No, lots of money and less military power than at least one entrepreneur who can make Operation Empire pay for itself in exports.

There is no reason to take over entire AC-Society a state's military can take it over piece meal. Lets say we have AC-Land and State X and they border each other, each of them has a population of 100,000. State X decides to send only 1,000 to AC-Land and invade.

State X's army only has to take over the parts of AC-land that it can take over. Let's say that they take over one town with only 100 people. They make it perfectly clear that they will not invade any more of AC-Land in the future. They set up a new government make sure nothing bad happens, stay there until the populace changes their minds or kills whomever they want. Who is going to come to the rescue of the town in this scenario?

Because the State has organized everyone into one grand society. A war on one citizen of the State is a War on all of the State. This is not true of AC-Land, where the residents of the town are now at the mercy of State X.

So again, how electing some Grand Wizard going to change things?

This notion of Rule of Law in AC-Land is also equally laughable. There is no Rule of Law but rule of corporations or Rule of Men. Rule of Law guarantees that all laws are the same for all people and that no one is above it. The existence of AC-Land and Rule of Law is impossible. That is the whole point of AC-Land.

The "Grand Wizard" as you call him can organize everyone in society to produce the resources for war. Can organize a national army which trains day in and day out for war and he can now use organizational powers to lead the army and fight the enemy more effectively. He can also solve the free rider problem of citizens who do not want to help with the war effort.

How does AC-Land solve the free rider problem?

Why limit the options to that? Such would get the job done in an emergency, but what you're suggesting is a false dilemma.

Nonsense. The reason the banks took those terrible loans is because they knew they could securitize the loans and sell them off to someone else and they wouldn't get caught holding the bag. The credit rating agencies let them get away with that because they wanted the business. It is a classic example of failure in the free market trying to regulate itself.

LOL, the Community Reinvestment Act is irrelevant. Lots and lots of entities other than Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bought the bundles of bad loans. They bought them because of the negligent and or fraudulent actions of the credit ratings agencies. The housing crisis would still exist without Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Again, this is a classic example of free market "regulatory" agencies acting for the benefit of their customers at the expense of the accuracy of the information they provide.

Why don't you expand again on your amazing physical theory that lets rising prices magically make a net negative energy operation into a net positive one? Or how about how borrowing and lending doesn't inflate the money supply but fractional reserve banking does, even though they are the same thing? Or maybe you'd like to show how a private fiat currency would be impossible, even though many of them currently exist? You might want to think twice before bringing up old discussions. You've made quite a number more ridiculous statements on this board than I have.

Oh, we're talking about some yootopian pipedream fantasyland? Sorry, I missed that part. In that case, yeah, you're right.

I guess you could ask the American revolutionaries, or the viet cong.

Limit the options to what? Call him whatever you want, it doesn't change the situation. How does this government magically create defense out of thin air - ways that would not be possible without coercion?

No, the government sponsored credit ratings agencies let them get away with it because that's what their government regulatory masters told them to do to keep the ball rolling. In other words, your precious government committed securities fraud.

Yes, certainly a law that forces banks to make riskier loans than they otherwise would is clearly irrelevant in this whole affair!

Yes, like government pension funds!

The government sponsered credit ratings agencies.

Yes, because we've still got the Fed. It wouldn't have been nearly so bad, however.

Lol.

1) Have the government regulate the **** out of something until it fails
2) Blame the "free market"
3) Nationalize it

Yay socialism!

Purple monkey dishwasher. I never said any such thing.

Nor this. No wonder you lose so many arguments. You apparently can't read.

Name them. Better yet, name ONE.

Lol. Search function. [ quote ]

In a way someone already mentioned: eliminating the free rider problem.

How does your anarchy match the Empire in this critical aspect of military development? Or is it every man for himself until the war machine arrives?

I know the conversation has moved on, but I hate to let this sort of bs just hang there.

The roads are publicly owned infrastructure of enormous scale. I understand that you don't need a government to build a bowling alley or farm, but it's not the same. My question was how you'd go about ascertaining ownership of state owned assets once the state was dismantled. How would one mix their labour with a road, for instance?

