Smaller governments (i.e. less power, shallower hierarchies), good voting systems, and an informed public are the answer; not avoiding government altogether.
Libertarianism (i.e. absolute belief in the capitalist market and private property) doesn't work, because the markets don't reflect negative externalities like pollution, over-harvesting, misinformation, or antibiotics misuse. States need to exist to manipulate markets to reflect those things.
There are many industries where the profit motive is contrary to the public interest, like education, health, media, banking, prisons, military, drugs, junk food, gambling, etc. Either [a] the state should be the sole player in the industry (prisons, military), [b] the state should provide a public service in that industry to set a baseline for private competitors (education, health, media), [c] the state should impose regulations/taxation that prevent/discourage activity contrary to the public interest (banking, junk food, drugs), or [d] the state should outlaw the industry entirely (gambling (IMHO)).
There are many "markets" that are inherently monopolistic, or where private competition is nonsensical, like public spaces (parks, lakes, rivers) and public infrastructure (roads, telecoms, trains, airports).
Companies and markets are only good at medium-term thinking (at best). Google employees avoid thinking about the kind of society they're creating for their grandchildren, but that's the job description of elected representatives (in accountable governments).
Finally, but most significantly, there's that whole thing about capital accumulating to the top. Income and capital gains taxation is in the public interest, because equality and a well-financed state is in the public interest.
I feel like many Americans tend towards libertarianism because they feel that their governments are unaccountable, unrepresentative and corrupt. I think the problem in the US is the size and power of its government - not the concept of government itself. I think the federation of the US should be abolished (as in, all federal law). States could sign up to federal institutions/programs (central bank, defense, immigration, ...) when and how they please.
Personally, I think any moderately-populated area should have a single level of government spanning no further than 2-4 km from its parliament (i.e. within walking distance). Each of these states can assume common administration of adjacent sparsely-populated areas. If the states agree to a common legislative process, there's no duplication of effort in passing common legislation, except for each parliament voting on it or amending it as they want, which is democratic!
Libertarianism really grates me, but I enjoy debating it because I see that libertarians want the same things I do: liberty and equality for everyone.
> Smaller governments (i.e. less power, shallower hierarchies), good voting systems, and an informed public are the answer; not avoiding government altogether.
> Libertarianism (i.e. absolute belief in the capitalist market and private property) doesn't work, [...]
For the vast majority of (US) libertarians, libertarianism is the first sentence, not the second. Only a small group of libertarians are free-market anarchists.
Sure, but libertarian socialists (mostly European) have the same annoyance with US libertarians over the term "libertarian". Also, like Baptists, ten US libertarians and free-market anarchists in a room can easily produce a dozen heartfelt and mutually exclusive opinions on a single topic.
"and an informed public are the answer; not avoiding government altogether."
One small edit - an informed AND ENGAGED public.
We now have a perfect cycle in the US.
- Government isn't working, so people believe government can't work.
- Government can't work in the future because very few participate.
Wash, rinse, repeat - and remove funding for education while you're going along to make sure people are not getting informed or engaged.
> Government can't work in the future because very few participate.
Also, it feels to me that "participate" has lost half its meaning: people think voting is enough. IMHO, the other half of participation is running for office. Many people complain about all candidates presented before them, but wouldn't put in the work to run themselves.
That also speaks to the standard of who qualifies as an acceptable political candidate, these days. There used to be more elite offices, for which one required a good-old boys network, and more populist ones, for which qualifications were more open. Nowadays, the media rage-circus gets set off by so many different things that even the so-called "populist" offices only support the electability of a very narrow, conformist range of candidates.
See, for example, the electoral loss of Eric Cantor.
Yup, very true. I just wrote this in a comment down another branch:
> The key point for smaller states, in my opinion, is that their constituents care. I feel like people are more apathetic in larger states, because they have less power individually, and their responsibility to keep their government accountable is further absolved. When you get people to care, and give them power collectively, everything else follows.
>Libertarianism (i.e. absolute belief in the capitalist market and private property).
I espouse libertarianism more under the following: freedom financially and freedom socially. So the former is generally a conservative ideal while the latter is usually a liberal ideal. A practical example is: I believe in small government (freedom from government financially) and I also believe same-sex marriage should be legal (freedom from government in sociall policy). This is my libertarianism.
