gigaplex: Well, mr Rothbard, If the state didn't give us bread where would we get it from?
Rothbard: A private bakery?
gigaplex: But would it function mr Rothbard? You just can't expect me to believe your word for it!
Rothbard: Um, demand, entrepreneurship, risk, market process, verification, outcome?
gigaplex: No, no, no, I need a business plan!
Rothbard: Do I look like a baker or something?
I get mugged every day. You say, that me claiming that I should NOT be mugged is a positive claim, because it calls for a change? I don't want some metaphysical 'change'. I want the state to stop making one change after another on my body/property. Where do you see a positive claim in that?
liberty student: Knight_of_BAAWA:So please: stop blaming others for your lack of imagination. And I suppose you figured out life, the universe and everything all by yourself? Some imagination you must have.
Knight_of_BAAWA:So please: stop blaming others for your lack of imagination.
And I suppose you figured out life, the universe and everything all by yourself? Some imagination you must have.
:in before ad hom:Sigh.
WARNING: This signature violates Rule 5. Stay classy!
Knight_of_BAAWA: gigaplex:Did I say that it was anyone else's fault? Yeah, actually. "All I got were snide comments...." So please: stop blaming others for your lack of imagination.
gigaplex:Did I say that it was anyone else's fault?
Yeah, actually. "All I got were snide comments...."
So please: stop blaming others for your lack of imagination.
Wrong. Try again.
Just because someone gives you snide comments about a topic doesn't mean that it is their fault if you get the wrong impression about the subject. If it was your responsibility to understand the subject then it can't really be their fault.
So you are trying to put words in my mouth again. Claiming that I am thinking something different even though I have said that I am not and have not even wrote what you claim I am thinking.
It's too bad you are not smart enough to be able to discuss what is actually said. The only way you have any chance of winning any argument is to twist what others say. It's rather pathetic really.
Baawa, how old are you? 16?
Mr. Karla: gigaplex: Well, mr Rothbard, If the state didn't give us bread where would we get it from? Rothbard: A private bakery? gigaplex: But would it function mr Rothbard? You just can't expect me to believe your word for it! Rothbard: Um, demand, entrepreneurship, risk, market process, verification, outcome? gigaplex: No, no, no, I need a business plan! Rothbard: Do I look like a baker or something?
Actually, Rothbard spent a great deal of time explaining examples of how market anarchy worked in "For A New Liberty". Perhaps you weren't aware this book existed? So he did exactly what you have made up above but for the unfamiliar enterprises, not bakeries. There was not a need for bakeries to be explained since they are in existence already and obviously working.
Why do you think he did this? If he, nor anyone else, presented the idea of protection agencies or showed an example of how private courts worked, if none of that information was out there (what little we have), would you still expect everyone to be an anarchist just on faith that somehow it would work out even though every time they have seen anarchy happen in their lives it has been utter chaos? If you do, you are very far removed from reality.
I am not an anarchist because the modus operandi is a consistent moral position or so I can win debates. I am an anarchist because I believe that ancap would be a more practical society that was able to solve problems better and because I believe the NET liberty would be higher. After a modus operandi is in place, how well is a person's liberty protected? That is the most important aspect of any system of government or lack of government. It's the net effect, not how it looks on paper. The net effect is the real world test. There is no better way to judge a philosphy than the real world. To favor a modus operandi with disregard to whether the net liberty is higher and whether it is practical or not is highly irresponsible and would require far less imagination and guts.
liberty student:And I suppose you figured out life, the universe and everything all by yourself?
Yes. I even came up with 42 before I read HHGTTG. Know why? Because I'm just that cool. I'm so cool that you could use my blood to induce superconductivity.
gigaplex:Actually, Rothbard spent a great deal of time explaining examples of how market anarchy worked in "For A New Liberty". Perhaps you weren't aware this book existed? So he did exactly what you have made up above but for the unfamiliar enterprises, not bakeries. There was not a need for bakeries to be explained since they are in existence already and obviously working.
