I’ve been hesitant to write this blog, as I’m not well versed or educated in political science, governments, anarchy, free markets, or economics. I realize that makes me sound like an uneducated baboon, but I’ve spent my entire adult life studying math and playing games for a living.

I love the idea of free trade. I have something common to me and valuable to you, you have something common to you and valuable to me, we exchange them and each of us profit. Trade is not a zero-sum game and by increasing the quantity of voluntary trading, we can increase overall wealth.

While reading many anarchy themed posts and blogs, I am reminded of an episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia titled Charlie Goes America All Over Everybody’s Ass, where the gang turns their bar into a place of pure freedom.

Eventually the bar turns to mayhem: nudity, rampant underage drinking, and wild gambling culminates in a death from russian roulette in the basement.

Dennis and Mac come to the conclusion that people were given too much freedom.

Dennis, we gave people too much freedom. That's the problem! All they do is exploit it! It's becomes anarchy. That is not what America is all about.

Of course this episode was meant to be funny and the sudden shift to anarchy from having rules is not representative of what anarchists want; anarchy is something that needs to be done gradually, it would not work overnight. But I’m still unconvinced that all rules and regulations are bad.

“The United States has a Problem with Gun Violence"

The above video describes everything I feel about gun violence. While I am libertarian in many areas of life, when it comes to things that infringe upon the lives of others I draw the line. I am against the war on drugs, I am for most personal freedom, I am for free trade, but a lack of new gun regulations in the US has led to a disproportionate amount of deadly violent crimes.

Also, automobile regulation over the years has made cars significantly safer. While the total number of miles traveled steadily rises, the number of annual deaths per million steadily decreases.

I also enjoyed reading this parable by @biophil: An Original Parable About Voluntaryism, and have trouble seeing how anarchy deals with protecting the commons.

I found a post in the above parable by @spetey incredibly profound and in line with my thinking:

Well I am new to these discussions and am not an economist so I may be missing something. But this seems again to assume that other routes are available. I'm guessing real-world privately-owned toll roads do not drive their prices up because there are other public routes required by the you-know-what.

In @biophil's scenario, if I understand correctly, we can first suppose that tromping through the (unowned?) jungle instead of the handy river imposes a cost $X. This means people along the river can collectively charge just under $X, right? If any one of those along the river impose a toll that puts the total over $X, then they all lose out; but if the total fees along the river are under $X and one actor lowers their toll by some small amount, that just means another can raise the toll by that small amount and it is still better for the traders to take the river.

Then we suppose that the jungle (and air and sea and underground and ... ) are all owned (is there any reason they wouldn't be in the anarchist utopia?), and I have to say I get confused, so maybe you can help. People along the jungle route realize they can play the same game Ben does. Of course if they charge too much, people will go back to the river - if the river tolls don't add up to be too much. In these kind of rent-seeking scenarios, I take it, each owner may as well charge something, since they are no worse off than when they were letting people through for free if the people decide not to go through at all.

I agree with @discombobulated that the main problem is how to handle private coercion and might making right - and I think @biophil agrees too, in this post. And when it comes to @discombobulated's interesting analogy of world governments, there it seems we are left to settle things by might making right - which I'm inclined to think is unfortunate.

This is not a typical blog from me, either telling a story or attempting to teach a concept people on here might not know. I feel that some rules and regulations are necessary, even with people acting rationally between each other, but I realize this is a slippery slope towards men and governments ruling over other men which I am morally against. This blog is more me asking a question: are no regulations really going to be likely better than some rules with a possibility of a slippery slope?

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My name is Ryan Daut and I would love to have you as a follower. Click here to go to my profile page, then click FOLLOW in the upper right corner if you would like to see my blogs and articles regularly. My interests are poker, fantasy sports, mathematics, astrophysics, cryptocurrency, and computer gaming.

You can also follow me on twitter: https://twitter.com/rcdaut

Other articles by me:
How Winning Nearly $200k was Mentally the Toughest Day of my Poker Career
Winning 1.5M in a poker tournament at age 22
An Introduction to Mathematics Proofs