Regulations do not require government force
Real-life examples of voluntary self-regulation
The ironic presumption that we somehow “need a violent enforcer” of peace, law and order is just as deluded as any other archaic superstitious fixation. No, you do not require violence to force good ideas on sane people. If they are good ideas, then naturally, most people will have every incentive to adopt them without the need for threats.
Yes, there will always be illogical psychopaths who choose to decline the logical incentives you offer them - and they have every right to, unless they choose to directly aggress against you. Aggression is illogical, as it goes against one’s long-term interest. But there is no shortage of illogical organisms. If they do aggress against you, despite having an incentive not to, then they can be met with your defensive violence, as well as social ostracism, which can be worse than any prison. Most people value stability and peace, so they’d rather not associate with violent thugs. Just like today we use criminal records and sex offender registries to boycott thugs, we’d have to use such individual risk scores even more thoroughly to discourage and punish criminals in the absence of government. Hell, even your banks and insurance companies have a risk rating for your.
Your reputation is your everything - that’s why you can’t be as controversial on your LinkedIn as you are on your pseudonymous Twitter handle.
If incentives govern most of human behaviour, and the threat of defensive violence as last resort serves to deter most aggression, then we don’t need the state’s threat of violence to enforce behaviors that we’d perform regardless. The threat of violence has zero meaning or usefulness unless it acts as deterrence against the initiation of aggression. And no, “preemptive” aggression is not defensive violence - it’s the retarded justification behind almost all first-blood aggression.
In any case, the government’s threat of violence to impose arbitrary regulations and moralisms that no one’s asked for is irrelevant in civilized discourse.
If threat of violence is only ethical when it acts as deterrence against aggression, then we do not need government at all to do this. If anything, it is government that limits our ability to defend ourselves, and even worse, protects criminals from us when it administers to them a slap on the wrist and sets them free.
So, why are we morally justifying the centralized threat of violence from the state - a group of corrupt bureaucrats who presume they can force any arbitrary nonsense on others?
Definitions
Let us define what it means ‘to coerce’ as opposed to ‘to incentivize.’
To “make someone” do something - meaning to make them exit their default state of inaction, requires that you present a threat or an incentive for them to comply. This also applies to preventing them from doing something that doesn’t concern you but you don’t fancy. For example, if you dislike childless couples, then you can offer them incentives to have children, instead of threatening them with psychological abuse (guilt and shame) or taking away their rights until they have children. Instead, you can have children, and show them how great your family life is.
With coercion, you threaten people to adhere to your behavioral framework, which means that, if they do comply, they don’t gain anything; they just avoid punishment.
Instead, if you decide to incentivize them, you offer them a benefit, an motivation them to choose to voluntarily comply with your desires. If they do adhere to your behavioral framework, then they gain an over-and-above benefit. If they choose to decline, then they lose nothing - you can’t punish them for choosing not to indulge you. It takes dignified humility or you to accept that they have a right to keep minding their own business - as should you.
So, you see, coercing people only gets you reluctant compliance, quite literally as rape. Incentive leads to voluntary choice; to love making. This is the crucial difference between rape and love making: freedom to choose, to say ‘no’ without the threat of punishment. Only rapists and other psychopaths are fine with people complying to them out of fear, not out of desire.
You have no moral right to force anyone to do anything for you. For example, if you want people to take care of their health, who are you to ban drugs, alcohol, porn, or smoking? It’s their choice to harm themselves, as long as they don’t try to expose their habits onto you or your children. If they do, then they become aggressors. But when they personally consume what you don’t approve of is something you need to tolerate, because it is none of your business. I’m sure they don’t approve of many things you do too. Yes, you might claim that their immoral-in-your-eyes behaviour is “angering the gods,” or indirectly affecting the society you live in. But they are part of your society too. Who gets to decide what is enforced on whom? If they tolerate you and your endless moralizing, them perhaps you can tolerate degenerates minding their own business. Becuase if you don’t, then you become the greatest degenerate of them all.
Isn’t that what Christ taught - tolerance of the morally weak? The message of Jesus eating with prostitutes, tax collectors, and other sinners is an analogy of the ‘live and let live’ mindset.
