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5003 Posts
On August 29 2010 11:13 kzn wrote:Show nested quote +On August 29 2010 11:07 Milkis wrote:On August 29 2010 10:58 kzn wrote:This is not sufficient. You must also be able to prove that interventions can produce a better outcome than a failing market. No i don't. I'm not defending interventions here. Market Failures existing is a reason why "ACaps wont work". It's on your side to defend it. Saying "State failures are worse" aren't sufficient. Yes, it is. Anarcho-Capitalism proposes merely the nonexistence of a state. It does not propose that this will be a utopia, or that no market failures will occur - merely that it is better than all other options, all of which include state interventions. If interventions are not better, the argument holds.
My Impressions on the thread was that "what are some problems with acaps" and "why won't acaps work". Whether or not it is a 'better' form of society or not is completely and utterly irrelevant given the OP.
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On August 29 2010 10:39 HunterX11 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 29 2010 10:33 Yurebis wrote:On August 29 2010 10:00 HunterX11 wrote:On August 29 2010 09:53 Yurebis wrote:On August 29 2010 09:35 HunterX11 wrote:On August 29 2010 09:31 Yurebis wrote:Goddamn so many replies, I can't answer them all anymore On August 29 2010 09:24 HunterX11 wrote:On August 29 2010 09:15 Yurebis wrote:On August 29 2010 08:55 HunterX11 wrote:
How does one reconcile an aversion to coercion with the fact that "property" is an artificial construct enforced through government coercion? Consider owning a deed to land, for example: what this means is that the state will agree to coerce others using physical force not to use the land to which you have the deed, or at the very least it gives you to right to use physical force against other who encroach onto your land. If one were really committed to voluntary association and non-coercion, how would private property exist? It's not artificial, it's natural. Almost everyone feels entitled to what they make. You plant a seed, you feel entitled to the plant. You build a house, you feel entitled to the house. If people weren't entitled for what they make, then they would produce less higher graded capital; no one, or less people would build a factory that people don't respect his entitlements for it. People would spend most of their time producing only that which they're immediately consuming, or their direct relatives and friends. Large scale projects are impossible to be built if people are like "you could have made it, but now I'm using it and it's mine LOL". Division of labor is extremely dependent on the formalization of property rights. Unless you can explain to me how would there be incentives for an engineer to plan factories for people without the recognition that the factory at least partially does belong to him, and no one can take it from him by force. Isn't saying that people are entitled to what they make an argument made by communism? After all, if people were entitled to what they make, an employee for example would be entitled to all the profits from his work minus what his employer provided him with. You also talk about incentives and division of labor, but this seems to have nothing to do with anarcho-capitalism itself: you are talking about a particular social order which you feel is desirable, but anarcho-capitalism isn't supposed to impose any social order at all, but rather allow people to freely choose their own. What if people wanted a different division of labor that what exists? Should coercion be used to prevent this? Wouldn't that go against anarcho-capitalism? Communism ignores the cost of entrepreneurial activity. For them, it's like the factory came from the sky. They completely ignore the market incentives that brought about even the idea of such factory to be made, let alone the savings that enabled such investment. Of course, if you assume that the factory owner didn't have any part on making the factory, you can come to the conclusion that it is not wrong for the workers to claim it for themselves, but it's ridiculously obvious how such action is simple theft. In my post I even said that employees should only be entitled to the profit minus what their employer provided, i.e. entrepreneurial costs. I do not deny the cost of entrepreneurial activity; however, anarcho-capitalism does. Entrepreneurs should be entitled to all profits derived from entrepreneurial activity, but under anarcho-capitalism, they are entitled to all profits, period. This is completely ignoring the value of the labor of everyone who isn't an entrepreneur. This is more complex than "simple theft", but it also certainly does not reflect the principle that people should be entitled to the fruit of their labor. Uh... how do you really think someone can open a firm and get people to work for them for free? I recommend this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catallactics if you're stuck on the idea of exploitation. The entrepreneur can only exploit as much as the next entrepreneur will pay more simply put... and there can be no such thing as a voluntarily employed worker being exploited. He will quit if he has a better choice. The problem is that things such as food are biological necessities, and not market priorities: if a human being decides that none of the jobs available to him satisfy an equilibrium of income supplied and labor demanded, he will earn no money, and die if he cannot afford biological necessities and has none provided for him. The argument against this is that the need to live is a part of supply and demand, but this means that employers can take advantage of this fact to set wages arbitrarily low. How does anarcho-capitalism deal with this, the Iron Law of Wages. So biological necessities justify stealing for food? I think you should first try to work out voluntarily first. How about that for an idea? Nowhere did I advocate stealing food, though if you must know, yes, it would be justifiable for a starving person to steal food from someone who had enough to eat. It is not voluntary for human being to eat food: they must do so, or else they die. Perhaps you are some non-human organism who does not require food? If so I would be glad to explain to you some of the biological aspects of Homo sapiens to clear up any confusion.
I disagree, and I think someone who has more than enough food for himself can 99% of the time be talked with, before any stealing is done.
Even if I had to steal food myself to live, I would still regard that as immoral, and would want to pay back in the future to restitute those I've robbed.
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On August 29 2010 11:10 dvide wrote:Show nested quote +On August 29 2010 10:51 Phrujbaz wrote:
Instead of denying market failures exist, you can point out some government failures and compare them in severity and frequency to market failures.
