I received a few e-mails from yesterday’s post/slashdot-crosspost, [Slashdot] Couple Who Catch Cop Speeding Could Face Charges. Here is one such e-mail:

Greetings.
I noticed on a slashdot post you made.
I have been interested in anarcho-capitalism for quite a while but in discussion with my friends and others with such leanings a problematic question keeps recurring. What stops the development of overwhelmingly powerful private armies? I am familiar with the non-aggression maxim, but with the destructive capability of modern weapons systems couldn’t an individual with several billion dollars coerce just about anyone other than others with similar amounts of money? This is a problem that I can’t seem to find a good solution too. I apologize for the unsolicited e-mail but not many people at my university are familiar with anarcho-capitalism and I find that I am often the most educated one on the subject yet still had questions.

The main premise/question of a majority of the e-mails comes down to a debate-topic that has plagued the anarcho-capitalism debate since it started decades (centuries?) ago — will anarcho-capitalism devolve into feudalism?

If you do a search online for the two terms together, you’ll come up with a good foundation of the basis of the debates. The Austrian Forum has a good debate thread on the very topic, but I believe that debate, like others, fails to realize the basic comfort in the mind and heart of the anarcho-capitalist: we can’t care about you until we’re able to care for ourselves.

For myself, this is the most honest interpretation of anarcho-capitalism that I can provide to those who don’t understand why I want freedom to pursue my political/faith beliefs without intervention or force of others. It sounds callous and egotistical, but it isn’t. My life, my faith and my politics are based on one idea: I can’t convince anyone of anything except by example. My example of freedom is difficult to display to others because I am forced to support wars, welfare systems and force-structures that are counter to my “Utopian dream,” which is a term I really don’t like.

Let’s look into the main problem with this debate: you’re looking too large! When I ask for anarcho-capitalism for myself, the first thing that happens is people exclaim that it is impossible for the world to be free of the State. Yes, you’re right! But that isn’t what I am asking for. I am asking for the ability for myself and my brethren to be able to extricate ourselves from the madness that the State forces on us. We’re not asking for the world to be anarcho-capitalist, we’re asking for the ability to attempt anarcho-capitalism on our own. As online-friend J. David Blackstone has said, Secession is the right of all sentient beings. The basis for anarcho-capitalism is the right to declare your property as yours — not the State’s. I’m not asking for the entire world, nation, state or county to immediately be dismissed of the State — that would truly be nihilism, and I’m not a anarcho-nihilist. I’m asking for the ability to withdraw from the “social contract” and attempt to live life without the State within the boundaries of my property.

What would happen if I did it alone? I’d likely die, or I’d fail, or I’d mooch off the State by trespassing into it — the free rider argument. Yet that also is not what I am asking for. You could say that I want something akin to the Free State Project, but I think that is still Statist to a large degree. I’d call it the Free Stateless Project, maybe. Many friends of mine believe this would be similar to communism where all within this Stateless zone would be equal, but I think that’s wrong if everyone who joins the Stateless zone (leaves the State zone) understands the basic premise of anarcho-capitalism: no one will help you unless you can help them, but we’re all free now to try to help ourselves as long as we harm no one else. This means we are free to do what we want, even if it kills us, as long as it does not harm anyone else or their property.

So what of the volatility of a State or another anarcho-capitalist zone attempting to overrun our Stateless zone? Sure, it is possible. Some anarcaps believe that they can unite and hire a protection company to offer them defense against attack, but I don’t see this as reliable or even intelligent. If we’re truly anarcho-capitalists, we can not unite as one group for any reason — none of us are the same, exactly, and none of us agree perfectly on all subjects. Due to J. David Blackstone’s previous convincing arguments, I am a pure pacifist — I won’t use force against anyone, even in self-defense. But my neighbor might believe that it is wise to arm himself and his family and use defense against even a minor trespass. Since this is a risk that burglars/trespassers would have, I believe people would be much more cognizant of people’s property rights and avoid the risk of death. Today, people are taught that their property is not theirs (you pay taxes or you get evicted), and are also taught that the State can trespass on their land however they please — even without a warrant. In an anarcho-capitalist zone, you would have to be aware that if you are not on your land, there is a risk of death or pain. Is this the way we want to live? It depends — if you’re like me, you’d gladly accept that risk rather than pay 50%+ of your income to a State that uses force each and every second it operates.

