330 replies to this topic

[JLL]

Also, you know your rhetoric is full of contradictions, right? First you say all the problems in the world are caused by the free market, then you say it's not really a free market, because a TRUE free market would have much more regulations in place, but on the other hand, libertarians are worshipping on the altar of the free market god, so free markets must be bad. You are exactly like the politicians interviewed in the videos.

[Lallante]

Also, you know your rhetoric is full of contradictions, right? First you say all the problems in the world are caused by the free market, then you say it's not really a free market, because a TRUE free market would have much more regulations in place, but on the other hand, libertarians are worshipping on the altar of the free market god, so free markets must be bad. You are exactly like the politicians interviewed in the videos.

I'm not sure if you are deliberately misconstruing his argument or just being facetious.

The issue is, you claim to be in favour of a true free market, but when we try to pin you down on specifics (ie how fraud or rampant market abuse will be prevented, or how market failure will be avoided) it becomes clear that you are, in fact, favour of lots of government intervention and regulation. The end result seems to be barely a departure from what we have now.

If this is not true, and you do not envisage government intervention in these instances, please elucidate on how your model deals with fraud and market abuse. To pre-empt a particularly weak argument that I feel you will be tempted to try - no, consumers would not naturally gravitate away from businesses with a history of market abuse - this is evident even from current RL examples, and if anything under your system vastly less abuse would be brought to light. A market is distorted by false information being provided to consumers, destroying its efficiency.

Edited by Lallante, 22 April 2010 - 07:03 AM.

[JLL]

How can you have real life examples of something that has not been tried? Perhaps consumers behave differently today precisely because they expect the nanny state to do everything for them -- learned helplessness.

Furthermore, if you are convinced that people would just keep buying products from bad companies, where is the harm in that? Who are you trying to protect people from?

As I have repeatedly said, I do not favour any government intervention in anything.

[Lallante]

How can you have real life examples of something that has not been tried? Perhaps consumers behave differently today precisely because they expect the nanny state to do everything for them -- learned helplessness.

Furthermore, if you are convinced that people would just keep buying products from bad companies, where is the harm in that? Who are you trying to protect people from?

As I have repeatedly said, I do not favour any government intervention in anything.

I really dont think you can have thought this through. Either that or you are semi-sociopathic and are quite happy for the vast, vast majority of people to end up living in what would essentially be economic-slavery (of the kind not seen since feudal times).

With zero government intervention, you just end up with huge corporations that, internally, function exactly like a government - with rules and regulations governing behaviour between internal actors, but externally exploit everyone else to the maximum extent physically possible. If a corporation has a choice between losing profits or acting unethically, why would they ever choose the former if not for government holding them to account.

The idea that these entities could be held to account by consumer pressure is ludicrously idealistic - please give any evidence that this might work. Look at companies like Nestle, Goldman Sachs, Blackstone, Shell, BAE (I could go on all day) that get caught doing incredibly unethical thinks (bribery, corruption, physical intimidation etc) and yet are still immensely profitable and, far from being shunned by consumers, barely suffer any negative publicity.

To give another scenario - last year a load of Chinese-made toys in the US were found to have been made with a poisonous (but very cheap) lead paint - lots of children were hospitalised. Without government intervention, there would a) be no way that this would have even come to light, b) no way to hold anyone to account for it and c) no way to stop it happening in the future.

Edited by Lallante, 22 April 2010 - 09:53 AM.

[valkyrie_ice]

I had this argument with you previously JLL.

Remember my scenario, in which you and I are competing merchants in a true free market. I want your customers. 1 bullet is cheaper than any other solution. So you said murder was outlawed. So I then said okay, I burn down your business. To which you said arson was outlawed. and so on and so on.

Your arguments were that every person could hire their own police force each of which would enforce their own basic laws. And what if I hired a police force which allowed murder, arson, and slavery? How would your police force stop mine if mine had more men, better weapons, and above all, didn't recognize your police forces validity? What if my police force told you that you had to pay THEM instead of your police force if you wanted to not be killed burned or enslaved? Please, explain to me how this is in any way different than living under the rule of a government? One which is free to be as tyrannical as it wishes? And which given human nature is going to be as tyrannical as it can be?

Explain to me how your society will deal with fraud, violence, and force in the market. Tell me how it will ensure that all actors are equal, free to make uncoerced choices, and secure from harm?

Then explain to me how any of this is different from laws and regulations?

