS"
- When realising that such occurs because of police corruption (the state), Savant argues it is because police were inefficient. Here we agree. Because the State offers only one security to people which cannot be replaced by citizens, terrorists only need to corrupt one force, knowing that this force has an absolute monopoly in the market of defence. Contrast this to an ancap society, wherein competing firms would reject corruption, or else face disastrous implications on their reputation and profits, and terrorists would have to bribe many companies, as oppose to just one.
3. Rebuttals
"Range of Meaningful Opportunities"
- Personal Preference
- Savant argues that many under the Mao regime simply lived in fear. No doubt this is true, but it must be conceded that the majority actually believed in their government. This sort of patriotism can be seen across history, including the case of Nazism. My initial point is simple - that individuals do not always know what they want. That even though Mao rejected democracy, and that Nazism rejected Jewish rights, that such rejection cannot be taken as statements of what is good. Thus, it does not follow from contemporary individuals rejecting anarchy that it is a bad system.
- Education
- An important point is to be made - Savant seemingly construes my position as rejecting education. Simply, my position is contrasted to theres insofar as they wish for mandatory payments to be made to one single organisation (the state), whereas my position allows for money to be distributed where people want it to go.
- Savant asks "what about the poor people". As I have already argued
- MIT, Harvard and Stanford have Bachelor degree's worth of courses for free on the internet - here, the web can be understood as a microcosm for anarchy.
- Schools have incentive to teach people who have potential and are smart - irrespective of if they are poor.
- Foster care
- Without the government, the exact same business would be providing the exact same service, except without the interference of the State and taxation etc. Savant must establish some necessity clause between the State and caring for orphans.
"Crime rates"
- Police hiring
- Savant simply ignores the argument of r2. Yes, reducing the police's allocated funding causes crime to spur because the reduction of police funding isn't correlated with a reduction in citizen payment. People are still paying the same amount for the police even if they are being defunded.
- Savant attempts to construe my position as not wanting any security. This is false - the only thing I do not advocate is one single provider of security who can force you to make payment, who are not in a contractual obligation to owe you any service. Contrary to their characterisation, I would prefer many providers of security, whereas they only want to have one.
"Poverty reduction"
- "Individuals can be ends to other's means for the "common good"
- Again, common good does all the heavy lifting. Who's common good? Per the ancap, the common good would be preserve all people's negative rights and uphold ideals of the NAP and property. Savant relies on the intuition regarding what they feel is good.
- "Justified for the hungry to steal"
- Throughout this debate, Savant issues philosophically complex statements like these which are backed only by the layman's moral intuition. As illustrated in the last round, our intuition is a terrible way for making moral judgements. Consider the following circumstances.
- "It is not my responsibility to pay for hungry homeless people in my state"
- "It is not my responsibility to pay for hungry homeless people in third world countries"
- Notice how Savant has intuition on their side in that feeding your countries homeless is good, yet the exact same intuition they rely on produces a completely different outcome for people who happen to be far away from you. Absent a framework, Savant has no explanation for this difference.
- "Food stamps subsidize hunger relief, not hunger itself.
- This point is purely semantic - in subsidizing hunger relief, hunger itself becomes unproblamatic, and therefore hunger becomes replicated given it's negative contingencies are removed.
Conclusion
Whether you believe Savant or I can be tested thusly - would you rather have to pay, or want to pay?
Framework:
Burdens
Extend good outweighing bad (moral imperatives), moral duties, equality, car examples (speeding to hospital, carbon emissions), and research on dual process theory. Pro does not mount significant challenges to these even though each one alone shows significant flaws in their moral framework.
“dialectic contradiction”
As I said in R2, as even libertarians have noted, it’s not contradictory to follow a principle like the NAP in the context of debate whilst infringing on liberty in other contexts, like stealing to feed a starving child.
“no framework dictating what this good actually means is proposed”
I proposed three metrics for measuring the common good, all of which have gone unchallenged throughout this debate. They are range of opportunities, crime rates, and poverty reduction. Pro seems to agree that all of these things are good by arguing that a system that improved on them would be a good thing. Furthermore, reducing crime rates and terrorism helps to prevent aggression (which Pro is in favor of preventing). Reducing poverty and giving more opportunities can improve quality of life, which is good for basically everyone.
