The Official Anarchism Thread

Zhwazi
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The Official Anarchism Thread

Since people keep bringing up politics and we keep hijacking threads in the recurring discussions of anarchism, I figured I'd bring it all to one thread and point other people to this thread when they have problems. I don't even remember how many threads got dragged off-topic. I apologize for anyone who's thread that happened to.

If you have questions about anarchism, ask them here and I'll do my best to answer them. If you have objections to anarchism, say them here and I'll do my best to rebut them.

A few common questions/objections that I've seen here.

"Government is necessary."
No it isn't. This seems to be just something people reflexively say without thinking much about it. The government does provide certain services which could aptly be considered "necessary" such as defense, protection, roads, courts, and other things. It is not necessary for government to provide these things. The market can and will offer them if the government is not there. If the government ceased providing those services, (and it does not have to provide those services,) no part of the government would be "necessary" and thus government itself would become unneccessary.

"No anarchist nation has ever succeeded."
I forgot what thread I was in that I got this one. Anarchism literally is "ana-archon", without rulers. Because rulers are ineffective where their rule cannot be enforced, everyplace is anarchy where there is not a police officer or representative of the ruler (or government) present to enforce the ruler's will. Anarchy is not a form of government which a nation has, and happens to be none. Anarchy is the absence of government. An "Anarchist nation" is a contradiction in terms. Also, the amount of success a nation has is proportional to the amount of anarchy within it. That's why the USSR collapsed. That said, there have been successful regions of land which had no effective government. Celtic Ireland, ancient Iceland, early Rhode Island, and the "Wild West" (which by the way actually had lower crime rates than the east coast) are examples. Celtic Ireland was eventually conquered by the British. Not surprising because Britan was a major power at the time. It still took even Britan a long time to do, because no existing power structure was there for them to take over to relay orders.

"Anarchy is chaos."
As I said above, we live our day-to-day lives in anarchy (unless you're a cop or bureaucrat), and those lives are not chaos in the sense "Anarchy" is typically used to illustrate. Anarchy being chaos is contradictory to experience.

"Without government, land ownership is impossible."
No it's not. Land is just like everything else we own. It's just less mobile. We do not need governments to own our clothes, nor our cars. The same applies to land.

"Most people need leaders."
Let them choose their own leaders.

Now, I came to arrive at anarchism (my particular type being market anarchism, or "Anarcho-capitalism") by being a consistent libertarian. Libertarians believe in a moral law of non-aggression: theft, slavery, and murder are wrong. Very few people dispute this for most people. Libertarians differ from most others by applying this moral law to all people. Because the government consists of people, they are not exempt. Theft, slavery, and murder are wrong, even when called tax, law, and war. How libertarian a person is can be measured by how consistently they apply this to government.

Anarchists identify everything that makes the government "the government" as aggressive. Claiming jurisdiction over land they do not own is theft. The courts, consisting of people, cannot aggress against other people, including those in competing court systems (this was just for you, YN5).

Anarchism is not about causing chaos and rampant violence, it's about ending the chaos and rampant violence committed regularly by governments. Anarchists do not believe governments are sacred.

A small portion of anarchists consider themselves "Agorists". I'm part of that small portion. Agorists are free-market anarchists who believe that the solution to the problem of the government is to replace it with non-aggressive alternatives. Because the government is not a big fan of that idea, this just so happens to involve a lot of activity on the black market or gray market.

Agorists have a class-theory somewhat like Marxists (I don't like marxism, I'm not trying to identify with it), but without Marx's overt stupidity. Marx cited the owners of the means of production (capitalists, "borgeoisie") as the oppressive class, Agorists cite the owners of the means of destruction (statists, political class) as the oppressive class. Marx believed the surplus of value created by workers was being stolen by capitalists. Agorists believe the value created by the host population is stolen by the government (called "taxation"). The pattern follows, correcting much marxist idiocy along the way.

Most of the attacks directed at capitalism by the leftists and commies make ten times as much sense if you replace the words "capitalists" with "government", "workers" with "taxpayers", and so on. For example, Capitalism is not creating a powerful elite class that can do as it likes (as MattShizzle pointed out an hour or two ago in another part of the RRS forums). Government is creating a powerful elite class that can do as it likes. It happens to be friends with big business, and so, when not politically posturing and interfering with big business, it tends to be in bed with it behind closed doors. If capitalists are extremely powerful, it's because the government is there for them to take control of. The solution is not to abolish capitalism, but to abolish the government. Leftists ignore this because they have a fetish for big government.

A free market in everything the government presently does would be superior to what we have now. Disjunction between payment and service under government create uneconomic allocation of resources which creates shortages and surpluses, which would be solved by a free market, where you choose how much of what you want. Elimination of competition under government (government has a monopoly military, police force, road ownership, etc) increases costs, decreases quality and quantity produced, creates waste and inefficiency, et cetera, which are all solved on a free market which allows competition.

Example: Would you rather send packages USPS or FedEx? If the government didn't make it illegal for anyone other than USPS to deliver non-urgent letters under $1, do you think you'd rather send mail via USPS or FedEx? Did you know the USPS doesn't meet it's costs from the user fees (stamps and such), so it has to dig into tax money to pay the extra? The USPS is subsidized, so part of it's costs are hidden. Would you rather the USPS just do everything, or should UPS and FedEx be allowed to compete? Other examples of market vs government look a lot like this one. The market is economic anarchism. The government is it's polar opposite.

Are there any more questions about how I think, what I think, why I think what I think, et cetera? I'll just refer people to this thread whenever they ask me about it from here on, so the earlier you ask, the more people will see it.


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Did capitalism evolve in

Did capitalism evolve in opposition to state intervention?


kriz
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Zhwazi wrote: I think we

Zhwazi wrote:

I think we could just boil it down then. We can ignore the questions of how it would work, unless you'd like to provide your own solutions to all of these problems.

My own solution is rather simple, that everyone is guaranteed a minimum amount of resources on which to live, as well as a maximum they cannot exceed and horde for themselves. 

Quote:
What it comes down to is, does rightful control exist? If it does, then property exists.

Of  course it exists...the question is how the society defines "rightful".  You can have something communally owned, and people elect someone to use it for a certain amount of time, and that person has "rightful control".  Or you can have a government that gives "rightful control" up to a limited amount of material resources.

Quote:
If *rightful* control does not exist, morality does not exist, rights do not exist.
  I dont see the connection with morality.  Morality usually is defined by custom or religion. 

Quote:

If property exists, and you want to be totally consistent, then free-market anarchism is the only moral option.

 Theres no problem with consistancy if you limit the amount of property people can own.  Theres no "moral" reason I can see, no matter how you define it, that allows people to own a grotesque amount of resources when others own nothing.


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Noone would argue that

Noone would argue that possessions are anything but a right in free society.  The question is, under anarchy, what would protect your possessions from being taken from you?  Right now we have a government that protects your prossessions from being taken and doesn't limit that amount of possession you can have.  So you have, in a sense, the ability to possess land, for example, across the country, and the government will protect that.  Anarchy is a direct and local government.  If someone owns a lot or vacant building in my town, I would do everything that I could to organize my community into taking the land for our public use.  If the "owner" is a rich man, he may be able to afford a private security company to guard the propery, but good luck with that.  We may have a bit more opposition if the owner is actually a member of the community and has much influence over it's people. He may be able deal with the townsfolk on the matter, but under anarchy, I don't see people being sympathetic to someone that has more than he needs. 

In short, there is a definate difference between, entering someones home, wearing their clothes, putting in a DVD, and getting in their bed without permission, and taking some of the land away from the richest 1%.  Like I said, Anarchy is local direct-action government.  Each town would have it's own limit to the amount that one can own whether it's a lot or a little, and they would decide whether or not to respect a foreigner's (someone that is not a member of the community) claim to possession within the town.  That will be the debate if anarchy comes to town!  My prediction would be that the urban areas would be more socialist since there are stronger class divides, and the rural areas would be more capitalist, maybe.  I'm 100% for anarchy, or at least shinking the size of the government, but the act of taxing the rich is, in my opinion, the government doing for the people what the people would do themselves, if they themselves had the power to do it.   

A daughter of hope and fear, religion explains to Ignorance the nature of the unknowable. -Ambrose Bierce


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Suppose

Suppose you destroy all contracts and laws. What's to stop the rule of the mightiest? It's a given that my liberty will tread upon yours, what's to stop me or anyone from beating you into submission? In all animal species, there is an alpha that will procreate and propagate its rule, be it bees, wolves, or humans. What suggestion do you have to prevent rule without rule? Anarchy is a beautiful sentiment, but how do you suggest achieving anarchy without the"archy"?


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Suppose

Suppose you destroy all contracts and laws. What's to stop the rule of the mightiest? It's a given that my liberty will tread upon yours, what's to stop me or anyone from beating you into submission? In all animal species, there is an alpha that will procreate and propagate its rule, be it bees, wolves, or humans. What suggestion do you have to prevent rule without rule? Anarchy is a beautiful sentiment, but how do you suggest achieving anarchy without the"archy"?


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Quote: It's a given that

Quote:
It's a given that my liberty will tread upon yours, what's to stop me or anyone from beating you into submission?

First of all, Zhwazi is right.  You live your life in Anarchy everyday of your life.  Everytime your on the street and there is no cop around, people are interacting in anarchy.  Anarchy does not inherently bring chaos, although you could say that our existing law enforcement structure is a deterrent against crime.  I would then argue that the actully number of real dangerous criminals would immediately drop when black markets are broken open.  Locally organized (maybe even volunteer) law enforcement bureaus would then be able to concentrate on murderers, rapists, and real public threats. 

Quote:
Suppose you destroy all contracts and laws. What's to stop the rule of the mightiest?  In all animal species, there is an alpha that will procreate and propagate its rule, be it bees, wolves, or humans. What suggestion do you have to prevent rule without rule?

This is a very important statement.  Very relevant to the discussion.  Humans are social animals.  And very hierarchal in structure.  From the villages of the Yanomamo to the Holy Roman Empire.  These hierarchies are sometimes based on irrational mythologies, but are usually synonymous with cultural (subjective) ideas of ownership.  It is my personal opinion that the common capitalist philosopher (I include Zhwazi in this group) embraces the idea of the mightiest, not in intellect, but in resource/market manipulation.  The idea is that by helping yourself become wealthy beyond limit (becoming the mightiest), you will be helping everyone else become wealthier in the process.  I don't see how this could be reconciled with an anarchist society at all.  As I've said before, anarchy is a direct action extremely local government.  Economic laws could not be imposed upon them by any larger bodied organization.  Maybe a Libertarian constitution could include "the right to own as much as you want", but real anarchy has more in common with Geoliberatarian values than Libertarian ones.  In my opinion.   

 

A daughter of hope and fear, religion explains to Ignorance the nature of the unknowable. -Ambrose Bierce


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ShadowOfMan wrote: Quote:

ShadowOfMan wrote:

Quote:
It's a given that my liberty will tread upon yours, what's to stop me or anyone from beating you into submission?

First of all, Zhwazi is right. You live your life in Anarchy everyday of your life. Everytime your on the street and there is no cop around, people are interacting in anarchy. Anarchy does not inherently bring chaos, although you could say that our existing law enforcement structure is a deterrent against crime. I would then argue that the actully number of real dangerous criminals would immediately drop when black markets are broken open. Locally organized (maybe even volunteer) law enforcement bureaus would then be able to concentrate on murderers, rapists, and real public threats.

Quote:
Suppose you destroy all contracts and laws. What's to stop the rule of the mightiest? In all animal species, there is an alpha that will procreate and propagate its rule, be it bees, wolves, or humans. What suggestion do you have to prevent rule without rule?

This is a very important statement. Very relevant to the discussion. Humans are social animals. And very hierarchal in structure. From the villages of the Yanomamo to the Holy Roman Empire. These hierarchies are sometimes based on irrational mythologies, but are usually synonymous with cultural (subjective) ideas of ownership. It is my personal opinion that the common capitalist philosopher (I include Zhwazi in this group) embraces the idea of the mightiest, not in intellect, but in resource/market manipulation. The idea is that by helping yourself become wealthy beyond limit (becoming the mightiest), you will be helping everyone else become wealthier in the process. I don't see how this could be reconciled with an anarchist society at all. As I've said before, anarchy is a direct action extremely local government. Economic laws could not be imposed upon them by any larger bodied organization. Maybe a Libertarian constitution could include "the right to own as much as you want", but real anarchy has more in common with Geoliberatarian values than Libertarian ones. In my opinion.

 

 

Thank you for your responses, they are rather well thought out. While I'm in total agreement with your second statement, I must digress from the first.

In any debate there is always a leader, whether it’s written out by law or a natural assumption. In any social construct, I don't foresee all members being in total agreement during a debate. Perhaps the member who has the most wit wins the debate or one who figures out a common ground. In any case, a leader always comes forth, considering that disagreements do exist. We, as a species, are always competing, be it genes or memes. There’s always a leader, even if it’s not articulated.

I agree that anarchy does not equal chaos, however, it does equal no rule or an(without) archy(rule). I’m inclined to think that liberty is precious and it must be protected, be it a document, a leader, or a honey comb. I think it will take a lot of creativity to preserve the most amount of liberty for all of us. I certainly welcome this sort of creativity as long as it allows my skepticism of the creation.

 


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Quote: While I'm in total

Quote:

While I'm in total agreement with your second statement, I must digress from the first.  In any debate there is always a leader, whether it’s written out by law or a natural assumption. In any social construct, I don't foresee all members being in total agreement during a debate. Perhaps the member who has the most wit wins the debate or one who figures out a common ground. In any case, a leader always comes forth, considering that disagreements do exist. We, as a species, are always competing, be it genes or memes. There’s always a leader, even if it’s not articulated.

Ahh, but the first statement is about order.  What would stop people from killing people in the streets for their purses?  Would murder be illegal under anarchy?  That is the type of debate you refer to, I think, and it should be debated.  And I couldn't agree with you more.  Humans are hierarchal animals and that may never change completely.  I would personally like to see something like the constitution that would reflect what I've heard Dawkins refer to as the Shifting Moral Zeitgeist.  Where liberties like free speech, due process, and even reasonable quantities of private property (democratically determined).  The key to anarchy is democracy.  It may be opressive to some, but it is the best compromise we have.  Anarchy is direct action democracy, not this faux-democracy we call representative democracy.

A daughter of hope and fear, religion explains to Ignorance the nature of the unknowable. -Ambrose Bierce


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ShadowOfMan

ShadowOfMan wrote:

Quote:

While I'm in total agreement with your second statement, I must digress from the first. In any debate there is always a leader, whether it’s written out by law or a natural assumption. In any social construct, I don't foresee all members being in total agreement during a debate. Perhaps the member who has the most wit wins the debate or one who figures out a common ground. In any case, a leader always comes forth, considering that disagreements do exist. We, as a species, are always competing, be it genes or memes. There’s always a leader, even if it’s not articulated.

Ahh, but the first statement is about order. What would stop people from killing people in the streets for their purses? Would murder be illegal under anarchy? That is the type of debate you refer to, I think, and it should be debated. And I couldn't agree with you more. Humans are hierarchal animals and that may never change completely. I would personally like to see something like the constitution that would reflect what I've heard Dawkins refer to as the Shifting Moral Zeitgeist. Where liberties like free speech, due process, and even reasonable quantities of private property (democratically determined). The key to anarchy is democracy. It may be opressive to some, but it is the best compromise we have. Anarchy is direct action democracy, not this faux-democracy we call representative democracy.

I think it’s great that the U.S. government is not a democracy or even a representative democracy. No vote could ever dispel the Bill of Rights. I can’t find any reason not apply that Bill to any human, even despite their nationality. Not even a complete majority can completely throw away our rights (perhaps they can reason against our rights),

Our fate isn’t upon our stars, my dear Brutus, it’s upon ourselves. The fault relies upon the majority and we stand against this behemoth. If we are to maintain liberty, we must analyze all pacts, documents, and governments, even those that appease us. It seems that we seek to oppress our very natures. We live in fear because we fear our very own decisions. The propagation of any absolute is a fight against the very natural forces that support us.

Personally, I think that we must evolve beyond our compartmental thinking to achieve a relative utopia. We must change if our situation is to change, and I think of this in very physical sense. If the “human” race is to survive, we must adapt a type of thought that is beyond our current survival. Otherwise, we’re no better than our lowest class. “We” created the weakest link.


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ShadowOfMan wrote:

qbg wrote:
Did capitalism evolve in opposition to state intervention?

Kinda. The Industrial Revolution took place before the governments of the time were able to stop it. They wanted to preserve the feudal order, but were unable to. Insofar as capitalism is a product of the industrial revolution, I would say so.

If we're talking about a free market, then it cannot exist in any other way than in opposition to state intervention.

kriz wrote:
Zhwazi wrote:

I think we could just boil it down then. We can ignore the questions of how it would work, unless you'd like to provide your own solutions to all of these problems.

My own solution is rather simple, that everyone is guaranteed a minimum amount of resources on which to live, as well as a maximum they cannot exceed and horde for themselves.

This can only be decided arbitrarily.

Quote:
Quote:
What it comes down to is, does rightful control exist? If it does, then property exists.

Of course it exists...the question is how the society defines "rightful". You can have something communally owned, and people elect someone to use it for a certain amount of time, and that person has "rightful control". Or you can have a government that gives "rightful control" up to a limited amount of material resources.

Both solutions are necessarily governmental. Do you have any anarchic solutions?

Quote:
Quote:
If *rightful* control does not exist, morality does not exist, rights do not exist.
I dont see the connection with morality. Morality usually is defined by custom or religion.

The catch is the word "rightful". Right implies morality.

Quote:
Quote:
If property exists, and you want to be totally consistent, then free-market anarchism is the only moral option.

Theres no problem with consistancy if you limit the amount of property people can own. Theres no "moral" reason I can see, no matter how you define it, that allows people to own a grotesque amount of resources when others own nothing.

There is the fact that your ideas of limiting and how much is a "grotesque" amount is entirely arbitrary and baseless versus alternatives.

ShadowOfMan wrote:

Noone would argue that possessions are anything but a right in free society. The question is, under anarchy, what would protect your possessions from being taken from you? Right now we have a government that protects your prossessions from being taken and doesn't limit that amount of possession you can have. So you have, in a sense, the ability to possess land, for example, across the country, and the government will protect that.

