There is nothing wrong with anarchic capitalism if you allow psuedo government entities aren't precluded from existing. I suppose some form of government would form at the appropriate scale.
My only problem with a motion towards anarchy is that it steps away from the accumulated wisdom held in the legal and political system. On the other hand, it also steps away from the accumulated folly held in the legal and political system. For some political entities, I'm sure this would be a positive exchange, but for others it's not so clear. Any anarchic system would have to rediscover all of the accumulated wisdom and acquire some of its own folly in the process.
Unlike Caller I don't see the benefit of a central manager of money supply, but not having a common monetary unit would be a huge hit on trade, but that's something that can be developed over time. (it's part of the accumulated wisdom that will get lost.)
In danger of over-generalization, the highest levels of government are largely more stupidity than wisdom, so stripping down the government level-by-level pausing every few years or so to digest the changes would be the best way to grasp the best parts of government while getting rid of the worst. Still I don't know if it will ever be smart to get rid of everything.
On August 29 2010 08:04 Romantic wrote: Work? No, not unless you force everyone to agree to your set of rules, like only negative liberties exist and coercion is worse than any other evil.
True, I have to convince everyone that they're supporting coercion and being coerced at the same time, so perhaps they agree to stop supporting it.
On August 29 2010 08:05 Sl4ktarN wrote: I am an anarchist, however I dont digg anarcho capitalism ONE BIT. Reason? With money comes power, with power comes opression, with opression comes fascism.
[yoda pic]
Much more succint than a statist at least.
On August 29 2010 08:05 OhJesusWOW wrote: There are things about anarcho-capitalism that are flawed in comparison to a democracy. Without any taxation or regulation, there is nobody to stop people like police officers or fire fighters from charging for their services, especially not at any constant rate. You think we have corrupt cops now? Imagine if your local police department was run by the KKK - there isn't any government to enforce any affirmative action. What then? My knowledge of anarcho-capitalism is limited, and I'm moments away from drifting off, but from what I know about it its intentions are good but its model is flawed in many respects. I believe the Old American West was a close representation of what you can expect in an anarcho-capitalism; I believe it also retains the moniker, 'The Wild West', and for good reason, I would assume.
Why would anyone pay a cent for the KKK to do anything? It's extremely unpopular, a fringe organization. Someone who hires the KKK to kill and steal around becomes just as unpopular. And it's much easier to corrupt a cop who has full authority and power of the law, than multiple competing cops trying to be the best type of cop that people are willing to pay for. Not to say corruption wouldn't happen in ancap, but that it's surely much much less prevalent.
On August 29 2010 07:58 Sadistx wrote: The wealthiest countries are those with a large portion expenditures on maintaining the government, state and bureaucracy. This is a fact.
It may be a fact that they are. But does it mean that it's due to?
That's a very good correlation/causation question.
I would argue that a large established government is necessary to provide the most basic infrastructure like roads/energy/communication and to regulate individual companies and environmental conditions
Individual companies may be able to better distribute their services, but only when the infrastructure is already in place.
When individual companies make their decisions they neglect the effect of positive or negative externalities on the people of the nation as a whole.
For example a company may decide to create a waste dump near a community of people because it will be cheaper for the company. If they are not regulated, the cost of relocating for the community will exceed the cost saved by the company. Under a government that regulates pollution, this would not occur and the net benefit would be positive.
Under anarcho-capitalism the problem degenerates into the tragedy of the commons on a national scale.
On August 29 2010 08:08 vindKtiv wrote: Anarcho-capitalism certainly can "work." It can work, just like Communism, Feudalism, and Fascism worked. As long as the people are willing to abide by the rules (or the lack thereof in this case), then anything can theoretically "work."
But personally, I'd rather stay under our current system.
