The Death Wish of the Anarcho-Communists
Murray Rothbard explains that they want to abolish economics and private property in favor of a vague "freedom" and whim that would be barbarism in reality. Their longing for a pre-industrial primitivism would mean starvation and death for nearly all of mankind and a grinding subsistence for the ones remaining. If they have their way, they will find that it is difficult indeed to be jolly and "unrepressed" while starving to death. FULL ARTICLE
Comments (182)
There is no such thing as a "right to property" outside a human community whose inhabitants respect the rule of law. Anarcho-capitalists who call for recognition and protection of these purely human rights aren't really anarchists, they're minarchists. The anarcho-communists are just trying to be intellectually consistent. QED, Rothbard's argument against them is practical, not principled.
Published: June 2, 2006 9:20 AM
Reactionary-
If you are saying that rights only exist to the extent that the community respects them, why go so far as to imply they exist at all? If they don't exist there is nothing there to respect and your statement is meaningless. If they do, then they exist whether or not they are respected.
Furthermore, if they do exist, then the rights-holder has more than just the one recourse you mention (the institution of law). Physical violence to defend the threatened right is also an option.
Published: June 2, 2006 9:58 AM
The movement may be a political tatic. Try to lump libertarians together with other violent radical groups that hate rights and property so as to nutralize people who are pro liberty.
Published: June 2, 2006 10:11 AM
To quote Frank Zappa: "Communism doesn't work because people like to own stuff." Just don't argue about this with any left-anarchist.
I totally agree on Rothbard's view. I've had my fair share of arguments both with "normal" leftists, and with left-wing anarchists. They are consistent in claiming that property is bad, and that it leads to exploitation (at this moment they usually point to industrialization; when you ask them why everybody actively *went* from the country to the cities, and when you imply that clearly there was a *choice* involved between living life as before (they did live before the big capitalists came out of nowhere, didn't they?), and going to work in the factories, they change the topic).
Still, there is the axiom that property must be bad, but OTOH anarchists want freedom from central government who could enforce this "freedom" from property. At this point I like to pose the question, what will happen to more libertarian people?
There is no answer, only silence. It seems that these people only have a longing for a utopian world that's first and foremost *unlike this one*. But they can never explain how that's supposed to work. How can they abolish property, when there is no violent government to take my belongings from me? They also never answer why it would even be *right* or *moral* to take my belongings from me (yes yes, my property is stolen! what an absolutely absurd point of view...). They also don't answer how economy would work at all, when I'm not even allowed to own a bike or a computer (would I have to hold an election to find out if I'm allowed to use the computer right now?).
Basically, it's not worth argueing or wasting your time with left-anarchists, because they never talk anything to the consistent end. There's always some magic involved, but of course their dream world is much better than reality!
Published: June 2, 2006 10:14 AM
Dan,
Property rights do not exist in the state of nature. In the state of nature, you simply have what you have. A right to property exists only as a concept among humans who accept God's injunction against theft. (Rationalists purport to have a different basis, but since they can provide no a priori reason to be rational, their attempt at intellectual bootstrapping must fail.)
Again, greatly summarized, property means community and community means rules, and rules mean, inevitably, that someone must on occasion cede their view of their rights to someone else. This is minarchy, not anarchy.
Published: June 2, 2006 10:14 AM
This is a great quote from the piece, "At the root of all forms of communism, compulsory or voluntary, lies a profound hatred of individual excellence, a denial of the natural or intellectual superiority of some men over others, and a desire to tear down every individual to the level of a communal ant-heap. In the name of a phony "humanism", an irrational and profoundly anti-human egalitarianism is to rob every individual of his specific and precious humanity."
But I think it could be more easily summarized that at the root of all forms of communism lies a lack of self-esteem.
Published: June 2, 2006 10:19 AM
Ulrich, I think it would come down to self-defense. If the state were to be eliminated, the property-rights individuals would still be trading, creating profits, wealth, productivity.
Those who deny private property would be doing the same thing they do now, bitching and moaning and trying to live off of other people.
Unless the parasitic-types join together in a big enough mob as makes "government" a defacto reality, the productive rights-respecting types will simply defend themselves and their property against expropriation by "looters" and "thieves".
The reason that "rape", "looting" and "theft" exist as concepts at all is the assumption of private property first.
Published: June 2, 2006 10:24 AM
Dan:
What if God had been distracted that day and only handed down nine commandments, forgetting the one on theft? Would that mean theft would not be immoral? Or how about murder?
Rationality, in the most bassic sense, simply means recognizing reality for what it is and living in a manner that is consistent with reality and the values you want to achieve within it. I.e., if you want to live, don't jump in front of a bus. Why? Because the nature of reaility is such that thousands of pounds of metal slamming into flesh tends to result in death. One can argue about whether or not God created that reality, but you don't need God's commandments for morality within that reality. Reality is a harsh judge. Try to live in a manner incosinstent with it--say jumping in front of a bus or practicing communism--and it will punish you for your lack of rationality, i.e., your willingness to live in a manner incosnsistent with reality. Even human action isn't axiomatic (ala Mises), it's dependent on the nature of existence and the type of beings we are--those are the axioms. The need for productive action flows from there--the need is an obvious truth, but not axiomatic in nature.(again, try to deny the need. Reality will spank you, regardless of what God does or does not do or say).
Published: June 2, 2006 10:32 AM
Don--"...you don't need God's commandments for morality..." The greatest philosophers of the 19th and 20th century disagree with you. A large part of part of philosophy has been devoted to attempting to discover a universal morality without God. They all concluded that it's impossible, especially Nietzsche, Camus and Sartre.
That doesn't mean that people will not act in a moral way, or as if morals doe exist, because humans have a natural moral sense. But it does mean that without God, they don't have a rationale for acting morally.
Most philosophers have agreed that to have real morals, the rules must come from an authority greater than man that has the power to enforce them. Without God, we're left with just agreements or contract between humans, none of whom possess authority or power to enforce over another.
A large number of philosophers, including libertarians, have tried to build a "moral" code by reasoning from particulars such as "self-ownership." But you can't call these morals in the classical sense, again, because they lack authority and power to enforce, so it's not really honest to call them moral systems.
Published: June 2, 2006 11:42 AM
Roger M:
I appreciate your comments, but I don't know what, "they lack authority and power to enforce" means and why that is the key litmus test of morality being possible. I also value my own indpendent judgment far more than what "most philosophers...agreed...[on]." I have complete and abosolute power to enforce my own morality on myself--that's the essence of morality. Not stealing or killing because God told you not to isn't morality, it's simply following orders.
And if it requires an authority greater than man to define morality (i.e., man is blind and can't gain the the knowledge to detect the proper code of ethics by which to live his life), then what is it that gives that higher authority the ability, does it also have a higher authority giving it commands? And don't just say "there is no higher authority." You could just as easiliy say that in an argument for man being the highest moral authority, so it would not be an argument for God's authority.
Published: June 2, 2006 12:17 PM
Roger: if I need a reason to say that self-ownership and the right to property make sense, then that reason would be consistency.
A moral code can only be universal and Moral, if it is the same for *everybody*, no exceptions. As soon as you extend ownership, as soon as you give anybody the right to rule over others, you lose consistency. Somebody is better than somebody else. Clearly that can't be a basis for a moral code for *everybody*.
The right to keep your property and to be free from bodily harm is pretty obvious, once you require that such rights have to be true for everybody. At least we don't need a concept of God for that, even though some people prefer that (which is fine).
Published: June 2, 2006 12:34 PM
The fact of the matter is, that anarcho-communism is self-undoing.
One must at some point abandon either the anarchism or the communism. My guess is that if an attempt at anarcho-communism were made, there would be a massive secession of anarchists who wanted stuff of their own, probably occurring when there arose the first major shortage. Some hard-core ideologues might remain and starve away. Or they might try to "pull a Lincoln" and force the others back into the fold, at which point they're no longer anarchists.