[JLL]

Your arguments were that every person could hire their own police force each of which would enforce their own basic laws. And what if I hired a police force which allowed murder, arson, and slavery? How would your police force stop mine if mine had more men, better weapons, and above all, didn't recognize your police forces validity? What if my police force told you that you had to pay THEM instead of your police force if you wanted to not be killed burned or enslaved? Please, explain to me how this is in any way different than living under the rule of a government? One which is free to be as tyrannical as it wishes? And which given human nature is going to be as tyrannical as it can be?

Before I go into the details of police forces on the free market, hold on a second: you are saying that the free market would provide the very same services as the government does, and that it would be no worse?

[Lallante]

Your arguments were that every person could hire their own police force each of which would enforce their own basic laws. And what if I hired a police force which allowed murder, arson, and slavery? How would your police force stop mine if mine had more men, better weapons, and above all, didn't recognize your police forces validity? What if my police force told you that you had to pay THEM instead of your police force if you wanted to not be killed burned or enslaved? Please, explain to me how this is in any way different than living under the rule of a government? One which is free to be as tyrannical as it wishes? And which given human nature is going to be as tyrannical as it can be?

Before I go into the details of police forces on the free market, hold on a second: you are saying that the free market would provide the very same services as the government does, and that it would be no worse?

No he is saying it would have every negative feature of government that you have ever cited, but with none of the positive features or limits on the negative features.

It would essentially, eventually, function as a dictatorship with absolute power. If someone disagrees? kill them.

[valkyrie_ice]

Before I go into the details of police forces on the free market, hold on a second: you are saying that the free market would provide the very same services as the government does, and that it would be no worse?

No he is saying it would have every negative feature of government that you have ever cited, but with none of the positive features or limits on the negative features.

It would essentially, eventually, function as a dictatorship with absolute power. If someone disagrees? kill them.

Precisely.

Want a "real life example?"

The Mafia. The "Other Government"

Edited by valkyrie_ice, 23 April 2010 - 12:30 AM.

[Alex Libman]

No he is saying it would have every negative feature of government that you have ever cited, but with none of the positive features or limits on the negative features.

The negative features of government services are all rooted in the fact that it is a stagnant monopoly that can get away with just about anything, with incentive to fail and gain more power rather than succeed. The free market solves this problem for every product or service imaginable. Competition leads to rationality, efficiency, transparency, creativity, innovation, and ever-lower prices for ever-better products and services!

It would essentially, eventually, function as a dictatorship with absolute power. If someone disagrees? kill them.

That is how the governments operate (except of course they still have to keep public opinion in mind to some small degree, and would often find it more cost-effective to marginalize dissenters, "poison the well", etc while throwing large amounts of stolen money into pro-government propaganda to simply outshout them).

The reason why governments are able to get away with this incredible level of centralization of power is because they've fooled people into thinking they have some sort of a "divine right" to do what normal people can't - steal, cheat, kill, and otherwise initiate aggression against others. In absence of this "divine right of governments" delusion, anyone who violates the Non-Aggression Principle will be seen as a threat to everybody else and quickly eliminated.

When there are 6+ billion free-thinking, freedom-loving, and well-armed individuals in the world, the prospect of another government rising up is just downright silly. Even a few thousand freedom fighters (aka "terrorists") can bleed a government for billions of dollars and bring even the greatest existing superpower to its knees!

The Mafia. The "Other Government"

Yes, the Mafia is another example of a government, but they are much smaller. If we can resist a multi-trillion-dollars-a-year government, a million-dollar government would be that much easier to resist.

And Mafia has always been a product of a corrupt "law enforcement" monopoly, alcohol / drug prohibitions, and an unarmed populace. You can't build a successful Mafia "family" on petty crime, especially not in a world of billions of networked "open source" security video feeds, satellite video, "web of trust" reputation databases, product tracking, instant access to information, a restitution-based justice system, and global NGO's funded to eliminate criminal scum off the face of the earth once and for all!

Edited by Alex Libman, 23 April 2010 - 12:49 AM.

[RighteousReason]

Conversation with someone elsewhere...

mdw: are you against taxes?
hk7: i'm against any sort of theft... you can't just take something someone has earned against their will
mdw: taxes pay for all sorts of things besides welfare checks..personally, i enjoy driving on paved roads and having police to keep chaos from occurring
hk7: well yes i am a very strong supporter of law enforcement
mdw: i don't have a problem with taxes..it's kind of like my rent to enjoy all the benefits of living here
hk7: i don't have a problem paying for those things
mdw: what do you have a problem paying for then?
hk7: i have a problem with the use of force against innocent people.
hk7: and i do not actually believe that the government can plan the economy better than individuals, acting out of their voluntary, rational self interest.
mdw: not everyone is rational though
hk7: what kind of system can survive on a morality where people are allowed to steal to make up for people's irrationality? why would you want to reward that?
hk7: i think a good heart and cold hard wisdom can bring irrational people to lead good productive lives. my cousin is mentally retarded and does as much.