So what's your problem, then? If there are functioning private companies, why could you not make the leap conceptually?
gigaplex:I was just wanting to know that there was A way that it COULD be done. Unfortunately, whenever I asked anarchists about how such and such might be done in a market anarchy, I got no answers.
read:
http://invisiblemolotov.wordpress.com/
nje5019: http://invisiblemolotov.wordpress.com/
Wow, the chaos theory book looks right up my alley. This is exactly the type of thing that I am saying we need more of and shouldn't try to avoid discussing. This is the type of thing that convinces people on the fence. This is the type of thing that an investor would need to know about as a starting point. Maybe it makes debates more challenging and maybe it takes a little more imagination but the benefits of work like this far exceed the disadvantages.Thanks for recommending it. I'll definitely be giving it a read.
No problem. Chaos Theory was the book that brought me over the fence when i considered myself a minarchist.
nje5019: No problem. Chaos Theory was the book that brought me over the fence when i considered myself a minarchist.
Well, there you go. Further proof that talking about this stuff does more for the cause :)
gigaplex: There was not a need for bakeries to be explained since they are in existence already and obviously working.
Impossible! I don't know how to run a bakery down to the last detail.
gigaplex:would you still expect everyone to be an anarchist just on faith that somehow it would work out even though every time they have seen anarchy happen in their lives it has been utter chaos?
Everytime anarchy has "happened" in my own life, I've been pretty pleased with the result. The state didn't select my wife, job, what movies I see or books I read. I go out with my friends all the time and we decide where to go and what to do without resorting the situation degrading to chaos. I'm having a hard time thinking about a chaotic situation that is not caused by or (in the case of natural disasters) amplified by gun-toting self-appointed law-bringers.
gigaplex:I am not an anarchist because the modus operandi is a consistent moral position or so I can win debates.
Moral consistency is way overrated.
gigaplex:I believe the NET liberty would be higher.
How would you measure that? The only similar property I can think that you have direct experience of is how free are you now?
gigaplex:To favor a modus operandi with disregard to whether the net liberty is higher and whether it is practical or not is highly irresponsible and would require far less imagination and guts.
And to favor an MO that someone tells you will create "Net liberty" (which does not exist) while disregarding whether it is logically and morally consistent is, well, we can see what it is, because that's the claim that monopolists of violence always make (to be fair "net happiness", "net safety" and other non-existent metrics have also been used).
So gig, how free are you now?
gigaplex: Mr. Karla: gigaplex: Well, mr Rothbard, If the state didn't give us bread where would we get it from? Rothbard: A private bakery? gigaplex: But would it function mr Rothbard? You just can't expect me to believe your word for it! Rothbard: Um, demand, entrepreneurship, risk, market process, verification, outcome? gigaplex: No, no, no, I need a business plan! Rothbard: Do I look like a baker or something? Actually, Rothbard spent a great deal of time explaining examples of how market anarchy worked in "For A New Liberty". Perhaps you weren't aware this book existed? So he did exactly what you have made up above but for the unfamiliar enterprises, not bakeries. [...]
Actually, Rothbard spent a great deal of time explaining examples of how market anarchy worked in "For A New Liberty". Perhaps you weren't aware this book existed? So he did exactly what you have made up above but for the unfamiliar enterprises, not bakeries. [...]
A. To bad you chose to discuss a bit of a joke instead of the argument I stated below. Well, your choice. The joke was about asking a praxeologist to make businessplans for a particular entreprises. I thought it would sound obviously silly. My bad. What about the rest of my previous post?
B. Ah yes, For A New Liberty. Never liked it that much, I'm more of an 'Ethics of Liberty' person. But ok, so if Rothbards Manifesto is what you are looking for, then what is this discussion about?
C. Pardon the cliche, but I believe it's all about ideas. If people think that there is some form of justified coercion, then we have to start convincing them they are wrong.
If on the other hand I was elected king, then saying: "from today it is illegal to tax. From today state-owned entities cease to exist." would not get us into an-cap. It would probably cause some sort of revolution and a new ruler, new taxes etc. Ideas first. And I think it's not a bad idea to start with: "It is bad to steal. No matter who is the crook."
There was not a need for bakeries to be explained since they are in existence already and obviously working.
