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Comment by aaronem | Hacker News Reader

Your common or garden libertarian will construct all manner of complex arguments as to how that isn't so, but there's really nothing in the philosophy which forbids it.

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.. so their answer to a single central government is a multitude of smaller governments? How is that better?

They don't want a multitude of smaller governments they want corporations. corporations with no regulation or oversight other then "If you don't like them don't buy from them! they'll go away really!"

Because it's much easier to move if your government sucks?

You're right. Proponents of polycentric law don't claim that something fundamentally forbids this from happening. But the same goes for proponents of centralized (government) law. What needs to be analyzed is which system makes this more likely to happen.

Ask Somalia.

I'm no expert on recent Somalian history, but I have heard people suggest that Somalia improved during its period of "anarchy," while others contend that it wasn't really anarchy, but rather a battleground of neighboring states and factions battling to be the "one government." Also, Somalia's government before it failed in 1991 was a military dictatorship; hardly something even most advocates of government would advocate.

http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1880

Feel free to list your choice of countries without any government and we will see what their quality of life ranking is vs. standard countries with functional government.

Here is a handy chart: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_inequality...

Which of those countries doesn't have a government? And which of those countries has a society like what I'm advocating? Note that I'm not simply advocating that we have anything so long as it's not government. I'm advocating a specific alternative to government.

Any examples of countries worth moving to that have these alternatives? Or is this really just a pipe dream?

Do you have any examples of countries where there is no murder? Would you prefer to live in a country with no murder?

You're claiming that no improvements can be made to a society that haven't already been tried in some other society. This is an absurd claim.

> Do you have any examples of countries where there is no murder?

No, because there aren't any.

I'm asking for actual evidence that there is a current place where this libertarian ideal exists, and is better than the government we already have in place here in the USA. If you don't have any examples then it is still just internet fantasy talk and not of much use.

Wow! That's one of the two basic things. "reject the use of force or fraud to compel others except in response to force or fraud."

Yes that's great if everyone abides by your philosophy. But if we're doing that and expecting others to abide by it why is the statement not just "reject the use of force or fraud to compel others". The whole catch 22 is there is no central authority to enforce the philosophy unless you're expecting people to be angels but then you could say something similar about communism being a better system.

And of course, "expecting people to be angels" is what led to $4.3 million worth of Bitcoin being stolen from a bunch of suckers by a con artist.

Libertarians don't expect other to abide by it. Enforcing non-initiatory use of force and fraud is one of the legitimate purposes of the government.

I'm sorry I misread what you were saying as the thread came from one saying government control of force is not rquired as an open market on force is an alternative. I find a libertarian position much more defensible (at least as something that doesn't implode) with a caveat that there is some form of monopoly on force that is external to the market.

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