Reviews of Four Books Anarchists Told Me to Read
Over the last few years, I’ve taken the feasibility of political and economic anarchy much more seriously. I have always been libertarian, but have previously been hesitant to accept that society could function without any government whatsoever. This article won’t go over all the arguments I’ve considered, or detail my current political beliefs, but it will hopefully give a sense of what kinds of literature I’ve found valuable (or not) in my investigation of this belief system.
Anarchists are an interesting bunch. For most people, the term ‘anarchy’ imparts visions of chaos– of businesses burning to the ground, of black-masked looters flying the Antifa flag, and of socially deleterious activities galore. In reality, anarchy simply means what it means: no government. Taking the definition of ‘government’ from Max Weber, a society is in anarchy if no entity has been given a monopoly on violence. Anarchists generally do not believe that chaos necessarily follows from this. Roads, courts, police, fire departments, and even militaries can all exist under anarchy. They would simply have to be privately funded and privately run.
Before meeting any, I envisioned anarchists as lazy, smelly nihilists with lots of body modifications and a hankering for other peoples’ property. Nothing could’ve been further from the truth (except the self-described anarcho-communists I’ve met. They were exactly like that). Nearly every self-described anarchist or anarcho-capitalist I’ve met has been very well-groomed, well-read, articulate, smart, responsible, peaceful, and has nothing but the utmost respect for the property rights of others. They also tend to have a quality that I greatly admire: the ability to say what they think is true regardless of what anyone else thinks, and regardless of what they were taught to believe.
They do have a tendency to recommend lots of books, however. The following reviews are for four books that were all recommended to me at least twice and usually thrice or more by anarchists. Three of them were of great value and receive my recommendation. The other is Atlas Shrugged.
The Machinery of Freedom - David Friedman
TLDR: Thought-provoking, entertaining, thorough, well-written, and helped me reframe my mind to correctly weigh the costs and benefits of anarchy. Highly recommended to anyone with an interest in maximizing political and economic freedom.
The first substantial debate I had with someone about the feasibility of anarchism ended with a recommendation of this book. I had been committing what I now realize is a common fallacy in these sorts of debates: attempting to debunk the superiority of anarchism by pointing out specific instances where I believed the government was necessary, rather than attempting to weigh up the overall costs and benefits of each system as a whole. The person I was debating very reasonably decided, after about an hour of friendly discussion, that it wasn’t her responsibility to explain how absolutely everything would or could work without the government, and told me that if I wanted to know how things like courts, fire departments, currencies, police, and even militaries could function in a fully privatized world, I should read this book. She was right to recommend it, and I derived more value from it than she likely imagined I would.
Machinery of Freedom mostly consists of a series of depictions of how various systems that are currently run or regulated by the state could function without the state. I emphasize ‘could’ because the author is careful to clarify that the market would ultimately decide how these things would function, and that he is only giving a glimpse of a fully privatized world and its operating principles. I found these depictions very useful since I was so used to the current socialized paradigm that it would have been difficult for me to imagine privatized courts, police, roads, etc. without some prompting. A few years on from reading this book for the first time, it’s practically second nature for me to imagine how any service currently provided by the state could be provided by the free market, but at the time I was in need of some concrete examples. This book provided them.
However, the main value I derived from this book was a mental reframe that I wish I had experienced much earlier in life. Before reading, I would often say ‘this problem has no obvious solution without the government. Therefore, some government is necessary.’ After reading, I now say ‘does this problem still occur even with the government present? If not, is it a big enough problem to justify creating an entity with a monopoly on violence that will only grow to more and more monstrous proportions over time?’
For example, let’s consider what happens if, in a world with no government police or courts, you learned that your neighbor stole a beloved family heirloom from you. Both you and your neighbor have access to firearms and private rights enforcement agencies, meaning that if you knock on his door with a gun attempting to seize the heirloom back, you might be subject to defensive violence from either him or his hired agents. Your best option might be to send an agent of your own rights enforcement service to negotiate the case with your neighbor or his agents, possibly before a private arbitration firm. You might bring evidence of the theft before the firm. If the preponderance of the evidence suggests to the arbitration firm that your neighbor did in fact steal the heirloom, your neighbor’s agents would step aside and let the heirloom be confiscated and returned to you (if they want to maintain a reputation for honest conduct, that is). If there is no evidence of theft, you may not get the heirloom back, but your agency might provide you with some financial compensation to redress your loss.