[JLL]

Before I go into the details of police forces on the free market, hold on a second: you are saying that the free market would provide the very same services as the government does, and that it would be no worse?

No he is saying it would have every negative feature of government that you have ever cited, but with none of the positive features or limits on the negative features.

It would essentially, eventually, function as a dictatorship with absolute power. If someone disagrees? kill them.

Precisely.

Want a "real life example?"

The Mafia. The "Other Government"

I'm glad you took the mafia as an example, because there really is no essential difference between the mafia and the government; both take your money with the threat of violence and offer services, whether you like it or not.

So what's to prevent the state acting as a dictarorship with absolute power?

[Lallante]

Before I go into the details of police forces on the free market, hold on a second: you are saying that the free market would provide the very same services as the government does, and that it would be no worse?

No he is saying it would have every negative feature of government that you have ever cited, but with none of the positive features or limits on the negative features.

It would essentially, eventually, function as a dictatorship with absolute power. If someone disagrees? kill them.

Precisely.

Want a "real life example?"

The Mafia. The "Other Government"

I'm glad you took the mafia as an example, because there really is no essential difference between the mafia and the government; both take your money with the threat of violence and offer services, whether you like it or not.

So what's to prevent the state acting as a dictarorship with absolute power?

The balance of the three branches of government, democracy, the rule of law, constitution and media.


Whats to stop a corporation acting as a dictarorship with absolute power?

Currently - the government!

[Alex Libman]

The balance of the three branches of government

Oh, so they use three different ropes when they (metaphorically) hang you for tax resistance?

democracy

So they vote before making you drink the hemlock?

the rule of law, constitution

So they codify the aggression they initiate against you?

media.

The media exists in spite of the government, not because of it.

Whats to stop a corporation acting as a dictarorship with absolute power? Currently - the government!

That is a statement of faith, not reason.

Edited by Alex Libman, 23 April 2010 - 02:08 PM.

[JLL]

The balance of the three branches of government, democracy, the rule of law, constitution and media.

Let's examine this argument further.

You say that tyranny is, in part, prevented by dividing the government into three branches. How is this different from having three different businesses on the free market? If I said to you that "tyranny won't be a problem because there will be three companies instead of one", you would laugh at me. More specifically, what is to prevent a) one of those branches from taking over the whole thing, or b) the three combining their forces and taking over everybody else?

I will tackle democracy next, but let's start with this one, shall we?

[Lallante]

The balance of the three branches of government

Oh, so they use three different ropes when they (metaphorically) hang you for tax resistance?

democracy

So they vote before making you drink the hemlock?

the rule of law, constitution

So they codify the aggression they initiate against you?

media.

The media exists in spite of the government, not because of it.

Whats to stop a corporation acting as a dictarorship with absolute power? Currently - the government!

That is a statement of faith, not reason.

Sigh. Your views are unsupported by evidence or reason, you make multiple statements of (barmy) faith then call my statement of fact one. Brilliantly, you even cite a convicted armed robber, who is also a anti-semite, racist conspiricy theory nutjob as a martyr of "tax resistance". The browns were mentally ill not heroes.

Socrates was a champion of democratic government, a rather unlikely hero for you there... He was killed for his free speech, something that is now PROTECTED by the government. Would you have free speech in the 'WalMartopia' you envisage? Of course not (it would be detrimental to profits if employees were allowed to criticise the company).

The purpose of much of the governments regulation of business is to prevent abuse of market power. This is explicit in the wording of fraud and other white collar crimes and in the body of Anti-trust (aka competition) law. This isnt a statement of faith, its a statement of fact. Denying it just makes you look like you have lost your grip on reality.

Edited by Lallante, 23 April 2010 - 02:32 PM.

[JLL]

Each company could of course decide what they permit and don't permit. I could indeed start a company that has a strict policy of "no criticizing of the company".

Needless to say, we've had many examples of "no criticizing the government, or else you go to gulag to do some thinking."

What is different in these two scenarios is that you would not have to work in my company. If all companies for some reason had the same policy (which is very unlikely), you could start your own company.

Government, on the other hand, is not voluntary in the same way.

Also, employees criticizing the business is not necessarily detrimental to profits. If you find ways to do things better, it could just as well increase profits.

[Lallante]

Each company could of course decide what they permit and don't permit. I could indeed start a company that has a strict policy of "no criticizing of the company".