Yet, we still get Pharisees and other moralizing hypocrites fanatically squealing in favour of violently enforced masking, testing, and experimental injections, simply because they schizophrenically imagine that un-injected people are somehow an indirect threat to them. Is this the world you want to live in… one of selective pontification of arbitrary moralism? Because if it is, don’t complain when others’ turn to impose their brand of “morality” on you.
Your life is already governed by incentives - not threats
If you look around you, the vast majority of your interactions are already based on incentive, not threat. Your personal relationships are all driven by mutually beneficial interactions, and win-win exchange of value (unless you find yourself in co-dependent abusive relationships).
Work relationships
You understand that, in order to gain value from the people in your entourage, you must provide some value back. Your employer seeks to get as much work out of you and to reward you as little as you accept. Similarly, you want to get as much out of your employer while delivering as little as expected of you. In a free competitive labour market, we reach fair work and fair compensation, as long as the labour market is free and competitive.
Unfortunately, the labour market is unbalanced due to unemployment caused by taxes and other state interventions. I’ll assume you already understand the mechanism of economic suppression caused by government. For those who don’t, I suggest you start by familiarizing yourselves with the Laffer curve. With state-caused unemployment, the number of available workers is smaller compared to their corresponding job positions. So, this grants employers negotiating advantage over employees.
Again, labour-market imbalance is due to the government’s deliberate economic suppression and money velocity deceleration - corporate tax, tariffs, corporate fees and restrictions, bureaucracy, over-regulation to favour only the big corporations, and more. So, whenever one side has less leverage to negotiate, it enters unfair or abusive relationships. This is because employees become desperate, and in their task to outcompete each other, they reluctantly accept less pay and poorer working conditions.
Blame the government for this workers’ exploitation, and then blame the lowest-denominator workers who’d rather slave away than make a stand. But don’t blame the free competitive market (that little freedom we have left). And don’t make excuses for your actual abusers: government.
Incentives in action
Negotiation 101: Win-win interactions occur when both parties perceive that they get more perceived value than what they give, otherwise they wouldn’t be making the transaction. For example, you value the thing you buy more than the price you pay for it, otherwise you wouldn’t be purchasing. Similarly, the seller values the price more than the thing it sells, otherwise he wouldn’t be selling.
This means that, if voluntary transactions, both parties win, as long as they have choices for alternatives. This is why a free competitive market is vital for meaningful interactions, and for social utility maximization.
Unfair interactions occur only in abusive relationships, where there is no freedom to retreat or to choose alternatives. People traumatized by their internalized abuse tend to make excuses for their abuse. The rationalize it: “It was to discipline me, I deserved it, I had to be put in my place, I wouldn’t be able to do anything without someone telling me what to do…” So, even if they commit to unfree interactions, they conduct Olympic-level mental gymnastics to cope with their subservience.
The fact remains that incentives are better predictors of human action than threats. And yes, even with an incentive-based mindset, you still retain your option of last-resort defensive violence - deterrence against those who don’t get the simple fact that incentives are greater motivators than threats.
Threats are unpredictable, and the best you can hope for from them is reluctant indignant compliance in the short-term until you turn your back away.
With incentives, the sane people around you understand that they have more value to gain from you as their partner in mutual exchange of value. They’d gain less value from you if you were their conquered, broken, indignant slave. And the insane people who don’t get their own self-interest can be deterred from defensive violence, either yours or outsourced. But the norm in your everyday interactions is incentive.
You are even polite to people on the bus whom you’ll never see again, simply because you understand that, if you promote civility, it will eventually come back to you. It’s all incentive or self-interest; and it is good.
Even today under statism that functions exclusively via threat-based enforcement, we still get incentive-based self-regulation on top of government coercion. This is because our societies are comprised primarily of people with their self-interest at heart. Self-interest is a good thing - criminals and thugs are people who don’t understand their own well-being, at least in the long run. Most people understand that peace, cooperation, and stability are in their best interest.