However, because the heirloom’s value to you is largely subjective, and well in excess of its actual material worth, the amount paid to you might be woefully inadequate. In this hypothetical, the private system has failed to compensate you for the full subjective value of what was stolen. There could be other failures under this system. Your neighbor’s rights enforcement agents might not care much about their reputation for honesty and protect the heirloom despite the arbitration firm’s decision. Your own agency might not offer to pay you compensation at all if the arbitration firm finds no evidence that you ever owned the heirloom in the first place. In the worst case scenario, you might not even be able to afford the services of a rights enforcement agency. These are the sorts of examples that are often posited to debunk the feasibility of private law.
Now ask yourself the following questions: does the current system of government-run police and courts perfectly redress every grievance? Are the government courts’ decisions always perfectly just? Do government police always catch the bad guy and punish him appropriately? Do these entities perfectly incorporate your subjective valuation of loss into their decisions? Is access to good legal protection equally distributed across income levels? Of course not. Why then do so many people defend the government-run system of law on the grounds that the private system would not handle every rights violation perfectly? For some reason I had not noticed this fallacy before reading The Machinery of Freedom. Now I see it in virtually every debate I have on this subject.
I do not know for certain whether a system of private law would be less error-prone in this manner than the current government-run systems, but this book highlights one good reason to believe it would be: under anarchy, everyone’s patronization of arbitration firms, enforcement agencies, asset protection firms, etc. would be fully voluntary. Anyone dissatisfied with their service could cancel their subscription and replace it with one to a more reputable firm. If being charged a subscription fee to have your property protected sounds dystopian, remember that you already are charged a fee for all public services in the form of taxes. If you are dissatisfied with private services, you may stop paying for them. If you are dissatisfied with government services, tough luck.
I lay out this example because prior to the reframe this book catalyzed, I was not giving anarchy a fair shake. I compared it to utopia rather than to the current government-run circus. I had also not yet put it together that, even if some things don’t function quite as well under anarchy, almost everything would probably function immeasurably better, and that is enough to prefer anarchy to non-anarchy. After incorporating the massive benefit of not being constantly threatened by an entity with a monopoly on violence, anarchy lands firmly in the green in the cost-benefit analysis. I was not a full-fledged anarcho-capitalist when I finished this book, as I still had concerns about large-scale military conflict, nuclear war, and monopoly power. However, those concerns would eventually be addressed by other authors, and I could not have started my conversion to true libertarianism without this book. I highly recommend it to anyone who is libertarian-curious, and to libertarians who are not full anarchists.
Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
TLDR: Too cheesy and childish for adults, but likely not a fun read for children either. There are much better ways to be introduced to radical capitalism, and much better books to teach you about the evils of collectivism. Not recommended.
Atlas Shrugged is probably the novel most associated with anarcho-capitalism. If not, it is likely one of Rand’s other works, although she was not herself a believer. I was recently accused, during a friendly debate on libertarianism in which I argued for the viability of private law, of having read this book at too young of an age. In actual fact I only finished this book for the first time this year, having previously lost interest after the first few chapters about a decade ago. Upon revisiting it I immediately remembered why it had failed to grab me, but I was determined to finish it this time.
Atlas Shrugged tells the story, in far more pages than necessary, of several hyper-productive industrialists struggling to keep the world’s economies afloat in the face of overregulation, expropriation, and demonization at the hands of the government. The industrialists decide, one by one, to abandon the outer world to the consequences of its profit-hating collectivism and form their own anarchist community in the mountains. The outer world gradually collapses as government ‘looters’ siphon off what they can from the dying industries of the world.
I certainly appreciate the uniqueness of this book. It’s one of the few classic novels to champion the philosophy of Objectivism, and to elevate self-interested capitalism above selfless love. Furthermore, I would welcome more fiction that portrayed the government as a gang, or an occupying army. Unfortunately, I was pretty disappointed by what had been built up to me as little less than an anarchist Bible. I have three main issues with this book. First, the writing style is simultaneously bland and cheesy. The characters feel less like humans and more like mouthpieces for either Rand’s viewpoint or its negation. What drama there is has very little impact on the plot and is often unintentionally comical, such as the exchange between John Galt and his torturers. I feel very strongly that this book should’ve just been an essay on Rand’s views rather than a bloated novel.
