In watching the debate between Dr. Bylund and Dr. Holcombe, I found myself to be entirely in agreement with Dr. Holcombe about the infeasibility of a world without government. He reiterated ideas that I hold including that people crave power and in the absence of a government, those who are most willing to behave unethically will end up exploiting others to gain power. I would like to focus on the errors I see in Dr. Bylund’s logic throughout the debate and the reasons I agree with Dr. Holcombe that in the absence of government, a new government will always rise to fill the power vacuum.
What the Black Market Says About Anarchism
One argument Dr. Bylund makes is that the reason the black market is so violent and corrupt is that the government has so heavily restricted them. I agree with Dr. Holcombe in pointing out that this is the only market that is not government controlled, and therefore is the least affected by the government. There are no restrictions on the black market because the only restriction is that it cannot exist, and therefore in existing it can function as it pleases. The black market, to me, is proof that pure capitalism without government checks does not work. There is still competition in the black market, but as Dr. Bylund concedes, black market behavior becomes unethical very quickly. This is not because the government exists, but rather because the government does not exist in this sphere. Further, even if Dr. Bylund was correct in asserting that the black market is corrupt due to government interference, the conjecture that banning markets corrupts them does not automatically mean that any regulation is bad, it just means that regulation to the extent of a complete ban is an ineffective means of regulation. Politics, government, and economics all live in a world of gray and saying that one extreme is bad certainly does not prove the other extreme is good.
Barriers to Entry into Markets in Anarcho-Capitalism
Another argument Dr. Bylund makes in rebuttal to Dr. Holcombe’s claim that protection agencies will inevitably collude is that there is no benefit to collusion if there are no barriers to entry into a market. This assertion supposes that barriers to entry exist only in the presence government. This seems especially untrue in the case of protection agencies. As both Dr. Bylund and Dr. Holcombe concede, in an economy with barriers to entry, companies are highly incentivized to collude to raise prices. Protection agencies are uniquely positioned to create barriers to entry into their particular market because they as a collective have the competitive advantage when it comes to the use of force. It seems to me that they would be extremely incentivized to collude to use that competitive advantage to create barriers to entry for other protection agencies, allowing them to raise prices. Overtime, I can only see two options: the limited protection agencies that have been colluding merge to create one large government, or the protection agencies which crave more money and power realize its in their best interest to not war with each other for the increased power they crave but rather have a few separate territories which they individually control and therefore become a few individual governments.
The Purpose of Law
Dr. Bylund mentioned in both his talk last week and his debate this week that people sitting in the room watching him speak do not engage in criminal activities because those activities are unethical, dismissing the role of law in maintaining order in society. At the same time, he recognizes that people do bad things in necessitating private protection agencies in an anarcho-capitalist society. He acknowledges there are murderers, thieves, and other violent people. They exist in our current society, and they will exist in the anarchist society he believes in. That leads to the logical conclusion that the law is not there to prevent these people from existing, but rather to hold people accountable for unethical actions and prevent them from inflicting further harm upon their community by either removing them from it or providing rehabilitation.
Power as the Downfall of Anarchism
The point seems to be made by Dr. Bylund that people crave power because of the government. He goes so far as to label people who crave power “politicians.” This is certainly one group of people who undoubtedly crave power, but these are not the only people. College professors often crave power which they see coming to them in the form of knowledge. You don’t have to look far to find cases of private security guards abusing their power in brutally violent ways for no reason other than that they can. Perhaps the most relevant example are CEOs who crave power in the form of money. Not everyone is motivated by power, but the people who are not likely do not seek it. The people who form these protection agencies in an anarchical society will likely be people that do seek power because they see the opportunity to gain it here. Power is a particularly interesting topic within the study of government (or lack thereof) because although socialism and anarcho-capitalism are seemingly opposites, they have the same weakness in regard to their weakness to exploitation by a few power-hungry individuals. Both socialism and anarchism do not set up systems that prevent one or a few people from using the power that they must create more power for themselves. Both scenarios lead to the same outcome: one or a few individuals who have given themselves unilateral power by exploiting those around them. Scholars advocating both socialism and anarchism seem to readily identify this weakness in their counterparts but quick to ignore it in their own ideal. In my opinion, both socialism and anarchism sound wonderful in theory, but are also both meant to stay just that: theories. When either of these things are put into action, they will inevitably be exploited in the exact same way by similar individuals who use the system to bolster themselves at the expense of greater society.