The minority of insane psychopaths among us is not reason enough to surrender our freedoms to insane psychopaths in government to somehow protects us from insane psychopaths after we’ve relinquished our freedoms to them. The question remains: who will protect us from the insane psychopaths now in state power? No… Without a government to empower them, the insane psychopaths are shunned, ostracized, and dealt with harshly by a free society - much more harshly than by any state that enables and protects them.
Objections
“But what about those few psychopaths who don’t seem to want to play nice in a society?”
They are irrelevant. The existence of a few anti-social psychopaths does not justify the establishment and empowerment of an all-powerful central group made of unaccountable anti-social psychopaths (government) who never protect us from themselves.
If anything, the power structure of the state empowers the psychopaths in it, and protects the crazies outside of it by limiting our means of self-defense and reciprocity. Reciprocity to aggression does not mean mob justice: it means free-market solutions to punishing criminals - more efficient, effective, and moral. You must catch up to the bibliography on this before you reject the concept (reading list below).
Statism is an archaic superstition. We must finally evolve past it.
Self-regulation in real life
Incentive-based self-regulation is inevitable. We self-regulate our personal relationships with boundaries and incentives. Prison populations spontaneously form their own rules. Even pirate crews in the golden era of piracy had their own code, enforced by no one other than self-interest (also known as incentive). No, I am not a advocating pillage and murder, commonly attributed to pirates. What’s the state’s pillage-and-murder record, by the way? Are you advocating pillage and murder by supporting the state? I hope not.
Even corrupt under-the-table dealings between government officials are driven by incentives, since there is no “authority” enforcing their illegal “contracts.” Corrupt officials understand that their reputation in keeping promises opens doors to more business. The mere fact that government corruption works within the frameworks of free-market interaction proves that government is unnecessary. The irony…
Moreover, in black markets, employers keep paying their “illegal” workers, even though no state forces them to. Why do they still do it, then?
It is mindboggling how people still assume that “government enforcement” and threats of violence are somehow the only way for a society to function - it is also telling of the people who assume that this is the only way they are motivated. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt, though, and attribute their irrationality to “paralysis by monopoly,” or just being too accustomed to a monopoly that they fail to see past it.
Here are some everyday real-life examples of incentive-based self-regulation:
The smoking ban
One might think that government prohibition of public indoor smoking was a good thing. I get it… I too hate smoking. But I never asked a state to ban it for me. Consider: governments did not ban smoking in the 60s, 70s, or 80s when the vast majority of their people were heavy smokers. Back then, you could smoke in a McDonalds or even on a freaking plane. Why didn’t government ban smoking then, when people were already catching on to the health hazard of smoking?
Governments began, one by one, to implement various types of smoking bans in the 2000s after private businesses had already started segregating their clientele in smoking and non-smoking areas. Airlines had been doing that up until the 80s, after which they decided that smoking in a pressurized cabin was too much of a safety hazard - good for them.
But you see, businesses were responding to market pressures without expecting any “authority” to tell them what to do. When non-smokers began to speak up - when they started voting with their money by choosing smoke-free establishments - businesses had to respond. If a non-smoker in the 1970s US had asked to be seated in a restaurant’s non-smoker’s area, or complain to his manager about the constant smoking in the office, he’d be laughed at. He was a tiny insignificant minority - or perhaps a significant minority that was just too tolerant. As I keep saying, we deserve what we tolerate.
Regardless, if government had banned smoking during that era, it would have been inorganic to what society wanted, and how much it wanted it. Most people either wanted smoking indoors, or they didn’t mind it. A smoking band would have been undemocratic (against the will of the majority). It would have also been difficult to enforce. And if the alcohol prohibition taught us one thing it’s that government fears losing credibility: if its laws are consistently disobeyed, then people begin to wonder what other laws they can get away with defying. So, the state quickly pulls back unenforceable laws, to save face. Yes, authority is nothing but a bluff; it only exists if we fall for it.