Needless to say, we've had many examples of "no criticizing the government, or else you go to gulag to do some thinking."

What is different in these two scenarios is that you would not have to work in my company. If all companies for some reason had the same policy (which is very unlikely), you could start your own company.

Government, on the other hand, is not voluntary in the same way.

Also, employees criticizing the business is not necessarily detrimental to profits. If you find ways to do things better, it could just as well increase profits.

I take each of your posts and answer your points line by line. You cant, or wont, do the same with mine because you dont have an argument, you just have empty rhetoric.

PS:

"I could indeed start a company that has a strict policy of "no criticizing of the company"." - > pretty much all companies, at least in the US, fire people for publicly criticising the company already.

You obviously aren't familiar with barriers to entry, another market failure.

[eternaltraveler]

Each company could of course decide what they permit and don't permit. I could indeed start a company that has a strict policy of "no criticizing of the company".

Needless to say, we've had many examples of "no criticizing the government, or else you go to gulag to do some thinking."

What is different in these two scenarios is that you would not have to work in my company. If all companies for some reason had the same policy (which is very unlikely), you could start your own company.

Government, on the other hand, is not voluntary in the same way.

Also, employees criticizing the business is not necessarily detrimental to profits. If you find ways to do things better, it could just as well increase profits.

I take each of your posts and answer your points line by line. You cant, or wont, do the same with mine because you dont have an argument, you just have empty rhetoric.

PS:

"I could indeed start a company that has a strict policy of "no criticizing of the company"." - > pretty much all companies, at least in the US, fire people for publicly criticising the company already.

You obviously aren't familiar with barriers to entry, another market failure.

well. Most barriers to entry are presently erected by governement (we call them regulations and licensing requirements). In order to be a house salesman in many us states you have to go to school in house selling before you are allowed to take a test that says you know how to sell a house. Doctors have to have at least 7 years of post graduate education before they are allowed to take a test to see if they actually learned anything. Licensing fees can be enormous to make it impossible for any small businesses to possibly afford them but are a drop in the bucket for large established corporations(small price to pay to insure no new companies come along that might not want to collude with yours).

Sure there are non government barriers to entry too. Some things might be really really expensive to start for example. All present monopolies are created by the government, but they can cause problems.

Edited by eternaltraveler, 23 April 2010 - 05:37 PM.

[valkyrie_ice]

Oh, I get it, you want a doctor with no verifiable training to perform your brain surgery.

Barriers to entry exist to ensure that fraud does not take place. I have to have a license to work as a guard. Why? To ensure I am aware of the limits and restrictions to my powers as a guard, so that I can't go to a site, and decide that I will simply shoot anyone I catch trespassing. It is also so that I am aware of what a client can and cannot order me to do.

As an A+ certified technician, I have also met the standards of knowledge required to professionally repair computers. That means that I can't pass off sloppy, shoddy, or unnecessary work without being accountable for it. I can't screw up a person's computer, and then claim it was an accident caused by lack of knowledge. That certification is a guarantee of my knowledge, skills, and accountability.

As a professional, I can be sure that any one else who carries that license has also had that same training. It exists to ensure both mine and the public's safety.

The same goes for every profession which requires licenses. It shows that the person carrying the license actually knows what they are doing. That is for the public's safety, as well as to prevent fraud. A person with a license cannot claim to have "not known" what they were doing within the scope of their professional duties.

At the absolute reduced form, your argument continually comes down to abrogation of accountability.

[eternaltraveler]

Oh, I get it, you want a doctor with no verifiable training to perform your brain surgery.

Barriers to entry exist to ensure that fraud does not take place. I have to have a license to work as a guard. Why? To ensure I am aware of the limits and restrictions to my powers as a guard, so that I can't go to a site, and decide that I will simply shoot anyone I catch trespassing. It is also so that I am aware of what a client can and cannot order me to do.

As an A+ certified technician, I have also met the standards of knowledge required to professionally repair computers. That means that I can't pass off sloppy, shoddy, or unnecessary work without being accountable for it. I can't screw up a person's computer, and then claim it was an accident caused by lack of knowledge. That certification is a guarantee of my knowledge, skills, and accountability.

As a professional, I can be sure that any one else who carries that license has also had that same training. It exists to ensure both mine and the public's safety.

The same goes for every profession which requires licenses. It shows that the person carrying the license actually knows what they are doing. That is for the public's safety, as well as to prevent fraud. A person with a license cannot claim to have "not known" what they were doing within the scope of their professional duties.

At the absolute reduced form, your argument continually comes down to abrogation of accountability.

Of course I want a neuro surgeon with verifiable training. Same for everything else you said. What does that have to do with anything?