> negative externalities like pollution, over-harvesting, misinformation, or antibiotics misuse.
Not disagreeing, because the point is true. However solutions for most of these have been found
a) over-harvesting : only a problem in a non-fully-privatized situation (in other words, the more government involvement, the more you have this problem). This one is actually an argument FOR capitalism.
b) pollution is also a tragedy of the commons thing, and could be solved by privatisation. Of course, in the real world that presents some challenges.
c) misinformation : this is not a problem of capitalism at all. Or rather, it's a problem that solves itself under capitalism (though not necessarily to people's liking). For example, insurance can fix this. Under central planning systems, every one I've ever seen, the problem is not so much misinformation, but the total lack of relevant information at all (e.g. employing the mayor's daughter in your management structure gets you the contract for city IT, good luck finding that info. Oh and if you're an idealist : good luck preventing that from happening).
d) antibiotics misuse : well, on one hand this is happening partly due to misuse. However, where do you have any data whatsoever that it wouldn't happen without misuse ? As far as I can tell antibiotics resistance happened even before WWII, when we were definitely not wasting antibiotics. At any rate, the ship has sailed and it's a sunk cost at this point. We should not waste money and resources fighting it, as even massive effort can only slightly reduce the rate here, it can't fix it.
(one theory I found is that what's happening is simply that we are effectively raising the price of new and therefore working antibiotics, dampening their use, until a balance with nature is found. Sadly, it is blatantly obvious that in order for this to actually happen, the vast majority of the sick would need to go untreated, so there simply isn't a good solution, capitalist or government)
Can you please explain how markets address overharvesting and pollution, and examples of that happening? If your point is that states can overharvest and pollute too, sure - of course they can. They probably will if they're corrupt. My point was that only states can stop it: see the legislation on whaling, fishing, poaching, emissions regulations and taxation, ...
On misinformation, you made the (unrelated) point that states are corruptible. Yes, they are; so are markets (e.g. LIBOR) and companies (i.e. employees acting contrary to the company's interest).
Corruption occurs when the people involved are undesirable, and the reward outweighs the risk of being caught. In states where the electorate cares and is informed, undesirables are less likely to be elected, and there's a higher risk of being caught. Ideally, the bureaucrats involved in choosing who to give the contract to (the bureaucrats being directly affected by the decision, because the government is smaller) would tip off the local broadcaster that the decision was rigged, and they would investigate.
I think it's more likely for corruption to be unveiled in states than there is in markets or companies. The larger the company, the smaller the chance - and free markets tend towards multinational monopolies anyway ("efficiency" and all that).
My mention of misinformation was referring to things like: the media reporting on celebrities rather than legislation, or misleading advertising, or the media being paid to report a certain way or avoid a certain story. These actions have negative externalities, and the markets won't stop them. What the market wants (more celebrity stories, or fewer oil spill stories) isn't always what the market should get.
It should be illegal to use antibiotics in agriculture, yet the markets love them. That was my point.
If I own the land, and I mean own and am responsible for - no taxpayer subsidized safety net if I go too badshit crazy with the nutrient depletion or chemical baths - then it is in my best interests not to ruin the property so that it remains valuable if and or when I want to sell it.
Either I intend to sell the land, thus making it worthwhile not to destroy it, or I intend to continue using the land for an extended period of time, and I wouldn't want to destroy it. I only really don't care if I have guaranteed payouts no matter what I do, and no responsibility or reason to care to take care of the land anyway.
> pollution
In the modern anarchist mindset, pollution is a violence against, depending on scope, either the local community that is negatively impacted by the polluter or the entire world in how that pollution negatively contributes to the environment.
In either case, any sane libertarian or anarchist joint arbiter would in the commons consider major polluters as causing property damage, and thus any company that wants to pollute would need to seek permission from the entire area around where they want to set up shop. And when remote injunctions start coming in about how their pollution is damaging the planet as a whole, the reparations would need to be either removing an equal amount of pollution that they put in or contributing in some way to projects that do, else they are being violent upon pretty much everyone in a way that any sane society would see they only operate when everyone is consenting.
