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On August 29 2010 17:02 dvide wrote:Show nested quote +On August 29 2010 16:51 Kishkumen wrote:
Go talk to a non-crazy economist about your "theories" and report back with your findings. Even the Austrian school thinks you need some sort of government supporting an economy. Any actual arguments or just empty appeals to authority and sanity?
You caught me being lazy. I just didn't want to write a long post arguing with something that few people who know much about economics would support. There are so many problems with not having a government to regulate an economy. Lack of information, collusion, externalities, public goods, human irrationality, fraud, lack of a judicial system to arbitrate disputes, intellectual property, etc. are all major issues that non-regulated economies do a terrible job of compensating for. Any one of those is reason enough to relegate anarcho-capitalism to the intellectual garbage bin.
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There are so many problems with not having a government to regulate an economy. Lack of information, collusion, externalities, public goods, human irrationality, fraud, lack of a judicial system to arbitrate disputes, intellectual property, etc. are all major issues that non-regulated economies do a terrible job of compensating for. Any one of those is reason enough to relegate anarcho-capitalism to the intellectual garbage bin.
Hmm... well that's a lot of stuff for me to possibly respond to. Since this is supposed to be a discussion and not just a list of stuff, how about you pick one of those things that you think best justifies your case and then we can talk about it?
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anarcho capitalism fails because it prevents corporations from cornering markets and preventing competition. Government is truly the only institution capable of enforcing anti-trust and making sure that markets are capable of easy entry. Other than that, government shouldn't get involved in capitalism as it is impossible to raise capital if businesses are being taxed to death.
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On August 29 2010 17:32 dvide wrote:Show nested quote +There are so many problems with not having a government to regulate an economy. Lack of information, collusion, externalities, public goods, human irrationality, fraud, lack of a judicial system to arbitrate disputes, intellectual property, etc. are all major issues that non-regulated economies do a terrible job of compensating for. Any one of those is reason enough to relegate anarcho-capitalism to the intellectual garbage bin. Hmm... well that's a lot of stuff for me to possibly respond to. Since this is supposed to be a discussion and not just a list of stuff, how about you pick one of those things that you think best justifies your case and then we can talk about it?
Sure. Let's go with externalities. Say a company can turn a tremendous profit making a product, but at the price of everyone in a small town downriver from the company being killed by the pollution the manufacture of the product causes. In a society with no government, who stops this company from killing all the people downriver? Obviously this is an extreme example, but it illustrates the basic problem with not having a government to control somewhat for externalities.
And this is just one example from that long list of other problems.
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On August 29 2010 17:15 Yurebis wrote:Show nested quote +On August 29 2010 16:27 exeexe wrote:
Anarchy --> dont listen to boss --> no excessive demands --> no growth --> no capitalism
Any questions? You don't listen to your boss, you get fired. Someone who does listen to the boss gets hired. If the boss is such a prick that no one listens to him, he's fired, someone better replaces him. And if he's the sole business owner, then he goes bankrupt, and another firm can serve consumer demand better. Problem solved? No guns needed.
There wont be any boss.
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On August 29 2010 17:23 DrainX wrote:It only leads to corruption, monopolies and stagnation.
I'm going to be really annoying by just attempting to use the Socratic method here, and simply ask why? Because your post, by itself, has little merit without some form of argumentation to back it up.
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On August 29 2010 16:27 Lysdexia wrote:Show nested quote +On August 29 2010 12:04 Yurebis wrote:On August 29 2010 11:10 Lysdexia wrote:On August 29 2010 10:49 Yurebis wrote:On August 29 2010 10:19 Lysdexia wrote:
The government is necessary to impose disincentives to environmentally destructive practices and incentives to the development of cleaner technology.
In a purely market driven society companies wouldn't factor the social costs of pollution into their decisions and individuals would care much more about the price and quality of goods and services offered by companies than about their environmental practices.
Even if consumers cared about the environmental impact of what they bought there would be nothing to stop companies from lying about their pollution or branding their products as green even when they do nothing substantive to help the environment. This happens today and consumers are fooled just imagine what it would be like without regulation.