You could protect it yourself, or you could contract with a protection agency to protect it, or you could insure your property and the insurer would have an interest in protecting your property from being stolen.

Quote:
Anarchy is a direct and local government.

Anarchy is NO government, if we define government as I do, that being anyone or group which claims ownership rights over territory other than it's legitemately owned property.

Quote:
If someone owns a lot or vacant building in my town, I would do everything that I could to organize my community into taking the land for our public use. If the "owner" is a rich man, he may be able to afford a private security company to guard the propery, but good luck with that. We may have a bit more opposition if the owner is actually a member of the community and has much influence over it's people. He may be able deal with the townsfolk on the matter, but under anarchy, I don't see people being sympathetic to someone that has more than he needs.

There are no unconditional needs. There are only conditional needs. Otherwise, there are desires. You "need" food and water only if the goal is persistant life. If you take the words "need", "necessary", or "require" out of the context of the goals that such needs are prerequisite to satisfying, your talk about "needs" is absolutely irrelevant.

Would you like to add a "goal" to this supposed "need"?

Then, would you like to define "too much" in a way that is not arbitrary?

If neither, I've got nothing to refute here because in effect, nothing meaningful has been said.

Quote:
In short, there is a definate difference between, entering someones home, wearing their clothes, putting in a DVD, and getting in their bed without permission, and taking some of the land away from the richest 1%.

From a standpoint of the actions taken yes. From the standpoint of the binary morality (right or wrong) of those actions, I would like to see some evidence or reason supporting the idea of a difference between the two from an ethical perspective.

Quote:
Like I said, Anarchy is local direct-action government. Each town would have it's own limit to the amount that one can own whether it's a lot or a little, and they would decide whether or not to respect a foreigner's (someone that is not a member of the community) claim to possession within the town. That will be the debate if anarchy comes to town!

Your idea of anarchy is morally indistinguishable from government.

 

Quote:
...the act of taxing the rich is, in my opinion, the government doing for the people what the people would do themselves, if they themselves had the power to do it.

This does not make it right.

Debauchrist wrote:
Suppose you destroy all contracts and laws.

It is not my goal to destroy contract, that is a property right. I want to destroy law insofar as the violently imposed will of the legislature over other people and property not legitemate property of the legislature.

Quote:
What's to stop the rule of the mightiest? It's a given that my liberty will tread upon yours, what's to stop me or anyone from beating you into submission?

The protection agency I have contracted with, or the insurance company not wanting to have to pay for my medical bills but obligated by contract to do so, with failure to do so resulting in the loss of any voluntary, peaceful income from other customers who realize they are not actually being covered.

Quote:
In all animal species, there is an alpha that will procreate and propagate its rule, be it bees, wolves, or humans. What suggestion do you have to prevent rule without rule?

This is not true. Dolphins do not exhibit this behavior. Bonobos do not exhibit this behavior. Humans do not exhibit this behavior. These are three of the most intelligent species on the planet which do not exhibit this behavior.

Quote:
Anarchy is a beautiful sentiment, but how do you suggest achieving anarchy without the"archy"?

Emergent solutions. Supply and demand, people demand solutions, there is profit to be made in meeting these demands in many cases, such as this one, and someone will be out there selling the solution. So long as they sell it on a voluntary basis, i.e., not at the barrel of a gun, it will be anarchic.

ShadowOfMan wrote:

This is a very important statement. Very relevant to the discussion. Humans are social animals. And very hierarchal in structure.

Not always. Sociologists have identified two forms of collectivism, being vertical and horizontal collectivism. Vertical collectivism is hierarchical, horizontal collectivism is more grouping-by-peers. Not all societies are hierarchal if not forced to be, and many of the most radically horizontal collectivists completely reject vertical collectivism and believe in only peer relationships. Humans are not inherently hierarchical, if they were, why would any contrary examples exist? Perhaps your conclusions pertain to the hierarchical, but you cannot simply assume all humans fall under the vertical collectivist banner.

Quote:
From the villages of the Yanomamo to the Holy Roman Empire. These hierarchies are sometimes based on irrational mythologies, but are usually synonymous with cultural (subjective) ideas of ownership.

Non-hierarchal societies do manifest. I believe stating this will allow you to realize this, and I'm not in the mood to go finding examples at the moment, but if the statement is not enough to help you realize otherwise, say so and I'll go find examples.

Quote:
It is my personal opinion that the common capitalist philosopher (I include Zhwazi in this group) embraces the idea of the mightiest, not in intellect, but in resource/market manipulation. The idea is that by helping yourself become wealthy beyond limit (becoming the mightiest), you will be helping everyone else become wealthier in the process. I don't see how this could be reconciled with an anarchist society at all.

Anarchism is not the premise, but the conclusion. The conclusion is that government is immoral and should be done away with. There is nothing in unlimited property rights which contradicts the premises or the conclusion. If you believe there are, please show me, as I would rather be proved wrong than continue spreading incorrect ideas.

Quote:
As I've said before, anarchy is a direct action extremely local government.

Anarchy is no government.

Quote:
Economic laws could not be imposed upon them by any larger bodied organization. Maybe a Libertarian constitution could include "the right to own as much as you want", but real anarchy has more in common with Geoliberatarian values than Libertarian ones. In my opinion.

Libertarianism is the belief that coercion is wrong. Anarchocapitalism is the belief that government is inherently coercive, and therefore wrong. There is nothing in this which contradicts Libertarianism, and it is a logical conclusion of libertarianism.


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It is not my goal to

It is not my goal to destroy contract, that is a property right. I want to destroy law insofar as the violently imposed will of the legislature over other people and property not legitemate property of the legislature.fas

 

It's interesting you bring up property rights. Here are a couple quotes that I found from notable anarchists:

Mikhail Bakunin: "The Revolutionist is a doomed man. He has no private interests, no affairs, sentiments, ties, property nor even a name of his own."

Pierre Joseph Proudhon: "Property is theft."

If your form of anarchy contains property and contracts, then it is watered-down anarchy because it has a degree of rule. 

 

The protection agency I have contracted with, or the insurance company not wanting to have to pay for my medical bills but obligated by contract to do so, with failure to do so resulting in the loss of any voluntary, peaceful income from other customers who realize they are not actually being covered.

 

I'm not sure how you hope to obtain anarchy with protection agencies, medical bills, or income without a commercial system in place full of money and rulers. 

This is not true. Dolphins do not exhibit this behavior. Bonobos do not exhibit this behavior. Humans do not exhibit this behavior. These are three of the most intelligent species on the planet which do not exhibit this behavior.

It is true. The weakest of those species are decimated by their predators and only the fittest survive. It's according to natural law that those members that have a key element for survival will procreate. It's even true in modern society. Go to any "watering hole" and you'll find that most attention is directed towards those individuals that have attributes that we find appealing. An alpha individual or perhaps an alpha group is always present.

The creatures you listed (at least dolphins) have social structures comparable to humans. I'm a little awestruck by a lack of acknowledgment that early human society had alpha males, this  is probably the most conclusive evidence of what happens when humans engage in total anarchy. There is always an alpha and it doesn't have to be a male and this occurs despite written law or total anarchy.

Emergent solutions. Supply and demand, people demand solutions, there is profit to be made in meeting these demands in many cases, such as this one, and someone will be out there selling the solution. So long as they sell it on a voluntary basis, i.e., not at the barrel of a gun, it will be anarchic.

Basically, capitalism is anarchic as long as it's voluntary? Isn't the capitalist system today mostly voluntary?


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Quote: Debauchrist wrote:

Quote:
Debauchrist wrote: It's interesting you bring up property rights. Here are a couple quotes that I found from notable anarchists:
Mikhail Bakunin: "The Revolutionist is a doomed man. He has no private interests, no affairs, sentiments, ties, property nor even a name of his own."
Pierre Joseph Proudhon: "Property is theft."
If your form of anarchy contains property and contracts, then it is watered-down anarchy because it has a degree of rule.

I think that even Zhwazi will agree, most anarchists you find will be anarcho-left of Zhwazi's Agorist Postion. I'm trying to understand how the contradictions are reconciled.
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Zhawzi Wrote: Anarchy is NO government, if we define government as I do, that being anyone or group which claims ownership rights over territory other than it's legitemately owned property.

While governments traditionally do in fact claim ownership rights over territories, we would disagree in this definition of government then. I had said that anarchy is local direct democracy. By this I mean that a government is a union of people in a geographic area that voluntarily organize to determine the rights of the individual insofar as they effect the rights of the other individuals in the union. Federal should deal with human rights in general, basically the bill of rights. If you'll notice that includes the right to own property.
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Kriz wrote: My own solution is rather simple, that everyone is guaranteed a minimum amount of resources on which to live, as well as a maximum they cannot exceed and horde for themselves.
Zhawzi wrote: This can only be decided arbitrarily.

This is a very common stance you take very often Zhawzi and it's very annoying. Sometime arbitrary things are important and need to be decided. I understand that you think that democracy is tyrannical. I understand that not everyone will be completely happy with the democratic decision. But it is the best way we have to resolve a matter. Example: You may think that killing babies (2 year olds even) should be illegal. But you may not be morally opposed to abortion. Some others may be opposed to partial-birth abortions but feel as though abortians can be legitimate medical procedure when done in the first trimester. The line at which a mother is treading on the rights of the child is arbitrary, but that line must be determined, and why not democratically. The mother that would like to be able to kill her young when food is scarce would have her liberties restricted, but you can't make everyone happy all the time. This is the same as a maximum ownership. It maybe arbitrary to decide what is enough and what is not enough, but democracy could and should decide that.
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I wrote:
In short, there is a definate difference between, entering someones home, wearing their clothes, putting in a DVD, and getting in their bed without permission, and taking some of the land away from the richest 1%.
Zhawzi wrote: From a standpoint of the actions taken yes. From the standpoint of the binary morality (right or wrong) of those actions, I would like to see some evidence or reason supporting the idea of a difference between the two from an ethical perspective.

I've gotten you to admit in a previous thread that the concept of ownership is subjective. It only exists in the minds of the owner and the people that respect the title. That's the difference! Binary morality has no clout on a subjective matter by your own reasoning. You just choose not to apply this to ownership.

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Debauchrist wrote: I'm not sure how you hope to obtain anarchy with protection agencies, medical bills, or income without a commercial system in place full of money and rulers.

It's my understanding that he would have us go back to an actual gold standard or Liberty Dollars, and than everyone trades based on what thats worth. I don't understand what will protect the contracts, titles, and deeds without government. In order to own anything without physically possessing it and protecting it, you need some sort of government. Who would settle private disputes over land? The protection agencies (private armies), or the insurance companies?
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Debauchrist wrote:
In all animal species, there is an alpha that will procreate and propagate its rule, be it bees, wolves, or humans. What suggestion do you have to prevent rule without rule?
Zhawzi wrote: This is not true. Dolphins do not exhibit this behavior. Bonobos do not exhibit this behavior. Humans do not exhibit this behavior. These are three of the most intelligent species on the planet which do not exhibit this behavior.

Now I really don't know anything about dolphins society, but humans and bonobos ABSOLUTELY exhibit alpha/hierarchal behavior. The difference between them is obviously population, aggressiveness, and gender status. Bonobos (being such a small population, are less diverse) are female dominated, not through violence, but through sex. There is a very strict hierarchal system among the females and the males seperately, the highest ranking males typically being the sons of the highest ranking females. And how can you say that Humans do not exhibit heirarchal behavior. I never said that humans are inherently heirarchal, and that "horizontal collectivism" couldn't easily be the norm. Capitalism is a total embrace of vertical heirarchy. The one with the most capital is the alpha-human.
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Debauchrist wrote: Basically, capitalism is anarchic as long as it's voluntary? Isn't the capitalist system today mostly voluntary?

I don't really know how voluntary our current capitalist system is. Can I really decide that I don't want to participate? Maybe if I want to be a homeless nomad, which is definately an option I guess. But if I want to stay out of jail (or avoid landmines), I'd need to pay rent or morgages/taxes.

A daughter of hope and fear, religion explains to Ignorance the nature of the unknowable. -Ambrose Bierce


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Debauchrist wrote:

Debauchrist wrote:

It's interesting you bring up property rights. Here are a couple quotes that I found from notable anarchists:

Mikhail Bakunin: "The Revolutionist is a doomed man. He has no private interests, no affairs, sentiments, ties, property nor even a name of his own."

Pierre Joseph Proudhon: "Property is theft."

If your form of anarchy contains property and contracts, then it is watered-down anarchy because it has a degree of rule.

"Property is theft." -Proudhon

"Property is liberty." -Proudhon

"Property is absurd." -Proudhon

Bakunin is the anarchist who gave anarchism a bad name.

Market anarchism is not "watered down" anarchism. The premises that led market anarchists to their conclusions are different form the premises that led left-anarchists to their position. I am a market anarchist, not a left-anarchist.

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I'm not sure how you hope to obtain anarchy with protection agencies, medical bills, or income without a commercial system in place full of money and rulers.

Money is an object, it has no moral standing whatsoever. It's a tool like any other, a common medium of exchange and store of value. There is nothing wrong with money.

The market necessarily has no rulers. It's just the nature of things. Everyone on the free market is a peer. Suppliers have no inherent advantage over demanders, employers have no inherent advantage over employees, there's nothing which contradicts anarchy in a free market with private property.

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It is true. The weakest of those species are decimated by their predators and only the fittest survive. It's according to natural law that those members that have a key element for survival will procreate. It's even true in modern society. Go to any "watering hole" and you'll find that most attention is directed towards those individuals that have attributes that we find appealing. An alpha individual or perhaps an alpha group is always present.

Is this even relevant?

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The creatures you listed (at least dolphins) have social structures comparable to humans. I'm a little awestruck by a lack of acknowledgment that early human society had alpha males, this is probably the most conclusive evidence of what happens when humans engage in total anarchy. There is always an alpha and it doesn't have to be a male and this occurs despite written law or total anarchy.

Define "alpha". All men were not created equal, some are better at some things, so some would be better, but I wouldn't consider it an "alpha" unless it's acting like the alpha in a wolf pack, aggressively excluding everyone else. There is nothing wrong with the appearance of such an "alpha" as someone collecting the means of production, unless the "alpha" is hurting people, in which case it's irrelevant if he's the alpha or not.

If what you meant to say is that "some people are better than others, so one of them will be the best", this doesn't contradict market anarchy. Only if that "best" is being violent do I care, and in such case, they're morally indistinguishable from a government. 

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Basically, capitalism is anarchic as long as it's voluntary? Isn't the capitalist system today mostly voluntary?

Let's avoid the word capitalism until we define it. By Capitalism I mean a free market with private property. We don't have "Capitalism" as I use the word, today.

But yes, an economy is anarchic as long as it is voluntary.


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ShadowOfMan wrote: I think

ShadowOfMan wrote:
I think that even Zhwazi will agree, most anarchists you find will be anarcho-left of Zhwazi's Agorist Postion. I'm trying to understand how the contradictions are reconciled.

There are many many roads to anarchism. There are libertarian anarchists (anarchocapitalists), left-anarchists, anarcho-communists (arguably left-anarchists), christian anarchists (pretty close to right-anarchism, although it's simultaneously very libertarian and very altruistic/communistic), Max Stirner's "anarchy", etc. There are as many ideas calling themselves "anarchy" as there are ideas of government.

Agorism includes all anarchists who are willing to tolerate the other agorists. Meaning, the anarcho-communists who want to force everyone into a commune are not agorists, while the anarcho-communists who are anarchists that happen to believe communal living is the best kind and that people will automatically choose anarcho-communism once the government is gone, they can be agorists.

An agorist society would allow anarcho-capitalism and anarcho-communism and anarcho-syndicalism et cetera to coexist.

My position is basically, that anyone who is willing to leave other people and their life, liberty, and property unmolested, I have no moral issue with. There is no contradiction.

The ones that won't live and let live are the ones I'll contradict. But I don't consider them to be real anarchists because they behave in a way morally indistinguishable from a state. 

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While governments traditionally do in fact claim ownership rights over territories, we would disagree in this definition of government then.

Then we should at least agree on a definition and find a vocabulary to differentiate between the two. 

I'd like the word state to be used in place of my definition. 

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I had said that anarchy is local direct democracy. By this I mean that a government is a union of people in a geographic area that voluntarily organize to determine the rights of the individual insofar as they effect the rights of the other individuals in the union.

Democracy in the sense of voting on things, or democracy in the sense of majority rule? If you mean in the sense of voting for things, then I would contend that your definition of anarchy is just a different kind of state. If you mean in the sense of majority rule, then I interpret the above to mean that the rules of society would be emergent, in order to be consistent with statelessness. 

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Federal should deal with human rights in general, basically the bill of rights. If you'll notice that includes the right to own property.

But this is a state, not anarchy. 

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This is a very common stance you take very often Zhawzi and it's very annoying. Sometime arbitrary things are important and need to be decided.

You're talking about something different. I was saying "you are arbitrarily deciding the specific limits", not "you are arbitrarily picking things that need to be decided on."

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I understand that you think that democracy is tyrannical. I understand that not everyone will be completely happy with the democratic decision. But it is the best way we have to resolve a matter.

Individualism is the best way to resolve a matter (democracy is collectivism). The best way to do things is to leave everyone else alone. Having a democratic system opens the door to nitpickery. If 90% of the population believes X, and 10% believes Y, the 90% can pressure the 10% to change without voting or using force to back the decision. Once a democratic system has been established, it begins driving toward a means for 51% to live off the other 49%.

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Example: You may think that killing babies (2 year olds even) should be illegal. But you may not be morally opposed to abortion. Some others may be opposed to partial-birth abortions but feel as though abortians can be legitimate medical procedure when done in the first trimester. The line at which a mother is treading on the rights of the child is arbitrary, but that line must be determined, and why not democratically.

Why not democratically? Well, let's look at the non-democratic, individualistic alternatives.

Some portion of the population may take out insurance on other people's fetuses. This would mean the insurance company has great motivation to pursuade the potential aborting mothers or murderous parents to not do so, including payment. This payment would be coming from the busybodies, but consider that in this arrangement, everybody involved is getting what they want. The busybodies are saving lives, which they want. The parents are getting enough money that it becomes worth not aborting or killing the baby, so they get what they want (a net profit). The insurance company is certainly making a profit.