> only states can stop it
More like only states can enable it - because in modern states you never own your land, and never consent to your neighbors, and never have contracts with them about mutual conduct agreements and recourse for violation you depend on the state to provide some fictitious encompassing control effect on those that perform the kinds of violence I outlined earlier. Except the state is itself inherently violent and amoral, and is easily corrupted because of the centralization, so it is much easier for the coal company to bribe the local town council than the entire town.
> so are markets and companies
And all your interactions with markets and companies are voluntary. If they are not, you aren't really operating in a free market. If they are not inflicting violence upon you or others, you really have nothing to complain about, really. And if they are, it is your duty and the duty of your peers to cease dealings with the violent aggressor and either economically deprive them of resources until they recant or defend yourselves appropriately as a last resort.
> corruption in states than there is in markets
The problem is that corruption is inefficient. In the absence of states, nothing restricts you from directly competing with anyone over anything, so if they are acting in a corrupt way, then there would be avenues for capitalization by competitors to exploit it. It is the same reason why in the short term it makes no fiscal sense for a business to try to raise a private militia to take over the town - the militia is an immediate huge competitive disadvantage, and you would cripple your growth potential to whoever you could subjugate because no sane external market would interact with you, and would likely do anything they can to boycott you into failure.
> What the market wants
Modern mainstream media is anything but a competitive market. The major networks would always take advantage of their IP and state resources to crush any upstarts who tried to provide real journalism and news anymore. And they would certainly get the full support of the US government in doing so.
In a real information market, people would seek what they are actually interested in. A lot of anarchist arguments about the collective psyche of most modern western democracies relates the whole distraction circus back to the implicit discontinuity in the brain about the organization of society in the first place and the amorality of it all. It also probably has a lot to do with how most people were abused as children - your brain will develop differently and you will always seek escapism. Confronting the reality of your circumstance is hard, and it requires enlightened rational individuals to do so. That is mainly why, while I morally agree completely with anarchist mindsets, I don't really advocate it in the modern world. It really wouldn't work with the current crop of humanity - it would require enough transitional generations to get to the point where we stop predominantly abusing our children, either through neglect or violence.
> If I own the land, and I mean own and am responsible for - no taxpayer subsidized safety net if I go too badshit crazy with the nutrient depletion or chemical baths - then it is in my best interests not to ruin the property so that it remains valuable if and or when I want to sell it.
Realistically, most people would want to extract as much from the land as they can in their lifetime. This means, while they may not necessarily destroy the land with in their own lifetime, they will bleed it dry by the end of their lifetime, leaving nothing to the future generations. This, of course, also presupposes that most people are rational, smart, and sane individuals. The truth is quite the opposite, and if you have doubts about the latter, just read YouTube comments of any video :)
Nothing is ever mentioned about the process by which a society converts itself into a libertarian utopia. That makes all the difference in terms of the configuration of ownership. According to my purely idle speculation, here are a couple of possibilities:
1. Worldwide adoption of libertarian society at some fixed point in time (e.g., by magic), meaning that the largest land holders would soon absorb their neighbors and form estates of a size equivalent to US states or small countries. These people would presumably be responsible for families or even entire clans, forcing them to take a long term outlook. But "selling" might be problematic if there is no reliable store of wealth other than land.
2. Adoption limited to a geographic region (e.g., through a political process), with the commercial economy dependent a foreign currency. In this case, the rational strategy for a small land holder (less than 100 square miles) might be to extract foreign money from the land by selling crops, ores, etc., and then abandon the land.
I'm guessing that the optimal size of land holder that is big enough to be efficient, but small enough to saddle some larger entity with their externalities such as the cost of protecting them from the territorial ambitions of their neighbors. The bigger the estate, the bigger the cost of absorbing one's own pollution, crime, etc.
>If I own the land, and I mean own and am responsible for - no taxpayer subsidized safety net if I go too badshit crazy with the nutrient depletion or chemical baths - then it is in my best interests not to ruin the property so that it remains valuable if and or when I want to sell it.
No, it's in your interest to fool some sucker into buying it on false pretenses. Don't pretend to moralities you don't actually hold, capitalist.