Published: June 2, 2006 1:14 PM
In "The Biollogical Basis of Morality" (The Atlantic Monthly, April 1998), renowned entomologist E. O. Wilson wrote that "ethical precepts...are more likely to be products of the brain and the culture. From the consilient perspective of the natural sciences, they are no more than principles of the social contract hardened into rules and dictates -- the behavioral codes that members of a society fervently wish others to follow and are themselves willing to accept for the common good. Precepts are the extreme on a scale of agreements that range from casual assent, to public sentiment, to law, to that part of the canon considered sacred and unalterable."
Neither handed down from above nor produced through individual reason, morals are thus a product of cultural evolution, such that what works best for the community as a whole is adopted by it and made part and parcel of it.
Thus does the universal prohibition against theft acknowledge the fundamental right to property.
Published: June 2, 2006 1:36 PM
I have to take issue with Ulrich Hobelmann's claim that property rights do no exist in the state of nature. Forget about humans and look at the other inhabitants of the natural world - animals. Many animals have concepts of "property". Is a bear's den or a beaver's dam not "property" in a sense? If they dug it out or they built it - then it is theirs. A larger stronger animal might come along and take it from them but that animal created that "improvement" to nature and owns it as long as they want it or can defend it against usurpers. Prairie dogs create their burrows and have a territory, lions, tigers, and many other predators have territories that they will defend against other similar creatures (but will share with non competitive creatures) - is this not property of a sort? Humans have institutionalized and formalized the ownership of property as they do with everything but that initial instinct goes back to our prehistoric days when a band of humans would "own" a cave or build themselves shelter of whatever form. If you build yourself a lean-to and then go to the next tree to take a leak this does not give another human the right to come over and just start using it in your absence. The concept of property rights goes back to the basics of being a living thing on this planet and goes beyond just us a human beings. To say otherwise seems awfully socialist of you.
Published: June 2, 2006 2:14 PM
Sorry - made a mistake when I read the postings - I meant to say Reactionary's posting instead of Ulrich Hobelmann's.
Published: June 2, 2006 2:18 PM
J. Wilson,
A claim on territory, whether by an animal or a human, does not ipso facto establish a right to it. In fact, you all but acknowledge this when you say that the property belongs to the claimant "as long as they...can defend it against usurpers." For this is but the law of the jungle, which is no law at all. And where there is no law, there is no right.
Published: June 2, 2006 3:05 PM
David,
Just because a right is not recognized does not mean it does not exist. The Nazis claimed that Jews did not have a right to live. Their system of laws codified this. Does this mean the Jews ceased to have a right to live? Clearly this right, to be a right at all must preempt earthly laws that contradict it.
Rights are inherent. Whether they are observed by any particular tyrant is irrelevant, whether local or national.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with unalienable rights, that among those are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness..."
Either we can all agree with these words or we can't. Jefferson and Co. were able to discern this with clarity 230 years ago.If we can't, it's a darn shame, but the truth is still the truth.
Published: June 2, 2006 3:22 PM
One area I where have to disagree with much of modern libertarian theory is this obsession with "rights". True natural law is rooted in the survival of the fittest and "might is right" as opposed to the Jeffersonian notion of "inalienable rights to life, liberty and property". The Jeffersonian perspective represents an ideal, not a natural law. As "Reactionary" says, so-called "property rights" exist because people have stuff and want to protect it. They do so by arming themselves, hiring mercenaries or security guards, lobbying the government for police protection or whatever.
The idea of what constitutes "just" ownership of property is a conventionalist notion that varies from society to society. If you look at the Hebrew Bible, for example, you see that the Hebrews had an intra-communal code saying "Thou shalt not steal" but it was pretty much open season on the other ethnic groups around them.
With regards to anarcho-communists, I've had extensive dealings with them and I agree that some of them would have to crawl up a few notches in order to reach the level of mere incoherence. The more intelligent or reasonable among them typically envision something like the Israeli kibbutzim or communal religious societies like the Amish. The actual economic record of these is rather mixed. The kibbutzim, for example, receive substantial subsidy from the Israeli (and therefore American) government. The Amish communal traditions are cultural rather than economic in nature and they do not reject private property completely.
Classical anarcho-communists like Bakunin and Kropotkin were products of largely feudal societies. What they envisioned was the political autonomy of the peasant agricultural communes that were already in existence minus the exploitation of the landlords. Traditions of what might be called "private communal property" (i.e., "the commons") exist in a number of societies.
The main problem I see with anarcho-communism is that however property relations are arranged, an "anarcho-commune" still has to function within a broader market economy, making the commune just another firm with an unconventional business structure. The only other alternatives are either localized autarchy (which is possible-most of the human species lived that way for thousands of years-but not very attractive as it is difficult to do beyond the subsistence level) or attempting to arrange the productive activities of the commune according to some kind of joint plan with other communes. The larger scale the latter becomes the more it begins to resemble some kind of state or, at best, a conventional corporate business entity.
While I think Mises had it right by arguing that the pricing system of the market is necessary for a reasonably efficient allocation of resources, I don't know that property arrangements need to be organized according to any specific set of dictates. For example, in a stateless or quasi-stateless society, there could be anarcho-capitalist investment firms, anarcho-communist communes, anarcho-syndicalist labor unions, geo-anarchist land trusts, etc. co-existing as component parts of a broader economic framework. "Property rights" could vary in their definition according to geographic, cultural or institutional differences. Some might produce better results than others (however you define "better"), but the species has managed to survive this far with a plurality of economic systems.
One good point "Reactionary" raises has to do with the idea of the relationship between anarcho-capitalism and property rights and the rule of law. Many if not most an-caps strike me as advocating not so much pure anarchy as much as de facto rule by quasi-feudal insurance companies. I'm not saying there's necessarily anything wrong with that but it seems to differ somewhat from pure statelessness.
My own version of anarchism isn't really predicated on any of this stuff anyway. I'm basically an individualist in the tradition of Stirner or Nietzsche. If we start with the more or less arbitrary presumption that the individual is sovereign, then it naturally follows that most individuals (hermits excepted) wish to exist in a community with others who share their particular values, beliefs, ideals, economic interests, lifestyle interests, religion, etc. The best way to accommodate this would be decentralized systems with different types of ethnic, cultural, religious, ideological or economic groupings being sovereign within their own enclaves. In early America, for example, you had the Puritans in Massachusetts, Baptists in Rhode Island, Anglicans in Virginia, Mormons in Utah, etc. I think a modern version of something like that is the closest we'll ever get to "anarchy" in the real world.
Published: June 2, 2006 7:58 PM
Keith Preston, rights become natural law rights not because they are "natural" as in law of the jungle, but because they are the only stable rights in a system where everyone's rights are the same. In a non natural law system, someome must always persume that they have more rights than others (eg a bureauocrat), or embrace rights that for the group are destructive (eg, if everyone had the right to kill people). My understanding is that the former is called statisim, and the later is called anarchy.
While it is very natural for people to organize (in the form of government) to defend or secure their rights, it is better if they don't need to because the costs and risks involved.
Contrary to being anti-community, IMHO natural law rights stabilize communities because members who don't percieve that they are getting a good deal are free to opt-out. Members who do percieve that they are getting a good deal are free to coalese together.
Published: June 2, 2006 11:48 PM
Reactionary,
“Property rights do not exist in the state of nature. In the state of nature, you simply have what you have.�
This statement is either irrelevant or wrong. If it is not irrelevant, here is why it is wrong:
1. humans exist in the state of nature.
2. humans naturally think and use reason
3. humans naturally act
4. resources are naturally scarce and hence conflict over them by acting humans is natural
5. humans naturally wish to institute norms which will allow for the avoidance of conflict
6. the institution of property allows humans to avoid conflict
Therefore, the concept of property is naturally occurring.
Or, if we say that the concept of property does not naturally exist outside of the realm of human reason, then such an observation is irrelevant.
