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On September 01 2010 09:35 Biochemist wrote:Show nested quote +On September 01 2010 09:27 Yurebis wrote:On September 01 2010 07:35 Biochemist wrote:
From reading the wikipedia page on anarcho-capitalism, functionally it seems like it's pretty close to what the US had for the first hundred years or so (and especially under the articles of confederation).
Obviously the big difference is small state government vs no state government, but as far as the economics go it felt like I was reading a history book.
From this perspective: how do you prevent civil war in an anarcho-capitalist society? History has taught us that where money and competition are involved, people will fight to the bloody death over it unless someone bigger steps in and makes them stop. If you deem necessary, that to topple a coercive body, a bigger coercive body needs to fight it, then how do you explain this? So you'd rather have violent takeovers every time someone decides they want control over a resource enough to fight for it? Under the articles, a few of the new states almost went to war with each other over economic interests and the totally impotent federal government couldn't do a thing about it. You don't think similar scenarios would happen in an anarcho-capitalist world, but with different sides basically buying security firms and squaring them off against each other like mercenaries?
I didn't say I prefer anything, just that the idea that a big coercive body is somewhat impossible to stop without a bigger one is demonstrably wrong.
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On September 01 2010 09:54 Yurebis wrote:Show nested quote +On September 01 2010 09:30 geometryb wrote:
Is there a mechanism to maintain market competition? What prevents businesses from merging with each other to form super companies?
The point i'm trying to make is there is no way to tell if there will be one, ten, or 10,000 PDAs (i'm leaning towards 1). For example, is it possible that a company comes up with a product so good that others can't compete. And mergers/acquisitions provides the means for several companies to combine into a few. Are there purely market forces that would prevent defense companies from joining together. Especially defense companies, which gain significant benefits from pooling resources. There are Diseconomies of scale, to begin with. And I don't think defense companies always benefit from growing larger. Even if they did, at which point it becomes worrisome for the customer, then he can seek smaller ones. There are people who go to moms and pops even with Walmart open half a mile away, meaning, price isn't always everything even in the free market.
it's not about price. it's about who can provide the best protection or the best product. as a customer, i do not worry about the size of the company that gives the product, only the quality of the product and the price they sell it at. i would argue that a large defense company can provide better protection than a smaller one.
it's not very clear to me how a defense company can have diseconomies of scale. can you elaborate?
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Sanya12364 Posts
On September 01 2010 09:56 geometryb wrote:Show nested quote +On September 01 2010 09:54 Yurebis wrote:On September 01 2010 09:30 geometryb wrote:
Is there a mechanism to maintain market competition? What prevents businesses from merging with each other to form super companies?
The point i'm trying to make is there is no way to tell if there will be one, ten, or 10,000 PDAs (i'm leaning towards 1). For example, is it possible that a company comes up with a product so good that others can't compete. And mergers/acquisitions provides the means for several companies to combine into a few. Are there purely market forces that would prevent defense companies from joining together. Especially defense companies, which gain significant benefits from pooling resources. There are Diseconomies of scale, to begin with. And I don't think defense companies always benefit from growing larger. Even if they did, at which point it becomes worrisome for the customer, then he can seek smaller ones. There are people who go to moms and pops even with Walmart open half a mile away, meaning, price isn't always everything even in the free market. it's not about price. it's about who can provide the best protection or the best product. i would argue that a large defense company can provide better protection than a smaller one.
Large defense companies benefit from "reliability" in the economies of scale.
Large defense companies suffer from "cannibalization" in the dis economies of scale since they can threaten or destabilize its own members.
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On September 01 2010 09:41 kidcrash wrote:Show nested quote +Well, why don't you elaborate on how the Manhattan Project was something so ingeniously managed that no single market actor could compete with it, let alone top it, if not stolen the opportunity? Coming from the person who said that our entire economic principle should be based on greed. It's not that no single market actor could compete with it, but why should they feel the need to? If they did feel the need to, who's to say they would work at the pace and urgency needed to get the project done in time?
