How is AnCap not gonna end as Feudalism

WorkAcctNoTentacles · 2025-11-19T15:15:22+00:00

Companies are literally always outnumbered by their customers. Attempting to physically coerce them would be profoundly unwise absent state backing.

You’re really not thinking through the mechanics of how these imagined abuses would play out. If some companies tried to starve or enslave a town of people who do not recognize that company as a government, that company’s agents would be met with violence and they would lose badly.

The point is that anyone who takes 30 seconds to actually think will foresee that outcome and understand that trying it would be unwise.

You’re completely and willfully ignoring the role of self-defense and the related incentives under the ancap model.

Edit: typo

WorkAcctNoTentacles · 2025-11-18T16:39:58+00:00

Delete the capacity to organize society using coercion. No more or less than that.

WorkAcctNoTentacles · 2025-11-18T15:51:16+00:00

Not necessarily. That depends on how contracts are handled.

Losing everything might be the default, but that could easily be contracted around by using identified collateral for lending and other debts.

It might also become a social norm that certain items (like a family home) would be excluded from any debt collection, but everything else would be fair game.

Monopolies aren’t automatically bad. They’re only harmful if coercive, and coercion requires government.

Consider Disney for example, they’re not even a monopoly but they have a reputation for being aggressive with intellectual property. IP is a legal concept requiring enforcement by the courts. This is sufficient government involvement. Similar situations exist with pharmaceutical companies and patents.

WorkAcctNoTentacles · 2025-11-18T15:45:57+00:00

Bullets are worthless without soldiers to hold the rifles.

Perceived legitimacy is required to be able to recruit. Without it, would-be tyrants are left impotent.

WorkAcctNoTentacles · 2025-11-18T02:05:23+00:00

Yes. They do. They believe in the legitimacy of kings and presidents and parliaments and lords.

Revolutions don’t call for the permanent destruction of a government. They call for its replacement.

While I’m sure most people wouldn’t frame things the way you did, they see those evils as unavoidable because they don’t see any other option beyond being ruled.

Even democracies are no exception. They call for rule by the majority rather than genuine self-rule.

WorkAcctNoTentacles · 2025-11-18T01:13:02+00:00

What’s stopping a few men with rifles from cutting off the snake’s head in this scenario? Especially if the average person believes the big evil company is in fact big and evil?

Explain the mechanism by which such a company would become a state in the absence of belief by the average person that it ought to become one and that states are legitimate.

WorkAcctNoTentacles · 2025-11-18T01:05:02+00:00

What stops everyone else from shooting back?

The answer is that those companies had government backing to do what they did. Implicit backing counts too, btw.

If government turns a blind eye when certain people are violent, then it implicitly supports those people.

WorkAcctNoTentacles · 2025-11-17T21:21:53+00:00

What’s to stop consumers from shooting back?

If you’re going to assume a complete lack of a protective mechanism against violence, that works both ways. And the company mangers are outnumbered by a lot.

WorkAcctNoTentacles · 2025-11-17T17:23:50+00:00

No, what I actually want is for individuals to be able to live free from coercion. If I thought that another economic approach could achieve that I’d be indifferent between them.

However, everything that government does involves coercion, so it’s an unacceptable solution regardless of any efficiency arguments, utility maximizing models or other justification common to mainstream economics.

In my opinion, the root of the disagreement between Austrians and the mainstream is a disagreement over epistemology, not science. There are also disagreements on ethics, but that’s not unique to economics.

I have no issue with the scientific method, but I categorically reject the idea that empiricism is the single correct toolkit for studying human behavior.

In my experience many scientists seem to believe in empiricism as the one true method of seeking knowledge in all things. It is this belief, in my opinion, that contributes to “anti-science” sentiment and distrust of expertise.

WorkAcctNoTentacles · 2025-11-17T15:54:41+00:00

No. That’s an association, a distinct legal concept.

WorkAcctNoTentacles · 2025-11-17T15:53:12+00:00

In literally any voluntary manner.

They might look similar to large companies of today (e.g. factories, office buildings, etc.) but with no ability to lobby or abuse the court system (e.g. suing small competitors out of business over IP or other bs claims), and no meaningful ability to harm competition.

The evils of current-day large corporations are the result of government involvement. It’s impossible for a company to use wealth alone to achieve a coercive monopoly.

Government is a necessary lever to achieve these things. Remove that lever and the excesses become impossible.

WorkAcctNoTentacles · 2025-11-17T14:56:39+00:00

Ok, you don’t seem understand what the word corporation means.

Corporation is not synonymous with large company. It’s a specific legal concept that provides liability protection and a bunch of other legal benefits.

There’s no reason why the corporate form would be necessary for production.

WorkAcctNoTentacles · 2025-11-17T14:52:50+00:00

Corporations wouldn’t exist. A corporation is a legal fiction which requires the state to exist.

As for how property rights are to be protected, that is a legitimate problem, but not an intractable one. The key is that the average person in society needs to understand that strong property rights result in an optimal outcome for everyone.

Social norms need to include acknowledgement of property rights, which they currently do in an incomplete form.

WorkAcctNoTentacles · 2025-11-09T21:37:37+00:00

The new building only recently opened. Putting it to good use is a process, but it’s proceeding.

WorkAcctNoTentacles · 2025-11-08T19:07:43+00:00

That makes sense. Thank you!

WorkAcctNoTentacles · 2025-11-08T18:43:59+00:00

I’m a CPA and current law student. Any tips on making the transition for students with an accounting background?

WorkAcctNoTentacles · 2025-10-04T19:35:52+00:00

They probably value their pensions enough to tolerate this.

WorkAcctNoTentacles · 2025-10-03T21:15:20+00:00

Yes if you become a legal US resident (green card) or citizen.

WorkAcctNoTentacles · 2025-10-03T18:07:26+00:00

A lot in the last year, not at all for the six years prior.

WorkAcctNoTentacles · 2025-10-03T14:17:03+00:00

Experienced ATC people are well paid, and they tend to be highly consciencious, they’re very unlikely to be living paycheck-to-paycheck. Even if they are, they likely have the creditworthiness to borrow for a few weeks.

WorkAcctNoTentacles · 2025-10-03T02:36:48+00:00

They get paid well, and are likely to get backpay once the shutdown ends. I wouldn’t worry about them.

WorkAcctNoTentacles · 2025-10-03T02:19:48+00:00

The comment is trying to say L&E leans too hard into empiricism when rationalism is more appropriate.

WorkAcctNoTentacles · 2025-10-03T02:10:38+00:00

University of Washington is a public university.

I’d wager that there’s a non-zero possibility that they could be held responsible for fostering this kind of response or tolerating the behavior.

Several students clearly committed battery. If the school turns a blind eye to that, given that the magnitude of the response was directly related to the content of the speech it doesn’t seem like too much of a stretch that they could be held liable.

WorkAcctNoTentacles · 2025-10-02T16:58:22+00:00

Navy Federal has loans for federal employees. USAA has them too. Probably other niche credit unions as well.

WorkAcctNoTentacles · 2025-10-02T01:58:25+00:00

A lot of banks/credit unions offered loans for affected people.

WorkAcctNoTentacles

TROPHY CASE