EPTNeed to see a proof for that. Until then I would have to categorize that as pure made up bullshit.
There are plenty of examples of areas where profit margins are not equalling value creation.
Somalia - Success of Anarchy - Page 6
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Bombmk
Denmark95 Posts
Need to see a proof for that. Until then I would have to categorize that as pure made up bullshit. There are plenty of examples of areas where profit margins are not equalling value creation. | ||
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TheFrankOne
United States667 Posts
On July 01 2011 16:31 Sanctimonius wrote: Athens was sacked, in the second war. Xerxes broke through the Spartan phalanxes at Thermopylae (300 wasn't far wrong  ) and burned Athens down. Other city-states had the coice to continue fighting because they had their own standing armies - in a centralised state, generally you have a single army. it falls, and you lose. That doesn't mean a centralised state is worse than a federalised state, or a collection of city-states.Oh yeah, I forgot about Athens being sacked, its late here. I still don't really understand the point you were trying to make, other than that more centralized states have more centralized militarys, that I would agree with. I mean read the first quote of yours in this discussion, you seem to be putting forth a historical axiom of split power models never standing up to centralized aggressive powers. I would still say your exaggerating what can be taken from history though, the defeat of the Athenian fleet would of meant the end of the war in favor of the Persians, Athens was sacked but was evacuated first so an Athenian army still existed. @polysciguy: In our real society the community stops and disincentives theft through institutions developed for that purpose, we don't expect other people who are around (the community) to prevent crimes because they are not always around and are for the most part, terribly unreliable. If everyone in the community preventing crime was reasonable, it would happen already; no need for anarchy for that wonderful system of criminal justice. In fact, I say we implement it right now, suggestions on how we do it? | ||
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Focuspants
Canada780 Posts
You seem to think that contracting people to do things in a free market, means that you have the power to stop the big guys from getting too big. Newsflash, thats not how it works. If they wanna stay big, theyll get people on their side, until theyre too big for you to take down. Its the nature of the beast. You also seem to think the government offers nothing. Life is simpler with everything the government does for us. I dont want to be responsible for hiring people for every little thing that needs to be done. I want people to do that for me. I have no interest in wasting my time with interdependance, communism, etc... I want to wake up, put in my 8 hours, spend time with my fiancee, my family, and my friends, and enjoy the fruits of my labour on my spare time. Rules, regulations, social services, schools, etc... are all conveniences that allow me to not have to worry about shit 24/7. I can live a comfortable life, not worry about kidnappers, murderers, pillagers, or anything of the sort. I cant count on a steady paycheck, and I can just enjoy my life. I would rather kill myself than live in Somalia. | ||
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polysciguy
United States488 Posts
On July 01 2011 17:02 TheFrankOne wrote: Oh yeah, I forgot about Athens being sacked, its late here. I still don't really understand the point you were trying to make, other than that more centralized states have more centralized militarys, that I would agree with. I mean read the first quote of yours in this discussion, you seem to be putting forth a historical axiom of split power models never standing up to centralized aggressive powers. I would still say your exaggerating what can be taken from history though, the defeat of the Athenian fleet would of meant the end of the war in favor of the Persians, Athens was sacked but was evacuated first so an Athenian army still existed. @polysciguy: In our real society the community stops and disincentives theft through institutions developed for that purpose, we don't expect other people who are around (the community) to prevent crimes because they are not always around and are for the most part, terribly unreliable. If everyone in the community preventing crime was reasonable, it would happen already; no need for anarchy for that wonderful system of criminal justice. In fact, I say we implement it right now, suggestions on how we do it? sure how about first we get people to realize that crime left alone soon becomes everyone's problem. the fact that most people are apathetic about crime happening to other people is because of that mentality of its not happening to me it isn't my problem, it may soon be. it also has to do with the fact that we do currently have systems in place to deal with crime, ie a police force, however if such a force did not exist people would take its place, i mean surely you've heard of a neighborhood watch, its the exact same concept | ||
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teekesselchen
Germany886 Posts
Security firms boom? It's more like Mafia if you look at it. You pay or you get robbed because you are not safe without paying. Not so cool for everyone without a buttload of money. | ||
