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July 13, 2019 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:27:25

Anarchism Versus Minarchism - Stefan Molyneux

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	Alright, well thank you for your patience.
	This is the opening anarchist position of the Anarchist vs. Minarchist debate between myself, Stefan Molyneux of Free Domain Radio, and John Helfeld of JohnHelfeld.com.
	The question of social organization is obviously key and obviously central to every philosophical question about how the world is going to work, what virtue is, and how it should be both enacted and encouraged within society.
	Now, when it comes to trying to decide Future actions, future plans, how society should be structured and organized.
	There really are only two approaches that can be taken, or some combination of the two.
	The first approach is the approach called principle.
	And what that means is that we reason from first principles, from evidence, using Socratic Aristotelian logic to make sure that the approaches and the ideas that we come up with Are rational, consistent with reality, consistent with their own principles.
	It's the same thing that we would do in the realm of engineering or in the realm of science or in the realm of mathematics.
	I do not view the realm of philosophy as different than those disciplines.
	In fact, I view it as, in a sense, larger than those disciplines.
	So we need to work with principles because the only other alternative to working from principles is to work from pragmatism, which is to say a non-moral, non-principled approach to social organization.
	So, for example, if I want to drive to some town, let's say Philadelphia, then I go to MapQuest and I come up with some plan about how to get to Philadelphia.
	It's not a particularly moral thing to do and it doesn't require integrity to first principles all the way through to the greatest imaginable virtues.
	But What it is, it's a pragmatic thing to do.
	And society has very often been designed in some combination, some sort of highfalutin ideals, like the Declaration of Independence, followed by some very pragmatic compromises against those ideals.
	And the voluntarist, the man and the woman, or the woman who's into a free society, or the anarchist, whatever you want to call them, what we do is we say, no, no, no, no, no, we do not Organize society according to pragmatic principles.
	Because that is a state of nature.
	That is Lord of the Flies.
	That is piggy off a cliff.
	That is not the way that we organize society.
	The way that we organize society is the way that we organize moral choices within our own lives.
	Which is to reason about ethics and right and wrong.
	from first principles to apply the principles of universality some of the basic principles such as you don't allow stealing on a Tuesday and then not allow it on a Thursday you don't allow one guy to steal and then his brother to not steal you have universal consistent moral principles when it comes to looking at social organization now
	The principle that, to me, seems first and foremost in the organization of society, of a just and virtuous society, is the principle of the non-aggression.
	The non-aggression principle.
	The non-initiation of the use of violence.
	And when I use the word violence here, I'm going to mean the initiation of violence.
	It's a bit of an awkward phrase.
	I'm a big fan of self-defense.
	But whenever I use the word violence here, if you could indulge me and accept that it means the initiation of force, it will certainly make it slightly more elegant to converse.
	So, all societies that are reasonable and just, valid and moral, must be against violence.
	And as a principle, not on Wednesdays and every alternate Thursdays, not on a blue moon, not when a guy puts on a green costume, not when the sun goes down, but as a universal, ideal and absolute, we must be against violence.
	Now, the definition of the state that I'm going to propose for this debate, and Jan, you can certainly correct me if you feel that it's not valid, is the state or the government is a group of individuals who have the legal right to initiate violence in a geographical area.
	It doesn't have to be within a geographical area, but usually it is when we think of countries.
	It is a group of individuals who have the moral right or the legal right to initiate violence within a society.
	And this violence generally takes the form of two things.
	The first is taxation, right, which is the initiation of force through a gun to the head, give me your money, to pay for services which some people in the society may want, some people may not want.
	In a democracy we assume that some of the majority might want them.
	But it is the initiation of force to extract money from people for purposes of paying the bills of the government.
	That is taxation.
	The second aspect of violence which is associated with statism is the violence that is initiated against those who would compete with the, um, with the statist offerings, right?
	So if I want to go out and create my own department of motor vehicle licensing, the state will not allow me to do that.
	If I want to go and tax someone because I have some great idea about how to improve the world, the government won't let me do it.
	Even if I follow all of the same letters of the law that the government does, it does not like competition.
	If I want to set up my own police force or my own military or I want to set up my own court system or a prison system or whatever.
	The government will initiate force against that peaceable action in order to prevent me from competing with itself.
	So those are the two aspects of statism that to me seem irrevocably entrenched within the very definition of the state.
	The initiation of force with regards to taxation, the initiation of force with regards to preventing peaceful competition with state services.
	And the question has always been in my mind, and I was a minarchist for many years, which doesn't mean that my position is any better or worse, it just means that I think that I understood this.
	And I was sort of trying to avoid this topic, voluntary taxation and all those kind of oxymorons.
	But really, the reality is, we're either going to go with principles or we're going to go with pragmatism.
	Now if we're going to go with pragmatism, or The greatest good for the greatest number or some sort of cause and effect that pragmatic goal.
	Then we're not going to have any principles and then it really just becomes who's the most eloquent, who's the most persuasive, who can raise the most money, who can convince The masses of his or her plan the most effectively.
	Who is the greatest demagogue?
	Who is the greatest thunderer from the pulpit?
	That is how society will be organized.
	If, on the other hand, we look at principles and we say that the opposition to violence is sacrosanct, fundamental, and must be consistently applied in any formulation of how society is to operate, then we are inevitably led towards a stateless society.
	Because you can't say violence is bad and then create a group with the right to initiate the use of violence.
	That is a complete contradiction.
	And so I simply could not sustain that position in the face of that contradiction.
	And lastly, I've got another minute or so, and I just sort of wanted to end up by saying this, that in my view, estatism, one of the main reasons that it's such a fundamental problem as a philosophy, is that it's very much in a way like saying gods do X in physics.
	Because what it is, is an irrational counter Factual answer to the problem of social organization.
	So how should we have, how should we deal with crime?
	How should we deal with roads?
	How should we deal with national defense?
	Well, I'm not willing to put a limit on the imagination and capacity for human beings to solve these problems proactively, intelligently and imaginatively in a free market.
	In the same way that I'm not willing to limit physicists and say, well, God does this and therefore we can't go any further.
	I do not like the answer of statism because I think it does scant respect to the imagination and creativity of human beings.
	How can roads be organized?
	National defense?
	Contract resolution?
	How can crime be dealt with?
	I'm not willing to say we don't have answers to these other than giving a bunch of guys a bunch of guns.
	I think that is a non-answer.
	I think it's a counter-answer.
	And I think that if we look throughout history it has been almost universally destructive in the long run to human society and that is why... Time is up!
	Hands up.
	Hands up.
	Quite the horns we've got there.
	Okay, Jan, you need to unmute yourself if you're going to speak.
	Just click that same icon again.
	Thank you, Stefan.
	I think you're right.
	You have to start from first principles.
	The problem is that you did not state what your ultimate value was, so we don't know what your ultimate principle is.
	On which we can measure all the other means that we're going to use to achieve that ultimate value.
	And, as far as the limited government position, and Dominica's position, we think that the state is not made to initiate force.
	We don't give it that authority.
	So, we're not doing anything morally wrong.
	Now, it is true that there are people that want to have services without paying for the taxes, and there are people that are willing to pay taxes, and these people that are willing to pay taxes for certain services, nobody's initiating any force against them.
	However, people that do not think that they need the monopoly of major force in the hands of the government.
	They cannot be integrated successfully in a society with people that do believe that you do need a repository of major physical force to defend individual rights, not to initiate force.
	And these people The only thing to do is to transition them into another part of the country, and I'm totally in favor of that, where they can experiment with no government.
	Now, I think if you want to live well and optimize your possibility of a happy life, you need to protect your life, bodily integrity, liberty, and property.