I left out a big question... what does it mean to "work", indeed. Work for what purpose, and for whom? I'm not going to answer that right now, but if you care to see my previous threads you'd see the answer. Basically, everyone has a different goal and different means, and the best way to work out those differences are through voluntary action. The moment you pull out a gun and force people to do it your way, it's not about what can work best for everyone, it's about everyone working for you. The central planner. Then in comes calculation problems, lack of market incentives, and other things that makes it impossible for the central planner to give back to everyone what they each want, even if the planner wanted to, he is hindered intellectually. He can't know what even another human being exactly wants, much less a whole nation.
On August 29 2010 08:09 Krikkitone wrote: TLDR it won't work because there is no way of ensuring that those who violently resist violent coercion will not attempt to perform violent coercion. (resistance is not always easier than coercion). So limited states are better than anarchy because anarchy leads to unlimited states.
For anarcho capitalism to work then everyone capable of successfully defending themselves has to be willing to not oppress others.
Won't work.
If an anarcho-capitalist society arose, then voluntary groups would arise within it providing defense. Because defense is Very difficult with noncontinuous territory, the most successful groups would become those that had some ownership rights of the territory they protected.
Essentially they would become mini-states... you could leave, but you would actually have to move.
The next stages would be (in no particular order)
the mini-states requring certain agreements from those living there (voluntary, they own the land... you can still move)
Mini-states exercising coercion to prevent individuals from violating those agreements (you can still just leave, but not if you owe us $10,000... in that case we will get it from you... you might even have signed an agreement giving us the right to come and chase you down... because that was the only good security contract)
Mini-states attempting the same strategies with other mini-states.
The above lead to the 'mini-states' acting almost exactly like states.
The disadvantage of any form of anarchism is that violent coercion is not possible to abolish. There will always be those that use violence and attempting to abolish states will merely lead to their reestablishment (as states are replaced by corporations and criminal organizations that start acting like states).
While violence can't be eliminated, however, a well established state can limit it. If the state is designed in such a way that the institution tends to use violence for preventing violent coercion as opposed to violently coercing, then it is superior to anarchism, where states will arise through 'natural evolution' meaning states that are successful at war (violently coercing the members of other states) will be the most prominent.
People already pay for the police today, they can pay for defense even better when the overhead and miscalculations of the state are done away with. The idea of mini-states are not new, but it would be like trying to fish with a spoon. Violence is naturally unpopular, therefore is hard to use massively if it's recognized as such. If the state is to ever fall and not come back for a while, people will instantly know what is up if someone tries to set up a new state. No one will pay for that failed experiment, just as much as America today won't go back to slavery.
You actually forgot to define what it means when it 'works'. (edit: credit to vindKtiv (; ) the modern democracy gives me: - A (somewhat limited) influence on how my country and home is governed - Public services - Social security - Political stability - Personal freedoms - Public safety
I would argue that democracy works with the proof of the above list (you might argue the validity of the points, but they all have a solid basis). I wouldn't want to give up on those, and for some points, anarcho-capitalism doesn't. But I am not convinced that it works on things like public service which currently operate with the help of economy of scale. Public safety is not guaranteed unless you buy it but what's gonna be the price and would the market economy for that work? I postulate that it is hardimpossible to prevent monopolies or cartels from forming in this area.
It's just changing the rules of the game. I think it's one of the better ideas on paper, but in the end, those who want power will pursue power but whatever means the game gives them. Changing the rules won't change them pursuing and getting power over others. And many people will willingly give other power in exchange for security. Changing the rules won't change the fact that people can manipulate the system, it just changes HOW they manipulate the system. Even a supposed "lack" of system is still a system.
That being said, I'd love to see it tried. Our system is getting pretty bad.
On August 29 2010 08:12 Saturnize wrote: Because too many people in this generation see the state is legitimate. Maybe in another 200 years or so people will get the picture.
On August 29 2010 08:14 TanGeng wrote: There is nothing wrong with anarchic capitalism if you allow psuedo government entities aren't precluded from existing. I suppose some form of government would form at the appropriate scale.