Perhaps eventually the social costs of environmental destruction would motivate consumers to demand real action to protect the environment, but by that time we would already be past the tipping point. Such is the nature of positive feedbacks. Every species that goes extinct affects every other species and decreases environmental resiliency. Every degree that the earth warms triggers countless positive feedbacks that cause more warming.
Any additional economic activity spurred by anarcho-capitalism would only deplete the earth's resources faster. Government is a necessary check on this otherwise we will all die from global warming and environmental destruction. Who owns the environment? Do you feel you have a claim as to how the environment has to be treated? Why is your claim stronger than the company using said resource? These things can be solved in court, and most relevant property would be owned to avoid such issues in the first place anyways. Does a company profit for polluting their own property? I don't know, it's for them to decide, but probably not. You'd be surprised to know most deflorestation occurs due to government leases to practically fake companies, who are arms of bigger firms, lease the forest from the government for dirty cheap, and then break up when it's deflorested. The government knows that too, but they let the loophole continue to go round for as much money the firms are willing to bribe them for. When a wood harvesting company is defloresting their own property though, they make sure that the property remains profitable in the future by, duh, refloresting it. Two trees for every one down sometimes even. To the extent that it's more profitable to bribe the state to harvest national parks though, they do it of course. "Who owns the environment" is not a relevant question in the face of the extinction of all life on earth. If I owned a massive stockpile of nuclear weapons, would I be entitled to launch them all? First I'll address your example of logging companies. Yes, they do have an economic incentive to maintain forests. However this means they will only do so in the way most economically beneficial for them. That means tree plantations and monocropping, which is just as harmful to forest ecosystems as cutting them down altogether. Second, the example of logging companies and deforestation is not applicable to the environmentally destructive practices of most companies. Logging companies are unique because they sell products they extract from forests so they have an economic incentive to keep the forests around in some form. Electricity companies do not sell resources that they extract from the atmosphere. The amount of Co2 in the atmosphere has no direct effect on their profits, and they obviously do not own the atmosphere. You aren't entitled to kill other people I feel. I think most would feel the same. But not only are you not entitled, it would bring you nothing for doing that. It would bring a bad reputation if anything, increasing the risks of someone lauching a nuke preemptively against you! I say only retarded governments would do that, because they got the nukes for free (by expropriation of capital) and so, easy come = easy go. They also can use the nation as a shield to himself; the crazy president can make everyone seem guilty for a missle launched, so a potential retaliation may come not to the guy who ordered the nukes, but private property elsewhere, like idk, 9/11 maybe? Terrorists retaliating against a state more often than not kill the innocent, coerced civilians. Oh sorry but I'm going on a tangent, you're not talking about global violence, you're talking about the environment. Lol. Okay, and why would you like that the harvesters didn't do what you don't want them to do? What claim do you have over the forests? Do you have a better idea on what to do? Do you feel necessary to force them not to on your own principles? Why? They didn't do anything to you, and unless you can prove so, you really don't have a claim over the resource... just disagreement over its use, but no better claim to it. What happens in the free market is that, if someone has a better idea on how to use a resource that was previously already in use, they buy it off. They can afford it, because they expect a greater return from it, and the previous business ends up winning too, since they weren't making that much. The CO2 on the atmosphere has no effect on anyone I feel, and if you think it does, on you even, then you can sue them, if it comes to that point. Raise campaigns against the companies, and if it's popular enough, they'll be glad to comply; because it means making their products more scarce, so they have to produce less and sell at higher prices; but only if the public outrage is big enough to force every other competitor to do the same thing. Environmental issues are great for big corporations, contrary to popular thought, because it enables collusion better than any other concern, well ok, not better than health and safety and stuff that the government already regulates them for. But third best. Fourth. IDK. If you really believe that Co2 in the atmosphere has no effect then I suggest you educate yourself on the issue.
No ty.
On August 29 2010 16:27 Lysdexia wrote:
You still haven't answered that while logging companies will replant forests, they have an economic incentive to do so in the form of tree plantations with monocropped trees, which destroys those ecosystems.
Destroys whose ecosystems? Are they yours? Who loses with such destruction? Can they sue? Why not? Is there a dispute to be settled between plaintiff and defendant, or are you talking about victimless crimes? Why should it be a crime for a firm to destroy their own property? If what they're doing is so awful, then why don't you go, buy it, and make it better?