These are the most important metrics in this debate as they measure people’s most fundamental needs, as well as long-term effects that balance government infringement on liberty against the opportunities government offers people.
“One can…follow, or not follow the NAP.”
One can also sometimes follow the NAP. Just as one can sometimes go to the park but go to the library instead on days when it is raining.
“akin to saying "I like the calculations of the NAP until I don't"”
The NAP already includes a caveat for self defense, such that it means “I like avoiding aggression, unless X.” I did use an overarching theory for justified exceptions to the NAP, that being the common good. I even gave criteria for what makes a society “good” (range of opportunities, low crime rates, and poverty reduction) and argued for why they are good in R1. Furthermore, they mainly address concerns that Pro agrees are important (freedom, aggression, resources necessary for life).
“Savant construes allowing self defence under the NAP as a radical interpretation”
On the contrary, I pointed out that allowing a caveat for self-defense (responding to aggression) was basically necessary for the NAP. Given that we can add caveats to the NAP, it would not be contradictory to add more caveats for improving the greater good.
“Notice how Savant has intuition on their side in that feeding your countries homeless is good, yet the exact same intuition they rely on produces a completely different outcome for people who happen to be far away from you…Savant has no explanation for this difference.”
In contrast to Pro’s claims about intuition, significant research on dual process theory has found that the decision to prioritize the common good is usually driven by logical thinking, whereas the decision to follow the NAP under even extreme circumstances is usually driven by snapshot emotional thinking.
I never said that helping people far away isn’t good. I just argued that most people are already fulfilling their duty to help society by helping some poor people through taxes (regardless of where those poor people are). Many governments contribute to foreign aid or help reduce terrorism in other countries, both of which are helping people far away. Under anarchy, they could not help people domestically or far away.
And again, moral duties help support a common good framework, but improving the common good would still be justified and preferable even if it was supererogatory. Even if I’m not donating my money to starving children, if a starving child needed to steal some of my food, they would be justified in doing so.
“Without any reasons, it is unclear why egoism - a complex and rich philosophy - is actually wrong.”
I picked egoism because Pro clearly disagrees with it being a good moral theory (it violates the NAP). If Pro’s schema leads to contradictory conclusions (both ancap philosophy and egoism), then it cannot be trusted.
What Does the State Do?
“Income is transferred from labour, so if one nonconsenually takes your income, they are, by hypothetical syllogism, nonconsenually taking your labour”
Even taking someone’s labor (via earnings) isn’t the same as forcing them to do that labor in the first place. Pro defines slavery as “taking labor,” when it actually means owning someone. If we avoid legal definitions, taxation might be similar to theft, but much like stealing to feed a starving child, taxation spent to benefit society can help the common good.
“The money sent to Israel does not represent the common good.”
Pro doesn’t go into much detail on how this conclusion follows, since they have already said that helping people in other countries is just as good as helping people domestically. As I said in R2, people have said they will vote based on politicians’ positions on funding Israel, so the elected candidate’s policies would represent the interests of the populace.
“the systemic issue of taxation still remains”
I would dispute that taxation is bad, since it funds good things like education, safety nets, and foster care.
“there would seem to be a correlation between lowering taxes and increased innovation/Savant lauds the 6.6 billion saved in taxes, whilst ignoring that almost half a trillion dollars was payed in corporate taxes.”
Again, taxes help the common good via programs like those I listed above. And the state invests more than half a trillion in R&D, so even if all those corporate taxes were taken from R&D programs, the actions of the state would be a net gain for R&D.
“such deleterious monopolies only arise under the State”
This is an illogical conclusion to make, since most monopolies like American Tobacco and International Harvester, arose due to a lack of government intervention, and monopolies were not broken up until antitrust laws were passed.
“a monopoly "assumes a dominant position in an industry or a sector." Again, it is absolutely undeniable that the State assume this position with respect to law and its enforcement/Academics have proposed that a market for law”
The comparison of laws to a “market” here is figurative at best. Paying for mercenaries to enforce one’s will is not the same as enforcing laws that apply equally to everyone. The economic harm of monopolies comes from commodities having marginal revenue or market demand, which aren’t applicable to laws being passed by the state. Note that the academics Pro cites are Morris and Linda Tannehill giving their opinion (not actual empirical evidence of anarcho-capitalism working).
