Statist Utopias vs Anarchist Realities

People often want an answer for every solution. That is a flawed statist method of thinking. Anarchy can and often does provide answers to people's objections. However, this undermines anarchy in a very subtle way.

By having an answer to each solution before changing one's belief means that one still does not believe in the market's amazing ability to solve life's answers. It is still looking for a big answer when a big answer shouldn't be striven for.

The big answer comes naturally as each individual has his own little answer to the problem. The aggregate of these individuals' decisions makes the larger answer. However, by striving to form the larger answer over each individuals' answer you violate individuals' negative rights and form an inefficient system that does not satisfy each individual.

The market demonstrates this repeatedly. We've seen the disastrous consequences of price controls upon the market. This is one of the top-down answers to solving a problem(shortage). However, when the market system of prices operates freely the problem of shortage is solved quite efficiently. Instead of resources being wasted as prices are kept down, resources are reserved for more important tasks as the cost rises. In addition to resources being used with more discrimination, people begin looking for other methods of acquiring the good or other goods that accomplish the same task. This either brings the price back down as new methods are found or opens a new industry as other goods are found or produced. The The Wisdom of Crowds demonstrates numerous more examples of how aggregate decisions by groups solves problems better than a top-down approach.

Expanding the Thought

However, this applies to more than simple economics of goods and services. This applies to the more complicated industries of justice and law enforcement. Justice and law enforcement need to be left to the market. Individual decisions will aggregate to form a larger solution.

People are not more likely to murder people in an anarchy than in a government. In fact, the opposite is true. A state is based on a system of violence in order to accomplish its goals and encourages murder more than it discourages it. The murder it discourages is murder that it didn't endorse. It is much like the Bloods endorsing their own gang's murders but condemning the Crips' murders.

The very fact that people care about justice and law enforcement will show this to be true. If people didn't care, perhaps we could be worried. But people do care and they will work to solve the problem. A bottom-up approach is far more efficient and ethical than a top-down approach that does not satisfy each individual's needs while violating their rights at the same time.

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