Brainpolice : Competition, Decentralization

Competition and Cooperation

Brainpolice — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 12:34:00 GMT

In the economic sense of the term, competition refers to the incentive to better appease a multiplicity of demands, and cooperation refers to the most efficient and ethical means of meeting such demands. An individual's demands are better met through cooperation and production than through isolation and destruction. Competition does not refer to a war of all against all or atomism, it refers to a process in which decentralized cooperation is employed in the attempt to fulfill a dynamic and variant latticework of demands. Monopoly, on the other hand, refers to the lack of competition, the imposition of a singular or more limited array of options through coercive means. Competition and monopoly are therefore dichotomous in this sense, as competition entails a multiplicity of options pursued freely. Competition is a reflection of there being multiple methods of cooperation and multiple ends that cooperation can be used to pursue, and as such there is no absolute dichotomy between competition and cooperation.

Individualism does not regaurd the individual as if they exist in a vacuum, it merely recognizes the individual's sovereignty as co-existing with interpersonal relations, and that it is a fundamental building block of a society. It is erroneous to present a false dichotomy between uniformity and atomism, when neither of the two reflect the nature of an individual let alone a society. Society qua society is founded on voluntary cooperation, but this does not conflict with individual sovereignty. Voluntary cooperation is merely the net effect of people making use of their individual sovereignty, and competition is merely a reflection of the diversity of wants that people pursue as sovereigns. While interpersonal relations are something to take into account, the individual still retains their independance from the transgressions of others in an equilibrium, which aknowledges the competitive element of society that is responsible for creativity and innovation.

Cooperation and production is not an ethical imperative in and of itself, it is something that one has a greater incentive towards in conditions of equal liberty. However, one ultimately retains their sovereignty to not produce and not participate in a particular organization or interaction that they didn't explicitly consent to. In a voluntary society, the methods in which one cooperates and the extent to which there is a binding obligation to cooperate can only be in a contractual context in which consent is explicitly given prior to the enforcement of the obligation. One does not have an unchosen positive obligation to be a member of a particular organization or to participate in its process of decision-making. The implication of this is not the negation of society as such, but the decentralization of society as a consequence of people entering and exiting from a wide array of contractual agreements.

The coercive imposition of uniformity stifles cooperation. It disincentivizes and erodes at competitive alternatives that otherwise would have been fostered through cooperation, and it violates the individual's sovereignty. Coercion is anti-cooperative by its very nature, as it can only establish a parasitic relationship or a zero sum game, while cooperation is geared towards mutual benefit or reciprical relationships. Centralization and monopoly can only establish the elimination of individual choice in the process of cooperation, and therefore the elimination of competition. Competition is necessary to counteract thea rbitrary imposition of a particular set of preferences, otherwise there is no genuine cooperation to speak of, only subservience. Cooperation is not something that is centrally planned or coercively enforced, it is a process of spontaneous order.

Organization and Conflict: Free Association vs. Politics

Brainpolice — Thu, 01 May 2008 03:00:00 GMT

Free association and competition resolves conflict while politics, especially democratic politics, enables and ultimately depends on conflict. All disagreements between people about how to organize can theoretically be resolved through free association, as they have the choice to either disassociate/secede or come to a mutual agreement (in short, to voluntarily intregrate). The result is inherently polycentric/pluralist. Free association essentially leads to increased complexity and smaller social units.

In contrast, in a political atmosphere everyone within an arbitrarily and unjustly claimed and controlled territory battles eachother over which particular interest group imposes their preferantial type of organization onto everyone. The result is inherently monocentric or monopolistic. Politics essentially leads to imposed uniformity and very haphazard and blockish social units. It's inherently a "one size fits all" approach to organization that eliminates competition, and hence all meaningful alternatives.

In an atmosphere of free association, noone may legitimately impose their preferential form of organization on anyone else, either directly (through rulership itself) or indirectly (through democracy). Instead, a diverse array of types of organization and an intricate pattern emerges precisely as a consequence of the lack of a singular imposed power monopoly. An atmosphere of free association could be thought of as being more conductive to favorable social evolution than politics because the increased complexity involved allows for more possibilities, while politics limits the possibilities and therefore creates stagnation.

There would be no reason, in an apolitical society, for there to be conflicts over matters such as what should be taught in schools, gay marriage, the ten commandments on the court house steps, who should be allowed in or out of political borders, who will build the roads, who should own the means of production, what goods and services are allowed and not allowed, and so on. For people would be free to associate and disassociate in order to each get what they prefer for themselves without anyone else being forced into it, and therefore they compete on a voluntary basis.

