Libertarian Utopia Comes True (RAR!)

[Irbis]

I believe you are wrong, again. To force you to pay for this contract, the owner of the company (as the company is no entity, anymore) would need to sue everyone he wants money from in a private court. And the judge would throw such a "contract" out, immediately, as the joke it is, just as it would happen if a private person would try to enforce such a "contract" on other people, these days.

Wrong. Why judge would throw it out? In real life, there is regulatory agency banning wrong clauses. But, as you just said, we magicked them out. Oh, and as your quote says, state has no right to interfere in economic enterprises. This means you can make up any contract you want. Who will stop you?

As for forcing, you're trespassing on private property. His security forces can seize you and either confiscate enough to cover it, or call police to do it for them. Or can just release you after forcing you to sign papers saying whatever they want, again, no regulatory bodies.

Basically, a lot of things would become harder for corporations, as they cannot use the tried tools of contract law, anymore, and are forced to go to court for everything, needing to prove the validity of their contractual claim time and time again.

Corporations would simply establish out of state court to settle such matters or ask someone to act as independent mediator, possibly some rich crony who no one can bribe. Customary unwritten laws worked for nobles, can work for 1%.

Stuff like opt-out would be the first thing to fly out of the window, as in general law, you can only opt into an agreement by giving consent. Contracts assuming your consent are invalid, and drawing them up could even earn you a charge of fraud. (as in you, the owner of the company, as the company is no legal person, anymore)

That is not the case in USA. Multiple opt-out laws stood in court, and even these that didn't usually failed due to regulator. In EU? Again, regulator, European Commission and its directives. These no longer exist as you quoted. Who will ban such practices?

I bet lawyers can invent some sort of boilerplate disclaimer that will make breaking the corporation law look like your wilful fault even if you couldn't not break it, along with clever placement they can show in court as proof it wasn't really unknowing opt-in, as you had to see it beforehand.

A lot of "CEO's" would find themselves in big trouble because they would still assume they could hide behind corporate identity. Without corporate law, they will face fines and jail times, themselves, for everything their business does under their rule. As would the owners (shareholders).

And who is going to enforce all that?

You make one big unfounded and most likely false assumption, that the courts stay independent and won't be simply bought. You also make assumption that everyone can successfully sue, whereas in real life, legal costs in US courts are prohibitive for single people or small organizations. Even if courts stay independent, something would need to magically lower accessibility price. With courts having a lot more work, prices will go up, not down.

Even if opt-out clause somehow turned out unenforceable after all, simple threat of long, drawn out court battle that will bankrupt you will entirely suffice as stick in most cases.

That's why businesses are never mobbing for an end of all corporate law, only the things that restrict them from doing bad things to others. More than half of corporate law is utterly important for them to keep their business going.

And? They would likely keep it in corporation to corporation dealing. You assume laws would disappear for everyone, where it is simply not the case. The rich would quickly invent and adopt some laws for elite, while keeping the masses unprotected. It happened dozens of times in history, why not now?

[Simon_Jester]

I believe you are wrong, again. To force you to pay for this contract, the owner of the company (as the company is no entity, anymore) would need to sue everyone he wants money from in a private court. And the judge would throw such a "contract" out, immediately, as the joke it is, just as it would happen if a private person would try to enforce such a "contract" on other people, these days.

Wrong. Why judge would throw it out? In real life, there is regulatory agency banning wrong clauses. But, as you just said, we magicked them out. Oh, and as your quote says, state has no right to interfere in economic enterprises. This means you can make up any contract you want. Who will stop you?

Contract law would continue to exist in Libertopia, and there would therefore be a system of law (common law, most likely) defining what classes of contract can and cannot exist.

At least in the US, contract law is not created by any specific regulatory agency. Nor would it cease to exist in the absence of any single agency, as long as the courts continue to exist.

As for forcing, you're trespassing on private property. His security forces can seize you and either confiscate enough to cover it, or call police to do it for them. Or can just release you after forcing you to sign papers saying whatever they want, again, no regulatory bodies.

I don't think your definition of "regulatory body" lines up with the libertarians' version. There are supposed to somehow still be courts and police, and the basic principles of contract law (such as 'duress voids the contract') are still in place.

Libertarians actually think this would work, and the point of the exercise is "what if they got what they wished for," not "what if corporations became omnipotent and could somehow enforce contracts against all humans at will while not being required to follow any laws themselves"

Basically, a lot of things would become harder for corporations, as they cannot use the tried tools of contract law, anymore, and are forced to go to court for everything, needing to prove the validity of their contractual claim time and time again.

