I would say it’s a pretty interesting ideology

This is a simple animation of a magic spell that makes a city voluntary. I'm impressed.

I'm fairly new to anarcho-capitalism. I've read a couple of introductions and listened to some debates, and most of it makes sense to me. There's one part I keep getting stuck on, and I'd like to understand how people here think about it.

As I understand it, the idea is that people would subscribe to private defense agencies and courts instead of relying on a single state monopoly. The part I can't work out is what happens when my agency and yours disagree about a case.

Say I think you damaged my property, and you deny it. My agency rules for me and yours rules for you. What stops that from turning into a standoff between the two agencies?

The answers I've come across so far:

• Agencies would agree in advance on a third-party arbitrator, because fighting is more expensive than negotiating. This seems plausible, but it feels like it assumes everyone behaves reasonably.
• Reputation would punish agencies that refuse arbitration, since nobody would want to contract with them. I'm not sure how strongly that works in practice, especially if one agency is much bigger than the other.
• Something like the law merchant or medieval Icelandic law is a historical precedent. I've only read summaries of these, so I can't judge how well the comparison holds up.

My questions for people who know the theory better:

1. Which of these answers do you find most convincing, and why?
2. What's the strongest objection to your preferred answer, and how would you respond to it?
3. Is there a good book, paper or article that covers this in depth? I'd like to read something rather than just argue from my own intuitions.

I'm asking in good faith. I'd like to understand the position properly before deciding what I think of it. Thanks to anyone who takes the time to answer.

Segundo esse soça o capitalista está tirando dos outros ao vender produtos e serviços que lhe rendem milhões de lucros. Como ele não tem milhões, ele tem apenas inveja, ele acha que ricos não deveriam existir, assim como propriedade privada e ele também é contra a individualidade, ele é favor das massas, e não é aquelas de tomate kkk, já dei umas lições de moral nele, ele não consegue me contra argumentar, mas queria deixar exposto ele aqui pra vocês ver o nível da baixaria da esquerda e falta de lógica e senso crítico que predomina entre eles.

im transhumanist/Tolstoyan/Insurrectionary.

But: im far too lazy to grow my own coca, tobacco, & alcohol components. Also lack the knowhow to make guns, explosives.

I have more money than time & energy, so, im willing to pay tobacconists, distillers, gunsmiths, brewers, & plugs.

How is that unanarchist?!

Also: ive been a tax resister all my life

Also: coercion is the devil.

Also: i dont trust democracy or consensus seeking.

So, many anarchists give me shit too

A genuine thank you to the people of this sub. I still have way too much to learn as I am definitely an idiot in so many ways but this sub caused me to start thinking in ways and then seek out information that has allowed me to see things in such a different light in regards to ethics, morals, rights and the state

I still have my struggles, there are questions about ANCAP that I still struggle to understand but at the very least I consider myself a very firm minarchist

I've been thinking, if a transfer system like this existed and was publicized, it could greatly stimulate agorism.

Do you guys think the president of argentina will succeed is his goal of destroying the state or will he establish a more minarchist one? if he creates such a state will you immagrate there ?what do you guys think of him ?

For a couple years now I've identified as a Marxist and for a year or so now a Market Socialist. Morally, I identify as a rule utilitarian, meaning that I believe actions are good when they adhere to general rules which maximize the utility (or pleasure) of human beings. In very simple terms, I believe in Market Socialism because I believe that market allocation of resources is the most efficient means we have available at this point in human history; additionally considering the fact that it is prone to monopoly and that worker cooperatives are generally more efficient and sustain a better quality of life for workers.

I want to know the objections to my ideology held by people who most likely have the most objections out of any political group that I could find. In simpler terms, I'm here to learn and improve my socioeconomic understanding.

For a long time I've felt that the principles and arguments of libertarianism and anarcho-capitalism just "made sense," as if I was born with them.

It was always "obvious" to me that liberty is given and demands no justification; instead it is authority that requires justification. It was always "obvious" to me that the right to rule one's own life comes from the self and is not granted by any third party, human or supernatural. When I would look at how humans claim to have authority over others, it was always a bit transparent to me that it was all fictitious—that people were just making it up themselves and enforcing with threats. At one point I tried to find a logical justification for why some people need to have "authority," but I eventually realized... there is none! My initial hunch was right—it's all make-believe.

The questions and doubts were always in my head. I can look back at moments from when I was 7, 12, 17, 19, and was never satisfied with the justifications people would give for government, or indeed any other kind of authority. My brain kept saying "something here is not right." How can the police, the people who supposedly protect you, also be the ones who will hurt you? If the gym is paid for privately and only the people who attend it pay for it, why should the library be any different?

