Issues with Anarcho-Capitalism, Part 2: Counterexamples

[EGreg]

Alright, I'll keep this one even more to the point.

Government

Anarcho-capitalists seem to think that "the government" is some crazy monopoly thing, that owns land or whatever. There is no "the" government. There are organizations. People are free to form organizations, and once they do, the organizations have to be managed somehow. The management team of every organization is its government.

FreeDomainRadio is an organization. This board is an organization. My posts are being moderated. So there is no "freedom of speech" here. My posts have to be approved, because my first post said something like "I would like to challenge Stefan to a debate", and it probably was flagged by a moderator. This is normal – this is to ensure the board doesn't veer off into "bad things", and to "maintain quality". Welcome to government!

Freedom

Praxeology and Methodological Individualism holds that organizations can't own things, only individuals can. Well, who do you think released that bank app you're using, on that app store you're using? Which individual released that iPhone or Android phone you're using? If that individual goes away (RIP Steve Jobs) who is doing it now?

Obviously, organizations can own things. Apple owns a lot of cash at the moment, and no single individual owns that. Banks own things. It would be the same in an anarcho-capitalist utopia.

The fact is, if you abolish government and make people completely free, they will form organizations. Companies, corporate parks, neighborhoods etc. They will form alliances, and join into city-states. Cities will join into commonwealths. And you'll go right back to what we have now.

Free Market

How would we define a free market? How about, "a market with no monopoly of force".

Well, in that case, free markets do exist! Every international market is a free market, because the participants have no "world government" over them, only multilateral agreements such as international law. The labor market between countries, or how about the Forex market. Isn't that a free market by the above definition? Yet it is not meaningfully more efficient than, say, the publicly regulated stock market.

Of course, this does not mean that government distortions of markets are necessarily always OK. In fact, distortions and incentives in general can have unforeseen consequences. But we do have free markets and we are about to judge how well such "lack of monopoly of force" really works.

Tribalism

Here is what I would talk about with Stefan if I ever was on his show. Throughout history, we do have a "lack of monopoly of force" at the highest levels, and we can study the results.

People had tribes, which fought one another. We can study how much violence there was among prehistoric man, including by looking at blunt trauma. Or look at the uncontacted tribes today. Read the book The Better Angels of our Nature: How Violence has Declined by Steven Pinker. He has figures after figures comparing societies from prehistoric to modern, on the amount of violence.

You don't need to go far. Hey Stefan, your ancestors in Ireland as well as nearby Scottish highlands and the rest of Britain fought in clans and tribes among each other. And in fact, most of Europe was a backwater during the Roman Empire. In many ways the "barbarians" were considered so brutish and backward as to beunworthy of assimilation, much like you consider the "other races" today. More on that below (empires).

And by the way, World War 1 may have started because there was no monopoly of force, or one should say, one federal government in Europe. The alliances between individual countries triggered a cascading effect that led to a huge war. You can also see retribution cycles on smaller levels with Hatfields vs McCoys etc. This what Hobbes talks about in The Leviathan when he talks about "the war of all vs all". World War 2 also saw different countries fighting each other, and a lot of brutal things. Now there is a EU and there hasn't been war for 50 years.

Empires

Is imperialism and empires totally bad? We all speak English, on the internet, using protocols on computers. English is due to the British Empire. The United States is an empire of 50 states which do not war with each other (except for the civil war), speak the same language, have the same McDonalds due to the shared interstate highway system, and permit free travel between them. Digital computers and CPUs, were invented using army financing into microwave research during World War 2 (read Steve Blank's Secret History of Silicon Valley). The internet was invented using DARPA.

Before electronics, there were huge infrastructure projects by cities and states. Aqueducts in Rome. Interstate Highway System in the USA. In the last 20 years, China has just raised the most people out of poverty than ever in history (in absolute numbers). Incomes have risen 500% every 10 years. The USA had average incomes rise from around $5,000 to $22,000 from 1920 to 1990. In that same period the USSR, which you consider to be far inferior at creating wealth, made incomes rise from $500 to $5,000 a month, a 10-fold increase versus the USA's 4-fold increase. Yes, Socialist USSR helped bring electricity and literacy to many Muslim republics, for example, such as Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. (However, I do NOT approve of the forced confiscation of wealth, political repression, great terrors etc. of the USSR's authoritarian regime. Just talking about productivity measures in a vaccuum, here.)

When we say "China invented paper 2000 years ago" or "Chinese invented gunpowder 1000 years ago" what we are really saying is that there was an EMPIRE called "China", with an EMPEROR. Someone in that empire invented paper, and it spread. Because everyone spoke a similar language, and had the same writing system. Because empires invest in military technology and science, and attract smart people to the center, and disseminate information. Yes, free markets work, but everyone speaks the same language because empires.

With technology today, I believe we can finally increase decentralization, but throughout human history that wasn't always the case.

Races

So Stefan likes to espouse "race realism", and certainly there are differences between races. No one disputes average height is different, for example, or skin or hair color, or facial features. But "IQ" is a nebulous measure. How about a different analysis:

Sub-Saharan Africa is different from Europe and Asia in one aspect: it had no large empires. Asia had China, the Mongols, the Guptas, etc. The mediterranean had too many to count, including Alexander's Greek-speaking empire, Romen's empire, and Carthage. (Some may say Carthage is an African empire, but it clearly never beyond a sliver of Africa.)

When we say "Arabs invented algebra", once again we mean Arab-speaking people under an Arab freaking empire! And why were they more advanced than the Europeans of the time? Was it racial theory? No. It was empire.