From the perspective of someone who accepts the principle of free association, they cannot rule anyone else and noone else can rule them. There is no need for them to institutionalize their preferances, for they can persue their preferances by associating with likeminded people, persuasion and intregrating their ideas with that of others. But in the democratic political mindset, one's preferances must be binding upon everyone and institutionalized. From the perspective of politics, it is legitimate and necessary for there to be a monopolistic standard, and the only alternative would allegedly be complete chaos and destruction.

So long as someone consistantly accepts the principle of free association, it should become rather clear that everyone's personal and cultural preferences do not necessarily have to lead to conflict and violence, but may instead be rendered rather neutral if not meaningless by merely taking a "live and let live" approach. Socialists, capitalists, primitivists, racists, multiculturalists, feminists, religionists, atheists and any other group among the endless slew of groups out there can all mutually win through free association without any need for coercion.

It is only when politics enters the picture that conflict is institutionalized and enabled on a large scale. Since the alternatives of free association are disincentivized in a political atmosphere, the individual has little choice but to either engage in civil disobedience or asquiesce to the political process and consequentially take a more active role in the conflict. Endless conflict takes place over who will control the reigns of institutional power and what they should impose onto everyone. Political means are inherently opposed to the voluntary or social or economic means of free association.

Checks and Balances: Two Kinds

Brainpolice — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 22:37:00 GMT

Checks and balances should be a fairly familiar concept to Americans. The standard definition of checks and balances is that the state must be broken up into multiple segments that function as checks against eachother's power and perform different functions, while these segments still remain within one central institution. Traditionally, the idea is that there must be three separate branches (executive, legislative and judicial) within one central government in order to prevent the accumulation of power into one group. At least superficially, this view slightly recognizes the principle of decentralization. Another somewhat more powerful conception of checks and balances is the idea that there must be multiple and separate levels of government, each with their own branches and jurisdictions, and that in order to combat the accumulation of power, individual states or parishes and cities should remain "independant" from the central state.

This is the doctrine of internal checks and balances. Both separation between branches and levels of government are internal theories of checks and balances. But how well do these theories stand up in the face of logic and empirical evidence? Not very well. The fundamental flaw in the idea that separation between branches within one institution will stop power from being concentrated should be fairly obvious: it is still within one institution. There is theoretically no "third party" outside of that institution functioning on a check on it, which is to say that the overall institution is a judge in its own case. The supreme court is still part of the federal government. All historical evidence shows a great deal of collusion between branches, and when there is collusion between branches, there is centralization of powers into one expanding group. Clearly, merely having three branches under one institution will not stop power from accumulating in that institution. Much heftier criterion must be met.

While the doctrine of state's rights is a step up from this, since it maintains at a minimum that there should be a multitude of jurisdictions within the overall territory bestowed to the central government, it nonetheless contains a similar flaw. The states are still ultimately subject to the territorial dominion of the federal government and there is once again collusion between the levels of government. If a central government still exists, it doesn't matter how many territorial jurisdictions that one tries to split the central state's control into, political power is still concentrated at a central point. Surely expanding the amount of people in the government or the number of sub-governments within a government's territorial monopoly is not necessarily a way to restrict political power. In order to at least be a "pure" advocate of "state's rights", one must support a more radical approach, with no federal government.

Once one has made it to this point, the same problem keeps repeating itself at each level of government. The states in themselves would now be the central governments, only over smaller territories. The size of the dominion of power may have been reduced, but the essential feature of territorial monopoly is still maintained. Counties, parishes and cities would synergize with and the states. If the states were gotten rid of, the counties would be the territorial monopolies and the cities and towns would synergize with them. And even down to the city-state level, the problem of territorial monopoly would persist. The advantages of so-called "state's rights" or "city's rights" mostly only have to do with the size of the territorial monopoly, but they do almost nothing to address the problem of territorial monopoly itself. All such mechanisms are ultimately within the structure of the institution of the state itself. A monopoly cannot be broken up without competition from other institutions external to it.

