Reddit mentions of The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to a Radical Capitalism

Absolutely and the kindle version is 3 bucks on amazon http://amzn.com/B00LNDWWMW

> So to sum up. I'd love to read a contemporary (or very recent) work that has some convincing arguments for why capitalism without government is a desirable organisational structure for society.

To my knowledge there aren't any such works with much mathematical rigor to them. Its simply not a topic which is heavily studied or published on. The NHS is probably not in the habit of funding research into any sort of anarchy. The closest you'll get is probably The Machinery of Freedom, which is verbal arguments based on mainstream economics.

You'll have better luck finding rigorous arguments for specific institutions ancaps tend to favor. In his price theory textbook, Friedman makes some arguments in favor of ancap styles of justice using standard micro models. There's a lot published on cryptocurrencies, and Augur has some formal models of some of its mechanisms. There's also literature published on free banking and the voluntary funding of public goods. I have some ideas on the latter, but I've unfortunately forgotten most of the math I learned in uni.

Its really just a matter of incentives; specific institutions can produce larger private gains and thus are more heavily researched. Ultimately ancap would be an experiment.

For why to avoid Austrian econ (mostly the mises.org sort), see Caplan's essay: http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/bcaplan/whyaust.htm

You might find this book interesting. Only $2.99 on Kindle and definitely worth the price.

It talks about the ideas of anarcho-capitalism including privatizing police and national defense.

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00LNDWWMW/ref=oh_aui_d_detailpage_o00_?ie=UTF8&psc=1

> But let's say you can make people more empathetic throughout childhood, what do we do until then?

What we do then is what we would do in the "more empathetic" future. We try and reach out to people to show them that whether they want to help other people or not, forcing them to do it is not ethical, nor has it been shown to be economically efficient and beneficial long term. This is the whole point libertarians are trying to make.

>Things like the FDA (which I strongly believe privatization would bring about a shit ton of corruption),

The FDA is very corrupt itself. From not approving proven drugs to go on the market leading to the premature deaths of millions over the years, to allowing rat feces in your food, to letting millions of pounds of tainted beef go on sale every year, to other things down the years. The FDA, like every other government agency, has no incentive to do right by the consumer because it cannot be fired or lose business. It is far more lucrative to take the bribe money from big corporations.

>Let's not forget all the useful public services that our taxes pay for, and that EVERYONE benefits from:

All of which could be funded privately. There is nothing special about government doing it, other than introducing waste, lack of accountability, and shitty service due to lack of competition and profit motive. I won't hit all your examples but:

>Public schools

Laugh. Cmon now, let's be honest. The US government spends more than 2x per student than Western counterparts and has far worse results. The US government has kids for TWELVE years and they come out without skills and employer would find valuable. On top of that, the kids get an overwhelming dose of "don't worry, everything would be worse without the government, just trust us and pretend paying taxes is commendable." Public school suffers the same downfalls as the FDA - no competition, hard to fire poor teachers, teachers get paid by parents (taxes), not based on any performance. The reason I don't consider private school to be a competitor to public schools is because you STILL have to pay for public school, even if you don't use it, which makes private school off limits to many people who would prefer it.

>Roads

Ahh yes, the argument of choice. Roads are one of the government's biggest failures. A road should be economically productive. It should connect residences to places of business, to offices, to cultural centers, and the like. Transactions of value should be made BECAUSE the road is there to connect people. Thus, the road has economic benefit to both consumers and businesses, and so could be privately funded in many ways. (note there are many private roads in the US to begin with).

The failure is that the government took a ton of money and built a whole bunch of roads nobody needed, and that were NOT economically productive. Now they decay and cost a ton of money to upkeep. What has this road system spawned in part? Car culture, oil dependence, suburban sprawl, long ass commutes, and other problems.

>I'd much rather live in a society where my safety nets are guaranteed than one where I have to hope someone will be kind enough to help me out should I need it.

Tell that to every young person who is paying social security to the old (a massive transfer of wealth from the young, at the early stages of their career, to the old, who had decades of prosperity and couldn't be bothered to save any of it), and knows that it most likely won't be around for them when they get to retirement age.

> I'd rather know that the police is there if I need them and that I don't have to pay out the ass for someone to put out my house if it's on fire like I do if I need to go to the emergency room.

Look up police clearance rates where you live. The police have an abysmal track record of solving crimes. Plus, if they do solve the crime, our justice system doesn't recompense you in any way. In fact, if you are the victim of an awful crime such as rape or attempted murder, you then get to PAY to lock up the person for life! Insult to injury!

>I don't have to pay out the ass for someone to put out my house if it's on fire

Ever hear of ya know, insurance? There are free market solutions available. Thankfully, and it is to be commended, many fire departments are already volunteer!

>like I do if I need to go to the emergency room

Well the government can be blamed for that fiasco as well.

>I believe that the government is inefficient and there is a lot of corruption, but I think there's a lot of good there too and I don't want to live in a society without it, personally.

If the good things are police services and schools, which can be had in a private, competitive fashion where people can choose the service that suits them best, and the bad things are being forced to pay for a war complex that endangers you and your children, kills millions of people, locks up peaceful people for victimless crimes at your expense, and throws us and future generations into incredible debt, which could NOT be had without a central government, why do you ere on the side of the killing machine?

>Who makes the laws? Who ensures that people aren't harmed? Who protects consumers?

The Machinery of Freedom

>You can privatize all of those things, but it seems really impractical, and prepare for them to be bought off even more than they are now.

The government is already bought off, and there is no alternative to choose from. With companies competing to provide you with defense/police/arbitration services, there is economic incentive to please the customer, or lose business. That is a very powerful factor that is absent in government monopoly.

>I don't think that corruption and greed are ever going to disappear, no matter how well we rear our children.

I agree completely. It is exactly BECAUSE I agree with this that I cannot abide handing control of trillions of dollars of forcibly extorted income, nuclear weapons, the biggest military on earth, and the fate of the future, to ~600 politicians and a few hundred appointed officials. Decentralize the power, and we will all be safer and have more control over our lives.

You've got me convinced. Also, Machinery of Freedom. It's must read material if you haven't read it already.

You might find my Machinery of Freedom useful. The Second edition is a free pdf, the third a very inexpensive kindle.

What does r/Badecon think of David Friedman (guy who wrote this, Milton's son)?

You can read one libertarian's concept of a government free society in David Friedman's The Machinery of Freedom.

In it he details how the free market could provide every service provided by the government today.

Road and bridge financing is simply a matter of all roads and bridges being privately owned toll roads (city roads would likely form a co-op type company so multiple owners could share the city's roads not unlike the roads owned by housing associations). Wall Street has provided trillions of dollars in business investment funding, and they have no issues with enormous projects (so long as there's a reasonable expectation for a corresponding profit).

Fire departments could be handled via insurance (buyers receive fire department services while others don't).

Police and legal services are handled by private contracts, which handle disputes with each other or each other's clients via mediation.

There are already a number of private schools, run by for-profit and non-profit organizations, is there something about them that seems difficult to imagine why they would need to change?