It’s often the case that critics of anarchism will demand to know how we might obtain public goods without the state, because their entire frame of reference for public goods is in the context of state monopolies.

And I might reply that all sorts of public goods predate the state by thousands of years or more. Neolithic peoples were building trackway roads and monumental architecture and all kinds of neat things.

And critics of anarchism will often gleefully seize upon this as if it presents some clever gotcha. They think this means that *the best* we can hope to achieve without the state is a Neolithic-level of technology and cooperation.

And I find that response to be…so immensely sad. They see a dead-end; I see incredible achievements with only the barest of technologies and available knowledge, and can only wonder at the marvels we’d be able to achieve together now.