Denying that either market failure or government failure exist at all seems to me a little overzealous. Failure from what context? Utilitarianism? So wages weren't infinite? I'm confused. Point me to your best number one example of a "market failure" and let us discuss it.
A market failure is a case where individual rationality does not lead to group rationality. In order words, where a rational human being might act in a way that is beneficial to himself but detrimental, on the net, to society.
It's hard to motivate people to finance national defense. The benefit of your investment (less threat from foreign nations) is spread out amongst all the people of the nation. And if you don't pay, you still get the same protection as everybody else. It's also hard to motivate people to take proper care of the environment for similar reasons.
Defense from foreign nations and the environment are two notorious cases in which market failures are predicted and difficult to solve in theory.
In practice, however, the government is doing such a poor job that I can hardly imagine a market doing worse.
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Canada11349 Posts
On August 29 2010 11:14 Yurebis wrote:Show nested quote +On August 29 2010 10:37 Phrujbaz wrote:
Employers cannot set wages arbitrarily low in an unregulated market. ty. They can though, and you certainly agree, just that they won't be employing nobody with a brain, because the employer next door is offering a more marketable, a market wage. If they do employ somebody, it's still not exploitation because the dumbass accepted it voluntary. It would be exploitation if he forced the dumbass to keep working even after he doesn't want to, and contracts can be ruled fraudulent if they require absurd stuff to be done by the consenting party, like selling one's life for a cookie, but that part is debatable.
This assumes the employee always has the means to find another paying job, but if all the companies are equally exploitative in the wake of a huge economic collapse. In the wake of the Great Depression, if employees wanted more wages, companies could throw them out and accept the workers waiting desperately at the gates at reduced wages, thus constantly driving down wages. Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath details this problem. Sometimes geography and economic conditions allows cut-throat capitalism to ruthlessly exploit the workers and they have no recourse.
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On August 29 2010 11:22 Phrujbaz wrote:Show nested quote +On August 29 2010 11:10 dvide wrote:On August 29 2010 10:51 Phrujbaz wrote:
Instead of denying market failures exist, you can point out some government failures and compare them in severity and frequency to market failures.
Denying that either market failure or government failure exist at all seems to me a little overzealous. Failure from what context? Utilitarianism? So wages weren't infinite? I'm confused. Point me to your best number one example of a "market failure" and let us discuss it. A market failure is a case where individual rationality does not lead to group rationality. In order words, where a rational human being might act in a way that is beneficial to himself but detrimental, on the net, to society. It's hard to motivate people to finance national defense. The benefit of your investment (less threat from foreign nations) is spread out amongst all the people of the nation. And if you don't pay, you still get the same protection as everybody else. It's also hard to motivate people to take proper care of the environment for similar reasons. Defense from foreign nations and the environment are two notorious cases in which market failures are predicted and difficult to solve in theory. In practice, however, the government is doing such a poor job that I can hardly imagine a market doing worse.
Define individual or group rationality.
Most cases of market failure are characterized by entirely rational individual decisions creating an arguably negative outcome for the group - but there is nothing intrinsically irrational about the failure.
Indeed, in most cases its arguably not even a failure.
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On August 29 2010 10:43 Milkis wrote:Show nested quote +1- You're saying that entrepreneurs are hopeless without government to give them money... and that's a ridiculous claim, I don't have to address it.
Even if it were true, it just means the business shouldn't have started in the first place then. Either something has it's own merits to exist in the market, and it's profitable - it will remain so - or it isn't, and it shouldn't exist. The pyramids for example? they shouldn't and wouldn't exist in a free market, you can guess why. All that isn't voluntary is coercive; I'm against, so will other ancaps. And I understand the ramifications better than you accuse me of not knowing.
Did I get it right now? Not quite. The issue I have in mind is things like SO2 Emission Markets, which was only possible through "coercion" to get it started and standardized. There are many other markets like that, and there WILL be markets like that, and simply put, it's going to take COMPLETE free market based systems a lot longer to adopt such a system. I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm saying it hinders developments because sometimes the fastest way and the most simple way is coercion.
Actually something like this would be like a popularly endorsed collusion; the companies would be more than glad to reduce output if it means they can raise prices because everyone else is also socially pressured to do so. So I believe something like this is very possible to emerge naturally. Just need to talk a lot, and be a legitimate cause.
There is a direct profit incentive for corporations to cap their own shit, just think about it. The question is if they have enough popular support to either ostracize the noncompliant competition, or well, yeah the state to break their faces. Why do you support the state to break faces though, if you were against externalities? I think there are huge externalities when the government can just come and fuck you up whenever they want. I'd raise my prices to account for that risk; everyone else does too, in an interventionist world. Government increases externalities by being hasty and imposing their solutions; markets do what they do at the best times anyone can think of.
On August 29 2010 10:43 Milkis wrote:Show nested quote +2- Okay, you're saying that there are these things that corporations do, that are bad, but they aren't accountable for. How? Something bad that they do, must fall under the realm of someone's private property, right? Something bad that goes wrong in the world has to happen to someone's property or someone's body. If it isn't, say, a corporation blows a star millions of light years away, how's that an issue? An externality is for all intents and purposes, non-existent. A conflict over something in the real world can be resolved between the two parties disputing the use of the resource or capital.
