Critique time!

So a friend of mine, who is...let's say, a libertarian politician of sorts, attempted to critique Rothbard in that he says Rothbard failed to account for rich asshats (his words). Basically, this is our discussion:

Me: Mises or Rothbard. You have 20 seconds. Go.

Him: Mises. Rothbard failed to account for asshats. Rich asshats, of which there are an abundance of in a successful, capitalist society. Person A has more money than person B, due to market forces.  Person A buys more military force than person B.  Person B is fucked. That's Rothbard in a nutshell.  However, Locke had a "Proviso" which says that the appropriator of resources must leave "enough and as good in common...to others." Rothbardian market anarchists do not agree with this proviso, holding that that the individual may originally appropriate as much as he wishes through mixing his labor, and it remains his property until he chooses otherwise. In other words, Rothbard fails to account for rich asshats, who will terrorize weaker people for their own personal gain. One of the founding principles of America, paradoxically, is countermajoritarianism

(Here is where the discussion turns a bit, mainly because I had no idea how to answer his assertions. This is me after someone else said something about someone stealing an object of theirs...Namely cake.)

Person 2: Person A has cake, Person B doesn't ... Person B shoots person A and eats their cake..Whose law is that :O

Me: Who cares, it violates the non-aggression principle :P

Person 2: I care, it's my cake.

Me: Exactly, so person B violated your property rights by 1: shooting you, and 2: stealing your cake :P

Him: You have identified the problem. Person B violated your property rights, and... there is no justice, because you can't afford it. That's the fundamental problem with anarcho-capitalism.

Me: Person A is dead, so obviously he can't. But his family probably can.

Him: Oh, what a lovely society that would be. Eventually, the richest, most aggressive asshat ends up the last man on earth. Huzzah!

So that conversation ends, and he starts talking about how anarcho-capitalism is "pure economic democracy."

Him: Also, Madison railed against pure democracy. Read Federalist #10. Same logic applies to economic factions. Corporations are the modern-day political parties.

Me: What about Madison?

Him: Read this: http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa10.htm

Me: No I mean, what about pure democracy

Him: Also, by faction he meant political party, but it applies generally. From this view of the subject it may be concluded that a pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert result from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual.

Me: I'm not for democracy, so what are you getting at?

Him: Anarcho-capitalism is a pure economic democracy. The argument still applies.

Me: How? We're not voting.

Him: Not voting for government positions, but we vote (aka choose) on things all the time. People vote on American Idol. That's got nothing to do with government. People "vote with their wallets" all the time. That's what I'm talking about.

Me: I'm not sure democracy is the right word. You say democracy, I think "mob rule."

Him: Which is exactly what would happen in an anarcho-capitalist state. Only it wouldn't be a mob wielding pitchforks, but dollars

So, I am utterly confused on how to respond to him. Note: I speak with him often so I will be sending him your responses. Hopefully this will be an ongoing debate. That, or I can get him to sign up here.

Mobs wielding dollars instead of pitchforks...

Dollars cannot hurt me. If they use their dollars to hurt me then it is no longer an anarchist society. If this is your friends argument, that an anarchist society will become non-anarchist then that's not really the point.

It's like if you get cancer, then you cure it, you will get cancer again given enough time. You should still try to cure your cancer.

Get your friend to concede that there is a grace period for anarchists after the current state has fallen and before another state can rise again. So that at any point in time, you're valuing anarchy. If there is no state, then life is peachy. If there is a state, you revolt against it to make things better again.

The state is exactly like cancer in every way.

Oh, and keep this in mind: When you are debating anarchy vs state, do not let your friends assume that people are retarded in anarchy and sane in the state. NOTHING will work if people go around randomly shooting eachother. If he says that he couldn't get away with killing in the state, he is WRONG because no state has ever been able to catch more than 60% of its murderers.

Oh and by the way. BY THE WAY. If people were really into using violence to get what they wanted we would have an epicly oppressive leviathan for a state. Oh that's right, we do. Except in anarchy you can punish these people. The state has the right to be coercive. This is why "cop-killers" are executed etc etc.

Think about it historically too. When we were cavemen, the biggest could push around the smaller. Now, we have guns and the smallest is equal to the biggest, and both rich and poor can afford guns. In the future, we may have forcefields or electronic bodies that are impervious to physical harm because our psyches are backed up on remote databases.

Human beings being able to coerce one another has gotten harder as technology improves. If everyone has access to guns because they are cheap and easy to use, coercion becomes more difficult. Compare this to "I win cus im buffer". Do not let that smart ass get away with that cheap trick.

Gosh. Ask him. Does he really think the greatest minds in economics and political theory can be defeated by "what if i shot you in the face?" jesus.

I forgot: "Person A has more money than person B, due to market forces.  Person A buys more military force than person B.  Person B is fucked."

Actually it goes like this

Person A has more money than person B, due to market forces. 

Person A buys more military force than person B. 

Person A is fucked because his product is now more expensive than B's. Even if he goes and kills B he cannot kill C D E F G.... Or maybe he can. Either way, his product is marginally more expensive because of this extra junk he bought, and anyone can enter the market at any time and beat A's business model. The best A can do is create something like the black market government creates when it bans a product. We all know how great government is at stopping black markets.

These analyses only based on economics miss the point big time.

Juan:

These analyses only based on economics miss the point big time.

I don't think most people buy the NAP/liberty ethical arguments. People only understand consequentialism.

Libertarian Anarchism: Responses to 10 Objections

People only understand consequentialism.

