Anarcho-capitalists forget their own Austrian economics. It was Von Mises who described the marketplace as the ultimate democracy, where "sovereign consumers voted with their dollars" to fulfill their desires. Not necessarily good desires, mind you: just "desires." Whatever they happened to be. The market was itself amoral: it simply satisfied the desires of the greatest number. (That's why Howard Stern sells better than Isaac Stern.)
In other words, the market, like water, can't rise higher than its source. And its source is the people -- the same people who vote in a representative political system. The marketplace is no more moral than the people who are "voting with their dollars." If there's a demand, some supplier will always come along to fill it -- a demand for anything from chocolates to child prostitutes. What "market mechanism" would arise to distinguish between the two -- and by what right and standard would it enforce such distinctions?
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Anarchists think the "invisible hand" of the marketplace will work in the place of government. But read what Adam Smith had to say about businessmen in that famous "invisible hand" passage. Smith knew that government was a precondition of the market, and of the working of the "invisible hand." Without government, the "invisible hand" becomes a closed fist, wielded by the most powerful gang(s) to emerge. Why? Because government prevents competing forces from defining -- and enforcing -- their own private "interests" subjectively and arbitrarily.
Even if 99 percent of "protection agents" behave rationally, all you'd need is one "secessionist" outlaw agency, with it's own novel interpretation of "rights" and "justice," tailored to appeal to some "customer base" of bigots, religious fanatics, disgruntled blue collar workers or amoral tycoons with money to burn. Do anarchists care to argue that outlaw agencies -- given our current intellectual and philosophical "marketplace" -- would have no such constituencies? Dream on.
Oops -- did I say "outlaw?" Under anarchy, there is no final determiner of the law." There would be no final standard for settling disputes, e. g., a Constitution. That would be a "monopoly legal system," you see. That's because anarchists support the unilateral right of any individual or group to secede from a governing framework. (After all -- wrote anarchist Lysander Spooner a century ago -- I didn't sign the Constitution, did I?)
So whose laws, rules, definitions and interpretations are going to be final?
Consider the logical alternatives under anarcho-capitalism. Either...
1. No "protection agency" imposes or enforces any of its interpretations, standards, definitions, decisions or verdicts on any other competing agency, or on any individual acting as his own agent. In which case, there is no "final arbiter" of disputes, no court of final appeal, no enforceability. Everyone some agency deemed "guilty" of an improper initiation of force would retain a unilateral right to ignore the verdict of that agency, or to "secede" from any rule-making framework designed by that agency or any group of agencies.
From a practical standpoint, a "protection agency" which could not enforce retribution or restitution against a wrong-doer would be a paper tiger. Who would pay for such toothless "protection"? Who would stand to lose?
But who would stand to gain under this option? Only the thugs, who would unilaterally declare themselves immune from anyone's arrest, prosecution or punishment. Either as individuals or in gangs, they would use force, unconstrained by the self- limitations adopted by the "good" agencies.
In short, under this option, the good would unilaterally restrain themselves, while the bad would assume the right to use force without self-limitation, and with no fear of retaliation. This option would mean de facto pacifism by the moral, in the face of the immoral.
Now consider the only other option available under anarcho- capitalism:
2. Some enforcement framework must eventually arise and impose final verdicts on everyone. In practice, this would mean either (a) a dominant agency arises in the market, and enforces its interpretations and verdicts on everyone else, by brute force and coercion if necessary; or (b) a group of agencies decides to impose a mutually-agreed-upon framework on everyone. In short, a single legal system and final arbiter mechanism would arise by "market forces." (This utopian notion is endorsed by many anarchists, who concede that in the market there would likely arise a single legal framework.)
Alas, this does not resolve the anarchist's dilemma. In either 2(a) or (b), you have a de facto "legal monopoly" on the use of force -- the same "immoral" coercive situation for which anarchists denounce governments. Wouldn't 2(a) or (b) amount to "unlimited majority rule," or "might makes right"? In the final analysis, no one would be allowed to ignore or secede from the verdict imposed by the majority of agencies. If so, then what becomes of the alleged "right to ignore the state," the "right to secede," or the "right not to delegate away one's personal "right of retaliation"? Also, what becomes of the minority agencies which disagree with the majority -- or to any lone individual who is not represented by any agency? Where is "consumer sovereignty"?
In sum: Either you have no final arbiter to enforce verdicts, or you do.
www.vix.com/objectivism/Writing/RobertBidinotto/ContradictionInAnarchism.html
