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Ignoring the philosophy itself, one line that consistently arises in debate over the practicality of anarchism, alongside defending the apparent wizardry of government-roads or schools, is the pressure to provide historical examples of anarchism. "There are no examples of anarchy", you'll get often. "Let's hear *one* example of anarchy, i'll wait", is another certain assertion that it hasn't been, and can't be, done.  

While there are many cases that could be made—such as: [*A Century of Anarchy*](https://www.amazon.com/Century-Anarchy-Neutral-Moresnet-Revisionist-ebook/dp/B00KB6DLUO), by Pete Earle; of Ireland and others documented by Murray Rothbard in [*For A New Liberty*](https://mises.org/library/new-liberty-libertarian-manifesto_); or the story of the [Not So Wild, Wild West](https://mises.org/library/not-so-wild-wild-west) showing a case of stateless order in America, just to name a few—this is, I believe, aside from the real question. 

**The *real question* should be:**

Where does one *currently* have an opportunity to achieve economic success: in the private market, by selling their labor for wages or by starting their own business (capitalism); or the subsistence life riding on the government dole, receiving welfare payments, handouts, and such (socialism)? 

As everyone knows, the only real way for Joe Regular to earn an income which provides him with a satisfying standard of living is in the private economy, working for or running a private company. Unless you're one of the lucky ones, like a corporation that successfully lobbied for others' money, you can't make a $100,000 salary sitting around on government assistance. That must be found in the private economy. Surely many working for government, like those entering the lower-ranks of the military, have regrettably come to wish they had joined the private-sector instead. 

Now, it is true that many *do* earn their wealth through the government, albeit illegitimately: corporate subsidies, government contracts, wealth redistribution in the name of equality, the politicians and government employees themselves, etc. But we're talking about the *average* person, who wasn't as lucky to be bestowed with the last name Clinton; Joe Jones, who wasn't of the few able to become a millionaire politician. 

But all real anarchists advocate the elimination of these things. It is socialists who, although disturbed about it all and complain of it, have unwittingly given us "state-capitalism", or the corporate-state as we know it. After all, without government, these private businesses would have no means of ripping off the consumer; they would be forced to earn their profits in the market, voluntarily trading with others and offering the best product, rather than simply appeal to government for special privileges afforded to no one else. 

The way it stands around the world is that, since it isn't fun or easy starting and maintaining a business in a free-market with competition, corporations and such have vyed for government-protection *from* competition. Successful they have been, much to our detriment. 

While true, this isn't pertinent to our point here. More importantly, this thesis is to say being unable to name a past example of anarchism doesn't refute the reality that we *already* accumulate our resources and enrich our lives by private means, and that *this* is the relevant question, of asking if it's the market or government that has came to our aid.  

Besides those people who join the ranks of the government – those parasites who live off our production – the way to "earn a living", morally and economically, is by way of entering private relationships with others in the economy. Unless you have the helpful last name Bush or Clinton, or have political allies in government, our means of earning an income is through exchange in the market. Some others live off the transferred property of their neighbors, being tax-recipients too, but not to the extent that the ruling-minority and their cronies do.

If anyone can look at a picture of Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, the two contenders for the 2016 Presidency, and look at me with a straight-face and say "we are the government", then i'll personally diagnose them insane. These people are not "us", and they're not interested in the betterment of society as is claimed. 

This is most evident to anyone, whether they come to terms with it or not: it is the *market*, contrary to the government, which provides us with the economic goods we need to consume to sustain our lives; it is the market in which we obtain jobs and economic-standing. We all know government gives us nothing. All it does it *take*, consuming capital rather than creating it. Competition in the market causes income to rise, not government decrees such as minimum-wage laws; a price-fixing scheme that economically cannot work. Businesses offer us employment while government causes us unemployment. Everyone gets these things, although not fully seeing that the government is not helpful to them in the least, and that all the "services" it alleges to provide could be done so privately and voluntarily in the market. Where is your car from? Who feeds you daily? Who employs you? For most, the answer is, or only can be in some case, a private business. 