1) You don't know if that's true - you are just guessing. I'd say that people do take morality into account, though their morality is sometimes mistaken.

2) Economics alone dictates nothing. If, for instance, murder is demanded, an amoral market can easily provided cheap and efficient murdering techniques - not the sort of thing that decent people, let alone libertarians would like to happen.

If you advocate some sort of purely economic and amoral market then the consequences can be the ones Blueline's opponent mentions.

Snowflake:

I don't think most people buy the NAP/liberty ethical arguments. People only understand consequentialism.

You can appeal to ethics by pointing out the consequences of ignoring them.

Snowflake:

Juan:

These analyses only based on economics miss the point big time.

I don't think most people buy the NAP/liberty ethical arguments. People generally understand consequentialism better.

Fixed that for ya. 

IMO, deontological arguments require a knowledge of philosophy or a certain level of intelligence and/or rationality that is not usually found in people who have been to public school (it's no surprise that a good portion of the generation raised on the Internet is generally more open-minded to actual education, alternative ideologies, etc.), let alone generally in the current state society. 

YMMV. 

If person A had more purchasing power than B then that's fine but if he tries to use violence against B that's not fine 1. The majority always benefit from peace, should person A start killing people then those people would simply rebel 2. PDC's could just defend person B because he pays them, because the community, some benevolant provider (rich person or company) pays for it, or the PDC will do it for free. “look at us we're defenders of freedom and liberators!” 3. Why exactly would person B go out to kill people when he could wake up to find a PDC or angry mob outside his door demanding his blood? 4. What do his hired thugs gain from resisting the armed groups when they could die, have no moral justification for defending, and could easily just join the other group,and reap part of the reward when person A is dead and his property redistributed if they resist the other group? So what? Demands are filled for non violent means and armed deterents will detract 90 percent of conflict and an objective code of ethics will handle the rest

Any given personal defense agency has strong motivation to maintain a commitment to fairness.  If a particular agency became known for consistently backing aggressive behavior on behalf of wealthy customers, it would lose non-wealthy subscribers in numbers large enough to easily overwhelm any financial incentive.  

We see this effect even in our current impure market system.  There are Beamers and Jaguars to appeal to the wealthy, but there are also many, many other less expensive cars for sale because volume can quickly make up for thinner margins.  No state agency ensures inexpensive cars are available, the market simply signals that profit is to be made by appealing to the non-wealthy masses.  The same would likely occur for PDA offerings.  There is no sustainable social system in which being wealthy isn't advantageous, but an AnCap society maximizes fairness.

Roderick Long also makes the point that the wealthy have far more power in a state system than a free market system.  Lobbying efforts magnify the reach of their wealth.  In a mercantilist state, companies which gain a large market share can lobby for an advantageous monopoly/oligopoly using state coercion at far less cost than would be the case if they had to fund such coercion on their own.

liberty student:

Snowflake:

I don't think most people buy the NAP/liberty ethical arguments. People only understand consequentialism.

You can appeal to ethics by pointing out the consequences of ignoring them.

I mean that people tend to ignore libertarian ethics.

Also don't you forsake whatever ethics by pointing out the consequences of ignoring them since you're conceding they have no intrinsic worth?

Blueline976:

Who cares, it violates the non-aggression principle :P

So what if it violates (make up principle) there is no one to enforce them

Blueline976:

Person A is dead, so obviously he can't. But his family probably can.

Person A's family is poor and the rich guy is a multi-Billionaire who owns nukes, all the natural resources and property he needs for his weapons factories and army.

Ethics and morals are subjective. The myth of the anarcho-capitalist society is that people will obey Rothbard's "ethics".

Blueline976:

So a friend of mine, who is...let's say, a libertarian politician of sorts, attempted to critique Rothbard in that he says Rothbard failed to account for rich asshats (his words). Basically, this is our discussion:

Me: Mises or Rothbard. You have 20 seconds. Go.

Him: Mises. Rothbard failed to account for asshats. Rich asshats, of which there are an abundance of in a successful, capitalist society. Person A has more money than person B, due to market forces.  Person A buys more military force than person B.  Person B is fucked.

No. He needs to let go of his idiotic Hollywood view of private-military/police-as-mercenaries. Substitute "carpet cleaning" for "military force" and we see how stupid your friend's idea is.

Then he thinks that only the rich can afford justice. That's yet ANOTHER Hollywood view (note: Hollywood view means "the idiotic dystopian movies we see where the evil businessman is making life miserable for the poor, unselfish, communists").

 He also conflates political voting with metaphoric voting as paying for services.

Poptech:

Ethics and morals are subjective.

Please justify your statement.

wombatron:

Libertarian Anarchism: Responses to 10 Objections

That paper is one of Roderick Long's best works.

wombatron:

Libertarian Anarchism: Responses to 10 Objections

Thanks for the link!

Physiocrat:

Please justify your statement.

What you consider to be ethical and moral other people do not. There is no one or universal set of ethics or morals. This is irrefutable.

Poptech:

What you consider to be ethical and moral other people do not. There is no one or universal set of ethics or morals. This is irrefutable.

I consider the cause of the depression to be explained by the ABCT and other people do not. There is no universal economic theory. This is irrefutable.

Physiocrat:

I consider the cause of the depression to be explained by the ABCT and other people do not. There is no universal economic theory. This is irrefutable.

There is no universally "accepted" economic theory but there can be only one correct theory for cause and effect.

This has nothing to do with the subjective valuation of ethics or morals. The problem I keep seeing is people's false belief in some imaginary universal moral code, none exists.