And even IF it's something aesthetic like, "I don't like what corporation X is doing, it looks ugly, and I like nature and forests and blablabla even though I have no claim over that resource", then you can STILL offset profits from that corporation by boycott, ostracism, less-than-plausible-legal action or protests to show your disdain to them, and to remain popular, they have to answer, even though they didnt really have to and you're just being a communist hippie blah. The only real issue is that these things take a lot of time and organization to pull off. You're assuming no transaction costs here, when there will literally be tons of transaction costs and opportunity costs. Secondly, this only happens... "after the fact". Companies still pollute. How many of them would still pollute if it wasn't for a lot of the programs that got started by the government? You can say people will ostracize but sometimes... it doesn't quite work out with just that. There needs to be a kick. Pollute who's property? The government's?
I think you should be blaming the government for allowing their property (not yours, not public, theirs, state propery.) to be polluted; and not allowing people to buy off their stuff. And even when they do allow private companies to own what was previously state property, there's always conditions; a lease, for some time, under these regulations and price tables. The state never lets go of what they get until it's like, borderline revolution time.
On August 29 2010 10:43 Milkis wrote:Show nested quote +3-Market failures are a non-issue because you're not entitled to say what should happen in a market. If someone want to blow a billion dollars, get his firm bankrupt, screw all investors, thats his choice. Bad for the investors that trusted such a lousy CEO, yeah, and they probably will be able to get some from whats left, and perhaps even sue the CEO for malpractice or some shit. Who knows. The thing is, market failure is a non issue because no one is entitled to say how a market should behave, so not only is what constitutes failure subjective, but no one can say that it's right to steal or manipulate other people's resources to protect themselves from misuse. It's just an excuse for government intervention. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_Failure
Read the austrian section LOL
On August 29 2010 10:43 Milkis wrote:Show nested quote +4- I had edited my post but perhaps you didn't read it. I didn't read all of the argument so it's my fault, sorry. What I say is, that foreign government would have about as much as an incentive to invade ancaps as monarchies today have an incentive to invade democracies. The return is very little, and they're probably outperformed anyway, by slightly freer soldiers, slightly more spontaneous army structures (still pretty shit ofc on ancaps standards). Ancaps would invest that exactly what is needed to protect themselves, will have a more decentralized and effective information net (think how terrorists today can do so much with so little), and will be unhindered by taxes and other leecherous services that bankrupt each other. Invade? I'm thinking more of forming partnerships with big corporations in ACaps. Foreign policy will be an absolute disaster with this going on. Try this on a country like America and it won't be a united states for too long ;p which is why you need to apply this to the entire world pretty much. What bad outcome from a foreign state owning a non-coercive company in AC? If it's non-coercive.. it won't be retaliated againt. If it's coercive well.. it will be stopped by word or by force.
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On August 29 2010 10:48 caewil wrote:
I think one theoretical opposition to Anarcho-Capitalism is that information is not freely-available. That is to say, producers have an inherent advantage over consumers in terms of information. Unless corporations are somehow compelled to release information which may negatively affect their business, they will not do so, thus preventing consumers from making informed decisions. The assumption that consumers will rationally choose superior products cannot hold under such conditions.
Not to mention product safety - remember the melamine scandal in China? Some sort of governing agency is necessary to maintain product safety and quality. Evidence from the real world demonstrates repeatedly that it is a fantasy for companies to police themselves.
I will address the Anarcho-Capitalist alternative to a government agency, which I assume to be another private company whose role it is to investigate and prevent such things - I shall also assume that companies agree to acknowledge the company's authority to investigate them. (not that this would necessarily be the case, but I am generous) The problem therewith is that such a company would be driven, like any other, by profit and would thus be susceptible to bribery and corruption on a greater scale than a government agency. I doubt they would let a melamine-esque scandal slide, but smaller matters could be ignored.
Yes, that is a very classic objection, but it fails to notice the central planner comes to the same problem, and even worse, because he's only one entity, and has calculation problems, and has no direct incentives other than elections, etc.
I would be willing to bet the government in China already was responsible for that. And even if it was the case that there wasn't, all it means is that the consumers didn't want to know about it either. If everyone was worried about chemicals in their food, only the companies which best answer that demand would be leaders, so 'no regulation is needed for that which is demanded as-is', as there is no need for regulation requiring fresh milk to be delivered to delis, fresh bread to be produced by bakers everyday, etc. Market demand takes care of that, and most of what people call "externalities".
A private investigator relies on his investigation reputation; how well he's been able to solve crimes and occurrences. A bribed private investigator would be risking his reputation, more than a public one who is basically the only choice anyway, and the one everyone is forced to go to most of the time. Everyone knows the FDA is full of shit, yet they continue in business. A good example of something that wouldn't happen in the free market.
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On August 29 2010 11:31 kzn wrote:Show nested quote +On August 29 2010 11:22 Phrujbaz wrote:On August 29 2010 11:10 dvide wrote:On August 29 2010 10:51 Phrujbaz wrote:
Instead of denying market failures exist, you can point out some government failures and compare them in severity and frequency to market failures.