	This debate, from my perspective, is about how your life, liberty, and property are more protected with a limited government or without any government.
	In my view, a government that is created to protect your right to life, liberty, and property, and is constitutionally limited to this function, offers more protection than no government at all.
	Let's see why.
	A society with no governmental monopoly of major force will degenerate into gang warfare.
	There will always be some human beings that choose predation as a means to survive.
	Presently, domestic and foreign criminals are held in check by the fact that they have no possibility of overcoming the police power of the state in a direct confrontation.
	However, once the state is removed, they can and will have enough weapons to destroy individuals and weak security agencies that refuse to surrender their property.
	Thus, everybody's life and property will be less safe.
	Moreover, criminals will be incentivized to obtain more destructive weapons to increase their pool of victims, creating a mini arms race.
	These criminal gangs we have today, for example, like the Mafia or the Bloods, will get military weapons so they can extort and plunder their fellow citizens.
	They will attack individuals and weak security agencies as well as each other.
	We don't need too many of them to miscalculate and attack organizations of relatively equal strength to have gang warfare in every city.
	If you think things are bad now, just wait until you have anarchy.
	If you want to see how this would be like, just go to any city ghetto where the police refuse protection and you'll see a neighborhood divided in territorial gangs where everybody's life and property are in peril.
	Or, Go to any place in the world where the state police power is non-existent, such as Columbia jungles or the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and you'll see the same phenomena.
	Furthermore, foreign tyrants and pirates and criminal organizations from other countries will also attempt predatory strategies against us if we don't have a government.
	Predators love relatively unprotected wealth to plunder.
	We would be a magnet for such criminals.
	Only a government with modern military forces can effectively deter their invasions and extortions.
	Security services simply can't do the job.
	For instance, what do you propose a small town do when they receive an extortion note from some pirate saying, if you don't pay us a billion dollars we will attack you with a guided missile from our battleship?
	Or, what if the criminals have a nuclear submarine and make a nuclear threat?
	Obviously, security services can't handle these threats.
	Secondly, disagreements between reasonable citizens will also lead to gang warfare.
	Most people will naturally act to form groups or alliances in an attempt to enforce agreements, protect themselves, and punish aggressors or swindlers.
	There will necessarily be differences of opinion regarding who is right and who is wrong in various conflicts between members of opposing alliances.
	Some of these alliances will try to use physical force to make the member of the other alliance comply.
	The other alliance may resist with force, and you have a little war.
	With thousands of alliances and millions of disagreements, you only need a small percentage of people to decide to use physical force to end up with the bloody hell of war everywhere.
	Tanks in the streets, that's what I'm talking about.
	Under anarchism, Every kind of disagreement has the potential of becoming a mini-war.
	Disagreements like whether somebody is a murderer or not, whether they violated the contract or not, whether they stole the money or not, whether an action should be a crime or not, whether the punishment is appropriate or not.
	With millions of such disagreements and some people's decision to try to impose their view by force, you will have mini-wars everywhere.
	These mini wars will have collateral damage in the form of innocent victims, as well as drawing other people into the fight.
	Some of these fights will become feuds and vendettas passed on from generations to generations, like the Hatfields and the McCoys, if you heard about them.
	In contrast, under a limited government, the disagreements are limited to the parties involved, and they have finality.
	Finally, under an anarchy situation, We would not reap all the benefits of free markets that we now take for granted.
	Free markets don't work optimally if you can't count on the enforcement of contracts and agreements.
	This is evidenced by all of history and a visit to any third world country where the legal system does not work.
	If you cannot trust that the contract will be enforced, you will be very reluctant to invest.
	In conclusion, if we are To protect our life, liberty, and property, we need a government.
	Our life, liberty, and property would be less safe under anarchism as a result of the proliferation of gang warfare, extortion by domestic and foreign criminals, and a loss of benefits of the free market.
	Let's get back, if I have a little bit of time, to the points that you raised, because I think your analysis is basically sound in where it starts.
	You have to start from first principles.
	If you listen carefully, my first principle was explicitly stated.
	In order to optimize your possibility of a happy life, we don't know what your ultimate end is.
	That's why we can't judge if your principles that you adhere to achieve them.
	The time is up.
	Okay.
	What's next?
	Is it rebuttal or questions?
	Questions.
	Okay.
	Do I turn off my mic?
	You want me to turn off my mic?
	Now leave it on.
	We'll live with a little echo because I just have quick questions.
	So is it fair to say that your definition of the state does not include the right to initiate force in the form of taxation or to initiate force to prevent competition for status services?
	You're muted. you You need to click and unmute.
	I can't hear.
	Oh, OK.
	You want to repeat the question again?
	Sure.
	Is it fair to say that your definition of the government is an agency which has the legal and moral right, in fact obligation, to initiate the use of force in the form of taxation and in the prevention of competition for its services?
	The form of government that I favor, which is limited government, will permit taxation for those limited services that are required to protect the individual rights of the citizens, their life, liberty, and property.
	If the citizens, which have the right to defend their own lives, decide to delegate in a government an institution that will protect them, and they think that this is the only way where they can have maximum protection, When they delegate this function to the government, they are also authorizing the government... Oh, I think we lost him.
	Let me finish up for him.
	him.
	Let me just see if I can get him back.
	He's running on a statist computer, sorry. .
	Yeah, that's what happens when you have things with the government.
	Hello?
	Did you hear the whole of that answer?
	I want to address the second part of your question.
	Did you hear the whole of that answer?
	I can listen to the answer.
	I want to address the second part of your question.
	I thought that I did an opening statement to some extent.
	When you're requiring people to pay for a service, you're not initiating force.
	Like when you ask a plumber to come to your house to fix your toilet, and then he asks you to pay for him, to pay him, that's not the initiation of force.
	You are onto something that is true.
	It's true that the people that don't want services from a government, in other words, don't want a government, don't want any institution with the monopoly of the use of a major force to defend individual rights, they think they can live fine without that.
	Those people, and I respect them, should be allowed to transition into a territory where they can organize under that principle.
	The people that want no government and the people that want some government are unintegratable.
	It's not possible to integrate both positions so they're mutually exclusive.
	It's like you cannot respect the life of the fetus and the right of the mother to decide what she does with her own body.
	So unfortunately, since the fetus is in the body of the mother, then we have to respect her right to have an abortion.
	It's lamentable, but if we don't, there's a necessary conflict of rights, and the whole system will collapse.
	So, my suggestion for people that don't think that they don't need the services, and therefore, rightfully, do not want to pay for them, Then it's to transition into another part of the territory and try out their own political system and I wish them the best.
	Okay, so is it fair to say then that the people who do not agree that violence should be initiated against them for the sake of other people's preferences for social organization should be, your argument is that they should be herded up Uh, torn out of their homes, torn out of their communities, torn out of their environments.
	Brother, again, a brother may be torn apart, and they should be, uh, forcibly, uh, uh, relocated or expelled, uh, from the society, uh, to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to Yeah, he was chopping up a lot, so I just... Sorry, I minimized it just so that we get more of his audio than his video.
	He was just cutting out a lot.
	Okay, so your argument is that... My answer... I got your question.
	I got your question, so I'll answer it if you want.
	Sure.
	My answer... I would like to give people that believe in no government The same thing that I would like for myself when I debate people of the status view that want unlimited government.
	I would like the opportunity to have within the territory of the United States a transition part of the territory designated for those of us that want limited government So the rest of the people in the United States can continue with unlimited government and statism, and we can try our theory, which is the founding fathers theory of limited government, limited to defending the individual rights of the citizens.
	I'm totally consistent on this question as far as what I'm offering to people that disagree with me when they're anarchists, and what I would demand for myself, what I would ask for myself.