**Historical Anarchism**

Giving an example that should satisfy as an answer, since we only must name one, Murray Rothbard says: 

> "For the libertarian, the most interesting and certainly the most 
> poignant example of the creation of a State through conquest was 
> the destruction of the libertarian society of ancient Ireland by 
> England in the seventeenth century, a conquest which established 
> an imperial State and ejected numerous Irish from their cherished 
> land. The libertarian society of Ireland, which lasted for a thousand
> years....was able to resist English conquest for hundreds of years 
> because of the absence of a State which could be conquered easily 
> and then used by the conquerors to rule over the native population."

He concludes 

> "For a thousand years, then, ancient Celtic Ireland had no
> State or anything like it."

So there are examples, but this, I feel, isn't the real question; and isn't what we should defend anyway. We could play their game, of needing past-proof of something in order to have it, but I feel this is unnecessary. Imagine for instance that, in the 1950's, we were told "where has the internet ever existed before?" Would this suffice to calm our ambition in bringing it about? Should we give up hope, since achieving such a thing would be unprecedented territory? Of course not. Thankfully, we have dreamers out there; innovators who refuse to give up on a future they envision possible. 

Indeed this is why libertarians are, in general, going to be more entrepreneurial, with increased business acumen, than the socialist, who is unable to conceive of what doesn't presently exist. It is the businessman who predicts trends in the market or the future, seeing a profit opportunity and seizing it to satisfy consumer demand, all which socialism is incapable of doing up against the economic problems they face.  It is we who can think in the abstract, seeing the necessity and viability of the imagined libertarian society we wish to make a reality. Sadly, it might be true, that we do have to fully paint this picture if we want to see it come alive. The socialists don't do logic, and so can't work with applying theory to history. 

Thus, in our view, even if there were no historical examples where the almighty State hadn't clamped down on all the territory in the world, as they have now, and there were never any cases in human history where the relationship of master and slave hadn't existed, then this would *still* be the desirable goal, to abolish slavery. Thankfully, in our culture, we don't accept anymore as a species the privately-held slave relationships between humans. Unfortunately, though, we have been unable to recognize *the State* as none other than the modern slave-master, forcing its subjects to give up their property – their labor – against their will. 

Their questioning, as implied, is that we're just expected to accept our fate of "when has man never *not* been dominated?" It's as if liberty isn't a good goal, the noblest of all, just because we've never had it. We could still, for instance, assert, as economic theory tells us, that if the State *were* to give us more freedom, removing their barriers to prosperity they've placed before us, that we would *absolutely* begin to flourish more so than we will with them. Sure, maybe there has never been a totally-free market anywhere. We're saying, though, anyway: *this is what we want!*

It's odd we're supposed to make all these examples, explain them in detail, and conceive of their outcome in their entirety, but all the socialist simply has to do is point to government and say "they'll solve it, we don't need to worry about it." It's just much easier to point to the monopolist power (government) as the solution since it is frankly harder to understand the coordination of information taking place in a decentralized manner; in prices, profit and loss, supply and demand, etc. 

**The Market vs. The State**

Markets exist, and spring up, despite any chance to squash them. It is necessary that we trade and engage in the division of labor in order to survive. With varying concerns for the consequences of intervention, from monarchic to democratic, the market to some extent will remain. Under Soviet Communism, even, with a full-blown nationalization of the means of production, "black markets" arose to take care of consumer needs where government couldn't. Furthermore, soon after Communism was implemented, even the ruling elite saw that there would need to be some amount of freedom in the market as the government couldn't provide. In America, there are still some markets that escape taxation and regulation, such as exchanges that occur online or elsewhere. The market is always going to be there, but the State does not have to be. 

The important analysis is that the market grows *in spite* of government, not because of it; and that we would be *many times richer without it.* The State's taxation affects *relative* levels of production (relative to it not existing), not absolute. Thus, it's possible for growth with government; though this doesn't show that government is why it grew. 