Denying that either market failure or government failure exist at all seems to me a little overzealous. Failure from what context? Utilitarianism? So wages weren't infinite? I'm confused. Point me to your best number one example of a "market failure" and let us discuss it. A market failure is a case where individual rationality does not lead to group rationality. In order words, where a rational human being might act in a way that is beneficial to himself but detrimental, on the net, to society. It's hard to motivate people to finance national defense. The benefit of your investment (less threat from foreign nations) is spread out amongst all the people of the nation. And if you don't pay, you still get the same protection as everybody else. It's also hard to motivate people to take proper care of the environment for similar reasons. Defense from foreign nations and the environment are two notorious cases in which market failures are predicted and difficult to solve in theory. In practice, however, the government is doing such a poor job that I can hardly imagine a market doing worse. Define individual or group rationality. Most cases of market failure are characterized by entirely rational individual decisions creating an arguably negative outcome for the group - but there is nothing intrinsically irrational about the failure. Indeed, in most cases its arguably not even a failure.
very good posts & key to understading human behavior imho.
edit wtf its actually kzn which i am agreeing with here lol sry for derail
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5003 Posts
Actually something like this would be like a popularly endorsed collusion; the companies would be more than glad to reduce output if it means they can raise prices because everyone else is also socially pressured to do so. So I believe something like this is very possible to emerge naturally. Just need to talk a lot, and be a legitimate cause.
There is a direct profit incentive for corporations to cap their own shit, just think about it. The question is if they have enough popular support to either ostracize the noncompliant competition, or well, yeah the state to break their faces. Why do you support the state to break faces though, if you were against externalities? I think there are huge externalities when the government can just come and fuck you up whenever they want. I'd raise my prices to account for that risk; everyone else does too, in an interventionist world. Government increases externalities by being hasty and imposing their solutions; markets do what they do at the best times anyone can think of.
I haven't seen an actual case of it emerging naturally. You can go back in history and argue some things arose naturally, but it's more likely that it was a result of an organized, state sponsored endeavor. I'm speaking of in the current environment, a lot of the pioneering done for the new markets have been government related (see: Carbon markets)
Pollute who's property? The government's?
I think you should be blaming the government for allowing their property (not yours, not public, theirs, state propery.) to be polluted; and not allowing people to buy off their stuff. And even when they do allow private companies to own what was previously state property, there's always conditions; a lease, for some time, under these regulations and price tables. The state never lets go of what they get until it's like, borderline revolution time.
What? Don't go off on tangents...
Read the austrian section LOL
yeah and there's a reason no economist takes Austrians seriously when it comes to these. Austrians have a lot of good ideas and concepts... this is literally one thing that's making them look like retards.
What bad outcome from a foreign state owning a non-coercive company in AC? If it's non-coercive.. it won't be retaliated againt. If it's coercive well.. it will be stopped by word or by force.
State interests reflected in the companies. Just imagine if the US States were allowed to have their own foreign policy.
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On August 29 2010 10:51 Phrujbaz wrote:
Instead of denying market failures exist, you can point out some government failures and compare them in severity and frequency to market failures.
Denying that either market failure or government failure exist at all seems to me a little overzealous.
It's not that market failure doesn't exist, but it's a misnomer for individual failure. Failure has to come from someone, somewhere, because only man act purposefully. The issue with market failure claims is that they claim that there can be one purpose to which everyone works for, and subverting or breaking that purpose would be a failure in the part of everyone in providing everyone with what they want. Which is bullshit, market doesn't work that way, the market doesn't have a goal, only individuals have goals, so there can only be failures in the extent that each individual sees it as a failure; there is no central authority to vouch what was failure and was not.
Market failure is individual failure, and individual failure does exist, but market failure is just an excuse for government intervention. You broke your nail, so now I'm justified in creating a national nail defense agency? Something stupid like that. Who's nail is it anyway?
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It would be rational for "society" as a group to take good care of our environment. Agree/Disgagree?
It is rational for an individual to let everybody else care about the environment and pollute just a tiny bit. Agree/Disgagree?
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On August 29 2010 10:54 Romantic wrote:
Arbitrary and subjective things are arbitrary and subjective. I see nothing wrong with stealing.
I reject anarcho-capitalism!
If you see nothing wrong with stealing, can you claim that someone stealing what you stole is wrong?
You'd be fucked in court that's all I know.
On August 29 2010 11:04 dvide wrote:Show nested quote +The problem is that things such as food are biological necessities, and not market priorities: if a human being decides that none of the jobs available to him satisfy an equilibrium of income supplied and labor demanded, he will earn no money, and die if he cannot afford biological necessities and has none provided for him. The argument against this is that the need to live is a part of supply and demand, but this means that employers can take advantage of this fact to set wages arbitrarily low. How does anarcho-capitalism deal with this, the Iron Law of Wages. The only difference is that it's orders of magnitudes easier to survive thanks to technological improvements, increases in the levels of wealth, standards of living and comfort. These improvements come from productive activity and voluntarily trade, etc. This is stifled by government involvement (coercion stifles productivity), as it leeches from the productive.