	I don't see any problem with... I'll tell you why.
	Because you were born, and so was I, born into a system.
	We came into a system.
	Now, if you want to insist that everybody else change and accept your political theory point of view, that's not reasonable.
	And it is totally unreasonable because those are two philosophies, two political theories that are totally Incompatible and therefore cannot, people cannot be integrated where they hold such a fundamental difference of opinion with regards to how society should be organized.
	What they do, what I should, you should afford them is the respect of permitting them to transition and have their opportunity.
	Just as I would like people to respect my right to do the same as a limited government advocate.
	You're not permitting them, you're forcing them to leave their homes.
	No, no.
	I'm not forcing them.
	They were born, okay?
	I'm going to tell you.
	They were born into a political system, a particular political system that was there before they got there and they were born into it and they accepted it for a certain amount of time.
	At a certain point, they decided, that's right, they decided, hey, I don't like this kind of system.
	I think it's a bad system.
	I don't think it offers the optimum opportunity for development and living well.
	And I think you should respect those people and give them an opportunity to transition into a territory within their country Corresponding to the numbers of people that want this, which in this case is really small, but it doesn't matter, a small amount of people, they want to go to a small part of the territory and they want to try out no government, I think that's great.
	And I think they should have a coast, so they're outside the United States, so in case any pirates or any other countries want to invade them, And want to take all their wealth that they're going to create in the absolute free markets, that they take care of this problem themselves, because they say they don't need it.
	But let me say this.
	If I'm able to convince you now that you're better off with a limited government, we don't have to worry about that for you.
	Because you don't want to go.
	Okay, no, so you want to...
	Okay.
	Would you say that the...
	This is my third question.
	Would you say that the United States as an experiment in minarchies...
	Can you interject here a second?
	Yes.
	Are we going by the rules here of like a minute thirty or are we just going to talk and talk and talk?
	Are the rules out the window now?
	No, we should stick to the rules.
	Old bard match.
	Because, you know, I did interject and say, hey Jan, your time's up and you're just going on talking.
	Okay, I'm sorry about that.
	You want to give, to make it fair, you give Stefan equal time, I thought, on that point.
	No, that's fine, I think, but just listen for when James is interrupting.
	Okay.
	I'm trying to be responsive and I didn't notice that I went over time.
	So, my third question, John, and thank you, I really appreciate the clarity of your earlier answers.
	The third question I have is, I think it's fair to say that the U.S.
	experiment in minarchism has been an abject failure.
	In fact, it's been the complete opposite of success.
	It's been a catastrophe in that the experiment to create the smallest and most limited government in human history has actually created the largest and most violent or with the greatest capacity for violence and the most powerful government in human history.
	So, given that Minarchists had a real shot at Minarchism with the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights and so on, can you tell me what you think went wrong with the U.S. experiment that we've resulted in, that has resulted in such a large and catastrophic state that has the right of nuclear weapons and extraordinary rendition and torture and invades countries left, right, and center, has been involved in dozens and dozens of...
	Well, wait, is that a question or a statement?
	That's a question.
	A question or a statement?
	Okay, look, that's okay, you went over a little bit of your questioning time, but it's okay.
	You know, in the beginning of your statement, you said you wanted us to, when you say violence, you want us to hear initiation of force.
	But the problem is that the word violence doesn't mean initiation of force, it means just force.
	So later in the interview, later in the debate and the discussion, you throw in the word violence meaning force.
	So in the beginning it means initiation of force, later it means just force.
	So when you say that the United States has done the greatest amount of violence, well then you try to make your case by saying that It has used force more than other countries, maybe, but initiated force?
	I don't think so.
	You want me to talk to you about the experiment?
	The experiment in the Founding Fathers was a great success because it made it clear to the rest of the world That there was a third option besides unlimited government and no government, which was on the table at the time, there was a limited government.
	And it was a great success in that it created happy lives.
	OK, Jan, your time is up.
	OK, if you want me to answer that more, I'll answer more.
	OK.
	Your time is up.
	So I'm perfectly happy if he wants to take another minute, just because I'd like to get to the answer about what went wrong with the U.S.
	experiment.
	That's totally reasonable.
	Okay.
	The experiment, and I was saying why I thought it was a success.
	It permitted people to see the prosperity and great life afforded to people when a government is limited to defending the individual rights of its citizens.
	It shows you that you can, and the progress and happiness that people received in the United States from this founding
	to now has been much greater than any other country in the world or at least as great as other countries in the world that have experimented to some extent with limited government so it has permitted the world to see that when you live without nation states like humankind lived initially in Africa for a million years you just live in abject poverty
	When you have nation-states that are status, you can upgrade the standard of living somewhat like they did with starting with the Egyptians.
	Okay, that's a minute.
	And if you limit it to limited government alone, then you can have even higher standards of living and wealth and, you know, good relations and lives for the people that live there.
	So even though we have deviated We have recently, from limited government, and we've had our ups and downs, and in some aspects, in some respects, we're on the unlimited mode right now.
	Still, we have some aspects of our political theory are still based on limited government, and we are achieving the benefits from it.
	So, Really, it gives you an opportunity to see what happens when you have a limited government as compared to a status government and as compared to no government at all.
	I think it's been a great success in that sense.
	Well, I would say that tens of millions of Native Americans who died and were killed en masse for the U.S.
	land and the 30 million-plus victims of U.S.
	imperialism overseas might not consider the United States such a success, but let's move on to the next question.
	You said that... That wasn't a question.
	Yeah, moving on to the next question.
	So you've said that anarchism, your concern is that it's going to result in organized crime, and you also compared, said that the Third World was an example of anarchism.
	So is it your contention, this is a two-part question, I can count it as two questions.
	Is it your contention, A, that organized crime is somehow not part of a state of society, because it would seem to me that organized crime gains its profits from those substances and activities, such as gambling and drugs and prostitution, and smuggling and so on, that the state makes illegal.
	So I don't see how the argument for organized crime is an argument except against statism.
	And secondly, do you think that in the third world, there are not...
	Well, let's do one question at a time.
	Okay.
	Let's just stay with the first one.
	Would you not say that...
	Okay, so it's your...
	Yeah.
	...from that which the state makes illegal?
	Well, what I said in my statement was that if you don't have a government, organized crime is incentivized to acquire military weapons like tanks, guided missiles, organized crime is incentivized to acquire military weapons like tanks, guided missiles,
	jets, anything, because as they increase their power to victimize people who are weaker, they increase their coffers, and they increase the amount of victims.
	The pool of victims is greater.
	As long as you have a government, they're held in check, because no matter how many tanks they get, or airplanes, or whatever, they're small potatoes compared to the government.
	And so they have no chance and no incentive to increase in their firepower.
	But once you get rid of the government, they have a lot of incentive and you increase.
	Now, you're right about something.
	A lot of the organized crime monetary benefits that are being received now are being received based on laws that should not be laws and therefore creating black markets and therefore giving them Uh, benefits, economic benefits for trafficking in those black markets.
	But in a limited government, which is the view that I'm, I'm, I'm explaining, there is no such, there are no such laws.
	There are no victimless crimes.
	There are people that, uh, you know, you, you can't smoke marijuana or whatever.
	Okay, thank you.
	And would you say, when you said that we would live like in the third world, in an anarchic society, is it your viewpoint then that in the third world countries there is little to no government in those places?
	Because it would seem to me that... I'm going to explain what I meant by the third world.
	My reference to the third world countries was that when the legal systems work at a very low level, Then it is very hard to do business and people are reluctant to do business and invest in the third world countries because the enforcement of the contracts is not as highly guaranteed as it is in the more advanced countries.
