Re: “They say minarchism will just lead to bigger government. What did we have before we had any government? Anarchism, right? So what did it lead to?”
To quote Dan Sanchez:
Humans have an overwhelming genetic propensity to choose the best means for their most important ends. Their most important ends overwhelmingly involve material security, comfort, and prosperity. The best means for that is maximal capitalism. Once people are convinced of that by economic science, they will choose it.
The state happened to be invented before economic science could reveal the superiority of capitalism. Therefore, people in some societies thought erroneously that supporting a state apparatus was the most effective means to their ends. Thus the first states formed. And given the fact that at the time non-state societies had not YET developed economic calculation and the division of labor sufficiently to become supremely wealthy (keep in mind that anarchism is not synonymous with anarcho-capitalism, and a society can be slow to develop private property rights even without a state), state societies were able to produce the means of war to a superior degree, so the latter were able to over-run the former.
Between the Rivers, Before the State; Civilization necessarily precedes state parasitism, as illustrated by ancient Iraq by Dan Sanchez:
- This reply was modified 4 months ago by erikmalin.