Consider too, that when the costs of paying people not to do things becomes too great, as it does when too large a proportion of the population believes otherwise to be controlled into behaving according to majority will, the rule becomes invalid as it becomes too expensive to enforce.

Why do you need democracy and violence when you could do this?

If someone paid you $100,000 to have a baby rather than abort it, would you be convinced to have the baby and not abort it? People are comparing the values of alternatives. Surely when weighing $100,000 against aborting a baby, in 99% of cases, the $100,000 is more desirable than the inconvenience of bearing out the child.

This level of pursuasive output bribe couldn't be had if abortion was practiced by more than a percent or two of the population.

But in this way, the rules of society other than the essentials of defending one's own life, liberty, and property, could be enforced without force. Majority rule without minority tyrannization.

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The mother that would like to be able to kill her young when food is scarce would have her liberties restricted, but you can't make everyone happy all the time.

Yes you can. There wouldn't be anything wrong with the mother not feeding her kids. If the kids aren't happy, they're free to go work and trade for food. If society doesn't approve of starving children, there's charity. And the same insurance-type thing I mentioned before.

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This is the same as a maximum ownership. It maybe arbitrary to decide what is enough and what is not enough, but democracy could and should decide that.

No it should not. If by democracy you mean "society making a decision" I don't completely disagree with you, but if you mean to say that any group of people has any natural right to force it's will upon any other group of people except in self defense, I do disagree with you.

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I've gotten you to admit in a previous thread that the concept of ownership is subjective. It only exists in the minds of the owner and the people that respect the title.

The people that do not respect the property right cannot simultaneously assert any property rights while violating them. All rights are property rights. Therefore they people who didn't respect the title, would have no rights. They're an animal. They have, and need, no rights for any action taken, but nobody else needs any rights for any action taken in reguard to that human.

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That's the difference! Binary morality has no clout on a subjective matter by your own reasoning. You just choose not to apply this to ownership.

I do apply this to ownership. That's why there's a "person" and "animal" class in the first place. "People" respect property and need rights to use property. "Animals" have no rights but need no rights. People can deal with animals as animals deal with animals. People deal with people differently though. Those who respect property treat those who respect property differently for that reason.

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It's my understanding that he would have us go back to an actual gold standard or Liberty Dollars, and than everyone trades based on what thats worth.

I personally prefer gold, but I won't force everyone else to use it. The market will decide the best forms of money. 

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I don't understand what will protect the contracts, titles, and deeds without government.

Stefan Molyneux's idea is the reputation, basically. You know how reputation works on eBay? Don't deal with people that have bad reputations. You know how you have a credit score? Banks won't deal with you reasonably if yours sucks. How about a "credit-score" thing available to everybody, based on your previous history of living up to your end of the bargain? The greater the risk you are, the more people will demand from you because they don't know for sure that they're going to get anything from you in the first place.

Another idea he advocates is DROs, or an insurance company for contracts. If you make a contract, the other guy breaks it, the DRO/Insurance company doesn't want to pay you out of it's own pocket, it wants to go and get the other guy to live up to their end of the bargain, possibly by offering more economic incentives, and able to go up to slightly less than it would cost them to fully restitute their customer on the insured contract.

There's also the idea of any contract necessarily naming within it an arbiter who will have the authority to act on behalf of either side should one violate the terms, causing any enforcement action taken by the court, to have been consented to in advance, making it voluntary and not contradictory to statelessness.

 

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In order to own anything without physically possessing it and protecting it, you need some sort of government.

No you don't.

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Who would settle private disputes over land? The protection agencies (private armies), or the insurance companies?

PA's != Private Armies. There's a big difference. And yes, insurance companies too. At some point, the insurance company might recognize that yeah, this case will go on forever, let's just pay the other guy to relent so he'll leave us alone.

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Now I really don't know anything about dolphins society, but humans and bonobos ABSOLUTELY exhibit alpha/hierarchal behavior. The difference between them is obviously population, aggressiveness, and gender status. Bonobos (being such a small population, are less diverse) are female dominated, not through violence, but through sex. There is a very strict hierarchal system among the females and the males seperately, the highest ranking males typically being the sons of the highest ranking females. And how can you say that Humans do not exhibit heirarchal behavior. I never said that humans are inherently heirarchal, and that "horizontal collectivism" couldn't easily be the norm. Capitalism is a total embrace of vertical heirarchy. The one with the most capital is the alpha-human.

I'm not anti-hierarchy. I'm anti-compulsory hierarchy. Voluntary hierarchy is just people freely choosing to act. If employ you and I tell you to wash the toilets, I'm not gonna force you at gunpoint to wash the toilets. You choose to wash the toilets. The option is always available to you to not wash the toilets, and you'll suffer no unnecessary consequences for this. I might fire you, but that's because you are not supplying the demanded services.

At least to me, "alpha male" implies something of a male who maintains his status by constantly aggressing against the others. Dropping the "Male" part, the idea is the same, but not the gender necessarily. Maybe we're using "alpha" to mean two different things, but to me the implication is aggression, which I'm opposed to.


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ShadowOfMan wrote: Quote:

ShadowOfMan wrote:
Quote:
Debauchrist wrote: It's interesting you bring up property rights. Here are a couple quotes that I found from notable anarchists: Mikhail Bakunin: "The Revolutionist is a doomed man. He has no private interests, no affairs, sentiments, ties, property nor even a name of his own." Pierre Joseph Proudhon: "Property is theft." If your form of anarchy contains property and contracts, then it is watered-down anarchy because it has a degree of rule.
I think that even Zhwazi will agree, most anarchists you find will be anarcho-left of Zhwazi's Agorist Postion. I'm trying to understand how the contradictions are reconciled.
Quote:
Zhawzi Wrote: Anarchy is NO government, if we define government as I do, that being anyone or group which claims ownership rights over territory other than it's legitemately owned property.
While governments traditionally do in fact claim ownership rights over territories, we would disagree in this definition of government then. I had said that anarchy is local direct democracy. By this I mean that a government is a union of people in a geographic area that voluntarily organize to determine the rights of the individual insofar as they effect the rights of the other individuals in the union. Federal should deal with human rights in general, basically the bill of rights. If you'll notice that includes the right to own property.
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Kriz wrote: My own solution is rather simple, that everyone is guaranteed a minimum amount of resources on which to live, as well as a maximum they cannot exceed and horde for themselves. Zhawzi wrote: This can only be decided arbitrarily.
This is a very common stance you take very often Zhawzi and it's very annoying. Sometime arbitrary things are important and need to be decided. I understand that you think that democracy is tyrannical. I understand that not everyone will be completely happy with the democratic decision. But it is the best way we have to resolve a matter. Example: You may think that killing babies (2 year olds even) should be illegal. But you may not be morally opposed to abortion. Some others may be opposed to partial-birth abortions but feel as though abortians can be legitimate medical procedure when done in the first trimester. The line at which a mother is treading on the rights of the child is arbitrary, but that line must be determined, and why not democratically. The mother that would like to be able to kill her young when food is scarce would have her liberties restricted, but you can't make everyone happy all the time. This is the same as a maximum ownership. It maybe arbitrary to decide what is enough and what is not enough, but democracy could and should decide that.
Quote:
I wrote: In short, there is a definate difference between, entering someones home, wearing their clothes, putting in a DVD, and getting in their bed without permission, and taking some of the land away from the richest 1%. Zhawzi wrote: From a standpoint of the actions taken yes. From the standpoint of the binary morality (right or wrong) of those actions, I would like to see some evidence or reason supporting the idea of a difference between the two from an ethical perspective.
I've gotten you to admit in a previous thread that the concept of ownership is subjective. It only exists in the minds of the owner and the people that respect the title. That's the difference! Binary morality has no clout on a subjective matter by your own reasoning. You just choose not to apply this to ownership.
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Debauchrist wrote: I'm not sure how you hope to obtain anarchy with protection agencies, medical bills, or income without a commercial system in place full of money and rulers.
It's my understanding that he would have us go back to an actual gold standard or Liberty Dollars, and than everyone trades based on what thats worth. I don't understand what will protect the contracts, titles, and deeds without government. In order to own anything without physically possessing it and protecting it, you need some sort of government. Who would settle private disputes over land? The protection agencies (private armies), or the insurance companies?
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Debauchrist wrote: In all animal species, there is an alpha that will procreate and propagate its rule, be it bees, wolves, or humans. What suggestion do you have to prevent rule without rule? Zhawzi wrote: This is not true. Dolphins do not exhibit this behavior. Bonobos do not exhibit this behavior. Humans do not exhibit this behavior. These are three of the most intelligent species on the planet which do not exhibit this behavior.
Now I really don't know anything about dolphins society, but humans and bonobos ABSOLUTELY exhibit alpha/hierarchal behavior. The difference between them is obviously population, aggressiveness, and gender status. Bonobos (being such a small population, are less diverse) are female dominated, not through violence, but through sex. There is a very strict hierarchal system among the females and the males seperately, the highest ranking males typically being the sons of the highest ranking females. And how can you say that Humans do not exhibit heirarchal behavior. I never said that humans are inherently heirarchal, and that "horizontal collectivism" couldn't easily be the norm. Capitalism is a total embrace of vertical heirarchy. The one with the most capital is the alpha-human.
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Debauchrist wrote: Basically, capitalism is anarchic as long as it's voluntary? Isn't the capitalist system today mostly voluntary?
I don't really know how voluntary our current capitalist system is. Can I really decide that I don't want to participate? Maybe if I want to be a homeless nomad, which is definately an option I guess. But if I want to stay out of jail (or avoid landmines), I'd need to pay rent or morgages/taxes.

I'm not sure how Zhwazi's position is even anarchist. I'm not sure how letting market forces run human society as opposed to government isn't just replacing one despot for another. Instead of Bush or Stalin, it can be Ebay or the textile industry.

I think it's fairly obvious what the global market is doing to humanity. Market forces figured out rather than enslaving a race and having to transport it, it's cheaper and more efficient to exploit third world countriesI mean, where are the Ethopians going to run, they're already home. It's also a lot less messy since people no longer have to see another race being abused; it's out of sight and out of mind. How would a global free market society be any different from a governmental/market partnership that is endured today? I doubt it'll be any different, the cheapest renewable resources isn't the sun, it's human blood and sweat.


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Debauchrist wrote:

Debauchrist wrote:
I'm not sure how Zhwazi's position is even anarchist. I'm not sure how letting market forces run human society as opposed to government isn't just replacing one despot for another. Instead of Bush or Stalin, it can be Ebay or the textile industry.

The difference is choice. You choose to deal with eBay. If you don't like eBay, you never have to visit their website, you can boycott paypal (and there's plenty of good reason to do so). With Bush or Stalin or Hitler, you do not choose whether or not to deal with them. They make that choice for you and force you to live with that choice.

The "X industry" is only homogenized and given power by governments. They are also restrained by governments, but this is the government solving a problem only it could solve because it's a problem only it could create in the first place.

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I think it's fairly obvious what the global market is doing to humanity.

Raising our standard of living, giving us better and better technology and means to satisfy our ends...it's wonderful, isn't it?

Compare how the present generation lives to how people lived in 1700, and every prior generation in the history of the world. It is fairly obvious what the market is doing to humanity. Elevating it.

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Market forces figured out rather than enslaving a race and having to transport it, it's cheaper and more efficient to exploit third world countriesI mean, where are the Ethopians going to run, they're already home. It's also a lot less messy since people no longer have to see another race being abused; it's out of sight and out of mind.

I wrote a big wall of text on this issue and I'm going to basically copy-paste it for your reading pleasure. You are economically ignorant.

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An economy moves from subsistence agrarian economy to partial mechanization and sweatshops to greater and greater levels of mechanization and lower and lower levels of required human suffering. The process of industrialization is the process of bringing in better and better tools. You have to start from dirt and rocks and trees and build from that. You cannot simply bring in A/C units to subsaharan africa and they'll buy them and have a raised standard of living, including power, plumbing, wage rates, infrastructure of various other types, et cetera. There are things they need more than that. They need food, they need tools to get food, they need a place to live, they need water, they need tools to clean water. The effort must be expended toward solving these more desperate problems before raising them to something we in developed countries call a standard of living. What they need is the most inexpensive effective solution to these problems they can get. They don't need pumps and piping networks and desal plants and faucet water filters we buy at the store. There are too many who are too desperate. What they need is not a few little electric pumps, they need lots and lots and lots of hand-pumps, that's what effort is best spent towards, and there is a desperate need for it. Our capacity to build technology to send to them is limited. Once we satisfy their needs for hand-pumps, we can start focusing on electric pumps. Once we satisfy their needs for electric pumps, we can start building plumbing networks. But the need for hand pumps is too great, if effort that could be spent towards making handpumps were spent making a plumbing network, you would be left with a network fed by handpumps, and not enough handpumps to supply the plumbing with water, much less water pressure. This effect applies to the entire economy. Yes, hand pumps suck. Manual labor sucks. Sweatshops suck. But they are a necessary step. If you take this step out of the process, the economy will never develop.

When you complain about them being exploited, you are complaining about how the company would rather give money to people in a poor country than give money to people in a rich country.

America and Europe are only where they are because they went through the sweatshop and manual labor stages decades and centuries ago. Africa and Asia can't just depend on the economy of the more developed countries to give them everything they want, because the developed economies have a limited capacity to export the technology. These economies must build themselves. And they do, when permitted to, and with the growth of the economy comes a growth in the standard of living.

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How would a global free market society be any different from a governmental/market partnership that is endured today?

Markets are voluntary. That's part of the definition of the market, is voluntary exchanges. When it is voluntary, you have the automatic guarantee that both parties in the exchange are benefitting. The world is not zero-sum, both parties can benefit, and they do. This is why it would be different. And how would it be different? It would be better. You would no longer have win/lose relationships, only win/win relationships are compatible with voluntary interaction. That this can only be good for humanity ought to be obvious.

Government/market partnerships do not exist. Government/corporate partnershps do. And corporations, being legal fictions, are creations of governments. The government/corporate partnership is an alliance between the government and itself.

So I don't know what government/market partnership you're talking about. Have some examples?

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I doubt it'll be any different, the cheapest renewable resources isn't the sun, it's human blood and sweat.

Not true, and I could mathematically prove this by comparing the prices of human labor (wages) and the costs of gathering and using sunlight and it's various manifestations, but the stupidity of the quoted statement should be self evident. The sun has no price because the sun is not scarce. Human labor is scarce, there is a limited supply which is not sufficient to meet our demands. Is any further proof necessary?


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The difference is choice.


The difference is choice. You choose to deal with eBay. If you don't like eBay, you never have to visit their website, you can boycott paypal (and there's plenty of good reason to do so). With Bush or Stalin or Hitler, you do not choose whether or not to deal with them. They make that choice for you and force you to live with that choice.

The "X industry" is only homogenized and given power by governments. They are also restrained by governments, but this is the government solving a problem only it could solve because it's a problem only it could create in the first place.

Well, you can boycott the U.S. government if you want. In fact, there's a provision in the Declaration of Independence that specifically says to take up arms against a corrupt government. There's no difference between the choice you're suggesting and the choice that is available to you now. It's pretty obvious which choice you made, and it just seems pretty hyprocritical to me.

 

Raising our standard of living, giving us better and better technology and means to satisfy our ends...it's wonderful, isn't it?

Compare how the present generation lives to how people lived in 1700, and every prior generation in the history of the world. It is fairly obvious what the market is doing to humanity. Elevating it.

The only markets that "elevate" are the ones enjoyed by countries with stable governments. Isn't it amazing how some countries don't even have technology that surpasses european technology in 1700? What are you, a spoiled American kid?

I wrote a big wall of text on this issue and I'm going to basically copy-paste it for your reading pleasure. You are economically ignorant.

Quote:
An economy moves from subsistence agrarian economy to partial mechanization and sweatshops to greater and greater levels of mechanization and lower and lower levels of required human suffering. The process of industrialization is the process of bringing in better and better tools. You have to start from dirt and rocks and trees and build from that. You cannot simply bring in A/C units to subsaharan africa and they'll buy them and have a raised standard of living, including power, plumbing, wage rates, infrastructure of various other types, et cetera. There are things they need more than that. They need food, they need tools to get food, they need a place to live, they need water, they need tools to clean water. The effort must be expended toward solving these more desperate problems before raising them to something we in developed countries call a standard of living. What they need is the most inexpensive effective solution to these problems they can get. They don't need pumps and piping networks and desal plants and faucet water filters we buy at the store. There are too many who are too desperate. What they need is not a few little electric pumps, they need lots and lots and lots of hand-pumps, that's what effort is best spent towards, and there is a desperate need for it. Our capacity to build technology to send to them is limited. Once we satisfy their needs for hand-pumps, we can start focusing on electric pumps. Once we satisfy their needs for electric pumps, we can start building plumbing networks. But the need for hand pumps is too great, if effort that could be spent towards making handpumps were spent making a plumbing network, you would be left with a network fed by handpumps, and not enough handpumps to supply the plumbing with water, much less water pressure. This effect applies to the entire economy. Yes, hand pumps suck. Manual labor sucks. Sweatshops suck. But they are a necessary step. If you take this step out of the process, the economy will never develop.

When you complain about them being exploited, you are complaining about how the company would rather give money to people in a poor country than give money to people in a rich country.

America and Europe are only where they are because they went through the sweatshop and manual labor stages decades and centuries ago. Africa and Asia can't just depend on the economy of the more developed countries to give them everything they want, because the developed economies have a limited capacity to export the technology. These economies must build themselves. And they do, when permitted to, and with the growth of the economy comes a growth in the standard of living.

Wow, that is pretty ignorant. You totally ignored the infrastructure required to produce this technology. You have design, implementation, and maintenance costs. Contrary to popular belief, solar energy conversion and storage is quiet expensive, even more than fossil fuels. Who's going to produce the energy required to drive your mechanized society? Who's going to maintain the technology and repair it when it breaks. Who is going to operate these machines? It costs vastly more in terms of energy to operate a mechanized society.

The market really doesn't care about morality. If it was more efficient not to exploit third world countries, then the market would simply create those neat machines you speak of. Almost every person in the U.S. is guilty of exploiting sweatshops by buying their clothes among various retail outlets such as Walmart. The blame of explotation lies with both, the corporations and the consumers.