ty
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On August 29 2010 11:04 HunterX11 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 29 2010 10:57 Yurebis wrote:On August 29 2010 10:20 Sadist wrote:On August 29 2010 10:00 HunterX11 wrote:On August 29 2010 09:53 Yurebis wrote:On August 29 2010 09:35 HunterX11 wrote:On August 29 2010 09:31 Yurebis wrote:Goddamn so many replies, I can't answer them all anymore On August 29 2010 09:24 HunterX11 wrote:On August 29 2010 09:15 Yurebis wrote:On August 29 2010 08:55 HunterX11 wrote:
How does one reconcile an aversion to coercion with the fact that "property" is an artificial construct enforced through government coercion? Consider owning a deed to land, for example: what this means is that the state will agree to coerce others using physical force not to use the land to which you have the deed, or at the very least it gives you to right to use physical force against other who encroach onto your land. If one were really committed to voluntary association and non-coercion, how would private property exist? It's not artificial, it's natural. Almost everyone feels entitled to what they make. You plant a seed, you feel entitled to the plant. You build a house, you feel entitled to the house. If people weren't entitled for what they make, then they would produce less higher graded capital; no one, or less people would build a factory that people don't respect his entitlements for it. People would spend most of their time producing only that which they're immediately consuming, or their direct relatives and friends. Large scale projects are impossible to be built if people are like "you could have made it, but now I'm using it and it's mine LOL". Division of labor is extremely dependent on the formalization of property rights. Unless you can explain to me how would there be incentives for an engineer to plan factories for people without the recognition that the factory at least partially does belong to him, and no one can take it from him by force. Isn't saying that people are entitled to what they make an argument made by communism? After all, if people were entitled to what they make, an employee for example would be entitled to all the profits from his work minus what his employer provided him with. You also talk about incentives and division of labor, but this seems to have nothing to do with anarcho-capitalism itself: you are talking about a particular social order which you feel is desirable, but anarcho-capitalism isn't supposed to impose any social order at all, but rather allow people to freely choose their own. What if people wanted a different division of labor that what exists? Should coercion be used to prevent this? Wouldn't that go against anarcho-capitalism? Communism ignores the cost of entrepreneurial activity. For them, it's like the factory came from the sky. They completely ignore the market incentives that brought about even the idea of such factory to be made, let alone the savings that enabled such investment. Of course, if you assume that the factory owner didn't have any part on making the factory, you can come to the conclusion that it is not wrong for the workers to claim it for themselves, but it's ridiculously obvious how such action is simple theft. In my post I even said that employees should only be entitled to the profit minus what their employer provided, i.e. entrepreneurial costs. I do not deny the cost of entrepreneurial activity; however, anarcho-capitalism does. Entrepreneurs should be entitled to all profits derived from entrepreneurial activity, but under anarcho-capitalism, they are entitled to all profits, period. This is completely ignoring the value of the labor of everyone who isn't an entrepreneur. This is more complex than "simple theft", but it also certainly does not reflect the principle that people should be entitled to the fruit of their labor. Uh... how do you really think someone can open a firm and get people to work for them for free? I recommend this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catallactics if you're stuck on the idea of exploitation. The entrepreneur can only exploit as much as the next entrepreneur will pay more simply put... and there can be no such thing as a voluntarily employed worker being exploited. He will quit if he has a better choice. The problem is that things such as food are biological necessities, and not market priorities: if a human being decides that none of the jobs available to him satisfy an equilibrium of income supplied and labor demanded, he will earn no money, and die if he cannot afford biological necessities and has none provided for him. The argument against this is that the need to live is a part of supply and demand, but this means that employers can take advantage of this fact to set wages arbitrarily low. How does anarcho-capitalism deal with this, the Iron Law of Wages. I agree with this completely. Its as if the cost and time of travel is thrown out the window and someone can move instantly to somewhere with the best wages. People can easily fall victim to their surroundings much like they did in medieval Europe. You probably think the minimum wage is what stops evil entrepreneurs from exploiting their employees? Hokay. On August 29 2010 10:21 HunterX11 wrote:On August 29 2010 10:05 Yurebis wrote:Maybe I'm too slot but I'll get through, sorry. On August 29 2010 09:46 HunterX11 wrote:On August 29 2010 09:44 Yurebis wrote:On August 29 2010 09:29 Milkis wrote:1- And the government stealing, claiming control over all land, and imposing his monopolistic laws on what can or cannot be done, is particularly enabling entrepreneurs to start a business?
Please, just by requiring the state is already hindering market entry for anything more than a hobby. Taxing everything sure does help people save and invest capital, oh wow.
2- Popularity does imply better commercialization. Nearly all externalities can be solved by privatization, ostracism, and other voluntary means. For those that can't, I'd like if you explained what are they, and why they can't, before pulling the gunverment.