“Suppose there is an ice cream shop everyone must buy from, which cannot be replaced nor allows for any other ice cream shops to be open. Let's even assume that the owner of the shop can be democratically voted in…if people want different ice cream, or don't want to buy ice cream at all, they will be violently pursued and violated”
For this to be an apt comparison, a new owner could change the shop to sell something else or a different type of ice cream. They could even amend the rules/constitution to allow other shops to open. If the people keep voting in someone who sells ice cream, we can conclude that is probably what they want.
“"public safety is not subjective to a single individual" Neither is eating food or drinking water.”
The taste of food is subjective and helps to set the market price. There are many different brands of flavored water. Under the current system, the state is just one customer for labor and resources, so market mechanisms are still determining how much employees are willing to accept, and the government must set their offer accordingly.
“If Savants proposal really works then why is such a naive system not used in the market? Instead of my lawyer issuing a contract of what services they owe me, why not just remove the contract and use the threat of "a change of lawyer"?”
The government does provide free lawyers to the poor, which would be a good parallel for food stamps. A market system is sufficient for the rich, since defense lawyers are not a common resource that suffers from the free rider problem. But someone who commits vandalism or drives drunk (a crime against society in general) will be prosecuted by a publicly funded government lawyer if they go to court to avoid said free rider problem.
“Savant agrees that free riders exist in both systems. Their mechanism for stopping them is forcing compulsory payments to be made from everyone, whereas Pro's mechanism is simply not allowing them the service they didn't pay for.”
Pro’s mechanism does not stop free riders, since they still get the service (i.e. benefits) of safer roads from speeders being arrested. Free riders also benefit from crime deterrence as much as those paying private defense agencies.
“Just like how everyone can tell home invaders or potential muggers they are armed./Bluffing is possible in all scenarios”
This is why the main benefit of a gun is being able to use it in the moment. With crimes like mugging, assault, or drive-by shootings, police can only help by arresting the criminal afterward in order to deter similar crimes from occurring.
“The initial point I made was that business can require proof of private security and that this benefits them as their space is safer”
This does not prevent criminals from just targeting people in public spaces like the street (which many of them already do).
“Because the State offers only one security to people which cannot be replaced by citizens, terrorists only need to corrupt one force”
People can hire private security, but it is clearly not feasible for stopping terrorists. When power vacuums occur, terrorists take power. They are not foiled by people hiring private security. If Pro’s proposal is feasible, a weak government should be a huge market gap and opportunity for successful pirate defense agencies to arise, yet none of them effectively combatted the rise of ISIS or the Taliban.
How Does the State Impact Opportunities?
“many under the Mao regime simply lived in fear…it must be conceded that the majority actually believed in their government/this sort of patriotism can be seen across history”
I would dispute that we have any assurance that most living under Mao’s regime were happy with his policies, or that we could trust any numbers from Mao’s government about how happy the people were. Someone like Hitler may have been popular among a privileged majority at first, due to censorship and the fact that his policies did benefit them somewhat at the time. But this of course came at the expense of the minorities he exterminated. The severe harm to those he killed outweighed the benefits to privileged groups.
In the freest and most liberal democracies, despite anarchists not being hunted down or censored, anarchism is still very unpopular. Pro could still argue that anarchism is good, but his case hinges on the inconvenience to those who dislike government outweighing the interests of the vast majority of the population. (The inconvenience to anarchists in the US, for example, is not comparable to Mao’s enemies being systematically executed.)
“my position allows for money to be distributed where people want it to go/MIT, Harvard and Stanford have Bachelor degree's worth of courses for free on the internet”
Nonetheless, my sources [1] [2] [3] stand as evidence of these things not being sufficient on their own. Despite the existence of the free market and internet existing, they did not meet the educational needs of children until governments intervened. It was not until investments in public education were made and government-provided education was expanded through UN efforts that we saw the benefits of improved life expectancy and GDP, and reduced systemic barriers
“Without the government, the exact same business would be providing the exact same service…Savant must establish some necessity clause between the State and caring for orphans.”
