EPTAnarcho-capitalism, why can't it work? - Page 10
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Djzapz
Canada10681 Posts
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Yurebis
United States1452 Posts
On August 29 2010 14:02 adrenaline.CA wrote: Uh, anarcho-capitalism doesn't address monopolies and cartels? Anarcho-capitalism assumes perfect competition and perfect information No it doesn't. If by perfect competition you mean, homogenic products, homogenic prices, everything is the same, it's a ridiculous concept. It's not even demonstrably desirable. Perfect competition would be everyone making some type of product and there's no more desirable product than another. Markets are best at diversity. I don't get the perfect competition argument at all. People are different, there can't be perfect competition even if the government mandated it; and plus why would you want to anyway. On August 29 2010 14:02 adrenaline.CA wrote: -- far from realistic. Information asymmetry and imperfect competition means economic inequalities translate to political inequalities. What you fail to notice is that the same applies to the government; The state can't have perfect information either, and logically, it should know less, as it has less incentives to know more; as it has less people to know more. As it is a rat hole of sociopaths. Okay the last one is just my opinion. But the rest is true! On August 29 2010 14:02 adrenaline.CA wrote: Even most libertarians draw the line at night watchman states. That is true, but also an appeal to popularity if you mean that.. "therefore, minarchism>anarchism" | ||
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Half
United States2554 Posts
Someone has to pay those bureaucrats that otherwise wouldn't exist, and that's the overhead. But that's not the main problem of course; even if those bureaucrats worked for free and were the most brilliant men of the land, they still would not compare to the entrepreneurial efficiency of thousands of entrepreneurs each acting on their own localities, figuring out ways to profit, or in other words, finding new things to do, improve, undercut the leading brand, etc. In other words, if I'm not mistaken, your saying an open market would produce more qualified individuals for the job, resulting in higher efficiency...though these individuals of course would still have to be payed, supposedly resulting in a more efficient system, yet still with overhead costs in "management". I get it, and it doesn't make sense. You can't have "competing" departments of say, police. The entire point of a state is centralization, (supposedly) all peoples interests are considered, and the stepping on of toes is minimalized. At a certain point you enter the domain of common interest, where the actions of one individual is going to detriment another individual, and individuals would want to join a collaborative body for protection. A state is formed to protect common interest. The result is centralization (the formation of a state) or fragmentation (the formation of several smaller states), because private corporations will be forced to do so in order to provide satisfy consumer need. but you seem to be a trolling anarchist of sorts so I wasn't going to bother anymore :D no offense intended. wut. I'm idealistically a Anarchist, but I'm also to level headed to believe in what I preach. So I guess your right lol. I like this thread :3 | ||
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gyth
657 Posts
Until you subvert that, a leader will always be able to take over an anarchy. Anarchy may ideally be preferred to democracy, but its so ubiquitously unstable that it boils down to the only system worse than despotism. P.S. did OP ever define ancap? Wiki left me vague. | ||
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Severedevil
United States4839 Posts
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dvide
United Kingdom287 Posts
No sorry your completely wrong. Egyptian and Nubian Kingdoms had already risen and fell before the whole "Pharaohs as Gods thing you learned in School History Class started". How do you know these kingdoms had no gods (ignoring royalty as a superstition itself since that is obviously in question)? How do we know these gods were not appealed to in order to create the state in some manner? If not outright "ruler being a god", but a "divine rights of kings" style appeal? Or even less but still there to some extent. I doubt we can even really know (unless you can show me otherwise and I'm genuinely curious if you can). My guess is it must have involved some level of propagandising, as I cannot see how a state could possibly arise from the pure overwhelming power of violence from individuals and organisations alone. It just could not possibly be overwhelming enough without acceptances and compliance from the people. Stop asking my for redundant definitions like its relevant to your point. I am using any definition of subject you so chose in the political sense that is widely regarded as right, I'm hardly arguing off semantics. In fact you are. Sigh. What? How is I just arguing semantics? I'm asking for YOUR definitions so we can both use them and understand each other. Semantic arguments is just to mix up definitions relating to an argument and is therefore usually just confused and futile. I'm trying to a avoid semantic dispute by asking for the meaning in your terms. So from your definition of subject, am I a subject to the Coca-Cola company? Just answer the question straight up so we can progress past this bullshit? Even if their ISNT a monopoly on security firms lol. You can move to the US if you dun like the UK, does that make the government any less controlling? No it doesn't because the UK (in the context of the nation) does not legitimately own the UK (in the context of the landmass). That's kinda the whole point. But I don't get what the relevance is to your argument