	So as you have less government and less possibility of enforcement of contracts, you start to lose the benefits of the free market.
	That's what I was saying.
	And the other reference to the third world, actually I made a reference to the one million years, the first million years of humankind which were basically lived in Africa and were basically with no states and basically anarchistic
	Tribalistic, people lived either in families, clans, or tribes, and it was bloody warfare for a million years, and there was no development and no advance for one million years.
	It took a state, it took a state, even a totalitarian state, which is not the best, like Egypt or Mesopotamia, to start with civilization and start to get some minimal benefits.
	And that later were improved on, and we saw the great success that the founding fathers had when they did the Constitution, and we started with our limited government.
	Yeah, I believe the slaves, the women and the children... Okay, that's a minute and a half.
	So, if I understand this correctly, you say that the United States is the best example, and that there's nothing particularly wrong with the United States as an experiment in the process of minarchism.
	So we are, is it fair to then assume that this is the best we can hope for from the Menarchist position, is the existing United States government?
	Absolutely not.
	What we need, I just mentioned, I don't know if you heard it, that in certain aspects of political governance, we have Change from limited to unlimited.
	For example, we have wholesale redistribution of wealth, which is totally antithetical to the minarchist position and limited government.
	So, we have lost a lot of degrees of limited government.
	We still have some remnants.
	We still have some aspects that are completely limited, like free speech and free association that we're enjoying right now, you and me.
	There are aspects that have been changed and what we need to do is return to the limited government position and get rid of those mistaken public policies.
	And what went wrong with the minarchist experiment of the United States that the government grew hundreds of times larger than its intended function?
	Great question.
	I'm going to tell you what went wrong.
	What?
	A minarchist society, a limited government society, will not work if the people of the country do not understand limited government, do not understand that the government's function should be limited to defending the individual rights of the citizens, their life, liberty and property, and they transition, as they did in the United States, to the welfare state mentality.
	Which is prevalent today, although it's not the only mentality out there, but it's prevalent.
	So the way to get back to the limited government is by people obtaining the knowledge that the Founding Fathers had again,
	Reabsorbing it and applying it in the elections to the politicians that run for office and kicking them out when they vote for redistribution of wealth and other violations of your rights like the drug laws you were talking about before or the gambling laws or other such laws.
	All right, I think this is my last question.
	I'm sure you understand that the imbalance of incentives in statism is a great problem.
	So the farmers who receive $100,000 in some sort of subsidy have a huge incentive to keep that subsidy going, whereas the average citizen may lose a dollar or two a year, and so has very little incentive to reduce the benefits flowing to other people, right?
	So how is it that you propose that this imbalance of incentives can occur when you will be asking people, in a sense, to give up hundreds of thousands of dollars of benefits from the government, and you're asking other people who are only paying a dollar or two to act more consistently and more energetically to oppose those?
	It seems to me that this is a fundamental problem with minarchism, and I'd just like to sort of understand how you think, or how you expect people to act against their own immediate self-interest in that way.
	Very good question.
	I'll tell you.
	The first thing that people have to realize is that it's not in their self-interest to violate other people's rights.
	Ultimately, and in the long run, it'll be bad for them.
	So all these people that are making deals with Obama on the health care, they'll get their due desserts because they're playing with the devil.
	And so once you understand that, that violating other people's rights is not in your ultimate self-interest, and a majority of the people in a country that has a constitution and can be limited, can have the government limited, once those factors are in place, then you can retract the governmental power and come back to a limited government by voting them out when their public policies violate
	The principle that we just expressed.
	Okay, sorry, just one more little half-question.
	So your plan of driving is to go and live by the sea?
	A half-question?
	Okay, you give me a half-question later also, okay?
	Go ahead.
	Take two if you want.
	You say that violating other people's rights is not ultimately in your own best interest.
	That's correct.
	But you also believe that to, say, drive anarchists to go and live in some place by the sea, out of their homes and communities, using force, is not violating the rights of anarchists.
	What, you know, what I tried to explain is this, that when you're born, the whole context of individual rights that I'm advocating is premised on The correct view of what the proper function of government should be, which is a limited government, limited to defending the individual rights of the citizens.
	When you are born into that kind of system, the best way to deal respectfully with people that disagree, because there's two groups of anarchists.
	Let's break them down.
	There's some that want the services that the government is providing, but they just don't want to pay for them.
	Those I have no respect for.
	They just want something for free, and they want to do a free rider.
	So I don't have a problem with forcing those guys to pay.
	And I'm sure the people in your audience will know who they are if they're that kind of... Now, there are people that say, really, I think I can live optimally and live well without any government in no institution with the major control of a major physical force.
	And those people, the best way to deal with them is to have a transition where the people peacefully transition from one part of the country to another.
	Those that want to organize along that principle should be afforded the right to do so.
	That's all I ask when I discuss Political theory and political differences with people that believe in statism in unlimited government.
	That's all, as a limited government advocate, that's all I ask for.
	So, that's why I'm willing to afford the anarchists.
	I'm treating them just as I want to be treated myself.
	I don't demand, okay, Right now, everybody that believes in statism, limited government, they just have to adhere to my view, and if they don't, then...
	My rights are being violated.
	No, I realize that people have differences of opinion and that those two views are incompatible.
	You cannot integrate them logically.
	So there's only one solution.
	The solution is for people to transition.
	And that's what I would like people to do for me.
	I would like the opportunity to transition to a part of the United States where I can have limited government And then we'll see which is the right form of government, the statist or the unlimited one.
	All right.
	Well, that's it for my questions.
	I appreciate your clarifications.
	Thank you.
	James, are you going to explain what comes now?
	James?
	Oh.
	You're going to ask Stefan some questions, correct?
	Mm-hmm.
	Okay.
	At which span has one minute and 30 seconds to answer?
	Okay, what is your... Sorry, if you could just mute while I'm answering so we don't get the echo, I'd appreciate that.
	Okay.
	First you want me to ask and then mute.
	Yes, please.
	Right?
	What is your ultimate value?
	And by ultimate value I mean an end which is not a means to any other end.
	What the Greeks call the supreme good or highest value.
	And specifically I'd like to know if your ultimate value is to have a happy long life.
	My ultimate value is the value of all good philosophy I think is happiness and the means to achieve those is the consistent exploration and enactment of the living.
	of rational, consistent, and empirical values.
	You need to unmute.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Do you think, under your anarchist scenario, do you think criminal gangs will attack individuals that are not organized as well as security agencies they consider weaker than themselves?
	No, not at all.
	I do not believe that criminal gangs will attack individuals.
	I think there's ample historical evidence for this.
	Gunplay was very rare in the Wild West, where there was no state and no mafia.
	And no, there's no reason to believe that criminal gangs will attack citizens.
	The only criminal gang that has ever attacked me has been the state.
	So that's the one that I particularly focus on.
	I've never been attacked by any other criminal gang.
	And so that's really where I'm going to place my major emphasis.
	As you probably know, More than a quarter million people were slaughtered like pigs by governments throughout the 20th century, and not just totalitarian governments, but supposedly free governments as well.
	And that doesn't even include the hundreds of millions who were killed by wars.
	So we're looking at almost half a billion souls murdered by governments in the 20th century.
	I think I'm going to worry a little bit more about that statistically than the Mafia, when the Mafia can't gain any of its profits.
	Through smuggling guns, through drugs, through prostitution, through gambling.
	Because it's hard to imagine that an anarchic society would devote a whole lot of resources to attacking voluntary interactions between consenting adults.
	So you don't think that criminals... Am I on?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	You don't think that predators try to find weak victims that they can overpower easily?
	Like...
	And if they have like a tank, they just drive it up to your house and say, and you think you're really well protected with your shotgun, and they say, give us all your money or we're going to blow your whole house off.