I downvoted the comment, but not because of the viewpoint. I only downvote when I believe that a comment is detracting from the discussion.
eli_gottlieb said: "Don't pretend to moralities you don't actually hold, capitalist". eli was implying that zanny was immoral (or at least amoral), which is something that cannot be deduced from one or two comments; moreover, pointless ad hominem attacks do not advance the discussion.
I regularly downvote comments which espouse views that I agree or disagree with, when they resort to irrelevancies and personal attacks, as was the case here.
edit: quote from HN's comment guide
"What we especially discourage are comments that are empty and negative—comments that are mere name-calling.
Which brings us to the most important principle on HN: civility. Since long before the web, the anonymity of online conversation has lured people into being much ruder than they'd dare to be in person. So the principle here is: don't say anything you wouldn't say face to face. This doesn't mean you can't disagree. But disagree without calling the other person names. If you're right, your argument will be more convincing without them. "
>eli_gottlieb said: "Don't pretend to moralities you don't actually hold, capitalist". eli was implying that zanny was immoral (or at least amoral), which is something that cannot be deduced from one or two comments; moreover, pointless ad hominem attacks do not advance the discussion.
Immoral by my definition, sure. But his espoused morality is "whatever the market will bear". All I'm demanding is that he doesn't pretend "whatever the market will bear", which is what he's explicitly proposing and endorsing, in any way matches what the rest of us think of as desirable.
If he wants to be an ideologue, he needs to come out and say it: "Yes, privatizing all the commons will result in sales that approach as close to fraud as the law allows, rather than actual environmental protection, but that's a good thing!"
I have to insist that your references to anarchism are really references to anarcho-capitalism. I approximate my beliefs to anarcho-communism, and I take issue with your presumption of an anarchist's respect for private property. All anarchism refers to is the advocation of stateless society.
In these comments, my advocation of a "state" is an advocation of small (<4km in radius), democratic governments. This is my interpretation of a "stateless society" [0]. I don't want readers to think I'm defending most modern states; the smaller the state, the more responsible and democratic it tends to be. This is by definition: less people -> more representation.
A capitalist's idea of "ruining the land" is not Gaia's idea of "ruining the land". If a logging company owns a rainforest, it will want to plant more trees when it's destroyed everything else there. The company has no financial incentive to care about the ecosystem it's destroying by logging in the first place, nor the collateral effects of that elsewhere. Your retort may be that the logging company has to acquire the rainforest first - yes, but logging is probably the most profitable activity for a rainforest, so logging companies will tend to acquire such land. I feel sick typing this...
Another major example of markets encouraging overharvesting is when the harvesting occurs on land/water that no one owns (or can reasonably own). Then, the harvesters have no regard for the replenishment of the resource; they just want to make money. In unrestricted capitalism, a herd of bison or a pod of whales is a goldmine at market. A puerile defense to this may be that no one would whale if no one wanted to eat it. You may also say that we'd "cease our dealings" with anyone who ate whale - how would we know? Why would a capitalist care what this other guy eats on weekends if this guy's company is giving him a better deal?
Capitalism has little regard for Gaia. Individuals are mostly selfish, and capitalism runs on individuality and selfishness, so Gaia gets no consideration. We need states to ensure that companies don't act contrary to our long term interests.
You made the point that in modern states, neighbors never consent to one another's conduct, and they rely on the state for control and mediation. Yes, I agree, this is a failing of modern statist societies. But, in my view, if states were significantly smaller, those governing would be your neighbors too, and so legislation would effectively be a "mutual conduct agreement" anyway.
Sure, a state's governing may not please everyone - but if everyone is within walking and living distance, the society would be more able to resolve its differences, or come to a compromise. Thanks to this quality, I think smaller states could function with requiring more than the majority in parliament to pass legislation: e.g. 66% or 75%. Either way, at worst, you can move to a nearby state that aligns more with your beliefs. In this way, "governing" would become a market for ideas that work.
Governments are not violent nor amoral if they have the consent of the governed. If you want to live by your own rules, move somewhere that isn't governed. If you want to live in a town, you have to follow that town's law as determined by popular will.
On your remaining points:
- No, the actions of markets and companies can affect me without my deciding to interact with them, and to say otherwise is laughable and offensive. Capitalism is destroying our planet. Companies can lowers working standards, salaries and social welfare across the industry - especially when they collude.
