Posted on 08/11/2012 4:17:45 PM PDT by theBuckwheat
In following up on some research into anarcho-capitalism (how a society with a free-market economy can function with little or no government), I ran across this paper that contains some interesting facts that might provide useful references and quotes. As usual, the facts are quite at odds with what is commonly held to be true.
From:
An American Experiment in Anarcho-Capitalism: the Not So Wild, Wild, West by Terry L. Anderson and P.J. Hill, Department of Economics, Montana State University
PDF of article: http://mises.org/journals/jls/3_1/3_1_2.pdf
from page 6:
In his book, Frontier Violence: Another Look, W. Eugene Hollon stated that the believed [sic] "that the Western frontier was a far more civilized, more peaceful, and safer place than American society is today." The legend of the "wild, wild West" lives on despite Robert Dykstra's finding that in five of the major cattle towns (Abilene, Ellsworth, Wichita, Dodge City and Caldwell) for the years from 1870 to 1885 only 45 homicides were reported- an average of 1.5 per cattle-trading season. In Abilene, supposedly on of the wildest of the cos towns, "nobody was killed in 1869 or 1870. In fact, nobody was killed until the advent of officers of the law, employed to prevent killings" Only two towns, Ells in 1873 and Dodge City in 1876, everhad five killings in any one year."
Wait, there's porn on the Internet?
Many of the wildest and most likely lethal areas were in the goldfields of California, Montana, the Black Hills, and anywhere else a claim jumper might get his just deserts. Of course it didn't always work that way, and sometimes the claim owner woke up dead in the morning (greed, indeed, coupled with a bad case of gold fever).
Outside of a some hotspots which attracted nefarious types, ordinary communities were pretty ordinary.
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