Danny Popkin writes:

...

Rather, the problem with AP is that it is mob rule at its worst.

Worse than the secret ballot?

Much worse. With a secret ballot you need to get a majority to support any particular position. That's a significant hurdle to overcome. But with AP any small group of people that can put up enough money to hire an assassin can get their way. The going rate for a murder is around $5-10K to off an average person, more if he's heavily guarded. If 100 people put up $100 each then that's enough to get someone killed. Imagine a secret ballot where any measure to increase government power would pass if it received as few as 100 votes. How much freedom would you have left in such a society? That's what AP represents. And keep in mind that the people buying the assassination are fully anonymous. There is no way to know who is funding the AP market. There is no check or limit on the extent to which anonymous individuals with private grievances can buy the deaths of anyone who gets in their way. The only good thing about this situation is that it would encourage everyone to go anonymous post haste. We would see a rapid change in society to allow anonymous business transactions, corporate ownership, stock transactions. Insider trading laws would become unenforceable. Board members would meet only electronically, spending their time barricaded inside their mansions. Even elective office would change. You'll walk into the ballot box to vote for your government officials from a list of nyms who meet only on the net. Police forces, heavily armed and always travelling in teams, will receive their orders via encrypted, digitally signed messages from elected officials. Any government official who must interact with the public, whether a building inspector, a drivers' license examiner, even a fireman, would get hazardous duty pay. Wearing masks might become routine for such officials. Taxes (much higher than before due to the greater expenses of operating the government) could be charged based on imputed property values depending on zip code and acreage. Everyone in a particular neighborhood would be charged a fixed amount per square foot. Any household which does not provide the required fee (via cryptographic anonymous transfer into the government account of course) would have its property subject to confiscation by police. Armed resistance would be met by military force including helicopter gunships. We can live in a world of crypto anarchy, but it won't be pretty. And the government certainly won't wither away. Anyone who thinks that attacking the government will weaken it should have learned a lesson from September 11th. When it feels itself under attack, the government strikes back. We are all the losers as our freedoms are destroyed.