My only problem with a motion towards anarchy is that it steps away from the accumulated wisdom held in the legal and political system. On the other hand, it also steps away from the accumulated folly held in the legal and political system. For some political entities, I'm sure this would be a positive exchange, but for others it's not so clear. Any anarchic system would have to rediscover all of the accumulated wisdom and acquire some of its own folly in the process.
Unlike Caller I don't see the benefit of a central manager of money supply, but not having a common monetary unit would be a huge hit on trade, but that's something that can be developed over time. (it's part of the accumulated wisdom that will get lost.)
In danger of over-generalization, the highest levels of government are largely more stupidity than wisdom, so stripping down the government level-by-level pausing every few years or so to digest the changes would be the best way to grasp the best parts of government while getting rid of the worst. Still I don't know if it will ever be smart to get rid of everything.
Voluntary governments (a contradiction in term but I know what you mean) are most commonly called PDAs, conceptualized by Rothbard, and they're completely allowed. What they're not legitimized at doing is killing the competition, coercing, stuff that the state does.
Money, like any other scarce resource, can be provided voluntarily no problem. Gold can or cannot be used as people see fit, and banks can trade notes just as international banks trade notes under no common authority.
Your concerns about which services are worth getting rid off is secondary to whether you think it's right in the first place, to steal for a cause. Past that, yes, it still would be more efficient for the stealing to stop; those services that are voluntarily paid for are more efficiently organized, rather than the subsidized and overused mess that is every public service.
If there were no governments to kick BP up the arse who would be cleaning up the gulch? The poor local fisherman who don't have the resources to do it? Who would take responsibility for protecting things like the enviornment when: A. It's unprofitable B. Profits are the highest priority of all institutions
This reflects the main problem with anarcho-capitalism: externalities. There are no institutions in place to clean up the inherent chaos and mess an unregulated market creates.
I'm an Anarcho-Communist, which is basically impossible on a large scale in practice, but there are things to learn from it. Now let's look at your position.
I don't think you're looking at the bigger picture of what this system leads to. Anarcho Capitalism doesn't work for shit for the following reasons:
- No state means noone looks after the working/lower classes. They are exploited even worse than in the current system. Class divides quickly become so severe that you can't even afford basic living costs as a worker. Noone runs schools/hospitals/social services, so a couple of generations down the line everyone at the bottom will be uneducated, unhealthy and dieing of diseases the west got past a hundred years ago.
- Everything, including basic services must be paid for, which creates inefficiencies. A nationalised system does, in many cases, result in better planned public services and, although this usually leads to large amounts of unnecessary bureaucracy and, obviously, works as a counterpoint to my own beliefs, but is still a valid criticism imo.
- Competition becomes everything. With Capital deciding absolutely every aspect of life, it doesn't breed a pleasant atmosphere. There are no safety nets with anything, it's all completely up in the air all the time, and if you fuck up, you lose everything instantly, even if it's something as simple as losing a street cleaning job, creating an atmosphere of fear and paranoia, further fueled by the need to find safer ways of living which don't exist. Banks cannot be trusted due to the problems arising within the legal system and we have already begun to experience the problems that can arise when banks become more powerful than countries.
- Businesses cannot be regulated, therefore exploitation of the working classes intensifies. Investments cease to be safe due to the lack of control over the global market.
- Laws will be passed based on money and nothing else. This is an indisputable point. It will quite quickly develop into a situation in which it is effectively illegal to be poor. And if the masses protest? They'll starve and be arrested, because what controls the food, water and social services? We enter a more intense version of Victorian Lassez Faire Capitalism.
Meh, I can probably think of more, but it's late here. Combined with the already crippling problems Capitalism brings up by itself, it would just be awful for 99% of the population.
On August 29 2010 07:58 Sadistx wrote: The wealthiest countries are those with a large portion expenditures on maintaining the government, state and bureaucracy. This is a fact.
It may be a fact that they are. But does it mean that it's due to?
That's a very good correlation/causation question.
I would argue that a large established government is necessary to provide the most basic infrastructure like roads/energy/communication and to regulate individual companies and environmental conditions
Individual companies may be able to better distribute their services, but only when the infrastructure is already in place.