So on a final note: do YOU know how to explain how a bakery works? Some other way then: "demand, entrepreneurship, risk, market process, verification, outcome"? Because if you do I would love to hear it. That would give us a glimps of what you expect from us. Only remember one thing: a businessplant does NOT explain how a business will work. It's filled with better or worse guesses that the market will verify.
gigaplex: nje5019: http://invisiblemolotov.wordpress.com/ Wow, the chaos theory book looks right up my alley. (...)Thanks for recommending it. I'll definitely be giving it a read.
Wow, the chaos theory book looks right up my alley. (...)Thanks for recommending it. I'll definitely be giving it a read.
Did you really start the topic "The burden of proof is on the Anarchists" without reading Murphy first? Jesus, we really need to place detailed background notes about ourselves. Somebody would have given you the link a couple of pages before.
PS. To bad for Robert Murphy, he published the first an-cap businessplan. He could have been rich after the end of all governments:D
Gigaplex is right to say that someone needs to come up with a precise, detailed business plan. Someone needs to run the courts, manage the police, build the roads, etc.
But the key point is that MA is not a centrally planned economy. The anarchist who proposes a private solution to courts is only giving his personal entrepreneurial solution. Fortunately, the market does not depend on the ideas of one person. All that matters is that at least one person comes up with a detailed solution. Moreover, people have the financial incentive of profits to provide ingenious solutions to managing, private courts, police, etc., so we can expect it to be done.
That being said, we should expect some concrete, detailed plans that could potentially be presented to investors.
But, as always, the market already provides these services to some degree. We already have private arbitration, private police, and private roads. Instead of looking for an abstract business plan, just look at how it's already being done.
LibertarianAnarchy.com - Government is immoral, unnecessary, and doesn't work!
February 17 - 1600 - Giordano Bruno is burnt alive by the catholic church. Aquinas : "much more reason is there for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, to be not only excommunicated but even put to death."
At the risk of sounding like a broken record to myself, deductive logic is not subject to support or criticism of empirical facts. Likewise, no one needs to explain how security will be produced anymore than I need to explain how bread will be produced. I don't even know how bread is produced right now and I'm entirely unsure of what mechanisms help to provide good quality bread. But I know damn sure that the government isn't going to help.
I think it's absolutely relevant to explore the ways in which social problems can be solved without a centralized decisionmaker. Ultimately, so-called "market-anarchists" are rejecting the state model for social organization, and are suggesting that it be replaced with a model which relies on decentralized decision-making. Accordingly, it seems worthwhile to discuss some of the ways in which that model can be expected to function, if only to educate the market actors who are being expected to make the system work. After all, keep in mind that anarchy can only function in an ideological atmosphere where people don't want a state. If they do want a state, or don't know how to make things work without one, then they will have a state: you can bet on that.
So as philosophers, economists, etc., it's our job to show why centralized decisionmaking entities like our national governments provide inferior mechanisms for social organization. There are several parts of this argument which need to work in concert in order to truly convince people that decentralized decisionmaking is a truly better alternative. Relying on only one, and leaving out the others, will leave many people unsatisfied, as we're clearly seeing here. As I see it, those in favor of decentralization need to show the following:
1) The model of social organization which holds that everyone needs to get together and find the right answer, and then apply the right answer in the right way, is flawed. There is no "right answer" to social problems which can be discovered, even if we get the smartest, most creative, most honest people together to work on them, and even if there were, there would be no "right way" to implement it that could be instituted by coercing individuals to play their "part" in the solution. As David Schmidtz wrote in his book Elements of Justice, "In effect, there are two ways to agree: We agree on what is correct, or on who has jurisdiction - who gets to decide. Freedom of religion took the latter form; we learned to be liberals in matters of religion, reaching consensus not on what to believe but on who gets to decide. So too with freedom of speech. Isn't it odd that our greatest successes in learning how to live together stem not from agreeing on what is correct but from agreeing to let people decide for themselves?" (6). The advocate of decentralization takes this idea to its extreme, and needs to justify that position. Was John Rawls correct when, in his book Justice as Fairness, he suggested that there are "...profound and irreconcilable differences in citizens' reasonable comprehensive religious and philosophical conceptions of the world, and in their views of the moral and aesthetic values to be sought in human life" (3)? And if so, why is decentralization the proper response?