Who's to say government workers do work on time? How can government know what the time is? How can it know how much to tax for it? How many bombs to make? How many scientists to hire? How much to pay them?
It's far more arbitrary and inefficient. I just doubt it was the case that what they did was something so fantastic, that no free man could have done.
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On September 01 2010 09:47 TanGeng wrote:Show nested quote +On September 01 2010 09:34 Yurebis wrote:
Contrary to popular thought, the state does not create morality, it does not give to man laws. Morality and law can arise spontaneously, and are demanded spontaneously by those who prefer to settle disputes non-violently. The state of today responds that demand, and formalizes that which man already felt right.
State claims to be the sole definition of morality. This is its defining characteristic. Everything else is merely coordination of resources, bureaucracy, management, and operational details. By being able to define morality, governments are a combination of governance (morality and rule of law) and pillage (stealing, killing, corruption, and wealth transfers). I don't think we have an argument.
The sole enforcer of morality, the sole legislator - the sole de-facto lawmaker, but it isn't the sole provider of morality. That's as valid as saying the pope is the sole provider of faith.
And no, it's semantics. But you're wrong. Lol. jk.
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On September 01 2010 09:59 TanGeng wrote:Show nested quote +On September 01 2010 09:56 geometryb wrote:On September 01 2010 09:54 Yurebis wrote:On September 01 2010 09:30 geometryb wrote:
Is there a mechanism to maintain market competition? What prevents businesses from merging with each other to form super companies?
The point i'm trying to make is there is no way to tell if there will be one, ten, or 10,000 PDAs (i'm leaning towards 1). For example, is it possible that a company comes up with a product so good that others can't compete. And mergers/acquisitions provides the means for several companies to combine into a few. Are there purely market forces that would prevent defense companies from joining together. Especially defense companies, which gain significant benefits from pooling resources. There are Diseconomies of scale, to begin with. And I don't think defense companies always benefit from growing larger. Even if they did, at which point it becomes worrisome for the customer, then he can seek smaller ones. There are people who go to moms and pops even with Walmart open half a mile away, meaning, price isn't always everything even in the free market. it's not about price. it's about who can provide the best protection or the best product. i would argue that a large defense company can provide better protection than a smaller one. Large defense companies benefit from "reliability" in the economies of scale. Large defense companies suffer from "cannibalization" in the dis economies of scale since they can threaten or destabilize its own members.
can you elaborate on how customers are threatened or destabilized?
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On September 01 2010 09:56 Yurebis wrote:Show nested quote +On September 01 2010 09:35 Biochemist wrote:On September 01 2010 09:27 Yurebis wrote:On September 01 2010 07:35 Biochemist wrote:
From reading the wikipedia page on anarcho-capitalism, functionally it seems like it's pretty close to what the US had for the first hundred years or so (and especially under the articles of confederation).
Obviously the big difference is small state government vs no state government, but as far as the economics go it felt like I was reading a history book.
From this perspective: how do you prevent civil war in an anarcho-capitalist society? History has taught us that where money and competition are involved, people will fight to the bloody death over it unless someone bigger steps in and makes them stop. If you deem necessary, that to topple a coercive body, a bigger coercive body needs to fight it, then how do you explain this? So you'd rather have violent takeovers every time someone decides they want control over a resource enough to fight for it? Under the articles, a few of the new states almost went to war with each other over economic interests and the totally impotent federal government couldn't do a thing about it. You don't think similar scenarios would happen in an anarcho-capitalist world, but with different sides basically buying security firms and squaring them off against each other like mercenaries? I didn't say I prefer anything, just that the idea that a big coercive body is somewhat impossible to stop without a bigger one is demonstrably wrong.
Well you still haven't answered my question. I propose civil war (ignoring the sketchy semantics of using the word civil) as a reason why anarcho-capitalism will not work. When defense and civility are enforced by mercenaries, people will use those mercenaries to fight each other.