When individual companies make their decisions they neglect the effect of positive or negative externalities on the people of the nation as a whole.
For example a company may decide to create a waste dump near a community of people because it will be cheaper for the company. If they are not regulated, the cost of relocating for the community will exceed the cost saved by the company. Under a government that regulates pollution, this would not occur and the net benefit would be positive.
Under anarcho-capitalism the problem degenerates into the tragedy of the commons on a national scale.
Roads can be voluntarily built, see anything by Walter Block. Basically, Roads can be traded more efficiently treated as real estate just like a house or an office space. If entrepreneurs see an opportunity to make streets out of a space, they can buy it, build it, and charge for it's use in many different forms. Rather than taxing everyone a huge amount of money through gas, to pay for roads that people may not use and others overuse, is a rather inefficient way to make a sustainable model.
Infrastructure is as much profitable, so to say that it isn't, yet the government does anyway, it would seem to me that you're saying if it weren't for the government, people wouldn't have figured out how to invest in a new business and get it started? That's a bad joke imo, sorry. What usually happens is the government takes over a business over a silly problem or even non-problem that they make up to be an issue. Like, MONOPOLIES. See this for a decent yet kind of empirical explanation https://mises.org/journals/rae/pdf/rae9_2_3.pdf
On August 29 2010 08:08 vindKtiv wrote: Anarcho-capitalism certainly can "work." It can work, just like Communism, Feudalism, and Fascism worked. As long as the people are willing to abide by the rules (or the lack thereof in this case), then anything can theoretically "work."
But personally, I'd rather stay under our current system.
I left out a big question... what does it mean to "work", indeed. Work for what purpose, and for whom? I'm not going to answer that right now, but if you care to see my previous threads you'd see the answer. Basically, everyone has a different goal and different means, and the best way to work out those differences are through voluntary action. The moment you pull out a gun and force people to do it your way, it's not about what can work best for everyone, it's about everyone working for you. The central planner. Then in comes calculation problems, lack of market incentives, and other things that makes it impossible for the central planner to give back to everyone what they each want, even if the planner wanted to, he is hindered intellectually. He can't know what even another human being exactly wants, much less a whole nation.
On August 29 2010 08:09 Krikkitone wrote: TLDR it won't work because there is no way of ensuring that those who violently resist violent coercion will not attempt to perform violent coercion. (resistance is not always easier than coercion). So limited states are better than anarchy because anarchy leads to unlimited states.
For anarcho capitalism to work then everyone capable of successfully defending themselves has to be willing to not oppress others.
Won't work.
If an anarcho-capitalist society arose, then voluntary groups would arise within it providing defense. Because defense is Very difficult with noncontinuous territory, the most successful groups would become those that had some ownership rights of the territory they protected.
Essentially they would become mini-states... you could leave, but you would actually have to move.
The next stages would be (in no particular order)
the mini-states requring certain agreements from those living there (voluntary, they own the land... you can still move)
Mini-states exercising coercion to prevent individuals from violating those agreements (you can still just leave, but not if you owe us $10,000... in that case we will get it from you... you might even have signed an agreement giving us the right to come and chase you down... because that was the only good security contract)
Mini-states attempting the same strategies with other mini-states.
The above lead to the 'mini-states' acting almost exactly like states.
The disadvantage of any form of anarchism is that violent coercion is not possible to abolish. There will always be those that use violence and attempting to abolish states will merely lead to their reestablishment (as states are replaced by corporations and criminal organizations that start acting like states).
While violence can't be eliminated, however, a well established state can limit it. If the state is designed in such a way that the institution tends to use violence for preventing violent coercion as opposed to violently coercing, then it is superior to anarchism, where states will arise through 'natural evolution' meaning states that are successful at war (violently coercing the members of other states) will be the most prominent.