	And you say, oh, I'll defend myself with my shotgun.
	Why would they not attack individuals that are weaker and they could take their money easily?
	Explain that to me.
	This is the whole point.
	This is what is so bizarre to me about the minarchist position, is that's what we have with the states.
	If people want to use violence to overpower victims, the last thing we absolutely want is a government.
	Look, if people are largely evil, then we can't have a government, because all the evil people will go to the government, get the military, and do exactly what they do with every government.
	If very few people are evil and most people are good, then the few evil people will go to the government, and take over the government, and use it to oppress good people.
	If everyone's good, we don't need a government.
	And if nobody's good, we can't have a government, because then there'll be one dominant group who will attack everyone else in perpetuity.
	So there's no scenario of good and evil or criminality which justifies the existence of the state.
	If people want to use power to overpower other people, the last thing we want is a group with a monopoly of that power because that's exactly what they'll do and exactly what they have done throughout history.
	And Jan, could I hear you?
	Jan, can you please mute your microphone after you've asked the question?
	Okay.
	Did I understand you correctly to say when I asked you whether there was somebody, when under anarchism, people could, criminal gangs, could buy a tank, they could park it in front of your house and demand your money, and you said that's exactly what we have now because I have never seen a tank in front of the house of anybody, anywhere in the United States.
	Maybe it's that way in Canada.
	Where they park it in front of the person's house and they aim the cannon at your house and they give you a cell phone call and say, hey, give me your net worth or we're going to blow your house and everything up in it.
	I don't think you really understand what taxation is.
	There's no visible tank, but it's there nonetheless.
	People will come to your house and drag you away.
	And if you think that states don't use tanks, maybe you should go to Fallujah or Baghdad or any of the other places where American imperialism has slaughtered people by the hundreds of thousands and more.
	They absolutely do use tanks.
	The tanks are either visible in the streets of Iraq and Afghanistan, or they're invisible in the form of the overwhelming force backed up by the IRS.
	So just because they have overwhelming force and so we all obey, Doesn't mean that the force is not there, just because there's not a tank in your street.
	As part of your answer before, my understanding... Well, first of all, let me say that under a limited government, we don't have invasions of Iraq or anywhere else, because that's not part of defending the individual rights of the citizens of the United States, obviously.
	So that's irrelevant.
	That would not be permitted under a limited government.
	But you were saying, and I think it's an interesting question, This is what I want you to consider.
	Is it not true that if a small amount of citizens decide for predation, the anarchist scenario will not work?
	Because even if it's 2 or 3 percent or 5 percent, whatever, if they're well armed, they can Drive that tank right up to your house and demand your money, and everybody else's in the neighborhood, one by one, pick off the weak, the weak people that are weaker, and this is what predators do.
	Why is it that they would not do that, which is now, as compared to when there's a minarchist situation, a limited government, if there's two or three percent of the people that believe in predation, The other 95 or whatever percent can easily control them with a limited government and a government with a monopoly of major force.
	None of those criminals will ever dare buy a tank, can't buy a tank, or roll it up to your house to extract all your net worth, plus your life or whatever.
	Explain to me why it isn't preferable to have a minicast A minarchist organization of society, assuming that there's two or three percent of the people that would choose predation, you can control them and limit government, but you can't control them in an anarchist, anarchistic society.
	Well, first of all, I mean, this, I can't imagine this really needs to be said, but let's say that you're right, and if you could mute for a sec, I'd appreciate it.
	Let's say that you're right.
	Okay.
	That 2-3% of people want to use force to overpower other people and take stuff.
	Well, I mean, if they have any brains, if they don't have any brains at all, they're no threat, because they can't tie their shoelaces and get out of the house.
	If these tiny minority of people who wish to use force to extract money and hold power over others have any brains at all, where are they going to go?
	The first place they're going to go is the government.
	The first place they're going to go is they're going to join the army, they're going to join the military, they're going to become politicians, they're going to gain control of the immense power and resources of the state.
	The idea that there's this platonic shining philosopher-king ideal of people who join the state and then they hold back like shining Holland Dykes the surging forces of evil from the tender souls of society is a complete fantasy.
	If there are such evil people in the world, and yeah, I mean, I'm willing to say of course that there are evil people in the world who desperately want power, over others, and want to take things without permission and with force.
	That's why we can't have a government, because that's the first place they're going to go, is to the government, and this is exactly what we've seen with the United States.
	So that's, and you had a long question, let me just take another second to answer that.
	You know, Ayn Rand once said, and I think it's quite right, she says, you can't just start philosophizing in midstream.
	So in, and I've got more about this in my book Practical Anarchy, which is free, and it's on my website at freedomainradio.com, So, let's say that some group wants to go and buy a tank.
	Well, they're going to need a bank account.
	They're going to need a place to store the tank.
	They're going to need some place to live.
	They're going to need... So, the first thing that's going to happen in a free society is that everyone is going to say, I don't want to deal with anyone who's buying a tank.
	I'm not going to let someone who's got a tank go down my street.
	I'm not going... Anybody who manufactures tanks is going to have everyone all over them saying, you better not sell to these people.
	You better only sell to these people.
	And if you don't, Then we're not going to do any business with you and you're going to go out of business right away.
	Right?
	So the interconnectedness of our economics is so fundamental to the preservation of freedom in a rational and free society that no one is going to build a tank and sell a tank.
	Because if they build the tank, they're going to have to order the materials.
	They're going to have to store the tank.
	They're going to have to bank accounts.
	They're going to have to pay their employees.
	They're going to have to have all of these complex things.
	in their economic life.
	And no one's going to deal with them if they're building a tank.
	The tank doesn't just magically appear unless you have a government that can produce one by taxing its citizens.
	So in a free society there are so many checks and balances that have put something like the Constitution to shame because everybody is going to be concerned about tanks in the street and no one's going to invest in a company that makes tanks unless they can be absolutely sure those tanks are not going to be sold to any criminal elements.
	And they're not going to be able to put their money in a bank account.
	They're not going to be able to trade with anyone.
	Everybody is going to have every incentive in the world to not do business with people who are going to do things which are detrimental to society.
	That's the check and balance that actually works in society, not some fictional piece of paper called the Constitution which stops no bullets and wraps around no government and confines and kills no expansion of power.
	It is the mutually The interdependence and the mutual checks and balances all throughout society to prevent these things from coming about.
	Not some fictional piece of paper and some man-gods who are immune to these perils of corruption by power and violence.
	Stefan, I want to cover this issue of ostracism that you raised, but it's an additional issue.
	Let's deal with the first part of your question.
	Jan, before you go on.
	Yeah?
	Jan, before you go on, you must mute your microphone.
	The viewers are complaining, there's a high whistling, so once you've answered, asked your question, please mute your microphone.
	Okay.
	Let's deal with your allegation that you first, you accept that there will be some people, where I think it's reasonable, we both agree on this premise, a small percentage of people that will choose predation.
	And your point is that those people We'll go to the government because that's the place where they can use force to extract money from others because they have the guns and the armaments and the power to extract force from others.
	My question to you is, will the people running the security agencies in the anarchic system generally decide to initiate force against less armed citizens Because those are the same people, because they're the ones that will have the guns in that case.
	If you have a narco-capitalist society, the ones that will have the guns and the tanks will be those security agencies.
	And if you think those people who are going to initiate force against you when they go to the government now, why won't they be initiating force against you from every direction?
	Because there's whole thousands of security agencies When you have an anarcho-capitalist society.
	All right, if you could mute, that's an excellent question.
	I'm very glad to have the chance to deal with it here because it is a constant.