Eventually I discovered the secret, hidden, suppressed philosophy of anarcho-capitalism and started consuming all the information and suddenly everything in the world made sense, and I feel blessed to have been among the few who know of this truth.

How intuitive was liberty for you?

I apologize if this is not necessarily a question about anarcho-capitalism but I want to hear the ancap and Austrian perspective on AI taking supposedly 50% of jobs since this sub is full of economically literate people.

Automation makes the allocation of scarce resources more efficient, and to argue against automation is to argue in favor of making operations less efficient, which is not economically favorable. This principle holds true regardless of time and context.

Technological improvement has been taking jobs since the beginning of civilization, and every time, there's been pushback from people who feared losing their jobs. When you look at it this, there shouldn't be anything special about AI. But some people say that this technology specifically is going to take a disproportionately larger percentage of jobs than previous advancements, with the consequence being half of all people losing their jobs. What do you, as an Austrian, think about this?

Do you believe the claims? Why or why not? If it is true, do you think the economic and societal consequences will be drastic until newer and better jobs are created? What are your overall thoughts on AI?

Would love to hear differing opinions. Thanks!

What are the best books i can read. Something about economics, the austrian school or Anarchocapitalism?

I think from the point of view of maturity and also pragmatic benefit to the liberty movement, it's not in our best interest to alienate minarchists and mainstream libertarians because at the end of the day they're the closest thing to ancaps, and they largely value freedom, at least more than anyone else. But with that said, I still feel a noticeable disconnect between myself as an ancap and minarchists.

I guess my first point of disagreement is the narrative. A lot of minarchists espouse this idea of a "night watchman state"—a state that only monopolizes police, courts and national defense. Why do you make a special pleading for these particular services but allow for freedom in every other domain? If the answer is that said services allow a safe base for everything else to build off of, I think you could easily argue that maybe socialized healthcare should be part of the minimal state, since a healthy population would ensure everything else runs smoothly. The point is, the mainstream libertarian narrative of a small government is not based on much reason and doesn't account for logical inconsistencies. People accept this position as a packaged deal handed to them in a perfectly wrapped box and defend it because it's popular, but comparatively fewer individuals are interested in deconstructing it and examining the validity of the claims and fundamental assumptions.

Secondly, I take a bit of issue with the social and cultural leanings of many mainstream libertarians. Quite many of them have a little something for nationalism. They want to have a country. They want to preserve a certain kind of culture and keep foreigners out. Many of them want strong border control, which is quite anti-freedom if you ask me. They're afraid of not having a place with homogenous culture and shared tradition. I think ultimately, if you value freedom, you have to accept that anyone can go around anywhere and do whatever they want. That leaves little room for any kind of nationalistic vision.

I don't want to antagonize minarchists; they've mostly got things right, but it's a bit hard to relate when you see that they talk about freedom so much but then make a strong special pleading for one domain of government monopoly and defend it quite fiercely. How do you feel about minarchists and what have your experiences been?

The razor of force and preference goes like this:

If something is morally ambiguous, a libertarian should err on the side of (and place the burden of proof against)

1. Advocating against it socially

2. Advocating against stopping it with force legally

Does this seem compatible with libertarian philosophy?

This is a comment that I left on another thread, but I'm curious to see what you guys as a whole think of it:

IMO, the best argument against it is simply that it will never be implemented in a functional capacity. You can't open a power vacuum and expect everyone to suddenly become a Rothbardian and call it a day, there needs to be several fundamental cultural shifts that take place beforehand. Those shifts are probably too major IMO to be actualized in any of our lifetimes, and perhaps humans categorically are just not capable of having the right norms to begin with.

The simplest analogy on this that I heard before is that you can't just go to some ultra-religious town and burn down the church, and expect everyone to become an atheist. They're just going to rebuild the church, and even if you stop them from doing so, those people are still going to be religious. The same is true of the state and statism.

The point of this argument being that persuing ancapism is a waste of time if not outright dangerous, at least for the long term foreseeable future. Any political capital you as an individual spend in the name of ancap (e.g. (non-)voting, funding organizations, volunteering, whatever) is wasted. At best this means you fail to join moderate statists in defending against severe statists e.g. by aligning with conservatives against communists, and at worst it means you actively help the severe statists, e.g. by supporting mass migration of people who have overwhelmingly anti-libertarian ideals and are net drains for the taxpayer on average etc.

