nvm

[a_propagandist]

xar, do you get the definition of anarchy? Cause it seems like you don't.

 

[Princeps]

Judging from Gustave's rhetoric, I'm sure he's very aware of that. He seems to be about as far from a capitalist as they come.

Gustave's probably something of a leftist anarchist, but don't be so convinced that anarcho-capitalists haven't co-opted left revolutionary rhetoric, because they have on occasion, calling their believes an "anticapitalist free market" ideology because they perceive the current capitalism and its rich as protected by various state monopolies (and they're not incorrect, but their alternative is delusional.)

How is it slavery when people are free to choose their actions, as employees or entrepreneurs? You speaking of workers being forced to low pay harsh capitalist conditions seems to imply that the market wont react to pay being too low by competitors increasing wages and getting the labour to work for them until an equilibrium is reached.

Why would the employers allow equilibrium (assuming that it is ever reached in the first place given all the natural distortions) to be reached when they have the advantage of force? In anarcho-capitalism, several employers could freely cartelize and purchase the services of secretive and unaccountable union-busting, slave-driving private militaries.

Also, since private governments would depend on their clients' mindset in how they are able to act,

Why would they if no authority holds them accountable since they are completely unregulated?

The law will have the face of the people, and since the majority are not corporate powers, they couldnt force others to do what they want.

Again why? Wouldn't the private states want to attract more wealthy and powerful "customers", cater to their interests, while keeping down the riffraff, the cheap labor.

Who would stop them?

 

[Atticus]

boy, the absence of rule doesnt mean the absence of law. (since the absence of rule is ideally achieved by dividing power equaly among all citizens)

Rule of the majority is still rule.

 

[Munch]

Anarchocapitalism sounds like the most repulsive system possible, resulting in power (of which profit is the manifest form) concentrated in the hands of those who are unaccountable to anyone. Without a government or other force to impose something resembling moral conduct on the marketplace, the powerful would be able to freely expand their power through reduction in expenses in the form of say, ever reducing wages. It would be a barbarian system of total exploitation.

Anarcho-capitalism is basically another conception of coercion and government, one where the privileges of property owners would be enforced to the extreme (because any violation of their property rights can be considered theft, any regulation is slavery), while those who could be described as have-nots would be rendered politically meaningless because anything other than selling themselves to slavery (i.e. wage labor without any public regulations) would be considered aggression on their part.

 

[JerichoHill]

Look, you're just copying wiki entries from mises.org. I get it. You can't address the free rider issues, nor the Posner-Friedman critique, and most Objectivist's won't touch anarcho-capitalism. Think through such a state logically, it devolves into Always War

 

[Bill3000]

btw, wikipedia adresses the free rider issue: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_defense_agency (then press ctrl+f and type "free rider" if you are too lazy to browse through the text and are thinking of coming whining back about being pissed off at wiki links)

Private defense agency? Uh, don't you mean "nobility"? That's how the damned aristocracies, and especially feudal systems, started in the first place!

 

[Cutlass]

I don't know...the SEC's inaction for years on certain fraudsters seems like a large piece of the government inaction causing problems.

Isn't that what I said? The point is that if you are considering sins of omission, as opposed to sins of commission, then to prevent a recurrence the policy choices you are looking to make are so different that they are near opposites.

It aint a market when politicians give me your money to make dubious loans because you and other private interests wont. Fannie and Freddie and the ideology behind them is at the heart of this. They were "privately" run but govt created and backed, thats a distortion of the market. They were created by govt to make riskier loans because the left didn't like banks' conservative lending policies. Ask Barney Frank, he was a big supporter of both and he shares the mentality that led us into the problem - govt cheap money to induce home ownership. Sounds great, compassionate blah blah blah... Now its time to own up to it or we'll keep repeating these "market collapses" because of the loose nuts behind the wheel.



At F & F their jobs depended on it


check out tonite's Frontline on PBS

If there was a crack dealer living next door to you, does that inherently compel you to become a crack addict?

 

[aelf]

Private defense agency? Uh, don't you mean "nobility"? That's how the damned aristocracies, and especially feudal systems, started in the first place!

Those who do not learn from history are bound to repeat it. Those who do not learn history...

 

[Bill3000]

feudalism can only work in societies where specialization of labour is at a low level and economic relations scarce. We are way past that, and any force trying to form such a society will be crushed due to inability to compete (heck even more sophisticated methods to control labour like socialism have been crushed).

We are "way past that" because we have the rule of law. We are "way past that" because we have governments, because we are civilized, because we have organizations with the monopoly of force and use that power for the public good.

There is absolutely nothing here that suggests that our orderly concepts which allow the contract and property law would be possible in an anarchy, unless you're essentially dealing with small mini-states, at which point it's not anarchy anymore, it's a bunch of decentralized mini-states.

It has nothing in common with a highly free society with little limits on action other than the natural property and human rights that inevitably are established in the competition between PDA-s(for argumentation on this, see the wiki article i posted)

Not convinced. The lust for power and profits would be enough for a soldier to join a PDA; there's no need for honesty there when it's quite clear that human nature allows non-virtuous people to exist. It should be easy enough for a PDA to become powerful enough to oppress weak people. Doesn't have to be a fight between states; merely a fight between bandits and weaker people.

