[Houshalter]

It's not really a government as you can't (ideally) force people to participate even if they don't want to (or if you do it's through tamer methods like boycotts or whatever rather than threat of imprisonment.) And it doesn't have to be a central organization. It sounds like a minor difference but it's really not.

Importantly most things that are done by government would be done completely differently and by private organizations. The point is, that if the way government does something is truly superior, then people would still do it that way. They just couldn't force people to participate or pay for it. But you could still have a non-profit with elected officials and all that, if it's really better and can compete on a free market.

Again, I'm no longer certain this is the best system as there really are things where a free market doesn't lead to the best outcome and participation has to be forced (like public goods.) But there are ways of funding public goods without a government that might work, and most of what government currently does doesn't fit in that category anyways.

[derleth]

First, boycotts are a use of force. Everyone ganging up on someone to boycott them (shunning, as it used to be called, or making them an outlaw) is one of the oldest, cruelest forms of punishment, and we're well shut of it now. Putting someone in prison is one thing; kicking them out of society entirely is another.

> The point is, that if the way government does something is truly superior, then people would still do it that way.

Then why hasn't this ever happened in the past? Why is Somalia suffering through what it's going through when self-organizing communes are so much better?

> They just couldn't force people to participate or pay for it.

Then nobody's going to pay for it, and the people who opt out of the laws entirely are going to be robbing everyone else.

[icebraining]

A boycott is not the same as ostracism; nobody said anything about kicking people out of society.

Why is Somalia suffering through what it's going through when self-organizing communes are so much better?

Somalia is not some country who had an anarchist society; it's a country which had a state and a government, and where a civil war broke out, eliminating all possibility of a stable society regardless of its political system.

Judging anarchism by the state of Somalia makes even less sense than judging non-anarchist societies by the actions of the Third Reich.

[Houshalter]

>First, boycotts are a use of force. Everyone ganging up on someone to boycott them (shunning, as it used to be called, or making them an outlaw) is one of the oldest, cruelest forms of punishment, and we're well shut of it now. Putting someone in prison is one thing; kicking them out of society entirely is another.

In order for that to work you would need nearly 99% of the population or more to agree to that punishment and to actively participate. Which is a lot more than required in a democracy or pretty much any system.

>Then why hasn't this ever happened in the past? Why is Somalia suffering through what it's going through when self-organizing communes are so much better?

Somalia is a collapsed society, not really a good example of anything. The same could be said for democracy until 200 years ago. It took a long time even after the first democracy was established for the idea to spread, and the creation of the US itself took a war and a few centuries of cultural evolution before that to get to that point.

The point is that you can't just say "well if it's a perfect system why has no one done it before?" Libertarianism is counter-intuitive for most people, how do you expect them to form perfect anarcho-capitalist societies overnight?

>Then nobody's going to pay for it, and the people who opt out of the laws entirely are going to be robbing everyone else.

People would defend their own property or pay into some private legal system that promised to do so.

[derleth]

> In order for that to work you would need nearly 99% of the population or more to agree to that punishment and to actively participate. Which is a lot more than required in a democracy or pretty much any system.

But it has happened in the past. Never underestimate the power of groupthink to do horrible things to minorities.

> Somalia is a collapsed society, not really a good example of anything.

No better place, then. Nothing for the anarchist utopia to compete with.

> Libertarianism is counter-intuitive for most people

No, it isn't. Not from what I've seen both online and off.

> People would defend their own property or pay into some private legal system that promised to do so.

We've tried this and it didn't work.