Arguing that state governments can and have been overthrown by violent revolution merely demonstrates a problem with other forms of government. It does nothing to propose a solution to this problem for yours.
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On September 01 2010 09:19 Yurebis wrote:Show nested quote +On September 01 2010 07:29 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote:On September 01 2010 06:34 Yurebis wrote:
If monopolies are bad, then you have no right of your own body, as you are the monopolizer of you. Lol holy fuck listen to yourself Are you not the monopoly of yourself? You're the only one who can offer the exact actions and labor you provide. You don't see this argument made much because there are arbitrary boundaries in what constitutes "the only provider of a service or product", that is, anything could be a "service or product", and if you don't differentiate what makes a series of products the same product, then every single product is unique - every single owner of a product, and provider of it, is a monopolist. Therefore, there has to be additional definition into what constitutes an unique product or service. And that necessarily has to arbitrarily exclude out the types of products you don't have a problem with being monopolized, or more simply, exclusively controlled. It's ok to monopolize yourself. It's ok to monopolize the exact brand one sells. The inventions one is given patent by the government. The material given copyright by the government. It's only not ok, when the government deems it's not ok. Soooo, an interventionist might as well define monopoly as "the private property which the government deems unlawful".
i am not sure i agree with this... as far as economics go, i think you can define monopoly as the control of a single corporation over any group of products in such a way that prevents competition.
and of course when there is no competition, the corporation can put any price it wants on those products, instead of letting the supply and demand determine those prices.
do you not see that as a problem?
the free market is based on supply and demand, and supply and demand are based on the assumption that several products can be similar (therefor, supply).
when there is only one copy of a certain product (some man's body. the original mona-lisa. etc) there is nothing that you can do about it.. this product cant be duplicated any way, and its supply will not increase if we make it public. so the whole talk of monopoly in this situation is meaningless.
but when a company can produce a certain item but is not willing to allow others to produce it because it will hurt its profits, then there is a monopoly.
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On September 01 2010 09:56 geometryb wrote:Show nested quote +On September 01 2010 09:54 Yurebis wrote:On September 01 2010 09:30 geometryb wrote:
Is there a mechanism to maintain market competition? What prevents businesses from merging with each other to form super companies?
The point i'm trying to make is there is no way to tell if there will be one, ten, or 10,000 PDAs (i'm leaning towards 1). For example, is it possible that a company comes up with a product so good that others can't compete. And mergers/acquisitions provides the means for several companies to combine into a few. Are there purely market forces that would prevent defense companies from joining together. Especially defense companies, which gain significant benefits from pooling resources. There are Diseconomies of scale, to begin with. And I don't think defense companies always benefit from growing larger. Even if they did, at which point it becomes worrisome for the customer, then he can seek smaller ones. There are people who go to moms and pops even with Walmart open half a mile away, meaning, price isn't always everything even in the free market. it's not about price. it's about who can provide the best protection or the best product. as a customer, i do not worry about the size of the company that gives the product, only the quality of the product and the price they sell it at. i would argue that a large defense company can provide better protection than a smaller one. it's not very clear to me how a defense company can have diseconomies of scale. can you elaborate?
Every time I compare price, it's implied I'm referring to equally serviceable products, products that provide the same benefit.
A PDA (private defense agency) would not benefit from increased size... examples:
-Additional policemen do not deter crime any better past a certain density. Having one policeman per street corner is hardly necessary, you're paying the next police officer $40000 for an expected return of much, much less in stopping crimes-a-year.
-Additional guns, same deal
-Distance, it is increasingly harder for a company to have adaptive presence in an area the further away from it's headquarters it is (mitigated by technology but still, what isn't). Local PDAs can best know what is needed in the area.
Just a few I can think of...