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brain_
United States812 Posts
On July 01 2011 17:04 Focuspants wrote: Brain would you pull a boat with your family on it into a port in somalia? Would you pull a boat with your family on it into any port in the entirety of Canada or the USA? You can sit there and try to rationalize how amazing Somalias system is, and hhow it would be great for us. The increase in prosperity only looks good, because there was no prosperity prior. Anything is better for the people than a dictatorship. You dont do anything to prove that life here is worse than life in Somalia, because we have a government. All you can offer are hypothetical situations, and idealistic world views, that ignore the basic human desire for success and power. You're offering a laughable apples and oranges comparison. Refer to my previous posts. You seem to think that contracting people to do things in a free market, means that you have the power to stop the big guys from getting too big. Newsflash, thats not how it works. If they wanna stay big, theyll get people on their side, until theyre too big for you to take down. Its the nature of the beast. There are a lot of viable counterarguments here, so I'll let you google them instead of staying up to type them myself. You also seem to think the government offers nothing. Life is simpler with everything the government does for us. I dont want to be responsible for hiring people for every little thing that needs to be done. I want people to do that for me. I have no interest in wasting my time with interdependance, communism, etc... I want to wake up, put in my 8 hours, spend time with my fiancee, my family, and my friends, and enjoy the fruits of my labour on my spare time. Rules, regulations, social services, schools, etc... are all conveniences that allow me to not have to worry about shit 24/7. I can live a comfortable life, not worry about kidnappers, murderers, pillagers, or anything of the sort. I cant count on a steady paycheck, and I can just enjoy my life. I would rather kill myself than live in Somalia. You're right that government does provide some things: what you're speaking of is a collection of services. Services that government has a monopoly on. If there was an entire market full of people who stand to make money by finding the most efficient and effect way to take care of all those other things for you, for a fee, don't you think the end product would be better than what we get by granting the government a monopoly on those services? Break this down into individual parts and it becomes common sense: people simply have trouble seeing it because they've been brainwashed into thinking that government is good (in many cases by [i]government education... imagine that!]/i]). You don't need rules, regulations, and intrusive government to enjoy the things you mention. In fact, I guarantee you that government intrusion is cutting into your ability to enjoy them by creating an economically inefficient system that ends up wasting huge amounts of our labor. On July 01 2011 17:11 teekesselchen wrote: Success of anarchy, lulz. I hope all of this is irony, seeing the actual living conditions in Somalia. It's quite ridiculous to just say "oh they got mobile network, they must be a great society". Security firms boom? It's more like Mafia if you look at it. You pay or you get robbed because you are not safe without paying. Not so cool for everyone without a buttload of money. Please explain to me how that is different from government. If I stop paying my taxes, say, because I don't support America's occupations overseas, I will be arrested (kidnapped) and thrown in jail (held against my will) until I pay, and then I'll probably be charged for their trouble. You're paying for security right now. Cops don't work for free. The difference between government monopoly and market anarchy is that if I had a choice of security providers, I doubt I'd choose one that uses my money to extort me in the form of traffic tickets for driving a few miles over the speed limit. I doubt such a firm would last long on the open market. | ||
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Simberto
Germany11364 Posts
On July 01 2011 16:52 brain_ wrote: No more "dangerous" than current governments; also, keep in mind that such security measures would only be necessary if there is a clear threat (such as when one region is in market anarchy and another retains government and threatens to invade). As for everything else, as I said, this is one of the more complex aspects of Anarcho-Capitalism because it deals with anarchism interacting with a statist world. Rather than making me explain everything (which would take a while, not to mention the fact that there are people far more qualified than myself to do that), please research it yourself. If I'm crazy, you should find proof in my rationales, right? Few quick points: 1) Worst case scenario is still government - what we've got now! 2) History's only examples of consistent monopolies were a result of government intervention. Look at utilities, for example. 