Corporations would simply establish out of state court to settle such matters or ask someone to act as independent mediator, possibly some rich crony who no one can bribe. Customary unwritten laws worked for nobles, can work for 1%.

Debateable. The problem is that while the ancient and medieval nobles' wealth was based in a proprietary sense of land ownership and feudalism, along with the direct loyalty of armed men. Modern elites' wealth is capitalist in character. Ownership is critical, power and control over capital is critical, and all too many of the 'best' CEOs tend to be borderline psychopaths who are in it for the sense of power over vast business empires.

Take away the paperwork that says a billionaire owns something, and realistically he will not be able to secure control over it. Not if he's dealing with a farflung world empire full of weird and abstract forms of property like stock and intellectual property rights. No number of mercenaries would be able to secure such things- especially since the billionaire's ability to pay the mercenaries is cast into doubt by the very difficulty he has securing his property!

The only defense would be to consolidate all the wealth into a single, defensible territorial region... in which case you simply end up recreating feudalism at (temporarily) a higher technological level. Which probably won't last because of the decaying social and economic infrastructure around it.

So no, I don't think it likely that modern corporations, or the super-rich executives that run and own them, would be able to function and become nigh-omnipotent without contract law.

Stuff like opt-out would be the first thing to fly out of the window, as in general law, you can only opt into an agreement by giving consent. Contracts assuming your consent are invalid, and drawing them up could even earn you a charge of fraud. (as in you, the owner of the company, as the company is no legal person, anymore)

That is not the case in USA. Multiple opt-out laws stood in court, and even these that didn't usually failed due to regulator. In EU? Again, regulator, European Commission and its directives. These no longer exist as you quoted. Who will ban such practices?

Such laws hold up mainly because of corporate law. A private citizen wouldn't stand a chance of entering into an opt-out contract with another private citizen. And in the absence of economic regulation there's no such thing as a corporation. There are only people, and the things those people own.

You make one big unfounded and most likely false assumption, that the courts stay independent and won't be simply bought. You also make assumption that everyone can successfully sue, whereas in real life, legal costs in US courts are prohibitive for single people or small organizations. Even if courts stay independent, something would need to magically lower accessibility price. With courts having a lot more work, prices will go up, not down.

Now THIS is a valid critique- it's an essential problem with Libertopia that a lot of the interactions which are now forbidden under regulatory law would instead happen anyway, and become grounds for civil lawsuits. With the result that the courts get choked.

That's why businesses are never mobbing for an end of all corporate law, only the things that restrict them from doing bad things to others. More than half of corporate law is utterly important for them to keep their business going.

And? They would likely keep it in corporation to corporation dealing. You assume laws would disappear for everyone, where it is simply not the case. The rich would quickly invent and adopt some laws for elite, while keeping the masses unprotected. It happened dozens of times in history, why not now?

Because the basis upon which the modern elite maintain their power is different from that of ancient elites. A warlord can write his own laws without difficulty. A billionaire cannot, because he became a billionaire and therefore acquired power under someone else's law. If those laws vanish, then the game he played to acquire his power vanishes, and his power base becomes highly unstable.

[LaCroix]

Simon already answered most of of the questions.

In EU? Again, regulator, European Commission and its directives. These no longer exist as you quoted. Who will ban such practices?

Wrong - as per OP,

This happens instantaneously to our present day US economy.

Corparate law only vanishes in the USA. The rest of the world keeps it.

You also blatantly ignore the fact that corporations cease to exist. The whole legal groundwork for them is gone. There is no Exxon/Ford/Koch Brothers, anymore. They are only heaps of posession, owned by millions of people, equally, under civil law.

And civil law still exists and will still be enforced. As will be the national sovereignity of the United states, so no "corporate micro-nations" - those would be answered by a visit of the police, and a

Everyone is suddenly unemployed. There is no insurance anymore. Even Law companies are a thing of the past. The CEO has no right to speak for the company, anymore, as it is gone, and with it, his job. To give him the right to decide back, he'd need to sign a new contract - with ALL of the shareholders.

Also, the accounts of each Companies now belong to a good couple of million shareholders, of whom EVERYONE has equal say on what to do, and each of those can withdraw funds at leisure - under civil law. And you cannot make contracts reinstating corporate law of proportionate voting based on a share volume - because every single share holder would need to sign this contract to make that happen, which probably won't happen.

