Reddit reviews The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to a Radical Capitalism
We found 19 Reddit comments about The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to a Radical Capitalism. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Political-Authority-Examination-Coerce/dp/1137281650
https://www.amazon.com/Private-Governance-Creating-Economic-Social-ebook/dp/B00XCTPVAU/
https://www.amazon.com/State-Collected-Papers-Anthony-Jasay/dp/0865971714
https://www.amazon.com/Against-Politics-Government-Routledge-Political/dp/0415513650/
https://www.amazon.com/Machinery-Freedom-Guide-Radical-Capitalism/dp/1507785607
https://www.amazon.com/Chaos-Theory-Essays-Market-Anarchy/dp/1479258377
https://www.amazon.com/Legal-Systems-Very-Different-Ours/dp/1793386722
https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Rational-Voter-Democracies-Policies/dp/0691138737
It was you who claimed theft is a necessary evil. It's cute you think it's my responsibility to disprove your unproved positive claim, but I have no interest not playing that game. If you're actually interested in this discussion, I would recommend you read this book. You can find it online if you like.
Good luck
If you're new to econ, I would suggest either Basic Economics, as /u/snatchinyosigns suggested, or "Economics in One Lesson" by Henry Hazlitt.
http://www.hacer.org/pdf/Hazlitt00.pdf
https://www.amazon.com/Economics-One-Lesson-Shortest-Understand/dp/0517548232/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=economics+in+one+lesson&qid=1555251994&s=gateway&sr=8-1
From there, you might want to get into some of the morality-focused books, if you want a short/easy one, I suggest "Anatomy of the State" by Murray Rothbard
https://mises.org/library/anatomy-state
If you want to learn about how an anarcho-capitalist society could work, I'd read Machinery of Freedom by David Friedman
http://daviddfriedman.com/The_Machinery_of_Freedom_.pdf
https://www.amazon.com/Machinery-Freedom-Guide-Radical-Capitalism/dp/1507785607/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=machinery+of+freedom&qid=1555252140&s=gateway&sr=8-1
David Friedman's new, 3rd edition of The Machinery of Freedom just came out. That seems like the perfect gift to me. Not only is it the best book on anarcho-capitalism ever written... it's the new updated edition. Perfect timing.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1507785607/
I kinda feel like you lost the plot of this conversation:
You: "We need to pay taxes so the government can protect us from evil corporations."
Me: "But the government sends your taxes straight to the pockets of the evil corporations and directly creates the problems you're complaining about."
You: "Well, that's not the government's fault."
How do you square those two beliefs?
Still, you did ask for sources, so here's a few (plus an upvote):
>Show me an example of a system like this working. I dare you.
https://www.amazon.com/Anarchy-Unbound-Self-Governance-Cambridge-Economics/dp/1107629705
https://www.amazon.com/Private-Governance-Creating-Economic-Social/dp/0199365164
https://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Hook-Hidden-Economics-Pirates/dp/0691150095
https://www.amazon.com/Not-So-Wild-West-Economics/dp/0804748543
https://www.amazon.com/Machinery-Freedom-Guide-Radical-Capitalism/dp/1507785607
https://www.amazon.com/Art-Not-Being-Governed-Anarchist/dp/0300169175
There is also a whole ton of economic literature out there about groups who resolve disputes using game theory, or long term contracts, things like that, instead of relying on a central governing body with a strong threat of violence.
Socialism/Communism
A People's History of the World
Main Currents of Marxism
The Socialist System
The Age of... (1, 2, 3, 4)
Marx for our Times
Essential Works of Socialism
Soviet Century
Self-Governing Socialism (Vols 1-2)
The Meaning of Marxism
The "S" Word (not that good in my opinion)
Of the People, by the People
Why Not Socialism
Socialism Betrayed
Democracy at Work
Imagine: Living in a Socialist USA (again didn't like it very much)
The Socialist Party of America (absolute must read)
The American Socialist Movement
Socialism: Past and Future (very good book)
It Didn't Happen Here
Eugene V. Debs
The Enigma of Capital
Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism
A Companion to Marx's Capital (great book)
After Capitalism: Economic Democracy in Action
Capitalism
The Conservative Nanny State
The United States Since 1980
The End of Loser Liberalism
Capitalism and it's Economics (must read)
Economics: A New Introduction (must read)
U.S. Capitalist Development Since 1776 (must read)
Kicking Away the Ladder
23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism
Traders, Guns and Money
Corporation Nation
Debunking Economics
How Rich Countries Got Rich
Super Imperialism
The Bubble and Beyond
Finance Capitalism and it's Discontents
Trade, Development and Foreign Debt
America's Protectionist Takeoff
How the Economy was Lost
Labor and Monopoly Capital
We Are Better Than This
Ancap/Libertarian
Spontaneous Order (disagree with it but found it interesting)
Man, State and Economy
The Machinery of Freedom
Currently Reading
This is the Zodiac Speaking (highly recommend)
If the fruit of your labor belongs to someone else without your consent, you are a slave. Taxation is ethically unjustified, and has only to do with power. As far as states go, well functioning democratic ones are usually less terrible than autocratic ones.