Even socialists today, who don't accept the label of socialist by the way, consider themselves to be "capitalists", or for the market. They think only that it needs correction by the group of nice people with guns, called "the government", fixing "market failures" and such. They don't see, *still*, that the political means is how these "capitalists" that they hate come to undermine the market and jip consumers in many unimaginable ways that average-folk can't see. They think, as opposed to us, that the market would in fact get *worse* without government. 

The statist then might reply that that this cooperation we've attained for now is only due to the government's presence. But it's illogical that coercion is necessary for cooperation. If someone is forced to do something, it isn't voluntary cooperation. "Forced altruism" is the contradiction in political philosophy which gives us the State. We can't do this and call it "consent" and "civilization." If anything, the height of civilization would be achieving the absence of statism, proving that humans don't need a territorial-monopolist of law and a defense; that we can provide our own means, competitively in the market, of securing our lives and properties all while effectively allocating resources to meet our ends. 

Government comes around only to complicate matters. It is not due to them that there's a market, but that there is a government only because of the market. The market precedes the State, and the State exists and thrives off of stolen private-property. 

And since this is so, it's only fair, to address another argument posed our way, that the *statist* should move, not the anarchist. *They* should "leave the country", since peaceful people wishing to trade freely were here before they came around guns-blazing. We're not the ones who want to organize a massive gang, called "the government", to plunder the market; we wish to produce, exchange, and voluntarily enter relationships that actually benefit us. We're not the one's who want to steal, in order words. We're simply asking for people to *not* do things for us, like allege to offer us "protection" although it's compulsorily provided; or to not command us to live by their price controls, wage laws, regulations and such; to simply leave us be — *laissez-faire.*

The liberty movement is made up of anti-statists, and the only real economics, really, is anti-statism. We're necessarily the only ones able to see that liberty and prosperity go hand-in-hand. 

Wealth is created through private-capital investment, not through taxation and government laws. It is savings, the accumulation of capital, the protection of private property rights, and the resulting investment that creates wealth; it is the delaying of consumption in the present to invest in capital goods to bring about more production, and proceeding consumption, in the future.  

Notice the socialist, though, has no interest in how wealth is *created*; they only wish to learn how to *take* it. As well, you'll never hear "that's economics 101" from the socialist, or any hint of "we want liberty for all!" This is because socialism is not about liberty or creating wealth. The doctrine of socialism is to justify using aggression against peaceful people under the banner of egalitarianism. 

For the socialist, economics is not their specialty; logic is not their strong suit. Indeed, they deny economics altogether and come to think, hence this article, that their empirical, statistical, mathematical explanations are the only ones that matter; that there is no real cause and effect play at here, but the truth can be discovered by simply finding historical correlations; there is no science of economics with a methodology of logical deduction, but that the only science is positivism.

As such, being without economic theory, they're unable to correctly view events in the world. The "socialist" countries in Europe, or those at least considered so (often to contrast this as if America is capitalist), where socialist government's reign, had preceding economic freedom that created their wealth before government came to plunder them and stifle growth. In some ways, they're still more free that the U.S., which is assumed to be capitalist in these comparisons despite having the largest government in the world. If the reverse were true – and regulations, taxes, minimum-wage laws, etc. – were imposed from the beginning, then these countries would have never came to be. Surely they see African countries would not benefit if they adopted the legislation of Sweden, say; and that Americans earn higher wages than Europeans despite their seemingly sought-after welfare system. 

When there is a State, which always is socialist in nature, there is not a free-market. It is not acceptable to call this here in America, or around the world, *capitalism*. Conservative-types tend to make this mistake, too, regarding America as some free-market bastion of the world when it is far from it. Rather, and to be generous, it might be more fair to say what we live in is a severely hampered market economy. At worst, America, and other countries, have fully adopted the fascist model of integrating the State and the business class; most, unfortunately, do call this "capitalism." 

