Because when billionaires own everything they won't be able to coerce us? Government is the ONLY entity capable of checking the power of the private oligarchs who control the majority of the world's wealth.
Do anarchists have a solution for the straightforward fact that "free markets" lead to massive concentration of power in the hands of a few unaccountable billionaires?
Right, because power structures don't arise naturally from the topography of human social relationships, but from the erection of organized government.
The rule that wealthy will buy of govt is not a rule. Its just an observation that is pertinent today because they adapted to the legislative system, and the legislative system didn't evolve fast enough to get away from them.
The corruption and overtake of the US government is many years in the making. It isn't complete, and it is repairable and it has historical been able to achieve a stable healthy dynamic equilibrium.
"Hereby it is manifest that during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man."
The economic ignorance on display at Hacker News is pretty solid evidence for the necessity of liberal educations to maintain a civilized society. There are now entire generations of engineers who never read any philosophy, economics, or history, yet believe themselves to be experts on questions addressed by these fields. It's astounding how smart people can be so stupid when they are denied a liberal education.
Anyone who considers himself educated should be able to instantly spot the author of that quote. How many HN readers, aside from pg, could do that? It's not okay that this kind of ignorance is now considered acceptable among the "educated" and wealthy classes.
But Peter Thiel's entrepreneur/libertarian monoculture is expanding. These culture killers are celebrating the death of the liberal arts. It used to be that entrepreneur billionaires funded the arts, now they are actively seeking to dismantle them out of some kind of resentment. Things are looking bleak for the open, civil society.
Mark Zuckerberg called for the end of privacy in his book. Our society is putting sophomoric man-children in charge of the cultural landscape.
Do anarchists have a solution for the straightforward fact that "free markets" lead to massive concentration of power in the hands of a few unaccountable billionaires?