Not to argue with your friend through you, but I just don't understand how anarcho-capitalists even exist. The theory behind any anarchistic system, by nature, is the abolishment of any hierarchy. Capitalism, by nature is completely hierarchical, and without some sort of third-party governing it, even more so. I know the ideal form of capitalism is small companies exchanging freely without government intrusion, but the reality is that capitalism, mixed with human nature, eventually leads to one corporation that rules everything. This has been shown to happen even with government intervention, which is where anti-trust laws and worker's rights came from.
So if you piss off "the corporation", you have their private militia come after you. Then their courts sentence you to death, or slave labor. How is this anarchistic? Seems pretty top-down to me. Just because a company is running things doesn't mean it's not a government.
I just don't really understand libertarianism, I guess. It makes sense if you're filthy rich, but otherwise you'd just go from being middle class to a peasant with no rights almost instantly. Are all libertarians filthy rich and just very vocal (there seem to be a lot of them), delusional, misinformed, or am I missing some large part of the theory behind it?
The only way I could ever see the phasing of government out working successfully is in a shared economy (anarcho-communism). Not that I think human nature would ever permit a system like this until tens of thousands of years of psychological/spiritual evolution take place, but I think at the time humans are able to self-organize in every sense there will no longer be the need for personal possessions. Oddly enough, we would be a lot like ants.
This semantic argument has been beaten to death. What's relevant is the actual beliefs of a given group, not their name. If you insisted, you could simply replace "anarcho-capitalism" with "belief-system-x" and carry on with meaningful discussion.
So if you piss off "the corporation", you have their private militia come after you. Then their courts sentence you to death, or slave labor. How is this anarchistic? Seems pretty top-down to me. Just because a company is running things doesn't mean it's not a government.
I just don't really understand libertarianism, I guess. It makes sense if you're filthy rich, but otherwise you'd just go from being middle class to a peasant with no rights almost instantly. Are all libertarians filthy rich and just very vocal (there seem to be a lot of them), delusional, misinformed, or am I missing some large part of the theory behind it?
The only way I could ever see the phasing of government out working successfully is in a shared economy (anarcho-communism). Not that I think human nature would ever permit a system like this until tens of thousands of years of psychological/spiritual evolution take place, but I think at the time humans are able to self-organize in every sense there will no longer be the need for personal possessions. Oddly enough, we would be a lot like ants.