at all. You really are just argueing semantics. Just think of the US and insurance package A and the UK as insurance Package B, and maybe like China as shitty insurance policy C (I'm chinese so no offense). You can choose any one of them as a citizen of the UK lol. Just move. So nation states equal companies now? Well if that's how you define "company" it's no wonder we disagree. I don't agree that nation states own the area that they claim to have authority over in the same way that a company has authority over a factory that it owns. That's the crux of the issue. AMG ANARCHOCAPITALISM? Its just semantics. Power arises from demand, if you remove government corporations step in to fill their shoes, and in the end its more or less the same. Well, that's a nice sound-bite. But you've really failed to convince me of anything. I'm trying to understand why and how, but you refuse to answer claiming it's just semantics when it's nothing of the sort. | ||
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adrenaLinG
Canada676 Posts
On August 29 2010 14:18 Yurebis wrote: No it doesn't. If by perfect competition you mean, homogenic products, homogenic prices, everything is the same, it's a ridiculous concept. It's not even demonstrably desirable. Perfect competition would be everyone making some type of product and there's no more desirable product than another. Markets are best at diversity. I don't get the perfect competition argument at all. People are different, there can't be perfect competition even if the government mandated it; and plus why would you want to anyway. What you fail to notice is that the same applies to the government; The state can't have perfect information either, and logically, it should know less, as it has less incentives to know more; as it has less people to know more. As it is a rat hole of sociopaths. Okay the last one is just my opinion. But the rest is true! That is true, but also an appeal to popularity if you mean that.. "therefore, minarchism>anarchism" So you're saying that you don't want perfect competition -- the most efficient market system -- in favour of something more inefficient? And then you complain about government being inefficient? Your idea that markets are best 'at diversity' doesn't make sense at all. The only reason there are 'diverse markets' are presumably your assumption of 'diverse' agents. The reason Austrian economists reject perfect competition is because they don't like the idea of governments enforcing authority to break up imperfect competition, e.g. inefficient markets or market failures. It's absolutely nonsensical because here we have a situation where government is trying to be pro-capitalist but also pro-government. Anarcho-capitalists are thus anti-capitalist because they hate government. Simply put, perfect competition is the most efficient market structure, and Austrians reject the most efficient market structure, because they dislike government. But they can't have it both ways, in complaining about how government is inefficient and trying to use the free market as a solution. | ||
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Half
United States2554 Posts
Well, that's a nice sound-bite. But you've really failed to convince me of anything. I'm trying to understand why and how, but you refuse to answer claiming it's just semantics when it's nothing of the sort. I read your post and I missed any kind of central, connecting point :/. What exactly is your point? Everyone one of your responses seemed kind of anecdotal rather then direct refutations or new propositions. Its really quite simple. You defined an Anarcho-Capitalism and then failed to distinguish it from a somewhat libertarian Government. Explain to me how it is different? Choice? No, it isn't choice, not substantially more then it is now. No it doesn't because the UK (in the context of the nation) does not legitimately own the UK (in the context of the landmass). That's kinda the whole point. But I don't get what the relevance is to your argument at all. The word "own" is not a philosophical proposition just as "is Anarchy possible" is not one either. The UK does have control over the UK regardless of philosophy and Sustained long term Anarchy is indeed impossible equally regardless of philosophy. Well, that's a nice sound-bite. But you've really failed to convince me of anything. I'm trying to understand why and how, but you refuse to answer claiming it's just semantics when it's nothing of the sort. I refused to answer your definition of subject because it felt needless and arbitrary and you didn't seem to have a point. But if you insist, subject means "under partial or total power of". If you honestly think the only reason governments exist is because of religion, I don't even feel like properly refuting that becauses its such an insular viewpoint, no offense. | ||
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Yurebis
United States1452 Posts
On August 29 2010 14:10 Sadist wrote: Thanks for avoiding my point entirely! Douche. Allow me to redeem myself. The "environment" is no one's fault. Scarcity is a matter of physical nature, and human action seeks to end the scarceness as much as it can, always approaching the impossible. That man has to work hard to get what he wants is a fact that's going to perpetuate humanity to the point where man may have entire worlds at his disposal and still not be satisfied. What you may call poor now, a rich king in medieval times often could not have; heating, light at night, clothing, electricity, waste disposal, clean water from a pipe. That some man may be doomed to his environment is not a valid complaint as much as "I hate that the sky is blue". What I'm tackling here is not scarcity, it's not the solution to poverty, it is the rejection that coercion can provide man with relief of his desires. The cost of time and travel is not any more disregarded than the cost of production