That'S why coorporations were created under corporate law - because having a business with more than one owner was a clusterfuck under civil law - and all former corporations will now experience this pain, multiplied by millions. Every little decision will have to be approved by ALL shareholders, or it can be stopped by the ones against it, by going to court. It only needs a single share to block everthing, if you want to.

Courts will be swamped, and layers will be in heaven, laughing all the way to the bank while they 'help' various shareholders fight each other in court, slowly draining all funds from the former corporations.

Your idea of what corporations would do to people ignore all these facts. You are thinking about a scenario where only the unwanted regulations cease to exist. If ALL regulations cease to exist, it will destroy economy, instantly.

[Welf]

By act of Q, all government organs (local, state, federal) are magically prevented to from management, regulating, or involving themselves in the economy in any way. All regulatory agencies and other bodies involved with economic and commerce management disappear.

Civil courts remain to handle disputes between private parties, but "economic crimes" other than things like larceny, embezzlement, etc, don't exist anymore. (No crime in doing things like subprime loans, dumping toxic waste, etc.)

This happens instantaneously to our present day US economy.

What happens next?

Would the Disney Corporation stop existing? They run a town in Florida and act similar to an authority. What would happen to right-wing militias? Would they be dissolved by intervention, too?

You also blatantly ignore the fact that corporations cease to exist. The whole legal groundwork for them is gone. There is no Exxon/Ford/Koch Brothers, anymore. They are only heaps of posession, owned by millions of people, equally, under civil law.

Everyone is suddenly unemployed. There is no insurance anymore. Even Law companies are a thing of the past. The CEO has no right to speak for the company, anymore, as it is gone, and with it, his job. To give him the right to decide back, he'd need to sign a new contract - with ALL of the shareholders.

Also, the accounts of each Companies now belong to a good couple of million shareholders, of whom EVERYONE has equal say on what to do, and each of those can withdraw funds at leisure - under civil law. And you cannot make contracts reinstating corporate law of proportionate voting based on a share volume - because every single share holder would need to sign this contract to make that happen, which probably won't happen.

I doubt that. US Common law is based on precedent, and precedents are made when new circumstances or legal problems arise. And Q redefining reality would count as such.
What changes:
-The assumption of a government existing and providing regulatory rulings stopped existing. A significant part of the legal framework stops exiting.
-Free will: is not guaranteed. Every person's character has been changed by an outside force. This may happen at any time.
-Supernatural powers are a proven fact. They directly influence behaviour.
The common law will drastically change after that.

Also, the legal recognition of publicly recognized entities disappears, but not the organizations and human relations. CEOs will still be powerful people and people will do what they say, simply out of inertia. And the first thing the company will do is to run to the next judge and get a temporary court order that allows the companies to keep operating till everything is settled out. I would assume that the existing corporations will keep existing and fall under a grandfather clause. Probably some way to get recognized as legal entity will develop. Either illiquid shell corporations will be sold, or new companies will incorporate in foreign countries and then move to the USA (or in native territories? are they affected, too?).
And as soon as that has been settled the descent into the libertarian dystopia can begin.

[Irbis]

Contract law would continue to exist in Libertopia, and there would therefore be a system of law (common law, most likely) defining what classes of contract can and cannot exist.

At least in the US, contract law is not created by any specific regulatory agency. Nor would it cease to exist in the absence of any single agency, as long as the courts continue to exist.

Oh, yes - and it will be law written by these in power. With money. Regular people will get about as much voice as they already do. As in, zero.

I don't think your definition of "regulatory body" lines up with the libertarians' version. There are supposed to somehow still be courts and police, and the basic principles of contract law (such as 'duress voids the contract') are still in place.

Regulatory body as in government organization that are not courts but say what goes and what is forbidden. These are gone as per OP, and the fact the libertarians are too stupid to stop and consider what it would really mean is not my fault.

Libertarians actually think this would work, and the point of the exercise is "what if they got what they wished for," not "what if corporations became omnipotent and could somehow enforce contracts against all humans at will while not being required to follow any laws themselves"

Enforce at will? No. Fuck up your life if they wanted? Yes. It would be similar to feudal lords - maybe they couldn't kill all the serfs if they revolted, but they very much had the capability to behead first one who complained shutting up dissent up to a point.

Debateable. The problem is that while the ancient and medieval nobles' wealth was based in a proprietary sense of land ownership and feudalism, along with the direct loyalty of armed men. Modern elites' wealth is capitalist in character. Ownership is critical, power and control over capital is critical, and all too many of the 'best' CEOs tend to be borderline psychopaths who are in it for the sense of power over vast business empires.