- The whole non-aggression principle of libertarianism is tiring. Libertarians have to contort their beliefs around the NAP because the philosophy requires an absolutist principle for organizing society. Here are the contortions I see libertarians make: private property is not aggression, corruption is not aggression, market manipulation is not aggression, theft when necessary is aggression, governing-by-consent is aggression, etc. Other political philosophies take a more nuanced view of organizing society, and rightly so.
- Policing by economic deprivation doesn't work, because it's less immoral to deal with someone who committed an immoral action, than it is to commit that immoral action. Say Alice hunts whales (which are endangered), and Bob sells Alice her ships. Bob is viewed as less immoral, because he didn't actually kill the whales, and so it's less likely that others would stop dealing with him. The only reason Bob wouldn't sell Alice ships is if the whales are more important to him than the profit of selling the ships. You would require every {shipbuilder, oil company, ...} in the world to believe this, for whaling to be prohibited - and even then, you can sometimes whale from shore.
- Over the last 100 years, we've learned that consumers act selfishly, and so relying on the consumers to police doesn't work either. If you put whale in a market, consumers will buy it. If a company from a locality abuses people elsewhere, local consumers don't care.
- Your point on corruption is unrelated to mine. If we define "company corruption" as employees acting contrary to the company's interest for their own personal gain, and "market corruption" as companies acting contrary to public interest for their own profit, then only company corruption is inefficient. Market corruption is certainly "efficient", and there's little to stop it in anarcho-capitalism.
- Free markets tend towards complete monopoly; the more "freedom" companies have, the quicker they will conglomerate. There's a startup in this city? The incumbent(s) will price them out. As an example, the American media conglomerates are just the result of market forces (and physical realities). The sprawling, centralized US government helps them along, but they would've got to where they are now sooner or later.
- In an ideal world, with people who could make an anarchist society function well, what then would be your objection to a state (by my definition), or to abolition of private property (noting respect for personal property)? And hence, what base is there for anarcho-capitalism?
My belief in anarcho-communism is predicated on the idea that power is bad, as is my disbelief in capitalism and large-statism. Unfortunately, this is also why anarcho-communism is unlikely to ever be implemented successfully: you need power to usurp power, and power attained is unlikely to be forfeited.
On a completely unrelated note, I just wanted to point out that not that many people in Japan actually eat whale meat anymore. They tried to get school children to eat and like whale meat, but it didn't happen. The majority of the whale meat actually was used for pet food in the recent years.
> Your retort may be that the logging company has to acquire the rainforest first - yes, but logging is probably the most profitable activity for a rainforest, so logging companies will tend to acquire such land. I feel sick typing this...
Not necessarily. Several highly lucrative drugs came from bio research conducted in the rainforest. The pharmaceutical industry is far more profitable than the logging industry. Of course, it takes a significant foresight to do research in the rain forest, rather than cut it down for timber.
> Another major example of markets encouraging overharvesting is when the harvesting occurs on land/water that no one owns (or can reasonably own). Then, the harvesters have no regard for the replenishment of the resource; they just want to make money.
This is true if you follow the first capture rule of ownership for resources located in public domain (not owned by anyone in particular due to their nature). However, an alternative would be to argue that all resources in public domain actually belong to everyone, rather than no one. So, if you were to capture a whale in the ocean, you would actually be violating the rights of every other person on the planet to that whale. Thus, you would be obliged to compensate everyone on the planet for the fair market value (minus the cost of capture) of that whale. This means, the best you could do is brake even on your whaling activity. All of the sudden, it's no longer such an attractive economic activity.
> Sure, a state's governing may not please everyone - but if everyone is within walking and living distance, the society would be more able to resolve its differences, or come to a compromise. Thanks to this quality, I think smaller states could function with requiring more than the majority in parliament to pass legislation: e.g. 66% or 75%. Either way, at worst, you can move to a nearby state that aligns more with your beliefs. In this way, "governing" would become a market for ideas that work.
