In a place where there is no government, I don't see what would be wrong with vigilante justice. If there are no authorities and no help then you have little choice but to take matters into your own hands.
> "In a place where there is no government, I don't see what would be wrong with vigilante justice. If there are no authorities and no help then you have little choice but to take matters into your own hands."
The problems with vigilante justice are universal, it doesn't matter if you have little choice or not. Generally speaking the problem is that vigilante justice is much more open to the whim of individual desires and views.
Why is that bad? Let's use the 'brick through the window of Starbucks' example I've used before. If you agree that Starbucks are bad, then the brick through the window may look justified, but if you do not believe Starbucks are bad then the action may appear unjustified.
Consider that the problem some people have with government is that decisions are made on your behalf and you feel powerless to change this. However, if you consider what you have without government, you still have people making decisions on your behalf, except you now have millions more of them, and there's less chance to influence what happens as a result of their actions if you disagree with what they've done. Is that better?
What you outline is basically why I think it's a bad idea to live in a place with no government. There's a huge potential for problems and often there are no good choices.
The moment you say "Imagine the Indonesian government didn't exist," well, it's going to be a complete shithole. At best you'll be at the mercy of the local warlord or gang leader. Quibbling over exactly how you live your life in this lawless shithole doesn't seem very relevant to the actual situation.
Yes, I agree, but the argument that I responded to considered there was a distinction between capitalism and exploitation. My point is that exploitation is not the sole domain of government, if you had a capitalist society without government intervention then exploitation would still exist, but you'd have to rely on different methods in order to resist this exploitation, and those methods would not necessarily be an improvement over what we have now.
