I'm looking for a book that makes a broad case against the state, mainly drawing from history. As an AC, I often get hit with the "can you point to any instance in history where AC has existed, let alone worked" question. However, when you think about it, just a couple centuries ago, the vast majority of daily life was far more anarchic than today. No one could have conceived of the gay marriage debate 200 years ago because the state didn't issue marriage certificates. There was no minimum wage, unemployment insurance, child protection agency, mandatory education, and so on. The democratic socialists have tried to spin the explosion of market- and technology-driven progress since the Industrial Revolution (and really, even before that) as somehow the result of changes in forms of government and government policies.
AC theory expends a great deal of effort on the "hard problems" - i.e. how to produce law, defense, security, and banking without the state but I would like to see any material that looks at the more pedestrian aspects of life and illustrates how people got along fine before the state appropriated basically every part of life. I am aware of Walter Block's book on Road Privatization and I plan to take a look at that in the near future.
Clayton -
Any textbook can show you the utter failure of institutional government throughout human history.
ClaytonB:here was no minimum wage, unemployment insurance, child protection agency, mandatory education, and so on.
Is this your case for government? All of these policies have caused more harm than good.
ClaytonB:how to produce law, defense, security, and banking without the state
The Medici's opened their banks when charging interest was illegal. Banks emerge despite government's bad policies.
Esuric: Any textbook can show you the utter failure of institutional government throughout human history. ClaytonB:here was no minimum wage, unemployment insurance, child protection agency, mandatory education, and so on. Is this your case for government? All of these policies have caused more harm than good.
No - my point is that the things that people think are so vital and necessary to prevent the total collapse of society are mostly very recent in origin. People in some countires (US, Britain, Austria, Hungary, Prussia) prospered without these so-called "safety nets" and "vital services" and there was much greater social harmony. While people were much poorer in absolute terms than today, there was greater peace and prosperity in relative terms in the absence of the heavy hand of the police state and the suffocating hand of the nanny-welfare state.
ClaytonB:No - my point is that the things that people think are so vital and necessary to prevent the total collapse of society are mostly very recent in origin. People in some countires (US, Britain, Austria, Hungary, Prussia) prospered without these so-called "safety nets" and "vital services" and there was much greater social harmony. While people were much poorer in absolute terms than today, there was greater peace and prosperity in relative terms in the absence of the heavy hand of the police state and the suffocating hand of the nanny-welfare state.
Well yeah, those people are wrong, and are being fooled by their governments.
This one?
http://www.mises.org/store/Black-Book-of-Communism-The-P551.aspx
From here:
Bruce L. Benson's The Enterprise of Law is the most comprehensive empirical-historical study of anarcho-capitalism. Benson provides abundant empirical evidence for the efficient operation of market-produced law and order. Benson's sequel To Serve and Protect is likewise to be recommended.
David D. Friedman's The Machinery of Freedom presents the utilitarian case for anarcho-capitalism: brief, easy to read, and with many applications from education to property protection.
....
Morris and Linda Tannehill's The Market for Liberty has a distinctly Randian flavor. However, the authors employ Ayn Rand's pro-state argument in support of the opposite, anarchistic conclusion. Outstanding yet much neglected analysis of the operation of competing security producers (insurers, arbitrators, etc.). (Free audiobook here)
The bibliography has a number of links to a number of papers that delve into empirical cases as well.
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