Markets are voluntary. That's part of the definition of the market, is voluntary exchanges. When it is voluntary, you have the automatic guarantee that both parties in the exchange are benefitting. The world is not zero-sum, both parties can benefit, and they do. This is why it would be different. And how would it be different? It would be better. You would no longer have win/lose relationships, only win/win relationships are compatible with voluntary interaction. That this can only be good for humanity ought to be obvious.

Government/market partnerships do not exist. Government/corporate partnershps do. And corporations, being legal fictions, are creations of governments. The government/corporate partnership is an alliance between the government and itself.

So I don't know what government/market partnership you're talking about. Have some examples?

You're definition of markets and government are nothing more than sentiment. Governments really have nothing to do with market? You're really stretching the word "voluntary" in all of your assumptions. You can voluntarily follow the law as you can voluntarily participate in the market. There is no change between what you suggest and what is happening at this very moment.

Not true, and I could mathematically prove this by comparing the prices of human labor (wages) and the costs of gathering and using sunlight and it's various manifestations, but the stupidity of the quoted statement should be self evident. The sun has no price because the sun is not scarce. Human labor is scarce, there is a limited supply which is not sufficient to meet our demands. Is any further proof necessary?

Really? Please mathematically prove solar energy conversion and containment is cheaper than exploiting a group of people. The statement was a metaphorical comparison between solar energy and human labor, I'm sorry that you needed this explained to you.


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Zhwazi.....I want you to

Zhwazi.....I want you to know that I respect your point of view.  I'm also beginning to think that eventually, your ideas would truely create a world where everyone is an equal peer.  BUT, it's the type of thing that, no matter how we eventually get to a point where we have the utopia we are all looking for, we will look back and discover that there was a much easier way that we could have done it.  I think your ideas will take a very, very long time to accomplish.  Once we figure out a way to power everything with water and we all have a robot clone to do all the work for us, than we can finally get rid of economies all together.  Maybe people could just live and provide everything that they want DIY style.  And at that point we will all look back and say, did humans really act that way?  Did they really trade work for paper for goods/services?  I don't know, maybe we will have to have a collective brain for that to happen.  Anyway......

 

A daughter of hope and fear, religion explains to Ignorance the nature of the unknowable. -Ambrose Bierce


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Quote: Quote: I think it's

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I think it's fairly obvious what the global market is doing to humanity.

 

 

Raising our standard of living, giving us better and better technology and means to satisfy our ends...it's wonderful, isn't it?

Compare how the present generation lives to how people lived in 1700, and every prior generation in the history of the world. It is fairly obvious what the market is doing to humanity. Elevating it.

It is true that the standard of living has increased in the US, Europe, ect., but you completely ignore the fact that third world nations are worse off than their previous tribal existances.  They have been forced off of the free (un-owned lands of their anscestors) and onto reservations.  The worst lands in the area most often.  Do you think that the Native Americans standard of living has increased here in the US? 

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Markets are voluntary. That's part of the definition of the market, is voluntary exchanges. When it is voluntary, you have the automatic guarantee that both parties in the exchange are benefitting. The world is not zero-sum, both parties can benefit, and they do. This is why it would be different. And how would it be different? It would be better. You would no longer have win/lose relationships, only win/win relationships are compatible with voluntary interaction. That this can only be good for humanity ought to be obvious.

Government/market partnerships do not exist. Government/corporate partnershps do. And corporations, being legal fictions, are creations of governments. The government/corporate partnership is an alliance between the government and itself.

So I don't know what government/market partnership you're talking about. Have some examples?

It's this type of shit that aaaalllllllllllmost convinces me.  I really wish there was a working example that we could look at (not just the black market, but an entire economy I mean).  And again, I could almost picture it working if it wasn't for the land/water thing.  There is enough food produced to feed the world population many times over.  With voluntary markets in place all over the world, why are people starving?  Why are people starving in the US?  Wouldn't it be better if we got rid of markets all together.  Make everything free.  I wouldn't be heart-broken if production went down.  We produce too much shit anyway.

A daughter of hope and fear, religion explains to Ignorance the nature of the unknowable. -Ambrose Bierce


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Quote: Quote: While

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While governments traditionally do in fact claim ownership rights over territories, we would disagree in this definition of government then.

 

 

Then we should at least agree on a definition and find a vocabulary to differentiate between the two. 

I'd like the word state to be used in place of my definition. 

I'm not trying to be difficult here, but I would call a State, a geographic region, and specifically, everyone that lives within it.  I would call Government, a network of people, trusted or untrusted, in defining the rights of the persons within a state.  Local, direct government, having the least possible bureaucratic entrophy. 

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I had said that anarchy is local direct democracy. By this I mean that a government is a union of people in a geographic area that voluntarily organize to determine the rights of the individual insofar as they effect the rights of the other individuals in the union.

 

 

Democracy in the sense of voting on things, or democracy in the sense of majority rule? If you mean in the sense of voting for things, then I would contend that your definition of anarchy is just a different kind of state. If you mean in the sense of majority rule, then I interpret the above to mean that the rules of society would be emergent, in order to be consistent with statelessness.

Well I don't mean representative government.  What I do mean is, voting on actual issues directly.  Important issues could be raised to morality status, such as freedom of speech, thought, the right to own property even.  These moral issues could be held in high regard by the State, just like the bill of rights is now.  But less important issues could be decided by the local communities to appeaze more people than the current US government could ever hope to. 

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This is the same as a maximum ownership. It maybe arbitrary to decide what is enough and what is not enough, but democracy could and should decide that.

 

 

No it should not. If by democracy you mean "society making a decision" I don't completely disagree with you, but if you mean to say that any group of people has any natural right to force it's will upon any other group of people except in self defense, I do disagree with you.

I exactly mean "society making a decision".  But I would suggest to you that the concept of ownership, in some cases, IS a form of forcing will upon another group of people.  Owning the sun is absurd.  Owning air is absurd.  Owning land is, to a slight degree, a lesser absurdity, but none the less, absurd.  Owning the oil that happens to be under your layer of crust is absurd.  I see absolutely nothing wrong with owning a house and yard, a car, a computer, or a dildo.  Even several acres of yard wouldn't be crazy.  The Geolibertarian ideas of taxing the ownership of everything that is natural is so completely reasonable to me.  I really see no other option.  

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I've gotten you to admit in a previous thread that the concept of ownership is subjective. It only exists in the minds of the owner and the people that respect the title.

 

 

The people that do not respect the property right cannot simultaneously assert any property rights while violating them. All rights are property rights. Therefore they people who didn't respect the title, would have no rights. They're an animal. They have, and need, no rights for any action taken, but nobody else needs any rights for any action taken in reguard to that human.

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That's the difference! Binary morality has no clout on a subjective matter by your own reasoning. You just choose not to apply this to ownership.

 

 

I do apply this to ownership. That's why there's a "person" and "animal" class in the first place. "People" respect property and need rights to use property. "Animals" have no rights but need no rights. People can deal with animals as animals deal with animals. People deal with people differently though. Those who respect property treat those who respect property differently for that reason.

I see your point of view on this matter, but I completely disagree.  I don't believe that all rights are property rights, and while I know that all humans are animals, I would NEVER, EVER condon anyone treating a human like they would treat a pig.  Not even Bush.

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It's my understanding that he would have us go back to an actual gold standard or Liberty Dollars, and than everyone trades based on what thats worth.

 

 

I personally prefer gold, but I won't force everyone else to use it. The market will decide the best forms of money. 

Dude, seriously.  Please, please.  I want your opinion on a documentary.  The Money Masters.   

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8753934454816686947

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2665915773877500927                                         

It's very interesting, but long.  Please give it a chance.  I don't know if I agree with any of it yet.  Just wanting your opinion. 

       

A daughter of hope and fear, religion explains to Ignorance the nature of the unknowable. -Ambrose Bierce


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Debauchrist wrote: Well,

Debauchrist wrote:

Well, you can boycott the U.S. government if you want. In fact, there's a provision in the Declaration of Independence that specifically says to take up arms against a corrupt government. There's no difference between the choice you're suggesting and the choice that is available to you now. It's pretty obvious which choice you made, and it just seems pretty hyprocritical to me.

 The agorist method of counter-economics doesn't require a direct confrontation with government. I'm doing nothing hypocritical, I'm not paying taxes, I'm not being subservient, I'm being free, I'm just not making myself a warm target.

 

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The only markets that "elevate" are the ones enjoyed by countries with stable governments.

All markets elevate. Governments bring down. Markets produce and distribute, governments destroy and confiscate. 

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Isn't it amazing how some countries don't even have technology that surpasses european technology in 1700?

Which is a result of government, whether you realize it or not. 

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What are you, a spoiled American kid?

Spoiled isn't the word I'd use.


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Wow, that is pretty ignorant. You totally ignored the infrastructure required to produce this technology. You have design, implementation, and maintenance costs.

I did? so when I said like "Once we satisfy their needs for electric pumps, we can start building plumbing networks. But the need for hand pumps is too great, if effort that could be spent towards making handpumps were spent making a plumbing network, you would be left with a network fed by handpumps, and not enough handpumps to supply the plumbing with water, much less water pressure.", this has nothing to do with the problem of infrastructure?

I'm not going to write a fucking book about all the little intricacies of industrializing the subsaharan. This is explaining the concept as well as it needs to be explained.

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Contrary to popular belief, solar energy conversion and storage is quiet expensive

Most of our energy is solar. When coal is burned, you look back towards the source of that energy and you find compressed peat, which comes form plants, which get their energy from the sun. Photovoltiatic cells are an insanely inefficient mechanism, of course, that's partially why we use other forms of collecting, storing, and using it.

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Who's going to produce the energy required to drive your mechanized society?

The market will find a solution.

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Who's going to maintain the technology and repair it when it breaks.

The owner or someone he pays to do it. 

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Who is going to operate these machines?

People who know how. 

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It costs vastly more in terms of energy to operate a mechanized society.

 It costs vastly less in terms of human suffering to operate a mechanized society.

 

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The market really doesn't care about morality. If it was more efficient not to exploit third world countries, then the market would simply create those neat machines you speak of.

There's nothing immoral about exploitation. The definiton of exploit is to use for one's gain, to one's advantage. We can all use each other to our advantage, and guess what? We all win. It's not like the world is zero-sum. 

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Almost every person in the U.S. is guilty of exploiting sweatshops by buying their clothes among various retail outlets such as Walmart. The blame of explotation lies with both, the corporations and the consumers.

Exploitation is not inherently bad. All the 'immoral' aspects of it are products of government intervention.  

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You're definition of markets and government are nothing more than sentiment. Governments really have nothing to do with market?

You can't conflate the government and market when attempting to diagnose the causes of something. They're two extremely different animals. 

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You're really stretching the word "voluntary" in all of your assumptions. You can voluntarily follow the law as you can voluntarily participate in the market. There is no change between what you suggest and what is happening at this very moment.

If I don't participate in the market, nobody comes and throws me in a cage.

If I don't participate in the government, they send jackbooted thugs.

Is this not a difference? 

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Really? Please mathematically prove solar energy conversion and containment is cheaper than exploiting a group of people. The statement was a metaphorical comparison between solar energy and human labor, I'm sorry that you needed this explained to you.

 Well I'm not interested in going and getting the exact numbers, but let it suffice to say, a human on a bicycle generator can barely run a lightbulb, they'd need a lot of food to do it, and they'd tire quickly. On the other hand, you can get solar power in any of it's various forms, especially coal and oil and such, for very very cheap by comparison. If you really need me to go find the numbers I will, but this really should be enough


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ShadowOfMan

ShadowOfMan wrote:

Zhwazi.....I want you to know that I respect your point of view. I'm also beginning to think that eventually, your ideas would truely create a world where everyone is an equal peer. BUT, it's the type of thing that, no matter how we eventually get to a point where we have the utopia we are all looking for, we will look back and discover that there was a much easier way that we could have done it. I think your ideas will take a very, very long time to accomplish.

The beauty of an Agorist revolution is that it's an individual revolution. It would be inestimably difficult to rile men to overthrow the government as things are now. That's not how it's going to happen. Being that Agorism is radically individualistic, so too is the revolution a revolution of the individual. When all men free themselves from government, there will be no more government. When the governments can no longer compete with the alternatives generated by the market, they'll collapse suddenly. Governments rely on both consent and coercion. Coercion alone is not enough, there must be consent. The less consent, the less effective coercion is. As more and more individuals realize that they are free by nature, that there is nothing immoral about the black market, the state's power wanes and wanes until it collapses.

Perhaps an easier method exists. I'm not going to wait until after the revolution to decide how to have a revolution.

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Once we figure out a way to power everything with water and we all have a robot clone to do all the work for us, than we can finally get rid of economies all together. Maybe people could just live and provide everything that they want DIY style. And at that point we will all look back and say, did humans really act that way? Did they really trade work for paper for goods/services?

It's impossible to get rid of economies altogether. If everything you at present want were satisfied this moment, you would be content for a while, but then want something else. Then you would have to act in order to satisfy this want. Scarcity is inevitable in the nature of things, and free market economics is the only one that deals adequately with the issue of scarcity and reducing scarcity.

ShadowOfMan wrote:
It is true that the standard of living has increased in the US, Europe, ect., but you completely ignore the fact that third world nations are worse off than their previous tribal existances. They have been forced off of the free (un-owned lands of their anscestors) and onto reservations. The worst lands in the area most often. Do you think that the Native Americans standard of living has increased here in the US?

The standard of living in the third world is a direct product of tyranny, whether it is tyranny you are aware of or not. The cause is the government, it manifests in the market, the market is NOT to blame.

Yes, the native americans' standard of living has increased here in the US.

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It's this type of shit that aaaalllllllllllmost convinces me. I really wish there was a working example that we could look at (not just the black market, but an entire economy I mean).

You and me both! If there was one, I'd be living there!

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And again, I could almost picture it working if it wasn't for the land/water thing. There is enough food produced to feed the world population many times over. With voluntary markets in place all over the world, why are people starving?

Free markets do not exist all over the world, save the black market, necessarily limited in ability to supply demands. If only they would, these problems and many similar would likely be remedied quickly. These people are starving because of tariffs, regulations, economic oppression, taxation, inflation, and other things.

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Why are people starving in the US? Wouldn't it be better if we got rid of markets all together. Make everything free. I wouldn't be heart-broken if production went down. We produce too much shit anyway.

You need to have prices to rationally distribute resouces.

Do you want to work? Most people don't, it's inconvenient, consumes time, takes effort and thought...and most people want to do other things. There is a scarcity of time and effort and talents.

It takes time and effort and talents to produce. Let's say, to move 50 tons of wheat in Kansas.

How do you know where they need it the most? Do you take it to the Farmer's Market or to Kellog's? Or do you go out of the country? How do you decide whether to take it to Congo or Korea? Or Russia? Or Greece? Or Brazil? Ideally you'd have an accurate, reliable number to compare them and decide who most desparately needs it. Without it, there is little way to know where the wheat is needed most except hearsay. Miami and Madagascar both want wheat, they both say they need it more than the other guy (if they didn't, no wheat would be going their way). So such a number to measure it would be extremely useful.

But how to determine that number? There are so many factors which influence it. Not only does it matter what the consumption is, but how much is already there, and how much they are producing there. Can you really keep track of all these things without a massive bureaucracy? Such a bureaucracy would require deflecting human time and effort and talent away from the actual production and distribution of wheat and other goods and services, so it should be minimized.

But this is what prices do. They do it quickly, they do it effectively, they do it with no overhead whatsoever. Prices are the result of supply and demand, and are produced not by a bureaucracy, but by reality simply asserting itself.

With prices, you can have rational allocation of resources. But to have prices, you must have private property.

Governments distort prices. Hong Kong is thriving because there is little tampering with prices. Africa is starving because the tyrants do not allow private property, a necessary precondition to having prices in the first place.

You'd take it to Congo, because there is more scarcity in Congo than in Kansas.

In Congo, the high scarcity of money would cause people to send money rushing into the country (low wages = "We need it the most! A little is a lot to us!&quotEye-wink. As money flowed in, the supply of money would increase, causing the value of money to go down, meaning "We have too much money, we need more food! A little food is a lot to us!" and so the price of food increases, causing food to rush into the Congo, also reducing the supply of money, causing demand for money to increase and they're back at work. (In practice, the fluctuations in the price of money would be evened out, on an individual basis however, this is more or less how it works. I collectivized for the sake of convenience.)

+50 Standard of Living

This is why we have an economy. This is why Communism failed. Without prices, there could be no rational way of allocating resources. There were long lines to buy toilet paper, because there was no price on toilet paper, the planners didn't know how much toilet paper ought to be produced. Whereas in the market, toilet paper would have been going for $10 a roll just because there was so little of it, but this high price would have told anyone with an entrepreneurial mind that he would be well rewarded for producing toilet paper! Alas, he was not allowed to.

You need prices, you just can't do without them. Advance technology 1000 years, there will still be scarcity and supply/demand disjunctions in space travel manufacturing plants and lubrication materials, not to mention AI programmers. And this is how we'll know "We need to devote more resources to this."

 

ShadowOfMan wrote:

I'm not trying to be difficult here, but I would call a State, a geographic region, and specifically, everyone that lives within it. I would call Government, a network of people, trusted or untrusted, in defining the rights of the persons within a state. Local, direct government, having the least possible bureaucratic entrophy.

Rights do not come from the sayso of some group of people.

Quote:
Well I don't mean representative government. What I do mean is, voting on actual issues directly. Important issues could be raised to morality status, such as freedom of speech, thought, the right to own property even. These moral issues could be held in high regard by the State, just like the bill of rights is now. But less important issues could be decided by the local communities to appeaze more people than the current US government could ever hope to.

But that's not anarchy.

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I exactly mean "society making a decision". But I would suggest to you that the concept of ownership, in some cases, IS a form of forcing will upon another group of people.

If there is no rightful control of anything (ownership), then there is nothing wrong with forcing your will upon anyone, because they have no more rightful control of themselves than you do.

If there is ownership, then ownership is the reason that force is wrong in the first place, and any judgement of force must be judged from within the framework of ownership.

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Owning the sun is absurd. Owning air is absurd. Owning land is, to a slight degree, a lesser absurdity, but none the less, absurd.Owning the oil that happens to be under your layer of crust is absurd.

