Capitalism: The Debate

[thewake]

Quote:It is my opinion, like yours, that free-market capitalism is best...but I follow the thought that says government intervention messes with the free market and that the government itself is a territorial monopoly that allows no competition through the threat of monopolized violence.

I used to be an an-cap, don't get me wrong. It's not an idea without merits, but I see some flaws in it the theory, mostly in the courts.

First, there will be no unified, objective law. Murray Rothbard said that there would be a common law that all the private, for-profit, courts would follow, but I don't buy into that. What will make the court system in anarcho-capitalism follow the laws they should follow? The market? What if the market doesn't like the non-aggression axiom, what if the market favors something else?

Second, what about enforcement of contracts? In an anarcho-capitalist society, if it follows the Rothbardian model, the private courts and police would not be able to force me to honor a deal I made with you. I can just ignore it. Yes, if I do it too much I might have a bad reputation. But there will always be some sucker waiting to be predatorized by me.
If I sue somebody that won't pay his rent, who will make him give me the money he owes me? Nobody, because there isn't a power to do that in anarcho-capitalism.

Same thing with fraud. Lies wouldn't be punished. In a free market, you can't do things under false pretenses. It messes with the flow of information that is key to it working properly. And in some cases, lies can hurt people physically.

The government, at the current time, has the power to make people testify in court, compel people to be on a jury, and search people's homes with just cause and a warrant. None of that will exist in anarcho-capitalism. If someone witnesses Bruce Wayne's parents being murdered, and they don't want to talk, they don't have to talk. A group of professional jurors doesn't seem like a jury of my peers to me, seems like a much narrower group. And don't get me started on how hard it would be to convict somebody of murder if you have to get permission to search a suspect's home.

Like I said, it's all about the court system.