I think you and I agree in a lot of the sentiments you expressed, but I am saying that there a lot of caveats to the assumptions behind thosd sentiments.
First of all if you got rid of states and cities and didnt have those centralized police forces there would still be "men with guns". They'd just be hired by some security firms that would work with various organizations but they'd still enforce whatever policies the organizations had.
Secondly in an ancap utopia you'd have rents instead of taxes which are also the cost of doing business - except instead of public jurisdictions you'd have private property. An immigrant to such a community would immediately find himself on someone's land and have to pay rent and abide by whatever possibly non-standard rules the landlord had.
Thirdly if money is the only signal, is the market is really "free" of any political mechanism then you could eg buy up justice, lakes whatever and then abuse its original intent. For example a millionaire could come in, buy off some judges and then proceed to rob people recouping their investment.
Fourth, taxes arent usually collected st the point of a gun. For example an employee's taxes are withheld by the employer with no guns involved. Taxes are the cost of doing business in a jurisdiction.
Fifth, states and cities do compete for resources, eg some towns in Arkansas will PAY YOU to move there and build house and give you $50k to start a business because they are losing people and they want to invest that way. They aren't immune from consequences and can't hike up their taxes to unlimited levels or pass absolutely any kind of local ordinances. Same with countries etc.
I think your main objection stems from the fact that land give rise to a natural monopoly. You can't have 100 roads going through one intersection and you don't want 100 militias operating on the same turf. If you look at the internet you'll also see large ecosystems - facebook google apple etc. which are in effect "states" in cyberspace. Their policies (eg google real names policy, facebook's privacy etc.) cause friction because they are so big and in some ways your membership with them is a contract of adhesion. But that's a situation that's similar to the states one.
You say violence is the main factor but I say that force is employed either way to enforce systems work. And usually that force doesnt lead to physical violence. But even if you ran things differently there would still be violence.
First of all if you got rid of states and cities and didnt have those centralized police forces there would still be "men with guns". They'd just be hired by some security firms that would work with various organizations but they'd still enforce whatever policies the organizations had.
Secondly in an ancap utopia you'd have rents instead of taxes which are also the cost of doing business - except instead of public jurisdictions you'd have private property. An immigrant to such a community would immediately find himself on someone's land and have to pay rent and abide by whatever possibly non-standard rules the landlord had.
Thirdly if money is the only signal, is the market is really "free" of any political mechanism then you could eg buy up justice, lakes whatever and then abuse its original intent. For example a millionaire could come in, buy off some judges and then proceed to rob people recouping their investment.
Fourth, taxes arent usually collected st the point of a gun. For example an employee's taxes are withheld by the employer with no guns involved. Taxes are the cost of doing business in a jurisdiction.
Fifth, states and cities do compete for resources, eg some towns in Arkansas will PAY YOU to move there and build house and give you $50k to start a business because they are losing people and they want to invest that way. They aren't immune from consequences and can't hike up their taxes to unlimited levels or pass absolutely any kind of local ordinances. Same with countries etc.
I think your main objection stems from the fact that land give rise to a natural monopoly. You can't have 100 roads going through one intersection and you don't want 100 militias operating on the same turf. If you look at the internet you'll also see large ecosystems - facebook google apple etc. which are in effect "states" in cyberspace. Their policies (eg google real names policy, facebook's privacy etc.) cause friction because they are so big and in some ways your membership with them is a contract of adhesion. But that's a situation that's similar to the states one.
You say violence is the main factor but I say that force is employed either way to enforce systems work. And usually that force doesnt lead to physical violence. But even if you ran things differently there would still be violence.