For the purpose of resolving the bet, by 2040 or earlier there should be at least one piece of land on Earth where governance is entirely decentralized, lacking any form of traditional government control for at least a year or more, including the following:
Absence of a centralized state apparatus that claims a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. There should be no single dominant governing body or institution that imposes laws, regulations, taxes, etc. on the population.
Widespread reliance on voluntary contractual agreements and private arbitration for resolving disputes and providing services typically associated with government. This includes privatized police, courts, infrastructure, etc.
A competitive market for security and defense services without a single dominant provider. There cannot be a monopoly or oligopoly on legitimate force - citizens should be able to choose from multiple competing providers.
Resistance or immunity to control by external state powers. The society is able to maintain autonomy and resist coercion or cooptation by neighboring states.
Circumscription of the territorial boundaries within which the free society order prevails. This avoids ambiguities about partially failed states or transitional territories. Clear geographical limits are defined.
Duration of the stateless order. The anarcho-capitalist society must exhibit stability and persistence over time, not just temporary disorder or chaos. A minimum time period for existence of such society is a year or more.
Functioning system of private property rights and rule of law. There should be widely accepted foundational rules regarding property ownership that are upheld through decentralized legal mechanisms.
Widespread participation in economic and social life through voluntary exchange. Markets for goods, services, capital, labor, insurance etc. should exhibit relatively free entry/exit and minimal barriers imposed by force.
The bet will be resolved as "yes" if a book or published academic paper authored by Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Norman Stephen Kinsella, David Graeber or another credible free society advocate:
Explicitly declares that a stateless free society has existed continuously for at least 1 year within clearly defined territorial boundaries.
Provides documented historical evidence for this society meeting the core characteristics of an anarcho-capitalist order.
Withstands substantive critique
Is corroborated by at least 2 other recognized experts in the field through independent analysis confirming the historical existence and anarcho-capitalist nature of this society.
Describes a society exhibiting stability, complexity and maturity consistent with an emergent anarcho-capitalist order, not just transient chaos or disorder.
Meets all other criteria for a credibly anarcho-capitalist society as elaborated in the initial response.
Related questions
@BrunoParga It is challenging to define precise criteria for a “free society” without government, since we didn't have one in the times of welfare states, so any opinions and input from people could be beneficial in formulating criteria that are fair and comprehensive.
@MichaelVoss we have had at least two stateless societies after welfare states came about: Somalia since the 90s and Haiti in the last couple years. Why doesn't these count?
Edit: also, I have literally provided you with tentative criteria (based on the absence of a monopoly on violence) and you've ignored that.
@MichaelVoss okay, now I see it.
Are you counting the 30+ years of statelessness in Somalia as "temporary disorder and chaos"?
@BrunoParga Somalia in its current state is not an example of a free anarcho-capitalist society. Here are some reasons why Somalia does not meet the criteria listed above:
The lack of centralized power and formal government does not imply a decentralized order. Somalia has chaos, violence, and conflict between clans and armed groups.
While there ARE private security providers, there is no competitive market for such services. Armed gangs and clan militias dominate.
Weak protection of property rights and rule of law. There is no applied and respected decentralized system for dispute resolution and compensation.
There is no widespread voluntary economic interaction between citizens. The economy is highly localized within individual clans.
In summary, although the state collapsed (as far as I know), Somalia has not yet transformed into a mature free society by most key criteria of a bet. That may change over time.
@BrunoParga I do not think the lack of an anarcho-capitalist society emerging in Somalia can be considered definitive evidence against ancapism. Somalia's long history of tribal/clan conflicts and rivalries predate recent state collapse. These traditional divisions likely undermine efforts to build a cohesive stateless order. The local culture and context matter greatly. Better to judge the idea by its merits than any one conflict-ridden example.
@MichaelVoss I use "evidence" in the Bayesian sense, where there's no such thing as definitive evidence.
All occasions we've seen so far in history have failed to get anywhere near the ancap utopia. To me, that (as well as other arguments such as the economic concept of market failures) is fairly strong evidence that, like communism before it, this utopia is simply impossible to happen in real life.
(Then there's the question if whether it is desirable, but that's a whole 'nother story.)
@BrunoParga I’d be still very happy to see this bet resolving as yes (who wouldn’t). But we will need a lot of changes mainly in people’s beliefs for that and that could take much longer time than 16 years.