Second, I have no idea what age group this book is supposed to be aimed at. It has all the subtlety of a ton of bricks, with a very clear delineation between the good guys (the self-starting confident industrialists with no fears, faults, or scruples) and the bad guys (a mix of whimpering complainers and irredeemable apparatchiks who constantly parrot a caricature of the collectivist philosophy that Rand wishes to critique). Along with the simple language and inclusion of an evil doomsday weapon literally called ‘Project X’, this suggests that the book is targeted at children and young adults. However, I have a hard time imagining a child finishing a 1000+ page novel about industrial production and economic philosophy, and I have an even harder time imagining the average young adult, surrounded by overwhelming left-wing cultural pressures, being convinced of Rand’s philosophy by such lopsided caricatures unless they were already contrarian.
Third, too many juicy philosophical ideas are unexplored. Devoting more words to the conflict between rationality and mysticism would’ve deepened the book significantly. How the machinery of the state attracts psychopaths and venal weaklings is a very interesting topic that libertarians love to bring to the fore, but Rand is content to simply populate the character roster with evil suits who speak in cartoonishly villainous ways and hope you’ll get the picture. The speech given by Galt in the penultimate chapter of the book attempts to flesh out Rand’s philosophy, but this is done very clumsily and without much structure. Again, I have a hard time imagining who would find such a section convincing. Additionally, I would’ve sacrificed every word devoted to the protagonist’s romantic flings to get a more detailed look at the anarcho-capitalist community hidden in the mountains.
Because I can’t picture anyone of any age or any political persuasion who would derive much value from this book, I won’t recommend it to anyone. If you want a novel aimed at children that teaches readers about the evils of the state, read Orwell’s Animal Farm. If you want a 1000+ page treatise on why individual freedom and free market capitalism provide prosperity while government control results in poverty and violence, read Mises’ Human Action.
The Bitcoin Standard - Saifedean Ammous
TLDR: An excellent introduction to what Bitcoin is, how it works, and its potential. The overview of the history of money and its role in shaping civilization is an added bonus for nerds who enjoy that sort of thing.
There is a large overlap between anarchists and Bitcoiners, and few books have had a more substantial influence on the intellectual landscape of the Bitcoin community than The Bitcoin Standard. The book is split into two parts, the first of which explains the history, function, and usage of money, and the second of which deals with the more technical features of Bitcoin, how it has grown over the years, and how it may continue to be even more widely adopted in the future.
This book, along with its sister book, The Fiat Standard, asserts that the use of hard money is essential to the functioning of a free economy. Currency that cannot be produced easily provides a secure way to save for the future, decreasing the ‘time preference’ of individuals and allowing them to focus on productive activity with large long-term gains. Conversely, the use of fiat currency is poisonous to economic growth, as it simultaneously destroys the value of savings and feeds the inefficient, parasitic apparatus of the state. The Bitcoin Standard makes a convincing case that the use of fiat currency is behind many of society’s ills– a thesis that many libertarians would likely already agree with. If the book only consisted of its first half, it would be an excellent defense of a return to the gold standard.
However, Ammous is a staunch believer that, while the gold standard was vastly superior to the current fiat standard, there is now a significantly better option. There is a misconception that libertarians should have an affinity for Bitcoin because it provides a medium of exchange that is untraceable, allowing them to indulge in socially deleterious vices without fear of punishment from the state. In reality, Bitcoin is fully trackable and a very poor choice of currency when dealing with criminals, since there is no way to recover traded Bitcoin once it is sent should your drug dealer or hitman decide to hold out on you. Their enthusiasm for Bitcoin, as this book explains, should actually come from the fact that it is a fully decentralized medium of exchange that is simultaneously harder than gold, since only 21 million Bitcoin can ever be mined, and faster than fiat currency, since final settlement occurs almost instantly after a transaction. It is a technological solution to the need for such a medium of exchange that requires no higher authority to mediate currency production or trade. It also assumes antagonism between everyone on the network, meaning that it does not depend on cooperation or good-faith behavior to maintain either its security or its value. Put simply, it is proof-of-concept for the perfect anarchist currency.
Ammous quite thoroughly addresses many of the criticisms of Bitcoin in this second half, such as security concerns, hyper-volatility concerns, and questions as to whether it truly is a perfectly hard currency. The point that I found most interesting was Ammous’ response to the claim that Bitcoin has ‘no intrinsic value’ and therefore lacks the long term viability of something like gold. The value of Bitcoin, so says Ammous, is in its suitability as a medium of exchange. Humans need something to act as money that is hard to produce, easy to divide into smaller components, and easy to move. Few things satisfy these criteria. Bitcoin requires large and ever-increasing amounts of computational power to produce (and eventually will be impossible to produce once the 21 million cap is reached), is infinitely divisible and can be instantly sent anywhere at almost zero cost. Saying that Bitcoin lacks the ‘intrinsic value’ of something like gold because you can’t build anything with Bitcoin is like saying that a bar of gold lacks any intrinsic value because you can’t eat it. Bitcoin’s value lies in its ability to fill a need, and not all needs are purely physical.