There are numerous independent organizations that rate all of those things. Who says the best neuro surgeon needs 11 years of post graduate education and who says some other neuro surgeon doesn't need 25 years to become barely adequate. I'm interested in actual results not bureaucratic requirements put in place in almost all cases by those looking to limit their own competition. I'm finishing med school presently and I can tell you the first two years were basically a complete waste of time. Large portions of what's ahead is also a complete waste of time as about 50% or more of a doctors time is spent fulfilling one bureaucratic requirement or another and not treating patients in anyway.

[eternaltraveler]

abrogation of accountability

I dont think that word means what you think it means...

I think people should be supremely and directly accountable for all of their actions, you don't.

That's our fundamental disagreement. Remember?

Edited by eternaltraveler, 23 April 2010 - 08:58 PM.

[valkyrie_ice]

abrogation of accountability

I dont think that word means what you think it means...

I think people should be supremely and directly accountable for all of their actions, you don't.

That's our fundamental disagreement. Remember?

ab·ro·gate   [ab-ruh-geyt] Show IPA
–verb (used with object),-gat·ed, -gat·ing.
1. to abolish by formal or official means; annul by an authoritative act; repeal: to abrogate a law.
2. to put aside; put an end to.

I meant it precisely as I used it. You seek to legally repeal accountability to the collective in the form of regulations, laws, and tax. Our fundamental disagreement is not about accountability. It is about whether accountability is reciprocal between the individual and the collective. My stance is that it must be reciprocal at all levels of society, your's is that government should be accountable, but that the individual should not.

[eternaltraveler]

i was actually referring to the other word

I'm not going to have this silly debate about your logically inconsistent interpretation of "the collective will of the people" nonsense anymore. Accountability is between individuals and individuals, and individuals and darwin.

Edited by eternaltraveler, 23 April 2010 - 11:11 PM.

[valkyrie_ice]

i was actually referring to the other word

I'm not going to have this silly debate about your logically inconsistent interpretation of "the collective will of the people" nonsense anymore. Accountability is between individuals and individuals, and individuals and darwin.

*My* logical inconsistency?



You want to run a free market in which you accept companies, organizations, and groups as a given, all of which act as "individuals" in the sense that you use the term, and yet you seem to view the "collective whole" of all individuals, all groups, and all organizations as nonsense. Strange way you define things, with some collectives acceptable as "individuals" that must be accountable, but not others.

Or do you think that you should not have to pay a corporation for those services it supplies you because it's "not an individual" any more than you feel you should not owe payment to the government for those services it provides?

[eternaltraveler]

I don't think corporations should exist as legal entities that separate business owners from the consuquences that result from the business they own. Aside from that

I'm not going to have this silly debate about your logically inconsistent interpretation of "the collective will of the people" nonsense anymore.

[Alex Libman]

Sigh. Your views are unsupported by evidence or reason, you make multiple statements of (barmy) faith then call my statement of fact one.

How can you say that my views are "unsupported by evidence or reason" when I've been supporting them throughout this forum, and, more importantly, when the side that you defend uses violence to make further scientific inquiry into alternative social systems impossible? I'm not trying to force you to abandon your government! If you are so sure that we will fail without it then let us try and fail!?

Brilliantly, you even cite a convicted armed robber, who is also a anti-semite, racist conspiricy theory nutjob as a martyr of "tax resistance". The browns were mentally ill not heroes.

Elaine Brown the foremost hero I've cited, with Ed being a secondary figure. The media portrayal of them has not been balanced. They are not mentally ill, only eccentrically religious, and they have accomplished many things in their lives, particularly Elaine. Neither of them is a racist, and no anti-Zionist I've ever met has ever had a problem with me being ethnically Jewish. Ed Brown did commit a very serious crime when he was a teenager, and your opinion of him should diminish accordingly, but that is not related to his tax resistance many decades later. And Ed Brown did say some stupid things on his way to martyrdom, which should be taken in the context of the legal trickery experiment that they attempted to use during their trial (fighting fire with fire). Courage and clarity of speech are often mutually exclusive, but that need not diminish the heroism of their act.

Elaine Brown spent her life running a successful dental surgery practice, with the government taking more than half the fruits of her labor and spending that money on things she didn't want and often abhorred (ex. Iraq War). If you actually add up all layers of taxation, including property taxes, compliance costs, cost-of-living increases from corporate taxes and regulations, etc then it could be as high as 70-80% - with the remaining 20-30% being a mere investment that the government makes in incentivizing its slaves work harder, and can take away at any time, which is exactly what they did when Ed and Elaine tried to protest by keeping a greater fraction of their money (they continued paying all taxes except the Federal income tax).