So many long questions, but life is so short...
On August 29 2010 16:27 Lysdexia wrote:
Your argument seems to boil down to "So what if companies destroy the environment, dooming us all in the process? You can't tell them what to do man." This is why I drew the comparison with me owning nuclear weapons. If I did own enough to wipe out all life, and wanted to use them, what basis would you have to stop me in your system? All you have is a disagreement with me about how I should use something that I own.
Not comparable. You owning a weapon of mass destruction can be debated in court whether it's a menace for your neighbors or not. And yes there are some things to which private property is arbitrarily irrelevant. If you're deemed as an imminent threat to the neighborhood, and it's provable in court, and nearly everyone agrees, I think I would be hard pressed myself to go against the judgment of a PDA in invading your property and taking you out. An apocalyptic scenario of something that may or may not happen in 50 year due to something you did in your property is a much less imminent threat than that, I hope you agree. If it's proved beyond a shadow of doubt that the harvester, by cutting down trees and planting them a certain way, would I don't know, kill baby children everywhere due to some unexpected link between CO2 levels and child death, then it would be ruled alike to your nuke scenario.
But this is all very circumstantial of course, and I don't think you make justice with me or the thousands of freely working judges that each would be competing to be the best dispute settler, to say that it can't be solved unless we give all the guns to some guys and let them force us to do what they think it's proper (and-I-wish-what-they-deem-proper-is-what-I-deem-proper-because-I-voted-for-barack-obama). A bit of a stretch, sorry I'm sleepy.
On August 29 2010 16:27 Lysdexia wrote:
You say that if I have a better idea about how to use the forests, I should just buy them. This misses the point of my argument which is that the most economically efficient choice is not always the most socially optimal especially when it comes to the environment. Your argument doesn't hold in this instance because the logging company is already using the forest in the most economically efficient way (For a logging company. Obviously the land could be turned into a parking lot or something but that's moot).
If it's not socially optimal, then they'll lose popularity accordingly. The environment is only accountable to the owner of it. You propose that government owns all environment, and forces everyone to lay off the resources to the extent that you want them preserved; meaning, you support coercing people out of producing useful things out of nature because you feel it may backstab everyone in the end. But the firms also know that. That's the whole point of them owning the land. They're fully accountable of what happens when they treat it bad, as opposed to a no-liability lease, easily obtained with a bit of lobbying.
You're not comparing properly when you regard Government as the perfect solution by default, because it isn't. At best it would only be the perfect solution if you had complete control over what the government does (which is not the case, no matter how much rhetoric you can throw at me), and even then, you'd be creating externalities yourself; You'd be denying other more hardcore environmentalists the opportunity to pass their own plans on how the environment should be treated (back to stone age pls?), and you're denying businesses the chance of profiting, yes, profiting, the evil word, which in turn provides the consumer with cheaper products and higher quality of life. Does preserving the state of nature raises the quality of life? I don't think so, but I also don't think nature preservation is mutually exclusive to technological and industrial advancement. They can both be accomplished to the extent that both are profitable and socially acceptable (popular) ventures. Parks and tourist hotspots are a niche that environmentalists could very well market and profit off, if they had the least bit of imagination.
On August 29 2010 16:27 Lysdexia wrote:
You also haven't answered that the logging example doesn't apply to most environmentally destructive companies because they don't exploit resources directly. They either buy them from other companies or the product they sell has an environmental side effect that cannot be factored into their costs, such as energy companies emitting greenhouse gasses from burning coal.
Okay, well, it doesn't really matter at what stage of production and for what product the pollution is produced. What matters is who's bearing the cost of real estate degradation due to pollution - if it's the owner himself, then there's no conflict. If it's someone else, then he is certainly entitled to restitution, even in ancap. If "nature" is the victim, then there can be no plaintiff, because no one owns "nature". And to the extent that people love nature and aesthetics, they can simply not buy a product that mistreats nature to the extent they dislike. Aaand that way the entrepreneurs feel the cost of what was deemed a meaningless externality.