Facing civil liability is irrelevant, as they can coerce the private courts easily. As for taxation, you're dealing with a military organization here - tribute has been very profitable in history. In a stateless society, there's no need for a regular legalized channel for crime and aggression. The mafia works pretty well inventing its own.

No need to deal with the warehouse crap when you're only receiving tribute from groups that are weaker than your mercenary groups.

Hell, there's no need to suggest that the labor would be highly specialized in the first place. Why would it be? It would be in the best interests of any private organization to have as much power over the former roles of the state as possible. This is quite clearly possible from the fact that it's how states came to be in the first place.

 

[Nylan]

feudalism can only work in societies where specialization of labour is at a low level and economic relations scarce.

What makes you say that?

We are way past that, and any force trying to form such a society will be crushed due to inability to compete (heck even more sophisticated methods to control labour like socialism have been crushed).

I'll ignore this until you can defend the premise it's built upon.

It has nothing in common with a highly free society with little limits on action other than the natural property and human rights that inevitably are established in the competition between PDA-s(for argumentation on this, see the wiki article i posted)

Lack of anticipation of human nature has been the fatal flaw of many a system of government.

 

[Gustave5436]

To add historical context, anarchy in ireland lasted 1000 years until england interfered and in iceland for 300 years until norway interfered. both countries were well off under anarchy.

Anarchism as a political theory was not developed until the 19th century. One cannot, after all, oppose capitalism before capitalism has even been implemented.

How is it slavery when people are free to choose their actions, as employees or entrepreneurs? You speaking of workers being forced to low pay harsh capitalist conditions seems to imply that the market wont react to pay being too low by competitors increasing wages and getting the labour to work for them until an equilibrium is reached.

If workers are paid properly for their labor, there won't be a cent left over for the capitalist. Thus, for the "free" market to give workers their proper wages would be for the "free" market to abolish itself, which not only does not occur, but tends to go in the opposite direction; wages fall to the lowest possible levels, only being raised when the workers get fed up with their condition and organize to force the capitalists to give them better working conditions.

 

[Yeekim]

The word you are looking for is "regress." For a free society to transform into an unfree form would be a "regression," not a "progression," assuming one values freedom..

So we've been in a constant regress for these last 12,000 years. Ouch.

One cannot discount class consciousness simply on the grounds that it does not currently exist.

I love this quote. I am going to forward it to religious people around here. "One cannot discount God simply on the grounds that it does not currently exist".
ROFLMAO.

 

[Dachs]

On private defense agencies: I recommend that anybody interested in the theory of such organizations look at the phenomenon of the condottieri and why they were such epic fail.

 

[aelf]

On private defense agencies: I recommend that anybody interested in the theory of such organizations look at the phenomenon of the condottieri and why they were such epic fail.

Yup. Machiavelli, the guru of realpolitik himself, heaped scorn on them. I've never seen real capitalists turn their backs on realpolitik.

 

[Dachs]

Yup. Machiavelli, the guru of realpolitik himself, heaped scorn on them. I've never seen real capitalists turn their backs on realpolitik.

Hahaha, I think Dupuy put it best, claiming that their entire existence was a farce, a Kriegspiel that was first rudely interrupted by the French bolt from the blue under Charles VIII and then utterly ruined by the Italian Wars of the 16th century.

 

[aelf]

Makes me think of small fish fighting in a pond when a much bigger fish suddenly arrives.

 

[SuperSaxon771]

I don't have time to make a comprehensive post on the subject, but a few notes:
-You don't need government to have property rights.
-Externalities are not a reason to intervene in free markets, and just because the market works in a way you don't like doesn't automatically make it a "market failure."
-LOL at the freerider problem. There will be freeriders in any society; characterizing that as a problem is an argument against humanity, not an argument against anarcho-capitalism.
-LOL at being worried about mafias charging protection money. We already have a mafia that charges protection money. It's called government. Pay them 30% of your income or go to jail.

In a purely capitalistic society, in order to prosper, you must help your fellow man (lottery/gambling notwithstanding.) You must create happiness for others in order to be happy yourself. Contrast this with a society that is run by a coercive territorial monopolist, in which bureaucrats enrich themselves at the expense of the rest of us.

 

[aelf]

Anarcho-capitalists, please move to Somalia and prove your arguments. With your infinite faith in the private sector and the unconstrained market, surely you can see a brilliant light at the end of the tunnel in Somalia. Things will sort themselves out, right? Especially since the US isn't keen to go there and interfere after the last time and Ethiopia probably isn't going to stay for long.

Primitive society? With the incentives afforded by a market dominated by private concerns, it wouldn't remain this way. And there's enough population concentration in Mogadishu. People will also organise themselves under armed factions to protect themselves (or have they already?) and everything will be fine and dandy.

 

[Frank327]

Captitalism means competing for money and profit. The best way of making a profit is making people dependent on your product, or to have not enough of the product to supply anyone. These two means of getting virtue in a capitalistic world are bad for human happiness. Therefore, capitalism doesn't serve humanity.

That's really one of the reasons I'm not too fond of (pure) capitalism.

 

[Narz]

Anarcho-capitalism, eh? Sounds like they're trying to have it both ways.

Capitalism of any kind is fubar.