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On September 01 2010 10:08 Yurebis wrote:Show nested quote +On September 01 2010 09:56 geometryb wrote:On September 01 2010 09:54 Yurebis wrote:On September 01 2010 09:30 geometryb wrote:
Is there a mechanism to maintain market competition? What prevents businesses from merging with each other to form super companies?
The point i'm trying to make is there is no way to tell if there will be one, ten, or 10,000 PDAs (i'm leaning towards 1). For example, is it possible that a company comes up with a product so good that others can't compete. And mergers/acquisitions provides the means for several companies to combine into a few. Are there purely market forces that would prevent defense companies from joining together. Especially defense companies, which gain significant benefits from pooling resources. There are Diseconomies of scale, to begin with. And I don't think defense companies always benefit from growing larger. Even if they did, at which point it becomes worrisome for the customer, then he can seek smaller ones. There are people who go to moms and pops even with Walmart open half a mile away, meaning, price isn't always everything even in the free market. it's not about price. it's about who can provide the best protection or the best product. as a customer, i do not worry about the size of the company that gives the product, only the quality of the product and the price they sell it at. i would argue that a large defense company can provide better protection than a smaller one. it's not very clear to me how a defense company can have diseconomies of scale. can you elaborate? Every time I compare price, it's implied I'm referring to equally serviceable products, products that provide the same benefit. A PDA (private defense agency) would not benefit from increased size... examples: -Additional policemen do not deter crime any better past a certain density. Having one policeman per street corner is hardly necessary, you're paying the next police officer $40000 for an expected return of much, much less in stopping crimes-a-year. -Additional guns, same deal -Distance, it is increasingly harder for a company to have adaptive presence in an area the further away from it's headquarters it is (mitigated by technology but still, what isn't). Local PDAs can best know what is needed in the area. Just a few I can think of...
those are dealing with small criminals. when a PDA is defending you from attacks on a much larger scale...
i'm going to an extreme here, but
a PDA with ballistic missile defense and launches satellites for an advanced warning system is a much nicer product to have than a few police officers.
again, there is nothing intrinsic about a PDA that says there will be 10,000 competing PDAs and nothing about economies or diseconomies of scale that say there will be 1 or 10000. I'm sorry about using PDAs because this really applies to all industries. Pretend an oil monopoly gets established...and then the oil company decides to start its own PDA since all the PDAs are too small to meet its needs.
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On September 01 2010 10:04 cavalier3024 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 01 2010 09:19 Yurebis wrote:On September 01 2010 07:29 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote:On September 01 2010 06:34 Yurebis wrote:
If monopolies are bad, then you have no right of your own body, as you are the monopolizer of you. Lol holy fuck listen to yourself Are you not the monopoly of yourself? You're the only one who can offer the exact actions and labor you provide. You don't see this argument made much because there are arbitrary boundaries in what constitutes "the only provider of a service or product", that is, anything could be a "service or product", and if you don't differentiate what makes a series of products the same product, then every single product is unique - every single owner of a product, and provider of it, is a monopolist. Therefore, there has to be additional definition into what constitutes an unique product or service. And that necessarily has to arbitrarily exclude out the types of products you don't have a problem with being monopolized, or more simply, exclusively controlled. It's ok to monopolize yourself. It's ok to monopolize the exact brand one sells. The inventions one is given patent by the government. The material given copyright by the government. It's only not ok, when the government deems it's not ok. Soooo, an interventionist might as well define monopoly as "the private property which the government deems unlawful". i am not sure i agree with this... as far as economics go, i think you can define monopoly as the control of a single corporation over any group of products in such a way that prevents competition. and of course when there is no competition, the corporation can put any price it wants on those products, instead of letting the supply and demand determine those prices. do you not see that as a problem? the free market is based on supply and demand, and supply and demand are based on the assumption that several products can be similar (therefor, supply). when there is only one copy of a certain product (some man's body. the original mona-lisa. etc) there is nothing that you can do about it.. this product cant be duplicated any way, and its supply will not increase if we make it public. so the whole talk of monopoly in this situation is meaningless. but when a company can produce a certain item but is not willing to allow others to produce it because it will hurt its profits, then there is a monopoly.
