A common objection I receive to my anarchistic ideas boils down to the absence of responsibility, i.e., “But then the [companies/rich/powerful] would run roughshod over all of us!” I sympathize with this objection because my passion for anarchism is driven by a sense of justice: Nobody may initiate force or threaten the initiation of force against anyone else.
The error with the objection above is hard to spot for most people. This objection comes out of the current worldview of most people, who place the onus of responsibility on the shoulders of government, from the county health inspector to the national currency issuers. The objection, taken one step back, might be voiced thus: “We live under a government that inspects all restaurants, and any profits beyond the cost of passing inspections are kept by the owner. Without this safeguard, every restaurant owner would pocket the cost of passing inspections, endangering everyone.”
In a free society, rights and responsibilities would coexist. Nobody could exercise a right without incurring the consequences, good or bad. If the same restaurant owner, in a free society, were to serve good, healthy food, he or she would turn a profit, which is a good consequence; were he or she to make customers ill, the consequences would be much worse: loss of customers and payment of damages. Returning again to our current society, the same restaurant owner is protected against loss if the inspections are passed. Someone who is made ill by food from an inspected restaurant has no recourse. This separates the exercise of rights (serving food) from the related responsibility (damages for illness).
People who raise this “roughshod” objection do not share the vision I am trying to put forth: a society in which all action is voluntary and none coerced, every person taking responsibility for the exercise of his or her rights. I need to do a better job to explain this when sharing my views. Ecrasez l’etat!
I also find that people seem to be committed to the notion that one entity needs to do all of the safeguarding. I think, however, that we would still see safety certifications or some other kind of quality certifications arise, probably from multiple companies. Zagats, for instance, could expand its offerings to be a certification source for many of the things people care about their restaurants doing. That is, the notion of “inspection” need not be co-extensive with the notion of government.