Debate an Anarchist - Page 4

Radio companies would most likely come to an agreement on this.

You don't need everyone to be evil. You only need a few people. In absence of a big state, little states emerge. In the absence of control, people conquer their neighbors. Its just a fact. You would think that nobody would ever join up with Ghengis Khan and go conquering your neighbors, but they do.

The mafias, here, are the protection agencies. I guess if you don't like the local mafia you could get a second mafia to help you out.

Yes, because once legalized, the government would be able to protect the property rights of drug dealers.

I assume we're talking about state capitalism here. Market failure means the equilibrium point is not being reached, which can lead to shortages or surpluses. In addition, the amount of food the nation requires isn't especially hard to predict. It's not like you would eat ten times as much food if it were twice as cheap. Here's a question - how does Microsoft keep itself running? Then ask yourself why a monopolistic food provider couldn't do the same thing.

Think about this, what about your idea about the free market, it worked well for a while in american history, around 150 years, and the economy always got back on its own 2 feet, up until the great depression, where President Hoover let the economy stay the way it was and figured it would solve it's own problems, which never happened it took a new president in FDR to bring the economy more so under the governments watch, to make sure it didn't happen again. Becuase it couldn't stand by itself again.

I don't want to belabor this point much more but there is no reason to think this is more likely to happen in anarchic society then in a society of states, and in fact governments have been responsible for hundreds of millions of deaths.

On March 08 2008 13:23 L wrote:
Hi. I'm a researcher. I depend on massive grants from the government and nearly none of my work pays for itself, but eventually a nugget of incredibly knowledge will be discovered from one of me and my ilk and billions in profit will be had. I also depend on other companies, which depend on the same type of person that I am.

Ok, I want to address something in general that you bring up a lot. Self-regulation is not something that will work unless there is some means of enforcement. That's why the GOVERNMENT does most of the regulating, because it has the power to enforce. An agreement between companies is not binding. By breaking these regulations, each individual company can potentially gain a huge advantage over his competitors. In the case of radio, there would be no way for any of the other companies to stop the station violating the regulation.

The free rider article sounds interesting, but I don't have the time to read it. Wanna summarize it for us?

Oh and, if this argument gets heated, it's nothing personal. I appreciate the opportunity to be able to think about these things.

Stop telling us there's "no reason to think"... There are plenty of reasons. We're giving them to you. You're just not acknowledging them.

On March 08 2008 13:37 ahrara_ wrote:

This is a good point. A HUGE portion of research is government funded. Research in general is too costly and too much of a risk for any individual company to spend money in. I'm referring to very expensive research projects with questionable value, like fusion energy. This relates to my argument about investing in public goods like roads. Without governments, research will never get funded.

So why has a communistic food system failed everywhere it was tried?

I'm referring to very expensive research projects with questionable value, like fusion energy. This relates to my argument about investing in public goods like roads. Without governments, research will never get funded.

You haven't shown me why it's more likely to happen in anarchical society then state society.

I don't want to belabor this point much more but there is no reason to think this is more likely to happen in anarchic society then in a society of states, and in fact governments have been responsible for hundreds of millions of deaths.

The police already extort people, with PDAs if one did this you could go to another. It's not like every PDA would try to extort you, if they did they'd lose business to PDAs that didn't practice extortion.

Ok? I don't understand what you're getting at.

So why has a communistic food system failed everywhere it was tried? Why not put everything in the hands of a centrally planned economy? As for Microsoft, they need to compete with the free market, they can't coerce competitors to stop competing. In a centrally planned economy there is no competition.

All FDR did was spend shitloads of money on public works that didn't do anything except waste money and steal employment from the private market that needed it most. Not that he wasn't a terrific leader, but his economic management was hugely overrated.

First, the 'free rider problem' is not justified empirically. Every good is a public good to some degree, every good has externalities. To subjectively determine which have 'enough' externalities, or which are good and then extort people to pay for them makes no sense. If a good is desired people will pay for it, there are ways to exclude potential free riders. I obviously didn't cover all of it but those are some points.

On March 08 2008 13:45 L wrote:
Because a farmer who's producing his own food + food for profit has much more incentive to produce a shitton of crop per unit land when compared to a coalition of farmers who are being paid a stipend by the government. The soviet union's food production per area dropped from 40 bushel/acre to 25 bushel/acres after communism swept the country (not sure if those are the right units, but the ratio is.).

China's food supply, however, has worked pretty fine.

I'm referring to very expensive research projects with questionable value, like fusion energy. This relates to my argument about investing in public goods like roads. Without governments, research will never get funded.

Oh, no, it extends to all research. All our knowledge is passed down generationally, and how can you assure that will happen in an anarchist system? You can't. Within 2 generations, nothing at the college level would be even remotely accessible to the public, and with that brain drain, you'd lose nearly all our optical, satellite, and electrical networks, and we'd regress a good 200 years.

Historical precedent?

The dark ages.

QED.

Because humans started at a version of free market anarchy and now are in a state society.

Interestingly enough, the past 6000 years have seen humanity radically advanced in terms of technology and capability. Co-incidence that all of the most incredible advances have taken place in dynastic long term 'empires' for lack of a better word?

No.

On March 08 2008 13:43 CaptainMurphy wrote:

I acknowledge that it's possible for every territory to turn back into states, and then we're back to statehood. You haven't shown me why it's more likely to happen in anarchical society then state society. I've told you why I think it is in fact less likely to happen in anarchical society then in a state. It's like people have this idea that if there was no government everything would just descend into chaos. But people, for the most part, like order. If people were as chaotic as you suggest, there wouldn't even be democratic society, the whole world would be ruled by military dictatorships.

There is a good reason to think that an established, democratic state like Switzerland is far less likely to do this than a state / dictatorship that is accountable to nobody (warlords.)

Okay, if you see the provision of taxpayer-funded police as extortion, more power to you.

The vast majority of people agree that the would rather have the current police as the enforcers of law than the mafia (the police, for example, won't shoot you if you insist on going into the garbage business.) And if you think that established laws are as arbitrary than a mob boss's wishes, more power to you. Most people disagree.

Government protection of property rights = peace.
No government protection of property rights = violence.

Cuba hasn't starved, for example. Oh, and just for your information, the Soviet Union was not, in fact, only around from 1918 to 1950. It curiously enough existed also from 1950 to 1989, where there was in fact very little starvation. Simply put, "communism leads to starvation" is a lie. And pretty stupid, to boot.

As for the courts - okay, suppose I'm an employer. I suscribe to the Business Court. My employee suscribes to Worker's Court. Surprise surprise, they didn't agree. Now what? Appeal, I would suppose. I appeal to Capitalists United and you appeal to the Labor Tribunal. I further appeal to Employers Arbitration Inc. and you appeal to Workers-R-Us. So long as a court gains its appeal from one section of the populace, then it only makes sense to pander to it. And we haven't even touched the issue of paying off judges.

Well, it depends whether you buy into Keynes or not. (Another thread, that one needs.)

...and that is exactly the reason that anarchy wouldn't last for long.