	And with all due respect to you, obviously very intelligent, very eloquent, very accomplished in your profession.
	I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that one of the things that I bring to this movement is a very deep, rich and significant experience in the free market.
	And what I mean by that is, you know, founding companies, getting investment for companies, doing presentation Presentations to investors and so on.
	And I think that I understand something about the free market that the majority of people in the libertarian movement don't, who haven't spent a lot of time really at the front edge of the entrepreneurial universe.
	And that is The two things.
	First of all, nothing arises out of nothing.
	You don't just magically create a company with huge weaponries and black helicopters and nuclear mushrooms or whatever it is.
	Those things don't come out of nothing.
	They have to have investment, they have to have a huge infrastructure of banking, they have to have leases, they have to have computers, they have to have phones, access.
	Lots of companies have to deal with any company in order to give it any kind of presence anywhere.
	In the world, so investors have to invest and everyone has to deal with it.
	So that's sort of the first thing and I'll explain why that's important in a moment.
	The second thing is that the customer rules.
	If some guy comes to my house, let's say, you know, knock, knock, knock, defense agency calling and he says, I wanted to charge you 10 bucks a month to protect you from invaders.
	Well, my first thought is, Well, who's going to protect me from you, right?
	Everybody's going to think that.
	Every objection which somebody comes up with against anarchism is going to be a question or an objection that a salesman from some defense agency or any agency is going to have to overcome.
	And so the first thing, if I want to set up a defense agency, And I want to go and charge people 10 bucks a month to protect them from invasion.
	The first thing I'm going to need to do is to reassure them that I'm never going to invade them.
	Now, how am I going to do that?
	Well, I'm going to have independent people who are going to come and verify that I don't have more weapons than I say.
	I'm going to say, I will pay you 10 million dollars if you ever find me hoarding black helicopters or even one bullet more than I say that I have.
	I am going to put in the contract that all of my money in my entire executive board goes straight to charity if we're ever found to be XY.
	There'll be so many checks and balances that I will have to put into place as a defense agency for any customer to sign up with me.
	That is what I call a check and balance.
	The customer rules in the free market.
	If I go to investors and I say, I want you to invest a hundred million dollars in me so I can start a defense agency.
	The first question that those investors are ever going to ask is, well, how are we going to, first of all, how are you going to sell the customers?
	How are you going to reassure customers that you're not a danger to them?
	And I'd have to have a whole business plan, probably 500 pages long, with contracts and promises and money that's put in escrow and all that, in order for customers to be satisfied that it wasn't a danger to them.
	And secondly, Investors are also going to say, well, why wouldn't you just buy all these weapons and then never pay us back?
	Because you'd have all the guns.
	So they'd have to have all of those protections in place.
	That's a real system of checks and balances, which is the mutual interest of everybody involved in a transaction to maximize their returns and minimize their risk.
	And so this idea that I'm just going to end up with some defense bureau agency is as crazy as saying, and I don't mean you're crazy, I just mean the idea is crazy, it's as crazy as saying, well, If you try and come up with a credit card that can only be used within five square feet of someone's house, you know, won't that be a great success?
	Well, of course it won't be a great success.
	Like saying, I want to sell a cell phone that only works in a three mile radius.
	And it has no interoperability with any other cell phones.
	Or I want to create a currency that only works in one store.
	Well, the interoperability of things is essential to their success.
	And so, if I want to create anything, like a contract, because contracts come up all the time, and I'll stop in just a second, I appreciate your patience.
	But if I want to come up with someone who's going to guarantee contracts, well, they're going to have to guarantee contracts as widely as possible and show me all the reciprocal agencies that they do contracts with.
	And they're going to have to show me how successful they've been at supporting and enforcing contracts in order to get my business.
	So interoperability and the interdependence and the checks and balances of everybody's self-interest in a free society is what keeps society free.
	Not a piece of paper, crossing your fingers and hoping that all the guys with the guns in the world, called the state, I don't think I got an answer to my question which was, will the people running the security agencies generally decide to initiate force against less armed citizens?
	Previously you had said that These people that want to initiate force, that believe in predation, would migrate to the place where the people have the guns.
	Like, now you say it's the government, right?
	Why won't that happen?
	You say that they won't migrate now because of these checks and balances?
	Why not?
	If they're attracted to predation, they will go where the guns are.
	They'll go either in the criminal gangs or they'll try the subterfuge of going into Security agencies, or dispute resolution agencies, whatever, whoever has the guns, that's where they're going, according to you!
	And then they will use predation.
	Okay, have you ever run a business yourself?
	Yes, I have.
	Okay, what happened when you really, really, really angered and upset your customers?
	What happened when I angered my customers?
	Yeah, did they leave?
	If I angered the customers, they would probably leave, yeah.
	Right, so if I have a defense agency, and I let criminals get a hold of my guns, then all my customers are going to leave, and my bank is not going to honor my money, and my lease is going to evaporate, and nobody's going to allow me on their property, so there's no way that I'm going to let all of the people who are criminals come and take all my guns.
	Because my customers won't want that, and I need my customers in order to pay my bills, right?
	But the government doesn't operate under those same restrictions because the government can initiate the use of force at will and has a monopoly and an overwhelming monopoly on force.
	So it is the initiation of force, the legal agency that initiates force, that people will go to because you and I are not customers of the government.
	As you say, we're born into it and we just have to live with it as best we can or fight against it verbally as best we can.
	So the difference is, when I'm dealing with a cell phone company, is that I can just go to some other cell phone company.
	If some defense agency does something that's pissing me off, like letting a bunch of sociopaths hold flamethrowers at the mall, then I'm going to just stop paying them.
	I'm going to call my bank and say, these guys are doing bad things.
	Stop all payments to them.
	And the bank's going to say, holy crap!
	And it's going to inform the bank that the DRO has, the defense agency has, and say, these guys are letting sociopaths have flamethrowers at malls, and they're going to close down their bank accounts, and every customer is going to go all around the Internet like wildfire.
	Every customer is going to leave.
	The company is going to go immediately out of business.
	No one is going to show up to work because they'll be embarrassed to work.
	The company will evaporate in a way that you don't have to wait for an election and cross your fingers that the next guy is going to do the right thing.
	It's going to happen immediately within the market itself.
	In other words, you're saying that it's possible to screen out the people that want to initiate force And if that's the case, then you can screen them out of the government as well.
	And you have an election which permits you to screen out the decision makers that violate your principles, so you can screen them out periodically.
	As far as companies going out of business, when a security agency decides to go and use force and initiate force against you, they don't care if you pay your bills or not.
	They don't care if they lose their customers.
	Because they're going to take all your money by force, and you cannot oppose it because they have the tanks, the missiles, and the bombers.
	And that's it.
	Well, unfortunately, you're philosophizing from midstream again, and you're assuming that these defense agencies have all the weapons in the world.
	The only defense agencies that will ever work in a state of society Are those who can provide the most conceivable defense with the least conceivable expense and at the lowest possible risk to citizens, right?
	In a state that the tanks do virtually nothing in a modern war unless you're invading, right?
	But the defense agencies are anyone who's going to want to sell their services as a defense agency.
	is going to need to prove to customers that every weapon that they have is not going to be a danger to the customer.
	They're going to have as fewer weapons as humanly possible because that way they can charge less.
	Like if I need 50 aircraft carriers and you only need 20 aircraft carriers to make up a silly example, I'm going to be able to charge two-fifths what you're able to charge, right?
	So the defense agencies and everything that they buy or collect that is over and above what they actually need is going to put them in an uncompetitive position.
	relative to all the other defense DRO agencies, right?
	And the moment that I'm a defense DRO and I want to go and buy all of these additional weapons to take over the country, how am I going to fund it?
