Objective law: Anarcho-Capitalism vs. Minarchism

originally posted by: greencmp
That is simply an example of an uninterested populace with no private waste services available.

As I said before there is a private waste service. Even if there wasn't, AC theory says that people would act in their best interest. No matter how you try to dismiss it, the fact is that AC theory simply fails.

Rational deduction is neither unfounded nor disconnected although, we can and should argue exactly what logical inferences are possible in this context. There is also, as you point out, ample evidence of the failure of maxarchies and almost no evidence of the failure of anarchies, that is the flip side of the "but it doesn't exist" argument. That is all learnable purely through empiricism, incomplete a tool as it is.

Actually that bolsters the "it doesn't exist" argument. There is almost no evidence of the failure of anarchies because they don't/can't exist.

As a constitutional minarchist with a personal affinity for the ideals of individual freedom, I simply make the argument that abdicating responsibility for the well being of oneself to a nameless faceless bureaucracy is always a losing proposition.

I'd say the countless people who have used social safety nets while getting back on their feet would say otherwise. The difference is that they have real world anecdotes instead of AC pie in the sky.

a reply to: JeanPaul

Out of necessity. There has never been a "free market" capitalist system. You show me a capitalist nation and I'll show you how government intervention was employed in order to make it all possible

This is my issue with your argument--you continually blame markets for human suffering instead of looking at the common denominator in all civilizations that have fallen--government.

All of your complaints against capitalism are actually the issues caused by government regulation, taxation, intervention, and cronyism.

It would be akin to a psychopath beating you with a golf club, and you deduce from the interaction that golf is an evil sport. But you never call into question the nature of the psychopath, nor his ability to use any instrument to bludgeon you to death.

Government is, by it's nature, a psychopath. It doesn't matter if government is beating you over the head with capitalism or socialism. When government controls the economy, everyone loses.

a reply to: JeanPaul

"Corporatism" you'll call it. As if "the state" and capital were ever seperate entities! Corporations were formed in order to pool risk. Capital also accumulated via competition. There is no "perfect competition" where small businesses rule the day. Capitalisms very nature is to accumulate wealth. It formed via coercive wealth accumulation! There has never been a "free market".

"Free market" capitalism is a non thing. It has never and will never exist. It's impossible.

What about all of the other forms of government that used different economic means other than capitalism, but were still just as authoritarian as any fascist state?

If we use your logic we have to assume that no economic model exists which can be used to implement positive results for a whole society--all economic models have been artificially manipulated by the state for all of history (socialism included), which means there exists no objective data for us to draw upon which is not distorted.

And why do you claim that state (government) and capital are the same thing? Capital is just resources, if capital and state are the same thing, then I am the state because I own capital.

a reply to: daskakik

Actually that bolsters the "it doesn't exist" argument. There is almost no evidence of the failure of anarchies because they don't/can't exist.

This is not true, anarchist societies have existed.

Ireland's Anarchist History

a reply to: daskakik

It sure does but lack of intervention also doesn't have a good track record in bringing that possibility into effect.

You said that a free market has never existed, and now are claiming the lack of intervention has a poor track record.

The U.S. economy has never been unregulated.

a reply to: LewsTherinThelamon

Of course they have but were they real anarchies and more to the point, were their markets free?

You said that a free market has never existed, and now are claiming the lack of intervention has a poor track record.

Figuratively speaking. Some things in the US economy existed without regulation in the past. Less intervention didn't always equal better.

a reply to: daskakik

Of course they have but were they real anarchies and more to the point, were their markets free?

The example I posted of Ireland--they were a true anarchy and their market was free. Read about them, it's absolutely interesting.

a reply to: LewsTherinThelamon

You wouldn't know that unless you actually lived there.

I've seen enough groups in history romantized to take things at face value, specially when it comes from a source with a bias.

a reply to: daskakik

You wouldn't know that unless you actually lived there.

I've seen enough groups in history romantized to take things at face value, specially when it comes from a source with a bias.