People already pay for the police today, they can pay for defense even better when the overhead and miscalculations of the state are done away with. The idea of mini-states are not new, but it would be like trying to fish with a spoon. Violence is naturally unpopular, therefore is hard to use massively if it's recognized as such. If the state is to ever fall and not come back for a while, people will instantly know what is up if someone tries to set up a new state. No one will pay for that failed experiment, just as much as America today won't go back to slavery.
Overhead and miscalculations are not going away...all large companies have them.
Defense and security are 'territorial monopolies'
And violence is Not massively unpopular... certain Types of violence are massively unpopular, but other types are popular.
If an anarcho-cap society started obviously there would be cultures and traditions against "the state"... but those would change with time. Organizations that are more and more statelike would appear.
As for America not having slavery... we (and most of the rest of the developed world) only got rid of it ~100-200 years ago. I see no certainty that there won't be slavery in the year 3000 or even 2500. I hope their isn't, and there probably won't be. But if there are enough incentives for society to bring it back, they will.
The state has its uses, far more than slavery, and its evil is FAR more mitigated.
On August 29 2010 08:05 Sl4ktarN wrote: I am an anarchist, however I dont digg anarcho capitalism ONE BIT. Reason? With money comes power, with power comes opression, with opression comes fascism.
Shall everybody live in poverty, so that no-one will have "power"? Yay for communism!
Just how does money bring power exactly? The power to trade? Wealth only brings the power of oppression when there is a vehicle of oppressive power to buy at a low cost, which is kind of the whole point. Would companies fund the enforcement of arbitrary, oppressive dictats out of pocket? Consider how huge the cost would be to them, and for what benefit?
All this talk about private companies becoming the next state is kind of missing the point. The state has presupposed authority. States face little resistance because of the false meme that the state has legitimacy. Private companies do not have presupposed legitimacy. They could not offload the cost of oppression to the taxpayer, AND the cost would be much greater overall because people would actually defend themselves against the oppression where there is no presupposed legitimacy.
How could Coca Cola possibly become the next state? Makes little sense. And where would their money come from if not from voluntary trade in the first place?
how bout u socialists and anarchists stop making strawmen and consider republican captialism?
capitalism =/= anarchy. Socialism is simply concentration of power in the hands of the government and is prone to the same autoimmune exploits as capitalism. but it's actually worse than capitalism b/c socialism stifles natural positive economic forces while exacerbating the problem by ignoring economics principles. Socialism likes to project exactly what they're doing bad on capitalism, via ignorance of economics.
Socialism and all that concentration of power leads to systematic loopholes by politicians and businessmen abusing their power to weave economic advantages for themselves and skewing the playing field for the common man. THAT's the source of the economic disparity.
u want to solve the effects of socialism with socialism. You want call upon redistribution of wealth (aka stealing), which doesn't exactly solve the problem b/c the ones who manipulated the system to their advantage are still in power, and only use the distribution of wealth to wipe out the middle class while keeping themselves immune to it. And there are lots of poor, so it gains a lot of support. And it's always accomplished by bait and switch. they SAY it will tax the wealthiest, but hit the middle class harder in effect, while providing themselves loopholes.
It's the universal truth of humanity that applies to every realm: no one wants to let go of power once they have it So good luck trying to keep the leader(s) benevolent after handing over all the power to him/them.
The other universal truth is game theory: ppl do things to benefit themselves.
Capitalism takes all that into account and it turns out that economics more or less creates harmony with the aid of a touch of rule of law. selfishness is not a problem in capitalism.
For socialism to work, you'd have to change the human heart itself.
"u have to have govenrment to control capitalist tendencies to go haywire." yeah, that's where the republic part comes in. capitalism and free market on the whole has a stabilizing, and flexible role, and only needs a touch of regulation. Socialism on the other hand is like taking a patient to surgery for a simple vitamin deficiency.
so i swear, until you socialists can stop with your strawmen and stop ignoring economics in the pursuit of some magical idealism that is somehow immune to the laws of economics, it's really quite pointless to talk any further.
Wowzers, isn't the premise of this thread a little feeble? Either you're asking people to discuss a very limited (and imo weak line of argumentation), or you want to discuss some ideology with people who're already familiar with it, or you're expecting people to do a ton of research in order for them to meaningfully participate..