of a loaf of bread. Everything is accounted for when everything is someone's property, it is as regarded as the owner wants it to be. And as catallactics explain, the worker's body is also accounted for by the worker himself. He will put his efforts into what seems to give him the most return. The statist solution to the issue of scarcity is not to facilitate the exchange between employer and employee, no sir, because if it were, the state would back of and let them resolve how they can best meet each others ends voluntarily. The state can only act through coercion, and by coercing one to give another a piece of his capital, he has made no one better off in net, and very much possibly and demonstrably made everyone worse off, for he disallowed the exchange to be established spontaneously and sustainable. It would be bad enough if he merely coerced people into paying him tribute, but he must also temper voluntary interactions and act like he did someone a favor? In the long run, the cheated party will simply either do less of what it's being tributed for, or charge more from those who want him to keep his business going. The poor also pay for the rich's taxes by proxy. I don't have much else to say on that before going on even wider tangents that you may not appreciate as much as the effort I put into writing them. | ||
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Yurebis
United States1452 Posts
On August 29 2010 14:13 adrenaline.CA wrote: You conflate arguing against government 'bureaucracy' with arguing against 'government' in general. Politicians are lawmakers -- they make laws such as the Antitrust Act. Without these laws, the 'free market' that you love to say is more 'efficient' than government would not exactly be efficient at all. In fact, unregulated markets can delve into high levels of inefficiency -- they're called market failures. Things such as monopolies and cartels are example of market failures, which government is supposed to help prevent. Anarcho-capitalism does nothing to address this. Tell me, what is a monopoly, and why is it bad? What is market failure, and why does it justify coercion? I would explain everything but I'm getting rather tired of repeating myself. Perhaps you can help yourself in solving those dilemmas. | ||
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Yurebis
United States1452 Posts
On August 29 2010 14:16 Djzapz wrote: Anarcho-capitalism can't work because of human nature. You think I'm wrong? You really misunderstand the humankind then. It's a shame it can't work because your utopia would be sweet. Unfortunately it won't and can't work the way you imagine it. Sorry! Yes, I think you're wrong, because that's no argument for or against anything. Every institution is comprised of man, so every institution is susceptible to the flaws of man. The state is also comprised of man. My argument doesn't rely on human nature too much, but rather a-priori rationalizations on why the state is a worse mechanism of human organization than freely exchanging individuals. If you read anything I wrote you could better understand the argument at least. | ||
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adrenaLinG
Canada676 Posts
On August 29 2010 14:36 Yurebis wrote: Tell me, what is a monopoly, and why is it bad? What is market failure, and why does it justify coercion? I would explain everything but I'm getting rather tired of repeating myself. Perhaps you can help yourself in solving those dilemmas. monopoly: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly market failure: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_failure I'm not explaining things that you should know yourself if you made a thread about economics and philosophy. A monopoly is bad because consumers get screwed over. Monopolies are one form of market failures. | ||
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Half
United States2554 Posts
Adding onto that A ancap driven by monopolistic systems is one indistinguishable from government, and government requires monopoly to protect common interest. You can't have two police departments catering to two different interest groups in one area with selective service. You can't have one police department "stop murders" and the other "not stop murders", because as you see there is a conflict of public interest. These two companies cannot compete (outside of the oldest form of competition, killing each other), because they intrinsically cannot coexist with each other. The result is a monopoly on any given area by one "company", in order to preserve common interest. So an area with one set of laws which everyone must follow and funded by everyone if you want to live there. Sounds a lot like government. | ||
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Yurebis
United States1452 Posts
On August 29 2010 14:23 Half wrote: In other words, if I'm not mistaken, your saying an open market would produce more qualified individuals for the job, resulting in higher efficiency...though these individuals of course would still have to be payed, supposedly resulting in a more efficient system, yet still with overhead costs in "management". You're not seeing it properly. Remember we are talking about the state. The state isn't merely "paid", it coercively expropriates the money from it's citizens to pay for its departments. Some problems that come from that, is that the government, compared to the free market 1- can't know as well how much to spend on each deparment 2- can't know as well how much to tax ("charge"), 3- it has a monopoly on almost whatever it provides, so it can't simply follow exchange prices from a market competitor 4- it has less incentives to do a good job, as the government employee not only is usually overcompensated, but his pay is assured no matter what he does. No matter how shitty the service is, it's still the only provider of it, and lawfully so. So, all the arguments