I was actually just writing how much I agree with you, and how in the past I thought that the states in US should have a lot more power, and the Federal government should have a lot less. But than I remembered the state I grew up in, IL, and how incredibly, unflinchingly, and stunningly corrupt that state, and more specifically, the city of Chicago is. Given that example, I wonder if small governments can really avoid being corrupt. That's of course not to say that large governments aren't crazy corrupt as well.
> Several highly lucrative drugs came from bio research conducted in the rainforest.
That research was probably conducted in rainforests protected as a national park, right? At least, I highly doubt that the pharmaceutical companies actually acquired the land before conducting research, or that they would bother buying entire rainforests (to protect the ecosystem) if there wasn't a state to protect them.
An anarcho-capitalist may suggest that the pharmaceutical companies could create a fund with other people who care about preserving the rainforests, to acquire and protect the rainforests. But then, that fund would have to raise as much money as the potential profit to be made by cutting it all down - which is terribly perverted, I think. Still, such a fund would unlikely be universal enough to protect all rainforests and other important ecological centers. The point stands that whatever land a logging company acquires, it will want to destroy.
Logging is far too prevalent as it is - with all the regulation and restrictions imposed on it by modern states. I'm not sure how the argument could be made that logging would be less prevalent if there weren't any states to stop it.
> an alternative would be to argue that all resources in public domain actually belong to everyone, rather than no one
This is a nice idea in theory (and is semi-applicable in anarcho-communism too), but it can't realistically be determined what to share (e.g. these bison were on my property), how to enforce it (e.g. knowing who's harvesting what), or how to handle it (e.g. how to allocate compensation for killing a whale).
I'm not sure why we have to go through these economic gymnastics just to avoid the concept of having an association of democratic governments banning whaling or deforesting. What's so wrong with that?
> the state I grew up in, IL, and how incredibly, unflinchingly, and stunningly corrupt that state, and more specifically, the city of Chicago is
I have connections to Chicago, and can relate :-)
In my ideal world, Chicago would be broken up into governments even smaller than the City of Chicago today, which spans about 15km x 40km it seems.
I think many city councils are "optimized" for administration, and not for representation. If each of these small states were completely autonomous, and had to legislate their entire body of law, the citizens would care more, and they would develop more representative and accountable voting systems and institutions, due to the extent of the government's responsibilities.
Also, to make the point again, if a certain state is known to be corrupt, and does nothing to address it, it will probably lose business and residents to nearby states that aren't. Similarly, neighboring states would have an interest in supporting one another, and would try to discourage corruption (e.g. avoiding companies that bribe officials elsewhere).
The key point for smaller states, in my opinion, is that their constituents care. I feel like people are more apathetic in larger states, because they have less power individually, and their responsibility to keep their government accountable is further absolved. When you get people to care, and give them power collectively, everything else follows.
> If each of these small states were completely autonomous, and had to legislate their entire body of law, the citizens would care more, and they would develop more representative and accountable voting systems and institutions, due to the extent of the government's responsibilities.
I see several possible problems with this approach. I had similar thoughts in the years past, an I was wondering what your opinions were as to the following issues:
1. Inconsistent laws in a small geographical area. As a real world example, take a look at the car window tint law in the State of Illinois and the City of Chicago. In Illinois you can have up to 60% tint on your windows, while in Chicago, the local rule is that you can only have up to 30% tint. Don't quote me on those figures, last I looked into it was 10 years ago. But the point is, you can live outside Chicago, have a perfectly legal 50% tint, and than, as soon as you drive into Chicago, your car is all of the sudden in violation of one of the local laws. And they do ticket you for it. In your proposed system you would have all kinds of inconsistent laws. This is a problem for automotive laws, food safety, building codes, etc. The only solution I see would be for all of the small governments to gather together and agree on some standard set of laws that they will all implement. But than you are more or less back to square one.
2. Large infrastructure projects. Large projects require a lot of capital and a lot of cooperation from people in a large geographical area. Things like highway construction, rails, bridges, aqueducts, pipelines, all of those would require cooperation of dozens, if not hundreds of individual governments in your system. And you would always have holdouts, townships that would demand an extra something for their cooperation.
