Eli On Monarchy As The Golden Mean —“Ancap in theory resolves to monarchy in p

Eli On Monarchy As The Golden Mean

—“Ancap in theory resolves to monarchy in practice, because you can’t prevent property from becoming unequally distributed. My property, my rules: equals monarchy.

The only question is one of scale, and when economies of scale are likely to be balanced by the diseconomies. Large landlords are able to suppress free-riding among their tenants and provide them with public goods that they can’t produce as independent, sovereign, small landowners. But very large landlords are subject to knowledge and incentive problems that make it increasingly unlikely that they actually will.

There’s not really a “legitimacy” issue. All property originates in conquest. Original appropriation, expropriation, they’re just variations on a theme. Fencing off unowned land, formerly free for use by all, and announcing, henceforth, any trespass will be subject to retaliatory violence is inherently an act of aggression.

Once property is owned, and markets for its transfer exist, there’s no reason not to expect it to be consolidated into relatively few hands, and many reasons to suppose that it will be. The market will demand lords. And the market will provide.”—