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On August 29 2010 17:39 darmousseh wrote:
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.
How can a non-coercive company prevent competition if not by being the most efficient at providing a product?
Whenever it raises the price it risks losing both popularity and leadership, no matter how many relatively shady deals they do.
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On August 29 2010 18:18 adrenaline.CA wrote:Show nested quote +On August 29 2010 18:10 Yurebis wrote: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!!!
Seriously, just look at Rockefeller for an example of how to drive all competition into the ground and not let anyone get a leg up because you control every possible means of getting a leg up in the business. People don't give enough credit to the effects of volume and size in a free market. Walmart can afford to take a loss in some areas in order to come up ahead in other areas. Smaller businesses don't have that luxury.
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Anarcho-capitalism won't work, because I will use my money to take over the world and slaughter everyone in my way.
And if you band together to stop me, congratulations. You just formed a government.
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Anarcho-capitalism is a misnomer. Capitalism is antithetical to Anarchism.
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Aw fuck it I'm going to sleep. I might as well have opened a thread on monopoly first because people seem to be so indoctrinated on the idea that "monopoly bad", and can't elaborate any more than that...
"collusion... uhhh.... price fixing..."
Yeah, so what? you price fix your own labor too. Unions collude with members to price fix labor. That's all swell right? Even worse; a scab comes along, and you think the union is justified in using gov't to stop them. Ridiculous double standards. Corporations are evil for colluding, but unions aren't. Corporations are evil for using coercion, unions aren't. I know no one specifically said unions are fine, and it may be a strawman, but seeing that they readily accept the mainstream idea that "monopolies bad", whoever claim such nonsense probably defends that "union backed by government good", without noticing it's the exact type of collusion they're against when it comes to companies. Such hypocrisy.
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On August 29 2010 18:21 Yurebis wrote:Show nested quote +On August 29 2010 17:25 Kishkumen wrote: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.
I like how all the things you blamed on government are things the private sector would do worse on, or are responsible for.
Next Bear Stearns, please!
EDIT:
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On August 29 2010 18:28 Yurebis wrote:
Aw fuck it I'm going to sleep. I might as well have opened a thread on monopoly first because people seem to be so indoctrinated on the idea that "monopoly bad", and can't elaborate any more than that...
"collusion... uhhh.... price fixing..."
Yeah, so what? you price fix your own labor too. Unions collude with members to price fix labor. That's all swell right? Even worse; a scab comes along, and you think the union is justified in using gov't to stop them. Ridiculous double standards. Corporations are evil for colluding, but unions aren't. Corporations are evil for using coercion, unions aren't. I know no one specifically said unions are fine, and it may be a strawman, but seeing that they readily accept the mainstream idea that "monopolies bad", whoever claim such nonsense probably defends that "union backed by government good", without noticing it's the exact type of collusion they're against when it comes to companies. Such hypocrisy.
Wow you are such a modern-day Tea Party caricature.
companies = good
individuals = good
unions = bad
communities = bad
government = bad
In case you didn't know, in the framework of anarcho-capitalism, there is literally no difference between a union and a corporation. Organized labour = organized capital
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On August 29 2010 18:27 vetinari wrote:
Anarcho-capitalism won't work, because I'll will use my money to take over the world and slaughter everyone in my way.
And if you band together to stop me, congratulations. You just formed a government.
lol well said
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On August 29 2010 18:21 Yurebis wrote:Show nested quote +On August 29 2010 17:25 Kishkumen wrote: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.
Evidence that government contributes to market inefficiency does not mean that it is worse than a purely free market. Sure, the government creates its fair share of market inefficiencies. The point is that the government can fix all of those problems I listed much more efficiently and easily than the free market can. If the free market is so perfect, why were things like collusion and externalities a much bigger problem during the gilded age when there were far less laws regulating business? Why were workers essentially enslaved to their employers? Do you really think that the market back then was so much more efficient without all the regulation we have now preventing these problems?
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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.
They shouldn't have to move, but why don't they have the money to move to somewhere where there isn't a river? And consumers up a mere river don't notice that people are dropping like flies down river? It's pretty hard to miss something like that. Could somebody not just pick up a phone and tell them? I mean, you might have a better argument if your talking about something that's less extreme and harder to pin down. Like some unhealthy, but hard to notice hormonal changes or something. But he specifically brought up people dying.
And in the case of something that's hard to notice even by the people directly involved, why would a government notice it? Aren't they subject to the imperfect information too? What would trigger a government to act against the company if nobody notices that anything is wrong?
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.
It's not contingent on boycotting; it's just a factor. You can go and fucking destroy the people running the evil company with C4 explosives for the crime of killing people (if it must come to that in some sort of private war, which it wouldn't but w/e).
But why wouldn't people be aware or even care about people dying down a river? Are you talking about yourself here, or just some vague 'other people'?
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?
Yes, because the BP execs themselves are personally going to have to pay for the cost of the clean-up of the oil spill. Oh wait, they aren't held responsible for it in any way because the legal status of the corporation protects them from those sort of losses.
And how did the safety regulations that were already in place help to prevent the oil spill?
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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.
Again let's discuss a concrete example and the circumstances behind it, and how government could (or did) solve the problem (or how they may have actually contributed to it). Use your best example because I'm open to being convinced.
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.
Do you care? Everybody I talk to would claim to care, I'm sure. Where are all these people who wouldn't give a shit that a company is literally killing the people down river? And the company would have enough to be able to wage a war on people, without losing profit at all? What about their competitors who don't put their profits into funding their own aggressive armies, but use it to sell cheaper goods, raise wages for their employees and innovate their products, etc? Would that company not drive the stupid evil killing company out of business? Or would the evil killing company wage war on them too I suppose?