It's funny, because in other threads I've seen you guys pull out "BUT WHAT ABOUT THE ROADS??!!?" as a condesecnding response to queries about how this and that might work. And now in a thread about roads, it's "BUT WHAT ABOUT BOWLING ALLEYS??!??!"

I don't mind if this has been gone over a thousand times and you don't want to respond, but if you wouldn't mind refraining from fallacious analogies that misrepresent my queries that'd be great.

Well first do you agree that getting rid of the state is a good thing if it were possible to achieve? Is it something you want to happen but can't think how it would?

Both of those are backed up by states. Try again.

So you only address converts seriously, and everyone else gets disdain?

Do I think getting rid of the state would be good were it possible to achieve? Possibly, but I do not take it as an article of faith.

Is it something I want to happen? No. But keep in mind that there is a great deal of uncertainty in my mind about exactly what an AC society would look like, and that is something that I factor in. If I thought that AC could function smoothly then I would be for it because as a rule more freedom > less freedom. But that is not to say I would opt for total freedom in a society that has gone to hell in a handbasket. I can't accept AC working backwards from a priori principles like you guys.

Can I not work out how a transition to AC could come about? Absolutely. More specifically, I can't see how it wouldn't occur in such a way as to stack the deck in favour of those who have the power already.

How do you figure? We have ACists on here and it seems they accept government control to me. They may not like it, but they certainly deal with it. If it was "this easy," we would already have an AC type society in America wouldn't we?

Methinks you underestimate the ability of the government to get you to play by the rules they choose.

There are atleast 3 goverment agents poasting in this thread.

You guys live in ac land already*.

*(some restrictions apply and more are in the making)

Why bother annexing a country in this day and age? Too messy.

The two situations are extremely different.

I grew up in a statist world. My school teachers brainwashed me into believing that America was great and the government was so wonderful. I have never known anything different. I only recently came across the idea of AC-land. The government is already massive and powerful and already established. Militias are being outlawed and my gun rights are infringed upon. What do you want me to do? Do you want me to start an armed revolution with the few people who actually agree with me? Yeah, I think we'll do great. We "accept" government control because we can either move away from our friends and relatives and jobs and life, or deal with the government. And it isn't like there is an AC-land that we can move to.

Now, think of the scenario we were actually talking about.

I grow up in AC-land and love the freedom that I have and hear about all of the atrocities that the states cause. I'm a member of a well formed and trained militia that is backed by independent defense corporations. I hear about a government that is trying to take over an independent section of AC-land. We would rally together for the sake of knowing that it only starts with that first small section being taken over and we would defend other AC-ists. Also, we'd likely have a pact with all the other militias to help each in our times of need.

Not to mention we would have the support of the rest of the world because 1.) Our attacker probably has lots of enemies (most aggressive nations do) and 2.) The geneva convention has outlawed all wars of aggression.

Somebody already answered your questions about the transition to AC-land but you may have missed it.

Basically, we have no idea how AC-land would come about. If it came about by a gradually stripping down of the government, maybe the government would sell off the existing roads to the highest bidders as it dismantled similar to a business shutting down. Maybe if it was an armed revolution, different factions would simply take them over. We don't know. There are many possibilities.

Yeah I saw that response, and I'm familiar with the argument. I don't find it entirely satisfactory for reasons I outlined in the post you were responding to: if you don't accept that no government is by definition better than some government, and I don't, then questions about how AC-land would function or how we might dismantle the state and redistribute it's assets are not secondary to the main question, but are unavoidably tied up with it.

I see, you were talking about how you don't see how it wouldn't stack the deck in favor of those with power.

My answer to that is, yes, the people who have power now will have a lot of power in AC-land. BUT, it will be much less power and the rest of the people will be better off. Some people will always have more power than others and some people will have more money than others. But the questions is whether or not the vast majority of people be better off.

Representative government is the most powerful tool available to the common man against oligarchical concentrations of virtually unlimited wealth. Trading political enfranchisement for a buying power contest against the planet's billionaires would set him back centuries.

Thank you for that boring status quo answer with no evidence or arguement to back it up.