Such an observation is only useful if one is interested in living only at the level of non-human animals. No one discussing ethics and norms can possibly be interested in living this way. Therefore, the observation that the concept of property does not occur in nature is irrelevant.
Published: June 3, 2006 12:31 AM
Reactionary,
“A right to property exists only as a concept among humans who accept God's injunction against theft.�
Wrong. The institution of property, which is the right to exclusive control of a scarce resource, can arise from a rational understanding of the nature of acting man alone, a rational desire to institute norms that allow for such humans to avoid conflict, and a realization that only the institution of property, the connected concept of original appropriation of previously un-owned resources and of voluntary contract, which rules out the initiation of force, can provide for the possibility of conflict avoidance. That this is in accordance with God’s commandments is not likely to be a coincidence. There is nothing irrational about God, and yet, one does not need to be reminded that God created gravity, to know that jumping from a tall building will result in one’s early demise.
“(Rationalists purport to have a different basis, but since they can provide no a priori reason to be rational, their attempt at intellectual bootstrapping must fail.)�
Wrong again. All arguments of any sort presuppose the validity of rationality, reason and logic. There is no such thing as a proof that these things are valid because they would be fundamental (presupposed) in such a proof. At the same time, these presuppositions are indisputably true as any attempt to refute them, as is that case for any argument at all, would implicitly and necessarily presuppose these very things which one might vainly attempt to disprove - rationality, reason, logic. Such an inconsistency rules out the validity of such a refutation and confirms the undeniable validity of rationality, reason and logic.
Therefore, with reason and logic as a basic and undeniable truth, we use them as a foundation for showing further, the undeniable justification for property.
“Again, greatly summarized, property means community and community means rules, and rules mean, inevitably, that someone must on occasion cede their view of their rights to someone else. This is minarchy, not anarchy.�
No Sir. Property implies you may not aggress against the property of others. There is no restriction on person A’s right to property in his prohibition from aggressing against person B’s property. The fact that voluntary police and courts can provide enforcement of property shows that no coercive state is necessary and that anarchy is very practicable, and perfectly consistent with libertarian values. Anarchy does not at all imply chaos. It is the final conclusion of libertarianism and respect for property.
Published: June 3, 2006 1:03 AM
Keith,
“One area I where have to disagree with much of modern libertarian theory is this obsession with "rights".�
It’s one of my favorite aspects of libertarianism.
“True natural law is rooted in the survival of the fittest and "might is right" as opposed to the Jeffersonian notion of "inalienable rights to life, liberty and property".�
If so, then I am not interested in true natural law. I am interested in ethics: justifiable norms which allow humans to avoid conflict.
“The Jeffersonian perspective represents an ideal, not a natural law.�
This ideal, however, is not utopian, but a justifiable and practicable set of norms. It is human ethics.
“As "Reactionary" says, so-called "property rights" exist because people have stuff and want to protect it.�
They want to avoid conflict over scarce resources via the institution of private property and to enforce property rights through justifiable means:
“They do so by arming themselves, hiring mercenaries or security guards,�
And also through more dubious means such as:
“lobbying the government for police protection or whatever.�
“The idea of what constitutes "just" ownership of property is a conventionalist notion that varies from society to society.�
I disagree: the institution of private property and acknowledgement of original appropriation of previously un-owned resources is more than conventional in the goal of conflict avoidance; it is necessary. A convention implies there are other varied means to achieve the same goal, such as a particular language as English is a convention. Private property is necessary. There is no other means to achieve the possibility of conflict avoidance.
“If you look at the Hebrew Bible, for example, you see that the Hebrews had an intra-communal code saying "Thou shalt not steal" but it was pretty much open season on the other ethnic groups around them.�
That is an interesting observation. If we were God’s chosen people, I suppose we could go with such an ethic if He handed it down to us. But we’re not, so now it’s the libertarian Golden Rule laid out subsequent to those Hebrew Scriptures.
Published: June 3, 2006 1:39 AM
Nobody yet has remarked on the repressive and authoritarian nature of capitalism, which to my mind, must be considered in looking to understand the anarchist critique of property rights.
The origins of property rights in the West seem to derive from the Judeo-Christian tenet of Man's Dominion over Nature. We can learn from the controversy between Pope John XXII and William of Ockham on Franciscan poverty. The Franciscans claimed poverty, and that they owned no property at all, but 'use of fact' instead of 'use of right'. The Pope replied that no one could use a thing without having a 'right' to it, and no one could justify 'use' over a thing unless they had 'dominion' over it. William of Ockham replied that rights either are obtained in 'heaven', or from the positive law 'courts'. In a natural state (the only state in which Kropotkin's 'gift economy' could exist), Man would have no conception of property as free use
would be available to all. The origin of dominion is the origin of property. Though conceived by human agreements, 'property' is not a basic moral principle. Mises himself, in his "Omnipotent Government", considering the origin of property declared, "It would be contradictory or nonsensical to assume a ‘legitimate’ beginning." And, "Within the framework of a market society the fact that legal formalism can trace back every title either to arbitrary appropriation or to violent expropriation..." Are we that far from Proudhon's "Property is Theft"?
Published: June 3, 2006 1:52 AM
Keith,
“While I think Mises had it right by arguing that the pricing system of the market is necessary for a reasonably efficient allocation of resources, I don't know that property arrangements need to be organized according to any specific set of dictates.�
I think he put it a little stronger than that. Private ownership in and therefore a market and the existence of prices in the factors of production are all necessary for economic calculation and the avoidance of complete and utter economic chaos and mass starvation. Any anarchic communities and economies that wish to prosper will necessarily lean heavily towards being of the anarcho-capitalist brand. All other anarchies will loose out to this brand, or will be consumed by the coercion of statist collectivism, depending on the gullibility of the people in those communities.
Published: June 3, 2006 1:59 AM
Keith,
“Many if not most an-caps strike me as advocating not so much pure anarchy as much as de facto rule by quasi-feudal insurance companies. I'm not saying there's necessarily anything wrong with that but it seems to differ somewhat from pure statelessness.�
We are suggesting that competing insurance companies with voluntarily subscribing customers seems a logical place to speculate that police, security and court services might naturally arise in a free and unhampered market. If it were to happen this way, can you explain how this would represent a quasi-feudal situation and how this suggests anything but pure statelessness?
Further, in your anarchy, can you explain how police, security and court services would naturally arise in a free market, or would this be provided exclusively on an individual basis. I don’t think you would argue that, given that even today, private people choose to provide and hire private security services for instance, even when the state already provides a competing tax-payer subsidized, if yet still inferior service.
Published: June 3, 2006 2:24 AM
Vince,
Laws that aren't universal aren't moral and therefore aren't laws at all but merely statutes -- i.e., the dictates of an inherently immoral state. Thus, the oppression of one group (Nazis) of another (Jews) via its statutes does not change the fact that rights exist through the observance thereof. Far from irrelevant, then, observance of the law -- i.e., of universal modes of conduct -- is what renders it meaningful, as human society cannot progress without it.
Published: June 3, 2006 9:24 AM
David C,
I'm not unsympathetic to the point you are trying to make but I'm not sure there is anything "natural" about a "system where everyone's rights are the same". What is "natural", if the last five thousand years of human history is a valid source of evidence, is war, oppression, tyranny, slavery and "rights" that are decidedly unequal.
Some groups of people may at some point decide, "Okay, we'll all have equal rights. I won't attempt to take what you have or kill or enslave you, and you will refrain from doing likewise to me." Good for them. But that's not exactly the norm. And it's no different from when some groups of people decide, "Okay, we'll all worship this or that god-figure and refrain from pork, alcohol, adultery, yadda, yadda". Again, this is a conventionalist view rooted in the subjective desires and cultural patterns of particular groups, not anything decreed by nature.
Published: June 3, 2006 10:24 AM
Keith, equal right for everybody aren't normal, but they are what characterizes civilization.