OK, Ken Ham, why don't you just accuse me of using "historical science?"

"You weren't there, you can't know if evolution is real."

You could research their sources.

a reply to: LewsTherinThelamon

First off, that link you posted makes a big deal of arbitration courts within a monarchy. That doesn't mean anarchy to me. Many countries have arbitration courts. The US has Judge Judy.

Second, my point was that without living in a society you have no way of knowing if unofficial authoritarian figures existed. Private citizens that held control over local commerce or could get things done.

originally posted by: LewsTherinThelamon
a reply to: JeanPaul

Out of necessity. There has never been a "free market" capitalist system. You show me a capitalist nation and I'll show you how government intervention was employed in order to make it all possible

This is my issue with your argument--you continually blame markets for human suffering instead of looking at the common denominator in all civilizations that have fallen--government.

All of your complaints against capitalism are actually the issues caused by government regulation, taxation, intervention, and cronyism.

It would be akin to a psychopath beating you with a golf club, and you deduce from the interaction that golf is an evil sport. But you never call into question the nature of the psychopath, nor his ability to use any instrument to bludgeon you to death.

Government is, by it's nature, a psychopath. It doesn't matter if government is beating you over the head with capitalism or socialism. When government controls the economy, everyone loses.

Capitalism can't exist without government intervention and social programs. Capitalism is not just people making and trading things.

The "voluntarism" aspect of "anarcho" capitalism doesn't mesh with reality. Nor does the "libertarian" NAP (non aggression principle) mesh with capitalism/private ownership of the industrial means of production (vast amounts of land/resources/capital). Large scale privatization IS aggression.

A large labor force is created/maintained via dispossession. Industrialization depends on this coercive process. If people actually had a choice and could survive just as easily without working for an owner most people would not do so and industrial society would only be possible via worker run production.

"Free trade" has never been "free". This has also been a coercive process. Initially facilitated by force much of the time out of necessity. Capitalism can't exist in isolation. Capital needs acsess to new markets, the system must constantly expand. New sources of labor, new consumers, more resources. Perpetual growth. Not every nation has wanted to play along. That's when force is initiated.

Anyhow, others have articulated my point in great detail. I posted links to two books in a previous post. I'll do so again:


The Great Transformation:

www2.dse.unibo.it...

The Invention Of Capitalism:

is.vsfs.cz...

Both authors show us how the "free market" (capitalism) was actually planned. How coercion/force was used to transform society. How capitalism came to be.

You guys want to focus on "markets" at the
micro level, as if capitalism has existed for thousands of years. That's simply not the reality.

Most of the wars in the 20th century were waged by capitalists in order to prevent alternative economic systems from manifesting. Capitalism needs the resources. The labor. The consumers. If half the world were inaccessible to capital capitalism would decay and cease to function.

None of it would be possible without government coercion/intervention. Which is why "anarcho" capitalists advocate a privatized state. A privatized government. Privatized police/military to subjugate labor. Privatized courts controlled by those with the most wealth. No social programs because...they don't want to pay taxes. If this system somehow saw the light if day capitalism would be overthrown or most people would live in abject misery.

It all boils down to taxes. You guys don't want to pay taxes so you must deny the systemic necessity for taxes. You have to deny the need for social programs. You have to deny the fact that capitalism generates war. You also have to deny the fact that corporations were formed to pool risk and to collude in competition against competitors. You also have to deny the fact that competition itself leads to capital accumulation. There's just too much to pick apart. Actual capitalists don't seriously consider "anarcho" capitalism but they do use right wing libertarian ideology in order to attack taxes (social programs) and wages.

originally posted by: LewsTherinThelamon
a reply to: daskakik

Of course they have but were they real anarchies and more to the point, were their markets free?

The example I posted of Ireland--they were a true anarchy and their market was free. Read about them, it's absolutely interesting.

Read about the early "free market" theorists and what they tought if the Scottish/Irish populations. They had acsess to the land. Farming/hunting. They could provide for themselves without submitting to owners. This is covered in great detail in "The Invention Of Capitalism".

is.vsfs.cz...