"I will make little empirical arguments, but my premises are very agreeable on so don't worry." If science teaches us anything, it's that most of the "agreeable" assumptions are utterly wrong.
On August 29 2010 08:26 Hidden_MotiveS wrote: Thread is too theoretical for my taste. Has anarcho-capitalism, whatever this political system is, ever worked before? If not, has anyone tried it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_anarchist_communities None of them were really capitalistic though imo. I like the american wild west example best, it's a complete myth that it was a lawless land. Less homicides than the eastern part at least. I'm no empiricist so I'll stop there though.
On August 29 2010 08:28 Badjas wrote: You actually forgot to define what it means when it 'works'. (edit: credit to vindKtiv (; ) the modern democracy gives me: - A (somewhat limited) influence on how my country and home is governed - Public services - Social security - Political stability - Personal freedoms - Public safety
I would argue that democracy works with the proof of the above list (you might argue the validity of the points, but they all have a solid basis). I wouldn't want to give up on those, and for some points, anarcho-capitalism doesn't. But I am not convinced that it works on things like public service which currently operate with the help of economy of scale. Public safety is not guaranteed unless you buy it but what's gonna be the price and would the market economy for that work? I postulate that it is hardimpossible to prevent monopolies or cartels from forming in this area.
You already pay for those services, and they're overpriced, shitty, and mandatory even for those who don't want it. The market could provide you those just as well as it does mp3 players or plasma tvs, the distinction of what should be a public service or not is an imaginary line that anyone can cross if you think for a while. Some people in communist russia also couldn't figure how would bread be distributed if not for the government, but that didn't mean it couldn't.
It's not about services. Services has always been the easiest thing to get right in governments. I'm not worried about schools, roads, and the other stuff.
It's about figuring out the right rules, and some of the rules held in political bodies today hold a profound wisdom that would be hard for the average person to grasp. By getting rid of government wholesale you lose all of that. Of course, you lose all of the stupidity and all of the corruption, as well.
The question is then whether or not it's worth it to rediscover all of the wisdom that is held in the laws for reduced corruption and the accumulated stupidity, knowing that the learning process will probably be very very painful.
On August 29 2010 08:29 LaughingTulkas wrote: It's just changing the rules of the game. I think it's one of the better ideas on paper, but in the end, those who want power will pursue power but whatever means the game gives them. Changing the rules won't change them pursuing and getting power over others. And many people will willingly give other power in exchange for security. Changing the rules won't change the fact that people can manipulate the system, it just changes HOW they manipulate the system. Even a supposed "lack" of system is still a system.
That being said, I'd love to see it tried. Our system is getting pretty bad.
I was going to say "anarchy means no rules" but actually yeah, the rules would still be somewhat determined by the overarching, voluntary majority. But the difference is that there's no rulers, meaning, there's nothing that one group of people says that you have to do. Anytime someone pulls that one out it's going to be called on and made unpopular->unprofitable
On August 29 2010 08:37 Jibba wrote: Who prevents collusion?
No barriers of entry in any market limit how much an oligopoly can make; The most efficient colluding members themselves have the greatest incentive of all to break it, make under the table deals and get the most sales than anyone else. So, to say that individual companies have an incentive to collude, yet don't have an incentive to overperform everyone else is a bit of a contradiction. And a "natural collusion" in which no one can outperform the other... well I would just call that competition? lol.
Monopolies and oligopolies have been non-issues anyway. Oligopolies are extremely hard to form without a state to fix prices, contrary to popular thought. The breaking of monopolies by the part of the state is actually the formation of an oligopoly of the less efficient companies, which lobbied the government together to kill the market leader, most of the time. What do I know though.
On August 29 2010 08:05 OhJesusWOW wrote:I believe the Old American West was a close representation of what you can expect in an anarcho-capitalism; I believe it also retains the moniker, 'The Wild West', and for good reason, I would assume.
EPT
