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They point out that in a truly free society insurance companies would likely fill many of the functions of governance that states fill today. Defense agencies would be employed by these companies. As we have seen in the last two centuries the most prosperous nations are those with the most free markets.
If you play that scenario out, you will see that still a quasi-state will emerge.
  • Market efficiencies will demand that there be "standards" that insurance companies will impose (eg. how would insurance companies vet and select police forces if not by a minimum set of standards). This will go for nearly everything from food safety to fire fighting....
  • There will need to be reciprocation agreements between the insurance companies at some level. If my house is insured by Company A and yours by Company B, our respective companies will need to accept that they each use acceptable fire fighting standards....otherwise if my companies fire fighting standards are shoddy it threatens your house. Again this forces a common set of "fire fighting" standards to be imposed on the market.
  • Further, HOA's (Home Owners Associations) would become much more prevalent and those would come with their own standards and insurance requirements. Those HOA would themselves (via their insurance companies) push towards "governance standards".
  • The standards bodies that create such rules will themselves become 'political' entities. I don't mean political in the sense of D vs R, I mean many forces will lobby to get their representatives appointed to these standard bodies. It will become every bit as tense and "political" as we see now, with the same innuendo, bribes, and propaganda techniques used now to influence rule making.
  • The rules issued by these standards bodies will become de-facto laws. Sure you are free to not abide by the standards, but the practical impacts will be severe.
To be clear, I am pro the ideas you espouse, I'm just pointing out that the net effect of AnCap played out to its logical conclusion will result in a world that is practically indistinguishable from a "small government / states rights" model.
this territory is moderated
I agree with you with a caveat. The small government winds up being a centralized large government. State rights end up being trampled. What you describe is logical but also would lack two powerfully negative forces. The quasi religious belief in an entity that has a monopoly on the use of violence. And the empires that commit mass murder fueled by the quasi religious patriotic passion. We really can't rid the world of the human flaws that exist but we could try to build decentralized systems that account for them.
But this was one example. My point is about lies we pretend to believe.
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The small government winds up being a centralized large government.
I agree. A small govt model will lead to economic success, which then will result in a very attractive target for those who want to consolidate power. Additionally, the "good times and small gov" will lend itself to a populace that is not inherently anti-state (after all the state is pretty good now). Thus, they will be susceptible to being persuaded to increase size of gov.
I think this is a continuous natural process, something like the business cycle, but here its the "governance cycle". A play on the "4th turning" idea:
Small Gov -> Good Times Good Times -> Big Gov Big Gov -> Hard Times Hard Times -> Small Gov
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It was easier to have small government and federalism before 1913:
Federal reserve act
Income Tax amendment
Popular election of senators
Scalia said popular election of senator killed federalism and states rights
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Wait... when do we go to small government? Do you mean after collapse? Do you have an example?
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43 sats \ 1 reply \ @freetx 25 Mar
Yes, I think after the collapse we go back to less centralized gov.
Look at USSR transition -> Russia (I know Russia is not "free" and not "small gov", but decidedly less authoritarian than old Soviet system).
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For sure Russians today are better off than those living under communism. I'd be shocked if you could find a Russian that would disagree with that. So not really small gov but better and smaller.
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