Your post reminded me of three quotes from famous anarcho-capitalists, which you echoed quite eloquently. Rothbard said, “In fact, the libertarian would reason that the fact that human nature is a mixture of both good and evil provides its own particular argument in his favor. For if man is such a mixture, then the best societal framework is surely one in which evil is discouraged and the good encouraged. The libertarian maintains that the existence of the State apparatus provides a ready, swift channel for the exercise of evil, since the rulers of the State are thereby legitimated and can wield compulsion in ways that no one else is permitted to do.”

Gene Callahan wrote, “Contra the author of one of The Federalist Papers, who wrote, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary,” I have always believed that if men were angels, the state might be acceptable. It is precisely our non-angelic nature that makes the power of the state too dangerous for any human to possess.”

The third one isn’t so much a quote, but actually a sort of graphical or tabular representation of Statism vs. anarchism in an article by Robert Higgs for the Independent Institute (http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1982). His “figure 2″ in that article is a table that says: If men are angels, then either a State or anarchy is OK. But if men are not angels, then anarchy is a bad situation but a State is a worse situation.

Sorry for making this comment so long; it was the quotes. But I also wanted to add that you ought to be careful with your analogy about anarchy being a workable situation and the State not; I could probably just as easily come up with an analogy for why it is perfectly feasible to go from an unworkable situation to a workable situation. I’m not sure it’s a priori true that a workable situation cannot proceed from an unworkable situation. Maybe “unworkable” means different things, though.