[Rei Murasame]

It only points to he instability caused by government collapse, I don't see much libertarianism here. I only see a failed government and the mess that it left behind. People seem to be defining libertarianism as the absence of a central state. Well, theyre wrong. The collapse of a central state in such a country is unlikely to lead to libertarianism. This is not a weakness of libertarianism. Since of course it is just as unlikely that a good democratic government will appear there.

Nobody in Somalia decided, hey this government is not so good, lets strive for libertarianism.

Actually, I want to challenge this, but I'll be short and give you a chance to tell me what you think before I continue.

• In fact they did strive to be anarcho-capitalist, they had a pretty-much agrarian-esque version of libertarianism which is called the Xeer system, and it appears to create a sort of environment where libertarian ideas can flourish.
  
  
• Anarcho-capitalism cannot occur without the state collapsing. The reason it's unstable is quite clear, that the scarcity and insecurity that accompanies a governmental collapse actually fosters the existence of anarcho-capitalism's collectivist rivals as much as it does their own camp.
  
  I have no doubt that - just being a bit hyperbolic to make this point - if every government in Europe and Asia all collapsed simultaneously tomorrow morning, that despite the supposed prevalence of liberal ideas everywhere, two sorts of groups would immediately appear and make your anarchy unstable:
  
  
  • From the left: The return of a sort of 'CNT-FAE' (Confederación Nacional del Trabajo / Federación Anarquista Eurasiático).
  • From the right: A manifestation of a ethnoregionalist guild-socialist tendency, a sort of 'Union of Eurasian Fascists'.

That is not so different from the total clusterfuck in Somalia, just European and Asian countries would probably be more 'civilised' about it, and someone would actually win eventually. Right?

[Eran]

Anarcho-capitalism cannot occur without the state collapsing.

Anarcho-capitalism will follow the state imploding, rather than collapsing.

The key is that it will have to follow a process of de-legitimization of state authority. Since the world is currently dominated by democracies, the likely scenario is one in which, through the democratic process, state authority is gradually reduced (as it had been in particular spheres or at limited historic periods).

With reduction in state scope and authority, you will start seeing regions seceding from the larger state, while declaring themselves anarchies. Such claims would have to be accepted by the weaker central state, as they would enjoy general sympathy.

The success of such regions, economic as well as social, would further accelerate movement towards anarchism elsewhere, just as the economic and social success of liberal democracies spurred the ideology's spread in recent decades.


A collapse of government without the prerequisite attitude changes will only create a vacuum filled with new government.

[Rei Murasame]

But didn't the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine, the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo, the Federación Anarquista Ibérica, and other such groups try to do that strategy of hiving off pieces of various countries a long time ago? Despite enjoying general sympathy in every country they tried it in, it actually seemed to come to end because just across the border was the USSR which never hesitated to immediately infiltrate, undermine or directly attack them.

This isn't an area of history that I am super-strong on, so I can't be too detailed about it, but I am pretty sure they ran into the problem of not being able to command the sort of resources that a government can bring to bear, while trying to compete with and threaten that same government, and having bunched themselves up in one place as far away from the levers of government power as they could be.

[Eran]

Every successful revolution, from the American and French to the Russian, Algerian and others has seen non-government forces overcome the forces of government. So obviously such victory is possible, if far from assured.

I think the first anarcho-capitalist region is likely to either be established at sea (Seasteading) or divest itself from a relatively friendly nation, one already much of the way towards smaller government.

By definition, we ancaps are trying to create a society without a strong central force. That means that the revolution cannot be a one-off successful attempt to capture power (which may work for Marxists or Fascists). It can only take place once the ground is ready, as it were.

[ray188]

There is a concept that forms the basis for much of the desire for socialism. To me, it is a faulty concept thereby negating and logic based on it.

The concept states that under the free market, the 1% greedy capitalists will manipulate the market so as to "screw" the remaining 99%.

This is false because under a true "free market" (not what we see today) there is a strong motivator - that "evil" thing called "profit" that actually restrains the negative greed while fostering the positive greed. In a truly free market, you gamble and if you are wrong, you lose big time. In our current system, you gamble and if you are wrong (and a favored industry or company) you get bailed out. Yet, the proponants of more socialism (government control over the means of production) are the very ones who have set up and are looking to expand the false premise which is in itself the very problem.