[nickik]

I don't think its all that Utopian. An-Caps take a lot of care to make there institution prove against human weakness. There is also a lot of study into historical examples that explain part of how a An-Cap society would work.

I don't one can expect more from any group. An-Capism is as un-utipian as you can get while still having some vauge definition of an ideal system.

Most AnCaps happily admit that the assumed society would not be near perfect. In fact, I would actually say that it would probably not be that much better then what we have now.

I don't think the axioms are that special, its basic rational choice political science/economics that is applied in most AnCap arguments.

[throwaway729]

> An-Capism is as un-utipian as you can get while still having some vauge definition of an ideal system... Most AnCaps happily admit that the assumed society would not be near perfect.

Perhaps. That doesn't make it any less Utopian in my book.

> I don't think the axioms are that special, its basic rational choice political science/economics that is applied in most AnCap arguments.

Depends on the writer. There certainly are writers for whom this is true. IMO it's not true of Molyneux, to name one.

Of course, rational choice is not special, but it is an enormous assumption that we're pretty sure is not a realistic description of how people actually behave...

[nickik]

Then I don't understand your definition of Utopian or how it is useful.

Molyneux is no longer an AnCap, he has gone of and is basically something on its own now.

There are actual economics/poetical science PhD working on this stuff, see for example Peter Leeson, Bryan Caplan.

> Of course, rational choice is not special, but it is an enormous assumption that we're pretty sure is not a realistic description of how people actually behave...

Rational choice in this context means not Homo Economicus (as in mathematical maximisation of expected outcome) but rather rational choice limited by information and so on. This assumtion is much weaker and applies to enough people as to make it useful.

Its basically what much micro economics and political science already does. I don't know what better scientific disciplines we have to make better evaluation of theoretical system of humans.

[VLM]

"prove against human weakness."

You were likely thinking of moral and ethical lapses, but there's also the crucial problem of IQ and disability. Could a ancap community of PHD students work? Probably. Elsewhere? Well...

[nickik]

Actually no.

Humans as they are now, not some PhD. Again, its that same analysis used when talking about democracy or any other system.

You can go back to David Hume. How can we design democracy so that we can limit what the worst people can do.

This exact same way I approach any system. The reason why I think AnCapism might work, is exactly because I don't think it needs any change in human psychology, IQ or whatever else.

[AstralStorm]

In other words, solve a minimax problem over human behaviour. Good luck with that - we do not even have strong scientific notion of how people make decisions in various conditions on micro level.

AnCap likewise does not work, because we do not know when people would renege on their contracts (essentially steal, injecting accumulation of wealth due to lack of information about what was stolen). Not to mention it does not start from zero and accumulation of wealth is obviously easier when you already have it and becomes easier.

Result is a state = a monopoly, oligopoly or a cartel.

Such a result is only avoidable if somehow economics is not a zero sum game and individual progress/gain is quick enough to outweigh all such initial tendencies, which would only happen in the singularity.

An alternative would be an utopian uncorruptible oracular jury with unlimited power = God.

[nickik]

Hacker News is not the right place for such a discussion.

We do not have perfect information on everything, but we still need to do the best we can to make informed choices. So I use the same we use in standard Science.

There is a ton of literature on law in non-state situation, from legal, political and economic scholars. I suggest you look at it. Its the basis of AnCapism.