On August 29 2010 16:27 Lysdexia wrote:You say that public outcry will motivate companies to be less environmentally destructive. I answered this in my original post and you seem to have ignored those answers: Show nested quote +Even if consumers cared about the environmental impact of what they bought there would be nothing to stop companies from lying about their pollution or branding their products as green even when they do nothing substantive to help the environment. This happens today and consumers are fooled just imagine what it would be like without regulation.
You mean like, fraud? That's suable. You've been promised something that is a lie. If the firm promises it hasn't hurt any baby whales, and it's killing baby whales left and right, well, that's a great example of fraud...
On August 29 2010 16:27 Lysdexia wrote:Show nested quote +
Perhaps eventually the social costs of environmental destruction would motivate consumers to demand real action to protect the environment, but by that time we would already be past the tipping point. Such is the nature of positive feedbacks. Every species that goes extinct affects every other species and decreases environmental resiliency. Every degree that the earth warms triggers countless positive feedbacks that cause more warming.
You don't know that, because you don't know what the tipping point is. And if you can prove in court that you know such a tipping point, and can name names, then lawsuits can be made. And you can profit off the what otherwise wouldn't be seen as aggression from those firms, by defending all the people that would be victims. In the case of THE ENTIRE WORLD, I think there would be a large pot to be collected, and restrictive action to be made against any further attempt at DESTROYING THE WORLD.
That is all contingent on you proving so, of course.
On August 29 2010 16:27 Lysdexia wrote:
Even if coercion is bad the extinction of all life from warming is worse. Do you disagree?
I agree that extinction is worse. However is it a false dichotomy as I deny that coercion is necessary period.
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On August 29 2010 16:32 ROFLChicken wrote:
...Except there's a difference between a market functioning and a market functioning efficiently. The benefits of anarcho-capitalism only make sense when markets distribute goods in the best way possible for society as a whole. Defending imperfect markets is defending a system you know will not yield the best outcome as opposed to one that's a least trying to make things better (it helps that governments generally aren't "for profit" in quite the same way as monopolists).
Referring to theoretical intersections seems fair when discussing an economic system that only exists on paper.
You can't know what the best outcome is, because you don't know what the preferences of each human being are, mr. central planner. The people who can best expect what consumers demand at any given place, are freely acting entrepreneurs. They have the mechanisms and price signals to guide them; you just have a conviction that you think you're doing the right thing by forcing everyone to do your thing. Well mister, if your thing is so good, then surely everyone will be doing you without you even asking!
Damn, first innuendo I did.
I'm not referring to intersections, the central planners who think they got those intersections figured out do. I made the case that it's impossible to know what they are; and they're only approximations, estimates. The only way to know which one is best is by letting each persons' expectations compete with no hindrance or barriers of entry. Every other option is a machination that will deviate from what would have been a more accurate estimate.
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On August 29 2010 16:51 Kishkumen wrote:
Go talk to a non-crazy economist about your "theories" and report back with your findings. Even the Austrian school thinks you need some sort of government supporting an economy.
Actually, no. I'd venture to say 90% of Austrian Economists are also in favor of market anarchism.
Be around any longer to the mises institute and you'll figure it out for sure.
Perhaps what you mean are Ron Paul economists, in which case, yeah they're half-assed austrian minarchists. But it's ok, I don't blame them. I don't blame you either. Can we all get along now? No guns? Pinky swear?
On August 29 2010 16:54 ShaperofDreams wrote:
haha this is all so silly.
of course anarcho capitalism can "work". just like anything else is possible, that doesnt exist now.
if all the stars align then anything can "work". theres no need to get upset about theoretical situations.
That's a mean comparison. Very low.
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On August 29 2010 16:34 Yurebis wrote:Show nested quote +On August 29 2010 15:27 adrenaline.CA wrote:On August 29 2010 15:24 Thereisnosaurus wrote:
TL,DR: works in theory, if certain assumptions are made, and there are definite ways to reach a place where they can be made, but at this time, in this environment, any attempt to switch to an AC system would fail to improve anything, if not make things worse. Methodological individualism is an incredibly terrible assumption because people aren't even born that way. Such an assumption literally ignores all the empirical evidence in social science for the sake of philosophy. Okay, now shit just got personal. Are you serious? Really? The individual's preferences and actions are irrelevant for you? All it matters is macro? And I'm the one who's assuming too much? I think you're the one completely abstracting a concept that you don't understand at it's most basic levels. You're trying to tell how planets will behave in a solar system without understanding how the atom behaves. Trying to build a house with no bricks. Trying to tell what a forest without the trees. Aaaaabsurd. Meh I really don't care what you say anymore, and you don't care what I say. Can you shut up or do I have to shut up first? I really don't care at this point.
lol wow. Do you understand any philosophy whatsoever? Just because you're hardcore individualist doesn't mean you have to ignore the very existence of collectivism or anything outside of your atomistic world.
