Objectivist Criticisms of Anarcho-Capitalism

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Dennis Hackethal’s avatar
Dennis HackethalOP​·​#1​·​

The anarcho-capitalist stance: competing governments in a single territory would not only work but be superior to having a single government, a monopoly on violence.

Battle-tested
Dennis Hackethal’s avatar
Dennis HackethalOP​·​#14​·​

One illustration will be sufficient [to show that a society made of competing governments cannot work]: suppose Mr. Smith, a customer of [arbitration service] A, suspects that his next-door neighbor, Mr. Jones, a customer of [arbitration service] B, has robbed him; a squad of Police A proceeds to Mr. Jones’ house and is met at the door by a squad of Police B, who declare that they do not accept the validity of Mr. Smith’s complaint and do not recognize the authority of [arbitration service] A. What happens then? You take it from there.

Ayn Rand, ‘The Nature of Government’, The Virtue of Selfishness, books.apple.com

As I have written before, Rand “implies that they could never resolve their conflict – or worse, that they would be in a perpetual state of war – because they don’t have a shared jurisdiction, an underlying legal framework.”

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Dennis Hackethal’s avatar
Dennis HackethalOP​·​#15​·​

Libertarians such as David Friedman have explained how that situation could be resolved peaceably:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yo7vnXmVlw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PnkC7CNvyI

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