Monopoly is, by definition, impossible in a free market - at least as regards one which exploits what you are describing as the "monopoly price". No example of a true monopoly exists which was not directly or indirectly the product of government intervention.
If you prefer reading and are interested in an academic exploration of the subject I would suggest reading Man Economy and State :
Book Link
Chapter 10 - Monopoly and Competition
in particular : Section 3 - The Illusion of Monopoly Price
If you prefer moving pictures and lectures, I offer the following (1h:22m):
+ Show Spoiler +
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Sanya12364 Posts
How about this for you Yurebis.
Anarcho-capitalism can't work because lots of people believe in one of the following:
1. Might makes right. Domination by force justifies taking and pillaging.
2. We should redistribute wealth and force wealthy individuals to give up their money to the rest of us.
3. When political elites aggrandize themselves at the expense of the common masses, the common masses actually benefits.
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On September 01 2010 09:17 cavalier3024 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 01 2010 08:25 jgad wrote:On September 01 2010 08:08 cavalier3024 wrote:On September 01 2010 06:56 Yurebis wrote:
If it can't be owned, because it isn't homesteadable, it still can be taken to court, ostracized against, public outrage, boycott... many many ways, again, before using the gun.
this is something i dont really understand about anarcho-capitalism.. this court you are talking about, how does it enforce his decisions if not by the gun? Anarcho-capitalism is predicated on natural law - the *initiation* of force is bad but defensive use of it is not. The reputation of the court would be its driving force. A court could only survive if it managed to retain clients. It would only retain clients if they felt it acted in their best interest. A court which passed unfair judgement would invite conflict from the judicial system of the defendant. This would incur extra costs and increase prices for their other, presumably legitimate subscribers. Increased costs would lose them business. Just the same, a court which failed to prosecute a legitimate criminal would also lose the confidence of its subscribers. They would want to know that their justice system would as much protect them from wrongful prosecution as it would prosecute those who had truly committed crimes. The natural driving forces would push competing defensive and judicial systems to be as fair and objective as possible. If you had a choice, what characteristics would you seek from a police and court service which you would pay money for? Further reading : http://mises.org/rothbard/mes/chap13.asp#_ftnref2 ok thanks, i read the link you gave but i still dont fully understand how this will work. from what i understand, every man can subscribe to a court of his choice, based on his interests. so optimally each man will subscribe to a court that represents his moral values. so far so good. now what i dont understand is what happens when a man from court A charges a person that is subscribed to court B. each man is certain that he is right, since he followed his moral values that are represented by the court he is subscribed to.. in your link they mention an Appeal Court. but this doesnt really solve this situation since we return to the original problem: how do we decide which Appeal Court will judge this case? like before, each man can favor a different appeal court that follows different moral values.
Yes, but the man whose moral values require him to impose his will upon the free actions of other men will necessarily incur more conflicts than other men. By this virtue alone, a system of justice which defends purely those actions which are defensible by natural law - the principle of non-aggression - will have the least number of things to defend and will therefore be the least costly of all courts to subscribe to. In short, it will always be more expensive to impose your values on other rather than to simply embrace the fundamental principles of non-aggression. While you would always be free to fund such actions, it would ultimately be self defeating. These people would necessarily devote more of their money and effort into defending their own aggressive actions than those who chose to not be aggressive.
In short, they would be no different than a government which attempted to impose morality upon you by law - a force to be reckoned with, but one with the critical feature of NOT having a monopoly on the defensive and judicial services of the state. In a democracy, should they be in the majority, they would have total dictatorial control. In an anarchist society they would only have proportional contol. Always less bad than democracy unless you find yourself in the majority and craving the power granted by a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. In that case, all I can say is - tough shit. It's better that a majority can have only partial power instead of absolute power.