When the United States were founded with these premises in mind, they became the most powerful nation on earth, and the richest I think.
The question is: do we want to go back to barbarism, or do we want a civilized, modern society, where everybody has the same rights? Most people prefer barbarism, which is fine for them, but I'd really prefer to live in civilization and peace with other humans, if I could.
Published: June 3, 2006 10:39 AM
Paul,
I'm not arguing against the legitimacy of private property, markets, and prices per se. The only way to completely abolish these is to go to a completely command economy (ancient Egypt, Stalin, Kim Il-Sung/Jon Il, et.al.)That can work for a time but it eventually collapses under its own weight. What I am saying is that de facto "private property" can take on many different forms. To use an extreme example, one might say that state-owned property in the old Soviet Union was the de facto "private property" of the Communist Party, given their legal right to monopolize the use of that property. As I said before, an anarcho-communist commune is the de facto "private property" of the communards (unless they allow any other group of communards who wish to do so to come in and help themselves).
To use another example, I've heard some libertarians and free-market economists glorify Singapore as an exemplar of the free-market ideal. But from what I've read about Singapore's economy, it's basically a personal fiefdom of Lee Kuan Yew and his family and associates. Basically, it's just one big mercantilist corporation with the citizens of Singapore being de facto employees or, at best, minor shareholders. I once saw an article by Doug Casey glorifying Dubai in the same way.
I agree with the standard libertarian/conservative/free-market view that control over economic resources and "property" needs to be decentralized and spread out over many individuals, families, groups, communities, associations, etc. for civilization and prosperity to advance, at least over the long haul. But arguing that this requires the whole of mankind to organize itself economically according to the preferences of Murray Rothbard intuitively strikes me as a bit reductionist to say the least.
Also, I'm not so sure that adoption of the Lockean/Rothbardian/Randian view of property theory necessarily eliminates conflict. It might in some instances. If the Aryans are sovereign in their own private community and the Zionists are sovereign in theirs, and neither has yet to acquire the resources necessary to form an overarching state of their own, then confict might be minimized at least for the moment. But here's another analogy I like to use when dealing when this question. I call it the "Gilligan's Island" scenario. Gilligan and the castaways are shipwrecked on the island. Does the island become their private property by virtue of discovery? Or does it remain the property of whatever headhunters or Tarzan-like characters happen to be on the island? If it belongs to the castaways, how much of the island can they claim? The whole thing? Enough to farm for their own subsistence? Enough to build huts or tents for themselves? How does this break down on an individual basis? Are the Skipper, Gilligan, Ginger, Mary Ann, etc. each entitled to an equal share of the island? If the Skipper exerts more energy in pulling the Minnow ashore, fighting off savages, picking berries, is he entitled to a greater share than Mr. Howell who sits around complaining about the heat and mosquitos? What if another group of castaways is subsequently shipwrecked on the same island? Are Gilligan and his friends obligated to share the island with the newcomers? Or can they just push them back into the sea because Ayn Rand or Murray Rothbard said they could? If so, is it realistic to expect the 2nd group of castaways to say, "Well, in the spirit of compliance of the idealized property rights vision of John Locke, as enunciated by his apostle Murray Rothbard, we therefore agree to subject ourselves to death by starvation, saltwater poisoning or drowning, or shark attacks, because of our sworn fidelity to the eternal spirit of Ayn Rand." I doubt it would go down that way. More likely, the 2nd group would arm themselves with bamboo spears and have at it with Gilligan and associates. True natural law put into practice, I might suggest.
I don't mean to be overly sarcastic or pedantic here, but I think you can easily see where I'm going will all of this.
As for the question of private insurance companies as the basis of law enforcement, here's my understanding of this theory based on my extensive reading of libertarian commentators on this question(Rothbard,D.Friedman,Tannehills,Barnett,George Smith,Bruce Benson and others):
Instead of having an elected political government funded by compulsory tax payments to pass legistlation against this or that "crime", individuals simply pay fees-for-service to private protection agencies (like current security guard services) to provide whatever "law enforcement" they wish. Conceptually, I understand this. Here's where I think the "feudal" dimension comes in:
Who decides what the actual "law" is? The subscriber? The owners of the protection service? Their individual employees? Let's say Joe's Protection, INC. says in its ads: "We promise the ultimate in law and order for the lowest price. For a mere (fill in the blank) monthly fee, we will machine gun all shoplifters, hang drug pushers from the lamposts in the town square, flog the guy who adulterated your wife and the kill the dog that keeps barking in the middle of the night. Satisfaction guaranteed."
Now, I'm sure all of the libertarians reading this are by now saying, "Wait a minute! Libertarian law has to be proportional (yes, I've read Rothbard's "Ethics of Liberty", too), drug dealing and adultery are consensual acts and not legitimate targets of prohibition, the dog is the private property of its owner, etc."
But the question is: Who will force the protectors to adhere to libertarian law theory? The standard answer is that the customers of the non-libertarian protection agency can take their business elsewhere but why can't the protectors just say "no dice" and assert themselves as a de facto protection racket as opposed to protection agency (after all, they're the best organized and with the most weapons)? The usual answer is: Well, such an agency would be criminals by libertarian standards and the other libertarian defense agencies would move against them? But what if it was more profitable for the other agencies to simply join them as partners in extortion? Would not the profit motive win out? Is this not what the state is anyway? This is why I say that anarcho-capitalism, in actual practice and taken to its logical conclusion, would probably result
in the eventual creation of feudatories run by private insurance companies, who more or less demanded compulsory protection fees ("tribute")from their alleged "protectees".
Even if you reject this scenario as implausible, how do you deal with issues where there is much disagreement over the proper application of libertarian law theory? Take the abortion question, for instance. Is there going to be an "Army of God's Defenders of the Sacred Unborn" conducting paramilitary raids on abortion clinics, presumably to be countered by the "Militia of the Supreme Uber-Womynists, Associated Homos and Straight Allied"? I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to such an event. It could even be broadcast on a pay-per-view "Culture War of the Week-Live on Satellite TV!"
Anyway, these are questions that I think an-caps have yet to sufficiently answer. As for my own version of anarchy, I'm generally in the same camp with thinkers like Pierre Proudhon, Bertrand Russell or Paul Goodman who argued that "anarchy" is only an ideal (and a subjective one at that) that the species can only strive for. I think that the smaller and more decentralized a community is, the more "voluntary" or "anarchic" its nature. A neighborhood or village is more voluntary than a city, a city more than a province, a province more than a nation-state, a nation-state more than a global government. I think Socrates and Aristotle had it right. Socrates argued that the basis of legitimacy was chosen membership in the polis with the full right of emigration. For this to occur on any meaningful basis, the "polis" has to be small enough for emigration to be a viable option. That's where Aristotle's notion of the city-state as optimal scale political unit comes into play.
Once again, all of this is subjective. You can take the Hobbesian/Jacobin/Marxist/Fascist/Buckleyite/Neocon view of "centralization=order" as the highest priority. The problem with that is that you end up with Napolean, Wilson, Stalin, Hitler, Roosevelt and GWB. (I saw a poll taken in Russia a while back showing that 50% of Russians still had a favorable view of Stalin and, I think, 42% said Russian would benefit from a Stalin-like character today). Or you can take the decentralist view (which can either mean the Cayman Islands and Liechtenstein or Iraq and the Sudan, depending on historical, cultural or geographical factors and the influence of outside forces). Or you can opt for a middle of the road position (like much of Western liberalism, I guess, with its attendant bureaucratization, stagnation, mediocrity and inertia, and creeping tyranny).
Published: June 3, 2006 12:06 PM
"What if another group of castaways is subsequently shipwrecked on the same island? Are Gilligan and his friends obligated to share the island with the newcomers? Or can they just push them back into the sea because Ayn Rand or Murray Rothbard said they could? If so, is it realistic to expect the 2nd group of castaways to say, "Well, in the spirit of compliance of the idealized property rights vision of John Locke, as enunciated by his apostle Murray Rothbard, we therefore agree to subject ourselves to death by starvation, saltwater poisoning or drowning, or shark attacks, because of our sworn fidelity to the eternal spirit of Ayn Rand."