	Well, investors are going to – I'm going to need investors.
	The investors aren't going to want to fund it because their money will be at risk.
	Or I'm going to have to get it for my customers.
	So I'm going to say, hey, by the way, I'm no longer charging you $10 a month to protect you.
	I'm going to charge you $100 a month.
	Well, everybody's going to know immediately what's going on and is going to say, forget it, I'll go to this other guy who's $10 a month and to hell with you, right?
	So, they don't just magically appear, all of these weapons.
	There's so many safeguards and so many economic reasons why they're just never going to show up, that it's so much safer than anything statism can ever offer.
	Don't forget to end.
	Just to interject here, Stefan, your video is frozen.
	In my presentation, I suggested that some defense agencies I suggested that some defense agencies
	or security agencies would have disagreements and therefore one or the other would try to impose their will by force and that that would have the consequence of gang warfare significantly.
	Since there's millions of disagreements, only a few of them want to impose their view by force.
	That already creates a war between security agencies, such as the ones you were just talking about, like the one that went rogue and started to use force against its customers and the other security agency to which their customers are flocking.
	Why will that not result in gang warfare between security agencies?
	All right, let me answer this and then I'll try and figure out if you can mute for a sec.
	Let me just answer this and then I will try and fix my video.
	I'm speaking from the Stygian depths.
	I think it's really, really important to understand because, I mean, you can put up these arguments and I can knock them down at least to the best of my ability.
	We can do this all day.
	But there's something fundamental which I sort of invite you to approach as a way of looking at a stateless society or voluntary or peaceful society or a society that is fully consistent.
	With the non-aggression principle.
	And instead of saying, well, what about this problem?
	What I would say is, you know, put on the hat of the guy who's trying to sell the defense agency services, right?
	So if you have a question, which is, well, how are you going to deal with other defense agencies or whatever, right?
	Well, what you're going to have to come up with as an entrepreneur is a good answer for that in order to sell your services.
	So instead of being the guy who's coming up with all the problems, which is fine, be the guy who comes up with all the problems, but then step over to the other side and say, well, if I was an entrepreneur and I really wanted to make this defense agency and I really wanted to sell this to my customers, how would I do it, right?
	Well, you'd be like a cell phone company.
	You'd say, well, I want to have my offering, but I need to cooperate with other cell phone companies so that we all enhance each other's offerings and we can compete more on specifics and price and details.
	So it's called coopetition.
	It's a kind of geeky word that people use in this sense.
	It's called coopetition, and what that means is that most companies cooperate with each other a lot more than they competed.
	It's like nature, right?
	Most of nature competes.
	Sorry, cooperates rather than competes, like your liver and your spleen don't compete with each other, right?
	But you and I may compete for, I don't know, listeners or something, right?
	So there's an enormous amount of cooperation.
	Cooperation is the norm.
	And just think of the amount of servers that are being used to send our information back and forth, right?
	You, I think, from somewhere in the United States, me from the fortified bunker here in Canada.
	And so the amount of cooperation that is required is really, really important.
	There's no way you're going to sell access to a network like an ISP and say, I don't carry traffic from any other networks, because nobody would be able to send and receive email.
	But all the internet service providers allow the email to flow back and forth between their servers.
	They cooperate a lot more than they compete.
	And so when it comes to defense agencies, what they're going to have to show me, or they're going to have to show you, if they want our business, is they're going to say, here's how well I cooperate with everyone else, right?
	So I'm specialized at mountain defense.
	This guy is specialized at sea defense.
	And we have reciprocal agreements with third party verification that we're not doing any bad things and so on.
	They're going to have to be as efficient as humanly possible and prove to any prospective customers that they're not dangerous, that they will cooperate, that they're cheap, that they're effective, that they're going to be safe to deal with, And so on, right?
	And the first thing I would ever demand from a defense agency is the right to opt out at will and to cancel any agreements on a whim.
	Right?
	If I ever felt them being dangerous, right?
	And there would be... I would also want them to fund an agency that was arm's length independent or maybe they put the money in escrow and someone else funds it that's going to audit them perpetually and continue.
	I'm going to want so many safeguards on that defense agency that some entrepreneur is going to have to come up with some brilliant way that I can't even imagine that is going to reassure potential customers as to the safety of this.
	So every objection that you come up with is an excellent, excellent point.
	But the point is to say, how could it be overcome by an entrepreneur?
	And I think we'd always be surprised at the degree of creativity that entrepreneurs can come up with in terms of reassuring customers about legitimate fears.
	Stefan, do you think it's reasonable for us to take a chance with a... Sorry, sorry.
	I apologize to interrupt.
	My video has died.
	Can I call everyone back in just a second?
	And we'll continue.
	And the previous question I had asked was, will the security agencies representing peaceful citizens have disagreements, and will some of them use force to try to impose their judgment?
	I'm not clear on whether you answered yes or no to that question.
	Yes, they will have to use force.
	What?
	Yes, they will have to use force.
	No, they won't use force.
	Yes, they will have disagreements, and none of them will decide to use force.
	Right, because their customers won't want that.
	So you're going to have thousands of agencies with millions of disagreements, and under no case will they use force.
	Okay, that's interesting.
	Here, I'll give you an example, and you tell me if it's reasonable that they will use force.
	The daughter of the boss of a security agency has a date with the son of the boss of another security agency.
	When she comes home, she tells her father that she has been raped.
	The father requests custody of the alleged rapist who tells his father he did not rape her.
	The first security agency threatens to use force if the son is not turned over.
	The second security agency refuses.
	The first security agency attempts to capture the son by force, but fails.
	The second security agency retaliates.
	The first security agency attempts to get help from other security agencies, and so on and so forth, involving more and more people in a mini-war.
	You think this is preposterous, that this kind of thing would not happen?
	Completely preposterous.
	Okay, so when the daughter comes home and tells her father that she was raped, he'll say, well, that's your tough luck.
	I don't know why we would immediately go straight to violence and I'm just for those who are curious I'm so sorry I've got a little spot on my head here in case you could see it on the video I was playing around with my daughter this morning and we have a baby on board sticker like a suction cup which we had for the car I put it on my forehead and shook it around by the time I took it off it looked like I'd Was an Indian bride who missed.
	Anyway, just wanted to mention in case anybody's wondering about that.
	But violence, except for the government, violence is extraordinarily expensive and risky and dangerous.
	So a defense, like an agency, let's say, I call them dispute resolution organizations.
	Let's just use that for the moment.
	It's just my shorthand.
	An agency is not going to immediately go from disagreement to violence.
	Why?
	Because violence causes retribution.
	And violence is not what their customers want.
	You and I don't like violence.
	It's more than unaggressive.
	Excuse me.
	But in the example, they didn't go to violence immediately.
	They requested custody of the son.
	The father of the son said, hell no.
	My son said that he didn't rape your daughter.
	What happens afterwards?
	Well, a million things could go wrong.
	Because you asked him to be on time and now you're intervening.
	Yeah, no, that's fine.
	Let me give you a couple of brief examples.
	Either the clock goes out of the window or we stay on point with the rules that you set up.
	They're your rules, after all.
	Let's just go ahead.
	I don't want to lose the thrust of the debate in the rules.
	James, you already threw the clock out the window.
	Let me answer the question.
	And this is just off the top of my head.
	Nobody can answer it.
	And Jan, if you can just mute while I'm speaking.
	I'm sorry to do that, but just so I don't get the echo.
	I don't know how a state that society is going to work in every detail.
	Nobody's that smart.
	Nobody can.
	Any more than we know what's going to be in the free market 50 years from now.
	We don't know.
	But this is the way that I think it could work, right?