Right now your argument for anarcho-capitalism is like arguing that a 6-pool zergling build is optimal economic behaviour, when it is clearly not. Sure it is "possible", but it's not exactly smart, efficient, or equitable.
By your own stupidity, we would all be studying physics instead of chemistry, biology, computer science, or anything of "higher order", because you think everything can be broken down into the lowest denomination of "individuals".
Your worship of individualism is short-sighted, and your personal insults only show how emotional you get on this subject matter, detracting from your already weak rational arguments to begin with.
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Sure. Let's go with externalities. Say a company can turn a tremendous profit making a product, but at the price of everyone in a small town downriver from the company being killed by the pollution the manufacture of the product causes. In a society with no government, who stops this company from killing all the people downriver? Obviously this is an extreme example, but it illustrates the basic problem with not having a government to control somewhat for externalities.
And this is just one example from that long list of other problems.
Who prevents the company? Well, how about the people down the river who are being killed for a start? Would they not want to protect themselves from being killed? How about the people up the river who have even a small amount of empathy for their fellow man, and who therefore wouldn't even buy the product from the evil killing company in the first place? You said it yourself, this is just an extreme scare scenario and has little basis in reality.
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I mean really the argument here isn't that it can't work but that it would suck if it did work. You're acting like all of these cheap goods and services come without having a bunch of slaves whose lives suck balls.
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On August 29 2010 17:59 dvide wrote:Show nested quote +Sure. Let's go with externalities. Say a company can turn a tremendous profit making a product, but at the price of everyone in a small town downriver from the company being killed by the pollution the manufacture of the product causes. In a society with no government, who stops this company from killing all the people downriver? Obviously this is an extreme example, but it illustrates the basic problem with not having a government to control somewhat for externalities.
And this is just one example from that long list of other problems. Who prevents the company? Well, how about the people down the river who are being killed for a start? Would they not want to protect themselves from being killed? How about the people up the river who have even a small amount of empathy for their fellow man, and who therefore wouldn't even buy the product from the evil killing company in the first place? You said it yourself, this is just an extreme scare scenario and has little basis in reality.
Because the people don't have money to move, and everyone else in the world doesn't care, and still buys the product.Consumers up the river don't care, because they don't know (imperfect information). Politicians don't care, because the company can buy them out.
You ask more questions than you give solutions, which is exactly the problem with anarcho-capitalism. People aren't going to boycott corporate bad behaviour, because people aren't aware about the problems, don't care about them, and want someone else will fix it. That's why we there's always government to clean up after corporate messes, like the BP oil spill in New Orleans. Imagine if there were no laws in place to require them to clean up their own mess. Do you think BP would willingly give up their own money if they weren't forced to for the environment?