A slave that is obedient and productive may receive many privileges from his "master", but all he is doing is making the institution of slavery ever-more fruitful. It is a morally heroic act for a slave to be whipped to death rather than bring his master a profit, which will encourage ever-more slave-catchers to capture ever-more slaves! (Of course another alternative is to set the master's house on fire at night and run away, but what of the innocent children that sleep there?)

Socrates was a champion of democratic government, a rather unlikely hero for you there...

I'm not endorsing all views held by Socrates, just citing him as a famous example of someone put to death by "democracy". Any restrictions the government power places upon itself, it can just as easily remove.

He was killed for his free speech, something that is now PROTECTED by the government.

He was killed for speech that was dangerous to the state. The state is far more powerful today, and it can use passive and deceptive methods (ex. COINTELPRO) to discredit its gadflies without killing them, but simply because it works better than making them martyrs. ("Let them march all they want, as long as they continue to pay their taxes" -Alexander Haig, U.S. Sec of State). But when the passive approach stops working the gloves do come off. A lot of gadflies die under very suspicious circumstances, and anyone can have drugs or kiddy porn planted on him at any time as an excuse. And then you have things like Holocaust denial laws, which are just a tip of the iceberg, and new laws like that can be added whenever they are needed.

Would you have free speech in the 'WalMartopia' you envisage? Of course not (it would be detrimental to profits if employees were allowed to criticise the company).

If you want to criticize WalMart then don't live in WalMartopia. The vast majority of 6+ billion people in the world won't, nor would they sell their soul to ToysRUstopia, Amazondotcomtopia, HomeDepotopia, Costcotopia, Walgreenstopia, Lowestopia, Searstopia, Safewaytopia, SuperValutopia, RiteAidtopia, Macystopia, JCPennytopia, Kohltopia, TheGaptopia, Krogertopia, Nordstromtopia, FootLockertopia, PetSmarttopia, RadioShacktopia, Wawatopia, or any other of the thousands of retail stores out there. In the free marketplace everything competes with everything else, and people would only do business with any company on the basis of receiving something of relative value. WalMart is the servant of its stakeholders, the government is their dictator.

The purpose of much of the governments regulation of business is to prevent abuse of market power. This is explicit in the wording of fraud and other white collar crimes and in the body of Anti-trust (aka competition) law. This isnt a statement of faith, its a statement of fact. Denying it just makes you look like you have lost your grip on reality.

Once again, when something cannot be tested through freedom of inquiry then it cannot be a fact. How can you claim that any government program is necessary while using violence against any society that would try to exist without that government program? That's kind of like saying that the existence of God is necessary while burning anyone who disagrees for heresy!

In the meantime, the fact remains that societies that come the closest to the Non-Aggression Principle (i.e. no government except protection of individual negative Rights, which can be fully decentralized) are the most successful.

You obviously aren't familiar with barriers to entry, another market failure.

Most barriers to entry come from government force, including existing megacorps inevitably influencing the government in their favor. (If one megacorp takes the high road and refuses to, then it won't be very "mega" for much longer.) Many of the reasons why WalMart makes more money as a huge chain of stores rather than each region or even each store being independent has to do with overhead costs of mooching with the governments (most notably the government of China). Another thing that raises barrier to entry is the nationalist fragmentation of the human economy - another evil of government. Aside from that, the only barrier to entry is convincing people to invest in your company and to buy your products or services without using force. If the "evil monopoly" is so bad, then at least some fraction of people will support you!

Market failure simply does not exist as something separate from the inevitable limits of human ingenuity (also known as "greed"). Government failure kills billions.

Edited by Alex Libman, 24 April 2010 - 09:05 AM.

[Lallante]

This is my last reply in this or any of its parallel threads as the debate is pointless and going nowhere, and noone else is even reading.

If you dont like government, go to Somalia. Without government you have nothing but anarchy. Its all very well to say "everyone will live in peace because if anyone acts violently the rest will stop him without any need for government" but in practice this so immensely unrealistic it is incredible that someone can both believe it and be mentally functional enough to use the internet.

The free market is motivated only by profit. Profit alone as a goal is not enough to satisfy the needs of humanity. Principles such as fairness, equality and the protection of the vulnerable simply aren't relevant to the pursuit of profit.

I will conclude with this fantastic summary of the fallacy of Libertarianism:

"Now, everyone close your eyes and try to imagine a private, profit-making rights-enforcement organization which does not resemble the mafia, a street gang, those pesky fire-fighters/arsonists/looters who used to provide such "services" in old New York and Tokyo, medieval tax-farmers, or a Lendu militia. (In general, if thoughts of the Eastern Congo or Somalia intrude, I suggest waving them away with the invisible hand and repeating "that's anarcho-capitalism" several times.) Nothing's happening but a buzzing noise, right?