people have against monopoly? Yeah, how about applying that criticism to the biggest monopoly of all, and be consistent for once? On August 29 2010 14:23 Half wrote: I get it, and it doesn't make sense. You can't have "competing" departments of say, police. The entire point of a state is centralization, (supposedly) all peoples interests are considered, and the stepping on of toes is minimalized. You can, there already exists today private security. Guards and body guards. The point of a state is being the final arbiter of all disputes, the enforcers could very well all be private even in a minarchist setting. It's ok that you can't imagine cops being private; the people in communist russia couldn't imagine bread being sold in the market either. Oh wow second time I pull that one. On August 29 2010 14:23 Half wrote: At a certain point you enter the domain of common interest, where the actions of one individual is going to detriment another individual, and individuals would want to join a collaborative body for protection. You mean, there will be disputes, therefore, we need a common arbiter? Okay, even if I concede that, it still doesn't mean the arbiter needs to force everyone to be a member of it. I'm not doing anything to you, why do you bother if I'm a member of your group or not? Just don't trade with me and you're risk free. If I overstep your boundaries you can surely call your agency or remove me from your property risk-free of retaliation. If I insisted, I'm seen as a criminal for everyone else, and I'd have difficulties buying food, driving on the street (every street is private, remember), and worse stuff could happen to me. Anarcho-capitalism handles criminals differently; but that's not to say it's impossible to deal with them. Just have a bit of creativity and let go of the arguments from ignorance. On August 29 2010 14:23 Half wrote: A state is formed to protect common interest. The result is centralization (the formation of a state) or fragmentation (the formation of several smaller states), because private corporations will be forced to do so in order to provide satisfy consumer need. Yeah? You're starting to get it? Man, economy, and the state - murray rothbard. Skim through defense chapters... On August 29 2010 14:23 Half wrote: wut. I'm idealistically a Anarchist, but I'm also to level headed to believe in what I preach. So I guess your right lol. I like this thread :3 Okay  | ||
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adrenaLinG
Canada676 Posts
On August 29 2010 14:42 Half wrote: ^ Adding onto that A ancap driven by monopolistic systems is one indistinguishable from government, and government requires monopoly to protect common interest. You can't have two police departments catering to two different interest groups in one area with selective service. You can't have one police department "stop murders" and the other "not stop murders", because as you see there is a conflict of public interest. These two companies cannot compete (outside of the oldest form of competition, killing each other), because they intrinsically cannot coexist with each other. The result is a monopoly on any given area by one "company", in order to preserve common interest. So an area with one set of laws which everyone must follow and funded by everyone if you want to live there. Sounds a lot like government. Yes yes yes -- which is why even libertarians draw the line at security and defense -- because the common interest has such high marginal utility that it's imperative. I know a libertarian that was forced to at least supporting government-funded Medicare simply because of the effects of disease -- that a private system would be much more inefficient when it deals infectious diseases that spread easily -- or any general 'vector' in epidemiology. | ||
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Yurebis
United States1452 Posts
On August 29 2010 14:24 gyth wrote: At some level people enjoy being told what to do. Until you subvert that, a leader will always be able to take over an anarchy. Anarchy may ideally be preferred to democracy, but its so ubiquitously unstable that it boils down to the only system worse than despotism. P.S. did OP ever define ancap? Wiki left me vague. A society absent of rulers, yet with general respect towards private property On August 29 2010 14:26 Severedevil wrote: I think gangsters are the best model of government, so gogo anarchy. Indeed, the state already is, and by definition always was. | ||
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adrenaLinG
Canada676 Posts
Somalia, most developed country in the world! | ||
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Yurebis
United States1452 Posts
On August 29 2010 14:29 adrenaline.CA wrote: So you're saying that you don't want perfect competition -- the most efficient market system -- in favour of something more inefficient? And then you complain about government being inefficient? Your idea that markets are best 'at diversity' doesn't make sense at all. The only reason there are 'diverse markets' are presumably your assumption of 'diverse' agents. The reason Austrian economists reject perfect competition is because they don't like the idea of governments enforcing authority to break up imperfect competition, e.g. inefficient markets or market failures. It's absolutely nonsensical because here we have a situation where government is trying to be pro-capitalist but also pro-government. Anarcho-capitalists are thus anti-capitalist because they hate government. Simply put, perfect competition is the most efficient market structure, and Austrians reject the most efficient market structure, because they dislike government. But they can't have it both ways, in complaining about how government is inefficient and trying to use the free market as a solution. The idea of perfect competition as put forth by interventionists, is flawed on those two grounds that I can see... Is it or is it not "homogeneous products, homogeneous prices"? 