[marcusverus]

When is the last time you saw a "think of the kids" argument offered in good faith? I honestly can't remember. Anarcho-capitalists' ideal is a "consent society", free from coercion (state or otherwise). Children cannot meaningfully consent and thus selling them is not "consistent" with anarcho-capitalism.

[giraffe_lady]

> When is the last time you saw a "think of the kids" argument offered in good faith?

Right there, when I made one?

But no, what you're claiming doesn't align with other proponents of the ideology I've seen. They are only opposed to state coercion, but market pressures can certainly be coercive and they don't resist that.

And by what mechanism would anarcho-capitalists prevent the selling of children or child labor? They don't hold that the state has such a power. Children also don't consent to be even their parents' wards, so the consent of children is not a sufficient framework to construct a basis of opposition.

Markets don't have the will to decline child exploitation and anarcho-capitalism doesn't invest an entity with the power to prevent it. Individuals may honestly say they don't want it but the system offers nothing to oppose the incentives that will cause it.

[marcusverus]

> They are only opposed to state coercion, but market pressures can certainly be coercive and they don't resist that.

Market pressures aren't coercion, they're called incentives.

> And by what mechanism would anarcho-capitalists prevent the selling of children or child labor? They don't hold that the state has such a power.

Anarcho-capitalism has never been put into practice, so the specifics are speculative. Just as the specifics of a functioning democratic republic were speculative until the theory was put into practice.

Right now, the government has a monopoly on "justice". If you have a criminal or civil case before the courts, your case is judged according to the "common law", by a state-selected "common judge". In anarcho-capitalism, both the law and the judge would be optional. You choose your law and your judge, I choose mine, and they get together and figure out the case. "Judicial services" organizations interact and cut deals with each other all the time--the only difference is that, right now, they're all run by governments.

This begs the question of good faith (I could just say "my judge is me, and my law is that I do whatever the fuck that I want", but the incentives of such a choice don't make sense. If I murder you, who would provide justice? Thus everyone is incentivized to pay for, one way or another "judicial services", such that if you need them, they are able to come to your aid. This sounds ridiculous on its face, but if you actually think about it, it makes plenty of sense. We pay ~30% of our incomes in taxes in the US, and only a vanishingly small proportion goes to pay for government-monopolized "judicial services". It would likely be pretty cheap--just do the math on how much of your taxes go to paying for the judicial system.

But wait! All that would need to happen to enable child slavery would be for someone to form a legal-services corporation which would not view this as a crime! Sure, but for such a corporation to actually function, they would have to be viewed as legitimate by other legal-services corporations. Can you imagine GEIKO judicial services doing business with an organization that's on the record enabling child slavery? Neither can I.

Thus, if you sold a child into slavery, that child would naturally have a case against you, as you sold something that didn't belong to you and did them tremendous damage.

It's worth remembering that, while such a system might be imperfect, the current system is far from perfect. As with everything else, the state is pretty shit at preventing children from being bought and sold.

> The Children also don't consent to be even their parents' wards, so the consent of children is not a sufficient framework to construct a basis of opposition.

Children don't pick their parents, ergo consent isn't a thing? I don't buy it, and by golly, my legal-services corp won't stand for it!

> Markets don't have the will to decline child exploitation.

Markets have the will to fire people for racist tweets, but not to fight child exploitation?

> and anarcho-capitalism doesn't invest an entity with the power to prevent it.

Yes it does, as mentioned above.

[giraffe_lady]

The boundaries between "incentive" and "coercion" are mostly a matter of viewpoint and I can tell that we would certainly disagree on them so we can just skip past all that.

> Can you imagine GEIKO judicial services doing business with an organization that's on the record enabling child slavery?

I absolutely can! Nestle is known to have practiced child slavery and people did and do business with them. Cobalt mines in Congo, south african countries during apartheid, etc. I have known all kinds of horrors in service of the capitalism we have now and nothing you're saying is persuasive to me about why they would stop under this other, more extreme capitalism.

