He sets the stage supporting anti-fascist Spanish freedom fighters. Who can't sympathies with these freedom fighters? It's pretty innocuous, who can object to fighting fascism, but it's the governmental form he is exposing, standing up against the fascist tyranny, deposing democracy. Pretty classic opening to an essay, sets the tone, has a bit of a slow burn, catches your attention, pushing your attention forward in an effort to rationalize the opening metaphor. Hey maybe he got lucky. I know most writing teachers would appreciate his opening. "The ship is still made, of course, and it crosses the world conquering savages for loot. But in the end, the organizer is a king, and we all swear the pledge of allegiance. The original reason for building the ship? Shit, no one remembers." metaphor for the state, it's not so subtle. Government is bad, it doesn't serve it's people, we don't need it, all it does is turn into a theft machine. Picking around through the piece you pick up the buy into the government you want idea, lets explore that because it's one of his moral, practical conclusions. Giving people the option to choose to buy into the government style services they want and not for ones they don't. This would be the end of civil society. As the prideful owners of capital, swollen with the knowledge that they are the ones who create value and get things done, pull funding for the social institutions that primarily give benefit to the working class or those groups not fortunate enough to be part of the working class, these institutions would crumble. As they became less and less effective the average Joe would say "why should I give to the schools? They are so terrible my money couldn't possibly make a difference." As general welfare rapidly declined, leaving poverty and crime in it's wake, we would all clutch on to the little bit of money we did have, hoping only to preserve our own threatened welfare. People would be so busy trying to feed their own grandparents, those elders without sons and daughters would starve, there would be no more social security to keep the most vulnerable from starving. Society as we know it would be gone, it would take a decade to make the U.S. look like the third world. You may think this is extreme, but hoovervilles came right after the relatively prosperous 20's. Maybe the author isn't intelligent enough to understand his the consequences of his policy prescription or maybe he is just a starry eyed idealist, in which case I apologize for my anti-social snipe. If his libertarian values have led him to the conclusion that all taxation is theft and people should only have to pay for the things they specifically think should be provided for than he is antisocial and undemocratic. This is the moral philosophy of the child, of the unregulated anti-social owner of capital and the populist power grabbing politician. And yes all these ideas are being explored via a discussion of the consequences of emerging technology, but it doesn't change the subtext of the piece. I'm sure that this guy writes a nice email and probably is a swell guy to have a beer with, but I think his political/economic views are dumb or dangerous. In this form of government would make us all serf's to the owners of capital, business as the state, whoa isn't that what charter cites are? Not like my ideas are normal, I still think that the cost benefit dictator is the best form of government, this is certainly undemocratic, but I believe would benefit society immensely.
I do feel that libertarianism is a serious philosophy, but a terrible social-economic policy. So, I actually agree with most of your points. I see the accumulation of capital and of merit as two very different things. That said, I think technology might make some libertarian principles useful in action when applied to a subset of problems. But capital-based classes of wealth are enough. A civil society is the opposite of one with capital-based classes of power.