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RE: 10 Misconceptions About Anarchists
You've got it backwards. Humans become less civilized when governments becomes more powerful. Most just give themselves a moral pass on the violence because they're one step removed via taxation(theft). Governments, funded by their own people, are always responsible for the most atrocious, immoral acts. Pearl Harbor is a great example. History is filled with hundreds more.
Haha, I guess it is true that people become less civilized with the growth of government. I agree with much of anarchism in ideals, but I don't think it is possible to implement currently due to the nature of human greed, the corruption of current governments, and the ROI of aggression.
Until we have a crowdsourced and crowdfunded decentralized blockchain based trustless system of laws on a Martian colony, government is inevitable. It's just the biggest gang that takes control. No matter how much you believe in anarchism personally, that doesn't stop someone else from forming a government to assert their influence onto others.
The ROI on aggression is far less than it is with voluntary exchange. Aggression creates win-lose situations; voluntary exchanges are win-win. People are naturally incentivized to engage in voluntary exchange whenever it is less burdensome than plunder. Plunder is unsustainable long term because your victims grow resentful and unproductive. By contrast, environments where people keep what they earn fosters productivity and happiness. The delusion that some people should be able to force other people to pay them for no other reason than that they call themselves government is what makes plunder less burdensome at present. So not only is government not inevitable, it's just an "emperor has no clothes" moment or two away from disappearing from the world completely. "Government" is just a euphemism for men and women who force people to pay them. That's it. Nothing more. No magic to it. Calling the reemergence of government inevitable would be a self fulfilling prophecy. History isn't going to repeat itself forever. The existence of the internet should be proof enough of that
What you say is true in the long run future if we don't destroy ourselves first. There are very strong incentives for the corrupt elites to stay in control currently, and not only that, billions of people still suffer everyday. I can see an anarcho-capitalist society working inside the microcosm of Silicon Valley and other hubs of technology, but when people have to steal to feed their children and have absolutely nothing to trade in war torn countries, you can't just magically set up an anarcho-capitalist society and make people magically happy. I can see this as a long run goal to strive towards, but it's ineffective as a short run solution. Also, take a look at the prisoner's dilemma: in most cases, in win-lose scenarios, the winner wins more than in win-win situations.
You aren't explaining anything that I didn't already know. I'm very much in favor of anarcho-capitalism, but I also recognize that there are many obstacles to overcome to make such a society even remotely possible. Everyone would need to receive some sort of basic income to root out survival instincts before we can even ponder it. Humans have evolved for survival, not accurate perception of reality. Most people don't do what's optimal for humanity in the long run; they do what they perceive as the most important thing to survive into the next moment. It's like the Stanford Marshmallow experiment: people would rather receive 1 unit of reward now rather than 2 units after waiting for 15 minutes. Most humans don't understand the concept of delayed gratification, and that is the root of many problems today. Strong preference of delayed gratification + basic income are necessary in the majority of the population before we could fully get rid of government. Currently, low IQ people reproduce far more than high IQ people, so there are some high obstacles if you want to get to a completely decentralized and free society.
The problem with most anarchists is that they only focus on spreading the theoretical news of positives without tackling the hard problems of how to actually get from our current system to there. You can't wish the current power structures away; you will have to take action to incentivize it to evolve in the right direction.