A Warning About Anarchocapitalism

Anarchocapitalist or right-libertarian writing sometimes seems to wrongly imply that for-profit corporations are more peaceful or less violent than governments. Anarchocapitalism is rule by a for-profit corporation. A government is considered strong if it has a monopoly on the use of force within its boundaries. Since strong governments have a monopoly on the use of force, corporations may seem less violent. However, some corporations profit from violence, and at times, for-profit organizations engage in violence. For example, for-profit corporations engaged in the slave trade, or profit from war.

If government was a business, then proposed decreases in funding to Medicaid represent savings, and therefore increased money or profit. However, if people who rely Medicaid do not have another way to have healthcare, the quality of people’s health may decrease, and mortality may increase. Since the purpose of a for-profit corporation is to generate money, especially for shareholders, if the corporation profits from violence, from denying people’s healthcare claims, or another outcome detrimental to other people, then the corporation might try to generate money that way despite the negative impact. Decreases in funding to government services could result in attempts for parts of the government to be privatized, or could be short-term attempts to save money, but long-term costs might be more clear in the future.

Edit: (5/27/2025) While a for-profit government could cause unhelpful or dangerous results, particularly for people without money, due to the limited historical examples of for-profit governments, estimating the probability of an anarchocapitalist government existing is difficult, and the risk could be low.