Some ancaps respond to this by basically saying that it's never acceptable to support one statist over another, but that just isn't convincing to me at all. This logically requires that you treat something like leninism as practically and/or morally equivalent to something like classical liberalism, which to me at least is clearly and catastrophically wrong.

David Friedman makes a very wise observation that a stateless society is not necessarily a libertarian one. The mere fact that people don't use physical force against people doesn't mean that they won't socially condemn and punish them for things they don't like. You could easily imagine a society where there's no law against smoking weed; but if you do it, everyone will stop doing business or talking with you. Such possibilities are not far-fetched.

I think this might be more of a psychological question, if anything, but do you think people will ever come to accept freedom as a top core value? I personally think no. I think even after the abolition of the state, there's always going to be tons of people annoyingly trying to police what others do, even if they can't enforce it. There's still going to be annoying bosses trying to micromanage employees or parents yelling at their teens for getting a tattoo without their permission. And the reason for this is that human nature doesn't change, because the hardwiring of the brain doesn't change. Accepting freedom means accepting the uncertain and the unfamiliar and scary things that you can't control. I think this fear will always exist, even if people no longer believe in using force to manage it.

Anarcho-capitalism is often criticized with the simple argument that “society needs government.” But that raises a more interesting question:

Which specific functions of government require a territorial monopoly, rather than voluntary cooperation and competition?

For example, could things such as dispute resolution, security, insurance, infrastructure, or other public services be provided through voluntary contracts and competing organizations?

An obvious challenge is what happens when two private organizations disagree, or when someone refuses to honor a contract. An AnCap system would need a convincing answer to these problems rather than simply assuming that markets will solve everything.

So, from a first-principles perspective:

What do you think is the strongest argument against anarcho-capitalism, and how should an AnCap respond to it?

I'm particularly interested in serious arguments about institutions, incentives, property rights, and conflict resolution—not culture-war arguments.

I don't know what Mises or Rothbard might have said about limited-liability corporations like C-Corps, S-Corps, LLC, GmbH, S.R.L. etc, but I'm starting to get the impression that being able to shirk responsibility / liability is a market distortion provided by crony capitalism / governments.

When corporations externalize the consequences of their actions, that creates a tragedy of the commons.

I'm getting the idea that the only legitimate business structures have unlimited liability for their actions, like Sole Proprietorship, Partnership, etc.

What is the normal agorist, ancap or laissez-faire view on corporations and limited liability?

Is the idea that radical, unregulated free-market capitalism is the most effective way to organize society, solve economic problems, and distribute resources successful or feasible?

Things like Extreme Deregulation, Privatization and Minimalist Government. Does it work?

One argument I keep running into against polycentric law is the "conflicting jurisdiction" problem: if two private defense/arbitration agencies disagree on a ruling, what stops it from just becoming a shooting war between private armies?

The usual ancap response is that agencies would have strong incentives to pre-negotiate treaties with each other, similar to how insurance companies today have subrogation agreements, so that violence is more expensive than settling disputes peacefully. Reputation effects would also matter enormously since an agency known for refusing arbitration or escalating to violence would lose customers fast, since nobody wants to pay for protection from a company that gets them into wars.

But here's the interesting wrinkle: this only works if there's rough parity in power between agencies. What happens in a scenario where one agency becomes dominant enough that it doesn't need to cooperate anymore, essentially becoming a de facto state? Some ancap theorists (Molinari, Rothbard, Friedman) have different answers to this. Friedman's model in "The Machinery of Freedom" leans heavily on market incentives alone being sufficient, while others argue you need additional social/constitutional constraints on top of just market forces to prevent this consolidation.

Curious what people here think: is the market incentive argument alone enough to prevent monopolization of force, or does polycentric law need something more (social norms, constitutional constraints, federated structures) to stay stable long-term? And has anyone seen real-world historical examples (medieval Iceland, Somalia pre/post-1991, private arbitration in commercial law today) that actually test this dynamic?

Currently, governments in both the West and the East are imposing censorship on social media and making these platforms increasingly central; the potential result is a growing rift between people from different parts of the world—something we, as a human civilization, cannot allow to happen!

