[Semi Civil Servant]

"In an anarcho-capitalist society, instead of using police and an official court system to punish criminals, individuals would hire defense agencies, in much the same way we hire insurance agencies now. Then, if you're robbed, your agency would try to track down the guilty party, and, when they catch him, bring him to trial, probably before a judge agreed to by both your agency and his."

How long would it take before this system degenerated into a series of gangs and turf wars on a gigantic scale? How long would it take before you were paying "protection money" to every thug in your neighborhood? You have to assume a basic universal decency among all humans for a system like this to work. I don't buy into that at all.

You also have to assume that the "judges" in this system could not be intimidated or killed out right by one side or another. That isn't realistic, either.

Granted, the most dangerous (non-spiritual) thing you will ever encounter on earth is likely to be your government. Granted, most governments in history have ended up killing a fair number of the governed. But I'd rather be under the rule of our government (or any in Europe) than at the mercy of all the wacked-out, mean, evil, heartless, cruel brutes that live in my town (or yours). Protection rackets are pretty nasty enterprises. Even when it's called "insurance".

[A.J.Armitage]

Containing the use of force is the issue. Anarchists think you can solve the issue of Liberty vs. Power by abolishing Power, but that won't happen. Their force-users are still Power as much as the federal government is. So you're right in granting that the government is the most dangerous physical force in existence, but the alternative will be just as, or more, dangerous for the same reason government is dangerous in the first place.

[cpressroll]

Unfortunately, government does not end the protection racket but is far more likely to engage in it and benefit from it.