3) In a world where all interactions are voluntary, the plug could be pulled on militias immediately if they ceased to offer a satisfactory service (IE they started abusing their power). The flow of funds would go something like this: individual people -> insurance companies -> private defense. If the "militia" abused their power, funding could be cut at any point in the chain and that money would go towards funding a new defense firm for the purposes of shutting down the old one. 4) Voluntary participation in defense (by non-paramilitary citizens) would probably help. 5) The contract for defense would be open for competition. Since a primary concern in hiring a defense contractor would be the risk of that power being turn against you, the firms would compete to find the best way to provide assurance that they wouldn't abuse their power. I can't even imagine what that would look like: another example of the market spurring innovation that solves problems in ways we can't predict. I don't think that what you are saying is correct. For one, not every government is the same. There are very different types of government, and some of them are objevtively better then others. You would probably like the phrasing "less bad" more, but that is exactly the same thing, so i am ok with that, too. I think that the follow-up government an anarchy produces will usually sway towards the "bad" side, by which i mean corrupt, oppressive, and the likes. Also, do you seriously think that "pulling the plug" on the only armed force in your country would be easy? What if they decide that they don't want to go away, and would rather continue to be paid, if you like it or not? It't not like they can't take everything you own at any time they want. They have the guns, you don't. Also, you can't simply spawn trained and equipped military when you like to. You can't just start building it when you fear being invaded. And you can't just start a new military organisation for defending against your old organisation gone rogue, because that old organsiation is already in your country, with guns, and can easily stop the training of any potentially oposing force. So you would need to juggle those firms all the time, and keep them at about the same power at all times. This is first and foremost not easy, and i really would not feel very safe if there are multiple conflicting military units in your land. It is probably also pretty expensive and bureaucratic. However you organize it, you either end up with a totally ineffective military, or with a very small amount of people in power of it. Someone needs to collect the money, and then decide what to spend it on. Seeing the general dislike of people to pay taxes, a volutary defense expense is probably not something most people would put a the top of their priorities, since they could theoretically leech of their neighbors defense expenses. So you need to make it obligatory for them, or basically deny any service without the proof of having paid for it. While this might work for a police force, it does not work for a military. You can not defend one guy, but not his neighbor against an invasion. This does not only apply to defense forces, but also to simple stuff like road maintenance. It also gets pretty near to some mob-like extortion when you apply that principle to stuff like police or the firefighters. I somehow expect that the houses of people who refuse to pay the firefighters suddenly have a much larger chance to burst into flames. Or maybe some goons appear at your door and "defend" you against people beating you up in the streets. And people who don't pay them have a tendency to get beaten up in dark alleys. Also, do you notice how much your anarchy starts to sound more and more like a government with a different name? You need a system to collect money from everyone, have it go through some kind of apparatus, and then be distributed to different organisations like a military, road maintenance, and so on. | ||
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brain_
United States812 Posts
On July 01 2011 17:19 Simberto wrote: I don't think that what you are saying is correct. For one, not every government is the same. There are very different types of government, and some of them are objevtively better then others. You would probably like the phrasing "less bad" more, but that is exactly the same thing, so i am ok with that, too. I think that the follow-up government an anarchy produces will usually sway towards the "bad" side, by which i mean corrupt, oppressive, and the likes. Also, do you seriously think that "pulling the plug" on the only armed force in your country would be easy? What if they decide that they don't want to go away, and would rather continue to be paid, if you like it or not? It't not like they can't take everything you own at any time they want. They have the guns, you don't. Also, you can't simply spawn trained and equipped military when you like to. You can't just start building it when you fear being invaded. And you can't just start a new military organisation for defending against your old organisation gone rogue, because that old organsiation is already in your country, with guns, and can easily stop the training of any potentially oposing force. So you would need to juggle those firms all the time, and keep them at about the same power at all times. This is first and foremost not easy, and i really would not feel very safe if there are multiple conflicting military units in your land. It is probably also pretty expensive and bureaucratic. However you organize it, you either end up with a totally ineffective military, or with a very small amount of people in power of it. Someone needs to collect the money, and then decide what to spend it on. Seeing