If you want to see how a plausible set of institutions could be made without the use of the tax-slavery system, you could check out this book by David Friedman.
I'm a hardcore AnCap. I firmly believe in most of what you'll find outlined in things aren't too tinfoil hat-ish like this great book.
The problem comes when you put the book down and get into real life. If you approach conversations about politics, or politics itself, accepting nothing less than the utopia that is AnCap - you're going to have a bad time.
How did your last conversation with the person that wouldn't accept anything less than Communism? Probably not well.
In both cases - great, you're totally true to your beliefs. But you're also completely ineffective to the point of basically just jerking yourself off. It's for no one.
So - I'm guided by its principles, but believe in finding areas with others where I can make make some small movement, or areas of government where I can advocate towards privatization.
If anything, it's made me more aware of holding the government accountable for our money. Look - if we need to (or we vote to) socialize something (healthcare, for instance) great - let's do it. But I come from a background to where I'll be very critical if it gets too off course.
And, at it's heart, the very idea of AnCap is that... well... I don't give too many fucks about it because I'm better off working hard and providing value for myself and others privately.
DROs.
David Friedman, the brilliant son of Milton Friedman, head of the Chicago school of economics, can explain it better than I.
https://www.amazon.com/Machinery-Freedom-Guide-Radical-Capitalism/dp/1507785607
Sounds like you missed anarcho-capitalism 101.
Ill get you started:
https://smile.amazon.com/Machinery-Freedom-Guide-Radical-Capitalism/dp/1507785607
An-caps don't believe the government should run the military either (or the justice system).
If you want to get familiar with their ideal proposed system, you probably want to read something like The Machinery of Freedom which lays out how a non-state could work, including justice systems and defense.
Less extreme libertarians frequently leave the government in charge of providing public goods (problems that markets can't usually solve because you can't exclude people from the service once it's provided) and wish to keep it out of everything that isn't a public good.
If you have doubts about why the state is so bad, and want to understand more what the state is Anatomy of the State by Murray Tothbard is a great read, got me into libertarianism in general
If you are looking for more current anarcho-capitalist theory and it’s logistics, a great read is The Machinery of Freedom by David Friedman.
Anatomy of the state is a great introduction of about ~50 or so pages while The Machinery of freedom goes into a lot more detail, ~350 pages and is the book I would choose.
Hope this helps!
https://smile.amazon.com/Machinery-Freedom-Guide-Radical-Capitalism/dp/1507785607/
There are a myriad of solutions and literature on the matter.
Just because there exist government monopolies on the services you listed doesn't mean that it wouldn't be handled by the market.
People like order, don't they?
Well then, go read The Problem of Political Authority by Michael Huemer and The Machinery of Freedom by David Freidman.
Books won't downvote you, I promise.
There are a lot of very simplistic points made for and against the positions presented by the libertarian/anarchistic intellectual traditions, and internet comments especially can devolve very quickly. Some people who've taken the time to research the arguments related their own questions or opinions about anarchy have sophisticated responses against steel-manned positions, but the majority are radically oversimplified and woefully short of awareness just like this. It's disheartening to spend so much effort to find out where exactly you stand in a political sense, and find that there appear to be legions of people continuously washing up against you who, though they might claim rationality, are perfectly content to drop an opinion as a decisive conclusion into a soundbyte space with no real argument. And this applies to the person you're speaking to above, not just you. It's just a really poor exchange. I'll see what I can do to help in this case, and maybe something interesting will happen.
