Are anarcho-capitalists anti-war?
If you take war to be violent conflicts between States, then anarcho-capitalists are ardently anti-war. Anarcho-capitalists do not see global politics with the conventional statist paradigm – as a collection of competing States, with every man on a State team. Anarcho-capitalist understand that rulers and subjects have very different interests. The rulers stand to gain power, prestige and popularity from war, whereas the subjects pay the costs, in lives and in money, and in standard of living and quality of life. Wars should be thought of as disputes between petulant power-maddened politicians. Thus rulers get the benefits of militarism, but shove the costs on others. They also seize upon war as an opportunity to ramp up power. Finally, they use the war as a propaganda tool to gain support for their rule. Since the land area of the globe has been parceled out among particular States, one of the basic doctrines of the State was to identify itself with the territory it governed. Since mo
