A Spontaneous Order: The Capitalist Case For A Stateless Society

by Christopher Chase Rachels, Mattheus Von Guttenberg (Editor), N. Stephan Kinsella (Foreword)

A Spontaneous The Capitalist Case for a Stateless Society is an astonishingly concise, rigorous, and accessible presentation of anarcho-capitalist ideals. It covers a wide range of topics Money and Banking, Monopolies and Cartels, Insurance, Health Care, Law, Security, Poverty, Education, Environmentalism, and more! To enjoy this compelling read requires no previous political, philosophical, or economic knowledge as all uncommon concepts are defined and explained in a simple yet uncompromising manner. Take heed, this work is liable to cause radical paradigm shifts in your understanding of both the State and Free Market.

Genres: Economics, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Politics

581 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 8, 2015

Reviews

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author addresses, and completely destroys, every argument raised by statists against the ability of a stateless society to deal with it's problems. Chapter after chapter, the case for liberty rather than state tyranny is effectively made. Roads? No problem. Defense and Security? Covered. The Environment? Much cleaner. Money and Banking? Private, without bubbles or inflation. Whether you're a convinced anarchist looking for specific arguments to share, or just troubled by state power and looking for an alterntive, this book is a very good read.

[Terrence D. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pretty much all the usual objections to a Stateless society are answered herein and so I recommend this book as a reference tool for future discussions on this topic. Usually said objections revolve around the presumptive practical implications of having no State, and not so much the underlying principles of Statelessness, and so Christopher Rachels not only gives the reader a principled answer, he likewise discusses the superior practical implications of Statelessness.

This book is far from any sort of presentation of a utopia; on the contrary, it refutes the delusions of Hobbesian statism that are so prevalent today — the idea that the only perfect society is one under the authority of a sovereign Leviathan.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

If we want to understand our world, we must understand free market capitalism: the world’s dominant economic system. But how can we understand a system we are fully indoctrinated into? It seeps into every corner of our reality — even our identity! We define ourselves in opposition to alternatives like communism or tribalism, which now seem ruinous or unsustainable. This makes us blind to our ideals in the same way that fish are blind to water. So in order to achieve the comprehension we seek, we’ll have to dive deeper. Let’s see where capitalism takes us when pushed to its logical extreme. Imagine a society so fully devoted to free market ideals that all forms of government are abandoned, private ownership is sacrosanct, and the solution to every problem is competition and profiteering. Do we want to live in the deep end? The answer will determine a surprising number of our major life decisions.

In this book, Rachels attempts to demonstrate how capitalism can solve every social problem if it were not impeded by government interference. He draws heavily from the works of other libertarian/anarcho-capitalist philosophers (including very long quotations), but to his credit, Rachels reaches beyond philosophy to conceive detailed practicalities. In his anarchic, libertarian utopia, we’d be free from state oppression, wealthier, safer, and even environmentally cleaner.

”End the State. Free the Market. Liberate your Mind.”

We’d pay no tax, suffer no state-sponsored indoctrination, and eliminate bureaucracy. Instead, we’d pay corporations for our transportation networks, educate our children according to our whims, settle disputes through competing arbitration agencies, and entrust our defense to private security firms (including our nuclear arsenal). All these companies would remain environmentally responsible, not because their goals are aligned with nature, but because pollution of someone else’s property would incur financial liability.

Of course, this is just a thought experiment, as no large-scale state-free capitalist society has ever existed. To me, that fact is a major rebuttal, because we’ve been working with capitalism for at least four centuries. If it was the answer to all our problems, wouldn’t they be solved by now? Nevermind the overwhelming challenges of tearing down the government, building private agencies to replace it, and avoiding corporate dystopias depicted in films like “Bladerunner” and “WALL-E”. Even if it worked, do we really want to live in a world founded on the concept of ownership and focused entirely on personal/corporate profit? We hominins are natural creatures, and it’s true that our ecology is constructed of competing self-interests, but it’s also made of collaborative networks, even some that are rigidly enforced: like the human body itself for example (cellular anarchy in the body is called cancer). More cooperation means less individual freedom, but a sole focus on individual liberty leaves us isolated. Perhaps the key to this dichotomy is identity itself. Are we solitary individuals, or part of something bigger?

For me, this book was a valuable Reductio ad absurdum ("reduction to the absurd”: a premise taken to its logical extreme to demonstrate its folly). I appreciate the honest, well-intentioned vision of the author, but he has helped me see that this is not an ideology I will support.

