The irony of ancaps is that what they want is a fundamental contradiction. Capitalism requires a powerful centralized nation state because it falls apart without one. I think that most ancaps do understand this and are being disingenuous on some level, either with others or themselves, and merely fantasize about collecting power in the chaotic years between disenfranchisement and the crash.

Slightly related but on my mind, this reminds me of anthropological studies on the origins of money. The story that money arose as a way to lubricate otherwise rigid and incompatible exchanges in so-called "barter markets" is a myth. In reality it seems that in all instances money actually arose as a punitive system of legal account in order to avoid the violence of blood libels (eg Alice killed Bob's cow, to avoid Bob killing Alice the elders decree that one cow is worth 12 chickens and order Alice to give Bob 12 chickens. The elders write down these equivalent exchanges for future conflict resolution and a unit of account is the obvious next step). Ironically when modern anthropologists have gone looking for examples of barter markets they find none in antiquity or ancient times, they find them only in modern times and places where formerly capitalist or mercantilst populations got shut out of the wider economy for various reasons and suddenly had to make due without money. Rather than money arising from barter, barter is merely just what people who know money do when they suddenly have no money. TL;DR: Barter systems are largely a modern capitalist myth.

Truth. Back in the 2008/2009 bailout discussions, I thought the best thing we could have done was a program that covered living expenses and cost to go to a technical college. By 2010, you've got a new batch of American workers with modernized skills.

Which still sounds like a pretty good idea.

China is capitalist and authoritarian. Their investment in their people is done with the goal of neo-colonialism as they use their wealth and influence to indebt growing nations to China. They invest in their people, but only enough to stave off mass protests. We see a lot of wealth come out of China, but remember that we could witness China uplift an equivalent amount of people to the entire population of the U.S. and they would still be oppressing a larger percentage of their population.

It looks like it's working in contrast to the U.S. right now because we are currently crashing out as a nation, rewarding cash-grabbing opportunists even more than we have for all of U.S. history. Idk, there is a chance we fully burn up in this shit show going on right now and that would de-facto make China's system technically better, but I think that's the only way. I mean the atrocities China has committed against its own people and people around the world in recent decades is ridiculous. I know you weren't going to bat for China don't worry.