3. Research projects. Currently the united states government sponsors significant amount of research. If we were to switch to the township system, than that research would not be sponsored any more. Alternatively, maybe a bunch of townships could unite in a consortium to pay for research. But then you run into problems with division of profits from that research. Say 6 out of 10 townships paid for the research which resulted in development of a cancer cure. Would they then be able to deny the benefits of that cure to the other 4 townships?
There are a bunch of examples that I can think of in addition to this. In the past after thinking about this idea, the Jefferson Township model of government, I decided that I could not think of a way to make it work. However, a State system might work. A state system would largely eliminate the Federal Government and programs like the Social Security, ACA, Medicare, and all of the other social programs. It would also eliminate the Federal Income tax. The Federal Government would be responsible for national defense (military), borders, interstate transportation, and the interstate laws and treaties. The interstate laws would be a set of laws that 3/4 of the states would agree on. Things like food labeling, minimal vehicle safety requirements, etc.
To pay for the Federal Government each state would pay a yearly membership fee based on the number of people in that state and the GDP of the state, or some other kind of matrix. It would be up to each state to organize their own Social Security, health program, and other social programs. Each state would also be free to decide how to govern it self, would have the power to collect income tax, etc. The main key to the system would be free travel. This means that no person could be prevented from leaving one state or moving to another. This would allow each state to experiment with all kinds of government models, and would allow people to vote with their feet.
Any way, my idea is as unlikely to ever come true as the Jefersonian system.
> 1. Inconsistent laws in a small geographical area.
Having different window tinting laws is a good example of the kind of baseless legal inconsistency that could harm a region's competitiveness. If the states of a region could not come to an agreement on window tinting, it would probably damage their reputation elsewhere.
> In your proposed system you would have all kinds of inconsistent laws.
Although there's little reason to differ on window tinting laws, I can imagine reasonable states having different opinions on, say, engine noise limits. This leads to the same kind of inconvenience, but yet is more understandable. Nonetheless, if the people of a (small) state don't want loud engines (or perhaps they want to ban driving altogether) in their neighborhood, isn't that their right?
> The only solution I see would be for all of the small governments to gather together and agree on some standard set of laws that they will all implement.
Right, so for any matter that calls for it, you would hope that neighboring states would be able to agree to pass identical pieces of legislation. The Australian states do this all the time (when the pre-existing law wasn't federal).
> But than you are more or less back to square one.
No, there's a very significant difference between a collection of autonomous states agreeing to a certain piece of legislation, and a collection of states being forced to abide by a piece of legislation passed by a federal parliament.
In the former, if a company wants to coerce the entire country on some political issue, it has to coerce the politicians of every single state: in a federation, it need only coerce the federal politicians.
If an independent state thinks a law is bad (e.g. wants to legalize marijuana), it can remove it without being beholden to outside forces. If the law was made by a federal parliament, it can only be undone by the federal parliament.
If an independent state thinks a program is bad (e.g. a war, a department, currency devaluation), it can remove itself (personnel/funding) on its own volition.
Regional agreements are very different to regional parliaments.
> This is a problem for automotive laws, food safety, building codes, etc
Buildings don't tend to get up and walk into a different neighborhood. I think that if the people of a state want certain building codes (or none at all!), that's their right. I don't think it's a big ask of construction companies to abide by the codes of the state they're building in: they do that all the time today.
I think regional agreements could be justified for things that are inherently mobile, or that make sense to operate at scale: automotive laws, food safety laws, airport administration, public health insurance, extradition, public broadcaster funding, university funding (maybe), infrastructure (telecoms, roads, train tracks), park administration, military, ...
The difference here is that if some state doesn't want to contribute to a regional health insurance fund, it doesn't have to.
> 2. Large infrastructure projects
Right, this is harder when you have many autonomous states, but they're still certainly doable. If there's an imperative to do something, the states will come to agreement.
States that contribute to interstate highways could sell permits to their citizens as part of their car registration. There could be toll booths to sell temporary permits to non-citizens. This way, if states A, B and C want to build highways between each other, but state D, adjacent to A and B, doesn't want to contribute, then A, B and C can fairly bill the citizens of D that end up using that highway anyway.
> If we were to switch to the township system, than that research would not be sponsored any more.
Why not? Research would only stop being sponsored by a state if the people of that state didn't want to sponsor it. And if they don't want to, they shouldn't be forced to.
