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 >  Firstly, your previous analogy about the activist group putting criminals in their basement and demanding money is flawed. It assumes that taxation is equivalent to extortion by a vigilante group, but there are fundamental differences between a functioning government and a group of self-appointed enforcers. second, a government is accountable to its citizens through democratic processes, constitutions, and laws. A random group of people deciding to "enforce justice" and demand payment is not. The legitimacy of a governing system matters because it establishes stability, prevents chaos, and (ideally) operates based on collective agreements rather than personal whims.
 
 I don't think so. Taxation is extortion by a vigilante group. The constitution doesn't stop the government from doing much anymore as people on both sides of the political aisle have seen. And democracy doesn't give moral authority. Just because a group of people oppress a minority doesn't make it right for the majority to tyrannize them. Whatever services are provided that could be provided without the government are just services that are paid for using coercion rather than voluntary exchange. I would contend that that is all services, but I'll get to that next.
 
 > Then there’s the claim that privatized welfare and defense agencies could replace government services. The issue with privatized security is that it always ends up serving the rich, I mean, just look at historical examples like the Pinkertons in the U.S., who crushed worker movements on behalf of corporations. Welfare based purely on private charity is even worse: it’s inconsistent, unreliable, and leaves massive gaps in coverage. You just cannot actually make that work for everyone. Governments exist because relying on the goodwill of the wealthy and corporate entities has never been a sustainable way to ensure basic services for society.
 
 And public defense doesn't? Is your average Joe getting the same defense as Donald Trump, Elon, or any other high up government official? Privatized security at least allows competition which increases innovation and brings greater levels of security to the poorer levels of society. Take the gun for example: First used mostly by militaries, then bought by citizens privately to protect themselves. Guns are still the go-to option for self-defense if someone robs you. It equalized the playing field so that not only the biggest and strongest could take what they wanted. Now a criminal is taking a serious risk getting shot when trying to steal from or harm others. People have a tendency to unfavorably and irrationally defend the status quo even when it suffers from the same problems to an equal or greater degree than possible alternatives.
 
 The Pinkertons frequently collaborated with state forces and benefited from government backing. During labor disputes, they were often hired by industrialists to break strikes, but they also worked alongside state militias and law enforcement. The state (**Which without defense agencies being legal, was the only means of defense for union members**) frequently failed to hold them accountable for violence against striking workers, essentially granting them a level of immunity from legal repercussions. In some cases, local and federal governments even deputized Pinkerton agents, effectively making them an extension of state power rather than a purely private entity.
 
 Mutual aid societies and fraternities provided sustainable access to basic services like medical care at cheaper prices than ever before they were banned by governments.
 
 > At the end of the day, the problem with anarcho-capitalism is that it’s a fucking fantasy. It ignores the reality that societies function best when there are shared responsibilities, protections, and accountability mechanisms. There's nothing wrong with collaboration, after all, humans are collectivist animals. We're not like snakes dude. The world has never seen a stable, large-scale anarcho-capitalist society, because whenever attempts have been made, they either collapsed or became functionally governed by the powerful few. If your argument is that taxation is coercion, sure, I guess it is. But so is every system of order, including any form of private security or rule enforcement. The question isn't whether coercion exists in governance and taxation or not, but whether it serves the collective good or simply concentrates power in the hands of a few. And history overwhelmingly shows that leaving things purely to the free market doesn't lead to freedom. It leads to rule by those with the most wealth and force.
 
 All of those functions can be fulfilled by an anarcho capitalist society. Responsibility, protection, and accountability are more present in a society where everyone watches each other rather than one superpower dominating everything. Humans are most definitely not collectivist animals:  Most humans value themselves over the group in most cases (besides familial groups).
 
 The world had never seen a large scale democratic society but it is still considered superior by most to the despotic governance of previous centuries. I don't think history shows that at all. History shows most clearly that when governments grow large, nothing good comes of it. The larger the government: the less free the economy: the less prosperous the society.
 