Since when have Murray Rothbard, Ayn Rand, and John Locke ever said that property belonged to whomever merely claimed it first. Property rights as envisioned by John Locke is the area of land that an individual transforms or mixes their labor with. The first group of castaways hasn't transformed the entire island, only certain parts and the second group can even still enter those parts if the first group lets them, which they might if there's some friendship or charitableness involved.
Published: June 3, 2006 1:06 PM
Sorry about the formating, I don't know how to use HTML tags.
Keith Preston,
I appreciate your cogent arguments. I'd like to say a few words in reply to your objections to protective insurance agencies.
I many theorists have addressed these concerns, I will try my best.
You express three concerns:
1. one company advertising punishment for victimless crimes
2. one company becoming a protection racket
3. cartelization
A. I start with the assumption that most people prefer peace and a non-violent lifestyle. Most poeple would agree with this, you might not. What the exact percentage comes to I don't know, but I would guess it to reach well above majority.
B. In free market anarchy, the population remains heavily armed.
C. Most R&D in FMA would focus on defense, rather than offense. This might include alarm and detection systems, neighborhood mobilization plans, hidden traps, electronic jamming, limited access communities, underground tunnels, etc. Lots of money would pour into this kind of infrastructure.
1. Many people might oppose prostitution, prefer thiefs to get shot, etc. But very few people would willingly dish out monthly to see these goals implemented. Under the present system, the costs do not seem apparent, and neither does the direct moral responsibility, because we do not write a check for it. Furthermore, the costs of an insurance company with this policy would skyrocket, as you can imagine how difficult it would become to enforce this policy, compared to the libertarian policies of competitors.
Yes, a small minority would feel strongly enough to pay for such a society, but they would end up with a community where most people agree to live this way.
2. You assume that a legitimate company that built a customer base suddenly gets taken over by the mafia. As unlikely as this seems, let's assume it happens. A protection racket becomes expensive to enforce. Imagine the difference between checks coming in and having to go collect them with armed guards. How do you force the bank to hand over someone's finances? And remember everyone has a gun at home. Most neighborhoods would probably also have local militias, with neighbors looking out for each other. And as soon as one company tries this, all their income shift to a competitor willing to protect their new customers. Now you might say a nice little war will break out between the two companies. We could have started with this assumption - what if one company simply tries to take another one over by force?
This becomes a whole new topic, I will just touch on it.
a) The rogue company would quickly bleed its finances.
b) The attacked company most likely has protection contracts of its own
c) the attacked company most likely lacks a central command center to take over
3. Without an existing monopoly on force in place, cartelization never worked in history. You have to worry about new competitors entering the market, but more importantly, price cutting enters the picture sooner or later. Historically, this usually happened. You might say that this cartelization would essentially bring on a monopoly on force. I suppose that could happen, but then we might just end up where we are today. Apologists for the historical inevitability of the present system like to take this line.
But once a FMA system takes root, this would become immensely more difficult. They couldn't rely on an income tax in place to finance them. Again remember the armed populace. And I also assume a culture of liberty would follow, making resistance very likely.
Published: June 3, 2006 3:32 PM
As an anarcho-communist I consider Rothbard's article to be seriously misinformed on a number of points - from the vexed (but ultimately symbiotic) relationships between the state and private property (means of production) to the period of so called "war communism" following the state capitalist revolution inaugurated by the Bolsheviks in Russia. Like most anarcho-capitalists, Rothbard did not have much of a grasp of the nature of anarcho-communism and many of his criticisms seem to me to be highly pejorative (do we really "scorn reason") and based on knee-jerk prejudice. The so-called Economic Calculation Argument advanced by von Mises has been refuted on very rational grounds and I have covered some of these counterarguments in my article http://www.cvoice.org/cv3cox.htm.
One final point - while anarcho-communists do all embrace a common vision of a future communist society as involving the elimination of money, markets, and wage labour as Rothbard recognised, we do not all sing from the same hymn sheet in every respect. There is diversity as well as unity in the ranks of the anarcho-communist movement, something that Rothbard did not appear to appreciate
Published: June 3, 2006 4:35 PM
However, Robin, the 'socialist' organizations that you outline are still voluntarily agreed upon by individuals. They do not apply to all other property owners not in agreement with the enterprise and that prefer their own organization. It is still a free market capitalist system and not socialism. Nothing in the way of the Calculation Debate is addressed in that regard.
Published: June 3, 2006 5:25 PM
Vic,
I, too, appreciate your efforts at reasoned argument.
"...most people would prefer peace and a non-violent lifestyle."
Well, it's not really most people that you have to worry about. Most people are sheep who simply follow the norms/prejudices of their own herd/tribe. It's not the sheep you have to contend with but the wolves. It's usually the wolves who become societal rulers. Remember Hayek's insight about the worst getting to the top due to their superior level of cunning and ruthlessness.
"...the population remains heavily armed."
This is an important deterrent to a foreign invasion, but it's a little less effective in preventing domestic tyranny. The reason is that most people don't think of themselves as being victimized when it's the perceived authority of their own tribe/herd doing it to them. This may not be rational but it seems to be true. Many of the same folks who were ready to take up arms against the Clinton regime now sing the praises of the Bush regime even though the Bushies have behaved every bit as egregiously as the Clintonistas, perhaps more so.
"...very few people would willingly dish out monthly to see these goals implemented. Under the present system, the costs do not seem apparent, and neither does the direct moral responsibility, because we do not write a check for it. Furthermore, the costs of an insurance company with this policy would skyrocket, as you can imagine how difficult it would become to enforce this policy, compared to the libertarian policies of competitors. Yes, a small minority would feel strongly enough to pay for such a society, but they would end up with a community where most people agree to live this way."
How does the present system work? If you want to repress your competition in business, cultural or social groups you don't like, etc., what do you do? You hire a team of lobbyists, lawyers, PACs and politicians to make up the relevant laws for you. How does this differ from hiring a "free market" agency to do the same for you? Now, I think you're on your strongest ground when you say that a disincentive to this kind of thing in a private system would be the inability to pass the enforcement costs on to others via taxation. But I don't know that that's enough. Politics is dominated by loud-mouthed special interest groups who typically are motivated by uber-greed or uber-ideological fanaticism. These kinds will go a long way to get what they want. Removing their ability to shift the costs of enforcement may deter them partially, but I doubt it would deter them completely.
Here's how I think it would work out: Political interest groups would hire enforcement agencies to carry out the enforcement of whatever laws they wished. The enforcement agencies, like today's politicians and police, would be comprised mostly of opportunists and careerists rather than people who adhere to any specific set of ideals. The enforcers would simply sell their services to the highest bidder. Pro-choice offered us the most cash-for-service? No problem, pro-choice we shall be. Pro-life made substantial offer to one of our competitors? We'll make a deal to pay them down before they take us out. Meanwhile, we'll stay out of the jurisdiction where their customer cash flow is largest and ours is smaller.
In other words, "the production of law" would be just another series of bribes, backstabbing, treachery, threats, underhanded backroom deals and the like. Pretty much the same way it is now.
From what I recall, David Friedman, who is a leading theorist and advocate of anarcho-capitalist legal institutions, actually spectulated that non-libertarian law might very well remain in place in an an-cap system. And Hoppe all but admits that his version of anarcho-capitalism amounts to the restoration of feudalism.
"You assume that a legitimate company that built a customer base suddenly gets taken over by the mafia. As unlikely as this seems, let's assume it happens. A protection racket becomes expensive to enforce. Imagine the difference between checks coming in and having to go collect them with armed guards."