To be very up-front, I would also describe myself as an anarchist. I came to that conclusion first by exposure to powerful moral arguments that required no acceptance of any special moral theories, but simply pitted my own morality against my belief in the political authority of the State and exposed total conflict. However, half the anarchists I've met didn't come by this approach, but by pragmatism instead. I would say that approach occupies most of the anarchist literature out there, being things like legal theory, game theory, economics, solutions to public goods problems, market failures, basically a consequentialist's playground. The reason for this is probably that a lot of folks demand quite a complete and detailed explanation for most facets of a theorized anarchist society where today they can only imagine coercive (State) solutions to the same problems. Since both of the above comments appear to be approaching from a pragmatic perspective, that's the kind of resource I'll be providing.
The claim in question is one of the most common refrains first uttered in response to the idea of a stateless society. "Without government, warlords would take over." Luckily for anyone interested in that claim here, it is also addressed in most places where people bother to ask about it. I'll present some of the shorter resources, and one or two longer ones, and then at the end I'll even contribute a tidbit of my own thoughts on the matter, which take a little bit of a different angle.
The most direct address is an article by Dr. Robert P. Murphy (economist) which you can find in written form here, or as a 12-minute narrated audio upload which someone has posted here. It doesn't take long to get through, and I don't need to reproduce its arguments here. I'm interested to hear what you think of it.
Edit: I also realize that in the article above, Murphy mentions some concepts which are common to discussions of polycentric (stateless) legal systems, but not common outside it. Things like private defense and arbitration agencies. While these too are discussed in the link below, to help provide context for anyone who feels a little confused with the above, there are some great youtube videos that give a quick introduction to these as well. The Machinery of Freedom: Illustrated Summary and Law Without Government. Hopefully this doesn't muddy the discussion, but provides some useful context if something was missed in the above article.
Further resources that cover the "warlord" question, though with the greater context of a detailed surrounding system, would include the freely available 2nd edition or Amazon-purchasable 3rd edition of The Machinery of Freedom by economist David Friedman (Milton Friedman's son). I would consider his discussions of stability questions certainly related to that, though he presents things in terms of a Mafia-like setup, and the concerns given his particular premises are not exactly the same.
I think you'd also find Chase Rachels' chapters about Law & Order and Defense & Security from A Spontaneous Order relevant as well -- you might even skip the rather boring and rigorous argumentation ethics the book leads with to get to that spot.
And I think that's more than good for a starter. Now my own tidbit. Please read/listen to the first article I linked before moving on here.
Something I think all of these guys miss even in their own objections is the public's idea of the belief in political authority. Were we to assume that a given -- let's say "Western" -- society actually opted for a truly stateless existence (whether an existing one "transitioned" or a new one was created, like a seastead community), it stands to reason that the people comprising it would have given up any belief in the legitimacy of political authority. If they hadn't, there's no reason they would've gone anarchist in the first place instead of just replacing one government with another. And if they did actually go through all the trouble to rid themselves of a State, and they indeed did not tolerate claims of political authority on that scale, there's no reason to assume they will turn right around and tolerate it on the local scale either. "Warlords" here, like kings and barons, need people to actually believe they have a right to do what they do in order to maintain any kind of power base. It's unclear why a people who disbelieve in this right of rulership would listen to them in the first place, much less tolerate them when they would not tolerate a modern State. This is my same argument against another common question: "If you eliminated the state, wouldn't a new one simply rise in its place?" or "Wouldn't a corporation just turn into a state?", etc.
If you assume a simple disbelief in political authority, a necessary precursor, for a people who were not already degenerating into moral barbarism (in which case a state comprised of those people doesn't help anyway, as Somalia had before it ripped itself apart), then the re-emergence of States on any scale doesn't seem likely to me, including that of the local warlord.
If you're actually curious how things could work, here's a good book to get started.
But again, realize that your position is that you will support immoral means and pretend they create moral ends.
Are you unfamiliar with the arguments of anarcho-capitalists on this topic? Have you read The Machinery of Freedom? Or The Problem of Political Authority? I'm not saying I agree with them altogether, but this seems like a rather shallow criticism.
I doubt it.
If you really want to know more go read
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1507785607/ref=pd_aw_sbs_b_1?refRID=0PNVXSM20W0E2N4NBTEH
Theres a free pdf of the book on his homepage too