Page 49 "The Scottish Labratory"


In order for a large disciplined labor force to be created they had to be dispossessed. Their ability to live off the land had to be taken away. The property based market system had to be forced on them. This is exposed via the private letters and such written by the early English political economists.

The Scottiah and Irish were "lazy". They could work for 5 hours a day and provide all their needs. They had a hundred or so holidays. They weren't "industrious" according to the British political economists. They needed "discipline". They had no need to work for property owners 12 hours a day. It wasn't a profitable situation for the up and comming capitalist class. They claimed to be stamping out sloth and indolence but in reality wanted a labor force who had no other choice but to work longer days in fields,workshops and eventually factories owned by capitalists.

Charles Hall proclaims - "if they are not poor they will not submit to employment". And he was right.

Adam Smiths teacher, a Dr Francis Hutchinson says:

"If a people have not acquired an habit of industry, the cheapness of all the necessaries of life encourages sloth. The best remedy is to raise the demand for all necessaries. . . . Sloth should be punished by temporary servitude at least"

Thomas Pennant says-

"‘I was informed that labor [sic] is dear here . . . ; the common people not being yet got into a method of working, so do very little for wages.’’ Once he reached the Highlands, he complained: ‘‘The manners of the native Highlanders may be expressed in these words: indolent to a high degree, unless roused to war, or any animating amusement’....The inhabitants live very poorly. . . . The men are thin, but strong; idle and lazy, except when employed in the chace [sic], or anything that looks for amusement; and are content with their hard fare, and will not exert themselves farther than what they deem necessary"


On and on. They saw their own populations in the same light. Basically, if people could survive without submitting to property owners it was an unprofitable situation.

a reply to: JeanPaul

I'm going to read the books you posted, but I feel like you're not answering my question.

You keep saying that government and capitalism are the same thing--how are they the same thing?

How are state and capital synonyms? What is capital? What is a state?

I view state and government as synonymous terms (they have always been used interchangeably), and I view capital and resources As synonymous terms. The distinction between capital and resource being that capital explicitly refers to privately owned resources (like my car).

How are the state and capital the same thing? Yes, the state has always had access to vast resources, but that is because of the nature of what government is: power.

Government is a monopoly on the writing of the laws, the interpretation of laws, and the enforcement of laws.

The reason why I object to your argument that capitalism and government are the same thing is because:

A business is selling a product or service, in contrast to government which writes laws, interprets laws, and enforces laws.

A capitalist business has to factor profit and loss. If a business makes their customer base angry, they lose customers (loss). If a business makes their employees angry, the business can't run (loss).

If there are no employees, there is no business. If there are no customers, there is no business.

As a business, I have to persuade people to buy my product. I have to persuade people to work for me.

Think of that in contrast to government.

Government does not have to factor profit and loss, only profit. How? Because of the nature of what government is.

Government is a monopoly on the writing of the laws, the interpretation of laws, and the enforcement of laws.

So, to make a profit, all government has to do is write a law to make income taxes compulsory--either you pay them or you are breaking the law and you go to jail and have your assets seized. That is, in contrast to business, not persuasion but force. So government can effectively make a profit through the threat of violence.

Also, a government can write a law to make you work for them--namely the draft (conscription). Either you enter into the government's employment as a soldier, or you face imprisonment (or, in some cases the death penalty).

Business, by it's nature, cannot do either of those things, and if a business tried, people would rightly see their de facto attempt at rulership as invalid.

Now, because of government being what it is, a business has incentive for government to write laws that benefit it. But, the business still had to go outside of itself to bribe the monopoly of power, to use it's power to make said business a monopoly of product or service X.

Or, say, business A wants to expand its production capabilities through the purchase of land that business B owns. Business A could buy the land, but what if business B doesnt wsnt to sell the land? A partnership with government would be far more profitable--simply because, by aligning a business with government, you cutout the need for calculating loss. You can artifically impose your will upon the market. So, business A can bribe government into forcing business B to go bankrupt by, say, making business B's product illegal to manufacture.