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On September 01 2010 10:04 Biochemist wrote:Show nested quote +On September 01 2010 09:56 Yurebis wrote:On September 01 2010 09:35 Biochemist wrote:On September 01 2010 09:27 Yurebis wrote:On September 01 2010 07:35 Biochemist wrote:
From reading the wikipedia page on anarcho-capitalism, functionally it seems like it's pretty close to what the US had for the first hundred years or so (and especially under the articles of confederation).
Obviously the big difference is small state government vs no state government, but as far as the economics go it felt like I was reading a history book.
From this perspective: how do you prevent civil war in an anarcho-capitalist society? History has taught us that where money and competition are involved, people will fight to the bloody death over it unless someone bigger steps in and makes them stop. If you deem necessary, that to topple a coercive body, a bigger coercive body needs to fight it, then how do you explain this? So you'd rather have violent takeovers every time someone decides they want control over a resource enough to fight for it? Under the articles, a few of the new states almost went to war with each other over economic interests and the totally impotent federal government couldn't do a thing about it. You don't think similar scenarios would happen in an anarcho-capitalist world, but with different sides basically buying security firms and squaring them off against each other like mercenaries? I didn't say I prefer anything, just that the idea that a big coercive body is somewhat impossible to stop without a bigger one is demonstrably wrong. Well you still haven't answered my question. I propose civil war (ignoring the sketchy semantics of using the word civil) as a reason why anarcho-capitalism will not work. When defense and civility are enforced by mercenaries, people will use those mercenaries to fight each other. Arguing that state governments can and have been overthrown by violent revolution merely demonstrates a problem with other forms of government. It does nothing to propose a solution to this problem for yours.
Oh, ok. I'm sorry for misinterpreting.
Welp. There is nothing particularly 100% stopping anyone from doing anything, so I'd just like to turn the question into the proper "what deters" people from initiating force.
Few things... "you" being the mercenary group
- tactical defensive advantage, makes offensive generally more costly
- unpopularity ensued from you being ruled an aggressor, making yourself not defendable in the very own courts that ruled you to be an outlaw (lol why do you care). You shoud care, because that means no going back to civility. You and your employees are all outlaws, and your lives are as short as your current capital allows you to live.
- your employees have a great incentive to just take their guns and leave, sell off your stuff on the market and make due with the courts, unless they're psychopaths in which case they probably enjoy killing people anyway. But psychopaths are very few, and it would be unlikely that you were fortunate enough to have that many in your company
- Revolt by the part of those you subdue, and the ancap generation's understanding that what you do isn't cool.
- In case you choose not to take hostages, meaning, just killing and ravaging every town neaby, your lives are even more at risk because message will go out and the towns around you will grow wearier and more armed, while your men and supplies shrink by the day.
- Again, because you're an outlaw company with outlaw employees, bounty hunters could be hired to take you and your folks out (yes, I advocate bounty hunters to kill mass murderers like you, LOL) before you ravage any more towns. You aren't protected by anyone because you chose to swearing everyone, so you're estopped from begging mercy.
PDAs, knowing that, would most likely not do it. Some crazy rich investor could, but vis-a-vis, they could do it today even more easily, by employing the state. Iraqis being sodomized and raped by US military and contractors much? That's the go-to place for sociopaths and psychopaths.
edit: took out swearing, sorry
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Anarcho-capitalism (also known as “libertarian anarchy”[1][2] or “market anarchism”[3] or “free market anarchism”[4]) is a libertarian[5][6] and individualist anarchist[7] political philosophy that advocates the elimination of the state and the elevation of the sovereign individual in a free market.
Rand Paul Personified
And who would guarantee your NAP or homesteading property rights? When I decide to come slit your throat in the middle of the night so I can live in your cottage and screw your wife, isn't that just the free market resource of my body deciding that the resource of your body would be better dead? Whatever don't bother answering. Over the government created infrastructure of the internet.