2) Decentralized solutions can effectively solve social problems, or perform comparably well compared to centralized solutions, or have benefits which make them more desirable than centralized solutions, in spite of their comparative weaknesses. Most people believe that a system of social organization should be judged, at least in part, by its capacity to bring about desirable social outcomes. Economics teaches us that in the absence of cooperation, markets can fail: free riders, externalities, collective action problems, tragedies of the commons, and prisoners' dilemmas can lead individuals acting separately to undesirable outcomes by the standards of all involved (see on this James Buchanan's essay, "Positive Economics, Welfare Economics, and Political Economy"). Advocates of decentralization need not only satisfy the alleged "statists" and "collectivists", who see government as a perfect substitute for a necessarily imperfect market, but also more reasonable objectors who see centralized solutions as having at least some potential for bringing about solutions in instances of prohibitive transaction costs. For example, in his essay, "Market-Based Environmentalism and the Free Market: Substitutes or Complements?," Peter J. Hill writes:
Market solutions are superior to coercive ones because voluntary exchange offers the assurance that social interactions are mutually advantageous. However, transaction costs prevent some potentially profitable voluntary exchanges from taking place. Through the use of appropriate rules, government can provide feasible alternatives. In the standard examples of roads and national defense, the transaction costs of individual exchange are high and the free-rider problem is substantial. Thus, there is at least some potential for using tax-financed provision of these public goods as a corrective mechanism. Of course, government provision of public goods is fraught with numerous problems, and one ought not to be overly optimistic that government will get it right. However, we should not automatically rule out all government intervention (389).
Advocates of decentralization need to show that actually, we should automatically rule out the kinds of solutions that can be produced through government intervention, or that decentralized solutions are capable of effectively emulating government intervention, so we don't lose tools from our policymaking toolkit when we move towards decentralization, or that decentralized solutions can actually produce solutions which work somewhat like government interventions, but are either inherently or more likely to be better suited to solving the problems with which they are charged.
3) Disputes can be resolved effectively and without violence in the absence of centralization of authority. In many ways, international law, corporate and industry dispute resolution, private arbitration, and private security companies set the stage for this conversation. But on the other hand, state imperialism, genocide, human rights violations, and the ineffectiveness of the UN (which lacks sovereignty) bring up questions which demand answers. Advocates of decentralization need to explain how a system without a central authority could bring about the settlement of disputes between individuals and groups effectively and predictably. And further, they need to show that such a system would be adequately resistant to things like bribing, corruption, and caprice, as well as being capable of enforcing rulings effectively. Failing this, decentralists would need to present the case that a decentralized system is more desirable for reasons which are not generally appreciated, perhaps because it would better preserve freedom of choice, it would recognize a lack of objective standards of justice (particularly procedural justice), or it would be better on balance than a centralized solution because of some flaw in the latter.
4) A decentralized system would be beneficial for those members of society who are less advantaged. Any "solution" which explicitly consigns people to death by starvation, exposure, or lack of routine medical care will simply be unacceptable to many people, and for good reason. Advocates of decentralization need to show how disadvantaged groups would benefit or at least not be made worse off by decentralization. And it will not do to demonstrate that those in need can be expected to be generally better off than they would be in other systems. Decentralists must show that there is no reason to worry about the fate of the disadvantaged in a decentralized society, at least any more than we worry in our current society. Alternatively, a case needs to be presented in substantially more convincing fashion that concern about the fate of those in need is misplaced.
5) There is historical precedent for effective decentralized decision-making. This one seems pretty self-explanatory, but ultimately it will not be the advocates of decentralization who actually go out and create the decentralized order which they are promoting. As the saying goes, there is no plan for freedom. Accordingly, it will be important to show that individuals who were not philosophers or "anarchists" have been able to successfully make decentralized decision-making mechanisms work for them, ideally without even realizing that they were doing it. Perhaps more importantly, it will be desirable to demonstrate why the failures of certain ventures in decentralized decision-making do not demonstrate a failure in the general idea.
And personally, I don't think that's such an unreasonable research program. I actually think there's something in there for almost everyone. And luckily, there's a lot already out there to start from. I've actually been toying around with the idea of putting together some sort of association of people working on these issues, and would love to hear from anyone who's interested in joining the effort.
http://libertarian-left.blogspot.com/
The above post has been turned into its own thread.
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