the general dislike of people to pay taxes, a volutary defense expense is probably not something most people would put a the top of their priorities, since they could theoretically leech of their neighbors defense expenses. So you need to make it obligatory for them, or basically deny any service without the proof of having paid for it. While this might work for a police force, it does not work for a military. You can not defend one guy, but not his neighbor against an invasion. This does not only apply to defense forces, but also to simple stuff like road maintenance. It also gets pretty near to some mob-like extortion when you apply that principle to stuff like police or the firefighters. I somehow expect that the houses of people who refuse to pay the firefighters suddenly have a much larger chance to burst into flames. Or maybe some goons appear at your door and "defend" you against people beating you up in the streets. And people who don't pay them have a tendency to get beaten up in dark alleys. Also, do you notice how much your anarchy starts to sound more and more like a government with a different name? You need a system to collect money from everyone, have it go through some kind of apparatus, and then be distributed to different organisations like a military, road maintenance, and so on. You're making several important incorrect assumptions. Like I said, market systems have an answer for this that I am unable to succinctly explain before I go to bed. Go read about it. If I remember this in the morning, I'll round up some decent sources to make it easier for people. Just remember that competition always results in a better product at a lower price. Once you understand that everything is a product or service, including everything government offers, it makes sense to open it up to competition rather than allow one entity a monopoly backed by violence. Market anarchy is the natural result of two assumptions: 1) Coercion/violence is bad. 2) People have a right to property. | ||
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AMaidensWrath
Belgium206 Posts
On July 01 2011 13:22 windsupernova wrote: Well, you guys are free to move there any time you want. Make sure to give us a call Oh God, this has to be the best comment I've read in years. Priceless! Ah, and by the way: Bro-fist all the way from Belgium to Somalia. Keepin' it real without a government. No, but seriously: I am sure that there is no anarchy in Somalia. Maybe anarchy in terms of 'all hell breaks lose'. But I'm sure there's some oligarchic hierachy. | ||
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TheFrankOne
United States667 Posts
On July 01 2011 17:07 polysciguy wrote: sure how about first we get people to realize that crime left alone soon becomes everyone's problem. the fact that most people are apathetic about crime happening to other people is because of that mentality of its not happening to me it isn't my problem, it may soon be. it also has to do with the fact that we do currently have systems in place to deal with crime, ie a police force, however if such a force did not exist people would take its place, i mean surely you've heard of a neighborhood watch, its the exact same concept That apathy thing is a puzzler, when someone is getting robbed at gun/knife point I certainly do not want to become robbery victim #2, I would rather get someone better equipped to deal with the problem, like member of this neighborhood watch-like thing which I think should be discussed a little more. I agree though, we should all just care more, and get along while we're at it. Ok so something like a neighborhood watch, ya know without police so they should have some weapons.. and we don't want people using weapons without training. Think of the children around the neighborhood. Of course weapons and training costs money so we will need to get some monies from the community, someone should also probably organize the watch and someone should collect the money. Also we will need to determine what would be appropriate punishments for crimes and what are crimes and we need some sort of system to make sure that, beyond a reasonable doubt, we have found our criminal, who might not have been caught in the act after all... Wait, dammit! We have all that because the neighborhood watch relies on all the other institutions in our society related to law enforcement and criminal justice. Also a police force is made up of "people" not "robots" or "cats." Though I have heard rumors of strange man/pig hybrids that make up police forces, I have personally only met people. @Brain Coercion and violence are bad, unfortunately they can also be super effective. | ||
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polysciguy
United States488 Posts
On July 01 2011 17:27 AMaidensWrath wrote: Oh God, this has to be the best comment I've read in years. Priceless! Ah, and by the way: Bro-fist all the way from Belgium to Somalia. Keepin' it real without a government. No, but seriously: I am sure that there is no anarchy in Somalia. Maybe anarchy in terms of 'all hell breaks lose'. But I'm sure there's some oligarchic hierachy. all hells breaks loose isn't anarchy its chaos, there is a difference. true anarchy like true communism, will most likely never exist because the ideals they embody run contrary to human nature. | ||
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Simberto
Germany11364 Posts