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On August 29 2010 17:04 Thereisnosaurus wrote:Show nested quote +The first issue is a non-issue. Humans as a species has already overcome the prisoner's dilemma. Less than 1% of the people are sociopathic, everyone else feels enough empathy to dislike killing and stealing, and use force mainly on retaliatory basis. If you're really interested in the prisoners dilemma, watch this: Richard Dawkins - Nice Guys Finish First
Also on sociopathic behavior: The Truth About Killing - Episode 1 Part 1 Thanks for the references, but I'm already past that. I've read Dawkins (everything he's written for the popular market, in fact), not only that but I've read Tucker's outline, the Axelrod studies in their raw form, plus a half dozen other applications of the dilemma by various others like Hofstadter. To say that humanity has overcome the dilemma is laughable, just as much as to say that humanity has overcome mathematics or physics. You can't. If the fundamental assumptions of the dilemma hold true it is as solid as a mathematical proof. There is no evidence as far as I can see that they don't hold true, and no one has ever formally challenged their validity. People will kill and steal if it is rationally worth their while, again factoring all the elements of subjective rationality- mental trauma this will cause due to conditioning, habituated restraint, potential retaliation, difficulty of resisting or diverting current sensations caused by endocrine activity etc. Both an authoritarian and an AC system are effective at limiting the situations in which either of these activities are subjectively rational, but neither 'overcome' the principle that if X and Y are true, Z follows. To modify your wording- Humans as a *society* have overcome the prisoner's dilemma *in a majority of possible situations*
Well of course you can't prevent everyone from doing what is deemed as undesirable activities (coercion!), but I think you're being a tad too demanding and a bit too pessimistic. When I say it has overcome, I mean it has overcome to the extent I'm fine with it. 1% of sociopaths doesn't hurt all that much by themselves. What hurts more is the system in place enabling those sociopaths to get the most power, IMO.
On August 29 2010 17:04 Thereisnosaurus wrote:Show nested quote +Second issue is not a critique of AC itself but the means of which it can be reached. I don't have any problem whatsoever if you think it's a hard road to travel, but insofar as this thread goes, I'm full enough trying to explain to statists what freedom even means, so if you spare me the time, I'd like to spend it on more imminent objections. Typically, the 'It's not relevant' objection is the strongest to any given argument. If you ignore it you're more or less saying 'I don't care about reality, I just want to waste these good peoples' time and frustrate them'. Theory is entirely useless unless it has a relevant practical application. It need not be immediate, simply conceivable. Establish your practical reasoning and work backwards, you'll probably find that a lot more conducive to constructive debate. Though, from your initial post, I'm honestly not sure that's what you want.
Well it is relevant, I'm just saying, I'm not going to be answering "how we get there" before most people are like "wtf is that place". I'd rather answer them first.
But basically, you don't pay the state tribute, state goes bankrupt. That entails morally bankrupt concurrently too of course. Hm in fact I have not much else to say besides that, so consider it the full response LOL. Was it practical enough for you? I hope so, and sorry for not having THE MEANING OF LIFE figured out for you... I tried my best.
What I want is for people to get along ;_;
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On August 29 2010 17:23 DrainX wrote:Pure capitalism is a joke. It only leads to corruption, monopolies and stagnation. The biggest obstacle for peoples freedom and prosperity are large corporations, not government. Anarcho-capitalism would just take the power that is now in the hands of a somewhat accountable government and place it in the hands of Coprorations that are in no way accountable. It wouldn't really be Anarchism since we would still have leaders except now they were leaders of our large corporations. When monopolies are formed then there is no chance at all for us to vote for them. Before they have been formed our only chance to change who are in control of us is in how we use our money. i.e. the rich have more votes. The media would still be owned by the same corporations that we are voting for and the average Joe wouldn't have time to understand all the issues with all the corporations in the world. He would just buy what is cheapest for him. The majority would be driven into poverty and would essentially be wage-slave-labor for the upper class. Society would slowly drift towards something closer to an absolute dictatorship than anything else. The economy would crumble and crime, poverty, income inequality and bad health would skyrocket If you are searching for an anarchistic system that actually has some merit to it just take a look at Libertarian Socialism/Social Anarchism.
Well I think you could learn a bit about monopolies, but I'm so tired of debating that point already...
Just... try to picture how monopolies arise, and what keeps a new one from arising to compete with it. There's nothing. Unless the state raises barriers of entry, or imprisons anyone trying to compete, the monopoly isn't really a monopoly. As soon as it raises prices to any considerable degree, it becomes second best to any entrepreneur that can come in and undercut it.
Either what the monopoly does is so efficient and inovative that it doesn't matter how much it charges - it deserves it. An inventor is a monopolist of his invention, does it mean he has an obligation to sell it for cheap? No, he sells it for whatever price he wants, and he has full rights to. If he did not have such rights, then no invention would be made that he can't profit off (at least the first batch yo). Or then if what it does it so trivial, anyone can come in and compete with it. In the former, you can't blame it, in the latter, you can overcome it. Non-coercive monopolies are a non-issue...