That is not evidence that capitalism is flawed anymore than my analogy that a psychopath beating you with a golf club is evidence that golf is an evil sport.

It is evidence of the nature of the psychopath--centralized government.

a reply to: JeanPaul

Let's take my analogy between business A and business B a bit further.

Let's say that business A is a paper mill and that business A owns X number of acres of forest.

Let's say that business A sees a huge boom in business and needs to expand it's acreage to be able to produce more paper.

Business B owns forested acres close-by, but they don't want to sell to business A.

If government exists, business A can very well squash business B and take the land by buying government force.

But what if business A did not have that option? Doing a cost-benefit analysis would reveal that going to war with business B would most likely result in heavy losses to the profits of Business A.

Instead, business A would have to think of ways to improve the formula for the amount of paper that could be yielded by a single tree by investing in research. Research that could improve the manufacturing process, the manufacturing equipment, and the formula of the paper itself.

The English enclosures, the game laws throughout Europe, the vast expansion of private ownership of land, resources and productive capabilities forced populations into wage labor. It helped create a class of owners and a class of wage laborers. Without this process of dispossession, which repeated in America in the 1800's, industrialization would not have been possible.

When Europeans colonized Africa they would outlaw hunting in order to force the Africans into cotton plantations. Gathering fruits and nuts was also prohibited via systems of "private property".

In Europe this dispossession led to a social division of production. When you people
point to "markets" as having existed forever you ignore the fact that most people throughout history made their own way. Grew, hunted or gathered their own food. Built their own homes (if they weren't chattel slaves or owners if slaves). A society built on mass wage labor, rent and usury is what we call capitalism. Wage laborers producing commodities not for themselves but for owners of capital.

Capitalism necessitates people be specialized in one thing. Not only a social division of production on the macro but also a division of labor at the point of production. And that set up requires that it be next to impossible to provide for ones self directly from the earth. It requires a social division of labor not possible if each person can mostly provide for themselves. Hence, rural economies or farming, hunting and gathering had to be coercively minimized in order to maximize industry. Not only locally but internationally.

Adam Smith points out how it's a complex process to manufacture certain commodities. It takes resources from other nations. "Trade". If other nations are to be productive their populations
must also be "guided" into fields, factories and workshops in order to maximize production or in many cases simply to extract and export natiral resources. This could not have happened , this cant happen if populations are able to feed, house and clothe themselves independently. Why would a man work in an oil field or mine for 10 hours a day if this man can just as easily provide food, shelter and clothing directly from the earth working 4 hours a day? This is the "choice" offered to billions of people in "developing" and developed countries alike. Work for a boss or starve.

For example, look at contemporary India. How was/is India being transformed into a "developing nation"?

krieger.jhu.edu...

Via dispossession. "Land wars" have broken out. Rural economies are discouraged by law. Via mass privatization of once public goods/land/resources. Facilitated by government. They limit people's ability to survive without entering the factories and call centers. We call this "progress" but it's not a progress which comes without coercion or state intervention.

Besides the social division of production
we have the division of labor and the authoritarian structure at the point of production. At "the firm". While at work for 8-10 hours a day, the majority of our lives, the wage laborer is not their own boss. They do not own themselves the majority of the time.

Even Thomas Jefferson understood this set up. He understood that poverty forced people into wage labor and that the wage laborer himself was not free:

"And with the laborers of England generally, does not the moral coercion of want subject their will as despotically to that of their employer, as the physical constraint does the soldier, the seaman, or the slave?"

-Thomas Jefferson

So, in Jeffersons view the "moral coercion of want" subjugated wage laborers under the boot of the owner/boss. It wasnt his idea of liberty.

Even further, working class wage earners are constantly subjected to competition with labor in developing countries. This places downward pressure on wages. They are also subjected to technological unemployment. Where their hard earned skills are marginalized. No new living wage jobs await them in the unemoyment line.

