John Kelsey wrote:
This is the core question: What happens when the anarchocapitalist society and the aggressive authoritarian one have similar technology levels? [...] If one side is organized as several hundred independent, overlapping protection agencies, some with mutual defense treaties, others without them, while the other is organized as a centralized army, it looks to me like the centralized forces have huge advantages.
Let's take a look at some historical examples. 1. Switzerland during WWII. While other more centralized nations were easy pickings for the Nazis, the tiny Swiss nation managed to retain its freedom and independence as a small island of freedom in a sea of fascism. Several factors entered into this, including the Swiss willingness to fight to the bitter end and their long policy of strict neutrality; but one oft-overlooked advantage the Swiss had was their loose confederation and lack of strong central control. Your average Swiss citizen doesn't even know who the Swiss president is; it's just not that important of a position. Whereas other countries gave in to the Nazis without firing a shot when the governmental leaders capitulated and ordered a surrender, in the case of Switzerland there really wasn't anybody with the authority to surrender the country... and the fiercely independent Swiss would have disobeyed any orders to surrender, anyway. (For example, at one point there was some concern among the junior officers in the Swiss military that their higher-ups might be considering capitulation. They formed an organization among themselves with the intention of offing their senior officers and taking over command should any form of surrender be attempted.) As a result, although Hitler made it clear that he loathed Switzerland, and repeatedly had plans drawn up for its invasion, there were always easier targets and other pressing matters to be taken care of first. In the meantime, the Swiss observed the German's military tactics and modified their own defense strategy accordingly. The Swiss maintained their freedom not because they had the military might to defeat Germany; they didn't. They stayed free because they ensured that the price for conquering them would be unacceptably high, and the gains unacceptably low. 2. Ireland and England circa 1100 A.D. Ireland was a lawful anarchy; England was more centralized. When the Normans invaded, it took them not much more than a month to conquer England. All they had to do was obtain the surrender of the appropriate authorities. As is often the case, the existing governmental apparatus was then used to administer the occupation. The conquest of Ireland took 300 years, and some say it was never really completed. Ireland didn't have any central authority that could surrender. The main form of societal organization was the tuath. The territory of a tuath was the sum of the lands of its members; people could and did change their affiliation from one tuath to another without moving their place of residence. The tuath "king" was a religious and military leader; he was not a ruler, and had no special powers to make law nor immunity from lawsuit. This system was an invader's nightmare. The invaders had to fight for every square inch of Ireland. Even when a tuath was apparently defeated, the tuath king could only surrender for himself, but not for the tuath members; they were free to join a different tuath. So effectively, the invaders had to obtain their surrenders one household at a time. 3. Somalia. The world's sole remaining superpower, whose military spending and might exceeds that of the next several contenders combined, was sent packing by the people of a destitute country lacking any significant industrial base and still recovering from a nasty civil war. The Somalis didn't have to defeat the invader to win; they just had to make remaining in Somalia too politically costly for the invader Clinton.