Market Anarchy Debate Guide
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About this debate guide
PhiloWiki Debate Guides are designed to collect together the hardest and most challenging questions about the debate topics. These questions are selected in order to represent areas that should be addressed by proponents of these topics.
Market Anarchy, also called Anarcho-Capitalism, is a political ideology which holds that the only justifiable relationships between individuals are voluntary ones, and that the state, as the biggest agent of coercion is any society, is not a legitimate construct.
Criticism of the state
- Does the state do anything to help the poor ? Why or why not ? Who has the most influence on the state - the impoverished or the powerful ?
- Is taxation theft ?
- Why do people readily identify corporate monopolies and trusts as undesirable, but do not identify the state (monopoly of force) as undesirable ? Is there any way to justify monopolizing force which does not apply to other markets ?
- The democratic process is universally hailed as the best political system we have, and yet it is not used in any other important area of life. Compare democracy to the scientific method, a market, Wikipedia, making a piece of software.
- Name some methods that democratic states use to influence and exploit their population.
- Is there any way to justify the existence of the state ?
- Find a short text written from a statist perspective and deconstruct it, paying special attention to the hidden premises implicit in the text.
(possible sources : transcripts of a political talk show, a newspaper editorial written by a statist, a left or right-wing FAQ. You may do this exercise whether you agree with the text in question or not)
On the issues
- Given the arbitrariness of state borders, is the concept of "illegal immigration" meaningful?
- Does it make sense to outlaw drugs like marijuana and LDS when the two most dangerous drugs available, alcohol and tobacco, remain legal? Why do you think this state of affairs exist?
- What are the root causes of 9-11? How do they relate to the statism vs market anarchy debate?
- As a coerced taxpayer, is any money you get from the government a refund or a bribe? More to the point, is it morally justifiable to accept said money? In what circumstances?
Incentive systems
- How would organized warfare change if the power of taxation was taken away from the state ?
- What are the incentives for politicians and bureaucrats to pursue the War on Drugs ? How do they compare to incentives in a market anarchy ?
- Is there such a thing as market failure ? If you believe so, give some examples and analyze whether the state has sufficient incentives to solve these failures.
Political morality
- Can the desire to impose a singular, monopolistic value system on the whole of society be justified ?
- If it is immoral for one private individual to steal from, or kill, another individual, then why do we consider it moral for the individuals that compose the state to do so ?
- If the people in a society are moral and responsible, then what good could a state possibly add to this situation ? And if the people in a society are immoral or irresponsible, then how can a state composed of immoral or irresponsible people do any good ?
Market anarchist model
- Compare the market anarchic process to the democratic process (especially as regards to the law).
- How could a market anarchist society deal with psychotic criminals ?
- How could a market anarchist society provide public goods ?
(think of things like lighthouses and codes of law, which have been provided by markets in the past)
- What types of codes would exist in a market anarchy ?
(ex : established as a service by security agencies, international trade, homeowner's associations, etc)
- What are the advantages and disadvantages of having a society where different value systems interact within market processes, instead of having a monopolous value system enforced on the whole of society ?