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I'm new to this whole idea, but the more I think about it and read the posts of those defending it, the more I realize that this is a textbook example of taking a good idea to an extreme where it is no longer a good idea.
I'll make you a table:
Good idea ------------------------------------- Bad extreme
Don't eat unhealthy stuff ------------------- Only eat raw food
Don't ingest random chemicals --------- Don't vaccinate your kids
Free market capitalism -------------------- Anarcho-Capitalism
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On September 01 2010 10:04 cavalier3024 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 01 2010 09:19 Yurebis wrote:On September 01 2010 07:29 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote:On September 01 2010 06:34 Yurebis wrote:
If monopolies are bad, then you have no right of your own body, as you are the monopolizer of you. Lol holy fuck listen to yourself Are you not the monopoly of yourself? You're the only one who can offer the exact actions and labor you provide. You don't see this argument made much because there are arbitrary boundaries in what constitutes "the only provider of a service or product", that is, anything could be a "service or product", and if you don't differentiate what makes a series of products the same product, then every single product is unique - every single owner of a product, and provider of it, is a monopolist. Therefore, there has to be additional definition into what constitutes an unique product or service. And that necessarily has to arbitrarily exclude out the types of products you don't have a problem with being monopolized, or more simply, exclusively controlled. It's ok to monopolize yourself. It's ok to monopolize the exact brand one sells. The inventions one is given patent by the government. The material given copyright by the government. It's only not ok, when the government deems it's not ok. Soooo, an interventionist might as well define monopoly as "the private property which the government deems unlawful". i am not sure i agree with this... as far as economics go, i think you can define monopoly as the control of a single corporation over any group of products in such a way that prevents competition. and of course when there is no competition, the corporation can put any price it wants on those products, instead of letting the supply and demand determine those prices. do you not see that as a problem? the free market is based on supply and demand, and supply and demand are based on the assumption that several products can be similar (therefor, supply). when there is only one copy of a certain product (some man's body. the original mona-lisa. etc) there is nothing that you can do about it.. this product cant be duplicated any way, and its supply will not increase if we make it public. so the whole talk of monopoly in this situation is meaningless. but when a company can produce a certain item but is not willing to allow others to produce it because it will hurt its profits, then there is a monopoly.
Your definition of "meaningless" is arbitrary. Try defining monopoly that way then. "sole provider of a product of service that isn't a meaningless distinction"
And companies can't "disallow" others to compete. Outperforming isn't "disallowing" competition. The barriers of entry are open - only governments can close it. Or outlaw companies.
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On September 01 2010 10:11 geometryb wrote:Show nested quote +On September 01 2010 10:08 Yurebis wrote:On September 01 2010 09:56 geometryb wrote:On September 01 2010 09:54 Yurebis wrote:On September 01 2010 09:30 geometryb wrote:
Is there a mechanism to maintain market competition? What prevents businesses from merging with each other to form super companies?