Now try it the wishful thinking way. Just wish that we might all live in a state of perfect liberty, free of taxation and intrusive government, and that we should all be wealthier as well as freer. Now wish that people should, despite that lack of any restraint on their actions such as might be formed by policemen, functioning law courts, the SEC, and so on, not spend all their time screwing each other in predictable ways ranging from ordinary rape, through the selling of fraudulent stocks in non-existent ventures, up to the wholesale dumping of mercury in the public water supplies. (I mean, the general stock of water from which people privately draw.) Awesome huh? But it gets better. Now wish that everyone had a pony."


Whenever I read yet another post of navel-gazing drivel from a 'libertarian', I mentally add "and a pony!" to the end

Edited by Lallante, 24 April 2010 - 09:48 AM.

[Alex Libman]

Oh, I get it, you want a doctor with no verifiable training to perform your brain surgery.

A doctor's qualification is not an issue of black or white, and only the consumer can rationally weigh all options that are involved in choosing a doctor, including reputation, experience, and cost. Choosing a mediocre doctor to perform your surgery is better than dying because the government limited the number of doctors that are allowed to help you!

Barriers to entry exist to ensure that fraud does not take place.

Perhaps you don't understand what fraud means... Saying "hi, I've never been to medical school and I faint at the sight of blood, may I perform your lung transplant?", even in a serious context, is not an act of fraud, just an example of a person who has probably just totally ruined his reputation by even proposing himself for a job for which he's obviously unqualified to do. I wouldn't even hire that person to be a plumber! But he didn't try to deceive anyone, which is what an act of fraud actually is, and self-owning adults can be expected to know that they shouldn't go to any random person for medical surgery.

On the other hand bribing a university professor to pass a class toward your medical degree is an act of fraud (since any reputable university would obviously have rules against that), but that sort of thing happens all the time, especially in other countries where quality standards are not as high as they are here due to competition. Government's one-size-fits-all filtering mechanism only encourages blind faith and discourages people from looking at a doctor's actual merits and reputation - "if Mommy Government allows him to practice medicine then he must be good".

As an A+ certified technician, I have also met the standards of knowledge required to professionally repair computers.

Oh please... The A+ exam is a bunch of multiple choice questions, and you can download the question/answer databases on BitTorrent! (Vendor-specific certifications are typically much better, because the vendor has a much broader reputation to protect, and there are often intense hand-on lab projects involved, but that's not the point I'm trying to make here - and neither is the point that that CompTIA, shabby though it may be, is an example of non-governmental regulation in action.)

I work as a freelance programmer, and hardly ever does a client ask about my certifications (which are quite impressive actually), much less if I have a Masters in Computer Science or if I'm a high school dropout. They ask if I have a portfolio of similar projects to show them, and if I don't (in many fields most of my past work is locked away behind non-disclosure agreements or other barriers) then I can usually get around that by offering to do a fraction of the work as a "free demo" prior to them making any commitment to my bid. The better your portfolio and past client feedback, the more money you'll typically make. (I've made about $1/hour on some projects or $200/hour on others - it's all about supply and demand.)

The point is - reputation for performance is what matters most in the modern world, while pieces of paper with stamps on them will matter less and less.

You want to run a free market in which you accept companies, organizations, and groups as a given, all of which act as "individuals" [...]

Voluntary organizations act with the direct individual consent of everyone who chooses to own their shares, buy their products or services, work for them as an employee, or otherwise lend support to them in any way. (Even if your plane crashes on WalMart Island and you are dying of thirst and the only way you can get water is by buying it from WalMart -- and their bathroom is conveniently closed -- then you doing business with WalMart to save your life is still a voluntary choice, because it were the constraints of reality that put you in that situation, not a violation of your negative Rights by other people. If you fly planes, have the capacity of financing your own speedy rescue operations in the event that one crashes, in which case WalMart Island would be obligated to allow you to exercise the Right to Free Exit.)

You have to think about collective abstractions logically and consider if your statement applies to everyone within that group. You could for example say "the NAACP wants to advance 'colored' people in this country" if you believe that it does, because, well, that's their stated intention - why else would someone join, donate money, or do volunteer work for the NAACP? You cannot, however, say "colored people are being advanced by the NAACP", because it is a vague criteria and not all people who fit that criteria accept aid or even appreciate what that one organization is doing. You can say that "Microsoft wants you to buy Windows 7", but you can't say "America wants you to pay your taxes".