Why were Arabs more advanced than the Persians during the Arab empire, but Persians were much more advanced 1000 years earlier during the Persian empires of Xerxes and Darius?

By contrast, Africa had no empires, but had a great "lack of monopoly on force" that Stefan and anarcho-capitalists love so much. Tribes spent endless energy fighting one another, and when alliances did form, they led to prosperity (such as in Zimbabwe).

If you do look at the empires in Africa, you will find they formed along rivers. There is no accident that Stratfor's analysis of the US "Part 1: The Inevitable Empire" starts by discussing the geological features of the USA with its rivers and transportation cost of perishable foods. These are major factors, and it would be an interesting question to ask "Why did Africa not develop any large empires?" I bet you that if they had, they'd have a lot more military might and the Dutch colonists sailing around the Cape Horn of Africa would never be able to so easily colonize South Africa. The English maybe, who later took it from the Dutch with their military might.

Just as people join into commonwealths or get crushed by marauders and neighboring powers, so do countries join into empires and spheres of influence, and that's still going on today.

Africans did not have any real huge empires or economic centers of their own, and thus were plundered for their ivory trade, and later the diamond industry. There were brutal wars but most of the wealth left the country. State Capitalism of course leads to this plundering, despite many well-intentioned people. Look at the Opium Wars in China, or the Raj in India, or United Fruit Company in Guatemala, or BP in Iran before the MI5 and CIA helped overthrow democracy there and installed a Shah. Does Stefan really think that Persians are an inferior race than whites with lower IQ? They had democracy ... we ruined it. They are still very educated btw. Oh and ironically the Iranians are "Aryan".

Summary

So I hope this analysis shows... people join into organizations to get economics of scale, mutual protection, etc. And then investments in science and technology, common language, etc. these bring not only wealth but resilience against plundering. That explains what we see in the world today, in some ways far better than anarcho-capitalist theories.

People form organizations. The organizations own things and make laws within their jurisdiction. The management of those organizations is called "government". That is all.

[powder]

There is no moral content in any of that.  Its about coercion.  The Voluntaryist (anarchist) position is all about voluntary interactions, consent.  If people are free to participate, or walk away if they prefer something else, you can any kind of organizational structure you like.  

[EGreg]

No moral content?

If people want to form an organization, how will you prevent them? By force?

And if they form an organization, they will have to run it somehow. That's called "government".

If you want to read about coersion, read my first post. Property Rights are enFORCED with coersion. Violence is used to evict people from their homes when they can't pay the rent, for example. If you are going to argue about that, please do it in the other thread.

[Boss]

Government

No, the government is not an organization. An organization does not indoctrinate children who didn't sign up to said organization and point guns at them.

The government is just a group of individuals pointing guns. 

Freedom

An individual at Apple set up the contract that way, I am not sure if the government had anything to do with apple, however, in a free market an individual can set it up so the money made doesn't belong to an individual but instead has to be spent in order to profit to keep shareholders happy. Which is what I believe apple has done. 

Free Market

The free market is simple, no taxation, no regulation, No coercion

Tribalism
not sure on the point here

Empires
Coercion is whats "totally bad"

As far as speaking English and using computers. it's simple in the free market. Whoever has the best incentive will win, no guns needed.

Like I am not going to learn some African clicking language because the incentive is low. I am not going to use a floppy disk computer because there are people with a better one that I can use. 

Nothing beats the free market. People will choose what they want to do best in a free market. 

Races & Summary
not sure on the point on race

Anyways, it seems you are fixated on this "empire" thing. Well it's time you know this, 

There is no such thing as an empire, just individuals with a gun. 

[Goldenages]

On 14.9.2017 at 2:15 PM, EGreg said:

People had tribes, which fought one another....

Yes. And Empires are just bigger tribes. It makes no difference wether you are sacrificed by your chief or your emperor, in either way you end up dead.

There is no doubt that, e.g., the Roman Empire spread culture, law, knowledge, etc. etc.  But all that also would have spread without battles and uncounted victims, just by trade - the wars were fought to install military, political structures and taxation, when the war was over the exchange of goods and the assimilation of culture took place. So we can cancel the war, thus politics and taxation, out of the equation and still stay with exchange of goods and culture.

 

regards

Andi

[Goldenages]

On 14.9.2017 at 2:15 PM, EGreg said:

Why were Arabs more advanced than the Persians during the Arab empire, but Persians were much more advanced 1000 years earlier during the Persian empires of Xerxes and Darius?

Well, define "advanced"

We see history from a certain point of view, we remember the dates of battles and the size and duration of empires. But that is a coarse pattern, and actually we are admiring, or at least remembering, those with the strongest military, the greatest propaganda, or the strongest stimulus to down their neighbours, or simply the most brutal. Those do not necessarily represent the most advanced.

On 14.9.2017 at 2:15 PM, EGreg said:

Does Stefan really think that Persians are an inferior race than whites with lower IQ? They had democracy ... we ruined it

I do not think so, because he never said anything like this.

Now think who destroyed Persian democracy: State power, some western tribes. A great Empire, the military-industrial complex of the US, with all attributes so utterly admired  - as long as it is an ancient, "advanced"  empire.

I have visited Teheran, Isfahan and Shiraz (Persepolis, wow!). My impression ist that people are genuinly friendly, very interested in foreigners, many speak english, french or german - and are suppressed by their religious government. Religion, the best stimulus to build empires and down neighbours.

regards

Andi

[Garrett]

On 9/14/2017 at 9:15 AM, EGreg said:

Government

Anarcho-capitalists seem to think that "the government" is some crazy monopoly thing, that owns land or whatever. There is no "the" government. There are organizations. People are free to form organizations, and once they do, the organizations have to be managed somehow. The management team of every organization is its government.