Government is the greatest monop... aw fuck it why do I care
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On August 29 2010 07:38 Yurebis wrote:
Posit any reason why you think anarcho-capitalism can't work, and I'll try to answer.
I'll start saying that whatever you have against "human nature", cannot apply to anarcho-capitalism and not the state at the same time. If people cannot be trusted to behave non-violently the majority of the time, then the state cannot be trusted to behave just the same. A man with a badge is still a man. And I would argue, even more so, that an institution that gives full, monopolistic, coercive power to a man over the course of an election, is much more prone to lure the worst of man to office.
I will make little empirical arguments, but my premises are very agreeable on so don't worry.
Okay also under anarcho-capitalism unchecked human nature is a lot worse than under, say, a representative democracy.
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On August 29 2010 17:59 dvide wrote:Show nested quote +Sure. Let's go with externalities. Say a company can turn a tremendous profit making a product, but at the price of everyone in a small town downriver from the company being killed by the pollution the manufacture of the product causes. In a society with no government, who stops this company from killing all the people downriver? Obviously this is an extreme example, but it illustrates the basic problem with not having a government to control somewhat for externalities.
And this is just one example from that long list of other problems. Who prevents the company? Well, how about the people down the river who are being killed for a start? Would they not want to protect themselves from being killed? How about the people up the river who have even a small amount of empathy for their fellow man, and who therefore wouldn't even buy the product from the evil killing company in the first place? You said it yourself, this is just an extreme scare scenario and has little basis in reality.
History is not on your side. Plenty of companies have used negative externalities to their benefit while leaving those who are at the receiving end of those externalities to suffer. An anarcho-capitalistic society would be absolutely riddled with negative externalities. History has shown us that free markets cannot correct for externalities on their own. As much as you'd like to believe that in your perfect world people would be altruistic and care about where their products come from, the truth is that doesn't often happen in real life. Do you know where all your products come from? I certainly don't know where all of mine come from. And it's not like the people being affected by something can always stand up for themselves. If the company is making enough money off of their products, they can afford to boss around those who are being negatively affected by their actions.
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On August 29 2010 18:10 Yurebis wrote:Show nested quote +On August 29 2010 17:23 DrainX wrote:Pure capitalism is a joke. It only leads to corruption, monopolies and stagnation. The biggest obstacle for peoples freedom and prosperity are large corporations, not government. Anarcho-capitalism would just take the power that is now in the hands of a somewhat accountable government and place it in the hands of Coprorations that are in no way accountable. It wouldn't really be Anarchism since we would still have leaders except now they were leaders of our large corporations. When monopolies are formed then there is no chance at all for us to vote for them. Before they have been formed our only chance to change who are in control of us is in how we use our money. i.e. the rich have more votes. The media would still be owned by the same corporations that we are voting for and the average Joe wouldn't have time to understand all the issues with all the corporations in the world. He would just buy what is cheapest for him. The majority would be driven into poverty and would essentially be wage-slave-labor for the upper class. Society would slowly drift towards something closer to an absolute dictatorship than anything else. The economy would crumble and crime, poverty, income inequality and bad health would skyrocket If you are searching for an anarchistic system that actually has some merit to it just take a look at Libertarian Socialism/Social Anarchism. Well I think you could learn a bit about monopolies, but I'm so tired of debating that point already... Just... try to picture how monopolies arise, and what keeps a new one from arising to compete with it. There's nothing. Unless the state raises barriers of entry, or imprisons anyone trying to compete, the monopoly isn't really a monopoly. As soon as it raises prices to any considerable degree, it becomes second best to any entrepreneur that can come in and undercut it. Either what the monopoly does is so efficient and inovative that it doesn't matter how much it charges - it deserves it. An inventor is a monopolist of his invention, does it mean he has an obligation to sell it for cheap? No, he sells it for whatever price he wants, and he has full rights to. If he did not have such rights, then no invention would be made that he can't profit off (at least the first batch yo). Or then if what it does it so trivial, anyone can come in and compete with it. In the former, you can't blame it, in the latter, you can overcome it. Non-coercive monopolies are a non-issue... Government is the greatest monop... aw fuck it why do I care
Right, because mom-and-pop shops can compete with Walmart, even if Walmart forces suppliers to sell them at the lowest possible price by the bulk and puts all the other stores in the city out of business!