Owning non-scarce and non-excludable resources is absurd. That's why owning the sun and owning the freely moving atmosphere is absurd (owning for example, a canister of compressed air, is not absurd).

Owning land, a scarce and excludable resource, is not absurd. Owning oil, a scarce and excludable resource, is not absurd.

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I see absolutely nothing wrong with owning a house and yard, a car, a computer, or a dildo. Even several acres of yard wouldn't be crazy. The Geolibertarian ideas of taxing the ownership of everything that is natural is so completely reasonable to me. I really see no other option.

No other option? How about let people own things that they can actually own, and own them absolutely and irresponsibly. You can't own something like the sun or the atmosphere just in the nature of things.

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I see your point of view on this matter, but I completely disagree. I don't believe that all rights are property rights, and while I know that all humans are animals, I would NEVER, EVER condon anyone treating a human like they would treat a pig. Not even Bush.

You name me some valid rights (meaning, not privileges or "positive rights" as they necessarily violate "negative rights&quotEye-wink which can't be derived from your property right in your own body, and I'll admit that you're right. So far nobody has been able to do so.

I mean treating a human like they would treat a tiger that was trying to kill them. That's what I'm talking about. If someone tries to kill you, I see them, morally speaking, on the same level as a tiger or a bear or something like that.

 

I've heard a lot about the Federal Reserve being privately owned, but I think it's mostly taken waaaay out of context. From what I know, the Federal Reserve Banks are owned by all the banks within the jurisdiction of that particular FRB. Most of it is conspiracy stuff, which leads to me believe it's based on a few facts and mostly hype and distortion from that point forward. I haven't seen those videos yet, and from the first five minutes these look like just another such work. There's a lot of confusion about this, but here's a snippet from wikipedia.

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The 12 regional Federal Reserve Banks (not to be confused with the "member banks&quotEye-wink, which were established by Congress as the operating arms of the nation's central banking system, are organized much like private corporations—possibly leading to some confusion about “ownership.” For example, the Reserve Banks issue shares of stock to "member banks." However, owning Reserve Bank stock is quite different from owning stock in a private company. The Reserve Banks are not operated for profit, and ownership of a certain amount of stock by a "member bank" is, by law, a condition of membership in the system. The stock may not be sold or traded or pledged as security for a loan; dividends are, by law, limited to 6% per year.

 


Debauchrist
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The agorist method of counter-economics doesn't require a direct confrontation with government. I'm doing nothing hypocritical, I'm not paying taxes, I'm not being subservient, I'm being free, I'm just not making myself a warm target.

Really? So when you buy a loaf of bread, you're not paying the 8% (or whatever arbitrary number) sales tax? Unless you don't use money, I'm considering you a liar or even worse, stupid.

All markets elevate. Governments bring down. Markets produce and distribute, governments destroy and confiscate.

I'm pretty sure you're going to say that “exploitation isn't immoral” too. If there's no problem with exploitation, then what is the problem with governments destroying and confiscating. It's merely exploitation, what's the difference between a government, market, or an individual exploiting you?

Which is a result of government, whether you realize it or not.



Exactly!! The amount of technology present is a direct representation of the strength and support of its government. Please don't tell me that you're supporting government now.

Spoiled isn't the word I'd use.

That's fine, it's the word I use.

I did? so when I said like "Once we satisfy their needs for electric pumps, we can start building plumbing networks. But the need for hand pumps is too great, if effort that could be spent towards making handpumps were spent making a plumbing network, you would be left with a network fed by handpumps, and not enough handpumps to supply the plumbing with water, much less water pressure.", this has nothing to do with the problem of infrastructure?

I guess if “infrastructure” only had to do with a network of hand-pumps, then you're totally on the mark! However, you didn't address design, implementation, or operational costs which is what most real economists consider “infrastructure”.

I'm not going to write a fucking book about all the little intricacies of industrializing the subsaharan. This is explaining the concept as well as it needs to be explained.

Why not write a book? I fail to understand how the areas with the least amount of government (ie sub-Sahara) also have the least amount of technology without considering that stable governments foster technology. By all means, explain how less (or no) government is better compared to market strength in current society.

Most of our energy is solar. When coal is burned, you look back towards the source of that energy and you find compressed peat, which comes form plants, which get their energy from the sun. Photovoltiatic cells are an insanely inefficient mechanism, of course, that's partially why we use other forms of collecting, storing, and using it.

No it's not. If you're trying to do a “conservation of energy and mass” argument then all energy is equal with no “greater” source. However, it's simply a lie that most of our energy is solar in an industrial sense. Now most electric companies are obtaining their energy from solar panels rather than fossil fuels or nuclear energy? I'll tell you what, put a couple solar panels on the roof of your house and disconnect from your electric company. I bet you that it costs more to maintain the solar panels rather than an electric bill. If I'm wrong, why haven't you put solar panels up yet? Why hasn't the entire world just put up solar panels if it was “cheaper”? The reason is quiet simple, it's not cheaper.

The market will find a solution.

The owner or someone he pays to do it.

People who know how.

You're being obtuse, the questions were leading you to consider infrastructure, not proximate solutions. An increase in human production is required for an increase in technology in terms of infrastructure. Cost is increased. Take an EC 101 class, you'll eventually figure it out.

It costs vastly less in terms of human suffering to operate a mechanized society.

Work does not equal suffering. This response is a non-sequitur.

There's nothing immoral about exploitation. The definiton of exploit is to use for one's gain, to one's advantage. We can all use each other to our advantage, and guess what? We all win. It's not like the world is zero-sum.

There's nothing immoral about exploitation? I suppose I have no comment to that; though, it speaks volumes about your philosophy.

Exploitation is not inherently bad. All the 'immoral' aspects of it are products of government intervention.

Once again, you're free to your own opinion, however you did say all immoral aspects of exploitation (which you said wasn't immoral in the first place) are products of government intervention. I hope you're kidding. Are you saying that it is not possible for a person to commit an immoral act or exploit another human being immorally? That's absurd.

You can't conflate the government and market when attempting to diagnose the causes of something. They're two extremely different animals.

Government and market are not two extremely different animals. Governments and markets have a mutual relationship and it's difficult to distinguish between the two (unless you're willing to lie to yourself).

If I don't participate in the market, nobody comes and throws me in a cage.

If you don't vote, no one is going to throw you in a cage. When it comes to law, sure you'll be thrown in a cage, just the same as when you violate contractual agreements with a market. Are you trying to say that there are no repercussions from violating a market agreement? You did say before that the market would be based on reputation.... how would that work if no one can be locked in the cage of a “bad reputation”? Sure, it's not a physical cage, but people with notoriety are excluded and punished just like modern-day "criminals".

If I don't participate in the government, they send jackbooted thugs.

Liar. I haven't voted or attended a city council in quiet some time, where are the jackbooted thugs?

Is this not a difference?

It's not a difference, it's absurd.

Well I'm not interested in going and getting the exact numbers, but let it suffice to say, a human on a bicycle generator can barely run a lightbulb, they'd need a lot of food to do it, and they'd tire quickly. On the other hand, you can get solar power in any of it's various forms, especially coal and oil and such, for very very cheap by comparison. If you really need me to go find the numbers I will, but this really should be enough

Wow. Once again, you're being absurd. You assume that solar energy costs nothing and human activity (which is dependent upon the sun) costs something. Neither really cost anything when making that type of comparison. However, if what you're saying is true, then food costs nothing (the sun provides it), coal costs nothing (the sun provides it), and human exertion costs nothing (the sun provides it). You can't argue the conservation of energy equation while maintaining that human “suffering” costs more. It doesn't. Conservation of energy wasn't the question, human economics was, don't change the subject.


Ivan_Ivanov
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ShadowOfMan wrote:It's

ShadowOfMan wrote:
It's very interesting, but long.  Please give it a chance.  I don't know if I agree with any of it yet.  Just wanting your opinion.

I know that you didn't ask me, but I thought I'd chime in.

I watched only about an hour of it, and I think I got the gist of it.

They do get a lot of stuff right in my opinion, the problems with giving a bank monopoly to create money, or fractional reserve banking, but I think they're wrong when they keep saying that it's a problem because the central bank is private (they actually had it right once in the movie when they called it 'quasi-private'. edit: and on second thought I'm not so sure you can call it even that), and it's batshit crazy to say that government issued fiat money is a solution.

  They point to time in American history when such money has supposedly worked, but they debunked themselves later when they mentioned that this money was inflated into worthlessness when war broke out.

They claim that it 'worked well' in times of peace, but back then the government was minimal, if you gave the power to create money to congress today, they'd print it by the billions to fund public schools, hospitals, social security or whatnot.

It's not that there's something wrong with paper money in and of itself, it's just that sooner or later whoever is in charge of managing it (be it FED or the Congress) won't be able to resist the temptetion of covering the expenses by just printing more of it.

And history shows this is what happens every time when government is given such power .

You might want to read about the fiat money inflation in France. It's about 70 pages, but you'll get the gist of it pretty quickly.

Also I think I cought the makers of the movie in somewhat of a dishonesty in comparing the gold standard with fiat money.

When they talked about those stick thingies in England, they made it seem as tough they are superior to precious metal coins. But they said it themselves coins were still in circulation even tough tax payments were only accepted in sticks.

There are countries where merchants prefer to be paid in dollars or euros rather then their local currency, the argument made in the movie is akin to saying that these currencues are superior to dollars and euros.

Another bad argument of theirs was that under a gold standard there might be not enough money for transactions, which is just wrong.

One of the main requiremnts for something to become money is for it to be divisible, for the specific purpose of making any amount of the money be usable in any amount of transactions.

If there aren't enough coins in a given community, there are number of things which you can do to make them available to people, the easiest of which is to just break the coins into smaller pieces, which was actually done in the past.


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Is this thread still alive?

Is this thread still alive?


ShadowOfMan
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Wow.  It did crap out,

Wow.  It did crap out, didn't it.  I think we all got pretty blue in the face.  You have anything to add spacebudda?

A daughter of hope and fear, religion explains to Ignorance the nature of the unknowable. -Ambrose Bierce


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Thread died because I was

Thread died because I was the primary one keeping it alive with the viewpoint everyone disagreed with, and I got interested in something else.

 A lot of this is irrelevant so I'm cutting some out.

Debauchrist wrote:
Really? So when you buy a loaf of bread, you're not paying the 8% (or whatever arbitrary number) sales tax? Unless you don't use money, I'm considering you a liar or even worse, stupid.

No, I don't pay sales tax on food items. They don't tax them here.

Quote:
I'm pretty sure you're going to say that “exploitation isn't immoral” too. If there's no problem with exploitation, then what is the problem with governments destroying and confiscating. It's merely exploitation, what's the difference between a government, market, or an individual exploiting you?

My ideas of right and wrong are contingent only upon whether or not force, threat of force, or fraud has been used. Exploitation per se isn't immoral, although since it's almost always accompanied by force and fraud whether implicitly or explicitly. 

Quote:
I fail to understand how the areas with the least amount of government (ie sub-Sahara) also have the least amount of technology without considering that stable governments foster technology.

If the only cause of underdevelopment was government-related, you might have a point. But Africa has a lot more going against it than that, and implying that governments are the cause of the economic shithole that is Africa is ignorant.

A stable government is better than an unstable government. Anarchy is better than stable or unstable government.

Quote:
There's nothing immoral about exploitation? I suppose I have no comment to that; though, it speaks volumes about your philosophy.

Nothing immoral per se about it. I explained this earlier. Most of the time it's immoral, but not because it is exploitation, it is wrong for other reasons. 

Quote:
Government and market are not two extremely different animals. Governments and markets have a mutual relationship and it's difficult to distinguish between the two (unless you're willing to lie to yourself).

No it's not.

Market = voluntary transaction

Government = involuntary transaction

I have no trouble telling the difference, I don't know how you do. 

Quote:
When it comes to law, sure you'll be thrown in a cage, just the same as when you violate contractual agreements with a market. Are you trying to say that there are no repercussions from violating a market agreement?

Not at all, and it bothers me immensely that you're equating law and contract. Contracts require consent to be legally binding, laws do not. I have no contract with the government, I can make no contract with the government, the government can make no contract with me, and no supposed contractual obligations I may have to any government are of any obligation whatsoever.

Do you know the difference between voluntary and involuntary? 

Quote:
Liar. I haven't voted or attended a city council in quiet some time, where are the jackbooted thugs?

I consider obedience to be participation. They will arrest you if they catch you disobeying.


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environment

What would happen to the environment? I would assume manufacturing plants will pump out a whole lot more pollution with there being no carbon credits, and what about dumping pollutants in a small privately segment of a river, or the sea. And who tries to fix the problem once its already under way?

 

And what about animal species? Would they eventually be hunted to extinction? Like instead of government intervening to bring the bald eagle population back up and out of endangered species status they just die out. Same could go for whales and buffalos i suppose, just be hunted to extinction.

Ofcourse, if the environment is merely secondary to human freedom then you make some good points, very enjoyable 5 page read. 

 

 

 

The powerful feed ideology to the masses like fast food while they dine on that most rarefied delicacy: impunity.


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Merakon wrote: What would

Merakon wrote:

What would happen to the environment?

With the biggest polluter in the history of the world gone (the government) and with technology-limiting and killing caused by corporate cronyism and whatnot, the environment would be better off. Remember the electric car? What happened to that? The forest service rents logging rights to companies, meaning their whole aim is not going to be on sustainability, but to chop as many logs as possible and get out before the next rent payment is due. That's a big source of soil erosion.

The Army now admits that it secretly dumped 64 million pounds of nerve and mustard agents into the sea, along with 400,000 chemical-filled bombs, land mines and rockets and more than 500 tons of radioactive waste - either tossed overboard or packed into the holds of scuttled vessels.

That's ignoring all the planes and random tools that get thrown overboard just to use up all the allotted budget.

Quote:
I would assume manufacturing plants will pump out a whole lot more pollution with there being no carbon credits, and what about dumping pollutants in a small privately segment of a river, or the sea.

If someone pollutes your property, you sue them for damages. This is how it was done up until the late 1800s when the government decided that companies had a right to pollute and stopped hearing class-action suits against polluters. It was so long ago that nobody remembers though, and since everybody is asking what the government should do that it isn't doing and nobody is looking at what the government is doing that it shouldn't be that you never hear about it. 

You could own a river or a part of the ocean.

Quote:
And who tries to fix the problem once its already under way?

The courts. 

Quote:
And what about animal species? Would they eventually be hunted to extinction? Like instead of government intervening to bring the bald eagle population back up and out of endangered species status they just die out. Same could go for whales and buffalos i suppose, just be hunted to extinction.

This issue just confuses me, because it seems like the only people who care about it believe evolution, where extinction is an inherent part of the process that nobody mourns. 

I see no reason at all why bald eagles need to be kept around. If you can think of one, I would love to hear it, as I've never heard a rational basis for keeping dying animal species alive. The same for buffalo and whales.

Quote:
Ofcourse, if the environment is merely secondary to human freedom then you make some good points, very enjoyable 5 page read.

I believe the environment is secondary to freedom, however I believe that most people will freely choose to keep the environment in good condition. They can't very well make the choice now because the government prevents them from acting on those decisions, and people have stopped making them, and have forgotten how and what they'd be doing to protect the environment without the government.


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Zhwazi wrote: A free market

Zhwazi wrote:
A free market in everything the government presently does would be superior to what we have now. Disjunction between payment and service under government create uneconomic allocation of resources which creates shortages and surpluses, which would be solved by a free market, where you choose how much of what you want. Elimination of competition under government (government has a monopoly military, police force, road ownership, etc) increases costs, decreases quality and quantity produced, creates waste and inefficiency, et cetera, which are all solved on a free market which allows competition.

So are you indicating that companies that provide services such as telecommunications would no longer be obligated to provide service in non-economically viable regions? I would assume then that in a free market nobody would offer services or infrastructure support to regions that have no economic benefit. If that's the case wouldn't the populace simply coalesce?

Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer. - William S. Burroughs


Zhwazi
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neptewn wrote: So are you

neptewn wrote:
So are you indicating that companies that provide services such as telecommunications would no longer be obligated to provide service in non-economically viable regions?

Correct. Nobody except them can tell them where they can't or must provide service of what level at what price.

Quote:
I would assume then that in a free market nobody would offer services or infrastructure support to regions that have no economic benefit.

Regions? Nobody offers anything to regions, they offer it to people.

Quote:
If that's the case wouldn't the populace simply coalesce?

I don't know. Maybe. Is there anything wrong with it if they did?


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Zwhazi wrote: Regions?

Zwhazi wrote:
Regions? Nobody offers anything to regions, they offer it to people.

Companies are obligated to provide services at a regional level often prior to "people" being there in order to spur growth. You can look at it as people or region it doesn't actually change the nature of the question. No company is going to build infrastructure in areas with low take rates and high risk in order to spur growth, without there being some form of governmental push. Why did Japan have Fiber Optic sevices to the home long before the United States stepped foot in the market. It was simply the regional risk associated to deployment across a dispersed populace, no telecommunication company would risk the deployment until the cost associated with the technology came down. Meaning companies were forced to spend money in order to research how to lower the cost to enter the US market.

This is the problem we continue to face in the United States today, we will be late to the market everytime because of government regulations to provide equal services to remote and low income markets. Your solution removes this regulation, meaning yes the US will be first to market but only those within economic and geographical reach will be allowed services. So the poor get pissed and everyone has to clump together if they want to be part of the modern world.

We would essentially have infrastrucure nodes. The richest people would clump around the most modern infrastructure, while the poorest would be forced to the outskirts. The poorest and majority of the world would not be afforded any of the modern world until it became within economic reach. The problem is it probably never will since there's not much market value in doing so with the risk associated to research and development. Imagine if 10% of the populace has all the money why bother researching and developing affordable technology.

Zwahzi wrote:
I don't know. Maybe. Is there anything wrong with it if they did?

It creates a city where only the rich are afforded proper engineering, regulation and support of the infrastructure. The poor are given the options of huddling around the cities for scraps, paying for infrastructure at a higher cost than the rich, or fending off the land?

This just seems to me like you create a very fertile enviornment for extreme classism.

Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer. - William S. Burroughs


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You know, a guy in a pub

You know, a guy in a pub once told me he was an anarchist so I punched him and took his wallet.

When he asked me why I did it I said "Why not?" 