FreeDomainRadio is an organization. This board is an organization. My posts are being moderated. So there is no "freedom of speech" here. My posts have to be approved, because my first post said something like "I would like to challenge Stefan to a debate", and it probably was flagged by a moderator. This is normal – this is to ensure the board doesn't veer off into "bad things", and to "maintain quality". Welcome to government!

 

You seem to be confusing the directors of a voluntary peaceful organization like a corporation or a forum like this with the non-voluntary violent coercive organization like a government. Not all organizations are governments. Only governments are governments, by virtue of the non-voluntary attribute, and violently stopping any competing organization. I suggest you get your thoughts a little more untangled before wanting to debate someone like Stefan. Frankly if he were to debate you and publish the podcast, I might listen to a few minutes of it and just get bored from all the shallow sophistry.

[Garrett]

On 9/14/2017 at 9:15 AM, EGreg said:

Free Market

How would we define a free market? How about, "a market with no monopoly of force".

Well, in that case, free markets do exist! Every international market is a free market, because the participants have no "world government" over them, only multilateral agreements such as international law. The labor market between countries, or how about the Forex market. Isn't that a free market by the above definition? Yet it is not meaningfully more efficient than, say, the publicly regulated stock market.

Of course, this does not mean that government distortions of markets are necessarily always OK. In fact, distortions and incentives in general can have unforeseen consequences. But we do have free markets and we are about to judge how well such "lack of monopoly of force" really works.

 

No. A free market is a market with no coercion. Not just a lack of a monopoly of force. Some markets have more coercion than others. I don't know of any truly free market anywhere, except maybe in very limited settings and scope.

Not every international market is free of coercion. I'd be surprised if you find any at all. Just ask Saddam Hussein if he was free to sell oil for gold, or Qaddafi if he was free to create a north African currency that was gold backed, or Syria if they're free to build a pipeline wherever they like through their own country.

[Tyler H]

Got as far as the first sentence of the second paragraph before checking out. 

You said “ancaps seem to think” which tells me you don’t understand the position, an hypothesis that is quickly substantiated when you begin to compare a voluntary relationship like FDR to a coercive one like the government. 

[EGreg]

I can certainly try to respond point by point to everything here, but it will make a long post. So I will just make short replies.

There is no moral content in any of that.  Its about coercion.  The Voluntaryist (anarchist) position is all about voluntary interactions, consent.

I handled this in my first post, called "Issues with anarcho-capitalism, Part 1: Logic". In there I discuss the NAP. Private property requires coersion as well. How do you think a renter is evicted for not paying the rent? Don't respond here, respond in that other post please.

If people are free to participate, or walk away if they prefer something else, you can any kind of organizational structure you like.  

Exactly! People form a co-op building, and they have policies (e.g. no pets) which they enforce. They also enforce rent. You open your business in a mall, they charge rent. You disagree with how your rent money is being used (e.g. on toy trains for kids) you stop paying rent, they hire men with guns to evict you. Is that voluntary? You will say yes because you can walk away from the mall because you prefer somewhere else. Well, you can also walk away from a town or a city or a state, to another town or city or a state. But, you complain, why does it have to be another city and state? SO your complaint is that people all over the world have chosen to organize and enact policies and enforce them. No one owes you the existence of an organization that runs exactly how you want. Pick a country, city, neighborhood, and go live there. You are looking for utopia, it seems.

An individual at Apple set up the contract that way, I am not sure if the government had anything to do with apple, however, in a free market an individual can set it up so the money made doesn't belong to an individual but instead has to be spent in order to profit to keep shareholders happy. Which is what I believe apple has done. 

Shareholders in what? If you are going to say (as methodological individualists do) that only individuals can act and own things, then which individual in Apple owns those billions of dollars in profits that they have? And why doesn't this individual just leave Apple? If they do, will the billions go with them? It is much more useful to just accept that organizations can also own things. And the shareholders elect a board of directors, which is ... the government of Apple! And they own a building, and can evict people. So why can't a city own land or buildings?

No, the government is not an organization. An organization does not indoctrinate children who didn't sign up to said organization and point guns at them.

I didn't say the government was an organization. In fact, I said there is no such thing as the government. People form organizations, and then they have to run them somehow. That is called "governance" and the management team is called "government". A board of directors of a company or a co-op is a government. Governments don't own things. THe organizations do. If people want to form an organization, how will you prevent them? By force?

And if they form an organization, they will have to run it somehow. That's called "government".

The government is just a group of individuals pointing guns. 

If this is the level of intellectual accuracy that I have to adopt in order to be an anarcho-capitalist, I can see why I am not one. So, let's ignore all the usual definitions and concepts and just define a government as "a group of individuals pointing guns." And then we can also let the guns be metaphorical (because hardly anyone is holding a real gun). And bam, suddenly you can point to the government everywhere and at all times, and blame it for everything. Can be fun, but also you can understand why not everyone is convinced by such an approach.

If you want to read about coersion, read my first post. Property Rights are enFORCED with coersion. Violence is used to evict people from their homes when they can't pay the rent, for example. If you are going to argue about that, please do it in the other thread.

The free market is simple, no taxation, no regulation, No coercion

As I have said in my other thread, the institution of private property requires coersion. You need to enforce the private property. But of course, any force used to defend whatever idea of property you like is just going to be by definition "defensive force". So you just define yourself to be right. And if people disagree with your ideas, you send men with guns after them, but this time it's totally OK because Private property! So for example, if a town used "men with guns" to arrest you for walking naked on the street, you would say that's an example of statist tyranny. But if DisneyWorld did it, that's totally fine because they're privately owned by a corporation. Or perhaps if an individual owns the whole town then suddenly everything is fine, including taxation.