**Oh, the Anarchy!**

There's possibly a distinction that anarchy *does* refer to chaos, while anarchism refers to the philosophy of statelessness, but I use the term, here at least, to describe the natural order of things: the way people already interact with each other, un-coerced yet working together; the orderly fashion in which we drive, because none of us wish to die; or the pedestrians, going from store to store, who are shopping around for the best deal they can find; the many merchants advertising their offers, hanging signs in their windows to attract willing customers; how the kids meet each other in the park to organize a ball-game; the yard-sales, lemonade stands, free-libraries.

So, i'd say, anarchy is everywhere. It's outside, it's inside. It is witnessed in our daily lives how humans cooperate with no government peering over our shoulder, minute-by-minute, to make sure we're doing it right. There is no policeman on every corner to assure our safety at all times. There is no government arbitrator for every dispute we have, helping us reach a settlement. We're doing this ourselves; there's just a thieving-class who is making it harder for us to do it. 

In a sense, then, we do have anarchism; we're all just people looking to produce, prosper, and cooperate with one another to mutual benefit. It's just that there's a gang of property expropriators making up "the State" who make our lives more difficult than they have to be. 

Better yet for a question, then, is "when has *government* ever existed?" After all, they're only *individuals*; they just belong to a group of people – criminals – who *call themselves* "the government." 

**Why Anarchism?**

Crime would be lessened in an anarchist society where people are "forced" by nature to cooperate with each other, and get along to continue lasting associations. Perhaps crime (violations of property rights) will never be eradicated, but this still doesn't provide us with an argument *for* government. If people are bad, and are lawless with government, then they would be so under anarchism too. 

But for this reason, the fair comparison which the statist must prove is that the people of a *given area*, who are lawful *with* and under government, would break-out into lawlessness suddenly *without* the government. They cannot say that Region X has no government and the people are heathens and hooligans, while Country Y has government and the people are good, and present this as proof that people are good *because* of the government, or bad because lack thereof. Viewing it like this, it is more our point that people who are voluntarily cooperating and getting along without government are not going to be better off or benefited with the introduction of this violent institution. 

There's also no reason to apply a different set of economic principles to government. If we know freedom and competition, and the resulting plenty in the supply of goods, brings about higher quality and lower prices in any one industry, then we same will apply to anything government has currently monopolized: schooling, law, security, etc. There's no reason for a monopoly on security anymore than food, which Communism made an absurdity. When can police brutality inspire us to abandon police monopolies?

Never forget, either: why should the burden of proof be on us? If there has never been an example of anarchism, anyway, then their hypothesis of what would happen has never been tested, and thus it is just a hypothesis. Their statism, however, is a demonstrable failure. What can they point to that Keynesianism is working? Where has government seen success in its war on poverty, and when will socialists wake up to the reality that they're worsening the situations of all the people they portray as being protecting of? 

We anarchists are not utopians, as are the socialists promising "free" stuff, nor are we central-planners. It is precisely that anarchists are for a spontaneous order, and to allow freedom to flesh-out any kinks, that we don't attempt to provide the answers to everything; that we find "I don't know", in pre-Internet terms, to be an acceptable answer for what might come. While we may theorize on the nuances of liberty, we don't have all the answers. We may sit around and ponder, for intellectual exercise, what things might look like, but really this wouldn't be consistent with our philosophy: freedom first, and figure out everything else later. That is, end the State and we're not worried. 

There was a day when liberalism meant *liberty*; where those who espoused now-classical liberalism believed in the freedom of people to develop their way of life, so long as it trampled on no one else's freedom to do the same. They believed in human ingenuity, freedom of speech, association, economy, etc. In contrast, conservatism wished to conserve the old order of statism. Today, those operating under the guise of being liberal do not wish for *liberty*. They want the total-State, where the economy is ran by this elite group of individuals living at our expense. They wish to revive the ideas that cause so much misery in the past, and which took down other countries before us. 

So, maybe we could pose to them in response: "Name an example of a dead Empire that never failed. Ha, you can't!" Or how about: "Name an example of someone getting rich outside of private, voluntary means, that deserved such earnings?" 

The real question, I restate, is not to make examples of stateless societies in the past, but to already compare "who helps us, those in the market or those in the government?" The answer is decisive.