In my previous essay I explored some of the basic fundamentals of an anarchist worldview by dealing with is more abstract philosophical foundations. Many people find themselves agreeing in whole or in large part with many of these ideas but think of the state as necessary even if it is not perfect. Anarchist reject this and in the following I want to lay out the basics for how many anarchists (of the anarcho-capitalists variety) believe society can be organized.
The following will not be able to explore every possible aspect and scenario for how a stateless society would operate. However it will give overview of rationale ways the central functions of a state can be privatized. Specifically we will explore — The creation of Law, the judicial system, law enforcement, national defense as well as some ideas about how something like this could be implemented.
Law and Order
One of the first challenges of an anarchists society is how any kind of law or order will exist. Indeed one of the misconceptions people have of Anarchists is that they don’t believe society should have any kind of laws at all. This is not true. The anarchists simply believes that the laws that govern a society should not come from a top down state but rather should come about through a spontaneous system of human interactions much like how prices for goods and services come about without being mandated by government.
We actually already have precedent for this in what is known as common law. In a common law system laws are not given by a legislature but are formed over time by judges ruling over and over in specific cases and the patterns of their ruling become the de facto law. For instance, in a common law system if someone steals something, a Judge might rule that the stolen item had to be returned and the victim was to be paid for any time or trouble that this caused them. Over the next 10 years similar rulings would be made by other judges if most people and judges in the society believed this was fair. Essentially, in common law, the law is determined by the precedents set by the collective action of judges over time. People eventually come to know and expect how any given judge will rule. For all practical purposes (even in our current system) the law is whatever the judge decides and when we are reasonably confident of how a judge will rule in a given circumstance we “know the law”.
My Stolen Lawnmower
So how does this work in a stateless society? The best way would be to do this would be to share an example.
Let’s imagine that I think Bob from down the street stole my lawnmower. I have security cameras that show him taking it. I go over and tell Bob to give it back to me. He denies having stole it. I could call the police, but we live in an anarchist society so there is no state police. However, there are private well armed security companies so I contact ABC Security Corp who has an excellent reputation and specialize in theft cases. They explain what they will charge to investigate my case and I agree to pay them for their services.
Bob is a little intimidated when 5 big guys with guns show up at his house from ABC Security Corp asking him to give back the lawnmower. Bob still insists that the Lawnmower is his. The 5 guys and their company know that if they take the Lawnmower by force and are wrong about it being mine it would hurt their reputation as a business and could cost them money. Normally, they offer to take a case to a mutually agreed upon arbitrator. However, they saw the security tape so the 5 guys push Bob aside go in and take the Lawnmower and return it to me. The next day 5 big guys from another security company “Big Guys R Us” show up at my house. They claim that the lawnmower is Bobs and (as is customary to avoid violence) they offer to either come by force in 7 days to take the lawnmower or to settle the matter without force if I can agree to an arbitrator with them and Bob.
I contact my security company and explain what happened and see if they will come and protect me from the “Big Guys R Us” goons. They explain that they don’t like Big Guys R Us but they also don’t like costly violence and have an arbitrator that ABC Security and Big Guys R Us have been using for years to settle disputes between their two firms. His name is Solomon the Wise who runs a private arbitration firm specializing in theft cases with an excellent reputation for fairness. I contact Big Guys R Us and agree to arbitration but only on the conditions that we use Solomon the Wise and that if I win at arbitration that Bob must pay me back for all my costs involved in this whole mess. They agree. Bob and I go before Mr Solomon and I make my case showing the security footage. Bob then shows that he has a twin brother named Larry and proves that Bob was out of town that day. I realize I was mistaken. Bob did not steal my lawnmower, his bother did. We settle our dispute by agreeing to send over my security team to confront Larry and to demand he give back the lawnmower and pay us both back for all the trouble and time he cost us.
When my security team arrives, Larry admits he stole the lawnmower and my security team get the lawnmower back. However, he refuses to pay for the lost time and headaches for Bob and myself. We anticipated this so we the security team tell him he must either pay us $5000 in 30 days or they will come take his car.