1. No. A free market is a market with no coercion. Not just a lack of a monopoly of force. Some markets have more coercion than others. I don't know of any truly free market anywhere, except maybe in very limited settings and scope. Not every international market is free of coercion. I'd be surprised if you find any at all.

2. Nothing beats the free market. People will choose what they want to do best in a free market. 

Alright, let's try to put 1 and 2 together. So, a free market as you prefer to define it doesn't exist anywhere in the world. But nothing beats it! And we know what people will do in it! Amazing. Perhaps you can see why not everyone chooses to use these definitions.

And by the way, no market is free of coersion, not even your theoretical free market.  If A and B make a voluntary contract to fire C and hire B instead, then C is no longer getting money. If C runs out of money, C is in bad shape. And C is not able to choose what they want to do best (such as eat a nutritious meal) if C has no money with which to do it, and no prospects of earning any money either. I submit to you  that, when you say "no coersion" you mean "no coersion of people with money" but lots and LOTS of coersion of people who lack money but need things. As you can plainly see today with people working paycheck to paycheck, or all throughout history as people "voluntarily" became serfs to feed themselves. There is absolutely no market in which there is no force involved at all, because every agreement has externalities that affect things somewhere else. I may write a whole post about the mechanics of this later.

I prefer to use a definition of the free market that can actually be applied in the real world, to things that exist: a market with no monopoly of force. This is, incidentally, the same definition that many anarcho-capitalist economists and philosophers have used, like Mises and Rothbard, who actually try to be careful because they care about their work being critiqued. They talk about polycentric legal systems, etc.

Tribalism: not sure on the point there

The point is that, according to the definition of the free market I gave (no monopoly of force), there have always been free markets. Once you reach the top level of organization, such as a tribe, the rest is fighting. You have far bloodier wars between countries than neighborhoods. SO when the tribe is the top unit of organization, the tribes fight each other all the time. And African tribes never joined together enough to progress further. Europeans eventually did. Stefan's Irish tribes eventually did. When the Europeans joined into the EU, suddenly boom there is unprecedented peace in Europe. Funny that.

As far as speaking English and using computers. it's simple in the free market. Whoever has the best incentive will win, no guns needed.

Yes I'm sure the free market is the reason Australians, Canadians, South Africans, the United States, Indians, Philippines and others speak English. It has nothing to do with the ENGLISH or the British Empire, right? And everyone spoke Greek in Alexander's EMPIRE. And everyone wrote Chinese in the Chinese EMPIRE. And everyone spoke Arabic in the Arabian EMPIRE. Maybe empires have SOMETHING to do with this?

I mean, what is your standard for evidence? You seem to look down on various religions, but if you're going to ignore any amount of real-world evidence and just spout ideological slogans and have massive double standards for burdens of evidence, then this might just be a religion too.

There is no doubt that, e.g., the Roman Empire spread culture, law, knowledge, etc. etc.  But all that also would have spread without battles and uncounted victims, just by trade

And how are the conditions for trade going to come about? Who is going to enforce "anarcho-capitalist principles" when your town is being raided by barbarians? Before the age of unprecedented wealth, as long as it was more profitable to raid someone, people would do it. And they might do it again if the current rates of deforestation and unprecedented desertification of farmland and destruction of ecosystems continue. A lot of what you are complaining (migrations from Africa) were predicted over and over by environmentalists since at least 2006, http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/csd/csd16/rim/eca_bg3.pdf ,  http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-34790661 etc.

And let's say all we do is enforce private property and contracts. So the courts in your town are privately owned and only care about profits and business, right? Because if they don't, then the courts which do care about profit will get more business. So now a billionaire comes and rent your courts for a while. Totally fine in an anarcho-capitalist society. And then they initiate force against you, rob you blind, and leave. They more than recouped the renting of the courts. And after you recover, another billionaire comes and does the same. This is a money-based version of the marauders above. If money is the only signal in a society, then whoever has more money can call the shots. What are you going to do, little town? Worship at the altar of the invisible hand?

Got as far as the first sentence of the second paragraph before checking out. You said “ancaps seem to think” which tells me you don’t understand the position, an hypothesis that is quickly substantiated when you begin to compare a voluntary relationship like FDR to a coercive one like the government. 

Wow, this is the most ideological comment on the thread. So, do you also dismiss things you agree with because of a single word that seems to be not exactly what you like? I doubt it.

For what it's worth, I understand ancap positions very well because I have conversed with many, many ancaps, over many years. I try to choose my words carefully and prefer to use actual definitions that can describe things in the real world, when talking about real world policies.

At the end of the day, free markets (as you define them) don't exist, and yet you say they are the best. On the other hand, people organize themselves all the time, and their organizations do own things. These organizations need to be governed somehow, by some rules. These rules are enforced. If you don't like it, you can go to another organization. But no one owes you an anarcho-capitalist fantasy utopia. And calling people immoral for it is just whining

 

[Dylan Lawrence Moore]

3 hours ago, Tyler H said:

Got as far as the first sentence of the second paragraph before checking out. 

You said “ancaps seem to think” which tells me you don’t understand the position, an hypothesis that is quickly substantiated when you begin to compare a voluntary relationship like FDR to a coercive one like the government. 

Beat me to it.

[RichardY]

@EGregAt its base Anarcho-Capitalism: No rulers of capital, people can still develop communes if they wish. Empire: The Emperor as the Moral Imperative,(Imperator). Ways of structuring morality in society, in the absence of Ethics.