So, when smoking had already lost its appeal in the 2000s, when people understood its dangers, non-smokers became more demanding. They started complaining to businesses and employers. They began to reward with their patronage businesses that respected their concerns. Businesses began to adapt to public demand in classic supply-demand dynamic. Some businesses banned smoking altogether to accommodate only the non-smokers niche - much like we get vegan-only restaurants. It’s their right to do so. But most tried to satisfy both: they offered separate spaces for smokers and non-smokers. They just adapted to free-market pressures, as much as those pressures demanded. That was organic, fair, and proportional to exactly what the market of each region wanted. Customer feedback and revenue are crucial feedback for businesses, because people vote every day with how they choose to spend their money. Free balanced markets are the consequence of a society of people freely interacting with each other based on incentive, not threat.
However, as the little free market we had left adapted to this new non-smoking consumer demand, government stepped in to universalize a smoking ban, and blanket-apply it to everyone, always. Government did not allow the free market to respond as it wanted. For example, isn’t it unfair that a basement blues bar - with no outside areas, with a clientele mostly made of cigar smokers - is forced to basically close down because of government regulation? Whom is a smoking ban benefiting there? Or how about a business that chooses to have a segregated smoking area inside because it doesn’t have a large-enough outside are? What about a business that wishes to host a smokers convention indoors?
Who is a fat government bureaucrat to judge what people do with their businesses? Government treats consumers as children unable to make informed choices with their money… and children they remain. Grown adults deciding to smoke is their own business, and no one has the right to tell them otherwise. Non-smokers simply must adapt, and support businesses that respect their habits. What the state’s smoking ban does here is deprive the choice of businesses to segregate their clientele as the choose, with their own viability at risk. For example, a business under certain governments might want to ban smoking outside too - but it doesn’t have the right to.
But the state says “no smoking indoors for all, all the time,” and we have to obey it without exception. The state cannot be reasoned with.
Gym culture
A perfect example of the free market at work is Joey Swoll, a fitness influencer known for calling out uncivilized behaviour in gyms.
You probably have noticed a trend of people in public gyms filming themselves to share their progress, inspire others, or get inspired back, and maybe grow a following. There’s nothing wrong with that. What’s wrong is the entitlement of ownership of public space. Some people place a camera in the gym and expect everyone to stay out of frame for as long as the recording is running. Others publish videos ridiculing other gymgoers. This is what happens when people fail to be humble in shared spaces. Regardless, such behaviors turns people away from gyms, and gym businesses quickly noticed.
Now, who determines what behaviour is wrong, and how wrong? Is there objective gym morality? No. But who determines what is wrong - and how wrong it is - is paying customers with alternative options. If people begin to avoid gyms that have an annoying Instagram influencer culture, then those gym owners are the ones paying the price. The gym owners who disallow such behavior stand to make more revenue.
Enter Joey Swoll an his crusade to help the gym industry self-regulate. He points out gym goers with an insufferable tendency to publicly ridicule others in the gym. He brings them to the attention of each gym business in which they record their “content.”
Remember that every business has every incentive to keep its customers happy, as long as there is enough competition from other businesses. Thankfully, the fitness industry is competitive. Gym customers easily move from one gym to the next. So, gym owners would rather lose one insufferable customer than potentially lose many more. So, one by one, gyms have began to implement some form of ban against video recordings on their premises - or at least against filming others without their consent. And that’s it: if you fail to abide by the gym’s rules, your patronage is refused, and you lose your privilege of using that business. This can get quite limiting if you get banned from every gym in your area. This is a perfect example of self-regulation in action - zero government intervention required.
Objection
“But what’s stopping businesses from imposing unfair rules?”
Again, the same forces of free-market competition apply. How lax or how strict the rules in any business get is determined by what people want, how many they are, and how much they want it - enough to put their money where their mouth is. Do they speak up? Do they make requests and complains, and do they post reviews online for everyone to see? Are they willing to stop using the business if their demands are not met?
Businesses, especially smaller ones that are subject to free-market competition, take market feedback extremely seriously. The only businesses that don’t listen to their customers are those who have purchased a monopoly-oligopoly from government (through the legalized corruption of lobbying, for example).
Food and beverage
You might have heard of HACCP, a food safety standard that all hospitality businesses are required to adhere to. Yet, HACCP began as a private initiate. Businesses wanting to gain a competitive advantage chose to adhere to it voluntarily. When enough businesses had already acquired the standard, again government stepped in to make it mandatory, thus taking the credit for regulating, and making the state seem relevant.
