So, what's wrong with Libertarianism?

[Part_Time_Civer]

But you're not.



States make the law. But states are represented by private actors. I'm not sure what your point is here.



The problem is rather with justice itself. Enforcing contracts is a legal matter. So unless you wish to replace the state by companies (that is, non-state owned enterprises), I don't quite see the point of it. Should the state then be allowed to wither away? And is that even a plausible scenario for the biggest economy on the planet?

I think the confusement here arises from the fact that we don't all use the same definition of libertarianism. While some (including -I think- you) define it as the total absence of a state, others (at least me) define it as a society with a very small state. Yes, there can (and should IMO) be laws against agression (broadly defined) else there can't be lawsuits (hard-nosed libertarians will not agree with me).

Regarding the subject of enforcing contracts, I believe individual actors can collaborate and sue others in an effective way (or negotiate legal settlements, like a group of bondholders of SNS bank are currently doing: http://www.nu.nl/economie/3526246/obligatiehouders-willen-schikking-sns.html).

 

[Part_Time_Civer]

Sure. But a lawsuit is, by definition, the opposite of collaboration. Lawsuits only happen when one side is making a charge, and the other side is refuting it. If that were not true, they would have settled without the lawsuit.

So you know, once it has gone to a lawsuit, that an efficient outcome cannot happen.
.

It's really a very basic part of economics. It's called "transactions costs". Essentially, every transaction between 2 or more parties has some cost of the transaction, independent of what the transaction is about. Often times that transactions cost is small, but often times it is large as well. A lawsuit is the highers possible transactions cost. And that cost is entirely a deadweight loss to the economy.

There's this thing that a lot of people like to bring up called the "Coase Theorum". Coase, an economist, theorized that in the absence of transactions costs, the market could come to efficient outcomes without government. But then he spent the rest of his career saying that there is never actually an absence of transactions costs. Which is to say that in theory it isn't really possible for the market to correctly assign property rights.
.

Correct and agreed. EDIT: I believe Coase was talking about the presence/absence of organizations.

To give an example, if a company is polluting, and people are getting sick as a result, there is no possible remedy through a lawsuit. The only possible remedy is through regulation. Why? Because of asymmetric power, wealth, and information, the ability of the harmed party to bring a lawsuit against a polluter is very weak. Where the ability of the company to fight it is extremely strong. Class action suits partially equalized this power. But that, as an economic matter, is a terrible way to go. The company will never be charged enough money to stop companies from polluting and killing people, and the victims will never receive enough money to compensate their losses. The only winners are the lawyers.

And worse case scenario for the company, it's still cheaper than not having polluted in the first place.

And so pollution is one area where the only economically efficient policy is government regulation.

I disagree. Polution victims can collaborate, a lawyer representing the people of a certain area/city can sue (on a side note, consumers can avoid buying from that company).

 

[Traitorfish]

So soldier wages, like those Gaius Marius instituted, do not constitute a wage-system but merely a convenient way of obtaining soldiery by providing something useful to them which the state had in plentiful supply? It's not a system, because there's no competition between different wage-payers in the same market? What if the Seleukids and Averni had started offering soldiers a higher pay, and many Romans started leaving Rome to accept Greek or Gallic wages. Would it be a market then? Or is this just a bad example overall, because soldiery is a product immediately consumed, and thus produces no net value for society, as Quesnay thought?

Well, it's not even so much a question of there being a market for services, but of whether this market becomes generalised, whether wage-labour becomes the the overriding logic of a society's economic activity. It's possible for wage-labour to be found and even become commonplace within a society, but only when the labour-commodity becomes the reference point for all other commodity-exchanges are you looking at the wage-system in this sense, rather than just a system-of-wages.

 

[Part_Time_Civer]

Well, it's not even so much a question of there being a market for services, but of whether this market becomes generalised, whether wage-labour becomes the the overriding logic of a society's economic activity. It's possible for wage-labour to be found and even become commonplace within a society, but only when the labour-commodity becomes the reference point for all other commodity-exchanges are you looking at the wage-system in this sense, rather than just a system-of-wages.

I'm not saying your wrong, but I don't really understand what you mean. Are you saying that because the Roman soldiers were a minority, and most people were selfemployed, we can't talk of a wage system? If so, isn't that just semantics?

 

[Tahuti]

States make the law. But states are represented by private actors. I'm not sure what your point is here.

The spaghetti monster makes morality. But the spaghetti monster is represented by worldly actors. I'm not sure what your point is here.

I'm so glad that we can reduce your argument to those damn commies just think and talk too much!

I think my ability to engage into civilized debates with other commies disproves this assertion.