Africa: If IQ isn't relevant then why didn't they develop roads and use the wheel?(Egypt and Carthage Excluded)

Ownership: You can still have shareholders in an organisation, thus individuals owning a percentage of the company, buyers owning their Iphone. In Islam companies are supposed to be dissolved on death of their owners and assets given to the wives under Sharia. Patents are in opposition to ownership, only so many ways to crack an egg.

So are you arguing in favour of Empire? If so, who gets to be Emperor? Both the Roman Empire and British Empire had previous periods of economic expansion and growth under a more republican form of government before they were Empires. Under the Spanish Empire the Capital Madrid was constructed in the centre of the Iberian Peninsula, which contributed to mass starvation at the time. 

 

[EGreg]

I responded to many of those queries above, just waiting for the moderator to approve my posts.

I am actually not sure why my posts are being held and need approval, but I am guessing it's because my ideas do not agree with anarcho-capitalism. If possible, maybe a moderator can lift this restriction? Then I will be able to respond much more fluently.

[Boss]

On 9/17/2017 at 2:43 PM, EGreg said:

Shareholders in what? If you are going to say (as methodological individualists do) that only individuals can act and own things, then which individual in Apple owns those billions of dollars in profits that they have? And why doesn't this individual just leave Apple? If they do, will the billions go with them? It is much more useful to just accept that organizations can also own things. And the shareholders elect a board of directors, which is ... the government of Apple! And they own a building, and can evict people. So why can't a city own land or buildings?

No, the government is not an organization. An organization does not indoctrinate children who didn't sign up to said organization and point guns at them.

I didn't say the government was an organization. In fact, I said there is no such thing as the government. People form organizations, and then they have to run them somehow. That is called "governance" and the management team is called "government". A board of directors of a company or a co-op is a government. Governments don't own things. THe organizations do. If people want to form an organization, how will you prevent them? By force?

And if they form an organization, they will have to run it somehow. That's called "government".

The government is just a group of individuals pointing guns. 

If this is the level of intellectual accuracy that I have to adopt in order to be an anarcho-capitalist, I can see why I am not one. So, let's ignore all the usual definitions and concepts and just define a government as "a group of individuals pointing guns." And then we can also let the guns be metaphorical (because hardly anyone is holding a real gun). And bam, suddenly you can point to the government everywhere and at all times, and blame it for everything. Can be fun, but also you can understand why not everyone is convinced by such an approach.

If you want to read about coersion, read my first post. Property Rights are enFORCED with coersion. Violence is used to evict people from their homes when they can't pay the rent, for example. If you are going to argue about that, please do it in the other thread.

4

I am not sure if you're familiar with IPO and contracts. If I own a business and decide to sell my business, I don't need to sell it just to a single individual. I can do an IPO and sell it to millions of individuals if I wanted to. I can set the contact so the profits don't go to a single individual as it did beforehand but now belong to the millions of individuals who FREELY decided to sign the contract and buy part of my company. What I cant do is get the kids of the individuals whose signed the contact and start pointing guns at them asking for more money. No one can morally indoctrinate the kids and point guns to them like the state does. Nothing compares to the horror of the state which has murdered over a quarter of a billion people. Also, it seems you still haven't recognized government/organizations do not exist in reality. I feel this is what is causing confusion and statements like "why can't a city own land or buildings?"

There are only individuals. 

 

On 9/17/2017 at 2:43 PM, EGreg said:

Nothing beats the free market. People will choose what they want to do best in a free market. 

Alright, let's try to put 1 and 2 together. So, a free market as you prefer to define it doesn't exist anywhere in the world. But nothing beats it! And we know what people will do in it! Amazing. Perhaps you can see why not everyone chooses to use these definitions.

And by the way, no market is free of coersion, not even your theoretical free market.  If A and B make a voluntary contract to fire C and hire B instead, then C is no longer getting money. If C runs out of money, C is in bad shape. And C is not able to choose what they want to do best (such as eat a nutritious meal) if C has no money with which to do it, and no prospects of earning any money either. I submit to you  that, when you say "no coersion" you mean "no coersion of people with money" but lots and LOTS of coersion of people who lack money but need things. As you can plainly see today with people working paycheck to paycheck, or all throughout history as people "voluntarily" became serfs to feed themselves. There is absolutely no market in which there is no force involved at all, because every agreement has externalities that affect things somewhere else. I may write a whole post about the mechanics of this later.

I prefer to use a definition of the free market that can actually be applied in the real world, to things that exist: a market with no monopoly of force. This is, incidentally, the same definition that many anarcho-capitalist economists and philosophers have used, like Mises and Rothbard, who actually try to be careful because they care about their work being critiqued. They talk about polycentric legal systems, etc.

8

Of course the free market as I have defined it exists, It may not be the majority of the market these days but many people buy and sell things to friends/family/craigslist without worrying about taxation, regulation or coercion. You can even think of the black market which is $1.8 trillion globally. Now obviously I don't agree with some of the black market morally but it exists.

Do you think taxation, regulation, and coercion existed throughout history? its only a small slither of time compared to the free market. The free market is clearly the majority in terms of history and the only time in history where I seen markets fail was due to coercion(non free markets)

As far as your story of "no market is free of coercion" How is someone(C) who Freely decided not to plan, save, apply for jobs or create a job like A did being coerced?

"a market with no monopoly of force" makes no sense, its either there is force or not.

free market = a market with no force

Regulation is coercion 

Taxation is theft

[Tyler H]

11 hours ago, EGreg said:

I responded to many of those queries above, just waiting for the moderator to approve my posts.

