Quote from: iCEBREAKER on April 12, 2013, 11:27:49 PM

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/anarchism.html

Thanks for this link, by the way. It shows that she had heard of Anarcho-capitalism, at least somewhat, though I don't think anyone ever sat down and explained it to her. Her Russian upbringing seems to have colored her views as to the "service" which Government provides, and I'm sure that didn't help, either.

Quote

A recent variant of anarchistic theory, which is befuddling some of the younger advocates of freedom, is a weird absurdity called competing governments. Accepting the basic premise of the modern statistswho see no difference between the functions of government and the functions of industry, between force and production, and who advocate government ownership of businessthe proponents of competing governments take the other side of the same coin and declare that since competition is so beneficial to business, it should also be applied to government. Instead of a single, monopolistic government, they declare, there should be a number of different governments in the same geographical area, competing for the allegiance of individual citizens, with every citizen free to shop and to patronize whatever government he chooses.

Remember that forcible restraint of men is the only service a government has to offer. Ask yourself what a competition in forcible restraint would have to mean.

One cannot call this theory a contradiction in terms, since it is obviously devoid of any understanding of the terms competition and government. Nor can one call it a floating abstraction, since it is devoid of any contact with or reference to reality and cannot be concretized at all, not even roughly or approximately. One illustration will be sufficient: suppose Mr. Smith, a customer of Government A, suspects that his next-door neighbor, Mr. Jones, a customer of Government B, has robbed him; a squad of Police A proceeds to Mr. Jones house and is met at the door by a squad of Police B, who declare that they do not accept the validity of Mr. Smiths complaint and do not recognize the authority of Government A. What happens then? You take it from there.

To which David Friedman responds:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=jTYkdEU_B4o#t=282s