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Without some government the Bad Guys will be the only ones with anything. It is only with the threat of losing their power that leaders do good. If they had no power which could be lost or taken they will always do what's best for them in the short term, which is usually to shit on the peons. Dictators (like Pinochet and Gates) do their dirty deeds because they feel no need to placate the masses.

If they wield no real power, and proceed to do whatever is best for them in the short term, they will be screwing themselves over in the long term (or short term, if doing what they want results in someone shooting them in self defense).

I re-read my original sentence and it seems that your interpretation is possible. I would like to clarify that the power I refer to is only that part of their power which might be lost or threatened. Clearly if they have no power they can't lose it. I want to say that if some or all of their power could be placed in jeopardy they would tend to better behaved. Why do you suppose Clinton spent so much time licking everybodys' boots and repeatedly embellishing his "apologies" to the "public".

And precisely what dirty deeds has Mr. Gates ever done? Excluding those actions in which the judicious use of state regulation was involved.

You obviously think that anything goes in business. Frankly Gates is a perfect example of why you anarcho-BS is doomed to failure. He will do anything (and has) he can to be the only player in every market he touches. He has destroyed otherwise perfectly good businesses and products just to increase his profits. He has violated workers rights to increase his profit. In short he has demonstrated that if you let him murder wouldn't be to far a step to reach his goals. He is the monster that proves that your ideas are actually very very old (caveman days) and are doomed by progress and civilization. Injecting capitalism (investment oriented markets) into barbarism doesn't change the fact that it is still barbarism, which in facts negates the ability to have investment oriented markets, or capitalism. Who would invest if someone with a gun could come and take it without out fear of retribution.

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This anarcho-capitalist spew is so much crap that the bullshit indicators are blaring at top volume. If the people can't control a constitutional government, known for having peacefully free elections for over two hundred years, then how the hell do think you can convince somebody that the people are going to be able to control warlords and monopolies. It's called, "You don't like it? Bang, Bang, you're dead!"

Yah, and then somebody else points a gun at Mr. would-be warlord and goes Bang, Bang, he's dead (it's unsafe having warlords about --sorta like scorpions). That is, if Mr. would-be manages to shoot me without being shot himself.

And so everybody's so busy shooting each other that nobody is investing, and I have to ask, "What happened to the capitalism part of anarcho-capitalism?"

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Try to lift yourself out of the bullshit of your theory and give us at least one REAL example (current or historic) of a large scale, long lasting anarcho-capitalist society. Hippie communes are too small, and make sure it's capitalistic. If you can't think of one in the next year or so then come back and tell us.

It hasn't happened yet. But then, neither had the USA, before 1776. The above is not a reasonable argument.

WRONG!!!! Parliaments and representative governments did exist in somewhat other forms. 1776 was NOT a revolution it was evolution. It comes from among other things the Magna Carta of England as well as many other concepts astutely compiled by the "forefathers". Your propositions emanate from a basis which existed before there were nations and well before investment and economic development began. In fact, anarchy had to be overcome before consistent development could occur. Once we organized our societies and brought long (relatively) periods of peace to the general populace economic and scientific development began to grow. Certainly you will find it impossible to site any anarchic or nearly anarchic "society" (oxymoron) which has brought sustained significant development.

You can, of course, as me how it *could* happen. And unfortunately, you're partially correct, it couldn't happen under current conditions. The amount of personal firepower that is easily accessible by everyone is not sufficient to back up the soverignity of each individual. It's all linked to whether weapons technology is such that individuals can operate weapons which are just as effective as those wielded by highly trained and specialized groups. The pendulum of weapons tech. swings back and forth over time. During the American Revolution, the pendulum was on the side of individuals, as can be shown by the fact that the revolutionaries were carrying better weapons than those carried by professional soldiers, and could use them to equal or larger effect.

You whole thesis is based on violence, the exact opposite of what's required for sustained economic growth. You lose! Consistently wrong answers. You just don't get it. War does not produce wide spread economic growth in those zones affected by the war. It destroys the infrastructure that only an organized government is capable of maintaining. Granted, if you can be the one selling the weapons you might profit for a while. But eventually, those same weapons will be turned on you. The real answer is to keep the government focused on keeping the peace and maintaining the infrastructures using as light a hand as possible--which is never going to be an easy task. But no government is NO GROWTH. The libertarians have at least part of the equation correct. They go a little too far to one extreme. But this is good, they're mostly just extreme enough to pull a wondering government back into the middle where it should be. Your anarcho-spew is rubbish, poorly thought out, and without any real validation. I bet most of the most fervent defenders of gun ownership on this list actually hope never to have to make use of their tunnels, guns, and survival rations. War is simply not good economics, and anarchy is war--constant, festering, sometimes small scale, sometimes large scale, but always war. APF