[marcusverus]

> The boundaries between "incentive" and "coercion" are mostly a matter of viewpoint

No, they're not. (you're right we should probably skip that!)

> Nestle is known to have practiced child slavery and people did and do business with them.

You're referring to activities in other countries, all outside of the jurisdiction of any "judicial service", be it the US government or otherwise. Why would "judicial services corporations" in an anarcho-capitalist society be expected to address and/or stop evils outside of their jurisdiction, which states are not expected to stop?

> Cobalt mines in Congo, South African countries during apartheid, etc. I have known all kinds of horrors in service of the capitalism we have now and nothing you're saying is persuasive to me about why they would stop under this other, more extreme capitalism.

Mining isn't unique to capitalism. At least in capitalism, you have the option to not patronize unpalatable organizations, which is not the case in any alternative system. And, as you well know, Apartheid, much like Slavery and later Jim Crow in the American South, was imposed via the state's police power. Such systems would be impossible in an anarcho-capitalist society.

> I have known all kinds of horrors in service of the capitalism

This is a joke, right? Capitalism has lifted a billion people out of absolute poverty in the last 30 years, and would have done so 50 years earlier (as evidenced in the natural experiments in Taiwan/China, South/North Korea, and West/East Germany) if it weren't for big-hearted, empty-headed dolts and their irrational, uninformed hatred for capitalism. Leftists killed 100,000,000 million people to prolong their anti-capitalist experiments, with nothing to show for it. More heavy-handed state intervention isn't going to out-do capitalism. The only way to improve capitalism is to free it from the yoke of the state, free it from politicians and grifting bureaucrats, and to let the people run their own lives.

I can tell you have strong opinions about how society should function. Have you considered the possibility that you would be more empowered to improve people's lives in the absence of government? You, and everyone who thinks like you, would have 30% of your income back to plug into whatever social causes you'd want to support. The best part, of course, would be that you wouldn't have to win an election to see your preferred changes come into being--you'd just have to organize and implement your programs without coercion. And don't forget the best part--there's no coercion, ever, by those people who scare the shit out of you! There's no state schools indoctrinating your kids! No monopolies being bought by mega-corp lobbyists! No religious dogma enshrined in law!

I'm also convinced that a lot of the problems people fear ("there will be people starving in the streets!") will not only be easily solved, but we will be better for having the opportunity to solve them. How many old folks are sitting around in their homes feeling useless, who could be running the voluntary welfare societies that used to be so prevalent in the United States? How many families have been spread to the four winds because the nanny state has replaced family support networks? How many men and women are desperate for meaningful work, which has been forcibly relegated to a calcified network of ineffectual bureaucrats who couldn't care less? As Scalia said, the welfare state has given us "donors without love and recipients without gratitude". By removing the state as a faceless intermediary, the urgent need for charity would not be deniable by those who hate paying taxes, and the tremendous blessing that is charity will replace the rampant sense of entitlement to other people's money. Without politicians who are incentivized to drive us apart, social cohesion would greatly improve. We would better understand that we're not opponents in some contrived power for control, we're neighbors who have a very personal duty to help each other get by.

This is why it drives me nuts to hear folks dismiss libertarianism or anarcho-capitalism with assumptions of bad-faith, or accusations of "just being rich people who want to keep their money". It is a recipe for human flourishing. It is imperfect, of course, but better to have an imperfect system based on the ideal of maximum human freedom for all rather than one based on the principle of the minority being forced into the service of the majority.

[giraffe_lady]

Yeah man I have considered the no government thing which is why I am an anarchist. An actual one, not one that wants to replace the existing systems of state power with the even less restrained systems of capital power.

[hutzlibu]

Have you as a real anarchist also thought about how to do things, when no one has political power, but decisions need to be made?

Say, taking over a factory requires real power, no? How to deal with people who object (like the current owners)? Using force is power by my definition. And if it all is spontaneus with nor formal powet structure, then it still comes close or equals rule of the strong by my experience. And I think I read and debated all or most of the theories of anarchism with various people, but this contradiction, I could not get satisfactory answers for to solve it.