The Interesting Case for Anarcho-Capitalism

International Liberty

Libertarians believe in limited government for both moral reasons (government coercion is bad) and utilitarian reasons (nations with small government enjoy much higher levels of prosperity than countries with bigger governments).

But if small government is good, would no government be even better? That’s the core argument of so-called anarcho-capitalists or voluntaryists.

To understand this approach, let’s start with the video from Learn Liberty, featuring Professor Bryan Caplan of George Mason University.

And here’s a video from Reason featuring David Friedman.

You won’t be surprised to learn that I was very happy to hear him embrace jurisdictional competition toward the end of the interview (and I also agree with him that this is a reason to be skeptical about the European Union’s pro-centralization mindset).

But let’s stick with the main topic. Is anarcho-capitalism a good idea?

Defenders of the idea frequently make the point that it’s got to…

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