I don't disagree. But what you're talking about here are analytical categories. You're saying that it is useful for us to think of certain things in certain ways in certain contexts. What I'm saying is that the concrete level, these distinctions do not exist: there is simply humans, engaged in activity which is at the same time political, economic, cultural, sexual, whatever you want. This isn't about reducing anything to anything else, but on the contrary, about the irreducibility of concrete human experience in to the terms of any one analytical category.

Then why the focus on economics? Or is that an accidental malcharacterization?

Well, as I've said, I tend to see the wage-relation as paramount, so I'd identify the genesis of capitalism with the emergence of a generalised market in labour. From that position, the crux is probably the agrarian reforms in Northern Europe between c.1500 and c.1700, which is the first time in European history were you see a large part of the population were uprooted from the land and, although still remaining within agricultural production, began to work the land as sharecroppers, hired-hands, etc. rather than as either tenant farmers or as serfs.

Essentially, what is known in England as "land enclosure". However, it did not necessarily entail the free transmission of property (including land), which I would consider an essential point. I honestly wouldn't know whether that was theoretically possible at the time. For instance, I would consider racial restrictions to owning land like existed for Chinese Americans well into the 20th century as an example of "not-capitalism".

 

[Traitorfish]

Why is free transmission of property an essential point?

 

[Cutlass]

I disagree. Polution victims can collaborate, a lawyer representing the people of a certain area/city can sue (on a side note, consumers can avoid buying from that company).

It won't work. It never really works. When the problem is caused by a few, and the many are effected, you never get all of the many to agree on a solution.

A program of doing things this way is exactly the same in practice as a program of saying that anyone has a perfect right to harm anyone that they have the ability to harm.

 

[Tahuti]

Why is free transmission of property an essential point?

I thinks that's part of what constitutes capitalism alongside the free ability to use property. It would be a useless term if it also encompasses societies in which property can't be freely traded because of restrictions due to race, social status, religion or gender.

 

[ParkCungHee]

I thinks that's part of what constitutes capitalism alongside the free ability to use property. It would be a useless term if it also encompasses societies in which property can't be freely traded because of restrictions due to race, social status, religion or gender.

If that was the case, Capitalism has existed for...what, 30, 40 years, in spotty areas?

 

[Tahuti]

If that was the case, Capitalism has existed for...what, 30, 40 years, in spotty areas?

If you're really strict about it, like a Libertarian, you could argue Capitalism hasn't existed at all, and we are only aware of its effects because of such "spotty areas". It certainly wasn't there yet in Europe before the mid-18th century.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

It would be a useless term if it also encompasses societies in which property can't be freely traded because of restrictions due to race, social status, religion or gender.

What about nationality / where you happen to live?
Does it matter if you can not freely trade property with me because you are black or because you live in the wrong country?

 

[Traitorfish]

I thinks that's part of what constitutes capitalism alongside the free ability to use property. It would be a useless term if it also encompasses societies in which property can't be freely traded because of restrictions due to race, social status, religion or gender.

But, again, why is that essential? You're really just reiterating the claim that it is, here.

 

[Tahuti]

What about nationality / where you happen to live?
Does it matter if you can not freely trade property with me because you are black or because you live in the wrong country?

Yes. A lot, in fact. But at large, most Western and Asian countries could be described as "Capitalist" anyhow, despite "un-Capitalist" things like immigration laws, tariff and zoning laws. Remember that all talk about economic orders (i.e. "a capitalist economy", "a socialist economy", "mercantilism", etc.) are very gross oversimplifications. There has never been an economy that could be fully described as capitalistic, though most modern Western and Asian countries come as close to it as is politically possible. The USSR never was truly a socialist economy either, nor did socialism ever exist a fully realized economic order either.

These are simply power terms that can frame a debate to make it more accessible. Ideally, we should do away with them and just discuss any aspect of economic policy individually. However, that doesn't last anyway, and you'll eventually get pigeonholed into certain categories. Fairly recently, Innonimatu labeled me a "Libertarian", even though I never described myself as such on CFC, presumably because I seem to be quite pro-market on economics, despite my views on economics as a whole are pretty much constantly evolving in the light of new information.

But, again, why is that essential? You're really just reiterating the claim that it is, here.

I could ask the same question why you think wage-labor would be an essential to capitalism. Certain kinds of anarcho-capitalist thought would certainly fall outside your definition of "capitalism" and I think this discussion is related to the debates between anarcho-capitalists and anarcho-syndicalists claiming Benjamin Tucker and Lysander Spooner as one of them (though both opposed wage-labor).