You might say that, had government not stepped in to make HACCP - or other health and safety standards - mandatory, there would be some businesses that would choose not to adhere to them. Yes, indeed. However, if those businesses stayed economically viable in a free market, then it means that there is enough niche market demand for lower-quality food from people who don’t value food safety as much. And there is nothing wrong with that. If we let people smoke, consume trans-fats, or become obese, then who are we to dictate health standards when informed people still choose to eat junk?
Today, we get over-and-above standards for food supplements, food and beverage, and hospitality establishments. These standards are beyond what government mandates. This proves that, if businesses are willing to pay good money for industry standards that no violent “authority” forces them to, then there is absolutely no need for any violent “authority” to impose any health and safety standard: the free market is the most accurate and most efficient regulator.
Nobody’s forcing us to adopt unmandated industry standards - yet we do it anyway, since they are “mandated” by the invisible hand of the free competitive market. If businesses and people already self-regulate freely over-and-above the state’s mandates, then we prove that no government intervention is needed - at all.
Objection
“But aren’t private standards subject to corruption? Won’t a standard accreditation or certification company turn a blind eye if it’s paid to do so?”
More than government? The disincentivized monopoly of government is more likely to be corrupted because they are a monopoly: they don’t stand to lose business if they don’t do a good job. Conversely, a company whose sole revenue comes from accurately certifying standards is less likely to risk its entire viability by doing a bad job. The key here is competition. If there is competition, then you are forced to do a good job, otherwise you go out of business. Government has no competition in the areas it monopolizes. It has no incentive to do a good job other than offer the minimum people tolerate. Also, the government takes its revenue forcibly, so it has no need to keep its customers satisfied.
Employment
Ever heard of the “Great Place To Work” certification standard? Employers all over the world pay good money to be scrutinized by this workplace standard accreditor. Why on earth would they do that? Is any government forcing them to subject themselves to the scrutiny and direction of this standard? No. Free-market pressures are the ones doing this.
Employers understand that, even in an unbalanced labour market (caused by government no less), they still need to compete for talented staff. So, they improve their workplace environment benefits, and pay to be certified accordingly.
If you’ve ever been in an employer’s position (I have), especially in a field where your staff picks are ‘the alpha and the omega’ of your business’s success, then you understand what I mean. When you look at your competitors and wonder how they manage to find, recruit, and keep those star employees who mesmerize customers, then you begin to wonder what else you can offer to attract in-demand employees.
No one is forcing employers to give anything to employees other than minimum wage - yet most wages are well above that. Employers give bonuses and raises than no one has asked for. Why? No socialist-statist can answer this question honestly. It’s because competitive forces push employers to pay up - even in the unfree uncompetitive labour market under government.
Employers understand that they compete with other employers for the best staff. It’s the same with you as a professional: You understand that you are in competition with other employees, so you must be able to provide as much value to your employers (or customers) as you can. So, even though no one is forcing you to acquire in-demand professional skills, you feel incentivized to do so anyway.
Now, imagine how much better employers would have treated their employees if government were not interfering in the economy. As mentioned earlier, state intervention slows down the economic cycle, causing unemployment - an unbalanced labour market - and thus, diminished employee negotiating leverage…
Today, wages are much lower than they could have been under a free unhindered labour market. Why? Because desperate employees in an oversupply of labour tend to outcompete each other by accepting less and less pay. Don’t blame the employer… don’t blame the employee… blame government for being the first cause of employee exploitation.
The employer who grants employees opportunity is not the enemy of workers. Yes, most employers will hire those employees who, ceteris paribus, are willing to work for less. But if we are to blame the employers for this, then we can blame even more the employees willing to work for less.
Government causes this by suppressing the economy, thus forcing employees to settle for less. Government is the true enemy of the workers. This is contrary to what the lazy aristocrat Karl Marx (who had never worked a day in his life) would have you believe.
Private security
Every time I mention statelessness to someone hopelessly conditioned by the archaic superstition of government, I hear the common objection: “But what if I’m attacked?”