3- Market failure is no worse than state failure, as each individual is accountable only for what he's earned, as opposed to some dunce that can be elected in a year and have considerable control over fifty percent of the GDP, a huge army, huge public services, and the law of the land. I'd say THAT is much more unstable, much more prone to error. I don't care about state based governments. You asked me to give reasons why anarcho-capitalism won't work, I gave you some reasons. Your response to them are telling me "state based governments are worse". If you wanted me to compare state based governments and "free market" based societies I could have done that myself :| I disagree with 2). "Nearly all externalities can be solved through private means"? That depends on how narrow your scope of what externality is. When you're speaking of society, externality is in the biggest sense possible and honestly, to say that all of them can be solved through markets is ludicrous. Furthermore, 1 and 3 also supplements why how you defended point #2 won't necessarily work. Uh, ok, again then. 1- "Markets don't form by themselves". You mean, freedom doesn't form without coercion? Kind of contradictory but... could you elaborate the question then? Because I can only see it that way, it seems that it's a direct contradiction. Ok maybe you mean... people can't ever be free, because they don't allow themselves to be free? IDK what you mean now that I think about Markets imply more than simply "freedom". There exist non-market societies without governments. Okay, sorry for misusing "market" then. I like to call a "market" any human interaction. There's a market for ideas, a market for love. But sorry then. In places they aren't formed spontaneously, that's not an issue either, since people didn't want it to be formed then. Unless they're being coerced, in which case I would claim that there is some type of statist structure, a reigning authority over either all their land or all their people. For the very high-tech, specialized world we live today, I claim it is desirable for private property to be respected, so it would naturally arise even if there were no law or police to force people to. Because there is a self-interest in our sociable brains in cooperating rather than coercing. But that is of course, more descriptive than prescriptive on my part, and you can be free to disagree. The thing is that private property did arise already, and its ascent can be studied. Whether or not private property would arise if modern society lacked it is irrelevant, if it is even makes sense. Even if private property were abolished everywhere and later came back, it would still be in a historical context, with the knowledge that property had existed before. There is no need to wonder what kind of society would arise if we separated a large number of people from their parents at birth and threw them onto a desert island--it would have nothing to do with "human nature", because it has always been human nature to be raised by parents or guardians in a society, whether it be in a small band of fifty people or a large civilization. My main problem with anarcho-capitalism is that property rights have historically developed hand in hand with hierarchical structures of authority, and I have never heard a description of how anarcho-capitalism would actually decouple property and authority; indeed, most advocates deny the two have anything in common, contrary to historical and modern-day evidence. I'm not an empiricist, I'm just being empirical when I know a little something. But my relevant claims are all a-priori. So yeah it really doesn't matter to me how society was, is, or is going to be, it could be slavery, mass murder, rape everywhere; i'd still strive for individual freedom because that is what appeals to me. And makes a lot, a lot of sense to me. I'm not a priori, though. Neither are you, nor is anyone: we are real-life, flesh-and-blood human beings. If all you have are a priori theories with no connection to reality, all you are engaging is a sort of ideological sudoku where you strive for self-consistency but not relevance. Musings about politics or any other aspect of the human condition that are not based on facts are irrelelvant and worthless.
They are connected to reality. But even science is necessarily a-priori; the scientific method is an a-priori "you do it this way to do it right". My a-priori axioms are no different, and perhaps more agreeable even. The golden rule: don't do to others what you wouldn't like to be done to yourself. The Non-Agression-Principle comes from that. Private property depends on that.
And they are very relevant, seeing that the state relies on yours and everyone else's ignorance on them to keep extorting your money, IMO.
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On August 29 2010 11:44 Phrujbaz wrote:
It would be rational for "society" as a group to take good care of our environment. Agree/Disgagree?
It is rational for an individual to let everybody else care about the environment and pollute just a tiny bit. Agree/Disgagree?
i will try to define society:
Men form relationships with whom they trust. If i can trust you to not steel my stuff or stab me from behind we already build the foundations of a society, whatever etiquette you may give it. A society without such agreements is by definition not a society.
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On August 29 2010 11:09 Adila wrote:Show nested quote +On August 29 2010 10:43 Yurebis wrote:On August 29 2010 10:08 Elite00fm wrote:
LOL, unregulated capitalism is a terrible, inherently flawed system. A simple example of this would be the environment. We all need clean water and air, but the cheapest waste disposal methods (dumping into rivers etc.) would eventually lead to the destruction of these resources. It's a basic payoff matrix. Water and air can be ownable. If the state owns it today, someone can own it too in anarcho-capitalism. I don't know how compromises would be made, I haven't been too interested in environmental issues because the environment is not a rational being, it is not a man. And if no man is being hurt, then I could care less ATM. Though I'm certain that at the moment someone is hurt by an environmental hazard, then immediately there will be suits and court proceedings just as there are today. Environmental issues are pretty important. How would your system deal with natural disasters? Long droughts? Water shortages? Food shortages? History has shown that these things force people to move into other people's areas. It creates conflicts because resources become scarce.
Insurance is a big one; donations, volunteering, idk.
No need to jump for the gunverment just because you have a problem. Most people are pretty empathetic to those in need, especially next door. And those who receive help can promise to pay back too. Allowance, emergency loans, financing, people can manage.
I would say government usually makes these problems worse when they own the crappy public infrastructure and just burrow their heads on the sand when something wrong happens.
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Economic systems have a lot to do with how much people work though, not just technology. There were some societies in the past where people worked much less than today in order to survive.
Yes. I don't doubt it. Government today is hugely stifling, thus people have to work harder because they're pretty much living on the scraps. Even American society can be compared throughout the 19th century up to today.
And pointing to productivity is a red herring too: consider how productivity has skyrocketed in America in the last four decades, but median real wages have remained stagnant. This massive upward redistribution of wealth was triggered not by increased government intervention, but rather accompanied by decreased intervention.