Oh, so they are just like nobles?

Feudal contracts were very much like the contracts that would have arise if the state collapse happened, personal dealings with people established as these on top being followed in return for kickbacks. The top guy is too weak? Then he is toppled or invaded from outside, repeat till you have most ruthless, bloodthirsty bastards in charge.

Take away the paperwork that says a billionaire owns something, and realistically he will not be able to secure control over it. Not if he's dealing with a farflung world empire full of weird and abstract forms of property like stock and intellectual property rights. No number of mercenaries would be able to secure such things- especially since the billionaire's ability to pay the mercenaries is cast into doubt by the very difficulty he has securing his property!

On the contrary. Maintaining such paperwork would be the job of banks - and they would keep doing it, if simply to keep their influence. Feudalism made use of Italian and German banking clans, after all. Sure, maintaining huge company might prove difficult and they would be probably reorganized as result, with complex finance schemes dying or moving abroad, but if you could have personally controlled something as big as Holy Roman Empire 1600 years ago they would have managed today, I think.

The only defense would be to consolidate all the wealth into a single, defensible territorial region... in which case you simply end up recreating feudalism at (temporarily) a higher technological level. Which probably won't last because of the decaying social and economic infrastructure around it.

Why? If ISIS can provide working infrastructure, I see no difficulty for big corporation starting from far higher point to do the same.

Such laws hold up mainly because of corporate law. A private citizen wouldn't stand a chance of entering into an opt-out contract with another private citizen. And in the absence of economic regulation there's no such thing as a corporation. There are only people, and the things those people own.

And yet, Mongols managed to conquer 20 mln square km on just oral agreements, without laws or writing. I think people would have managed to recreate social sturcture, as we have far more examples for them doing so than for rather ridiculous "everyone is now perfectly equal and can sue everyone else using frictionless, free courts having infinite amounts of time to judge and no biases".

With the result that the courts get choked.

Oh, yes, and that means 'might makes right' approach will become far more common.

Because the basis upon which the modern elite maintain their power is different from that of ancient elites. A warlord can write his own laws without difficulty. A billionaire cannot, because he became a billionaire and therefore acquired power under someone else's law. If those laws vanish, then the game he played to acquire his power vanishes, and his power base becomes highly unstable.

I saw enough examples to the contrary from Polish and Russian oligarchs (though first kind now become rare due to EU competition) to be sceptical of that. 90s here were basically half-feudal in nature, even though states didn't collapse completely, hell, you even saw small clandestine wars being waged. Going from that to full feudalism is trivial, IMHO.

Corparate law only vanishes in the USA. The rest of the world keeps it.

I was saying that in most of the civilized world, fine details of economy are set by regulatory agencies, not courts. The safeguards you keep referring to are gone in the affected area.

You also blatantly ignore the fact that corporations cease to exist. The whole legal groundwork for them is gone. There is no Exxon/Ford/Koch Brothers, anymore. They are only heaps of posession, owned by millions of people, equally, under civil law.

I see nothing in OP stating people are suddenly brainwashed and won't continue as they did before out of inertia or threats, legal or otherwise. Do you?

And civil law still exists and will still be enforced. As will be the national sovereignity of the United states, so no "corporate micro-nations" - those would be answered by a visit of the police, and a

And what, again??

As for police, we have been here before, no regulatory agencies = no taxes collected = no police, unless you see anything in OP stating Q will fund it.

Everyone is suddenly unemployed. There is no insurance anymore. Even Law companies are a thing of the past. The CEO has no right to speak for the company, anymore, as it is gone, and with it, his job. To give him the right to decide back, he'd need to sign a new contract - with ALL of the shareholders.

You know world functioned for thousands of years without these, right? And making switch to oral law and deals would happen inevitably and quickly, especially in USA and their old laws/precedent fetish?

Contract? Please, even in real world there are mechanisms to shut up shareholders or kick them out of ownership (squeeze out, for one). Doubly so in the world where suddenly all checks to big money power are gone.

That'S why coorporations were created under corporate law - because having a business with more than one owner was a clusterfuck under civil law - and all former corporations will now experience this pain, multiplied by millions. Every little decision will have to be approved by ALL shareholders, or it can be stopped by the ones against it, by going to court. It only needs a single share to block everthing, if you want to.

I see nothing in OP stating Q will also take over the courts as this would need to happen for the people on top even bothering to listen to small shareholders. Compulsory buyout would be best thing they could count on, IMHO.