The point i'm trying to make is there is no way to tell if there will be one, ten, or 10,000 PDAs (i'm leaning towards 1). For example, is it possible that a company comes up with a product so good that others can't compete. And mergers/acquisitions provides the means for several companies to combine into a few. Are there purely market forces that would prevent defense companies from joining together. Especially defense companies, which gain significant benefits from pooling resources. There are Diseconomies of scale, to begin with. And I don't think defense companies always benefit from growing larger. Even if they did, at which point it becomes worrisome for the customer, then he can seek smaller ones. There are people who go to moms and pops even with Walmart open half a mile away, meaning, price isn't always everything even in the free market. it's not about price. it's about who can provide the best protection or the best product. as a customer, i do not worry about the size of the company that gives the product, only the quality of the product and the price they sell it at. i would argue that a large defense company can provide better protection than a smaller one. it's not very clear to me how a defense company can have diseconomies of scale. can you elaborate? Every time I compare price, it's implied I'm referring to equally serviceable products, products that provide the same benefit. A PDA (private defense agency) would not benefit from increased size... examples: -Additional policemen do not deter crime any better past a certain density. Having one policeman per street corner is hardly necessary, you're paying the next police officer $40000 for an expected return of much, much less in stopping crimes-a-year. -Additional guns, same deal -Distance, it is increasingly harder for a company to have adaptive presence in an area the further away from it's headquarters it is (mitigated by technology but still, what isn't). Local PDAs can best know what is needed in the area. Just a few I can think of... those are dealing with small criminals. when a PDA is defending you from attacks on a much larger scale... i'm going to an extreme here, but a PDA with ballistic missile defense and launches satellites for an advanced warning system is a much nicer product to have than a few police officers. again, there is nothing intrinsic about a PDA that says there will be 10,000 competing PDAs and nothing about economies or diseconomies of scale that say there will be 1 or 10000. I'm sorry about using PDAs because this really applies to all industries. Pretend an oil monopoly gets established...and then the oil company decides to start its own PDA since all the PDAs are too small to meet its needs.
Uh, how much is a missile worth, and how much crime does it deter? Even if it's cost-beneficial for having one missile, then how much benefit does the second missile give? The third? The fourth?
Diseconomies of scale are much more relevant than economies of scale, because there exists such a thing as diminishing returns. Economies of scale are almost always wrong, because resources aren't infinite, even if demand could arguiably be deemed infinite, so efficiency will always be capped on how many resources are available, and at what cost they come for.
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On September 01 2010 10:23 TanGeng wrote:
How about this for you Yurebis.
Anarcho-capitalism can't work because lots of people believe in one of the following:
1. Might makes right. Domination by force justifies taking and pillaging.
2. We should redistribute wealth and force wealthy individuals to give up their money to the rest of us.
3. When political elites aggrandize themselves at the expense of the common masses, the common masses actually benefits.
#1 Is a consistent description of reality, but it is an irrelevant discussion of social organization. Of course, people that can do stuff, can do stuff, completely disregarding other people's plans. Yet it doesn't follow that it is desirable, or the best course of action for a certain end. For the ends of being a sociopath, yes, I think it may be best to just think that way and disregard everything else. But for the purposes of human cooperation, it is very relevant to discuss what courses of action are desirable; what actions aren't tolerable, and what actions should follow them. It is a discussion of human interaction, not empty morality.
#2 You'd have to define what can be considered wealth, as that is entirely subjective; and how much wealth one has to have for it to be justifiably redistributed. If I evaluate one's ass to be worth one trillion dollars, do I have the right to smack it?
It can be consistent, but ridiculously inefficient, as you'd have to rely on a central authority to define those things, and starting at that point, intellectual constraints limit how well society could otherwise organize. And that central authority itself would probably be inconsistent, because in its powers are invested the whole wealth of the world, so the central planning itself, should be redistributed.
#3 By how much? How can you quantify coercion to be beneficial? And how is that not subjective on your part? I think you'd need another central authority to figure that one out...
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On September 01 2010 10:42 nashface wrote:
Anarcho-capitalism (also known as “libertarian anarchy”[1][2] or “market anarchism”[3] or “free market anarchism”[4]) is a libertarian[5][6] and individualist anarchist[7] political philosophy that advocates the elimination of the state and the elevation of the sovereign individual in a free market.
Rand Paul Personified
And who would guarantee your NAP or homesteading property rights? When I decide to come slit your throat in the middle of the night so I can live in your cottage and screw your wife, isn't that just the free market resource of my body deciding that the resource of your body would be better dead? Whatever don't bother answering. Over the government created infrastructure of the internet.
Free market by definition excludes coercive activity, so no, that isn't free market activity.
Government created the internet, but only markets were able to commercialize it years later. Could I use the inventions made on russia during the communist era to justify communism too?
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EPT