Yes, massively more wealth is being stolen since the introduction of all the social programmes in the sixties and seventies and beyond. So people are forced to work harder in order to make ends meet. What's your point? By the by, those programmes were supposed to help the poor, not make people poorer.
Oh wait. Accompanied by decreased government intervention? Really? How do you figure? The size of the state is smaller than it was four decades ago? Of course, this is all ignoring the continually increasing national debt too, and the fact that they control the money supply through threat of force and manipulate interest rates, etc leading to continual inflation eating into everyone's savings.
Technology is relevant, but the fact is that our level of technology today is adequate to sustain for the most part a post-scarcity society. That we do not live in one is a political and economic problem. Everyone could work twenty hours a week and wages could be even higher than today with the amount of productivity and wealth we have today, but this would require a different distribution of wealth.
Umm. Wealth is not a fixed pie with some intrinsic value that just needs to be distributed equally to be "fair". I agree that people could work much less and still create much more wealth. Working creates wealth (and trade too, from subjective preference). Technologies allow for creating more wealth with less work. Working and productive activity creates new technologies. That is the mechanism I'm talking about. What the mechanism you talk about? Distributing Bill Gates' wealth so that Bill Gates is equal to everyone else?
Distributing the wealth (with violence) is what leads to less productivity, which leads to less wealth for everyone in the long term. To a insane amount that most people don't even understand. Like levels of magnitudes. So does it matter if everybody has equal wealth if everybody is also infact much poorer than they would otherwise be? Is the "equality" worth all that, even to a utilitarian ethicist who is willing to use violence to manipulate society to what he/she feels would provide the greatest good? And honestly, if somebody is wealthy then they have already provided value and wealth to others. That's how they became so wealthy in the first place: through voluntarily trade. Unless they are wealthy through coercive means, which I'm obviously against.
But I don't really understand what you're arguing. I'm saying productive, voluntary activity creates more wealth. Wealth makes it easier to survive and live in comfort. And I'm saying theft and coercion stifles that. And you're saying, what? That wealth is a fixed pie in the world that just needs to be distributed, using coercive force? I ask with genuine curiosity because I've been debating with you but I don't know your position on all of this, if you have one. Or if you just have criticisms for ancap, which is fine.
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On August 29 2010 11:53 Hansel wrote:Show nested quote +On August 29 2010 11:44 Phrujbaz wrote:
It would be rational for "society" as a group to take good care of our environment. Agree/Disgagree?
It is rational for an individual to let everybody else care about the environment and pollute just a tiny bit. Agree/Disgagree? i will try to define society: Men form relationships with whom they trust. If i can trust you to not steel my stuff or stab me from behind we already build the foundations of a society, whatever etiquette you may give it. A society without such agreements is by definition not a society.
Trust works for small populations. Populations on the scale of a nation will suffer much more clearly from environmental issues or questions of how to fund national defense.
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On August 29 2010 11:10 Lysdexia wrote:Show nested quote +On August 29 2010 10:49 Yurebis wrote:On August 29 2010 10:19 Lysdexia wrote:
The government is necessary to impose disincentives to environmentally destructive practices and incentives to the development of cleaner technology.
In a purely market driven society companies wouldn't factor the social costs of pollution into their decisions and individuals would care much more about the price and quality of goods and services offered by companies than about their environmental practices.
Even if consumers cared about the environmental impact of what they bought there would be nothing to stop companies from lying about their pollution or branding their products as green even when they do nothing substantive to help the environment. This happens today and consumers are fooled just imagine what it would be like without regulation.
Perhaps eventually the social costs of environmental destruction would motivate consumers to demand real action to protect the environment, but by that time we would already be past the tipping point. Such is the nature of positive feedbacks. Every species that goes extinct affects every other species and decreases environmental resiliency. Every degree that the earth warms triggers countless positive feedbacks that cause more warming.
Any additional economic activity spurred by anarcho-capitalism would only deplete the earth's resources faster. Government is a necessary check on this otherwise we will all die from global warming and environmental destruction. Who owns the environment? Do you feel you have a claim as to how the environment has to be treated? Why is your claim stronger than the company using said resource? These things can be solved in court, and most relevant property would be owned to avoid such issues in the first place anyways. Does a company profit for polluting their own property? I don't know, it's for them to decide, but probably not. You'd be surprised to know most deflorestation occurs due to government leases to practically fake companies, who are arms of bigger firms, lease the forest from the government for dirty cheap, and then break up when it's deflorested. The government knows that too, but they let the loophole continue to go round for as much money the firms are willing to bribe them for. When a wood harvesting company is defloresting their own property though, they make sure that the property remains profitable in the future by, duh, refloresting it. Two trees for every one down sometimes even. To the extent that it's more profitable to bribe the state to harvest national parks though, they do it of course. "Who owns the environment" is not a relevant question in the face of the extinction of all life on earth. If I owned a massive stockpile of nuclear weapons, would I be entitled to launch them all? First I'll address your example of logging companies. Yes, they do have an economic incentive to maintain forests. However this means they will only do so in the way most economically beneficial for them. That means tree plantations and monocropping, which is just as harmful to forest ecosystems as cutting them down altogether. Second, the example of logging companies and deforestation is not applicable to the environmentally destructive practices of most companies. Logging companies are unique because they sell products they extract from forests so they have an economic incentive to keep the forests around in some form. Electricity companies do not sell resources that they extract from the atmosphere. The amount of Co2 in the atmosphere has no direct effect on their profits, and they obviously do not own the atmosphere.
