Doug wrote:You can't show evidence that groups who contributed voluntarily to public works got much of anything done.
In a free society, most of what we today in a statist society call "public works" would be private. I'm not sure what particular services you mean, Doug, when you say "public works," nor can I imagine why you think voluntary mutual aid didn't get "much of anything done." Let's take an obvious example: roads.
The best way to understand the notion of private roads is to examine America's own era of private turnpikes. In 1821, there were over 4,000 miles of private roadway in the state of New York. Between 1792 and 1840, some 230 New England turnpike companies built and operated 3,800 miles of roads. It was private enterprise that really got the "show on the road" in America. -
Private highways: A solution whose time has come (again)?
Doug, maybe you didn't know that the first libraries, fire departments, street lighting, etc. in the US were done privately and voluntarily funded. Read e.g. about Ben Franklin for examples of this in early Philadelphia. We've already discussed examples of private law, so I won't repeat that here.
Maybe you haven't noticed all the restaurants and hotels that provide services to the public. Is "public works" simply a code word for
services the State has taken over and monopolized? That seems to be the way most people use the term. If this is what you mean, then in a free society the "public works" will become private services.
Doug wrote:In cases in which governments have collapsed and people had to provide infrastructure for themselves at their own expense (Bosnia, Iraq (early on), remote parts of Turkey after the earthquake, etc.) it was an unmitigated disaster.
That's like looking at starving Jews released from Nazi concentration camps and concluding that
freedom for Jews doesn't work. Obviously, one should blame the failed States (and the former Nazi regime) for these bad consequences, not the newly found freedom.
Instead of looking at the aftermath of failed States, one should look at stable stateless societies to evaluate the merits of statelessness. Would you like to look at Celtic Ireland? Classical "Thing" Iceland? Albemarle? Rhode Island in the 1600s? Holy Experiment Pennsylvania? Here's an article about the latter three examples:
The Origins of Individualist Anarchism in America by Murray N. Rothbard.
Doug> If the US government disappeared, we'd be overrun by other countries in a jiffy...
Hogeye> Gosh, you really buy the rulers' paranoia thing!
Doug> I really read history!
You must be amazed by e.g. Switzerland, Hong Kong, and Costa Rica. Perhaps you should consider factors such as free trade and private ownership of firearms (rather than large standing armies and massive military spending) as peacekeeping factors.
Doug wrote:I cannot withhold my tax money simply because I disagree with how it is being used.
Right (wink, wink.) No one has ever underreported or hidden income. Using cash or e-gold, which leaves no paper trail, is impossible. Guerrilla capitalism and the underground (free) economy does not exist.
Doug wrote:There is no country of Ozarkia, and no state of Ozarkia.
You deny the existence of the Ozarks??? I agree that there is no Ozark State.
Darrel wrote:In your anarcho-capitalist best case situation wouldn't there need to be some kind of organization/power whatever to keep people from organizing into collectivist statist groups again?
No - those who wish to form a State are free to do so, just as those who wish to sell themselves into slavery are free to do so. (Technically, one should probably refer to the 'foreign policy' of anarchist societies as 'panarchy.')
Now if you are saying that people accustomed to being ruled are unlikely to stay stateless for long, I agree. That's why revolutions don't work (and why
imposing democracy doesn't work.) But history indicates that a society that has "evolved" into statelessness is quite stable, and quite resistant to statism. Cf: William Penn's attempt to impose government over the Pennsylvania Quakers.
David Friedman looks at it as a public goods problem. In a statist society, good law is a public good and bad (special interest) law is a private good. Thus states tend to get bad law. Anyone who wants anarchy has the standard public goods problem to overcome: the benefits of statelessness accrue to many, whether they work for it or not. OTOH the benefits of statism are focused on e.g. munitions makers, oil producers, piss-testers, and the ruling elite, so they're quite willing to pay the price and score the rewards. Thus, statism is rather stable - generally unable to overcome this public goods problem. For a stateless society, we get the dual case: the authoritarian who wants to create a State has the public goods problem. The "benefits" of a State are general and dispersed, with many freeloaders; the benefits of statelessness are private benefits. As it was for the Quakers, who in their right mind would want to follow orders, regulations, pay taxes, get conscripted, and so on?
So in theory, which history confirms, society has two possible equilibriums: statism and anarchy. It is analogous to the double equilibrium of driving on a road, i.e. driving on the right or the left. Once one equilibrium is reached, it's really hard to get to the other equilibrium without getting smashed.
Perhaps thinking in terms of tribal collectives puts you on the wrong track. I suggest that you think in terms of polycentric law, where you can see all kinds of (non-primitive) examples of multiple legal systems without territorial monopolies. Here's a list of links:
Against Politics Polycentric Law links. The dominance of monopoly statist law is actually a relatively new phenomena in human history, connected with the rise of the modern State (largely due to the gunpowder weapon/ printing press tech revolution) starting around 1500.