Well, just look around you: private security is everywhere, and it works better than any useless, unmotivated, and extremely hazardous-to-your-health state police. We are supposed to “be protected” by the state, yet malls, office buildings, supermarkets, residential compounds, and even parks need to hire private security. Not only does this prove the uselessness and indifference of the state, but it also shows that we, as a society already cooperate to solve our issues without a step-daddy god figure telling us what to do. And the great this is that even people who don’t pay for private security benefit from it. And that’s fine, because those paying for it benefit from you not paying for it. For example, a mall doesn’t charge you for heating, lighting, decorations, toilets, or private security. It doesn’t have to. As long as you feel safe there, you are more likely to shop.
The “free rider” is a non-problem.
Unfortunately, depending on where you live, the state severely limits the activity of private security. In most countries, private security are not allowed to carry guns. But look at how private security works at a night club, a mall, or a corporate environment. See how harmoniously and efficiently they function, and please then tell me why we need state policing. The governments police thugs are more likely to brutalize law-abiding citizens than criminals, due to police qualified immunity that grant cops a free pass for their power trips.
Yes, if things get rough, all private security will resort to calling the state’s cops, but this is because they have to. The government’s police brutalizers enjoy the enforced monopoly of violence granted to them by the state; private security doesn’t have the legal right to do much. So, private security guards tiptoe around regulations and restrictions that limit their ability to take down dangerous criminals. Regardless, private security still works as a deterrent, and as a deescalating effect, unlike the state’s trigger-happy cops who itch for an opportunity to shoot you and get away with it - because they can. Police tend to escalate because they get to brutalize people to masturbate their ego, and then get away with it. A private security guard doesn’t have he luxury of brutalizing paying customers.
The fact that we are taxed to the bone for “government protections” yet we still choose to pay extra for private security shows that the government is useless, and that private services are always superior. The same goes for charity: we are taxed heavily for pretentious welfare, yet we still give to private charity on top of that. So, why do we need government for charity at all? Let those who want to give to charity give to the charity of their choice, and the amount they choose to give. If government gives more to charity than what society wants to give, then it is “undemocratic,” and it goes against what people as a whole want. So, if a society wants to give to charity, then there is no need for a government middle-man - society would give anyway.
The same goes for security: if we want to be protected, then businesses around us will find a way to protect their customers from the things against which they want to be protected. For example, I don’t want to be protected from pot smokers and powder sniffers. They don’t bother me, so there’s no point paying to brutalize them. What bothers me is drug gangs whose entire existence is attributed solely to state prohibition. I’d feel much safer knowing druggies get their pharmaceutical-grade dose from a free market, and then left alone without having to enrich drug gangs.
I’d feel safer knowing that there were no state brutalizers with a monopoly of violence. I feel safer among druggies than coppers.
Objection
“What if private security oversteps?”
This same objection applies to government. What if state police oversteps? What if the state as a whole oversteps? It does all the time.
Please show me a mechanism by which the state can be held accountable, and by whom. Pointless directed protests, or (s)elections every few years aren’t exactly a direct nor civilized way of dealing with accountability.
Without a state, security guards are held in check by the free competitive market. If they are too brutal and dictatorial, then they represent a huge loss in business for their employer. The same goes if they are too lax.
Remember the 1990s night-club scene when bouncers treated customers like dirt? Sure, some people are into BDSM - club goers usually are. But most people did not like being treated like shit by braindead freaks with roid rage. Many customers decided to choose bars instead, or not to go out altogether. So, club owners quickly adapted to market pressures. Today, night club security are extremely discreet. They certainly don’t bar the club entrance like a Cerveros, treating paying customers like filth, and getting paid on top of that. Instead, at the club entrance, you are no welcomed by a jolly model with social IQ.
Further objection
“But what if a private security company creates its own military?”
Again, this question applies to government even more. A government that is almost completely unaccountable is more likely to abuse its monopoly of force - and it does. The constant wars around you are a hint.
In absolutely every single country on earth, government power abuses by the police and military are the norm. A protest vote and a demonstration here and there aren’t cutting it. We still get the military draft in most countries in the world, we still get banker wars, and we still get police abuses of power.
