Without Government, It Would be Anarchy!

Ali Massoud has questions about how a free society might deal with judgment proof mischief makers and miscreants: http://alisvoice.blogspot.com/2006/09/somebody-named-matt-helpfully-posted.html

I sometimes wonder about this as well. If the state withered away, what recourse would I have against a thief or attacker who had no property or regular income to attach? Of course, I don’t have any recourse now, and I’d take the free society with no recourse over the all powerful state with no recourse any day. Supposedly, insurance products will emerge to cover such contingencies. (Of course, my experience with insurance companies so far does not inspire much in the way of confidence, and I hope that insurers would be radically altered in a free society.)

Before long, though, I remember that the free society about which I fantasize will never happen. There’s no sense in worrying or arguing about what problems might arise from an abundance of freedom, because the best we can hope for is some small movements in the direction of freedom. Otherwise, we find ourselves in absurd conversations (this from an actual discussion I endured):

ME: I don’t think that I should be compelled to pay for tennis lessons for other people’s children.

STATIST(knowing my anarchic tendencies): Without the state and its strong military, you would be subject to invasion and dispossession by the Chinese.

ME: How would cutting tennis lessons from the town budget increase my risk of being invaded and dispossessed?

STATIST: It’s the principle of the thing. Once you limit the state in one area, where do you draw the line?

ME: I’d like to find out where the line is. I think we can get rid of a lot of government before we risk crossing your line.

I’ll take my chances with freedom, thank you. Perhaps one of the biggest obstacles to attaining a free society is the intense fear that the idea of less government arouses in so many people. They see the state as a safety net, whereas I see it as another kind of net altogether.

Statists frequently play the "bad things would happen in an anarchy" card whenever anyone questions the propriety of state action or power. I would much rather deal with the hypothetical problem that might emerge in an anarchy than continue to suffer from the actual problems that the state produces. I liken the statists' reasoning to arguments such as these:

"You don't want to remove that tapeworm in your gut because you might gain weight and be at increased risk for cardiovascular disease."

"If you stop hitting your head against that wall, you might go for a walk and get run over by a bus."