On July 01 2011 17:24 brain_ wrote: You're making several important incorrect assumptions. Like I said, market systems have an answer for this that I am unable to succinctly explain before I go to bed. Go read about it. If I remember this in the morning, I'll round up some decent sources to make it easier for people. Just remember that competition always results in a better product at a lower price. Once you understand that everything is a product or service, including everything government offers, it makes sense to open it up to competition rather than allow one entity a monopoly backed by violence. Market anarchy is the natural result of two assumptions: 1) Coercion/violence is bad. 2) People have a right to property. It would be very nice if you stopped saying "read it up" without providing any actual sources as to where i could do that. I am not really in the mood to do complete research when probably about 80% of the stuff i would find would be some unrealistic ramblings. I mean, i could reply with "read up why it won't work", and then we could stop talking, but that feels pretty unsatisfactory. Those sources would be nice. I totally understand that a government is basically providing services which are mostly common interests of a lot of people, but also which a lot of people would probably be to short-sighted to realize that they are the ones that should be paying for them. The problem in my opinion is not that you would not maybe get better services, but that it would be pretty hard to prevent an abusive monopoly without any safeguarding mechanism. That is the thing i like most about modern states, sure, they technically are a monopoly based on power to provide services, but they at least have pretty good safeguards both against turning into a worse situation and against individual corruption. That is not to say that corruption does not exist, but it is held in reasonable borders. Also, i will also go to bed now, so i hope to find those links when i wake up tomorrow and am bored. | ||
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Focuspants
Canada780 Posts
What happened in Canada? A small hit to our economy, mostly because you guys are our biggest trading partner, and you fucked up. Free market systems dont inspire fair and friendly competition, to put out the best possible product for the best price. Not without taking advantage of everything they possibly can to squeeze out that product for minimal cost, and sell it for maximum value. Youre approaching business as if its trying its best to make sure youre getting all the goods. It operates quite the opposite. Its "how do we put out the most competitive product that will make people happy to buy it, but as cheap as possible for us to make, and give us the highest possible profit margin?" Theyll do this by paying dick all for labour, abusing whatever system is in place in any way they can, or trying to snuff out the competition in any way possible. The difference between a business in Canada, and a business in your system, is that here there is such a close eye on them, with direct oversight, and an obvious level of accountability, with outlined punishments, that there are minimal ways to effectively do what you can easily do in your system, and have nobody to answer to. Now if you argue that you set up people for them to answer to, youre assuming the role of a government and calling it something else, to make yourself feel better about it. Which is the same scenario that appears in basically all of your other ideas. We dont even need to get in depth about any of these issues. You can call it apples and oranges if you like, but the article in the op is saying that because Somalias economy has picked up (now that there isnt a dictatorship), and that because they have 9 cell phone companies, theyre an example to the world, of how we should all live. I simply ask, would you be willing to move to Somalia then? If you answer no, you look like an idiot because youre praising a system you fear, and if you answer yes, you still look like an idiot because who in their right mind would leave North America to live in Somalia? There really doesnt need to be debate beyond that. | ||
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DeepElemBlues
United States5079 Posts
Somalia has a thriving telecommunications business because all sides in the civil war are awash with cash, the Islamists have it coming in from Saudi Arabia and through protection money, the warlords and "government" from Ethiopia and the West. This is also why guns are so cheap. These are external factors with nothing whatsoever to do with Somalia's own ability to create wealth. Wealth is pouring into the country, not from it. And why? Because there are political considerations - who will rule Somalia? Any economic improvements are artificial, created by an influx of cash that would not exist if there were not considerations of power to be made. If Siad Barre still ran Somalia there would be no "telecom" "market anarchy" success stories, it would be just another totally horrible starvation center like Zimbabwe. And the only reason it is not, is that rich foreigners and the Somalis connected to them have a political interest in who rules Somalia, whether they be Islamists in Saudi Arabia or diplomats in Washington. Just as a little postscript, what happens when private militias or security companies "lose" their contract is they stick a gun in your face and it becomes a protection racket. They don't