[Munthir Mahir · Rating 1 out of 5]

First off the book has an extensive section in the beginning that frames the book's subject and objective in a philosophical and semantic - more specific epistemology and praxeology. Besides almost putting me off reading the book because the prose used in this section was heavy and unsmooth, it turned out totally irrelevant subsequent content and subject; the author neither applied the philosophical rules he set out to establish in the beginning nor did he provided the basis in the following chapters where the reader can apply these rules. The author in all his arguments in the book based his conclusions and recommendations (based on purely opinionated views that are not based or empirical data) on what he felt should work as a stand in for the socialist and capitalist systems. One can ignore the fact and assume that it is a thought experiment or theoretical proposition; however, many of his premises and arguments are based on assumptions that are proven to create the same problems he identifies in the socialist and capitalist systems. For instance, he proposes that his Capitalist Anarchy system should be based on pure demand and supply interactions which is fine as this is part of his proposed hybrid system; however, that this premise should magically produce different governing outcomes and dynamics just because we exclude political institutions is bordering absurdity. For one it can be argued at minimum the resulting outcome is unknown for lack of empirical data. Second the author fails to recognize that political institutions (not limited to the institutions we recognize and identify today) were created as a response to the complications arising with demand and supply systems that have grown in size. The author does imply (I'm not sure intentionally or not) that diverse, varying and numerous demand and supply systems will balance themselves out avoiding the need for central governing, but again that historically has been proven inaccurate for natural systems move towards greater efficiency and order - peacefully or otherwise. And the more a society grows the more governing is required to maintain order and check opportunists. The author also makes provision for decentralized governing bodies that serve constrained or downsized supply and demand systems, but that only proves that centralized governing bodies are a necessity and that efficiency cannot be achieved without scale, that is large supply and demand systems. Fundamentally, his proposition does not solve the problem of fair access to supply and demand factors.

[Jaxson · Rating 5 out of 5]

"A Spontaneous Order," is a great introduction to libertarian and anarcho-capitalistic ideas, because it pertains mostly to the political theory, without going off on any moral tangents. Although the first chapter was fairly choppy and hard to read, I still found some of the information useful while reading the rest of the book. Rachels does a great job of leaving personal feelings out, while providing clear and concise logic. Many of the books he recommended, written by others on the same topic, I had already read and attained a testimony of their excellence. This further boosted Rachels' credibility in my eyes. I read this book with hopes that it would help me concentrate my beliefs, and give me even more evidence to back up my opinions. This was achieved on both accounts.

[Shenanitims · Rating 2 out of 5]

Don't let the two stars confuse you, this book is hilarious. Sadly, it wasn't billed as such.

Stateless medical care? The market will handle it! With lodges! Eventually, one assumes, we'll move back (down) to the good old days where your barber will give you a trim while releasing the demons from your veins and thus healthing you.

Sound unsafe? Don't worry, there's the market for that! Your barber will be mortified of getting a bad review! Who wants the village to know that they're a great barber, but not so hot a doctor? The author misses the obvious answer to the free market (Yelp! sponsored) solution to medical training: that being you can't warn others if you're dead.

[Zane · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good beginner book on what a theoretical anarcho-capitalist society would look like. Mr. Rachels covers a lot of ground and the individual topics are probably best left to other works that deal with them specifically. However, as a broad overview, this book excels. I would recommend this book to anybody who is interested in the idea of a stateless society with no experience in the topic.

[Dylan Arthur · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent introduction to libertarian thought. The author is clearly very well-read, and gives many citations in each section so that the reader can explore these ideas further. There are not many original ideas however, which is why I can't give it 5 stars. The book can be approached like a cliffs notes version of libertarian ideas; an excellent guide to further study.

[Nate BeDell · Rating 1 out of 5]

I will say, this book's very first chapter made me do a political 180 and turn away from (right-wing) libertarianism entirely. "Praxeology" is nonsense, and I think the author demonstrated that very clearly.

Regardless, as I don't actually think that was the author's intention, this gets one star from me.

[Igor jacinto · Rating 5 out of 5]

i hope that this doesn't put me in a list 👀

[Daniel Moss · Rating 5 out of 5]

While it's true we can never know exactly how the free market will come to deal with man of the concerns that seem to give need for a coercive monopoly (i.e., government)... This book does an amazing job filling in some of the intellectual gaps that exist. When the reader comes to understand the basic function of the marketplace, the fact that trade is win-win, that businesses by default must channel their energy and scarce resources towards ends that increase consumer happiness. And when the reader begins to understand all the perverse ways in which the state incentivizes all the most unappealing behaviors (theft, aggression, "money in politics", greed, fraud, etc...)- it becomes obvious that even though, just like we could never have predicted the advent of Uber when Henry Ford began putting stagecoach companies out of business, we can't foretell with 100% accuracy the ways in which society would spontaneously construct itself, we have great reason to believe that not only would society be richer, but it would be safer, and more just.

[Damion Paul Hart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great concepts.
* if you have capital or land /s

[Marcus Christianson · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is basically how market fundamentalists dismiss all other micro and macroeconomics. Can’t believe I liked this once. Read actual economics as opposed to ideology.