Ask HN: What is your opinion of Crypto-anarchism and anarcho-capitalism? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What is your opinion of Crypto-anarchism and anarcho-capitalism?

4 pointsmlLK13 comments

These ideologies might not be very startup friendly but I'm interested in your comments.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto-anarchism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism

It hasn't done much good yet, despite ~twenty years of people talking about it. So, I'd say, so far, it is ineffective as a movement.

The one obvious example of digital currency that was sympathetic to these ideas (e-Gold) has seen the error of their ways, paid some fines, and now acts like any other company dealing with payments and storing money. So, they're now just another also-ran PayPal competitor, I guess.

I'm not sure why they wouldn't be startup friendly...except that if you tried to execute on them as a startup, you'd end up on the wrong end of the law pretty quickly. So, I guess that makes them bad business for startups. Peter Thiel is known to be sympathetic to these kinds of ideas, and he's made his fortune in startups (including the already mentioned PayPal).

But, I just don't know that there's a lot of interesting conversation one can have on the subject. It's pretty well-covered ground from a technical perspective. The problems are political and legal, and those are things that we as hackers and entrepreneurs are generally poorly equipped to deal with.

When I first read this I assumed "crypto-anarchist" was perjorative, like "crypto-fascist". :)

I gladly support individuals using technology to defend themselves against or compete with larger organizations. That is very much in line with startups and underdogs in general.

But raw Anarco-Capitalism has never resonated with me -- it's such a narrow view of the world. Next time you run into a real A-C, ask them to explain how they would handle water rights, air pollution, a 70% rate of illiteracy, a pandemic, or a state of siege.

I know a few anarcho-capitalists and they have explanations for everything you mentioned. Since, instead of elaborating on your problems with their explanations, you've simply implied they don't have any, I wonder how much you really know about their views.

There are many answers to them, which is kind of the point, no? :)

I didn't mean to imply that their system is broken, just that those questions are a good starting point to probe the A-C worldview, just as you'd ask a socialist about innovation versus personal reward.

My general objection is that absolute hostility to any coercive social structure is inefficient in the face of an external authoritarian or natural threat. It's not bad, not wrong, but possibly inefficient enough to be detrimental to the survival of the society as a unit.

To put it another way: Thoreau is compelling but he had the luxury of civil peace, plenty of land, good crops, and natural barriers to invasion. Where you stand depends largely on where you sit.

Thanks for the response. Maybe you're already aware of this, but ironically they would tell you that efficiency (including in the face of an external or natural threat) is one of the most important reasons for their views.

Of course they world, just as a Frenchman talks up the benefits of national champions as a way to compete in the global market. :)

I would point out that historical societies that A-C theory studies, like medieval Iceland, the Celts, or the Wild West, tended to have few external threats and eventually lost out to other models of governance. Historical performance has to count for something.

From what I understand, those societies are never held up as proper examples of anarcho-capitalism. (I know how that sounds.) And if the historical performance of a model of governance has to count for something, there are some more common models that don't look very promising!

Crypto-anarchism has a slightly cooler name than Anarcho-capitalism.

Anarcho-capitalism is a contradiction in terms. You can't have an absence of power heirarchy when some people are filthy rich and others are starving to death. It's called "libertarianism" (and why libertarians try to co-opt the anarcho prefix is beyond me, it's not as if it wins you popularity points).

Usually this stems from an arbitrary distinction between oppression of "the government" and oppression by a private party. When you make the (absurd) assumption that oppression can only come from the government, sure, it makes sense. However... well, it's an absurd assumption. At the end of the day, oppression is oppression (and the distinction between government and private enterprise gets awfully fuzzy in the kinds of worlds these so-called "anarcho-capitalists" envision anyway. If the police and the military are corporations, what's the difference?).

Libertarians (or "anarcho-capitalists") tend to put themselves in the rich person's shoes, so they glaze over the oppression part. Nobody is oppressing /them/ because in their ideal world they are, of course, filthy rich. They have only considered half of the equation...

In short, "It's okay for me to stomp on another's face as long as the government doesn't stomp on mine" is not anarchism in virtually every other sort of serious anarchist's view (and, IMO, is hardly an admirable world view regardless...).

I take it you're an anarchist? This is what the non-capitalist anarchist criticism of anarcho-capitalism usually sounds like. I'd love to discuss this in detail, but I'm not sure if it's appropriate for HN. Let me know if you happen to be interested in discussing this further at some point.

I am. I almost didn't go there because, yes, this isn't really HN material, but you did ask :)

We could discuss it further I suppose, but it's somewhat dull well-treaded material IMO. Anything about the definition of anarchism is up for debate of course, but completely un-checked capitalism certainly does not inherently result in a society that fits the criteria. What could possibly be anarchistic about a society full of wage slaves? That's certainly one likely outcome of such a society (note I'm not saying it /would be/ the outcome). Corporations can - and do - coerce every bit as much as the state does, if not more.

If you're an anarchist and not a socialist, fine. The term "individualist" works well. It's not the ideas of free markets and commerce, it's the /term/ capitalist. The word itself is pejorative. Anarchism is traditionally a leftist movement that came from the same kind of time and place as communism - "capitalists", the class, are the enemy, and exploit by definition. In the world of political discourse in which anarchism lives, If you call yourself a capitalist, you are essentially saying "I exploit others who actually do work as my source of income". You are NOT saying "I think free economic exchange is a good idea", which is probably what you actually mean to say. If you want to have serious discussion with anarchists, you can't call yourself a capitalist. All you will get is endless tirades about why you are not an anarchist, like this one. You might as well show up at a hard right think tank and call yourself a libertarian-stalinist.

Thanks for the response. As you pointed out, much of the disagreement is over the terms being used. The term "anarcho-capitalism" brings to mind some kind of fascist world ruled by big corporations, and this is not what self-described anarcho-capitalists envision at all. They are opposed to all forms of coercion. Most corporations, if not all, are of course tied to the State in some way.

You also hinted at the acceptance of individualist anarchists. Correct me if I'm wrong, but anarchists have no problem with the coexistence of different communities, each with their own flavor of anarchism. The difference between anarcho-"capitalists" and other individualist anarchists is not very large, and is one of degree. Once individualist anarchists are accepted, only semantic issues prevent the acknowledgment of these other anarchists.

But I agree with you that it's a big source of confusion for them to call themselves capitalists. It also doesn't help that some of them describe themselves as being right-wingers.

My opinion? The more decentralized and self-sufficient we become, outside of a central authority, the better off we all are. I think the way to make this happen, however, is not open hostility to the current central powers and authorities, but through disruptive social and technological change that renders them largely irrelevant.

Anyone have any ideas on how to pull that off?

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