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Schools of Thought in Classical Liberalism, Part 6: Anarcho-Capitalism - YouTube
Channel: Learn Liberty
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So now we鈥檙e going to look at Murray Rothbard,
David Friedman, and anarcho-capitalism.
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Murray Rothbard, famous for lots of things
but particularly his book For a New Liberty.
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David Friedman, who鈥檚 Milton Friedman鈥檚
son, wrote a book called The Machinery of
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Freedom.
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As far as the first thing to say is that when
people hear anarchism they tend to think of
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ideas as being on the left and in some sense
collectivist.
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But there is a school of thought within classical
liberal thought who are anarchists who base
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their ideas on capitalism.
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That鈥檚 what we鈥檙e going to have a look
at.
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Murray Rothbard, he defended his position,
he based it on this idea of natural rights.
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In that sense, similar to Rand and Nozick
and other believers in it.
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But he was also strongly influenced by Mises,
and he developed what he called the noncoercive
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axiom, the noncoercive truth.
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It is always wrong to use force except in
self-defense.
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It鈥檚 always wrong to use violence except
if you鈥檙e protecting yourself against somebody
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who鈥檚 trying to use violence against yourself.
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He says that鈥檚 the principle we should use
to establish what government should do.
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David Friedman, from a different point of
view, he very much follows the same methodology
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of his father: Chicago鈥檚 school of empirical
analysis.
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He says, we answer this question by comparing
what鈥檚 the relative efficiency of leaving
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things to the market and what鈥檚 the relative
efficiency of leaving it to the government.
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Two very different sorts of methodologies,
one clearly based on natural rights; one clearly
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based on consequences.
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Why do they think the government should be
limited?
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In fact they go beyond that; they believe
there should be no state at all.
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Well that raises the question then, what is
a state?
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The classic definition of a state comes from
Max Weber, the German sociologist.
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A state is an institution which claims a monopoly
of a legitimate use of force over a given
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territory.
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So within a society that a government covers,
nobody else is allowed to use force.
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Only the government should be allowed to use
force.
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Rothbard criticized this because he said what
governments do?
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They violate our rights.
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They obtain what they want through coercive
means.
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If we don鈥檛 do what the government wants,
they will throw us in prison.
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So for example, he says that taxation is theft.
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If somebody came along and took 25 percent,
40 percent of our income and said if you don鈥檛
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give it to me I鈥檓 going to put you behind
a jail, we would call that person a thief,
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a criminal.
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Rothbard says, why do we behave any differently
when it鈥檚 the state that comes along and
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says it wants to take 25 percent and 50 percent
of our income?
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It is the state is simply a criminal which
is violating our rights.
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David Friedman, taking this efficiency approach,
he says the state is inevitably inefficient.
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All right, we carry out the empirical approach;
we measure government efficiency versus market
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efficiency.
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He concludes the market is always more efficient
than government.
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Whereas his father, Milton Friedman saw there
was some circumstances where that wasn鈥檛
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true, he argues empirically, it鈥檚 always
true.
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Even things that most people assume that only
the government can do, like defense or provision
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of roads, David Friedman argues, actually
the market can provide these things most efficiently.
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This is what he argues in his book, The Machinery
of Freedom.
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So they conclude that the best society is
one of anarchy, one without any government
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at all.
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So government is both illegitimate鈥攊t has
no specific moral claim on us than any other
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single individual.
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And it鈥檚 also inefficient鈥攊t cannot provide
more efficiently the goods and services that
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the market is able to provide.
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An alternative exists.
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We tend to forget, for example, that there
are more people employed in the private security
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sector than employed by the police force.
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Most people are protected by private institutions
not the police.
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We just tend to ignore that.
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We ignore the fact that many disputes between
businesses don鈥檛 go to our state courts.
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In fact, many business disputes are settled
in private arbitration courts because state
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courts are so slow; they鈥檙e so inefficient;
they鈥檙e so unreliable.
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Many businesses will prefer to use private
arbitration agencies to do this.
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So they think that the other alternatives
to the state provide these goods, and they
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also argue, all right, suppose we do believe
in something like a minimal state.
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If you create a minimal state, it will never
stay minimal.
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It will be unstable.
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And it will either have to go in one direction,
which is the most likely: It will start as
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a minimal state and then it will grow and
it will grow and it will grow and it will
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grow, or鈥攖his is what they favor鈥攍et鈥檚
go to anarchism of having no state whatsoever.
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