What happens if a State decides to attack the anarcho-capitalist zone? There will be those who will fight to the death, and those who will just give up and hope to return to freedom quickly. There is no way to know what would happen without knowing how large of a force the Stateless zone is — not just in weaponry. The Internet today gives us many more opportunities to unite on some subjects — we’ve seen more pro-libertarian supporters in the last 2 years online than in all of history. Right now, though, there are absolutely no opportunities for anyone to secede their land out of the State’s zone, so we are unable to truly try to fulfill our trials.

As a sidenote, many anti-Stateless zone advocates will show Somalia and other parts of Africa as anarchy zones. This is untrue — they may be without a State, but they are not without State supporters. Since Somalia’s State crumbled, the U.S. and Ethiopia and many other countries have provided black-market weapons and support for a variety of pro-State leaders and warlords. The State fell because too many people wanted to create a new State their way. In my view of a Stateless zone, the people who would secede would not be looking to create a new State for others but freedom for themselves. The State surrounding the Stateless zone would be free to erect walls and barriers to entry (and likely would), but it would not be difficult to travel to lands via boat or plane. Remember: I’m not asking for all of the U.S. or the world or even the State of Illinois to all of a sudden crumble. I’m asking for the chance to extricate myself from your mess that you voted for, along with many 100 or so of my fellow colleagues, so that we can try (and fail or succeed). The chance of feudalism occurring with just 100 or 1000 or 10,000 people is unlikely — and the chance that the whole world will take notice of our successes and get rid of the State is completely non-existent. The average person LOVES the State, and we’re happy for them. We just want to help our own situation first before we can decide how we will help others.

By the way, this version of anarcho-capitalism is what I would call a Unanimocracy.

Discuss this article at the anarcho-capitalism forum.

For years I have been contemplating how society could exist in a truly free market of anarcho-capitalism, or what I call a Unanimocracy — governing by unanimous consent and contract. I looked at all the various problems I see with the State and all the market that seem to rely on the State: health care, insurance, education, infrastructure, etc.

It has always been my thought that the great majority of the State could be replaced if we had a way to gauge someone’s reliability, but with a free market perspective. Right now, if you want a credit card, you have to have a State-controlled identification number so that creditors can look at your history. This number is your Social Security Number, a number that was originally illegal to use as identification but now is almost a requirement in order to live. Insurance companies keep their blacklist of bad drivers and fraudsters by using the SSN. Many schools use the SSN as a way to keep students identified, and health care companies also use the SSN to track medical histories. How could society exist in the way it works today with this identifier? The Competitive Feedback System (CFS) would come into play, for sure.

The current best example of a CFS is eBay’s feedback system. When a transaction is made between two parties, both parties are allowed to give feedback to the other party concerning the entire transaction. You can give them a +1 feedback for a good transaction, -1 for a bad one, and a 0 or neutral if the feedback is gauged as neither good nor bad. The feedback system at eBay is very consistent and incredibly useful for many eBay users. It takes less than 1 minute to leave feedback, and the system limits how many letters you can use to verbalize the transaction — this keeps the feedback system efficient for those who want to see details of a transaction.

Some people have pointed to flaws in the eBay CFS when I’ve brought up the idea of a CFS-managed society. One flaw that is repeatedly brought up is the ability of someone to sell hundreds of very expensive items in order to gain many feedback points, then switch to selling a few dozen expensive items to mask the old points with newer “high priced” items sold, and then turn to selling really expensive items, collecting the money, never shipping anything and running off with the money, leaving a few people with nothing to show for the trade. I usually point out what I am familiar with that the free market provides to protect the buyer — insurance. When you transact a big purchase from Target or the car dealer, the chance of them running before they deliver the item is fairly low (if not almost non-existant). eBay, though, offers a higher reward (cheaper products) but a higher risk. In order to offset that risk, there are numerous insurance plans available to protect your purchase. Paypal offers one, many credit card companies have some built-in to your credit card agreement. As far as I’ve been able to tell, this debate topic is a non-issue and a non-starter — but I am interested in what others have to say about examples of scam-artists where the buyers never received their money or a product.