Freedom of religious belief is an inalienable right. Stuffing that belief down other people's throats is not.


Zhwazi
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neptewn wrote:Companies

neptewn wrote:

Companies are obligated to provide services at a regional level often prior to "people" being there in order to spur growth. You can look at it as people or region it doesn't actually change the nature of the question.

Right, so you're saying that an ISP or something can be compelled to serve people who can't pay. I call it thinly veiled slavery.

Quote:
No company is going to build infrastructure in areas with low take rates and high risk in order to spur growth, without there being some form of governmental push.

Do you know what an opportunity cost is? You may indeed spur growth in remote areas, but at the expense of everyplace else. Why is growth in remote areas preferential to growth in central areas?

Quote:
Why did Japan have Fiber Optic sevices to the home long before the United States stepped foot in the market.

Is that a question or a statement?

Japanese people obviously wanted it more. So they got it first. Is there something wrong with that?

Quote:
It was simply the regional risk associated to deployment across a dispersed populace, no telecommunication company would risk the deployment until the cost associated with the technology came down. Meaning companies were forced to spend money in order to research how to lower the cost to enter the US market.

Is this a bad thing?

Quote:
This is the problem we continue to face in the United States today, we will be late to the market everytime because of government regulations to provide equal services to remote and low income markets. Your solution removes this regulation, meaning yes the US will be first to market but only those within economic and geographical reach will be allowed services. So the poor get pissed and everyone has to clump together if they want to be part of the modern world.

You don't need to give everything to everybody, just the people that want it. Giving everything to everybody is a waste of effort that could be spent giving people something they want.

Quote:
We would essentially have infrastrucure nodes. The richest people would clump around the most modern infrastructure, while the poorest would be forced to the outskirts. The poorest and majority of the world would not be afforded any of the modern world until it became within economic reach. The problem is it probably never will since there's not much market value in doing so with the risk associated to research and development. Imagine if 10% of the populace has all the money why bother researching and developing affordable technology.

In order for there to be "not much market value in doing so", the people not connected would have to not want to be connected. If they don't want to be connected, there's nothing at all wrong with not connecting them.

If 10% of the populace has all the money (something which isn't a phenomenon of the market, but one of state intervention), they have a lot to gain by developing affordable technology. They can keep building infrastructure that is expensive, or they can invest a little effort in figuring out how to make it cheap and then spend all the effort otherwise going into infrastructure on other things that they want.

Also, my name isn't spelled Zwahzi, it's Zhwazi. Note the location of the H. First sound is pronounced as in "Beige".

Quote:
It creates a city where only the rich are afforded proper engineering, regulation and support of the infrastructure. The poor are given the options of huddling around the cities for scraps, paying for infrastructure at a higher cost than the rich, or fending off the land?

No it doesn't. The rich are not "afforded" anything, they are the ones providing, they provide for themselves. If a farmer plants corn and harvests, we don't say of him "the farmer has been afforded corn". It's absurd.

Either the rich provide the infrastructure or the poor do. If the poor provide it, they can provide themselves with it, and if they want to, they will, invalidating the "only the rich" part. If the rich provide it, then the principle that people are able to provide for themselves invalidates your "only the rich" premise as well, because it's contradictory. If the rich can provide for themselves, so can the poor, the principle doesn't change above or below a certain level, and if you believe it does, you should point out exactly what point it happens at and provide evidence supporting your belief.

Quote:
This just seems to me like you create a very fertile enviornment for extreme classism.

By removing the barriers that prevent the gap between the rich and the poor from widening, one also removes the barriers that prevent the gap between the rich and the poor from closing.

Suppose you want an ISP to provide for everyone in a region. Suppose a poor person wants to start a neighborhood ISP, they have some routing hardware and enough cable to get started.

Do you expect this poor person to attempt to improve his condition by providing everyone with access? Are you going to tell him that if he doesn't give everyone cheap access and to give the potential of access to people who don't want it, you're going to throw him in a cage for a year or steal $10k from him? This is what governments effectively do, and which you advocate.

Any rule you think you are imposing upon the rich is also imposed upon the poor, and the rich have the mass to overcome the burdens presented by these rules, while the poor do not. Contrary to your goals, you are hurting everybody, and the poor are hurt harder than anyone.

This is just one example too. All market regulations which assume only big business provides are the exact regulations which prevent small business from being feasible, and that means preventing the poor from becoming rich.


qbg
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The Patrician wrote: You

The Patrician wrote:

You know, a guy in a pub once told me he was an anarchist so I punched him and took his wallet.

When he asked me why I did it I said "Why not?" 


Do you think anarchism means "no rules"? Anyways, I'll give you a hint to the "Why not?" question: Why don't you currently go around stealing wallets?

Zhwazi:
1) Are there advantages to have a government run business/industry? Consider:
A) Lower overhead (no need for profit, advertising not much of an issue, etc.) This can lead to lower prices.
B) The ability to run at a loss. This could mean the ability to keep prices low and thus help other parts of the economy. It could also mean the ability to keep people employed during a recession and thus have countercyclic effects, etc.

2) Is this true?: The government provides the ability for the population to have a proactive role in the economy (picking investments, choosing what services should be made available, etc.) while the market allows only a reactive role in the economy (picking from an array of already existing goods/services).

"What right have you to condemn a murderer if you assume him necessary to "God's plan"? What logic can command the return of stolen property, or the branding of a thief, if the Almighty decreed it?"
-- The Economic Tendency of Freethought


Zhwazi
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qbg wrote: 1) Are there

qbg wrote:
1) Are there advantages to have a government run business/industry? Consider: A) Lower overhead (no need for profit, advertising not much of an issue, etc.) This can lead to lower prices. B) The ability to run at a loss. This could mean the ability to keep prices low and thus help other parts of the economy. It could also mean the ability to keep people employed during a recession and thus have countercyclic effects, etc.

A) Government efficency? Tell me you're joking.

B) TINSTAAFL 

Quote:
2) Is this true?: The government provides the ability for the population to have a proactive role in the economy (picking investments, choosing what services should be made available, etc.) while the market allows only a reactive role in the economy (picking from an array of already existing goods/services).

No, it is not true. The government provides the ability for one class of society to unfairly benefit from another class of society. It's actually a pretty silly statement.

How can one class (government) magically be proactive while another class (society at large) cannot? Are bureaucrats able to violate the laws of cause and effect? Are there tasks which can only be done by one who calls himself an employee of the State? 

It ignores the entrepreneurial element while presupposing it's effects. Investments are made in entrepreneurial activities, without them there would be no profitable investment. New services are made available by entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs are both buyers and sellers. Anyone can become an entrepreneur, it's not a limited class which is born with the natural ability to see price discrepancies and seek to take advantage of them.

So no, the statement you gave is not true. 


Vastet
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I'm still not going to go in

I'm still not going to go in depth in this topic as some of my positions closely resemble libertarianism(socially at least, though not economically by any stretch), and in fact the guy who came up with the system I agree with(though I didn't realize it until after the system was already firmly in my head) also had close relations with the libertarian populace. However there are a few things I'll touch on here and there. Not quite as many as I'd like to, but there are some sub-subjects I'm not confident enough of my knowledge to touch on.

Zhwazi wrote:
Remember the electric car? What happened to that?

Nothing. There is a market for them, as long as you're in a city. Not so good for long distances.

Zhwazi wrote:
The forest service rents logging rights to companies, meaning their whole aim is not going to be on sustainability, but to chop as many logs as possible and get out before the next rent payment is due. That's a big source of soil erosion.

Totally depends what country you're talking about. Might be true for the US, but it certainly isn't for Canada.

Zhwazi wrote:
The courts.

What courts? With what jurisdiction? According to whos authority? Over who? How? And what is in place to assure any verdict is acted upon, instead of the sued merely fleeing the area for greener pastures, as it were.

Zhwazi wrote:
I believe that most people will freely choose to keep the environment in good condition.

I do not. I have no reason to believe such a thing. And at least two reasons to believe otherwise. Laziness and cost effectiveness.

Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.


neptewn
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Zhwazi wrote: neptewn

Zhwazi wrote:

neptewn wrote:

Companies are obligated to provide services at a regional level often prior to "people" being there in order to spur growth. You can look at it as people or region it doesn't actually change the nature of the question.

Right, so you're saying that an ISP or something can be compelled to serve people who can't pay. I call it thinly veiled slavery.

Yes, why prebuild utilities out there that's slavery. They don't need electric power or running water.

Zhwazi wrote:

Quote:

No company is going to build infrastructure in areas with low take rates and high risk in order to spur growth, without there being some form of governmental push.

Do you know what an opportunity cost is? You may indeed spur growth in remote areas, but at the expense of everyplace else. Why is growth in remote areas preferential to growth in central areas?

So your making the assumption that a business has a foothold in the market already or is willing to risk the investment. Also you seem to be assuming this is a single investment, when in fact mutliple companies and services needed to be provided to make the risk worth taking( Roads, water, telephones, etc). Who is going to coordiante all of these companies and this additional cost some entity (Pseudo-Government)? What prevents the companies from just merging and taking over deployment of all services? It seems much more logical and cost effective. So now you have a single enitity in charge of all the infrastructure (Sounds like a government to me).. Let's create a Free market were that is a potential.

To the second question. You have to deploy and maintain what you build and if it's remote it cost more.

Zhwazi wrote:

Quote:

Why did Japan have Fiber Optic sevices to the home long before the United States stepped foot in the market.

Is that a question or a statement?

Japanese people obviously wanted it more. So they got it first. Is there something wrong with that?

I actually answered it for you and that's not the correct answer since this actually happened. Answer: It was simply the regional risk associated to deployment across a dispersed populace, no telecommunication company would risk the deployment until the cost associated with the technology came down. Meaning companies were forced to spend money in order to research how to lower the cost to enter the US market.

Zhwazi wrote:

Quote:

It was simply the regional risk associated to deployment across a dispersed populace, no telecommunication company would risk the deployment until the cost associated with the technology came down. Meaning companies were forced to spend money in order to research how to lower the cost to enter the US market.

Is this a bad thing?

No, I was simply pointing out there is an additional cost associated to remote deployment of infrastructure.

Zhwazi wrote:

Quote:

This is the problem we continue to face in the United States today, we will be late to the market everytime because of government regulations to provide equal services to remote and low income markets. Your solution removes this regulation, meaning yes the US will be first to market but only those within economic and geographical reach will be allowed services. So the poor get pissed and everyone has to clump together if they want to be part of the modern world.

You don't need to give everything to everybody, just the people that want it. Giving everything to everybody is a waste of effort that could be spent giving people something they want.

That's a false assumption.. In order to be able to give the people what they want, you need to be in a position to provide everything to everybody. Which is the point of my whole argument companies do not deploy infrastructure based upon individual use, it's based upon engineering and market forcast and future projections. The cost associated to deploy at an indivual level would be astronomical. They don't run a new phone-line to your house from the central office 5 miles away everytime someone orders a phone. They prerun all the infrastructure, that's the real cost. Not the 50' drop from the pole to someone's house.

The "waste of effort" you speak of is my whole point, in your enviornment that's exactly what will be assumed by the companies. The only reason I see that it happens today is because they are regulated to do so. There would be no real insentive for a company that can afford the risk to do so.

Zhwazi wrote:

Quote:

We would essentially have infrastrucure nodes. The richest people would clump around the most modern infrastructure, while the poorest would be forced to the outskirts. The poorest and majority of the world would not be afforded any of the modern world until it became within economic reach. The problem is it probably never will since there's not much market value in doing so with the risk associated to research and development. Imagine if 10% of the populace has all the money why bother researching and developing affordable technology.

In order for there to be "not much market value in doing so", the people not connected would have to not want to be connected. If they don't want to be connected, there's nothing at all wrong with not connecting them.

If 10% of the populace has all the money (something which isn't a phenomenon of the market, but one of state intervention), they have a lot to gain by developing affordable technology. They can keep building infrastructure that is expensive, or they can invest a little effort in figuring out how to make it cheap and then spend all the effort otherwise going into infrastructure on other things that they want.

Also, my name isn't spelled Zwahzi, it's Zhwazi. Note the location of the H. First sound is pronounced as in "Beige". .

To your first point. I explained the issue above. Let me reitirate. Just because someone does not want to be connected to the infrastructre, say the water line. It doesn't mean that the water company didn't engineer their service to be available and already invest in the majority of the cost.

I think this assumption is based upon an argument that infrastructure is not deployed to everyone but only those that need it. Which is a false assumption.

Sorry about the name..

Zhwazi wrote:

Quote:

It creates a city where only the rich are afforded proper engineering, regulation and support of the infrastructure. The poor are given the options of huddling around the cities for scraps, paying for infrastructure at a higher cost than the rich, or fending off the land?

No it doesn't. The rich are not "afforded" anything, they are the ones providing, they provide for themselves. If a farmer plants corn and harvests, we don't say of him "the farmer has been afforded corn". It's absurd.

Either the rich provide the infrastructure or the poor do. If the poor provide it, they can provide themselves with it, and if they want to, they will, invalidating the "only the rich" part. If the rich provide it, then they are not being "afforded" anything, and there's nothing wrong with them not sharing their works.

What motivates the farmer to grow additional corn to sell when it may actually cost him money? Nothing, especially when he know's he can already sell what he has for 90% of the market.

If your talking about low cost investments that the poor can provide for themselves I can see it working, such as corn. When you move to a high-cost investments such as a power-plant and associated distribution network, including support organizations. Who is going to invest in a company that can only grab 10% of the market? Not to mention that the technology gap between the rich and the poor is going to be huge.

Zhwazi wrote:

Quote:

This just seems to me like you create a very fertile enviornment for extreme classism.

By removing the barriers that prevent the gap between the rich and the poor from widening, one also removes the barriers that prevent the gap between the rich and the poor from closing.

I have already explained that by removing the barrier you also remove regualtion which then forces companies to work together in order to reduce cost, with the inevitable result of either forcing a merger of all similar companies or the formation of some centralized company. Ultimately with the same result of creating a pseudo-government and a very distinct class system.

Zhwazi wrote:

Suppose you want an ISP to provide for everyone in a region. Suppose a poor person wants to start a neighborhood ISP, they have some routing hardware and enough cable to get started.

Do you think this small ISP can compete with a single entity that can provide everything in one shot and most likely deliver a better technology? Not to mention who own's the backbone access that your ISP needs to actually route outside their network? That means your poor ISP will have to buy access to the backbone infrastructure owned by who? Probably the people that can afford to deploy and maintain an international network... Guess what your customers can only route between themselves you just got booted from the internet.

Zhwazi wrote:

Do you expect this poor person to attempt to improve his condition by providing everyone with access? Are you going to tell him that if he doesn't give everyone cheap access and to give the potential of access to people who don't want it, you're going to throw him in a cage for a year or steal $10k from him? This is what governments effectively do, and which you advocate.

Actually I pointed out that's how it's going to work in your scenario, regulation prevents this hurdle today for small business. One group will eventually own all the infrastructure or the internet, telelvision, phone lines etc will be delivered in small sub-networks that won't interconnect. So basically who ever can provide the cheapest and greatest amount of access wins.

How will you make a long distance call or access a web site across the nation if the folks that own the backbone don't let your small ISP/Phone company have access to their infrastructure? This poor ISP will have to delploy nationwide over night in order to do that..Good luck.

Zhwazi wrote:

Any rule you think you are imposing upon the rich is also imposed upon the poor, and the rich have the mass to overcome the burdens presented by these rules, while the poor do not. Contrary to your goals, you are hurting everybody, and the poor are hurt harder than anyone.

The rich own the infrastructure they make the rules.

Zhwazi wrote:
This is just one example too. All market regulations which assume only big business provides are the exact regulations which prevent small business from being feasible, and that means preventing the poor from becoming rich.

False assumption, as I pointed out in the rebuttle to you ISP analogy. The poor will never be rich.

Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer. - William S. Burroughs


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Vastet wrote: I'm still not

Vastet wrote:
I'm still not going to go in depth in this topic as some of my positions closely resemble libertarianism(socially at least, though not economically by any stretch), and in fact the guy who came up with the system I agree with(though I didn't realize it until after the system was already firmly in my head) also had close relations with the libertarian populace.

Who, Godwin? Proudhon? 

Zhwazi wrote:
Remember the electric car? What happened to that?
Nothing. There is a market for them, as long as you're in a city. Not so good for long distances.

Well'n shit, where do you get them? I've been to a bunch of dealers and haven't seen any electrics.

Quote:
Totally depends what country you're talking about. Might be true for the US, but it certainly isn't for Canada.

 True, but it's no less an excellent example of the government doing exactly the opposite of what is needed to protect the environment.

Quote:
What courts?

Any courts will do.

Quote:
With what jurisdiction? According to whos authority?

Since it's the same question, phrased differently, it's the victim's authority. The victim delegates his right of self-defense to the court to take enforcement action. 

Quote:
Over who?

Anyone who violates anyone else's rights, in this case, a polluter.

Quote:
How? And what is in place to assure any verdict is acted upon, instead of the sued merely fleeing the area for greener pastures, as it were.

The first court accepts responsibility for it's acts of enforcement taken after it's judgement on the case. If it finds that Halliburton or whatever is polluting, and Halliburton doesn't pay up, the court goes and takes from Halliburton whatever it has decided was the just amount to repay the victims of the pollution for the damage done. If Halliburton takes issue with the court, and wants to demand it's money back (if it can get any back, as all of the money is now in thousands of people's hands), Halliburton signs a contract agreeing to go by whatever the court says, or appoints an attorney to do so on it's behalf, and resolve the dispute that way. If Halliburton knows it has been polluting and doesn't have a chance of winning the case, they won't waste their effort.

Quote:
I do not. I have no reason to believe such a thing. And at least two reasons to believe otherwise. Laziness and cost effectiveness.

If you own part of the environment and you can sell it to anyone, and it's being polluted, do you think suing the polluter won't influence the cost-effectiveness of polluting in the case of the polluter? Do you think people will sit by and not do anything when all it takes to tell the polluter to knock it off is a signature on a class-action lawsuit?

Seriously, you don't seem to have a clue what I'm even talking about. 


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Zhwazi wrote: Vastet

Zhwazi wrote:

Vastet wrote:
I'm still not going to go in depth in this topic as some of my positions closely resemble libertarianism(socially at least, though not economically by any stretch), and in fact the guy who came up with the system I agree with(though I didn't realize it until after the system was already firmly in my head) also had close relations with the libertarian populace.