	So, the first thing that I would do, so my son comes home and someone calls me up and says, your son raped my daughter.
	Well, I then would, and I've run a dispute resolution organisation, Well, if I didn't turn over my son, what would the other guy do, right?
	Well, what I would do if I were the other guy is I'd call all the newspapers, right?
	I'd call the media, I'd get this out that this guy is refusing to turn over, like he runs a justice agency and he's refusing to allow for an examination of his son.
	In other words, he believes that his son is guilty because we will submit to honest and just cross-examination if we're innocent, right?
	This would be catastrophically bad.
	I'm not saying this would solve all the problems.
	This is just some options other than going straight to the mattresses with the guns, right?
	So I would call the media and say, this guy does not follow the rules that he is selling to everyone else.
	And that would cause very negative publicity.
	Right, for his... I mean, even the executive of General Motors doesn't drive a Ford, right?
	Everybody has to drive, like, the executives drive... This is how sensitive people are to that, right?
	Now, if... So, if I thought my son was innocent, here he'd go, right?
	If I thought my son was guilty, then, you know, maybe I'd try and flee the... I don't know, it's hard to imagine.
	But there are so many options that you could go to.
	Publicity, negative feedback, you could go and register a complaint, because Every, like, two dispute resolution organizations are fully aware that they may not be able to see eye-to-eye on any particular issue.
	It just may happen that way.
	And they will go to arbitration, right?
	So two DROs will have something in their contract that says, look, if you and I can't come to an agreement, we go to some third party that we both accept and agree to in advance.
	And there would be some limit on the amount of appeals because we're all mortal and resources are finite.
	But there would be so many ways of solving the problem.
	Going to a third party arbitration, you could register a complaint with the contract agency saying, I have a legitimate reason to believe that this guy might be guilty of rape.
	And he's not responding to questioning, and then what would happen is the guy's bank accounts would maybe shut down, he may no longer be allowed to lease his house, he may no longer be welcome in grocery stores to buy food, he may be hounded out of the society, and it probably would be better for him to submit to the questioning, even if he's guilty, right?
	Because being hounded out of society would be a pretty bad thing for everyone to go live in the wilderness on nuts and berries if nobody will One of the things that's changed is that technology has now allowed us to get the status of everyone very easily all over the world, which really wasn't possible before.
	So those are just some possible off-the-top-of-my-head examples of what could happen instead of everybody taking to the streets with guns.
	Because the moment I pull out guns as a DRO, my customers are going to flee me because they just don't want that.
	It's very expensive.
	It's very risky.
	There is the risk of retaliation.
	So defence agencies or dispute resolution organisations are, as a very, very, very last resort, they're going to go to violence.
	but it's certainly going to be not in the top 100 of lists of responses.
	The question I'm trying to get an answer to is, will some of them use force to try to impose their judgment?
	99 might not use force.
	All you need is 1% of a million disagreements and you got gang warfare.
	Between security agencies.
	Their customers will desert them if they use force because everyone's afraid of war.
	Nobody wants war.
	Only governments want war, not citizens.
	So customers, if you stop pulling out guns, customers will simply stop doing business with you.
	Everybody will, your bank accounts will be shut down.
	Everybody will cease to do business with you and the problem is solved.
	So it's your answer to understand your answer is not a single one of these billions of disagreements will the person attempt to impose his view by force.
	That's your view.
	Well, now you switched the definition.
	You were talking about a DRO, now you're talking about an individual.
	Which is it?
	No, no, I'm talking about the The security agencies, or DROs, whoever has the guns in the society, and can impose his view, and when the arbitration award comes, can say, come and collect if you dare.
	That guy, and the guy, and the guy, and the guy, I'm going to tell you which guy, the guy, this guy, who At any point in time can say, guess what, customers?
	Anybody who doesn't pay like Stefan Molyneux, I'll have a tank in front of your house in a minute, and let's see if you pay.
	And you can have all the shotguns in the world, and when the tank shows up, you're dead meat.
	That's the guy.
	You've got to give me the respect.
	We dealt with the tank stuff 90 minutes ago.
	If you're going to go right back to there, then we've obviously not had a debate at all.
	I've dealt with that cogently and coherently and provided six million reasons and alternatives as to why that won't occur.
	If you're just going to pull this out again, the tanks, the Annaman Square, then we haven't made any progress and you haven't been listening to a single one of my arguments.
	Well, you said before that there were tanks in the streets and since I had never seen any, I was wondering if things were different in Canada, but that's what you said.
	Because of the stateless DROs.
	Right.
	So it's your view that none of them would resort to force.
	Even though I thought I gave you a plausible situation where a guy didn't want to take a chance that his son would go to prison, because who knows who they're going to believe?
	The daughter or the son.
	And so he didn't want to take a chance.
	So he loves his son, so he doesn't want to take a chance.
	Are you talking about an individual or an organization?
	The boss of a security agency.
	You want me to read this example again?
	The boss of a security... He might pull out a gun and go and do something.
	No, no.
	I'm saying that the daughter of the boss of one security agency has a date with the son of the boss of another security agency.
	And...
	When she comes home, she tells her dad she was raped.
	And maybe she thinks she was.
	And maybe the guy also thinks he didn't rape her.
	They have a genuine disagreement about what happened.
	And each father believes their son or daughter, as the case may be.
	One of the fathers, who wants to defend his daughter, tries to kidnap or to take custody physically of the son of the other guy.
	The other security agency then retaliates because these guys already did use force.
	Some security agencies will retaliate if you use force against them.
	Is that the case or not?
	I'm sorry.
	I can't understand if you're talking about an individual or a group.
	I'm talking about security agencies, DROs, whatever you want to call them, the people that have the guns in the anarcho-capitalist society, the ones that have the heavy military hardware that can impose their will on other people regardless of what happens, and if the other people get snippy, they can take their money by force if they want.
	Those people.
	Okay, so what you're saying is that if I run a DRO, I can call up my guys and say, go do this bad stuff.
	Absolutely!
	Why is it bad to retaliate?
	Why would my customers give me that power?
	Why would they allow me to do that?
	Why would they give me that power?
	They already did!
	They already did.
	And if you don't like that example...
	It's a risk in advance.
	They do so knowing that's a risk in advance.
	So why would they allow me that power and not have that check and balance ahead of time?
	Why would they just give me the money and say, buy all the weapons you want, do all the evil that you want.
	That's the state where it's not voluntary, not a free society where people can recognize these risks in advance and put checks and balances as in...
	He can promise not to and then change his mind.
	That's one scenario.
	The other scenario is that he's already a mafia guy committed to predation.
	And he has plenty of money to buy the tanks before any customers come to him.
	So you have to deal with these scenarios.
	This is my next question.
	Don't you have to deal with these scenarios if you want to be a responsible anarchist?
	Don't you have to have an answer when people present plausible situations that are not preposterous and can obviously happen?
	Don't you have to have an answer before you take a risk with a new system or a new experimental political system?
	Well, I do have an answer, but there's not much point coming up with answers if people aren't listening, so... No, no, I'm... 60 seconds.
	Your answer was that the mafia guy would not predate on weaker people, that there would never be disagreements, that even if there were, there would be disagreements, but nobody would ever, you try to use force to impose their will.
	No, no, I said no organizations.
	No organizations, right.
	And because you think they're going to lose What if the guy from the security agency, DRO, is accused of murder?
	He thinks he's innocent, but he doesn't want to take a chance.
	And the other agency tries to take custody of him and then he retaliates with force.
	Will the first agency retaliate?
	What about a Christian president who invades foreign nations with no repercussions whatsoever and causes the deaths of over a million people?
	What about that as a scenario that's actually happening rather than some future fictional scenario that will never happen?

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