Oddbean

▲ ▼

 I think this is true. But the problem is even worse than this. I think things like anarcho-capitalism are basically a kind of neo-feudalism that is obsessed with self-justifying itself around a conception of property rights maximalism that claims to be libertarians on a first principles basis, while only paying attention to initial conditions and then falling back into a cold transactional logic from there.

▲ ▼

 Well at least we agree that anarcho-capitalists don't have realistic ideas.

This might shock you, given my presumptions about your presumptions about me, but I'm even in favor of forcing people to wear masks or stay indoors if they are transmitting a deadly disease. You can't come to that idea from anarcho-capitalism. But you CAN come to it from the ground up, you don't have to reach it from the top down.

▲ ▼

 But I'm not trying to reach it from the top down. I don't know what you're insisting on a directionality. Individual and collective interests can be in tension with each other, and the maxima of the latter seems to be highly contingent on some concept of the former. As demonstrated by collective action problems (see: tragedy of the commons, uncaptured negative exterbalities, incentive structures for non-violent dispute resolutions like rule-of-law).

▲ ▼

 *externalities