The business cycle applied to politics...

Had to post again...I felt compelled to after having another discussion about a stateless society and hearing the same nonsense in response.

What I'm referring to is the typical debate tactics:
Me: We should have a stateless society; meaning a society without a government.  People should be free as long as they respect property rights (don't hurt anyone and don't steal).
My debater: Then we'd have chaos and everyone would killing each other.

This is the typical response.  Chaos.

There's two things wrong with this response.

1. In response to the rule that 'killing and stealing is morally wrong', they immediately break those rules to invalidate the rules.  It would be analogous to respond to a statement like 'People shouldn't smoke because it causes cancer' with 'That statement cannot be adopted because if it was true, people would start smoking." This is a purely emotional response with absolutely no intellectual merit whatsoever.

2. The second thing that is wrong with this response is the fact that people draw upon some sort of experience or story in the news where governments have collapsed and the aftermath of chaos is somehow associated with the 'absence of government.'  This is how most people frame the term 'anarchy.'  There's a problem with how this word is framed and ultimately defined.

Many libertarians from the Goldwater-Republicans to the minarchists tend to build this kind of defense to the idea of anarchy.  I find that very interesting because many of these people understand the Austrian Business Cycle Theory.  They know the bust is not the result of the failures of capitalism but the failures of socialism.  It is the result of distorting the free market in the first place.

Similarly, the chaos the inevitably ensues after a government is toppled or collapses is not the result of anarchy.  It is the result of the preceding government existing - usually some sort of totalitarianism.  The size of government has grown so big and so many people have grown dependent on it that once it is taken away suddenly, there is an acute reaction.

The effects are very similar to a drug addict who has grown a tolerance and keeps upping the dosage.  Is it not untrue to point out that taking drugs is not the right thing to do if you want to be healthy?  If the drug addict suddenly stops taking drugs and experiences extreme withdrawal symptoms, does that invalidate the maxim of not taking drugs?  If he says, 'See??? See what happens when you stop taking drugs?'  Is this a valid argument?  Is the cessation of drugs responsible for the withdrawal symptoms or the drugs themselves responsible?

Just like the economic busts are not the result of capitalism, the resulting chaos is not the result of anarchy.