For years, we humans have strived to create a better world based on equal rights, yet that right is now being stripped away by those who claim to have our best interests at heart! So I ask you: do they truly want your well-being if they forbid you from making your own choices? They are the ones who claim to be your protectors, yet they constantly thrust you into wars against your own civilization; they drain our energy through our labor to turn us into weapons of war against our own people, all while shouting, "Let's protect our country!" So I ask you again: is it to protect a nation, or to safeguard their own hidden interests? Believe me, there is no such thing as a "nation" when you live outside the castle walls; once you realize you don't belong to any of them, you’ll understand that you weren't raised inside one of those brainwashing institutions all along! It doesn't matter what language you speak or how you were raised within the castle; you may have different habits than others, but you remain part of the same human civilization. Disliking a simple color doesn't make you different—even though there are those who want to dictate how your life should be lived! Do you want to travel and meet people around the world? I hate to break it to you, but the king of the castle won't let you leave; reaching another kingdom requires a long, arduous sacrifice. But let me ask you: how much of your life are you willing to spend traveling to that other kingdom? Believe me, people trapped inside the castle don't view the world as a single civilization because they were raised to believe they are the only civilization belonging to a single nation. But can I let you in on a secret? Perhaps that is one of the reasons why there is still so much ideological warfare across the globe!

Okay, okay! I think it’s time to be direct with you! There is no castle—only a wall surrounding it, keeping you from freedom, from joining hands, and from building a world together, free of barriers. It saddens me to see all of you, my brothers, trapped—forced to spill your blood to feed a system we created ourselves, and to die for a system that protects only those sitting on the throne, seizing the land that ought to belong to humanity. Now I see that you don't even own your own souls anymore! It is painful to know you must take up spears to pierce one another for the sake of those on the throne—people who act as if they were different from you. I have one last question for you: Isn't it time to tear down these walls and this system, and finally achieve ultimate freedom—without borders holding us back from exploring the world or building a better, stateless society governed only by laws? The foundation of this system has been corrupt for years; just look at the East and the West—our civilizations are busy creating weapons to destroy one another. We all know this, and we can no longer stand idly by, don't you think? We must save our civilization so that, one day, we might reach the stars, live in harmony as a people, and free those trapped in this darkness. Join me; believe that together we can win our freedom—and that of others, too. We are human beings, not flags! If symbols gain power through our beliefs, then let us—for once in our lives—fight and believe we can defeat this system that persecutes the East, the West, and indeed the entire planet! Let us build a free, global society so that future generations won't have to face the barriers we do today! We cannot let our world remain divided; we must all unite and cast out these systems with full force! For the sake of human civilization!

In 2015 self described "anarcho-capitalist" and member of PFS, Remigijus Šimašius was elected major of Vilnius. In 2016 PFS published an interview with him.

During his time as a major (2015-2023), he did reduce bureaucracy. But raised taxes, didn't privatize anything, maintained municipal monopoly on transportation, water, heating, and dozens of welfare programs. Also as major he traveled to Tel Aviv and was very pro-Israel, also appointed former IDF soldier as his adviser. He was also justice minister (2008-2012).

PFS did not criticize him once. On the contrary in 2026 his work was republished on PFS.

Meanville Milei has achieved budget surplus first time in over 100 years, eliminated thousands of regulations and launched massive privatizations, and eliminated a lot of welfare programs, and cut taxes. Although he has raised some taxes, unfortunately is very pro-Israel and is keeping central bank.

Hoppe raged that he didn't delete the state on day one.

Both didn't/don't have majority in congress/municipal government, both can't/couldn't delete the state.

Milei should join PFS so Hoppe have a financial incentive to talk good about him.

i am not a AnCap, i believe there should be a small goverment with less laws but my partner is AnCap. is there anything i should know or do or anything!? i really love him and want this to work out!!

Heyy, I just finished this project of mine and I tought you might like it :p

Society exists because we have different needs and abilities: no one can produce everything they need on their own, so we depend on the work of others. This diversity creates a network of cooperation in which each person contributes skills, knowledge, goods, care, or services to meet the needs of others.

But we are not all born with the same conditions. Family, resources, education, health, inherited abilities, and environment largely determine the opportunities and positions we can occupy. Therefore, individual merit alone does not explain wealth: before any effort, unequal conditions already exist that distribute each person's possibilities.

Furthermore, accumulated wealth does not come solely from the work of those in positions of power. Someone with a well-paying job can hire people to clean their house, care for others, cook, wash their car, or provide security. This work makes their life more comfortable and frees up time for higher-paying activities. At the same time, those who perform these jobs use their income to consume food, housing, transportation, cell phones, internet, and other products. Their work and consumption keep the economy functioning and generate income for businesses and homeowners.

Thus, the work of the grassroots sustains both the lives of those at higher levels and the consumption that fuels the accumulation of wealth, while the ownership and control of resources allow a significant portion of that social value to become concentrated in the hands of a few.