We also have to deal with boom/bust cycles, more severe economic crisis and a general structural unemoyment forced to keep downward pressure on wages. If capitalism provides full emoyment workers will have too much bargaining power. The USA will never go below 6% actual unemoyment. (They call it 3%). They achieve this by manipulating interest rates. One of the most important tools they have in their toolbox.

Basically, the role if government in developing nations is to set the legal framework for a market society. For capitalism. First objective is dispossession. To create a large labor force. Second objective is to limit the bargaining power in favor of capital in order to attract investment. Third objective to to mitigate the negative externalities capitalism produces, such as poverty arising from dispossession, poverty from unemoyment, taxes to build infrastructure for trade/commerce. Schools to educate workers so as to provide a competitive labor force etc.

All of it takes government intervention. Hardly any of it is voluntary. Once the system is up and running it all seems normal. Almost the natural state of man. You're born, you go to school and get a job. Our modern industrial civilization didnt just pop up out of nowhere. It took planning. Coercion. Dispissesion Government intervention. Taxes. In many cases war.

Capitalism and modern government have never been two district things. Where there is one there will always be the other.

originally posted by: LewsTherinThelamon
a reply to: JeanPaul

I'm going to read the books you posted, but I feel like you're

Out of mutual respect I'll quote your post line by line when I have the time. I'm posting from a phone right now and find it difficult to quote each section and I'm also busy with other things. The above post will have to do for now. I'll be at a PC tomorrow.

Ps

I don't say the market and government are the same exact thing (perhaps in China). They are two heads on one snake. Two heads of a coin. A male and female who give birth to a market society- capitalism. It's an interdependent (sometimes contradictory) relationship but one cannot exist without the other. As Karl Polanyi points out "market society" or capitalism is the fusion of the market and government.

The legal institutions or overall social "web" of capitalism is created by government. The market itself is responsible for actual commodity production. Which would go nowhere without publicly funded infrastructure, military, public schools and social programs.

A society where every single thing is privatized would be impossible. Even further, if you advocate the privatization of government you simply advocate a privatized government. In lieu of taxes people would be paying tolls at a million different booths on highways and roads. Capitalists would have to hire privatized NAVY to protect shipping routes. Privatized armies to secure favorable conditions for investment in foreign countries. Each family would have to pay to put their kids in grade/high school. Absolutely no social programs would exist. Cruel seeing capitalism can't provide full emoyment. Privatized police/military would be used to subjugate labor (as has been used in the past). Economic crisis would demolish the economy (they existed before the Federal Reserve you know). "Free trade" would actually have to be voluntary which wouldn't support the necessary growth capitalism demands. On and on. There are too many reasons capitalism necessitates state intervention.

Heck, financial markets alone require all manner of oversight and regulation. Then we need to look at labor standards and workplace conditions on "Main St".

Answer this one simple question. Why isn't Wall St located in Somolia? What is it about the USA that attracts investors? Why don't capitalists just go form some "government free" society? Go build a "free market" uptopia in some third world nation. Free from any sort of "government coercion". Also free from the global infrastructure various governments have built. Start from scratch. Build your own "anarcho capitalist society". I'm sure the western military apparatus will leave you alone, unlike attempts at socialism. Which brings on the capitalists bombs, economic sabatoge, sanctions, political subversion, assassinations and mass torture.

Go build an "anarcho" capitalist society. Nobody is stopping you. You'd have to do it
from scratch. Somehow create your own industrial labor force. Somehow facilitate international trade without government NAVY protection. Somehow build roads/freeways infrastructure. Somehow gain acsess to oil and other natural resources without coercion.

How are you going to do all that and also compete with super massive multi national corporations? If it was so profitable don't you think capitalists would be doing it? Oh wait- they already did...and along the way they realized they needed government.

originally posted by: daskakik

originally posted by: greencmp
That is simply an example of an uninterested populace with no private waste services available.