This is my last reply in this or any of its parallel threads as the debate is pointless and going nowhere, and noone else is even reading.

Of course this debate seems pointless to you - why debate when you can use government force to get your way?

If you dont like government, go to Somalia.

Somalia is a warlord state imposed on top of a failed U.N. state imposed on top of a failed theocracy imposed on top of a failed communist state imposed on top of an older theocracy imposed on top of ancient tribalism. It has one of the biggest governments of any country in the world, it just happens to be fragmented, chaotic, and unrecognized by other governments. In some ways that's actually an advantage, and by some benchmarks Somalia is actually doing better than similar African countries where government tyranny is much more centralized, but it's still a big bad socialist hellhole. What I advocate is Natural Law and the Non-Aggression Principle - the very opposite of what exists in Somalia today! If Anarcho-Capitalists like me would resist a trillion-dollar superpower for violating people's Rights, don't you think we would resist some petty warlords as well?!

Without government you have nothing but anarchy.

The same thing has been said for centuries about God, but in many cultures people have learned that the absence of God does not mean they can lie, cheat, and steal at every opportunity, and not just because Mommy Government has been a more functional replacement. A sufficiently advanced capitalist society needs government no more than a rational society needs God. And we're not trying to "outlaw government", just like religion shouldn't be outlawed either, just to allow people to be atheists, religiously as well as politically. Being a religious atheist does not mean spray-painting "666" on church doors or catapulting pigs into mosques, but doing your own thing on your own property, which is exactly what the Browns were doing politically when they were arrested for not paying "taxes".

Its all very well to say "everyone will live in peace because if anyone acts violently the rest will stop him without any need for government" but in practice this so immensely unrealistic it is incredible that someone can both believe it and be mentally functional enough to use the internet.

There's actually a very high correlation between support for Anarcho-Capitalism and intelligence, perhaps because it is an application of the scientific principle to the question of social order, and all other political systems represent a limitation to freedom of inquiry. And the Internet is actually an excellent example of free market capitalism / voluntarism in action (except the parts of it that suck, like the "official" DNS root, all of which come from government intervention).

The free market is motivated only by profit.

That's not true. The free market is motivated by individual self-interest, which isn't always financial in nature. Take the time I waste on these forums, for example - I'm not being paid to be here, so why am I here? Pulling your own economic weight is important, and as the economy advances that will require an ever-smaller fraction of most people's time, but it is up to each individual to decide whether he wants to pursue optimum accumulation of capital, balance a career with a luxurious lifestyle, focus on creative pursuits or family, contribute to philanthropic causes or "open source" academic work (Linux and Wikipedia are just the tip of the iceberg), or simply sit on the couch all day, play video games, and get high. Your life and your values are your own.

[...] Whenever I read yet another post of navel-gazing drivel from a 'libertarian', I mentally add "and a pony!" to the end

I am not opposed to private ownership of ponies, if you can afford them.

Edited by Alex Libman, 24 April 2010 - 11:23 AM.

[Lallante]

and a pony!

[EmbraceUnity]

If Anarcho-Capitalists like me would resist a trillion-dollar superpower for violating people's Rights, don't you think we would resist some petty warlords as well?!

Absolutely not, because you define tyranny in a nonsensical fashion. If the majority of people are living in misery, as long as nobody is violating some arbitrary negative liberties this is perfectly acceptable to you.

One of my fears is that technology will enable vertical integration in the extreme. If you have ever gone into a really big Whole Foods store you will notice that they have food courts. WalMart has tried for awhile to get into banking, and are already in a ton of other markets, and most of their logistics and IT are in-house. I once thought... you know what.... Whole Foods should just buy Marriott and create a new company called Whole Life ™. They could create a big indoor Pullman Town and eventually they could start issuing their own currency and pay all their employees only in that currency, to ensure they only buy from the store.

Really this distinction between "public" and "private" is completely arbitrary. A large enough vertically integrated corporation could become as totalitarian as the Soviet Union. I am opposed to all hierarchy, regardless of whether it uses military power or market power. In essence they are the same thing. If you control somebody's food supply, this is no different than holding a gun to their head. In a world where all land is owned it isn't like you can just go out to the woods somewhere and build a f**kin homestead. You are at their mercy, and this is unacceptable.

George Pullman was basically indistinguishable from Stalin. You might want to check out this article for some of the wonders of free enterprise.

There is no way that you could criticize the Pullman Town idea from an anarcho-capitalist perspective.

Edited by progressive, 24 April 2010 - 03:08 PM.