I am actually not sure why my posts are being held and need approval, but I am guessing it's because my ideas do not agree with anarcho-capitalism. If possible, maybe a moderator can lift this restriction? Then I will be able to respond much more fluently.

This happens to everyone, I’m not sure what buzzwords flag posts but I don’t think it’s because of your views. As long as your posts are not abusive then you should be good. 

[Goldenages]

On 18.9.2017 at 2:43 AM, EGreg said:

And how are the conditions for trade going to come about? Who is going to enforce "anarcho-capitalist principles" when your town is being raided by barbarians? Before the age of unprecedented wealth, as long as it was more profitable to raid someone, people would do it. And they might do it again if the current rates of deforestation and unprecedented desertification of farmland and destruction of ecosystems continue. A lot of what you are complaining (migrations from Africa) were predicted over and over by environmentalists since at least 2006, http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/csd/csd16/rim/eca_bg3.pdf ,  http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-34790661 etc.

So what you actually say, is, you need an empire to enforce and protect anarcho-capitalist principles, and at the same time you blame the empire because it abuses its power to exploit poor countries. (The exploitation of poor countries through some western (and chinese) companies is exactly this - corrupt, close to the state companies make deals with corrupt governments in poor countries.)

One of these statements is necessarily wrong, and thats the problem with all that stuff: How can we prevent the organisation (state, empire, police, military..) that should protect free trade, to become the very thing it should fight?

Obviously it does not work when this organisation - state, empire, military, lets call it state for simplicity - is allowed to take taxes. Tried for thousands of years, it always was a fail, because it led to more and more state power, more and more corruption.  And obviously it does not work, but only make things even worse, when the state has complete control about money, i.e. a central bank. Tried since 1913, failures even became more disastrous, with the biggest desaster yet to come.

So the logical conclusion is to get rid of all "rights" the state has occupied. A good trial were the several constitutions, many of them intended to prevent growth of state power. But just a short glance onto reality shows that those in power always find ways to circumnavigate them, in Europe most laws are made from people nobody elected, or even could elect.

So yes, military or security forces are necessary, paid voluntarily by those who need them. If they do not serve properly, you change to the competitor. And yes, those forces will always be weaker than state funded forces, thus not able for attack, and what is needed in your defence portfolio are some nuclear weapons. Every country on earth that owns such weapons is very unlikely to be challenged (ask Kim why he wants that stuff).

Or you go the way that Switzerland went, you house the central bank of central banks in Basel. Even Nazi Germany never challengend Switzerland, because also - and especially - Nazi Germany needed money from the printing press. 

However, without central bank only the nuclear option ist left.

regards

Andi

 

 

[EGreg]

OK to reply point by point

free market = a market with no force

Then free markets don't exist, because every market requires enforcement of property rights. Which requires force or threat of force.

What I cant do is get the kids of the individuals whose signed the contact and start pointing guns at them asking for more money.

If someone doesn't pay their rent, they are evicted by force. Even if they were born in the apartment, their parents left and they and never signed any contract. They don't get to squat. Even in a free market.

Also, it seems you still haven't recognized government/organizations do not exist in reality. I feel this is what is causing confusion and statements like "why can't a city own land or buildings?"

That's like saying there are only whole numbers, and fractions are just abstractions consisting of two symbols x / y where x and y are whole numbers. And negative numbers don't exist either. I get it, abstractions can be disturbing to some people. Ancient Greeks didn't like proofs that irrational numbers exist, and the legend goes that the guy who proved it was thrown overboard. And then of course there are "imaginary" numbers, named so because people at the time thought that these numbers "really exist". Yet they are very useful in solving algebraic equations, and Complex Numbers is the algebraic closure of the Real Numbers. Even though they consist of real and imaginary numbers.

There are only individuals. 

You still didn't answer my questions:

1. which individual owns the billions of dollars in cash that Apple has? Can this individual leave Apple and take the money with him or her?

2. Oh and what are the shareholders holding shares in? Is it ... an organization, which is something that doesn't exist? So you sold shares in a non existent entity during an IPO - isn't that fraud? HEHEHE

"I don't know of any truly free market anywhere, except maybe in very limited settings and scope. Not every international market is free of coercion. I'd be surprised if you find any at all."

Of course the free market as I have defined it exists

Well your friend above said it doesn't. So which is it?

So what you actually say, is, you need an empire to enforce and protect anarcho-capitalist principles

Not necessarily an empire. What I said is simple: People form organizations, and then they have to manage and run these organizations. That is called governance and each organization has a government. Cities are organizations. Organizations may join into larger organizations, for things like protection, collective power, standardization, guarantees of freedom of movement between them, and many more things.

Do you disagree with the above underlined thing? Look even Stefan is arguing for borders between countries to be enforced. So, why not borders between the 50 states of the USA? Why not have walls? Because the states speak the same language, have the same fiat currency, etc. And they allow people to move freely. And how did that happen? Because they're part of an empire. But then throughout history it wasn't on such a massive scale. If two tribes decide to make a mutual pact about people commuting from one tribe to work in another tribe, then that's a legal and practical framework.

In other words ... laws are made in jurisdictions by organizations. And laws are enforced. That's all this is.

Every organization has a government and rules. Those rules may include a mechanism for making more rules. That's not a perfect system but then nothing is perfect. The rules are enforced. Whether the organization is online (like this one) or in the real world. And instead of recognizing that organizations and governments are everywhere, many of you guys think there is "the government" and we can somehow get rid of it, we'll just have "the free market" but markets can only work in the context of organizations. In the jungle, you have no rights, including no property rights. Might makes right. Civilization enables markets.