wither away. They have the guns, the men, and the organization. Nearly every household in Somalia has a gun, that doesn't stop the Islamist and secular warlords (and the two sides aren't diametrically opposed, factions switch sides all the time) from ruling through the sword over the territories they control. Cool shit, you and everyone in your house has a gun and you aren't giving me your son to be a soldier in my militia or whatever it is I want. I'm a warlord with hundreds of dedicated fighters and thousands of auxiliaries, I'll roll up with three pick-up trucks full of guys with RPGs and light machine guns, we'll see how long you and your family hold out. The principle of anarchy at work, the strongest wins. What you dont realize, is that countries with stricter regulations are actually doing better than countries with less regulated economies. You dont even need to look far. Look at Canada and the United States. The Canadian government is strict on business (yes including the banks), and has extremely high standards of operation, unlike the good old Republican way in the US. You guys hit a horrible recession, your hoousing market collapsed, millions of jobs were lost, unemployment is at very high levels, and why? Because people, when left to their own devices, without constant oversight and regulation, find any way possible to abuse people in the interest of personal gain. What happened in Canada? A small hit to our economy, mostly because you guys are our biggest trading partner, and you fucked up. What does this have to do with Somalia. Also, your superior oversight needed a nice big bailout from our Fed too. Your contention of Canada's superior understanding of how to run an economy as opposed to those 'low-standard' Republicans doesn't quite hold up to the facts. Your bailout was around 10% of your annual GDP, same as ours was. | ||
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AMaidensWrath
Belgium206 Posts
On July 01 2011 17:32 polysciguy wrote: all hells breaks loose isn't anarchy its chaos, there is a difference. true anarchy like true communism, will most likely never exist because the ideals they embody run contrary to human nature. And that's exactly why I stated that there is no anarchy. And that's exactly why I said "...maybe anarchy in terms of 'all hell breaks lose'". | ||
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Expurgate
United States208 Posts
There's little point arguing with such claims. No matter what, libertarians will mewl about being misunderstood or misrepresented. Give them object counter-evidence and they will reduce it to a single point of contention, to be discarded after a thorough treatment with a strawman argument. The rest of us normal human beings don't arbitrarily select two philosophical principles and a handful of mostly-discredited economic theories and build a worldview upon them. | ||
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Saechiis
Netherlands4989 Posts
On July 01 2011 12:50 0neder wrote: Anarchists are foolish idealists. The founders of USA understood the need to balance freedom and order. And, they established a framework for people to freely succeed according to their ambition that also restricted government power. Granted, after a few hundred years it is swamped by general laziness and nearly overcome by a demand for endless 'rights' without compensatory sacrifices by its citizens, but it's so robust that it's still succeeding for the most part. It's people like you that ruin movies by having a waving American flag at the end of all of them -_-' | ||
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aebriol
Norway2066 Posts
On July 01 2011 12:13 xarthaz wrote: As a result, it is by far the fastest growing, fastest improving among all the less developed countries. This should be a model for the world. Except that, it's "fastest improving" because it's an absolute hellhole, one of the worst places on earth to live. It's #1 on the list of failed states ... Check this list for average life expectancy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy and it's 175 out of 191. The whole economy is living on refugees sending money back home to support people stuck in that insane country. Just google remittance and Somalia, and you'll have plenty of proof. To point to Somalia as an example to be followed, is either showing off completely ignorance of the reality of the nation, or just insanity. | ||
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DeepElemBlues
United States5079 Posts
It's people like you that ruin movies by having a waving American flag at the end of all of them -_-' "Sir! It's the Americans! They've come up with the plan we've been waiting for!" But really, it's people like you that ruin movies by complaining at the end about the waving American flag in movies made by American companies whose main target is Americans. | ||
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Edmon
United Kingdom259 Posts
This is basically what people are defining as "successful" here. You know what happens when one group ends up with the most guns and power and crushes everyone else? A dictatorship... | ||
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But if a government works well, in a local area, then why would you want to limit that? A strong, well run government is a good thing, surely? The fact it could be taken over by, for example, a dictatorial coup, doesn't mean its a bad thing inherently.
