Monday, September 04, 2006

Todays interesting read:

So I'm watching "Deadwood" and I start thinking about parallels between that fictional society and what some see as "how things would be" in an anarcho-capitalist world.

Turns out, I'm not the only one. Google Deadwood and libertarian or anarcho-capitalist to see more observations about the show relative to history, economics and all that.

But anyways, in my web meanderings I found this, An American Experiment in Anarho-Capitalism: The Not So Wild, Wild West from two folks at the Department of Economics, Montana State University.

Which gets me to a quick "aside": On a couple of my favorite "left-leaning" blogs, some writers (usually as a sort of en passant move sidestepping a point of discourse) constantly make references to some supposed Libertarian Utopia that they claim anarcho-capitalists and libertarians (and, by extension, me) think possible. When I listen to the future claims of most politically-minded folks, it becomes clear to me that the only folks who don't envision some sort of "we'll all get along wonderfully" utopia are exactly the libertarians and anarcho-capitalists. Making no claim at all for a utopia; they just say things would be more rationally fair if and as we move in that direction. I agree.

In any case, as found here at Billy Beck's wonderful Two-Four blog:

"In your efforts to reduce government, aim for zero. If you ever get there and don't like what you see, I guarantee that it will be the easiest thing in the world to pick up the nearest telephone and have another one established on the very next day." Robert LeFevre (1970)

3 comments:

scout said...

i'm not quite sure what an anarcho-capitalist is....i went to the link , the print was too small and i was too lazy to enarge the text.

HOWEVER, the original form of anarchy was benign earth worship, letting nature, who's wisdom and knowledge is far greater then ours , be our guide (there's the iroquois constitution again). somehow 'anarchy' got miscontrued along the way.

anarchists and libertarians basically work for the same things. there's a fine line between them, anarchists coming from a place of circle, the whole, cooperative efforts. libertarians , as i understand it, come from a place of self.

at any rate, the smaller governement is the better. gotta admit those bureaucrats have succeeded well in maintaining their jobs through useless blather.

Anonymous said...

Hi scout: anarcho-capitalists are anarchists that come from individualism and differ from libertarians only so far as the diference between minarchy (small, very limited gov't) as opposed to none. :-)

I loved the LeFevre quote regarding the fear of less government...

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