 

[Traitorfish]

I could ask the same question why you think wage-labor would be an essential to capitalism. Certain kinds of anarcho-capitalist thought would certainly fall outside your definition of "capitalism" and I think this discussion is related to the debates between anarcho-capitalists and anarcho-syndicalists claiming Benjamin Tucker and Lysander Spooner as one of them (though both opposed wage-labor).

Well, I think that wage-labour is essential to capitalism because I think that capitalism is a question of the organisation of social production, of how humans collectively reproduce themselves and their society, so wage-labour is necessarily at the crux of that question. In contrast, you seem to be approaching "capitalism" in terms of legal-political ideals, and it's not yet apparent that the free transfer of property is important for any reason other than because the ideal-type you propose demands it.

 

[Tahuti]

Well, I think that wage-labour is essential to capitalism because I think that capitalism is a question of the organisation of social production, of how humans collectively reproduce themselves and their society, so wage-labour is necessarily at the crux of that question. In contrast, you seem to be approaching "capitalism" in terms of legal-political ideals, and it's not yet apparent that the free transfer of property is important for any reason other than because the ideal-type you propose demands it.

I don't really consider capitalism a legal-political ideal (unless it's in the platonic sense). It's a state of affairs, albeit a hypothetical one, however, that is pretty much true for any economic state of affairs as mentioned earlier. The crux of the problem is that we basically define 'capitalism' differently. We can be bickering about whether capitalism is about legal equality of individuals' property rights (and with it, the ability to exploit profit) or wage labor, but it doesn't change that fundamental problem. It's like arguing whether you prefer milk chocolate over pure chocolate, or vice versa.

Maybe it's for the better we actually agree to abandon the use of the word 'capitalism' when we meet in debates, and that I speak of 'propertarian economics' and you speak of 'wage economics'. Which somehow exposes the futility of our debates, as we have showcased our position against positions that aren't mutually exclusive.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Yes. A lot, in fact.

What I was getting at was, weather in the context of free flow of property institutionalized racism wasn't just as much a prevention of true capitalism as institutionalized nationalism, assuming equal provisions. For instance if we assume that: People who are black may not buy land. Foreigners may not buy land. Aren't both provisions just as much uncapitalistic (assuming your idea of what capitalism is)?

 

[Cutlass]

Well, I think that wage-labour is essential to capitalism because I think that capitalism is a question of the organisation of social production, of how humans collectively reproduce themselves and their society, so wage-labour is necessarily at the crux of that question. In contrast, you seem to be approaching "capitalism" in terms of legal-political ideals, and it's not yet apparent that the free transfer of property is important for any reason other than because the ideal-type you propose demands it.

It may be a necessary condition. But I don't think you could call it a sufficient one.

 

[Tahuti]

What I was getting at was, weather in the context of free flow of property institutionalized racism wasn't just as much a prevention of true capitalism as institutionalized nationalism, assuming equal provisions. For instance if we assume that: People who are black may not buy land. Foreigners may not buy land. Aren't both provisions just as much uncapitalistic (assuming your idea of what capitalism is)?

Since the former is about permanent racial categories, the former is more despicable (and much less capitalistic than the latter, but that's a really minor point). Of course, the latter isn't really a shining example of a capitalist economy either. Though the less intellectually erudite among left-wingers sometimes defend the latter to prevent an alleged "takeover" by investors, which is something that can be seen in countries like Venezuela and a lot of African countries.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

I don't really consider capitalism a legal-political ideal (unless it's in the platonic sense). It's a state of affairs, albeit a hypothetical one, however, that is pretty much true for any economic state of affairs as mentioned earlier. The crux of the problem is that we basically define 'capitalism' differently. We can be bickering about whether capitalism is about legal equality of individuals' property rights (and with it, the ability to exploit profit) or wage labor, but it doesn't change that fundamental problem. It's like arguing whether you prefer milk chocolate over pure chocolate, or vice versa.

Maybe it's for the better we actually agree to abandon the use of the word 'capitalism' when we meet in debates, and that I speak of 'propertarian economics' and you speak of 'wage economics'. Which somehow exposes the futility of our debates, as we have showcased our position against positions that aren't mutually exclusive.

Doing so would acknowledge the legitimacy of your private definition of capitalism. TF would be a fool to indulge that.

 

[DemonicAppleGuY]

Doing so would acknowledge the legitimacy of your private definition of capitalism. TF would be a fool to indulge that.

But why? As you stated the definition is private.

I'm not even sure what the argument is about anyways. Money is simply a convenient representation of property is it not? So without free property transmission there is no transmission of wages, or it is completely unnecessary?

The only reason I can see for this argument existing is that one could more easily frame the wage-labor system as cruel (which would probably be useful to do for those who oppose it) whereas a the free tranmission of property is more of a right and cannot be framed as cruel or anything of the sort, as far as I realize anyways.