If your point is that something like the Cold War would never happen in small-state anarchy, then I concede that. But, for all the merits of the space race, it was not worth the risk of the Cold War.
By the way, check your thens and thans :)
> However, a State system might work. The Federal Government would be responsible for...
Again, it seems like you're confounding the differences between having many independent states, and having a federation of states. My points above stand against federations (as in, federated parliaments). Federations should not exist: they are a remnant of a bygone era of imperialism and war-mongering. If by "federal government" you're referring to agreements between most states to pass some legislation (e.g. open borders), then sure, I'm with you. But if you're talking about having a legally-usurping federal parliament that is in command of the military, then I'm not.
Your post basically makes the point that cooperation is harder when you have more autonomous states. I agree, but I think (1) states will cooperate when there is an imperative to do so, (2) if a state doesn't want to cooperate, then that's their democratic right, and (3) by having the choice of cooperation, states can experiment, and better ideas will flourish.
2. X asks real estate broker, "Don't I need air rights too?" Broker says "nah, the air's clean around here". (It is.)
3. Industry Y decides to move into town. Buys up all the unsold air rights from the broker (maybe with a little kickback). (Industry Y sells widgets, of which everyone needs an endless supply.)
4. Industry Y does what industries do and pollutes the air. Person X is out of luck, gets cancer and dies. (Person Z, who was smart and kept his air rights, is out of luck too, because everyone else sold out and it turns out particulate matter doesn't respect property law.)
Don't believe me? This is exactly what's happened with fracking. Affected homeowners are told they can't sue because they don't own the water/mineral rights around their land.
Anyway the end of this story in anarcho-capitalist-libertarian land is:
5. Person X gangs up with other townsfolk to pay their private police force to strongarm industry Y into selling their air rights to a collective trust.
6. Townsfolk look at their combined police-and-regulatory trust, see that it is good, and decide to name it "government".
>b) pollution is also a tragedy of the commons thing, and could be solved by privatisation. Of course, in the real world that presents some challenges.
Sure. Let's just privatize the entire fucking atmosphere! We can all pay rent for being made of carbon atoms, too! Those belong to an owner, after all!
Excuse me, I'm going to go do something else before I fully rage out.
Libertarianism (i.e. absolute belief in the capitalist market and private property) doesn't work, because the markets don't reflect negative externalities like pollution, over-harvesting, misinformation, or antibiotics misuse. States need to exist to manipulate markets to reflect those things.
There are many industries where the profit motive is contrary to the public interest, like education, health, media, banking, prisons, military, drugs, junk food, gambling, etc. Either [a] the state should be the sole player in the industry (prisons, military), [b] the state should provide a public service in that industry to set a baseline for private competitors (education, health, media), [c] the state should impose regulations/taxation that prevent/discourage activity contrary to the public interest (banking, junk food, drugs), or [d] the state should outlaw the industry entirely (gambling (IMHO)).
There are many "markets" that are inherently monopolistic, or where private competition is nonsensical, like public spaces (parks, lakes, rivers) and public infrastructure (roads, telecoms, trains, airports).
Companies and markets are only good at medium-term thinking (at best). Google employees avoid thinking about the kind of society they're creating for their grandchildren, but that's the job description of elected representatives (in accountable governments).
Finally, but most significantly, there's that whole thing about capital accumulating to the top. Income and capital gains taxation is in the public interest, because equality and a well-financed state is in the public interest.
I feel like many Americans tend towards libertarianism because they feel that their governments are unaccountable, unrepresentative and corrupt. I think the problem in the US is the size and power of its government - not the concept of government itself. I think the federation of the US should be abolished (as in, all federal law). States could sign up to federal institutions/programs (central bank, defense, immigration, ...) when and how they please.
Personally, I think any moderately-populated area should have a single level of government spanning no further than 2-4 km from its parliament (i.e. within walking distance). Each of these states can assume common administration of adjacent sparsely-populated areas. If the states agree to a common legislative process, there's no duplication of effort in passing common legislation, except for each parliament voting on it or amending it as they want, which is democratic!
Libertarianism really grates me, but I enjoy debating it because I see that libertarians want the same things I do: liberty and equality for everyone.