I'm probably opening a can of worms with this one, but considerable life experience has taught me that the dividing line between businessmen, polticians, policemen, criminals, gangsters and "civic leaders" is usually rather difficult to determine. A protection racket is the easiest kind of "contract" to enforce. A voluntary agency has to provide its customers with something they actually want. A protection racket simply takes what THEY want! A substantial number of "legitimate companies" in the present system rely quite heavily on the state for their sustenance.
"...And remember everyone has a gun at home. Most neighborhoods would probably also have local militias, with neighbors looking out for each other. And as soon as one company tries this, all their income shift to a competitor willing to protect their new customers. "
I doubt that many people are going to be quite that eternally vigilant in the defense of liberty. Human nature is to blithely line up for the gulags and gas chambers, not to resist oppression.
"Without an existing monopoly on force in place, cartelization never worked in history."
Well, how did the present-day states get to their position? They didn't just pop out of thin air. Eventually the strongest come to dominate by weeding out the weak. Once the strong have eliminated their competition, they have a monopoly. And then, of course, the rot and decay begins due to complacency and the resulting malaise.
"And I also assume a culture of liberty would follow, making resistance very likely."
You're on your most solid ground here. In the end, culture rules. People will resist only when they think their sense of identity and the security (real or not) they think it brings them is under attack. This is why so many "conservatives" go crazy over gay marriage or "kicking God out of the classroom" but see no problem with Bush and cronies sending their kids to die in some god-forsaken desert somewhere. This is why so many "liberals" would cheerfully accept a Stalinist state so long as abortion remained legal and recycling was declared a sacrament.
BTW, I'm actually in favor of the decentralized, polycentric, common law arrangements many an-caps also favor. I actually agree that the greater decentralization and less frequent cost-shifting (though not as infrequent as some would fantasize) exhibited by this kind of system would probably result in an overall net gain for liberty. I just don't think it would be the anarchistic utopia some would imagine it to be. It would probably be more like the polycentric order of the Holy Roman or Ottoman empires.
Published: June 3, 2006 10:21 PM
Robin,
You ask, “do we really "scorn reason" and in the same post, you write "...while anarcho-communists do all embrace a common vision of a future communist society as involving the elimination of money, markets, and wage labour as Rothbard recognised,…�
No approach to human affairs that ignores the economic facts of life can also embrace reason. You scorn economic reason, ergo of course yes, you scorn reason.
Published: June 4, 2006 1:31 AM
Keith, thanks for your reply to my arguments. My humble reply below:
“Well, it's not really most people that you have to worry about. Most people are sheep who simply follow the norms/prejudices of their own herd/tribe. It's not the sheep you have to contend with but the wolves. It's usually the wolves who become societal rulers. Remember Hayek's insight about the worst getting to the top due to their superior level of cunning and ruthlessness.�
So you assume the power hungry in a free market anarchy (FMA) society would gravitate towards the protection agencies, since this would allow them the biggest potential for power. I can easily see some entrepreneur exploiting this weakness to his/her advantage. Market an organizational structure that disallows this to assuage the customers. Off the top of my head, how about rapidly revolving leadership, heavily decentralized command structure, watchdog agencies, enforceable oaths of office, etc.
on an armed populace:
“This is an important deterrent to a foreign invasion, but it's a little less effective in preventing domestic tyranny. The reason is that most people don't think of themselves as being victimized when it's the perceived authority of their own tribe/herd doing it to them. This may not be rational but it seems to be true.�
You assume here the people don’t perceive getting victimized, which implies agreement and acceptance of the situation. Some communities might prefer this, and with the much larger freedom of movement in the society as a whole, they would end up with mostly voluntary participants.
“How does the present system work? If you want to repress your competition in business, cultural or social groups you don't like, etc., what do you do? You hire a team of lobbyists, lawyers, PACs and politicians to make up the relevant laws for you.�
In a FMA society, I don’t see laws per se, I see contracts and then arbitration and adjudication when conflicts arise. So the special interest groups would have to bribe a judge. Such a judge would not stay in business long.
“How does this differ from hiring a "free market" agency to do the same for you?�
A defense agency defends, bribing it to become a rogue agency that initiates aggression would amount to a take-over of the agency. Forcefully repressing competition would have to involve direct aggression, which basically means the agency went rogue. Same arguments as above apply. Also, I want to point out that before any two agencies went to battle it out, they would go to court. Nonviolent resolution often (perhaps always) cost less for both parties. Any agency that directly initiated an attack would become an obvious aggressor. Most likely, treaties against this kind of aggression would arise between different agencies.
“The enforcers would simply sell their services to the highest bidder. Pro-choice offered us the most cash-for-service? No problem, pro-choice we shall be. Pro-life made substantial offer to one of our competitors? We'll make a deal to pay them down before they take us out. Meanwhile, we'll stay out of the jurisdiction where their customer cash flow is largest and ours is smaller.�
I think you essential describe this: A group collects money, probably for months, to organize an assault on an abortion clinic. They hire a group of mercenaries or a protection agency or perhaps a terrorist. First, realize the outright naked aggression as compared to passing a law banning abortion under the present system. But I grant that people still might exist who would engage in this kind of plotting. But this now seems like an instance of crime. The attack happens. An investigation ensues. The financers now face the court system with its focus on victim restitution.
“From what I recall, David Friedman, who is a leading theorist and advocate of anarcho-capitalist legal institutions, actually spectulated that non-libertarian law might very well remain in place in an an-cap system. And Hoppe all but admits that his version of anarcho-capitalism amounts to the restoration of feudalism.�
I agree with Friedman. But in such a system, the level of voluntary participation in such law systems would appear much higher. Hoppe does seem to have a soft spot for the medieval times. I don’t get it.
“I doubt that many people are going to be quite that eternally vigilant in the defense of liberty. Human nature is to blithely line up for the gulags and gas chambers, not to resist oppression.�
I think such vigilance grows in direct proportion to the amount of liberty enjoyed by the population.
“Well, how did the present-day states get to their position? They didn't just pop out of thin air. Eventually the strongest come to dominate by weeding out the weak. Once the strong have eliminated their competition, they have a monopoly. And then, of course, the rot and decay begins due to complacency and the resulting malaise.�
It actually took quite a long time. And this happened before anyone ever uttered these ideas. Molinari wrote in 1849, so these ideas have seen the light for only 150 years.
“You're on your most solid ground here. In the end, culture rules.�
I think a strong culture of liberty would either have to precede or evolve with such a system. I don’t know where the tipping point lies, what percentage of population, but I don’t even think it would have to reach a majority. Just a guess.
“BTW, I'm actually in favor of the decentralized, polycentric, common law arrangements many an-caps also favor. I actually agree that the greater decentralization and less frequent cost-shifting (though not as infrequent as some would fantasize) exhibited by this kind of system would probably result in an overall net gain for liberty. I just don't think it would be the anarchistic utopia some would imagine it to be. It would probably be more like the polycentric order of the Holy Roman or Ottoman empires.�
I don’t know what you mean by utopia. I just think such a system better than the one we have now. Overall, I make the argument that once in place, a FMA with protection agencies would remain a stable system, strongly resistant to perturbations.
Published: June 4, 2006 3:08 AM
Robin: nice to hear from a Anar-communist that does take into account other views. We might not agree, but that's IMHO rather irrelevant.
We all want anarchism, and the central point of anarchism is voluntary association (I'd say). So *any* real anarchist society would - simply because different people want or choose different lifestyles - contain both capitalist and socialist regions, and this would IMHO be a good thing.
The important thing is to abolish the state, and with ith centralized violence.
I disagree on the abolition of money, though. It's not realistic, because money wasn't created, but it rather evolved as a convenient medium of exchange. I don't think any organization that doesn't use violence (the state) could really abolish money. The same goes for markets: as long as everything is scarce (and that's a fact of life, I'd say), there'll be markets.
Still, in a free country, many individuals might choose to live more socialist lives, and that's totally ok. We have common goals.
