Comments by "bakters" (@bakters) on "Am I an Ancap? And what is Anarcho-Capitalism?" video.
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It's been tried. The citizens were rich, the government was poor and powerless. We were wiped out off the map !
One single province of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth was richer than the whole of Prussia. There were no roads, very few bridges, small and weak army, extremely low taxes, your ancap paradise. Yet it was the poor Prussia, even poorer (though bigger) Russia and Austria who took a piece each and the map looked quite different all of a sudden.
What's up with you and utopist ideas? First socialism, now this, the exact opposite? Grow up already. It's all gray.
"Imagine multiple police services competing in fighting crime."
I don't need to "imagine" it, it's been tried. You could hire a dude to execute the court order for you. There were private wars with private armies running into the thousands , regular sieges, the lot. The history of Rzeczpospolita should be a required reading for any ancap fanboi.
How would you fire a corrupt judge? They stayed in business, simply because there was no way of getting rid of them! You guys are so naive.
I could go on like that forever and find an actual example for every "imagine" of yours. Do some reading on Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. I mean it.
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@ZIEMOWITIUS " AnCap practices only apply to a certain group of people "
We were asked to "imagine" what would happen if taxes were low, government was poor and citizens rich.
Well, that undoubtedly was the case.
The roads and bridges were supposed to "build themselves", by pure "free market" magic. It did not happen
Romans build roads, PLC build palaces.
Ancap position was proven incorrect.
We were told to "imagine" what would happen, if private security was more powerful than that of the government. The "free market magic" was supposed to create a safety paradise, with extremely efficient armies and what not.
It did not happen
Private armies resulted in private wars. While those armies were much more numerous and powerful than the state armies, their average quality was definitely lower.
Ancap position was proven incorrect.
The same with judicial system etc.
" It sure sounds like you're inventing it out of the blue. "
Wacław Potocki, a poem titled "Nierządem Polska stoi" (Poland is based on anarchy). Early XVIIth century.
" Non-nobles, who comprised well over 90% of the population "
That's not true for PLC. In some regions, like around Warsaw, the percentage of nobles was close to 30%. Somewhere around 15% overall.
" a lot harder to become a citizen "
You could buy a title from a pleb.
You could serve in the military and be granted a title.
Finally, and that did happen often, you could simply lie. The only guys they caught were those who lied about belonging to a powerful family. The family took offence and whipped the liar, so forth.
It follows, that if you were smart and lied about being from a poor family, nobody ever would catch you.
" The szlachta themselves were the state "
Nice denial tactic. I was told, that "less government = always better", and when we see that it wasn't always better, you run away into "it wasn't pure ancap" BS.
" it was a revolt against the szlachta "
Those were common in Middle Ages, while they never happened in PLC.
And the one in Galicia was after a "capitalist" reform, which we are told, was
"objectively" better and more fair to the peasants.
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@ZIEMOWITIUS If you were a noble, PLC was pretty damn close to the ancap nonsense.
In feudal societies the power of the king was very strong, attenuated only with high aristocracy, who could lay a claim to the throne themselves.
Nothing of the sort happened in PLC.
It's the crucial difference, that allowed for the anarchistic character of PLC, which is stated over and over in the sources. They thought that PLC was anarchy, I didn't invent it out of the blue!
As far as capitalism goes, it was that too. Extremely low taxes, private security, private law enforcement, private just about anything you could imagine.
Yes, only the citizens held all those freedoms, but it wasn't very difficult to become one, if you had the guts for it. You didn't have to ask the king for permission, for starters.
As far as the fate of peasants go, let me just say that when supervolcano erupted in 1815 and brought the "year with no summer", there was famine all around the world, but not in former PLC lands. The only peasant uprising (common during Middle Ages) that ever happened here, was in the Austrian partition, which switched to paying rent with money, not work.
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