Courts will be swamped, and layers will be in heaven, laughing all the way to the bank while they 'help' various shareholders fight each other in court, slowly draining all funds from the former corporations.

Uh, and who is going to provide unlimited funds to pay for all that? Corporation will quickly and simply win by knockout (opponent running out of money). Again, I see nothing in OP stating Q gave courts all these magical powers.

Also, since police is now impoverished or swamped with million of new tasks, corporations can do simply what they already did in real life thousands of times - hire hitmen to clean the problem. See "Banana Republics".

Your idea of what corporations would do to people ignore all these facts. You are thinking about a scenario where only the unwanted regulations cease to exist. If ALL regulations cease to exist, it will destroy economy, instantly.

Oh, now you're catching on. Since no one is enforcing them, unwanted regulations die. Wanted regulations are kept alive by big companies who now enforce them as they're now biggest fish in pond. That's how anarchy always ends - someone big grabs society by the face and forces it to knell.

[LaCroix]

You are still claiming that corporations will win, by default, and still not getting it.

There are no cooperations, anymore. They can't sue anybody, because they are not entities before the law, anymore. That ability is gone.

Now you will say that the CEO will file on behalf of the company, but the CEO can't go to court and have his control reinstated. He is just a private person claiming that he has for some reason, which is not supported by existing law or precedence (hint - precedence is part of the regulatory law, and also gone when the law it is based on is gone), that he has the exclusive right to manage the posession of millions of people. There is no legal basis for him to file on, the court would reject. IT has to, because ruling in his favor would be illegal.

Innertia and everything is irrelevant if the law it is based on is gone. Without corporate law, every ruling and precedent based on it is gone, too. And each shareholder has complete access to the former company's posessions.

And since people are assholes, these shareholders will fight over it.

As equals before the law, since ALL of them now have access to almost unlimited funds. The funds of the business they are co-owners of.

CEO's can only sit in the gallery and watch, unless they also hold shares, which would put them on equal footing with a millon other people.

[Simon_Jester]

I think the key point here is that the "Libertarian Utopia" condition reflects... well, what Tvtropes might call a kind of Lawful Stupid. Basically, the idea that we could somehow have a functioning government if the ONLY laws on the books are the ones about property and direct interactions between private citizens. It is assumed by default that those laws are followed by the courts.

And if we have a literal deity pop out of nowhere and erase all our existing laws that govern anything but property and interactions between private citizens, creating a Libertopia in which property control laws are enforced and everything else is gone/irrelevant...

...Well, among the things that get erased are the legal underpinnings of our corporate power structure.

And if you say "ah, but why can't the corporations just ignore that," I could equally well reply "ah, well why doesn't the government ignore what just happened too, resulting in the whole point of the OP being nullified?" The entire point here is to see what would happen if we actually did take all regulatory law, erase it from the record, and then try to enforce the resulting mess.

[K. A. Pital]

You forgot: there is no one to enforce.

[Welf]

You are still claiming that corporations will win, by default, and still not getting it.

There are no cooperations, anymore. They can't sue anybody, because they are not entities before the law, anymore. That ability is gone.

Now you will say that the CEO will file on behalf of the company, but the CEO can't go to court and have his control reinstated. He is just a private person claiming that he has for some reason, which is not supported by existing law or precedence (hint - precedence is part of the regulatory law, and also gone when the law it is based on is gone), that he has the exclusive right to manage the posession of millions of people. There is no legal basis for him to file on, the court would reject. IT has to, because ruling in his favor would be illegal.

Innertia and everything is irrelevant if the law it is based on is gone. Without corporate law, every ruling and precedent based on it is gone, too. And each shareholder has complete access to the former company's posessions.

I'm pretty sure you don't get it. Corporations are not dissolved, the legal framework disappears. This creates a legal/contractual void that needs to filled before anything can be decided. Or can you quote an existing court order that in case of a supernatural creating a libertarian utopia all legal entities stop existing instantly? Things like legitimate expectation do exist for a reason as legal terms. Do you really think a judges would go businesses and economy go to hell in a day and ignore what almost all involved parties intended because of legal purity? Especially if there is a lot of reason to assume that legal persons may continue to exist if the common law adapts a few new characteristics?

[Simon_Jester]

Honestly, in a Libertopia, moronic legalism tends to be the order of the day; otherwise you don't get conclusions like "it's my property so I'll use it to poison your air if I want to."

You forgot: there is no one to enforce.