 >  As for Cospaia, it’s not a great example. It was a tiny population that survived largely due to trade (specifically, tobacco) and geographic luck. A small village not having a formal government doesn’t mean an entire modern nation could function without one. And let’s not forget: Cospaia eventually ceased to exist because it was absorbed by neighboring states. Which is exactly what happens to most weak or stateless societies over time. The other historical examples you gave, like Medieval Ireland, Iceland, the Acadians, and 19th-century U.S., don’t really support anarcho-capitalism either. Medieval Ireland and Iceland still had legal structures: Iceland had the Althing (a legislative assembly), and Ireland had the Brehon laws, which were enforced by local lords. The Acadians had no centralized state, but they still had elders and elected officials handling disputes and organization. And the 19th-century U.S.? The so-called "Wild West" had low government intervention for a time, but as soon as communities grew, they actually eventually demanded governance because people needed stability, infrastructure, and a functioning legal system.
 
-Source? Cospaia would've likely survived just fine whether it could sell tobacco or not. Cospaia ceased only after 400 years of smooth operation. Your neglecting that information is dishonest. It's true that it doesn't prove a much larger nation could survive, but it does prove the concept that anarcho capitalism can work and function in at least a small society.
+Source? Cospaia would've likely survived just fine whether it could sell tobacco or not. Cospaia ceased only after 400 years of smooth operation. Your neglecting that information is dishonest. It's true that it doesn't prove a much larger nation could survive, but it does prove the concept that anarcho capitalism can work and function in at least a small society that doesn't consist only of rich people.
 
 Medieval Iceland's legal order operated without a central government, relying instead on private enforcement and arbitration to resolve disputes. Medieval Ireland's Brehon law system, where professional jurists administered customary laws, and enforcement was managed through voluntary associations rather than centralized authority. Regarding the 19th-century American West, in the absence of formal governmental structures, settlers established their own mechanisms for dispute resolution and law enforcement, such as vigilance committees and private arbitration. These are historical examples of the efficacy of decentralized, voluntary legal systems. The flaw in your argument is assuming that I think these examples prove anarcho-capitalism: They don't. They only prove that there are examples of these structures working and balancing each other without a centralized state.e
 
 The fundamental difference is that these anarcho-capitalist societies didn't know what anarcho-capitalism was. They didn't try to maintain this state and they probably mostly believed that state intervention would help in the long run. The thing about systems that run well: Nobody really cares. If a piece of infrastructure is so reliable that it almost never needs repair, people will forget how valuable it was given time. The legal system of the Old West functioned well, but nobody knew what was to come by allowing the federal government to slowly take over again. They just assumed it would be for the better in the long term.
 
 > God, please show me then! I looked through all your examples and there are none! Not to mention that all the examples you showed me are basically little communities where rich people moved in. Of course these little communities work well! Everyone is loaded, so they don't actually need support in the same way, which is exactly what the govt is for. We already knew rich people didn't need the govt's help in the same way the middle and lower class do, so try again!
 
 I showed you fire departments and mass transportation, so those are checked. I'll concede that in this argument you have won in saying that there are few good examples of privatized roads. I agree that the examples I gave aren't the best either, **but to be fair to the ancap side, roads are provided by almost all governments and weren't needed far enough back in history to prove that they can be privatized.**  Of course there aren't many examples of private roads because where there's demand the federal and state government are quick to build them. I'll explain why I think roads would work:
 
 Besides roads, every industry has at some point been privatized on a societal scale. Roads don't have some special quality that would make them immune to this trend that aren't present in other industries that are privatized. Roads might be built between cities to make money from toll stations or paid for by groups of businesses that agree to have roads pass by their shops to get people to buy more products from them. In more rural areas, it's likely that people could draw up contracts they'd bring around their community to fund the building of new roads around town. Without a certain number of signatures, the road couldn't be built meaning that at least a majority would need to agree to have the roads built and would be aware of where they are going (unless a generous donor decided to give extra to help the town). These are 3 conceivable and plausible ways roads might be built. Even then, dirt roads have sufficed for hundreds of years. In places where a concrete road can't be poured profitably, it's likely that people will find a way anyway.