Who, Godwin? Proudhon? 

Orwell.

Zhwazi wrote:

Well'n shit, where do you get them? I've been to a bunch of dealers and haven't seen any electrics.

Google it. I'm not about to suggest they've come anywhere near as prolific as gasoline engines, at least partially due to their range limitations, but they are out there. I know there's at least one in B.C., but having not had the cash for one nor the need for such a short range vehicle I've not done much research into it.

Zhwazi wrote:
 True, but it's no less an excellent example of the government doing exactly the opposite of what is needed to protect the environment.

Granted.

Zhwazi wrote:
Quote:
What courts?

Any courts will do.

You misunderstand. I'm wondering how a court system will exist at all in a libertarian society. The very term anarchy is counter to the idea of a court system.

Zhwazi wrote:
Quote:
With what jurisdiction? According to whos authority?

Since it's the same question, phrased differently, it's the victim's authority. The victim delegates his right of self-defense to the court to take enforcement action.

How does the victim obtain this authority? And how does a court take enforcement actions?

Zhwazi wrote:
Quote:
Over who?

Anyone who violates anyone else's rights, in this case, a polluter.

And what rights have been determined? How does a libertarian society judge what rights people are afforded in the first place? What prevents a court or populace from giving away rights intentionally or unintentionally, never to see them again?

Zhwazi wrote:
Quote:
How? And what is in place to assure any verdict is acted upon, instead of the sued merely fleeing the area for greener pastures, as it were.

The first court accepts responsibility for it's acts of enforcement taken after it's judgement on the case. If it finds that Halliburton or whatever is polluting, and Halliburton doesn't pay up, the court goes and takes from Halliburton whatever it has decided was the just amount to repay the victims of the pollution for the damage done. If Halliburton takes issue with the court, and wants to demand it's money back (if it can get any back, as all of the money is now in thousands of people's hands), Halliburton signs a contract agreeing to go by whatever the court says, or appoints an attorney to do so on it's behalf, and resolve the dispute that way. If Halliburton knows it has been polluting and doesn't have a chance of winning the case, they won't waste their effort.

But you are speaking of the court system in todays society. The very idea of libertarian governing allows financial institutions to form that will ignore court orders and offer that service to willing law breakers. These financial institutions can easily be set far enough away from any court authority or even amass numbers enough to resist court authorities and their very services will attract enough customers to sustain themselves.

Zhwazi wrote:
Quote:
I do not. I have no reason to believe such a thing. And at least two reasons to believe otherwise. Laziness and cost effectiveness.

If you own part of the environment and you can sell it to anyone, and it's being polluted, do you think suing the polluter won't influence the cost-effectiveness of polluting in the case of the polluter? Do you think people will sit by and not do anything when all it takes to tell the polluter to knock it off is a signature on a class-action lawsuit?

Not all land on the earth is owned. But the effects of pollution are not necessarily contained to the location they are deposited. When multiple corporations have the same byproducts, it becomes impossible to point the finger at any one as the culprit as long as the culprit performs their actions clandestinely. Which makes it impossible to sue the real culprit without incontrovertable evidence that it was the culprit who was the culprit.

Zhwazi wrote:

Seriously, you don't seem to have a clue what I'm even talking about. 

I'm asking questions here, which by itself should have tipped you off to the fact that I'm not certain how you see an anarchist society as being functional. If I didn't care, or I did know exactly what you were saying, I wouldn't be asking questions would I?

Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.


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neptewn wrote: Yes, why

neptewn wrote:

Yes, why prebuild utilities out there that's slavery. They don't need electric power or running water.

Theatening to throw somebody in a cage for failure to build utilities you want them to without getting a contract obligating them is a perfect example of slavery. However great your end may be, good intentions do not justify slavery as a means. 

Quote:
So your making the assumption that a business has a foothold in the market already or is willing to risk the investment. Also you seem to be assuming this is a single investment, when in fact mutliple companies and services needed to be provided to make the risk worth taking( Roads, water, telephones, etc).

Strawman.

Quote:
Who is going to coordiante all of these companies and this additional cost some entity (Pseudo-Government)?

No "government" is needed to coordinate activity between people. If that were true, government would never form because people could never coordinate well enough without government to form one in the first place. 

Quote:
What prevents the companies from just merging and taking over deployment of all services? It seems much more logical and cost effective. So now you have a single enitity in charge of all the infrastructure (Sounds like a government to me).. Let's create a Free market were that is a potential.

Create a free market where a possible outcome is another state or create a state to make sure we get that outcome? Nothing in particular stops them from doing it. Nothing in particular needs to stop them from doing it. It won't result in cental control of everything by one company unless you're an idiot and ignore the fact that new businesses can be and are started all the time, and they'll control part of it.

Quote:
To the second question. You have to deploy and maintain what you build and if it's remote it cost more.

My second question was "Why is growth in remote areas preferential to growth in central areas?" You did not answer the question, unless your answer is "We should build in remote areas because it costs more," which doesn't even merit a rebuttal.

 

Quote:
I actually answered it for you and that's not the correct answer since this actually happened.

I didn't treat it like it didn't happen. But my answer is also correct. Not everything has only one cause.

Quote:
No, I was simply pointing out there is an additional cost associated to remote deployment of infrastructure.

And that's why you want to build there? Because it's more expensive?

 

Quote:
That's a false assumption.. In order to be able to give the people what they want, you need to be in a position to provide everything to everybody.

No you don't.

Quote:
Which is the point of my whole argument companies do not deploy infrastructure based upon individual use, it's based upon engineering and market forcast and future projections.

...which are nothing more than the results of individual use taken in aggregate. You don't have a positive right to infrastructure or of any quality, I don't see what the problem is here. 

 

Quote:
The cost associated to deploy at an indivual level would be astronomical. They don't run a new phone-line to your house from the central office 5 miles away everytime someone orders a phone. They prerun all the infrastructure, that's the real cost. Not the 50' drop from the pole to someone's house.

The "waste of effort" you speak of is my whole point, in your enviornment that's exactly what will be assumed by the companies. The only reason I see that it happens today is because they are regulated to do so. There would be no real insentive for a company that can afford the risk to do so.

Except, like, the fact that they won't have to run 5 miles of phone cord out to my house when I order phone service. And the fact that if they don't build infrastructure, someone else will.

Quote:
To your first point. I explained the issue above. Let me reitirate. Just because someone does not want to be connected to the infrastructre, say the water line. It doesn't mean that the water company didn't engineer their service to be available and already invest in the majority of the cost.

No, and I don't see your point.

Quote:
I think this assumption is based upon an argument that infrastructure is not deployed to everyone but only those that need it. Which is a false assumption.

Not at all. I know how infrastructure works. And I still don't see how forcing someone that owns a bunch of piping or cable to lay it somewhere they don't want to lay it is in some way not intrinsically criminal. If you want the infrastructure built, build it yourself. You have no right to compel anyone else to do so. I'm not against infrastructure, I'm against the use of force, I'm against illegitemate authority. If you use force and authority to create infrastructure, I'll oppose you, not on the basis of your ends but on the basis of your means. 

Quote:
Sorry about the name..

'Sokay, you're not the first and won't be last. 

Quote:
What motivates the farmer to grow additional corn to sell when it may actually cost him money? Nothing, especially when he know's he can already sell what he has for 90% of the market.

Why should the farmer grow more corn when it'll cost him money? 

Quote:
If your talking about low cost investments that the poor can provide for themselves I can see it working, such as corn. When you move to a high-cost investments such as a power-plant and associated distribution network, including support organizations. Who is going to invest in a company that can only grab 10% of the market?

Why do people invest in small businesses which don't grab a hundredth of a percent of any market? Because they can make a profit off it.

There's small businesses supplying power in places like Somalia, they just bring in generators from Saudi Arabia or whatever, fill them up, run wires to whoever, and collect payment. You can invest in those businesses if you want to. They'll never hope to have more than an insignificant percentage of the market, but that doesn't mean you can't get sharp returns on investing where people need it. 

Quote:
Not to mention that the technology gap between the rich and the poor is going to be huge.

Assuming that any gap between the rich and the poor persists after reaching anarchism, it won't be as wide as you're implying. A poor man can take out a loan to buy the same equipment as a rich man and set up a system that makes him money much as would the rich man (out of which he repays the loan). 

Quote:
I have already explained that by removing the barrier you also remove regualtion which then forces companies to work together in order to reduce cost, with the inevitable result of either forcing a merger of all similar companies or the formation of some centralized company. Ultimately with the same result of creating a pseudo-government and a very distinct class system.

Removing regulation does not force cooperation. Unsupported assertion.

Quote:
Do you think this small ISP can compete with a single entity that can provide everything in one shot and most likely deliver a better technology?

Yes. Because it doesn't have to compete with the whole ISP. It just has to compete with the ISP in it's small neighborhood. Giving a better price and better customer service could be all it takes to do that. Terms of contracts are much more negotiable with a small ISP. You can arrange whatever you're willing to give the ISP owner for whatever they're willing to give you. If you own the water pipes, you give him water pressure, he gives you internet, no other transaction needs to take place, a very negotiable and mutually beneficial contract. I'd go with an ISP that would prefer to accept something I have more than I want of, but won't sell for something I value as much, without having to sign a long term contract, without getting internet immediately cutoff if I don't pay, et cetera.

Quote:
Not to mention who own's the backbone access that your ISP needs to actually route outside their network? That means your poor ISP will have to buy access to the backbone infrastructure owned by who? Probably the people that can afford to deploy and maintain an international network... Guess what your customers can only route between themselves you just got booted from the internet.

Not necessarily. You're ignoring an almost infinite number of options here, not the least of which is the fact that it's unlikely for one big company to own all that infrastructure in the first place without state intervention, and the obvious fact that the ISP can contract for access through the big company, or any of the other big companies.

Quote:
Actually I pointed out that's how it's going to work in your scenario, regulation prevents this hurdle today for small business. One group will eventually own all the infrastructure or the internet, telelvision, phone lines etc will be delivered in small sub-networks that won't interconnect. So basically who ever can provide the cheapest and greatest amount of access wins.

Unsupported assertion.

Quote:
How will you make a long distance call or access a web site across the nation if the folks that own the backbone don't let your small ISP/Phone company have access to their infrastructure? This poor ISP will have to delploy nationwide over night in order to do that..Good luck.

Even if we assume your stupid premise in red above, who says they won't? You're basically saying "Everything goes wrong and there's nothing you can do about it. What do you do?" Since I reject your premise that in reality, everything will go wrong, and in reality, there will never be nothing I can do about it, you're not going to like any answers I give because you've already handed me the answer you want me to give you. I don't know if you recognize that you're doing this, but you are. 

Quote:
The rich own the infrastructure they make the rules.

Assuming they do (I don't think they will and your premise is absurd, but accepting it for a moment), you're categorically ruling out the ability of anyone to do anything about it, acting as if one class has the ability to think and do and another does not. The rich do not make the rules, the poor do, the rich rely upon the poor to give them money and to work for them. Without the consent of the poor, the rich are nothing. And where consent is necessary, there are two sets of rules in play, not one. 

Quote:
False assumption, as I pointed out in the rebuttle to you ISP analogy. The poor will never be rich.

Unsupported assertion, and worse, a self-fulfilling prophecy.


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Zhwazi wrote: qbg

Zhwazi wrote:

qbg wrote:
1) Are there advantages to have a government run business/industry? Consider: A) Lower overhead (no need for profit, advertising not much of an issue, etc.) This can lead to lower prices. B) The ability to run at a loss. This could mean the ability to keep prices low and thus help other parts of the economy. It could also mean the ability to keep people employed during a recession and thus have countercyclic effects, etc.

A) Government efficency? Tell me you're joking.



Efficiency is separate from overhead here. Also, it doesn't have to be inefficient.
Quote:

B) TINSTAAFL 



It appears to me now that part B is basically Keynesianism.
Quote:

Quote:
2) Is this true?: The government provides the ability for the population to have a proactive role in the economy (picking investments, choosing what services should be made available, etc.) while the market allows only a reactive role in the economy (picking from an array of already existing goods/services).

No, it is not true. The government provides the ability for one class of society to unfairly benefit from another class of society. It's actually a pretty silly statement.

How can one class (government) magically be proactive while another class (society at large) cannot? Are bureaucrats able to violate the laws of cause and effect? Are there tasks which can only be done by one who calls himself an employee of the State? 

It ignores the entrepreneurial element while presupposing it's effects. Investments are made in entrepreneurial activities, without them there would be no profitable investment. New services are made available by entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs are both buyers and sellers. Anyone can become an entrepreneur, it's not a limited class which is born with the natural ability to see price discrepancies and seek to take advantage of them.

So no, the statement you gave is not true. 


With a 'democratic' government, the majority can (at least try) to get a proactive role in the economy through elections rather than in a reactive manner like they normally do. Yes, they can try to become entrepreneurs, but most of them never will be.

"What right have you to condemn a murderer if you assume him necessary to "God's plan"? What logic can command the return of stolen property, or the branding of a thief, if the Almighty decreed it?"
-- The Economic Tendency of Freethought


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Zhwazi wrote:Theatening

Zhwazi wrote:

Theatening to throw somebody in a cage for failure to build utilities you want them to without getting a contract obligating them is a perfect example of slavery. However great your end may be, good intentions do not justify slavery as a means.

Slavery indicates that companies have no choice. They actually have two the judicial path or the option to not enter the market in that region. A slave would have neither option so your argument that it's slavery is false.

Zhwazi wrote:
Do you know what an opportunity cost is? You may indeed spur growth in remote areas, but at the expense of everyplace else.

This is making the assumption that a business has a foothold in the market already and is willing to risk the investment. In order to expense the cost "everyplace else" means they have to have an "everyplace else", you've defeated your small business argument yourself. No small business can afford to build in remote areas initially without external investment to cover start-up cost.

Zhwazi wrote:
Why is growth in remote areas preferential to growth in central areas?

From a business perspective it's not. The overall cost and maintenace is much higher, thus lending credit to the argument that if a company does not have to build remotely they won't.

Zhwazi wrote:
No "government" is needed to coordinate activity between people. If that were true, government would never form because people could never coordinate well enough without government to form one in the first place.

Try having a house built with no single point of coordination, now try building a housing track, how about a city. Yes, it can be done it just won't be efficient. The problem you face is logistical difficulty. With the increases in scale of the project the difficulty increases as well forming a hierarchy of support needs. Your analogy of the governement is inaccurate it does not take into account logitics, people can do things without a single point of coordination they don't because it's ineffieceint.

Zhwazi wrote:

Quote:

What prevents the companies from just merging and taking over deployment of all services? It seems much more logical and cost effective. So now you have a single enitity in charge of all the infrastructure (Sounds like a government to me).. Let's create a Free market were that is a potential.

Create a free market where a possible outcome is another state or create a state to make sure we get that outcome? Nothing in particular stops them from doing it. Nothing in particular needs to stop them from doing it. It won't result in cental control of everything by one company unless you're an idiot and ignore the fact that new businesses can be and are started all the time, and they'll control part of it.

So it's idiocy to assume companies are going to merge and competition is your motivator to prevent these Mergers/Monopolies? Competition is actually the motivator for mergers, i'm not sure I would throw the word idiot around and make statements like that.

Think about it competition makes companies fight over the same customer base and it drives their prices down. If they merge guess what, their customer base grows, resulting in market stability and the prices driven down by the cometition goes up, meaning more money. As far as your new businesses goes the competition rule applies with them as well.

You have no viable mechanism to prevent mergers and monopolies, competition is a motivator not a preventer, this is a fundamental flaw in your logic.

Zhwazi wrote:

Quote:

No, I was simply pointing out there is an additional cost associated to remote deployment of infrastructure.

And that's why you want to build there? Because it's more expensive?

I was pointing out that remote infrastructure requires additional cost. Today that's buffered by regulation, in your world it will not be. So both the small business and the larger business are less likely to risk expansion in your world.

Zhwazi wrote:

Quote:

That's a false assumption.. In order to be able to give the people what they want, you need to be in a position to provide everything to everybody.

No you don't.

You're right you don't have to but it's bad business. When you goto the store does the store sell you one egg at a time or by the dozen? You think infrastructure services are different for some reason? Would you goto a store that only sold you one egg at a time and made you wait for the rest?

Zhwazi wrote:
You don't have a positive right to infrastructure or of any quality, I don't see what the problem is here.

If you assume your customer base does not have any rights or quality do you assume you'll stay in business?

Zhwazi wrote:
You don't need to give everything to everybody, just the people that want it. Giving everything to everybody is a waste of effort that could be spent giving people something they want.

Except, like, the fact that they won't have to run 5 miles of phone cord out to my house when I order phone service. And the fact that if they don't build infrastructure, someone else will.

Um.. Your're refuting your own statement "You don't need to give everything to everybody". When in fact you do or you'll have to "run 5 miles of phone cord out to my house when I order phone service". This is the problem you assume infrastructure is in place, when in fact it may not be since the real cost of business is not the individual services but infrastructure deployment and support. Regulations today enforce this and ensures quality services are deployed.

Zhwazi wrote:
Quote:

I think this assumption is based upon an argument that infrastructure is not deployed to everyone but only those that need it. Which is a false assumption.

Not at all. I know how infrastructure works. And I still don't see how forcing someone that owns a bunch of piping or cable to lay it somewhere they don't want to lay it is in some way not intrinsically criminal. If you want the infrastructure built, build it yourself. You have no right to compel anyone else to do so. I'm not against infrastructure, I'm against the use of force, I'm against illegitemate authority. If you use force and authority to create infrastructure, I'll oppose you, not on the basis of your ends but on the basis of your means.

Companies don't have to build there it's not enforced, they can choose to build there an enter the market but then they are obligated to provide equal services. Plus what's the Government got to gain by regulating services to low-income? The reason they do it is because of PUC complaints and safety standards. Can you ensure those in a non-regulated enviornment?

Zhwazi wrote:
Why should the farmer grow more corn when it'll cost him money?

That's my question not yours. But I will answer it for you, nothing. Which is exactly my point nobody is going to build remote infrastructure when it will cost them money. It's done today because of regulation, by removing regulation it will suddenly happen?

