I am leaning anarcho-capitalist; not because anarcho-capitalism works better (consequentialism, utilitarianism), but because I believe coercion is problematic, even "for the greater good" (deontology).

I am also a member of Chabad, so wherever Chabad view of Jewish law and/or philosophy conflicts with anarcho-capitalism, anarcho-capitalism looses.

The question is: what are the contradictions between Judaism and anarcho-capitalism?

To get to that, we need to know what anarcho-capitalism is. I am not a scholar of political philosophy, but in short: no government at all; people enter into contractual relationships voluntarily; contracts are enforced by services provided on the free market.

Sometimes I hear an arguments against my position: "when was anarcho-capitalism tried?" - with the implication that it won't work; sometimes, the argument is just "it's obvious that it won't work: people would just kill one another!".

Well, 250 years ago American experiment was not yet tried; it did not mean that it won't work if tried. Besides, even if it was certain that anarcho-capitalism is worse than some other approach on a specific metric, I do not recognize this as an argument for validating coercion.

It seems that the people I talk about this do not even consider the deontological arguments; instead they immediately go into the consequentialist mode of discourse - and even that to remark that it is "obvious" to them that anarcho-capitalism "won't work".

[[TODO]]

  • reference Hobbes
  • reference Locke
  • reference Friedman
  • reference Huemer: Problem of Political Authority
  • reference - lehavdil - Likkutei Sichos 17 Avot 3:2