The Coming Anarcho-Capitalist 21st Century and How We Get There

I see the 20^th century as the century of socialism & communism. Early on in 1917 we had the October Revolution in Russia and as the century went on the Soviet Union expanded and totalitarian state communism took root in China and Cuba among other places. Even in so called capitalist countries we have many socialistic institutions such as state welfare and socialised medicine. We already have seen the collapse of the Soviet Union and the collapse of increasingly unaffordable state socialised programs (such as have been mentioned) cannot be far off. Take the UK for example, the NHS has been in trouble for years with an ageing population and welfare payments continue to rise as the UK's 'benefit culture' has taken root and spawned a new social class. As idea's of stateless societies and anarcho-capitalism in particular begin to become more widespread this could be the century of anarchism! But we must think, how could such a thing come about?

Professor Walter Block talks about how when he first met Murray Rothbard in the 1960's they knew very few libertarians and now there are countless groups he's never even heard of. Anarcho-capitalism (as explained by Rothbard) is a new ideology that has grown from the roots of classical liberalism and a quick internet search will show you that this philosophy of (as it appears on lewrockwell.com) anti-state, anti-war, pro-market, is capturing the minds of many intelligent people young and old who are sick of state coercion, the military industrial complex and being told what to do with their own bodies.
 

With the communist revolutions in the 20^th century we saw many wars being fought. Violent revolution was considered by many the best way to affect change. But looking back we can all see the problems, for example after many such revolutions the thugs assume control of the new government and the intellectuals prominent at the start of the revolution are usually killed. But that aside, for the anarcho-capitalist such a violent revolution is not only against what we stand for (by being for peace and anti-war) but also it would be nigh on impossible for example if I amassed an army to take on the British army, even if my army were winning briefly then I would also have to face the might of the US and EU countries respective armies also. Basically a suicide mission from the start and you could bet that when my army was defeated it would give the government a great excuse to tighten control on the population at large. In this way we can see that violent revolution would actually take us further away from the goal.
 

We then stray into the argument that is political action. Many libertarians and anarchists are split on this matter. Some think that political action could dismantle government. We can see this with Adam Kokesh talking about running for US president in 2020 under the promise of an orderly dismantling of the government. I salute Adam for trying something audacious for freedom but I am sceptical that this type of action will produce the required effect. I personally think the best we can hope for by Kokesh standing in 2020 (if he does) is that more people are made aware of libertarianism and anarcho-capitalism.
 

My personal view is that we need a non-violent revolution and make no mistake, such revolutions have occurred. Like the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia or the peaceful revolution in the German Democratic Republic (there's an inaccurate name for you) that led to the fall of the Berlin wall. But unfortunately at this moment we are very far from such a revolution happening.
 

So what would it take for a peaceful, non-violent revolution to make us a stateless society? Well we need a shift in consciousness for a start. I am encouraged by the amount of people of various philosophies who have 'woken up' as we call it and the amount of people that we call awake is increasing rapidly. With the internet we are able to share ideas and develop philosophical, political and economic ideas in a way never seen on earth before – this is the first step. The second step is where I agree with Stefan Molyneux. Stefan has pointed out many times that by properly parenting our children we will give rise to the next generation who is unaffected by statist nonsense and can see through the psychological control of the mainstream media. Eventually, there will be a critical mass of people who are awake to the statist control and will simply not take it any longer.

By now you probably think “Well, dammit we won't see this in our lifetimes, why don't we just start throwing bombs?” My answer to that is that throwing bombs is what gave anarchists a bad name in the first place and that's why people like me and thousands of others are trying to reclaim the word. It also never got those people anywhere. I will not see a truly free and stateless society in my lifetime but I am not discouraged. The old statist elites have always thought in the long-term and many political ideologies crashed and burned because they wanted short-term success and failed to realise that the people in power are there because of long-term thinking on the part of their predecessors. Everyone in this movement (even if you just explain these ideas to friends or tweet relevant links) are building the foundation of the anarcho-capitalist 21^st century and our grandchildren will thank god that there were people like us spreading the word while many of the short-sighted nowadays would see out work as hopeless. It is anything but hopeless, it is the future.

 

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