1-How is that desirable for every, or even just most consumers? If it isn't, then it isn't perfect. Because the end of production should be to satisfy the consumer's wants 2-How can there be such a thing? You'd end up with a supermarket full of white boxes that don't do anything but are all exactly the same and all serve for absolutely nothing. Who the fuck would buy that shit? I want my products to be original, cheap, and the best on the rack. From a monopoly or not, I don't give a fuck. And so don't most people. I don't like the idea of the state coming with a lame excuse of a nirvana fallacy to intervene in the market, to provide an even worse product than it was before, and establish oligarchies just by collateral side effects from raising the barriers of entry so much. I just want no coercion. It isn't asking much. | ||
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adrenaLinG
Canada676 Posts
I think you need to understand some general economic concepts before going this far into economic philosophy. The example of market failures is where the state intervenes to improve the market. | ||
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Half
United States2554 Posts
On August 29 2010 14:51 Yurebis wrote: You're not seeing it properly. Remember we are talking about the state. The state isn't merely "paid", it coercively expropriates the money from it's citizens to pay for its departments. Some problems that come from that, is that the government, compared to the free market 1- can't know as well how much to spend on each deparment 2- can't know as well how much to tax ("charge"), 3- it has a monopoly on almost whatever it provides, so it can't simply follow exchange prices from a market competitor 4- it has less incentives to do a good job, as the government employee not only is usually overcompensated, but his pay is assured no matter what he does. No matter how shitty the service is, it's still the only provider of it, and lawfully so. So, all the arguments people have against monopoly? Yeah, how about applying that criticism to the biggest monopoly of all, and be consistent for once? You can, there already exists today private security. Guards and body guards. The point of a state is being the final arbiter of all disputes, the enforcers could very well all be private even in a minarchist setting. It's ok that you can't imagine cops being private; the people in communist russia couldn't imagine bread being sold in the market either. Oh wow second time I pull that one. You mean, there will be disputes, therefore, we need a common arbiter? Okay, even if I concede that, it still doesn't mean the arbiter needs to force everyone to be a member of it. I'm not doing anything to you, why do you bother if I'm a member of your group or not? Just don't trade with me and you're risk free. If I overstep your boundaries you can surely call your agency or remove me from your property risk-free of retaliation. If I insisted, I'm seen as a criminal for everyone else, and I'd have difficulties buying food, driving on the street (every street is private, remember), and worse stuff could happen to me. Anarcho-capitalism handles criminals differently; but that's not to say it's impossible to deal with them. Just have a bit of creativity and let go of the arguments from ignorance. Yeah? You're starting to get it? Man, economy, and the state - murray rothbard. Skim through defense chapters... Okay I guess what your saying. Your saying that "laws" would be privately applied to private property, then privately enforced depending on whos property it was. So if I wanted to buy property and allow people hunting, sure, I could, but only on my property and without violating the local rules on other peoples property (plus people would probably kind of hate me lol). Which is workable. Likewise, in less extremes, it would basically be like everywhere you went had a shopping mall system, local rules. Sounds awesome and workable right? Totally! No conflicts of interest, the consumers needs are satisfied, nobody is coercing money from you, a society built on mutual respect. And conflicting security companies aren't killing each other Deus Ex style on the streets. Except that's the problem. Its still built upon mutual interest, and people with mutual interests will gravitate towards each other. Your not going to want to be the only guy on your block whos property has the "Murder and Rape allowed rule". Nobody is going to come to your dinner parties. Likewise, in a poor neighborhood, people are going to maybe share one security company, and hang out with people who have similar rules. Logistically, you can't have 10 security companies enforcing 10 rule sets on a single block. It would be absolute chaos. Moreover, people aren't going to want to live in that kind of situation. The end result is simple, the one I already said. A bunch of little states, built on common interest. People who have common interests gravitate towards each other and eventually the system becomes set in stone due to a monopoly over the area. I think the differences in our viewpoints are caused by one thing. I don't view Government as a state artificially imposed upon us by what? Aliens? Government is an intrinsic part of human cooperation on a larger scale. Systems of government, or structures of power, exist everywhere, in the office, in the family. Sometimes these systems can become too power, or too bureaucratized, and the freedoms of the individual are infringed. But these systems are so basic, so intrinsic, that it isn't even something that can be removed. The basic structure of government -someone telling you what to do-, isn't something that can be removed. If you don't like it, you have three options, become a hermit, start a revolution, or be powerful. | ||
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