These mom-and-pop shops just need to be more entrepreneurial, but right now they're just too stupid and can't ever be capitalist enough to compete with Walmart. And if people keep buying from Walmart, it's clearly because Walmart is so innovative and efficient, not big bullies!!! They're not abusing subsidies and cheap Chinese exports and unequal contracts at all!!!
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On August 29 2010 17:25 Kishkumen wrote:Show nested quote +On August 29 2010 17:02 dvide wrote:On August 29 2010 16:51 Kishkumen wrote:
Go talk to a non-crazy economist about your "theories" and report back with your findings. Even the Austrian school thinks you need some sort of government supporting an economy. Any actual arguments or just empty appeals to authority and sanity? You caught me being lazy. I just didn't want to write a long post arguing with something that few people who know much about economics would support. There are so many problems with not having a government to regulate an economy. Lack of information, collusion, externalities, public goods, human irrationality, fraud, lack of a judicial system to arbitrate disputes, intellectual property, etc. are all major issues that non-regulated economies do a terrible job of compensating for. Any one of those is reason enough to relegate anarcho-capitalism to the intellectual garbage bin.
- Lack of information, check, the government is the BEST at that no problem.
- Collusion, check, government facilitates it by raising barriers of entry and punishing "cut-throat competition", brought to you by the more inefficient competitors' lobby
- Externalities, check, taxation, subsidies, monopolies of his own, leases, environmental hazards on their property, tragedy of the commons on every public property...
- Public goods, check, the shittiest public goods you can ever get, the worst roads you can ever find, hospitals people will die on, and schools that children will spend twelve years and not learn a single thing that's useful. That's the service that I like. Yep.
- Human irrationality, check, at it's best, courtesy of Washington D.C.
- Fraud, check, trillions of dollars in debt, unfunded liabilities, social security a clear ponzy scheme, coercing the population for their own good, lies in foreign policy and internal policy as well, no transparency at all, federal reserve. Pretty good at fraud I'd say.
- Lack of a judicial system, check, shit is so useless that firms and business don't even rely on it anymore; people that are threatened to go to court are more worried about the costs than the actual lawsuit.
- IP, check, it's a great thing to force people to pay you tribute for something you created ten years ago. Coercively controlling their material private property on the claim of infinitely reproducible patterns, yep, artificial scarcity is a pretty nifty idea.
Any one of those is enough of a reason to be infuriated against the state I'd say, let alone debating the prospect of having a working system in place otherwise.
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On August 29 2010 16:29 dvide wrote:Show nested quote +On August 29 2010 16:21 leve15 wrote:
It won't work because not every country is as well off as Western powers.
Maybe partly due to oppressive governments [PDF], perhaps? Show nested quote +
Russians didn't become communists because they're lazy, they became communists because living in Russia is hard, and they had to rely on each other for survival.
Why would living in Russia be so difficult compared to anywhere else? And why does that give legitimacy to initiate violence against peaceful people? Show nested quote +
Through hardship, a selfish attitude yields little sympathy.
And through prosperity, selfish attitudes are born.
So ancap is being selfish, I take it? Ok, but that's not really an argument and therefore not particularly compelling. Any reasoning?
Every country cannot be as developed as the west. There aren't enough resources. I was making a satirical point that these anarcho-capitalist ideas seem to stem from upper-middle class white people who don't take a second to think about other people. How's AC working out in Somalia? Why don't developing nations try it out? Because it's impossible is why.
Well, in Russia 1/8 of the soil is usable for growing crops. When the weather permits. (Maybe you've read the news this summer... if you haven't, the outlook for this year's harvest is.. bad) Also, maybe you've you heard of the Russian winter? Famine occurs every 10 years in Russia. They're nearly landlocked as well, which in history was more detrimental than it is today.. Must I continue?
Ancap is selfish. If you really believe you've earned your lifestyle of sitting behind a computer and working a safe and easy job or going to school, or whatever it is you do in peace, then you are selfish. The world didn't start in 1980-something, it's been spinning long before you were here.
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EPT
