The Moral Bancruptcy of Anarcho-Capitalism

[holy king]

What are you thinking of when you say that unrestricted capitalism leads to bad results. Are you thinking that, in the absence of anti-trust laws businesses will grow too large and become start acting like monopolists?

Or are you thinking that rich corporations will use their wealth to buy influence with the government, or the private protection agencies of anarcho capitalism?

both of course. everyone who disagrees on this hasnt even read marx, and it is absolutely meaningless to discuss economics with people who haven even read marx.

 

[Cutlass]

Marx didn't know anything about economics. What he knew was about sociology.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Yeah, he only wrote a three-thousand page book on the subject.

 

[Cutlass]

And got everything wrong

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Marx's critique of the political economy has served as one of the foundations of the modern understanding of capitalism - even by economists. If you can say with the straight face that Marx said absolutely nothing correctly, then you are more out of touch with society than the Randites and Austrians at whom this thread is directed.

 

[Bill3000]

Or are you thinking that rich corporations will use their wealth to buy influence with the government, or the private protection agencies of anarcho capitalism?

Uh. It's because those which have wealth - which include those corporations - will rationally seek to monopolize the legitimate use of force and thus become a state, which the exception that the state is the private property of the owner. ...which just ends up reverting to your basic feudalistic anarchy of regions being nothing more than a patchwork of land and people in various dictatorships owned and controlled by numerous elite groups.

 

[Cutlass]

The parts of Marx that work are about society and social interactions. Not about rules of economics. More the behavior of people as groups than the behavior of markets. Perhaps he does have more to say on economics than I credit him with. But that doesn't explain why the critiques of Marx that come out of economics work, and the disciples of Marx have never been capable of making socialism work.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Marx didn't write about economic rules in the way that Keynes did, he wrote about socio-economic interactions between people. This is probably why you think he wrote about sociology. Marx wrote about the political economy, a subject which capitalists have done a good job during the past century of divorcing from itself. He did not write about the theoretical structure of an economy, he wrote about the political structure of the capitalist economy, because economics is political.

 

[Mise]

I love how a thread about Anarcho-Capitalism automatically turns into a thread about Communism.

- "hey, I have a question about Anarcho-Capitalism: ___________ ."
- "Well, let me tell you why Communism doesn't work. You see, blah blah blah, blah blah blah, blah blah blah. And that's why Communism sucks."

 

[aelf]

sigh... I'm not even going to bother to respond if you don't want to seriously discuss the issue.

As hard as it may be to believe, people disagree on the facts. That doesn't make them stupid. Infact, in my own experience, people with radical political ideologies tend to be smarter than average.

What are you thinking of when you say that unrestricted capitalism leads to bad results. Are you thinking that, in the absence of anti-trust laws businesses will grow too large and become start acting like monopolists?

Or are you thinking that rich corporations will use their wealth to buy influence with the government, or the private protection agencies of anarcho capitalism?

If you're thinking of the first, this complaint is not particular to anarcho capitalism. Its more of a complaint against libertarianism/free markets in general. Anyways, I don't think this complaint is obvious. Anti trust is really hard to do effectively. The court cases take a long time and by the time they're finished the accused monopolist often has decreased in market share without the verdict.

Anyways, I don't want to go into too much detail on what you may or may not believe. Tell me more about what is so obvious about the failings of unrestricted capitalism and we can understand where the other side is coming from.

oh u are so enlightened oh oh oh. i m tearing at your brilliance, comrade.

And got everything wrong

So did Ricardo then.

 

[Cutlass]

Marx didn't write about economic rules in the way that Keynes did, he wrote about socio-economic interactions between people. This is probably why you think he wrote about sociology. Marx wrote about the political economy, a subject which capitalists have done a good job during the past century of divorcing from itself. He did not write about the theoretical structure of an economy, he wrote about the political structure of the capitalist economy, because economics is political.

While I agree that a lot of economics is inherently tied together with politics, it still comes out looking more that Marx was more sociologist than economist.

 

[Ayatollah So]

Since their fetish is property, propertarianism [...] makes much more sense.