@MichaelVoss the overwhelming majority of humanity would rather this resolve no.
And if I am right that ancapism is not only undesirable but impossible even if it were desirable, then people switching their beliefs to support it is a bad thing – it is bad when people support impossible things.
@BrunoParga I'm skeptical that you were truly convinced of anarcho-capitalism if you abandoned it solely due to lack of mainstream recognition. A sincere ancap would not discard the philosophy that easily if he really understood it.
While an anarcho-capitalist order faces implementation challenges, its core principles of voluntary cooperation, decentralization, and mutual respect for property rights appeal to many. The philosophy has inspired innovations like cryptocurrencies and blockchain governance models.
True adherents are drawn to the moral arguments against state coercion and the economic case for private, voluntary governance. These stand independent of public opinion.
If you had deeply studied thinkers like Rothbard, Hoppe, and Friedman, you'd understand the principled foundations underpinning ancapism that withstand skepticism.
Rather than reflexively rejecting a fringe idea, better to rationally assess it on merits. Ancaps raise thoughtful critiques of state power worth wresting with, whether one ultimately agrees or not.
If you cannot steelman the logic behind a stateless order, you probably never properly understood the philosophy in the first place. Your change of heart seems more akin to superficial association than conviction.
My brother in Mises, I'm one of the first 1500 people to move to New Hampshire for the Free State Project. Crypto owner since 2013. ETH preorderer. My credentials are impeccable; you simply cannot "No True Scotsman" me.
Thing is, one thing I held as more important than being an ancap, even before hearing of the ideology and while I believed in it and ever since, is being correct. I deeply understand its tenets, and I also understand that, while it is not a religion, it shares several things in common with them:
a logically inconsistent, not-reality-aligned promise of a world where everything is lovely and great;
a dense apparatus of canned responses to objections;
twisted epistemic procedures to discourage questioning;
the conviction that anyone who leaves was never a true believer to begin with.
That is not what a correct belief system looks like, and it is not for me.
@BrunoParga See, this just reinforces my suspicion. An interesting array of objections. You weren't handed a Utopia, and you, unfortunately, got let down. Meanwhile, I (and many here!) live in various dystopias - Ukrainian, Russian - and so what?
No one owes me anything, and I owe nothing to anyone.
We create our own life.
@MichaelVoss you mentioned steelmen. What do you think is the strongest argument is against ancapism being desirable?
Your criteria ("anarcho-capitalist principles") leaves a lot of room for interpretation. What historical societies would have met your definition? Medieval Iceland? Current Somalia? ( https://www.independent.org/pdf/working_papers/64_somalia.pdf )
@LoganTurner No widely recognized stateless territories exist today. In a successful scenario, people in these territories would live in an ungoverned state.
@MichaelVoss "recognized" as in diplomatic recognition? Or as in, most observers recognize the territory is stateless? I think most observers recognize that governance is stateless/decentralized in many parts of Somalia. E.g:
@PeterFavaloro How about the following:
To meet the criteria for a "yes," a place must evolve into an ungoverned and untaxed territory, characterized by private courts, private police, and resist invasion or control by any external or internal state. The essence is the establishment of a self-sufficient and stateless community free from conventional governance structures.
@MichaelVoss this doesn't really answer the question. Does Somalia fit this or not? Does Haiti?
Speaking as a former ancap and also someone who's worked with international law (which includes defining what states are), I am doubtful whether this market can ever be properly defined.
Maybe a path to a proper definition (by which I mean, one that would allow anyone who did enough research about the state of the world to resolve the market unambiguously) would be to use the definition of a state as the monopoly on the use of socially legitimized violence in a given territory. But I am not sure how robust this definition is – again it doesn't make it clear whether Somalia or Haiti fit or not.
Does the definition require a polypoly (one of my favorite words just based on how it sounds)? Does it merely require the absence of a monopoly? Can a situation exist where there is neither a monopoly nor a polypoly? (Nor an oligopoly, which I am not sure would fit well with ancap thought.)
Also, how does one circumscribe the relevant territory to apply the definition? To what extent does Somalia resemble the pre-Westphalia Holy Roman Empire, with all its postage stamp-sized principalities and enclaves and exclaves?
The lack of adequate answers to these questions is part of why I left ancapism.
@Mattfr To qualify for a "yes," the premise is that only territories currently under the governance of any state should transition to being ungoverned by any form of state or centralized authority by 2040.