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Comment by stcredzero | Hacker News Reader

If you need proof that Anarcho-Capitalism doesn't work, just play Eve-Online for a year in 0.0 security space.

I too kill people and do a lot of very nasty stuff in video games. But for some mysterious reason, I don't do them in real life.

But for some mysterious reason people does that in real life.

You completely missed my point. At the time I played Eve, success for organizations in 0.0 space in Eve depended on the establishment of a logistical infrastructure. It's economics. I've witnessed groups of players hobbling their own economies and logistics by making short-sighted decisions. I've also seen all manner of scams and Ponzi schemes. From what I've seen in that particular simulation, you really do need the rule of law for capitalism to work well.

Killing people and blowing up ships is completely irrelevant. The game could be about planting trees and picking flowers, and the same principles would apply.

I've also seen real-world governments ruin their own economies by making short-sighted (or just plain stupid) decisions. And I've seen Ponzi schemes in a lot of government plans as well.

In those cases, too, the rule of law is not quite working. The letter of the law is often being obeyed (and there is some debate about even that concerning things like the establishment of the Fed) but the system is being gamed.

What it comes down to is this: is the general populace comfortable enough to engage in open economic activity?

You can see that there is a lot less confidence in the US and the rest of the world, in large part due to various stupid decisions. But this doesn't prove that anarcho-capitalism works. It just shows that corrupt capitalism doesn't work well either.

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