A Short Dialogue from a More Civilized World

A: You know, this whole system of “ordered anarchy” and “voluntary society” leaves much to be desired. We have homeless in the streets, some people have access to much better healthcare that others, charities can only do so much to help, there are occassional gang fights going on, etc. I was thinking that perhaps it might be a good idea to set up an open-access, majority-elected monopolistic apparatus of violence and coercion endowed with the power to collect compulsory contributions so that these issues could be effectively addressed – high-quality public healthcare provided to everyone in need, public housing constructed to shelter the homeless, gang wars eliminated through tighter control of access to assault weapons, and so on.

B: And what if instead of doing all these things this open-access, majority-elected monopolistic apparatus of violence and coercion uses its power to hand out monopoly privileges to its favored clients, disincentivizes people from taking responsibility for their own lives, creates ghettos of subsidized crime, disarms us so that it can exploit us more effectively than even the most well-organized cartel of gangs, and starts issuing warrantless orders to spy on, expropriate, or assassinate people like you and me for whatever reasons its rulers might come up with?

A: All right, I see. Bad idea. Sorry.