As I said before there is a private waste service. Even if there wasn't, AC theory says that people would act in their best interest. No matter how you try to dismiss it, the fact is that AC theory simply fails.

Rational deduction is neither unfounded nor disconnected although, we can and should argue exactly what logical inferences are possible in this context. There is also, as you point out, ample evidence of the failure of maxarchies and almost no evidence of the failure of anarchies, that is the flip side of the "but it doesn't exist" argument. That is all learnable purely through empiricism, incomplete a tool as it is.

Actually that bolsters the "it doesn't exist" argument. There is almost no evidence of the failure of anarchies because they don't/can't exist.

As a constitutional minarchist with a personal affinity for the ideals of individual freedom, I simply make the argument that abdicating responsibility for the well being of oneself to a nameless faceless bureaucracy is always a losing proposition.

I'd say the countless people who have used social safety nets while getting back on their feet would say otherwise. The difference is that they have real world anecdotes instead of AC pie in the sky.

I am not sure why the town doesn't even try to pick up the garbage, that is usually in the top two things that taxpayers generally demand. If the town returned all of the property taxes, do you think people would pay for rubbish removal?

I think we are speaking across one another here, that is my point. Most examples of governance are failures so the preponderance of evidence can only damn statism. If there are no examples of AC to measure, how could you know?

"It seems to me that socialists today can preserve their position in academic economics merely by the pretense that the differences are entirely moral questions about which science cannot decide."

-Friedrich Hayek

originally posted by: JeanPaul

originally posted by: greencmp
a reply to: JeanPaul

Fascism is national syndicalism which is socialism.

We declare war against socialism, not because it is socialism, but because it has opposed nationalism. Although we can discuss the question of what socialism is, what is its program, and what are its tactics, one thing is obvious: the official Italian Socialist Party has been reactionary and absolutely conservative. If its views had prevailed, our survival in the world of today would be impossible.

-Benito Mussolini

Maybe you meant neo-fascist?

Main article: Fascist as an insult

Following the defeat of the Axis Powers in World War II, the term fascist has been used as a pejorative word, often referring to widely varying movements across the political spectrum. George Orwell wrote in 1944 that "the word 'Fascism' is almost entirely meaningless ... almost any English person would accept 'bully' as a synonym for 'Fascist'". Richard Griffiths said in 2005 that "fascism" is the "most misused, and over-used word, of our times". "Fascist" is sometimes applied to post-war organizations and ways of thinking that academics more commonly term "neo-fascist".

How could you identify Hayek with either definition?

Fascists advocate a mixed economy, with the principal goal of achieving autarky to secure national self-sufficiency and independence through protectionist and interventionist economic policies. Following World War II, few parties have openly described themselves as fascist, and the term is usually used pejoratively by political opponents. The terms neo-fascist or post-fascist are sometimes applied more formally to describe parties of the far right with ideological similarities to, or roots in, 20th century fascist movements.

Indeed, by the definition above, it would seem to be a plausible approximation of your own philosophy would it not?

And, you insulting me here, calling me a fascist has absolutely no connection to reality. Just like your "voluntarism" or "anarcho" capitalism ideology. When I say the things I say about Hayek it has actual facts behind it. Facts you will no doubt attempt to deny until your face turns blue.

Fact is, Hayek had his fingerprints all over the fascist dictatorship in Chile. I on the other hand, have never advocated fascism for any reason. Ever.

Funny you should have such a thin skin with such a sharp tongue. You accused Hayek of being fascist so I responded with a quote that describes nearly verbatim your own mixed economy interventionist idealism.

Cue the subject change in 3,2,1...

originally posted by: greencmp
I am not sure why the town doesn't even try to pick up the garbage, that is usually in the top two things that taxpayers generally demand. If the town returned all of the property taxes, do you think people would pay for rubbish removal?

It's private waste removal and voluntary. Just the way AC theory says should work best but it doesn't work that way.

If there are no examples of AC to measure, how could you know?

The lack of examples is the indicator of their failure.