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On August 29 2010 18:27 vetinari wrote:
Anarcho-capitalism won't work, because I will use my money to take over the world and slaughter everyone in my way.
And if you band together to stop me, congratulations. You just formed a government.
Not really. Government initiates force by definition. It is part of what makes a government a government. A voluntarily funded defensive organisation that fights against you would not be initiating force. Therefore, not government.
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This point has probably been made already, but anarchy can't really exist for long. People will eventually realize that by banding together to gain power they will be more benefited, and groups of people will form and exert control over others.
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edit: @dvide
You are just missing one thing: a voluntarily funded defensive organisation will lose.
Because I am taxing the population of my territories, I have the funding to have a larger, better equipped and better trained army than any volunteer army.
The only way to win is to have a better army and the only way to do that is to coerce your people into supporting the army. This is also called "taxation" and "conscription".
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On August 29 2010 19:20 vetinari wrote:
edit: @dvide
You are just missing one thing: a voluntarily funded defensive organisation will lose.
Because I am taxing the population of my territories, I have the funding to have a larger, better equipped and better trained army than any volunteer army.
The only way to win is to have a better army and the only way to do that is to coerce your people into supporting the army. This is also called "taxation" and "conscription".
I thought you were slaughtering your population? =) Anyway, besides the point.
Ok. So say you win vs the voluntary army. So you roll your army of slaves into an enlightened peaceful ancap society where every house has probably has a gun (maybe even a rifle), and expect to tax them? Good luck. I mean, that's commonly accepted as the reason for why Hitler decided not to go into Switzerland.
Anyway, I already made the argument that defence is massively cheaper than invasion. Why do you think it takes the American army to invade somewhere like Afghanistan? And even they struggle.
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On August 29 2010 17:55 adrenaline.CA wrote:Show nested quote +On August 29 2010 16:34 Yurebis wrote: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. 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. It's totally more like team-melee.
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On August 29 2010 18:57 dvide wrote:Show nested quote +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.
Again let's discuss a concrete example and the circumstances behind it, and how government could (or did) solve the problem (or how they may have actually contributed to it). Use your best example because I'm open to being convinced. Show nested quote +
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.
Do you care? Everybody I talk to would claim to care, I'm sure. Where are all these people who wouldn't give a shit that a company is literally killing the people down river? And the company would have enough to be able to wage a war on people, without losing profit at all? What about their competitors who don't put their profits into funding their own aggressive armies, but use it to sell cheaper goods, raise wages for their employees and innovate their products, etc? Would that company not drive the stupid evil killing company out of business? Or would the evil killing company wage war on them too I suppose?
People don't really care about people they don't even know the names of. De Beers funded African wars by buying conflict diamonds, did the wealthy care enough to stop buying their shiny status symbols? Trafigura was responsible for dumping toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, western outrage seemed oddly muted. Do you care about the high suicide rate of people working in the Foxconn factory or are you more interested in cheap electronics?
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On August 29 2010 19:34 dvide wrote:Show nested quote +On August 29 2010 19:20 vetinari wrote:
edit: @dvide
You are just missing one thing: a voluntarily funded defensive organisation will lose.
Because I am taxing the population of my territories, I have the funding to have a larger, better equipped and better trained army than any volunteer army.
The only way to win is to have a better army and the only way to do that is to coerce your people into supporting the army. This is also called "taxation" and "conscription".
I thought you were slaughtering your population? =) Anyway, besides the point. Ok. So say you win vs the voluntary army. So you roll your army of slaves into an enlightened peaceful ancap society where every house has probably has a gun (maybe even a rifle), and expect to tax them? Good luck. I mean, that's commonly accepted as the reason for why Hitler decided not to go into Switzerland. Anyway, I already made the argument that defence is massively cheaper than invasion. Why do you think it takes the American army to invade somewhere like Afghanistan? And even they struggle.
The Swiss militia is funded by taxation and maintains its numbers via conscription.
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because it only takes 1 instance for an apple to turn bad, while it takes many bad apples for a government body to do wrong
if the risk of an apple going bad is less than 50% (it is much less) and you need a majority to make decisions, then most (all) decisions made by 2 or more people will be good, and the freedom for bad apples to do what they want is removed from them, which (you can argue) is wrong.
anarcho-capitalism alternative:
each apple decides whether it wants to go bad or not, which (you can argue) is their right, however, the decisions made by those bad apples affect the other apples (to their detriment)
in the end the power balance lies with the majority. and they don't want to be affected by bad apples
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On August 29 2010 18:24 Kishkumen wrote:Show nested quote +On August 29 2010 18:18 adrenaline.CA wrote:On August 29 2010 18:10 Yurebis wrote: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!!! Seriously, just look at Rockefeller for an example of how to drive all competition into the ground and not let anyone get a leg up because you control every possible means of getting a leg up in the business. People don't give enough credit to the effects of volume and size in a free market. Walmart can afford to take a loss in some areas in order to come up ahead in other areas. Smaller businesses don't have that luxury.
Rockefeller was an excellent businessman that built his empire by introducing efficient business methods into the oil industry. So long as a monopoly is producing more for less, we don't mind!
Rockefeller did try to cut prices to force out competitors, and soon learned that a big monopoly that cuts prices below the market level is losing money 100 times as fast as the competitor he's trying to force out.
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capitalism is doomed to failure because capitalism requires continual growth yet there is a set amount of resources on earth
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EPT