In a free competitive market, individuals and businesses are accountable to each other. If you don’t provide enough security for your business, then the market punishes you. Provide too stringent security, and then again the market punishes you. Create a private army to brutalize people, thieving them of their income and turning them into slaves? Then you have a government.
It is unlikely that a private security company would conquer a region - less likely than a state becoming a dictatorship. This is because of two reasons:
There are competing security companies
People do not morally justify a private army’s rule
Indeed, the only reason we get government is because the vast majority of us are still enthralled by the archaic superstition of the god-state, our deluded need in government. The state exists because most of us morally justify its existence.
The fact remains: in the free market, we all pay the price for our misdeeds. State enforcers don’t - they are good at covering for each other, because they are a monopoly, and so they can.
Yet another objection
“I still don’t get it. Who protects me from being murdered?”
You don’t need government to protect you from being murdered. What, you thought you hadn’t been murdered yet because it was illegal? Not at all. If someone is psychotic enough to not care about the consequences of murdering, then how exactly is punishment by the state going to deter him? Yes, most wannabe murderers are still logical enough to be deterred by the threat of state reciprocity. But please help me understand how the state somehow deters violence more than self-regulating systems… The same state that allows psychopaths, rapists, and murderers to walk among us, and worse yet, employs them in its brutalizing ranks… the same state that severely limits your ability to defend yourself and to organize private security… the state that stops you from seeking justice for yourself when it clearly refuses to punish the criminals it creates… The same state that has little incentive to dispense justice, since it’s a monopoly without competitors…
A fair question
“But what about regulations that must only come from a government, such as prohibition of murder, or protection of property?”
There is such a thing as paralysis by monopoly. Because we presume we have “the best system we can have,” we end all intellectual exploration of alternatives that could be better. In this superstitious religiosity, we fail to acknowledge other solutions, such as Rothbard’s Austro-anarchic model of stateless self-governance, or similar ideas I have presented in the Bonds of Prometheus publication.
Indeed, with regards to certain regulations, the monopoly of government is so absolute, that there is no room for over-and-above standards. For example, good luck making alternative education and expertise accreditation standards for medicine or civil engineering. The state’s laws won’t allow competition, which is why medical and civil engineering “experts” have been dumbing down. This state-provided syndicalist monopoly robs them of useful incentive to stay competitive.
There are also other stringent state regulations that no one ever asked for - other than lobbyists seeking to create a monopoly with the blessings of government. Therefore, government forceful intervention kills the market’s ability to organically create regulations. The market is too limited, and profitability is so marginal, that there is no residual income left to reinvest, re-innovate, and re-imagine quality.
State-enforced regulation leads to monopolies and oligopolies, because the state presents an opportunity for lobbying; the highest-bidding corporations lobby government to enforce favorable regulations for them at the expense of smaller competitors. Government kills off competition, leading to monopolies or oligopolies that have little to no incentive to improve their standards. Why? Because they have little or no competition. Where else will you go if you don’t like their quality?
Self-regulation can only occur when there is enough competition in the market. This is because businesses need to feel like their clientele have options other than them. But the only thing crushing competition is the government and its corrupt regulating, causing barriers of entry for new competing businesses, and passing favorable regulations for its lobbyists.
The irony is that we assume we need government to regulate when in fact it is government that crushes the superior self-regulating force of free-market competition. And superior it is, because spontaneous self-regulation takes into account exactly what people want and how much they want it. Self-regulation does not depend on the whims of central planners, their biases, nor their corruption.
Self-regulation is fair, efficient, effective, and moral. Government regulation is corrupt, inefficient, ineffective, and evil.
There is no better representation system than the free competitive market.
Useful reading:
‘Chaos Theory: Two Essays on Market Anarchy’ by Robert P. Murphy
‘No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority’ by Lysander Spooner
‘For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto’ by Murray N. Rothbard
‘Power and Market: Government and the Economy’ by Murray N. Rothbard
‘Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market’ by Murray N. Rothbard
Thank you for reading. I appreciate your time.
Kindly like, comment, share, or subscribe for free. Or not. It’s all the same.