[Tyler H]

On 9/19/2017 at 1:12 PM, EGreg said:

free market = a market with no force

Then free markets don't exist, because every market requires enforcement of property rights. Which requires force or threat of force.

Property rights do not require force, the violation of property rights does. Self defense is perfectly valid. The initiation of force is the issue, not force itself. 

[Boss]

On 9/19/2017 at 7:12 AM, EGreg said:

Then free markets don't exist, because every market requires enforcement of property rights. Which requires force or threat of force.

If someone doesn't pay their rent, they are evicted by force. Even if they were born in the apartment, their parents left and they and never signed any contract. They don't get to squat. Even in a free market.

1

They are not evicted by force, they are evicted by choice via their signature on the contract and the person who created the contract can create it so no one is allowed only people who signed the contract if they want. 

 

On 9/19/2017 at 7:12 AM, EGreg said:

You still didn't answer my questions:

1. which individual owns the billions of dollars in cash that Apple has? Can this individual leave Apple and take the money with him or her?

2. Oh and what are the shareholders holding shares in? Is it ... an organization, which is something that doesn't exist? So you sold shares in a non existent entity during an IPO - isn't that fraud? HEHEHE

1. As I said before when an individual decided to go public with Apple that allows multiple individuals to sign a contract and buy shares. These individuals own the billions and they all signed the contract that lets an individual spend the billions in a way that helps the stock go up so they can profit. And the contract states they can "leave" via selling their share. 

you can find individuals here https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/aapl/holders?ltr=1

2. They are holding shares of assets which exist. lol you really think people would sign a contract and pay billions because "organization" not quite. They did it due to massive factories for production and stores across the world. 

It seems you are having an issue with understanding that organizations and governments dont exist in reality. Maybe think of a squirrel, they can see an apple store, they can see the white house, they can see donald trump and mike pence. What they dont see is the concept "organization" or "government". As there is no such thing as such. Its just an imaginary concept, which may help with language as there may be a long list of individuals, so it might help to imagine a concept but only the individuals actually exist. 

 

[luxfelix]

On ‎9‎/‎19‎/‎2017 at 12:38 PM, Goldenages said:

 

Or you go the way that Switzerland went, you house the central bank of central banks in Basel. Even Nazi Germany never challengend Switzerland, because also - and especially - Nazi Germany needed money from the printing press. 

However, without central bank only the nuclear option ist left.

 

 

Was that one of the reasons they weren't invaded during the war, because they housed the central bank of central banks?

[Goldenages]

The Bank for International Settlement was a tool to keep in touch even during wartime. For example, this bank had the gold reserves of Tschechoslowakia. After Tschechoslowakia was conquered by the germans, the gold was handed over to them. There were also connections between Standard Oil (Rockefeller) and Germany, Standard Oil played a major role in restoring the chemical industries in Germany. So it made no sense to conquer Switzerland, at least til the time when the war was still no world war.  And what other reasons could there be, given the third Reich attacked everybody else?

regards

Andi

[Gavitor]

On 9/14/2017 at 5:15 AM, EGreg said:

Here is what I would talk about with Stefan if I ever was on his show.

Just call in, I'm sure it'll be a fun call.

[luxfelix]

12 hours ago, Goldenages said:

The Bank for International Settlement was a tool to keep in touch even during wartime. For example, this bank had the gold reserves of Tschechoslowakia. After Tschechoslowakia was conquered by the germans, the gold was handed over to them. There were also connections between Standard Oil (Rockefeller) and Germany, Standard Oil played a major role in restoring the chemical industries in Germany. So it made no sense to conquer Switzerland, at least til the time when the war was still no world war.  And what other reasons could there be, given the third Reich attacked everybody else?

regards

Andi

Would this protect Switzerland today as well?

Would the International Court of Justice/Peace Palace in the Netherlands provide a similar defense for that country's neutrality?

Tying this back to the main thread topic, could an Ancapistan secure neutrality by housing international institutions and/or a central bank trading its currency worldwide?

[Mole]

 

People are not free to decide whether they participate in the government or not, so it has nothing to do with organisations which were free to form.

Freedom of speech describes the policies of a government. Therefore, it presupposes the existence of a government. It does not exist in anarcho-capitalism, just as all rights would not exist since there would be no government. It is not a moral principle. When we are talking about freedom of speech, we are talking about public property. In anarcho-capitalism nobody could even try to stop you from speech on your private property. You have no freedom of speech in voluntary exchanges.

It’s not true that international markets are free markets. You seem to acknowledge our belief in methodological individualism, so you should know that I won’t accept ‘nations’ as trading entities. It doesn’t matter who releases that bank app you mentioned. That’s not the same as who owns it. I assume the stock holders own the app. Of course single individuals own Apple. Google liquidation.

So we’ve had the lack of monopoly on force. So what? Who said it was worse or better? Who’s even used that phrase? I think it’s common-sense to understand that it was capitalism that enabled large governments in the first place.

Your post looks incoherent. I think you should try laying out your premises rather than assuming that we know where you’re coming from. For example, why do you bring up freedom of speech? Why bring up “the lack of monopoly on force”? You acknowledge methodological individualism then completely ignore it. You bring up all this empirical evidence against an argument that you seem to have plucked out of thin air and then claim it as empirical evidence against anarcho-capitalism.

Look at the comment I made in Part 1. I think you are taking anarcho-capitalist principles as noumenal forms, de-based from reality. I think you should reflect on yourself as an individual and ask yourself what is true and then work from first principles. Your jumping straight into politics and ethics without really acknowledging metaphysics, epistemology.

