анонимный вопрос

A vast number of science fiction works are dedicated to the theme of relations between Earth and its alien colonies. Significant attention is also paid in such works to the organization of society within these colonies. In essence, it all comes down to which specific sci-fi assumptions form the basis of a given plot.

Let us try the opposite approach: to understand what minimum sci-fi (and preferably realistic) assumptions must be made so that the society emerging in Earth’s alien colony is anarcho-capitalist. Well, let us reason it through.

In theory, of course, by the time alien colonies appear, ancap should already exist on Earth; accordingly, it would be quite natural for a colony to maintain this specific type of social relation. But that is too trivial an assumption, albeit quite realistic.

For the sake of interest, I would, for example, assume the opposite: that for some mysterious reason, the technologies for colonizing other planets are all available, yet ancap has still not taken root. It is not entirely clear to me how this could be, as there are no grounds for states to have survived for so long. But we are talking about science fiction, and this is our sci-fi assumption.

Moving on. For anarcho-capitalism to exist in a colony, a free market must be established there. If, for instance, the entire colony consists of a single firm trading with Earth, then the relations within it will likely be monetary-labor relations, and we will get a completely different society. Thus, sufficient autonomy of the colonists is necessary; after all, if they depend on centrally distributed resources in everything, there can be no anarchy. This means either the planet is terraformed, or it was originally habitable, or the technologies for arranging living space around oneself are very inexpensive and accessible to almost everyone.

As a result, we have a surplus of living space, which allows people to coexist only when it brings benefits, and not simply because it is crowded and there is nowhere else to go. This is very important for the emergence of the proverbial autonomy of the individual and the dominance of voluntary relations—coercion in such an environment is simply unnecessary and highly ineffective.

In general, with the colonization of such a planet, we get a situation similar to the experience of the USA, but without Indians and slaves—those two ancestral traumas of the United States that contributed to the expansion of federal government powers and led to internal wars.

We will dismiss the sci-fi assumption regarding the possibility of interplanetary wars with disdain: it is good for a blockbuster, but far too improbable. This also works in favor of ancap: there is no need to maintain a defense against space invasion, because out of fear of something like that, a state might accidentally emerge, and then you’d have to root it out of people’s minds…