This is why external checks and balances are much stronger and more meaningful than internal ones. Checks and balances in which governmental institutions are held in check by non-governmental ones, which requires a separation between buisiness and state, constitutes an example of external checks and balances. An honest private institution that opens up a buisiness in competition with the state in a particular area, which inherently requires that the given buisiness not engage in any kind of patronage and protectionism with the state, is functioning as a check on state power by providing an alternative option for people and lowering dependance on the state. The improvement of technology and the availability of private alternatives to the state in a given field, and the long-term decrease in prices it often leads to, can function as an external "check and balance" on the state much better than any internal "check and balance" ever can.

On the other hand, a private institution that colludes with the state is participating in the centralization and expansion of power. Indeed, the leaders of such institutions become part of the ruling class. When such synergy between industry and government takes place, various buisinesses start to become more centralized, modeled more similarly to the structure of the state than would otherwise have been possible. When buisiness starts to merge at the hip with the state, this presents an oppurtunity to obtain and expand political power for both select private interests and members of the government itself. The union of church and state is a perfect historical example of territorial monopolies further centralizing and expanding as a consequence of collusion between the state and external organizations. The ultimate end of such collusion is the merging of a more multi-centered order into one large central organization.

In a sense, everyone who is outside of the ruling class of a given society is a potential check on political power, by the mere virtue of not being within or in control of it. There are many external methods of checking and resisting political power, which includes various types of civil disobedience and economic decisions. From the perspective of an individual as a consumer, withdrawing consumption from the state's "services" and merely patronizing a private alternative at a lower price and participating in peaceful black markets is an important haven from state power. On the other hand, actively and enthusiastically participating in the state's "services" transforms one into either a state of dependance on the state, or worse, part of the ruling class. Here too, collusion has a negative effect because it is internal to the institution. It's working within the system, which is precisely why it does not work.

Economic incentives is a very important check and balance on state power. A defining feature of the state as an organization is that it is an externalizer of costs, which is to say that those who hold the political power in a society do not actually bear the costs of the laws and policies that they work with. Therefore, mechanisms that internalize costs provide a disincentive towards political power. Political power cannot be obtained or maintained without externalizing costs through mechanisms such as taxation and eminent domain. If the state is denied access to external resources then it will eventually crumble, as the state as an organization depends entirely on the production of those who are not in it. If it is either cut off from recieving that production then political power obviously cannot be maintained for very long.

The ultimate check on political power is philosophy. In short, it is impossible to maintain or expand political power without the propagation of ideological ideas in favor of political power or encouraging resignation to it. What ideas people adhere to ultimately effects the course of history. All that is required to combat political power is the action of withdrawl of support to the best that one can manage. And in order for this to be done, it must be philosophically accepted that the only possible checks against the state that can possibly exist are external to the institution because the institution of the state is a compulsory territorial monopoly regaurdless of what one tries to do with it internally. It is logically inconsistant to maintain that one can reduce, restrict or abolish political power by using political power, and it is nonsensical to claim that one can provide checks and balances on an institution through mechanisms that are entirely within the framework of that very institution and when that institution has a territorial monopoly.

What about so-called "competition" between nation-states? If there can be said to be anything resembling checks and balances between goverments, it would be the total lack of both collusion and offensive intervention between governments. When states engage in economic hegemony with eachother they begin a gradual trend towards international or global government, taking the centralization process to the extreme of there being virtually no territory immune from being within the jurisdiction of the government monopoly. International government possesses all of the problems previously mentioned about federal and state government. It just conglomerates power even more than nation-states and has a larger monopolistic jurisdiction.

Modern state warfare essentially cannot be done without collusion and contracting with particular banking and buisiness interests through contracting. War is the most costly endeavor a government can possibly engage in and it can only be waged by externalizing the costs, particularly through the mechanism of monetary inflation and borrowing from from foreign governments and banking interests. War has historically been a means of maintaining and expanding political power. As such, it would be disingenous to use it as an example of free competition. It is, by definition, a flexing of state power, of monopoly. Even if a state is overthrown by another, the victor state usually has increased power when the smoke clears. War has been the main mechanism of expanding state power throughout history.

In conclusion, it should be clear that true checks and balances lies within the domain of private and decentralized mechanisms that are external to and not in any kind of collusion with any political power. That is, market competition is true checks and balances, while the state can only attempt to simulate competition in vein. The more standard concept of checks and balances, while a well intended attempt to form a structural means for restricting political power, is incredibly mistaken in its premises as to how the state functions as an institution. It is rather niave about the nature of political power. In order to truly have checks and balances, the state as an organization must be questioned altogether and participitation in the activities of and consumption of the loot of such an organization must begin to be abandoned in favor of a multitude of alternatives.