Larry feels this is not fair so he calls his security company “Tough Guys LLC” they agree to defend Larry’s car from ABC Security. However, Tough Guys LLC finds fights costly, so they call ABC Security and say they want to arbitrate. They negotiate and decide to use an Arbitrator named “Justin the Just” who specializes in cases like these. So to avoid the cost and pain of a fight both companies agree to accept Justins ruling. The cases are made and Justin sees that Larry is totally in the wrong and his theft has caused all sorts of people lost time and money in trying to recover the lawnmower. Justin feels bad for Larry. However, he knows his reputation for fairness is on the line (his biggest selling point for his arbitration business) so he makes a fair ruling and orders Larry to pay the $5000. ABC Security says they are going to come in 14 days to get the car if Larry does not pay and Tough Guys LLC agrees to let them because of the ruling. Larry is mad. He still does not want to pay or have his car taken. He calls another security firm, but they turn him down as they know about the ruling. Larry calls all sorts of security companies but because of the ruling (and 5 other prior cases he lost in the past) Larry can’t find a security company willing to take up his cases. The day arrives and 5 guys with guns, body armor etc show up at Larry’s house. Larry knows he does not have a chance against these guys and they take his car and give it to me. I sell it and get back all the money I lost plus some extra for my lost time in dealing with this situation.
But would this really work?
So in this example we have people wanting to use force to settle a dispute. Normally, the unpunishable initiation of force is monopolized by the state. However, in the case above there are private security firms who will use force on behalf of paying customers. This may sound like the streets will be filled with paid mercenary gangs but this misunderstands the incentives of the system. In reality, a private security company would want to avoid violence as violence is very costly and risky and no one would want to work for a security company that puts their life at risk over trivial matters. Instead the best cost to benefit ratio would be a security company that gets paid regularly without engaging in violence. This would be best accomplished by only representing clients with strong cases and then settling disputes via mutually agreed upon arbitrators by competing security companies. So the natural incentives of the system would be to pressure groups to settle disputes without force via arbitration. What results is a system of law (much like common law) determined by the arbitration firms most trusted and respected by the market for fairness and those laws are then enforced via private security companies who have a natural incentive to avoid violence.
You might be thinking that this only sounds good in theory but are unsure about how it might work in the real world. Please realize that a society is a complicated thing and this example is not meant to answer every question/scenario about how an anarchist society would function. It is merely meant to give a taste of how issues of law, disputes, courts and law enforcement can be rationally argued for in a stateless system. In fact, the growth of private arbitration is taking over much of what courts used to do and it is working very efficiently. The anarcho-capitalist literature abounds with different scenarios and how a stateless society could handle them and these are worth serious consideration. While no system is entirely perfect (anarchists don’t claim to have utopia) people should be open to the idea that stateless systems could be more just and more efficient that existing systems and take the time to examine this rationale.
National Defense?
But what about National Defense? So how can an anarchist society defend itself from large conglomerates taking over or from national government conquering. This is always a risk, as in any society there is a risk of being taken over by a group of authoritarians. However, there is nothing stopping a group of free anarchist including well armed private security firms from being as effective if not more effective than a state run military in an armed conflict. The idea would not be a standing army confronting another standing army but a long term armed insurgency which history has shown to be highly effective if it has enough support (IE Afghanistan, Vietnam, The American Revolution, Ireland, Algeria etc). Also there is a good case to be made that having large rival states with large standing militaries increases the likeliness for large scale wars as violent power is centralized begs being used either directly or indirectly through saber rattling shows of power. If you want to delve deeper into this topic there are many great resources online and below is a sample by Michael Huemer.
How would this be implemented?
Now please note that this essay is not meant to answer every possible scenario or question. The goal was merely to give you a sample of how an anarchist system could handle matters normally thought only to be handled by a state. Matters such as law, courts, law enforcement, national defense etc. If these central systems can in theory (and even in practice) be handled effectively without a state then perhaps we should be less sure about our assumptions about the need for a state which relies on the power of coercion and violence. Furthermore, the question is not if this system would be perfect, the question is if it would be better than the current systems.
Those who don’t think an anarchist system is possible should take a moment to reflect that it was not that long ago that Democracy was thought to be impossible. For many years people thought we could not privatize the phone company, then when we did we got better service and less problems. The history of political power has had a long trend away from the absolute authoritarianism of ages past and it seems that as power is decentralized the world becomes more free and more prosperous. Anarchists believe the trend of political advancement goes from dictatorship, to democracy and eventually to a stateless society where human beings are truly free from the coercive violence of the state. People seem to think there is a limit to our ability to be free from state coercion and violence but the anarchist challenges that notion and pushes the envelope. They insist that human beings own themselves and that with creativity an a proper understanding of incentives the state is not only immoral, it is unnecessary.