Published: June 4, 2006 4:43 AM
Paul
You say:
"You ask, “do we really "scorn reason" and in the same post, you write "...while anarcho-communists do all embrace a common vision of a future communist society as involving the elimination of money, markets, and wage labour as Rothbard recognised,…� No approach to human affairs that ignores the economic facts of life can also embrace reason. You scorn economic reason, ergo of course yes, you scorn reason."
Now, a "reasonable" approach to this debate would be to consider what the other side has to say and marshall evidence to back up your claims.
You havent even begun to do this - in fact you you have absolutely no idea of whether I scorn economic reason or not - or what this consists in from my point of view. In short, your position is totally based on prejudice.
Rather than offer unsupported opinion why not have a look at the article in question at http://www.cvoice.org/cv3cox.htm. and THEN come back and tell me why in your view it ignores the "economic facts of life" as you put it.
Now thats not an unreasonable suggestion is it now?
For real communism
Robin
ps Your assertion "You scorn economic reason, ergo of course yes, you scorn reason" isnt even logical. If I scorned reason then yes ipso facto I would scorn economic reason but it does not follow that the converse is true. There are other kinds of reason apart from economic reason and there is nothing to say that I must reject these too along with economic reason
Published: June 4, 2006 11:15 AM
Kid Mongo, "Nobody yet has remarked on the repressive and authoritarian nature of capitalism"
That is because capitalism is just respect for private property. It is neither repressive, because everyone has private property, nor authoritarian because, again, everyone has their own property, beginning with their own self.
In order to be repressive or authoritarian, some people would have to have more "rights" than others. Such privileged class structures are a symptom of socialism in its varied forms, not capitalism.
Now if you wish to argue that capitalism is repressive and authoritarian because some people have more money than others, I suggest you are actually talking about envy.
Published: June 4, 2006 1:13 PM
Curt,
Surely Kid Mongo has succumbed to what virtually all anti-capitalists have succumbed to: confusing the crony capitalism of the corporate state with the voluntary exchange that is the essence of the social enterprise and thus of the free market.
The state, of course, thwarts this enterprise at virtually every turn, resulting in gross inequalities that would not otherwise exist (while lesser inequalities would).
That said, we all know the role that envy plays in the communist mindset and the impetus it provides for state action.
Published: June 4, 2006 3:39 PM
Robin,
“you have absolutely no idea of whether I scorn economic reason or not�
Actually I do. It may well be that you have absolutely no idea that you scorn economic reason, but that is a different question. Furthermore, if Mises and Rothbard have not given you an inkling to this fact, then my modest talents directed at such an undertaking are not likely to succeed any better.
You state:
“Your assertion "You scorn economic reason, ergo of course yes, you scorn reason" isnt even logical. If I scorned reason then yes ipso facto I would scorn economic reason but it does not follow that the converse is true.�
You can’t be selective about reason, Robin. You either choose it as a principle to pursue and apply in general, or you don’t. If you say “I like to use reason in math but not in economics�, then you have a scorn for reason because it takes a back seat to your other political agendas.
Published: June 4, 2006 8:04 PM
Robin,
I took a look at your article and here is one slice at one argument you made. I believe all significant points that you make can be addressed with similar dispatch. Your arguments are based on a superficial and/or inaccurate understanding of economics and/or Mises’s arguments, and so they naturally fail to refute his position that socialism cannot calculate.
Mises:
“Every single step of entrepreneurial activities is subject to scrutiny by monetary calculation. The premeditation of planned action becomes commercial pre-calculation of expected costs and expected proceeds. The retrospective establishment of the outcome of past action becomes accounting profits and losses�9.
Cox:
This statement is revealing. It inadvertently highlights a serious flaw in the ECA. The ability to compute profit and loss is what in theory is supposed to ensure the efficient – that is “profitable� – allocation of resources. But it turns out that it ensures nothing of the sort. Just because a system of market prices affords one a set of figures with which one can perform precise calculations does not mean that these figures will turn out to be correct – that is to say, will unerringly guide the entrepreneur towards a positive net income.
Edwards:
This reveals no flaw in Mises’s position. So what if profit and loss calculations don’t ensure that individual entrepreneurs will necessarily speculate correctly in every case? They are also human and will make mistakes. Profit and loss calculation merely provides to the entrepreneur an incentive to pay attention to, as well as providing the needed objective feedback itself, that his speculative attempts at satisfying consumer demand were either successful or not. It does not, nor is it suggested that it guarantees individual success in this endeavor every time.
What it does guarantee, is that in the long run, those entrepreneurs most suited to successfully speculating on and delivering what the consumer wants most will be rewarded financially, and the others will be eliminated from this entrepreneurial role in the market. To complain that the profit and loss sheet does not “unerringly guide the [particular] entrepreneur towards a positive net income� is a reflection of an absurdly simple minded and superficial understanding of Mises’s argument.
To elaborate on the process further, large profits in a particular industry, or segment of an industry, will draw other profit seeking entrepreneurs to this area, which will draw resources and productive efforts away from other less profitable endeavors and into this one. This arbitrage process will increase the supply of this profitable product which is high consumer demand, reducing its price on the market, and will increase the demand and hence the price for the factors of its production, both phenomenon having the impact of eventually reducing the profit in the production of this product, until in the long run, the rate of profit for production of it is the same as all others. This process of profit and loss motivated shifting of resources from one industry to another ensures maximized consumer satisfaction and maximized efficiency of allocation of scarce resources.
This is economic calculation, and it is this that a centralized socialist economy simply cannot do because there is no private ownership in the means of production and hence no prices, and no entrepreneurial profit based motive to shift resources to their optimal application for optimal consumer satisfaction.
Published: June 5, 2006 2:33 AM
Ulrich,
“We all want anarchism�
I think it is best first to determine what the socialist-anarchist hates more: the state or free markets. I think when it is revealed they hate free markets more, and that it is a state that is required to eliminate free markets, we may see more plainly that we do not ALL want anarchism.
Published: June 5, 2006 2:41 AM
Paul,
You are describing nothing more than a minarchist form of government, held in check by the right to secede. In practice, this means selling your property and moving out or having your property seized by force to avoid free riding. This may spur numerous people to describe in intricate, numbing and purely theoretical detail how the Internet, space travel, nuclear fusion, etc., will all make a free market version of a voluntary society feasible. Conveniently, there is no response to a purely theoretical construct. This is the common theme of anarcho-capitalists: they all get on a space ship and head off to create Galt's Gulch.
Property is a human institution. Again, as David White pointed out, animals (and Robinson Crusoe) simply have what they can hold. Anytime you have groups of people interacting, their views of their rights are going to conflict and somebody is going to have to declare war or submit to the rule of law.
I have argued for many paragraphs with objectivist anarchists who insist that rights cannot conflict. This is pure bovine excrement. Humans are subjective beings whose opinions of their rights clash all the time.
Only the anarcho-communists purport to describe a truly 100% voluntary society. So-called "anarcho" capitalists should disentangle themselves from this variant of Marxism.
Published: June 5, 2006 9:28 AM
Reactionary said;
"Anytime you have groups of people interacting, their views of their rights are going to conflict and somebody is going to have to declare war or submit to the rule of law.
I have argued for many paragraphs with objectivist anarchists who insist that rights cannot conflict. This is pure bovine excrement. Humans are subjective beings whose opinions of their rights clash all the time."
I'm afraid YOUR statements are larded with more than a little bovine excrement - there is absolutely no reason anyone's rights need to conflict. It is only their WANTS that conflict.
Anarcho-capitalism, or whatever you want to call it, does NOT mean every ancap has to get on a 'rocketship' as you facetiously point out. All that is required is for government to stop stealing our property and doing things for others that they should be doing for themselves.
For example, if all government were suddenly eliminated, I would poll my neighbors to assess their ability to protect themselves and their property. Based on this assessment, I or others would offer a free-market protection service based on a level of service they required. They could pay me up front. by the month, or not at all, preferring to instead purchase an insurance policy that would pay my agency to bring trespassers in front of a (private) restitution committee.
