No one gives you anything under AC. That's the beauty. You make the rules on your own property. No person or entity has a higher claim to your private property than you. Hence the term "private property." If someone disagrees, that's fine, as long as they stay off of your property.

Who gives charities money? People or government?

Why does any good idea automatically get thrown out because government isn't involved?

A lot of stuff would "magically" happen if we woke up tomorrow in ACland. Growing and smoking marijuana in your house would "magically" not cause you to be thrown in jail. Not giving 30%+ of your income to some coercive entity would "magically" be considered no big deal. etc etc.

Says who? This is just a set of hopes and wishes that exist only in your own mind.

That's like saying "Wal Mart will eventually amass so much money that they will put all other retailers out of business and then they can charge anything they want."

Bill Gates has over $40b and yet he donates tons to charities in Africa, AIDS research, etc. Would people like Gates simply disappear or only do bad things because government isn't there to hold our hand? What if someone (say, a student of Mises) was the first to amass enough money to control the world, but chose to keep AC in place and just hold the weapons/defense/whatever to defend AC?

Don't you think a huge majority of people acting on their own behalf outweighs a few evil people who want to control everyone?

The definition of "private property" maybe? How can you claim something is private property if you don't have the right to defend it?

I'll have to continue this tomorrow if I do at all. You are literally giving me a headache trying to keep up with all your hand waving.

Is it really that hard to understand?

Private property= the owner has the "best claim" to it (via homesteading) and can defend it.

Whether or not you think this would "work" without government doesn't change what private property is. You can't sit there and say we live on private property right now, if government has the right to come in and take it at any time.

AC allows for you to defend your private property and the laws would reflect that, otherwise bad things would happen, ie people with the biggest guns could simply take over. Since more people would rather "do their own thing" on their land than become a slave to a guy with a big gun, it becomes +++ev to follow those guidelines for private property.

I mean, in theory some aliens could come down at any moment with a huge flamethrower and take over the Earth, but why does that strike only count against AC? It's not like a state stops something like that from happening. I mean look at Iraq. The state actually gets us closer to something along those lines (one huge entity controlling the Earth.)

Yeah I'm gonna have to cut you loose little buddy. Even the other ACists can see where you're not keeping up with the rest of the class.

Exactly what happens now. Say Ralph Nader by some miracle was elected tomorrow, and his first day in office he decides he's going to dismantle the military-industrial complex... There would almost certainly be a coup, & the people with the real power (the pentagon) would just install another puppet who is going to continue giving them hundreds of billions of dollars a year

Shocking -- another libertarian who makes outlandish statements with no support and pretends they are facts.

And P.S., the people working in the Pentagon don't actually keep those billions of dollars. They make, on average, much less than their civilian counterparts with equal qualifications.

Will you give me $5000 per year? I promise I won't keep it! I'll just spend it on cool stuff like bombs and roads etc.

Even more shocking -- another libertarian jumps in to defend with an irrelevant anti-govt strawman.

lol, and I thought taipefic was doing a number.

Only when everything is for sale.

So we would all be better off if everyone had an income of exactly $50,000, since money=greed and corruption right?

Wal Mart has billions in cash and inventory, and they are growing consistently bigger every quarter. Yet their prices are coming down, and the selection is as vast as ever. Seems like it sucks for consumers!

Also check out Bill Gates, look how he has abused all the power associated with his pile of money compared to mine. Rich people are just as able to do good with their power as they are to take over and make us all slaves. There's nothing about having a lot of money that instantly and automatically makes you evil, greedy, or corrupt, and you can use the money to do good. Of course not everyone will, but people tend to favor "good" (defined loosely as less violence, more wealth, etc) over evil (mass terrorism, stealing, murder). If the people who accumulated power and wealth wanted to use it for bad outcomes, no one would be here today.

The posts in this thread helped me totally miss TFC being Australian...

No.

FYP

Why not? If income inequality is bad, wouldn't it follow that income equality is good?

Your answer lies here.

He didn't say it was bad. He inferred it would be exploited to a very damaging degree in a lawless society. Pretty big incentive to infringe on other's property rights rights when justice is for sale and the biggest checkbook writes the law.

You do realize that private defense, arbitration firms, and courts will operate on a for profit basis right? Perhaps you're new to the whole AC thing.

No ACist on this board has ever claimed that coercion would be (or can be) 100% eliminated.

This is not true. This isn't some strict comparison, where the person with more "force units" automagically wins every time. Application of force has a cost. Further, initiation of force tends to be (a lot) more expensive

Wrong. Force can stop them.

The doomsday device might.

Wow where to start:
I wouldn't be worried about these big bad security companies your dreaming up if they're can't even match your individual net worth.
How exactly do you expect that to happen? You think banks will just hand over a customer's savings, investments, deeds etc? How long do you epect a bank like that to stay in business?
No, but the market certainly reacts negatively to such a company,right? Do you imagine that people would actually use a security company that behaved this way?
This is just nonsensical. Making voluntary agreements=government. Riiight.

i think a lot of you anarchist people would do yourselves a favor to learn some history. i dont understand why you guys think you should all figure it out in your own head when there is so much history which shows what will happen one way or the other.}

and good posts neccesasriyevil and others against anarchism!