In the absence of public tax funding, who is paying these businesses to take care of orphans? Orphans can’t afford to pay them (hence why they need to be taken care of), and people in foster care either don’t have parents or have parents incapable of taking care of them, hence why they are in foster care. In ancient societies where publicly funded foster care and adoption services were not offered, infanticide was a common practice. Furthermore, infants would not be capable of hiring private defense agencies to protect them.
How Does the State Affect Crime?
“People are still paying the same amount for the police even if they are being defunded.”
Police are funded by taxes, and lowering taxes was one of the major talking points behind defunding police. Hiring more police reduces crime but costs money. In areas with less police, we do not private defense agencies effectively reduce crime, despite individuals having more money to pay these agencies with. Even if those agencies were effective, those below taxable income would not have additional money if the government were abolished and would be unable to afford private defense agencies on their own. Hence, taxes to fund police are needed.
Welfare Reduces Crime/Criminals Currently in Prison
Extend.
Child Abuse
Extend. This point is an especially significant flaw with Pro’s case that they do not address throughout this entire debate. Children can’t afford to pay private defense agencies. If their parents are abusing them or forcing them to work, who will pay to protect the children? Right now, the police are paid to stop child abuse via taxes. Private defense agencies are not a feasible replacement.
How Does the State Affect Poverty?
“Who's common good?”
Everyone’s, since everyone is a member of society. Again, I gave criteria for what makes a society “good” (range of opportunities, low crime rates, and poverty reduction) and argued for why they are good in R1. Furthermore, they mainly address concerns that Pro agrees are important (freedom, aggression, resources necessary for life). Ancap philosophy does not even preserve negative rights, since it does not stop criminals from murdering people in the absence of public law enforcement.
“Notice how Savant has intuition on their side in that feeding your countries homeless is good…”
Addressed in Framework at the top of this round.
“in subsidizing hunger relief, hunger itself becomes unproblamatic”
The people being fed would no longer be hungry, hence hunger would be less normalized. Hunger would not be replicated if there is less of it. Extend what I said in R2 about generational effects of poverty and positive long term effects of hunger relief.
Conclusion:
Abolishing governments would lead to the rise of terrorist groups, rampant increases in murder and violent assault, and the death of millions of orphans. Not to mention all the other problems I elaborated on that would occur under anarchy. Hence, we should not abolish all governments.
I dont know why Pro didnt mention armed population as an actual alternative instead of security services. After reading this debate a couple of times, I feel like it definitely left a lot unmentioned. But in the end, while it definitely did succeed in describing state as harmful and a violator of rights, the transitioning to an alternative system (anarchy) seemed to be left mostly blank other than "if all people choose it, it will happen".
I am hoping that I see another debate in the future with similar topic. I know most people arent anarchs, but anarchy is one of the rare systems which actually isnt based on dictatorship of majority but on equal rights of one and all.
This has gotten away from me, but I'm hoping to get back to it this weekend, so I'll get my thoughts up eventually even if it's not my usual long RFD.
I'm curious how you would have voted on this one.
I think this should have had more rounds or more characters. Reading about anarchy is fun now that I support anarchy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pENUV9DLa2g
Yeah... I'm not going to be able to bust out a full RFD in time, not while I'm at work. I will still get a vote up, as promised, but I'll finish it over the weekend.
I still hope to have time to get up a vote before time runs out (it's been a busy few weeks), though it doesn't seem like my vote would change the outcome regardless of which side it's cast for. Even if time runs out, I will still write out a vote and post it here in the comments at minimum. Apologies for the delay.
"These sorts of contests should have at least three votes from competent people."
I know, but I dont have 3 accounts and I dont even have time to vote.
Thanks for voting!
These sorts of contests should have at least three votes from competent people.
Thanks for voting!
He has two of them: https://www.debateart.com/members/whiteflame/medals
You should get an award for the number of votes you churn out.
I should be able to get to it, going to have to take this one slow.
I know you just got done voting on my other debate, but if you get the chance to vote on this one too, that would be great!
Interested to get your opinion on this! Feel free to vote if you get the chance.
Plz vote!
Good luck defending a system which never worked anywhere, as you are gonna need it.
Guarantee HOF.