And since property evolved straight out of territoriality - which is, all over the animal kingdom, based on brute force - the moral problem with propertarianism is pretty damn stark.

 

[Yeekim]

oh u are so enlightened oh oh oh. i m tearing at your brilliance, comrade.

The guy may be wrong, but at least he has posted in an intelligent and civilized manner - while all your three posts in this thread amount to simple trolling.

What are you thinking of when you say that unrestricted capitalism leads to bad results. Are you thinking that, in the absence of anti-trust laws businesses will grow too large and become start acting like monopolists? This complaint is not particular to anarcho capitalism. Its more of a complaint against libertarianism/free markets in general. Anyways, I don't think this complaint is obvious. Anti trust is really hard to do effectively. The court cases take a long time and by the time they're finished the accused monopolist often has decreased in market share without the verdict.

I'd say it is complaint against libertarianism in general and anarcho-capitalism in particular - since the latter is just the former taken to th extremes. And while I agree that anti-trust is hard to do effectively, it does not follow we should stop paying any attention to this problem altogether.

Or are you thinking that rich corporations will use their wealth to buy influence with the government, or the private protection agencies of anarcho capitalism?

Anarcho-capitalism prescribes lack of government, which, as most people would agree, is an unattainable goal. All that power vacuums ever create are civil wars... until they get filled. This, I believe, is the greatest, or at least most obvious problem of that ideology.

 

[Kraznaya]

Infact, in my own experience, people with radical political ideologies tend to be smarter than average.

Man, did that ever get disproved in this thread.

 

[superunknown]

Well, maybe there's a reason why Nozick believed that the Night Watchman State was preferable to Anarcho-Capitalism. According to his view, the latter would eventually evolve into some form of state anyway, so it would be better to have a the Night Wachtman State to begin with.

 

[aelf]

The guy may be wrong, but at least he has posted in an intelligent and civilized manner - while all your three posts in this thread amount to simple trolling.

I could rewrite your post talking about communism. we all know that communism leads to totalitarian dictatorships. (this is an axiom and really not up for discussion, i mean seriously....so why do communists on one hand talk about freedom, on the other favour such a system of extreme unfreedom?
stupidity or moral bankruptcy?[/I] But communists don't think their policies lead to unfreedom and totalitarianism. Communists aren't evil people who love dictatorship.

FYI, I consider civilised discussion to involve some actual form of legitimate discussion, not ramming a point down the throats of everyone.

 

[GoodGame]

we all know that unrestricted capitalism leads to extreme power concentrations in the hand of a few capitalist monopolists. (this is an axiom and really not up for discussion, i mean seriously....)
so why do anarcho capitalists on one hand talk about freedom, on the other favour such a system of extreme unfreedom?
stupidity or moral bankruptcy?

Because they live in freedom-guaranteeing republics that allow them to talk in public?!?

 

[BasketCase]

we all know that unrestricted capitalism leads to extreme power concentrations in the hand of a few capitalist monopolists. (this is an axiom and really not up for discussion, i mean seriously....)

And then BasketCase showed up to turn everything on its head.

Unrestricted capitalism results in less concentration of power than previous economic/political systems. Medieval kings had absolute power over everything. Economy, military, religion. And the serfs were much worse off than the common worker today. Before medieval kings, it was even simpler: I would simply stab you with a spear and take your stuff.

Unrestricted capitalism isn't perfect. But restricting capitalism concentrates economic power in the hands of government. That's a step backwards towards the Middle Ages.

 

[civ_king]

Unfettered Capitalism causes new industries to become monopolized because they have the upper-hand in the market and to maximize gain drive competitors out of business and in old industries one eventual gains the upper-hand and drive the others out of business eventually evolving into a small and smaller group controlling until one person ones the top of each and they start intermarrying and then the economy is run by a handful of families, is that not dictatorial? what are the odds with extreme wealth that they will not try to vigorously stamp out opposition?

 

[BasketCase]

No, it's not dictatorial, go read a damn dictionary. So the economy is run by a handful of families. That handful of families is not the government. That's an improvement over what came before: a king or queen who did control the economy.