Mauser
Anarcho-capitalism is a free market plus the decentralization of power. A private military company under ancap is a company operating in a free market to solve military tasks—that is, tasks arising from conflicts where people are willing to kill.
It is very easy to imagine the activities of private military companies during a society’s war of liberation against the state. Something similar to how this looks could be observed in the initial stage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, in those areas where the state was practically inactive, yet defense tasks were nonetheless being solved. What is characteristic of such a war? The emergence and decentralized coordination of numerous startups focused on three types of tasks: direct combat operations, supplying those on the front line, and crowdfunding to finance the first two. If the war drags on, the supply task becomes more complex, and a separate industry emerges for the development of new means of warfare.
But once ancap dominates the world, all this flourishing complexity is a heroic past. The grandfathers fought their wars. Military tasks become much more local; the duration and frequency of military conflicts decrease. Thus, private military companies under ancap will operate in survival mode. They will have to exert significant marketing efforts just to justify why they still exist at all, and many will prefer to liquidate instead, since there are many peaceful tasks on the market that will bring a much more significant income with far less effort.
Believe me, you wouldn’t want to work as a PMC employee under ancap. No romanticism, no heroism, very few actual tasks, existing merely as a formality, in conditions where people look at you askance and wonder why you even exist, and if you wouldn’t accidentally like to create a new state, because you seem kind of aggressive—maybe you need a little injection. So, I fully admit that almost no military companies will remain at all under ancap. There will be gamers. There will be reenactors. There will be some kind of brutal sport. There will be fans organizing into teams to vent aggression on one another under the pretext of supporting sports teams. There will be various book theorists imagining what war could be like under current material and technical conditions.
The production of specialized military equipment will inevitably be shut down. Old stocks will be gradually disposed of, and those that make no sense to dispose of will eventually become obsolete anyway. Cheap mass-market items for the civilian market can be adapted for war using blue electrical tape if necessary, but engaging in this—and especially starting to produce more serious military tools—will only happen in the event of a real war whose duration exceeds at least a couple of months. And where would this real war come from?
A mass war under ancap would require a combination of two factors. First, the appearance of a sufficient number of sweet summer children convinced that war is a fun festival of courage. Is this possible under ancap? Of course it is, and it is even inevitable. And second, a talented psychopath is needed who can convince them that the world is rotten to the core, society has lost its purpose, and it is time to shake up these bloated pigs so they scream in terror. Is this possible under ancap? Of course it is; you can’t assign a Bitarch to every psychopath.
As for what happens next, that is also generally clear. There will be bewilderment. There will be distrust of news channels, claiming they are creating hype out of nothing. There will be helpless attempts to counteract this by service agencies involved in maintaining order and security. Then, more and more people will begin to realize that they are actually being fought against. Mostly, they will simply flee far away from the danger zone after receiving insurance payouts (if policies still imply coverage for civil unrest risks). But entrepreneurs will emerge who begin to solve the arising problem. And then the market will do its work, and it will be the hour of glory for private military companies. They will emerge from nowhere, attract all the necessary resources, deal with the war, and disappear again.
Such a boring story.