If I had to highlight one major issue with this book, it would be that the author has a pretty serious case of hammer-and-nail syndrome. From his perspective, everything bad in the world can be traced to fiat currency, and everything can be solved with Bitcoin. Even the fact that the author doesn’t like today’s music is blamed on the adoption of fiat currency. To quote Ammous himself, “if it’s a problem, Bitcoin can solve it.” The reader is not obligated to accept this overly-strong view, however, and I would certainly recommend this book to anyone curious about Bitcoin and anyone who wants to get a good foundational lesson in the character and importance of money. Finally, this book indirectly convinced me that there are probably many more undiscovered technological solutions to some of the problems that make anarchy look infeasible.
The Myth of the Rational Voter - Bryan Caplan
TLDR: A convincing debunking of the ideas that 1) people vote in their own self-interest and 2) the government should do the will of the people. Highly recommended, and it will hopefully shatter some long-held convictions that lead to an erroneous elevation of democracy.
More than any other author, Bryan Caplan has a talent for starting with a premise that my entire being wants to reject and then quickly convincing me that he’s right and I’ve been wrong all along. He’s done it with education, child-rearing, militaries, and borders, and in this book he does it with democracy. As usual with Caplan, the book is wonderfully written, utterly convincing, and a lot of fun (for certain types of people), so my ‘review’ will be more of an overview of Caplan’s arguments.
Caplan challenges two widely held convictions that most people in modern developed countries hold about democracy: 1) people hold beliefs in and vote for policies that advance their own interests, and 2) governments should strive to execute the will of the people. The first of these is the easier one to let go of, in my opinion. Despite how intuitive it seems that people would vote for policies that would personally benefit them, the data don’t bear this out. Richer people are more supportive of social programs that they disproportionately pay for and derive little benefit from. There is rampant support for trade protectionism among the working class, even though the incidence of the tariffs they support ends up falling on them. What’s going on here?
Caplan proposes a model of what he calls ‘rational irrationality’ that works as follows: people adopt beliefs according to how socially desirable the belief is among their peers, and according to certain irrational biases. For example, a young single man in a blue city might adopt a belief in greater abortion access because the women he wants to hook up with would prefer this, and because he has an irrational bias against population growth. An older AWFL (affluent white female liberal) might begin supporting socialized school lunches because her friends would view her as heartless if she didn’t, and because of an irrational bias against free markets. A rural autoworker might adopt a belief in tighter immigration restrictions because economic nationalism is the only game in his town, and because he irrationally prefers that his countrymen get jobs that could be filled more cheaply by foreigners. Because these beliefs are not formed by careful cost-benefit analysis, the policies that are their result are often harmful to society and to the belief holder. Nonetheless they provide both social desirability and some mental comfort to the holder.
Conversely, there is little to no individual cost of supporting policies that are harmful in a democracy because there is virtually no chance that one’s vote will be the deciding factor in an election, and even less of a chance that any given election will sway the specific policies one is concerned with. People can therefore ‘afford’ to hold beliefs in and even vote for harmful policies. They would only have an incentive to give up the social points or the mental comfort afforded by their erroneous beliefs if the expected value of doing so were greater than those benefits– i.e. if the chance of their changed beliefs affecting policy multiplied by the benefits of adopting the better policy were large enough. With the first term almost always being near-zero, this rarely happens.
Once the book convinced me that people systematically adopt and hold beliefs that are harmful to themselves and to society, it became easier to accept the second claim that the government should not necessarily do the will of the people. While reading, I realized that I had been conditioned to believe that only two broad political systems were possible: tyranny and democracy. Either we are ruled by individuals who act without our consent, or we make our opinions known and expect that the government acts on them… so I thought. As with The Machinery of Freedom, I had to mentally reframe certain things to break out of that false dilemma and accept that, just because Caplan is criticizing democracy, it does not follow that he is endorsing tyranny.
What this book implicitly supports is peaceful non-compliance with nonsensical laws derived from surveying ‘the people’. We should not strive to make our government more faithfully act out of the will of an irrational public, but rather to diminish the ability of the government to impose irrational rules upon us. This was a very fundamental step towards my acceptance of anarchy as a feasible system, and therefore this book gets a very enthusiastic recommendation. It also features some very interesting empirical work which quantifies how an education in economics can lead to better political beliefs independent of other demographic factors… just saying.