[mikeash]

What you outline is basically why I think it's a bad idea to live in a place with no government. There's a huge potential for problems and often there are no good choices.

The moment you say "Imagine the Indonesian government didn't exist," well, it's going to be a complete shithole. At best you'll be at the mercy of the local warlord or gang leader. Quibbling over exactly how you live your life in this lawless shithole doesn't seem very relevant to the actual situation.

[ZenoArrow]

Yes, I agree, but the argument that I responded to considered there was a distinction between capitalism and exploitation. My point is that exploitation is not the sole domain of government, if you had a capitalist society without government intervention then exploitation would still exist, but you'd have to rely on different methods in order to resist this exploitation, and those methods would not necessarily be an improvement over what we have now.

[mikeash]

Gotcha, I must have missed the context and taken your comment too literally.