You aren't entitled to kill other people I feel. I think most would feel the same. But not only are you not entitled, it would bring you nothing for doing that. It would bring a bad reputation if anything, increasing the risks of someone lauching a nuke preemptively against you! I say only retarded governments would do that, because they got the nukes for free (by expropriation of capital) and so, easy come = easy go. They also can use the nation as a shield to himself; the crazy president can make everyone seem guilty for a missle launched, so a potential retaliation may come not to the guy who ordered the nukes, but private property elsewhere, like idk, 9/11 maybe? Terrorists retaliating against a state more often than not kill the innocent, coerced civilians. Oh sorry but I'm going on a tangent, you're not talking about global violence, you're talking about the environment. Lol.
Okay, and why would you like that the harvesters didn't do what you don't want them to do? What claim do you have over the forests? Do you have a better idea on what to do? Do you feel necessary to force them not to on your own principles? Why? They didn't do anything to you, and unless you can prove so, you really don't have a claim over the resource... just disagreement over its use, but no better claim to it. What happens in the free market is that, if someone has a better idea on how to use a resource that was previously already in use, they buy it off. They can afford it, because they expect a greater return from it, and the previous business ends up winning too, since they weren't making that much.
The CO2 on the atmosphere has no effect on anyone I feel, and if you think it does, on you even, then you can sue them, if it comes to that point. Raise campaigns against the companies, and if it's popular enough, they'll be glad to comply; because it means making their products more scarce, so they have to produce less and sell at higher prices; but only if the public outrage is big enough to force every other competitor to do the same thing. Environmental issues are great for big corporations, contrary to popular thought, because it enables collusion better than any other concern, well ok, not better than health and safety and stuff that the government already regulates them for. But third best. Fourth. IDK.
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On August 29 2010 11:10 HunterX11 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 29 2010 11:06 Yurebis wrote:On August 29 2010 10:36 HunterX11 wrote:On August 29 2010 10:27 Yurebis wrote:
Why do people care so much anyways? It's not my sea, I don't care. It's not yours, why do you care? Sure, it's a disaster, and I would be up for suing them (bp AND the state) if I had any direct losses from it, but I don't, so I shrug it off and that's it. Too bad. Better luck on the next dirty cheap lease to the next lobbyist. Are you seriously asking why people care about the environment? You do realize that all human beings live on Earth, right? Yes. Do you or I own Earth? Do you feel entitled to say what can be done to Earth? I don't. I claim I own the air around me; and if someone is to hurt me, I can sue them, and the courts (and everyone in general) can find that legit, depending on circumstances. What I disagree with is the idea that a global authority is 1- going to make sure Earth is taken care of better than every individual who legitimately owns their own space, and 2- not abuse it's effortlessly acquired powers. So you are really going to go out and sue millions of different people for just a very small amount for each lawsuit for the collective damage they have done with things like exposing you to carcinogens? How is this reasonable? And would you really even support broader action, such as say Bangladesh suing first world nations for contribution to climate change that increases the number of people who die in floods there? You say you own the air around you, but if you choke to death because the air around you has been slowly polluted over the course of a longer span of time than you have even been alive, it's a little late to start suing people. Nor will suing them get you clean air.
Could be a class action, that way there's a bigger pot. And yes, I support any type of voluntary action over coercive action. That's not to say I even believe in anthropological global warming, but that it would be best if the gun is not raised.
Air pollution again, is suable today and it would be suable in the future. Unless someone's rich enough to pay and convince everyone to sell the atmosphere to him LOL but I don't see that happening.
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On August 29 2010 11:22 Phrujbaz wrote:Show nested quote +On August 29 2010 11:10 dvide wrote:On August 29 2010 10:51 Phrujbaz wrote:
Instead of denying market failures exist, you can point out some government failures and compare them in severity and frequency to market failures.
Denying that either market failure or government failure exist at all seems to me a little overzealous. Failure from what context? Utilitarianism? So wages weren't infinite? I'm confused. Point me to your best number one example of a "market failure" and let us discuss it. A market failure is a case where individual rationality does not lead to group rationality. In order words, where a rational human being might act in a way that is beneficial to himself but detrimental, on the net, to society. It's hard to motivate people to finance national defense. The benefit of your investment (less threat from foreign nations) is spread out amongst all the people of the nation. And if you don't pay, you still get the same protection as everybody else. It's also hard to motivate people to take proper care of the environment for similar reasons. Defense from foreign nations and the environment are two notorious cases in which market failures are predicted and difficult to solve in theory. In practice, however, the government is doing such a poor job that I can hardly imagine a market doing worse.
I dunno how can anyone consistently, and long-term profit from inflicting a net loss to others.
And if that's market failure, then, the insolvency of big firms aren't, and you're referring to an unconventional definition of market failure even in mainstream economic terms, i think.
National defense.. I don't know much about, but there wouldn't be a nation in an-cap so I think it's again, a non-issue that can be just interpreted as defense. Besides there isn't anything stopping people from chipping in for a big army if they wanted and felt the need for. They'd do it better and with less externalities than forcing everyone to pay for one, PLUS denying competition in the field
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EPT