Police still exist in Libertopia; it's just that the set of laws they'll be enforcing is greatly reduced.

[Napoleon the Clown]

So, super-duper simple way to get, effectively, the same thing as a corporation as we know it now: Everyone who is trying to get a controlling stake in the company has to sign a contract decreeing that it's a group venture and that no one person gets all the toys. Blah blah blah. Libertopia would need to have a hard-on for contracts. And it'd be really fucking hard to stop people from writing whatever the hell contracts they want, and the guy with the most money is probably gonna win. In Libertopia, the need to have a series of higher courts is practically non-existent. The Supreme Court even now is probably gonna tell you to get lost if you try and appeal a civil suit with them. And how would one prevent judicial corruption in Libertopia? Hell, who would decide who will get the legal authority to be a judge?

One could easily argue that there's a pressing need for laws against bribing judges. But who the hell is gonna enforce those laws? The judges that are themselves getting bribed? Fat chance. There'd be no wide-spread binding government. You couldn't realistically send a criminal case halfway across the country so it can be judged by someone that doesn't know the briber personally.

And good luck suing anybody in the company. The CEO? He could easily get the case dismissed on grounds that there is no reasonable way he could have controlled what was going on. The manager at the location the grievance occurred at? He likely won't have the funds to pay out. And that's assuming there's on individual location something happened at.


The most hilarious thing I've seen about the libertarian movement is that, in all reality, there'd be no way at all to determine who would be part of that bare-bones government they want. I can't think of any time I've seen a libertarian cheer for popular vote deciding on who gets into office or what laws get passed. Ironic that they want a system that would ultimately need to be a dictatorship to be free of tyranny of the masses.

And how do we force the wealthy (and thus powerful) to abide by the decisions of a court? Look up cases where a bank has foreclosed on someone that didn't have a loan through that bank. Judge says "Pay the person this" and the bank ignores the order. The person ends up needing to have the police go and tell the bank "Hey, here's the court order. They're gonna take the value you owe them in property." Police will be stretched thin as it is, because all these wonderful sources of revenue they're currently enjoying go up in a puff of smoke. Libertarians hate speed limits. I've even seen an article on the Von Misses Institute website argue that traffic lights are immoral and should go away. So in Libertopia, the police aren't gonna be handing out tickets to get their revenue. Property and income taxes are gone. The only tax a libertarian can tolerate existing in any form is an excise tax, AKA sales tax. And companies are gonna be selling across state lines, where it makes it harder to enforce those taxes. Can't make laws forcing that matter, either, because the company isn't necessarily bound by your laws.

So you'd need to toss people in jail if they do their shopping online. Oh, that sounds like a good idea!


To make Libertopia function, there'd be a need for an asston of laws to be written for all kinds of issues that crop up when everyone gets to decide which laws they'll have. A key part of libertarianism is a lack of centralized government. So, at our most optimistic, we'd have a bunch of states that are allies (when convenient) that don't have any real reason to enforce laws of the other. Hopping across state lines would be perfectly viable for getting away with whatever the fuck you want to get away with. Cops in Mississippi don't have any sort of authority in Vermont, even now. They happily work with each other for a lot of stuff these days, but why would they care if there were no federal government to breathe down their necks? Why go to Russia (as one example) when you can just fuck off to Wyoming or Alaska? The cops there don't care because they don't have reason to care about a criminal record in what would amount to a foreign nation.

All these cool things that the government is providing would need new sources of funding. The police are one example that would have a hard time getting funds in the first place. Again, excise taxes are the only thing I've seen libertarians agree with. But then there's roads that need supported, and good lord would all private collapse fast. Modern roads need a hell of a lot more upkeep than the ones back before the federal government was in the road game. A hundred years ago, even, the roads didn't need to be able to tolerate close to the abuse that roads take these days. So... hello every road is a toll road?


Though honestly a discussion on what would or would not happen if libertarians got their way is futile, as I have never gotten a straight answer as to what libertarianism really is and what it really supports and opposes. For the level of "purity" I see them demanding, it certainly has a lot of differing opinions on what is or isn't acceptable from government.

[K. A. Pital]

Police still exist in Libertopia; it's just that the set of laws they'll be enforcing is greatly reduced.

You mean like drug cartels in Mexico? Damn right. There's no funding either (no federal government, no taxation) so the police will quickly turn into gangs and/or PMCs and that will be the end of it. There will be no 'police' in mere month, and what remains will be a bazillion private security organizations with a mafia-like structure.