Imagine you’re a person who has never read a single book about the economy. You have zero knowledge and you’re actually a ten years old child, but for some reason, you understand the concept of competition.

You probably understand the companies like Coca-Cola and Pepsi are rivals on the market and they fight for their position. They want you to buy their products and prefer them over the others, so they can profit. The only way they can have profit is to be better than others, so they have to try hard to make you satisfied as much as possible with their services or products.

Yup, even children understand this very simple concept. And it’s not only on the market. Competition is part of our everyday life even outside of it. Imagine you go on a date with a nice girl. You will try to make a good impression with the girl and it puts pressure on you, makes you behave in a certain way.

You know you’re not the only person who is interested in this girl. There is the whole army of others. And if you do something that makes her walk away, you lost this battle. So you have to buy her some flowers and take her to the restaurant and so on.

It’s the same case when you go to a job interview. You probably won’t attend such an event with crocs and a hawaiian shirt or something.

Anyway, as you can see – even children who have no knowledge about economics understand the concept of competition. It should be very clear to everyone and it is, indeed. BUT for some strange reason, it’s the most ignored basic knowledge ever.

When I discuss anarcho capitalism with statists, they use arguments that could work only in a world without competition.

“So what if you go to the bar and they give you a poison because there are no regulations and laws? And you will die!”

Okay, let’s put aside this argument ignores the fact that the stateless society is not lawless. And giving me poison is clearly a NAP violation. But whatever.

The point of the argument is, the companies can’t do certain things because they are illegal, like giving me poison. But on the unregulated market, you probably won’t have a good reputation if you’re known for poisoning your customers. Not a good thing for a profit (also it’s murder).

Or maybe you heard the argument: “Private firefighters will set fire to your house on purpose, so you will have to pay them for putting it out!” – it’s totally absurd and ignoring the competition system. Even if they do it secretly, it’s still a risk that someone finds out and it’s a complete suicide on the free market. I feel totally silly to even explain it.

Let’s mention some less extreme and less absurd examples. For example “Private police won’t protect you, if you won’t pay!” – still not good for a good reputation. Also the same with this argument: “Private police and courts will protect only rich people!”… uuumm, no. The same way private security services won’t protect only the rich nowadays.

Actually, half of arguments against anarcho capitalism is based mostly on ignoring there is a competition system.