One thing I’d change about eBay’s CFS is the point value system. I don’t think that 15 items of different kinds and prices really should be rated as just +1 or -1. I think all users of the system should be given two values for feedback: one which is identical to the current system (+1, -1, 0) and one number which equals the amount of dollars of transaction history value. If you sell 15 items for $1 each, and you sell them all perfectly, you’d get +15 feedback points and +$15 “feedbucks.” If you sell 15 items for $100 each, you’d get +15 feedback points and +$1500 “feedbucks.” Now imagine you sell 100 items at $1 each positively, but try to sell one item for $100 and you blow off the buyer. You’d end up with +100/+$100 and -1/$-100 which would give you a net feedback of +99/$0. A simple code upgrade might even let different users display others’ feedback points differently, such as (Feedback/Feedbucks Positive, Feedback/Feedbuck Negative) which would display that last user as +100/$100, -1/-$100. This would also show you who the best providers are in any area.

Another area I think eBay is lacking but would be welcome in a CFS market would be “Historical Average Ability to provide” (HAA) data. This would work great for buyers and sellers alike. The HAA figure would be based on their current auction status — how many items they’re trying to buy or sell, and the total of those items, versus their historical average of the same figures based on the same period of time. If over the next 2 weeks someone is trying to sell 100 items with a total value of $10,000, their 2 week HAA would be 100/$10,000. If this person’s historical average for past 5 years was 5/$100 and for the past 1 year was 10/$200, you’d have to take caution with their current run. Of course they could be selling a car or a home, but you can easily see if what they are selling is something extraordinary to their average. Sellers could also gauge buyers the same way — how much have they bought, on average, in a certain period of time, versus their current buying attempts.

So how would a CFS work in today’s market? Every feedback point in every transaction could be tagged by both parties. If it is an insurance transaction, they can tag it “insurance” in their profile. If a buyer of insurance has an accident, the insurance company can flag their transaction with some negative feedback in terms of the value of the accident. This would not necessarily bring down their feedback totals as other parties that want to trade with the person who has the accident might sort their feedback values by ignoring insurance or education or health matters (or they might actually sort their numbers with those figures). If a person wants to pick the best insurance company, they could also sort insurers by feedback numbers to see which insurers offer the best safety and time to pay. It is very hard to beat that system through fraud since all previous history (with a timeframe you pick) would be visible.

What about parties that are targetted by a massive amount of “feedback spammers” who make transactions in order to defeat the party? Currently, eBay offers some third party arbitration for negative feedback, at a fee. This is an option - if the seller of an item is wrongfully spammed with negative feedback, they can choose to pay for arbitration. If the feedback spammer decides not to arbitrate, the feedback goes away. Also, every transaction that the spammer attempts costs them money. They have to buy an item in order to acquire the opportunity to leave feedback. If 10,000 feedback spammers try to harm someone, there is a great cost to the spammers to do so. Would a large company try to do this to their competitors? It is absolutely a possibility, but again it would require great financial capacity, and the company spammed would just need to prove delivery of the item bought to negate the feedback. UPS and FedEx have saved me from 2 negative feedback points on eBay when someone said I never shipped an item — it only took me faxing eBay the signed delivery receipts to get them to remove the negative values. For 30 days or so I had negative feedback, but it was painless and didn’t cost me a dime.

What about people who run up a huge negative profile and then sign on with another CFS? The market provides for these situations: other parties are less likely to transact with someone who has no history. If you decide you don’t like your current CFS, but you have a positive feedback score, you can always point parties to your old score but tell them to develop your new CFS profile from now on. Some parties might want to use multiple CFS providers (at a cost per transaction) in order to prove they are reliable.

I believe the Competitive Feedback System is a great way to overcome much need for the State. Each and every transaction has the opportunity to be judged by both parties, and there are almost no loopholes that I can think of to create the madness that happens with the State today. Look at the identity fraud that occurs with the State’s mismangement of the Social Security Number system — you have almost no recourse since the State has no competition in providing excellent service at an excellent price. eBay, though, has had to build consumer trust and confidence, or they would lose their business to others providing the same system.

Discuss this article at the anarcho-capitalism forum.