[Kikker]

3 hours ago, Mole said:

 Why bring up “the lack of monopoly on force”?

Seems his premise was that lack of monopoly of force would result in competition for the monopoly of force by organizations capable of violence. Hence there would be more violence without a monopoly of force.

[Goldenages]

9 hours ago, luxfelix said:

Tying this back to the main thread topic, could an Ancapistan secure neutrality by housing international institutions and/or a central bank trading its currency worldwide?

Interesting question.    I say it would help, no doubt. To house the world´s central would even help more. But I am afraid to house and protect a central bank is not compatible with the effort to create a free society. 

regards

Andi

[Mole]

9 hours ago, Kikker said:

Seems his premise was that lack of monopoly of force would result in competition for the monopoly of force by organizations capable of violence. Hence there would be more violence without a monopoly of force.

Right, but she/he hasn't linked that in with her/his topic. Why is it an argument against anarcho-capitalism?

[Kikker]

7 hours ago, Mole said:

Right, but she/he hasn't linked that in with her/his topic. Why is it an argument against anarcho-capitalism?

Because an anarcho-capitalist society doesn't rule out organizations capable of violence but does rule out the organization currently holding monopoly of force?

[Mole]

1 hour ago, Kikker said:

Because an anarcho-capitalist society doesn't rule out organizations capable of violence but does rule out the organization currently holding monopoly of force?

I think it does. I think those organisations violate a criterion of anarchy. For example, we would not have called Somalia anarchic. Now, you may say that total anarchy like total communism is an impossible ideal. However, anarchists still don't claim that the lack of government with less technology is preferable to more government with more technology.

[Jsbrads]

Your world government in Europe is trying to force Eastern Europe to accept "refugees".

your Spanish Empire wants to enslave the people of Catalonia.

the greatest deaths in human history, by every metric was done by governments.

I do support the existence of a military (which may only operate at or outside our borders) and a police force which enforces minimal laws, like investigating murders and arresting people who are violent. 

[EGreg]

"the greatest deaths in human history, by every metric was done by governments."

Actually, no. When you lived as cavemen and early hunter-gatherers before governments, you had much more chance of being killed. It eclipses World War 2 by a long shot. Wherever people or groups have banded together into larger groups with common laws and language etc. instead of fighting each other, violence has been reduced.

Here is a cool example I found. Read chapter 1:

http://classics.mit.edu/Caesar/gallic.1.1.html

During the Roman Empire, Stefan's ancestors the Celts (Gauls in Roman) were constantly waging war with the Germans. Daily. So no, there was no peace just cause there wasn't a large government. It was the Hobbsian trap - war of all vs all.

Even your example of Europe ... the first World War started because mutual defense pacts made a regional conflict get out of hand. World War 2 was also countries fighting each other. Since the EU was formed, they stopped. When was the last the time USA fought each other? Once, during the civil war, and that's it. When was the last time the provinces of China fought each other instead of collaborated? When was the last time Russian Oblasts fought each other? And so on. Empires actually bring more peace, than war. And at all levels, collaboration brings more peace than independent competition.

[M.2]

Hi, EGreg

I love your diligent take on AnCap theory. Apart from all the intellectually lazy comments from certain members, I am thuroughly enjoying the discussion. 

One thing on which I must note our agreement is that FDR is not as free as I would expect a free market to be. My disagreement with the mainstream FDR dogma is concerning violence. I have tried to start many discussions on it, as I thought nothing was out of order, especially if discussed civilly. Gavin McInnes discusses violence many times on his shows, and I agree with him that violence, particularly the initiation of it, has a moral place in society. But clearly my mind will never be changed, since we are not allowed to discuss it here.

[RichardY]

@Mishi2

Disagree with Violence(Violation) like I disagree with onions, though I really like onions. The violation part I do not know, maybe that's the point. (though apparently I burst out laughing as a child when the other kids burst into tears, when the wicked witch melted in the Wizard of Oz)Primarily because I believe it can deconstruct consciousness making a person animalistic and herd like(though they have no idea), kind of like in vampire movies, where the vampires indulge in their lusts and become less powerful, though I'd be lying if a large part of me craves mass destruction and fornication. Also been toying with the idea of pain, and for whom it is borne for( Hey, The Bourne Identity.....). If you have no kindred who are you baring pain for, who is there to care for or revenge against, why even feel pain?

Ecclesiastes 1

2 Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.
3 What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?

Think aggression can be ok, had a person banging on my parents porch a long while a go at 4:00am drunk and shouting, live in the country, down a deadend lane. Anyway my father who is not into arguments at all, said "go away or I'll get my shotgun." They promptly sobered up and left. We also phoned the police, though they didn't find anyone. 

[Pod]

If you wanna debunk AnCap then you gotta debunk voluntarism.  If you wanna debunk voluntarism you need to be able to justify one person using coercion against another in a room. 

[Jsbrads]

Cavemen didn't spend their time brutalizing each other. They could die from a scratch.

the worst murder of men, women and children was always the government. 

LoL, I'm no Rousseau-ian, yes, there was war and violence. But the common war activity was stealing blankets when the other guy was out hunting. A war party decends on an unguarded village, the women, children and elders don't fight. The raiders take what they want and leave. They didn't have the luxury of real gory battles of mordern times. Were they actually beating on each other, there would be nobody left. "Wars" would last generations or more, with a dozen raids over that period, it would take years for ancient man to recoup any losses of tools or clothing. If it ever reached a real battle, a couple people would die, ending the war. They would have to submit. There is no vast population to draw new recruits from.