Zhwazi wrote:

Why do people invest in small businesses which don't grab a hundredth of a percent of any market? Because they can make a profit off it.

Small businesses can't afford quality infrastructure if any at all, that's the problem, if they could they wouldn't be a small business.

Zhwazi wrote:
There's small businesses supplying power in places like Somalia, they just bring in generators from Saudi Arabia or whatever, fill them up, run wires to whoever, and collect payment. You can invest in those businesses if you want to. They'll never hope to have more than an insignificant percentage of the market, but that doesn't mean you can't get sharp returns on investing where people need it.

So your comparing your infrastructure to a third world nation, thanks for supporting my point.

Zhwazi wrote:
Assuming that any gap between the rich and the poor persists after reaching anarchism, it won't be as wide as you're implying.

Since you just explained to me that the remote infrastructure will be based upon the standards of a third world nation, my economic gap theory seems to be supported.

"A poor man can take out a loan to buy the same equipment as a rich man and set up a system that makes him money much as would the rich man (out of which he repays the loan)."

Please tell me you didn't say this... What bank that isn't insured by a government is going to loan any poor person money?

Zhwazi wrote:
Removing regulation does not force cooperation. Unsupported assertion.

You remove regulation, you increase logistical cost, companies will look for avenues of reduction. It's simply easier for one company to manage deployment.

Zhwazi wrote:
Yes. Because it doesn't have to compete with the whole ISP. It just has to compete with the ISP in it's small neighborhood. Giving a better price and better customer service could be all it takes to do that.

What happens to the small ISP who can only afford infrastructure to provide Dial-up services and the Big ISP is offering FiberOptic lines (Voice,Video & Data) all bundled at a reduced cost? Does the small ISP simply go take a loan out from your imaginary bank? The problem with your analogy is it doesn't take the cost of doing business into account, so yes it works in some scenarios but in others most costly ventures it doesn't.

Zhwazi wrote:

Terms of contracts are much more negotiable with a small ISP. You can arrange whatever you're willing to give the ISP owner for whatever they're willing to give you. If you own the water pipes, you give him water pressure, he gives you internet, no other transaction needs to take place, a very negotiable and mutually beneficial contract. I'd go with an ISP that would prefer to accept something I have more than I want of, but won't sell for something I value as much, without having to sign a long term contract, without getting internet immediately cutoff if I don't pay, et cetera.

Let's see option A) Go through some ritual bartering system and haggleing. B) Call 1-800-GET-STUFF and get everything the next day. Do you really think Option (A) is scalable and can compete? Niche and barter services, good luck with scalability.

Zhwazi wrote:

Not necessarily. You're ignoring an almost infinite number of options here, not the least of which is the fact that it's unlikely for one big company to own all that infrastructure in the first place without state intervention, and the obvious fact that the ISP can contract for access through the big company, or any of the other big companies.

Saying there are an infinite number of options is not proof of anything. What prevents a company from owning all the infrastructure "state intervention" you mean Government?

Letting an ISP contract access to the infrastructure, are you serious? That's like Dominoes contracting their ovens out to some Joe Blow Pizza shop to sell pizza. Do you think that's smart business to lose customer base? Regulations today allows Joe Blow's Pizza to access Dominoes oven's at the same cost as Domino's, this is to prevent exactly what I say will happen a Monopoly.

Zhwazi wrote:

Quote:

Actually I pointed out that's how it's going to work in your scenario, regulation prevents this hurdle today for small business. One group will eventually own all the infrastructure or the internet, telelvision, phone lines etc will be delivered in small sub-networks that won't interconnect. So basically who ever can provide the cheapest and greatest amount of access wins.

Unsupported assertion.

AT&T do a little history lesson. Now it's supported. "One Policy, One System, Universal Service."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Telephone_%26_Telegraph

Zhwazi wrote:

Quote:

How will you make a long distance call or access a web site across the nation if the folks that own the backbone don't let your small ISP/Phone company have access to their infrastructure? This poor ISP will have to delploy nationwide over night in order to do that..Good luck.

Even if we assume your stupid premise in red above, who says they won't? You're basically saying "Everything goes wrong and there's nothing you can do about it. What do you do?" Since I reject your premise that in reality, everything will go wrong, and in reality, there will never be nothing I can do about it, you're not going to like any answers I give because you've already handed me the answer you want me to give you. I don't know if you recognize that you're doing this, but you are.

My stupid Premise is supported by historical fact unlike your hypothesis. What motivates a large company to allow a small company to thrive in their market? Back to the Domino's Principal.

Zhwazi wrote:

Quote:

The rich own the infrastructure they make the rules.

Assuming they do (I don't think they will and your premise is absurd, but accepting it for a moment), you're categorically ruling out the ability of anyone to do anything about it, acting as if one class has the ability to think and do and another does not. The rich do not make the rules, the poor do, the rich rely upon the poor to give them money and to work for them. Without the consent of the poor, the rich are nothing. And where consent is necessary, there are two sets of rules in play, not one.

Since you have not provided any support other than niche services (Low take rates and small markets), bartering system (not scalable in a competitive market), and imaginary bank loans to prevent a Monopoly, I can only assume one company does own everything.

Zhwazi wrote:
"you're categorically ruling out the ability of anyone to do anything about it, acting as if one class has the ability to think and do and another does not".

But doesn't that mean your expirement failed? Classism takes effect and they have to intervene.. You just defeated yourself.

Zhwazi wrote:

Quote:

False assumption, as I pointed out in the rebuttle to you ISP analogy. The poor will never be rich.

Unsupported assertion, and worse, a self-fulfilling prophecy.

You're right the poor can revolt against the rich = Failed Experiment...

Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer. - William S. Burroughs


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qbg wrote: Efficiency is

qbg wrote:
Efficiency is separate from overhead here. Also, it doesn't have to be inefficient.

Other than recognition, which any big organization can get plenty of, I don't see how it would reduce overhead. 

Quote:
With a 'democratic' government, the majority can (at least try) to get a proactive role in the economy through elections rather than in a reactive manner like they normally do. Yes, they can try to become entrepreneurs, but most of them never will be.

I don't know why they don't try, as there's literally infinite room in the entrepreneurial sector. The fact is that they can try if they want to, and those that don't want to or don't care probably won't vote to take any kind of proactive control in the first place.

The only way government can direct production is through force or through pursuasion. Since anyone can pusuade and you don't need a government or democracy to do that, you'd only need a government as far as I can tell if you plan on using force to achieve those goals.

And the problem I see with a democratic proactive role is that it'll leave the minorities who still want things out in the cold at some point in the future. For example if 60% like type A soup, 20% like B, and 20% would rather have beans, in a market the tendency will be towards 60% going towards type A soup, 20% towards type B, and 20% towards beans. I suspect a democratir proactive role may cause, for instance, 80% production of type A soup, and 10% production of both beans and type B soup, which doesn't get people what they want as well.

But if people really want to do it, they can pool their resources, take a vote, and invest in the tools to make whatever kind of soup or beans they vote on. I don't believe this will happen, but it's not impossible, and would allow a proactive democratic control of the economy. 


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neptewn wrote: Zhwazi

neptewn wrote:

Zhwazi wrote:

Theatening to throw somebody in a cage for failure to build utilities you want them to without getting a contract obligating them is a perfect example of slavery. However great your end may be, good intentions do not justify slavery as a means.

Slavery indicates that companies have no choice. They actually have two the judicial path or the option to not enter the market in that region. A slave would have neither option so your argument that it's slavery is false.

A slave is given two options as well, work or suffer punishment. It is nonetheless slavery. Anytime someone is using force or fraud to limit your options, they are enslaving you. By preventing you from making a choice you have every right to make, they are wronging you and violating your rights.

Zhwazi wrote:
This is making the assumption that a business has a foothold in the market already and is willing to risk the investment. In order to expense the cost "everyplace else" means they have to have an "everyplace else", you've defeated your small business argument yourself. No small business can afford to build in remote areas initially without external investment to cover start-up cost.

And why can't they get an external investment?

Quote:
Zhwazi wrote:
Why is growth in remote areas preferential to growth in central areas?

From a business perspective it's not. The overall cost and maintenace is much higher, thus lending credit to the argument that if a company does not have to build remotely they won't.

I didn't ask what they would do, I'm asking why they should build in remote areas instead of central ones. You didn't answer the question. Why is growth in remote areas preferred?

Zhwazi wrote:
Try having a house built with no single point of coordination, now try building a housing track, how about a city. Yes, it can be done it just won't be efficient. The problem you face is logistical difficulty. With the increases in scale of the project the difficulty increases as well forming a hierarchy of support needs.

Adding the bueaucracy of hierarchy won't be efficient. Let people do as they please, and they'll cooperate and agree to things. ANSI is not a governmental organization, yet people go by their standards all the time. There's no government that makes sure all USB devices conform to the USB standard, there's no need for government to lay down the standards for building a block of houses.

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Your analogy of the governement is inaccurate it does not take into account logitics, people can do things without a single point of coordination they don't because it's ineffieceint.

I didn't say they don't have a single point of coordination. I just said no government. Government is a much more specific variant.

Zhwazi wrote:
So it's idiocy to assume companies are going to merge and competition is your motivator to prevent these Mergers/Monopolies? Competition is actually the motivator for mergers, i'm not sure I would throw the word idiot around and make statements like that.

Mergers != monopolies. New businesses form all the time in free markets and take market share away from the bigger ones. If two big ones merge, you've still got a bunch of smaller ones. You won't get monopolies in free markets from mergers.

Quote:
Think about it competition makes companies fight over the same customer base and it drives their prices down. If they merge guess what, their customer base grows, resulting in market stability and the prices driven down by the cometition goes up, meaning more money. As far as your new businesses goes the competition rule applies with them as well.

Alright, so why don't all small businesses just merge into big businesses and drive up prices and increase profitability? To answer my own rhetorical question, because you're oversimplifying things and omitting relevant factors.

Quote:
You have no viable mechanism to prevent mergers and monopolies, competition is a motivator not a preventer, this is a fundamental flaw in your logic.

It is not necessary to prevent mergers or monopolies. Competition motivates mergers, but so can it motivate splitting up. Mercedes and Chrysler I believe it is, why are they breaking up? According to your reasoning, there's no way to explain it. They shouldn't be doing it because it should be bad for profits, and competition will lower prices, don't they know it's not in their best interests? You're ignoring important facts of economic life.

Quote:
I was pointing out that remote infrastructure requires additional cost. Today that's buffered by regulation, in your world it will not be. So both the small business and the larger business are less likely to risk expansion in your world.

No they're not, they're more likely to do so because the taxes are gone.

Quote:
You're right you don't have to but it's bad business. When you goto the store does the store sell you one egg at a time or by the dozen? You think infrastructure services are different for some reason? Would you goto a store that only sold you one egg at a time and made you wait for the rest?

I'm going to have to ask you to elaborate on the relevance of this. Because what you said was "In order to be able to give the people what they want, you need to be in a position to provide everything to everybody" and I don't know how you interpret those words to get anything related to how many eggs you buy at a time.

Quote:
If you assume your customer base does not have any rights or quality do you assume you'll stay in business?

Do you know what the words "positive rights" means? The customers have the right to contract and demand whatever quality they want to demand. But if nobody is giving it to them, they're shit out of luck, nobody has to provide it to them, even if they can do so.

Zhwazi wrote:
Um.. Your're refuting your own statement "You don't need to give everything to everybody". When in fact you do or you'll have to "run 5 miles of phone cord out to my house when I order phone service". This is the problem you assume infrastructure is in place, when in fact it may not be since the real cost of business is not the individual services but infrastructure deployment and support. Regulations today enforce this and ensures quality services are deployed.

What the hell, I know how infrastructure works. I'm taking issue with your (so far as I've been able to figure) unfounded belief that people won't lay infrastructure where other people want it to go, and that it's wrong to not do it. I'm not assuming whether or not it's in place, but if it's in place, the question is upgrading it which is more or less the same principle anyways.

Regulations are not needed to enforce quality and building of infrastructure.

Quote:
Companies don't have to build there it's not enforced, they can choose to build there an enter the market but then they are obligated to provide equal services.

Obligated by what? By law? Then the obligation is gone. By contract? Then the obligation won't go away but nobody contracts for "equal services" so it's absurd to suppose that. They're not obligated to provide anything equally. Nobody is.

Quote:
Plus what's the Government got to gain by regulating services to low-income?

Power and votes and money, what else is government ever after?

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The reason they do it is because of PUC complaints and safety standards. Can you ensure those in a non-regulated enviornment?

Ensure, no. Do I have to? No. They'll be there anyways.

Quote:
That's my question not yours. But I will answer it for you, nothing. Which is exactly my point nobody is going to build remote infrastructure when it will cost them money. It's done today because of regulation, by removing regulation it will suddenly happen?

People will stop building unnecessary infrastructure. Boo fucking hoo. My whole question is, why is that bad?

Quote:
Small businesses can't afford quality infrastructure if any at all, that's the problem, if they could they wouldn't be a small business.

Small businesses can afford infrastructure. Maybe not infrastructure to be built specifically for them, but they don't have to, the whole point in building is to reach a mass market.

Quote:
So your comparing your infrastructure to a third world nation, thanks for supporting my point.

First you accuse me of assuming infrastructure already exists, then you accuse my level of infrastructure of almost not existing? Pick one strawman and stick with it so I can show you how you're wrong.

Quote:
Since you just explained to me that the remote infrastructure will be based upon the standards of a third world nation, my economic gap theory seems to be supported.

If you're not going to even TRY to understand what I'm saying I'm not going to bother talking to you. Strawman and non sequitur.

Quote:
Please tell me you didn't say this... What bank that isn't insured by a government is going to loan any poor person money?

One that sees a potential for high return on the investment. And who says it has to be a bank in the first place? There are other ways of organizing things.

Quote:
You remove regulation, you increase logistical cost, companies will look for avenues of reduction. It's simply easier for one company to manage deployment.

Removing regulation does not increase logistical cost. Unsupported assertion. And easier for who exactly?

Quote:
What happens to the small ISP who can only afford infrastructure to provide Dial-up services and the Big ISP is offering FiberOptic lines (Voice,Video & Data) all bundled at a reduced cost? Does the small ISP simply go take a loan out from your imaginary bank? The problem with your analogy is it doesn't take the cost of doing business into account, so yes it works in some scenarios but in others most costly ventures it doesn't.

You are just full of strawmen today, aren't you? Where did I say anything that ignores the cost of doing business? Quote me on it. Please.

Quote:
Let's see option A) Go through some ritual bartering system and haggleing. B) Call 1-800-GET-STUFF and get everything the next day. Do you really think Option (A) is scalable and can compete? Niche and barter services, good luck with scalability.

You don't have to barter and haggle if you don't want to. Just because I said it was an option doesn't imply that it's the only option. Strawman AGAIN.

Quote:
Saying there are an infinite number of options is not proof of anything. What prevents a company from owning all the infrastructure "state intervention" you mean Government?

Nothing has to prevent them from doing it. That's the thing. It's not a natural market phenomenon for one company to own everything.

Quote:
Letting an ISP contract access to the infrastructure, are you serious? That's like Dominoes contracting their ovens out to some Joe Blow Pizza shop to sell pizza. Do you think that's smart business to lose customer base?

It's smart business to deal with a few large customers rather than a lot of small customers. The few large customers are called "Distributors". Haven't you ever heard of independant distributors? I used to work for one.

Quote:
Regulations today allows Joe Blow's Pizza to access Dominoes oven's at the same cost as Domino's, this is to prevent exactly what I say will happen a Monopoly.

Regulations today also prohibit Joe Blow from buying ovens. So he has no choice but to go through Domino's ovens. Get rid of those regulations and Joe Blow will probably buy himself a few ovens.

Quote:
AT&T do a little history lesson. Now it's supported. "One Policy, One System, Universal Service."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Telephone_%26_Telegraph

You do a little deeper history lesson. The AT&T monopoly was created by the government from the very beginning. It has no application to anarchy at all.

Quote:
My stupid Premise is supported by historical fact unlike your hypothesis.

Your stupid premise was that the market would make monopolies of infrastructure. Your historical "evidence" is that the government made a monopoly of infrastructure. Your stupid premise is no less stupid when supported by misinterpreted evidence.

Quote:
What motivates a large company to allow a small company to thrive in their market? Back to the Domino's Principal.

The same principle that motivates franchising and the independant distributor.

Quote:
Since you have not provided any support other than niche services (Low take rates and small markets), bartering system (not scalable in a competitive market), and imaginary bank loans to prevent a Monopoly, I can only assume one company does own everything.

Since every single one of those was a strawman, you can't assume anything.

Quote:
Zhwazi wrote:
"you're categorically ruling out the ability of anyone to do anything about it, acting as if one class has the ability to think and do and another does not".

But doesn't that mean your expirement failed? Classism takes effect and they have to intervene.. You just defeated yourself.

You act as if one class has a brain and another doesn't and then use that assumption alone to make it look like I defeated myself? Are you fucking following this debate at all?

Quote:
You're right the poor can revolt against the rich = Failed Experiment...

Strawman.


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Zhwazi wrote: Other than

Zhwazi wrote:

Other than recognition, which any big organization can get plenty of, I don't see how it would reduce overhead. 



The government doesn't need to make a profit, pay dividends, give CEOs huge benefits, etc.
Quote:

... Since anyone can pusuade and you don't need a government or democracy to do that, you'd only need a government as far as I can tell if you plan on using force to achieve those goals.

It seems you are forgetting government run businesses (assuming they exist)

Anyways, personally, I don't like nationalization; then again I don't like privatization either.

"What right have you to condemn a murderer if you assume him necessary to "God's plan"? What logic can command the return of stolen property, or the branding of a thief, if the Almighty decreed it?"
-- The Economic Tendency of Freethought


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qbg wrote: The government

qbg wrote:
The government doesn't need to make a profit, pay dividends, give CEOs huge benefits, etc.

Oh, I was confusing "not make a profit" with insolvency. I guess you're right on that point. But wouldn't a cooperative also get rid of that same form of overhead?

Quote:
It seems you are forgetting government run businesses (assuming they exist) Anyways, personally, I don't like nationalization; then again I don't like privatization either.

Privatization as countries do it is just an excuse for favoritism. I don't like how that's done either, although private ownership outside the illegitemate titles granted by government "privatization" doesn't take on the same attributes.