Similarly, roads and the maintenance of rights of way and electrical power could be handled privately (wells and septic systems are already private where I live). And so on.
Most of us already inhabit a world where some large percentage of their lives is completely un-impacted by government. For years, many individuals have also grown to understand that the remaining areas where government DOES have a direct management role, government performs those functions in a costly, extremely nefficient manner.
You seem to propose that this is an irreducible percentage, yet there are people who live even farther out in the sticks than I do that experience an even smaller percentage of interference with self-government. Should we impose, say, San Francisco-style taxes and controls on these people?
Or is it abundantly clear yet that those who wish to have government run large percentages of their (and others) lives should be the ones who bear the full burden of both paying for and living under it?
Published: June 5, 2006 11:20 AM
Vince,
"They could pay me up front. by the month, or not at all, preferring to instead purchase an insurance policy that would pay my agency to bring trespassers in front of a (private) restitution committee."
And the trespassers argue that they are not actually trespassers, or that the committee is colluding with your Mafia, or etc., etc., so somebody either has to stand down or declare war. And there goes your voluntary society. Again, you're a minarchist, not an anarchist.
BTW, where did this site's fixation with insurance germinate? Is it from anyone with actual experience in insurance underwriting or risk management?
Published: June 5, 2006 11:43 AM
Reactionary,
“You are describing nothing more than a minarchist form of government, held in check by the right to secede.�
The state by its very nature claims a territorial based coercive monopoly of jurisdiction over the occupants of this territory. This includes its right to tax and does not in practice, include any right to secede. Where there is no compulsory involvement in any organization (i.e. where individuals reserve the universal right to secede), there simply is no state.
When you think of a completely voluntary government, you are not thinking minarchy, you are thinking anarchy. It really appears to be between us, simply a matter of terminological confusion, rather than disagreement.
On the other hand, this statement “Only the anarcho-communists purport to describe a truly 100% voluntary society�, in my mind, represents a gross misunderstanding of the implications of the “communist� aspect of that philosophy. Due to inherent human nature, and our natural and justifiable inclination to create and participate in free markets, socialists can only ultimately rely on the coercion of the state to enforce their socialist ideals on others. Anarchy is ultimately impossible for the socialist.
Published: June 5, 2006 12:02 PM
Reactionary argues;
"And the trespassers argue that they are not actually trespassers, or that the committee is colluding with your Mafia, or etc., etc., so somebody either has to stand down or declare war. And there goes your voluntary society. Again, you're a minarchist, not an anarchist."
Um, no. In reality, I can simply leave my neighbors alone, and they can do likewise. I was simply being neighborly in my example. The trespassers, in order to be eligible for ajudication by the restitution committe, must be members of and subject to that committee. Otherwise, they might be simply ostracised, or shot. Property rights could still be conserved without government.
(BTW, under an-cap, insurance, freed from government regulations would be VERY different than what we have come to think of now as "insurance" which is in reality often nothing more than socialism.)
Minarchy still implies theft by force on the part of a force monopoly. Voluntary mutual assistance, on the other hand, means those who participate freely offer to pay for the services they use, or think they will use. No one is compelled to provide or use anything under anarcho-capitalism.
Published: June 5, 2006 12:16 PM
Paul,
As I pointed out to Vince, the voluntary society ends the moment someone is forced to abide by an arbitrator's decision with which he disagrees. To get around this problem, the anarcho-communists simply abolish the institution of property. No rights can conflict because no rights are ever enforced. This is the state of nature called anarchy.
Even if all government were abolished overnight and people adopted some voluntary model, they would form coalitions and adopt codes of conduct operating within a territory. And how does the anarchic utopia handle children? What if a member of a community wills his property to his children who, upon turning 18 promptly declare that none of the community's covenants apply to them? (And just what is the age of majority in anarchy anyway? How is it decided? And what if somebody disagrees with it?)
To get around such problems, anarchists spend hours spinning complex scenarioes (usually involving space travel and the Internet) which, if ever realized, would consist of thickets of competing and contradictory contracts, codicils, covenants, insurance policies, reinsurance treaties, etc. (No different than the government's shelves and shelves of statutes, regs, and EO's, actually.)
The really silly thing is, all the heavy lifting has been done for the anarchists already in English common law and in the traditions of other conservative institutions such as the Church and the extended family. Anarchists, being mostly cultural Marxists anyway, traduce the very institutions that make a free and prosperous society sustainable.
Published: June 5, 2006 12:36 PM
Don B—“I don't know what, ‘they lack authority and power to enforce’ means…� An example might help: Remember as kids when a brother or sister insisted that you do something you didn’t want to do and you replied, “You’re not my mother!�? Kids intuitively recognize who has the authority to make rules and who doesn’t. Our peers lack that authority; only recognized superiors carry rule-making authority. In the world of humanity, only God is superior to humans. That’s why for most of history kings tried to convince subjects that they descended from or represented God. Philosophers have never been able to get around that problem. They recognize that no human has the authority to tell another one what to do.
But man isn’t blind to the morality of God, even without revelation from God. Natural Law philosophers believed that man’s ability to reason would enable him to discover those laws.
“…then what is it that gives that higher authority the ability, does it also have a higher authority giving it commands?� God has the authority because He created us, just a parents have authority because they gave us birth.
Ulrich—“… as soon as you give anybody the right to rule over others, you lose consistency.� You’re right if the authority is human, but not if that authority is God, in which case all humans are treated equally and consistently.
You don’t have to accept the philosophical consensus on morals. I’m just saying that the best minds in history have struggled with the issue of morals and have left a deep body of material on the subject that libertarians don’t seem to be aware of. And, you shouldn’t use the word “morals� when speaking of norms for behavior unless you’re using their definition. Otherwise, it’s deceptive and somewhat dishonest. That’s why most writers today speak of “ethics� or “mores� because they refer to what humans think other humans should do. With ethics, you subscribe to the norms of others in order to get along and maintain a good reputation. You rarely read an informed person write about “morals� because they know that without God, there is no such thing as morals.
Published: June 5, 2006 12:41 PM
Reactionary sez;
"Even if all government were abolished overnight and people adopted some voluntary model, they would form coalitions and adopt codes of conduct operating within a territory. And how does the anarchic utopia handle children? What if a member of a community wills his property to his children who, upon turning 18 promptly declare that none of the community's covenants apply to them?"
You are simply wrong - coalitions and codes do not have to be applied to a contiguous area. In fact that's what gets us into the force predicament with government - they claim a monopoly on force across a geographic area. Voluntary agreeements need not be restricted thus, as long as they could be maintained. This opens up possibilities for competing agreement organizations in the same geographic area - another point for our side.
What kind of covenant should be enforced upon people who no longer wish to be bound by it? I'm curious. The heirs should be bound by as few covenants as are necessary to ensure that neighboring property owners may continue to enjoy their full property rights. There is no reason to continue any others.
(Unlike such things as zoning, which are either enforced in perpetuity, or else abridged or changed without the consent of the property owner in question).
As far as how an anarchic community will 'handle' children, presumably the parents will be the ones responsible for 'handling' them, or, should the parents die, guardians appointed by the parents, whose wishes are made known to friends or relatives. I believe this role used to be called "Godparent".
Published: June 5, 2006 2:25 PM
Vince,
The idea of different covenants within a single geographic area is simply untenable. People favor the simple over the complex and the predictable over the unpredictable. The idea of millions of people each running around with their own contract between themselves and the rest of the planet, subject to change upon unilateral notice, is absurd and unworkable, which is why no successful system of human organization has ever adopted such a model.
Even in a radically decentralized society, localities will (as they have done for all of history) adopt rules applicable to their members by virtue of their residence in the locality. Individuals purporting to dissent from the local covenants would be driven out as free riders.
Say, for example, a private community decides by unanimous vote to ban the public display of nudity. Then, a homeowner dies, leaving the property to his son, who decides his right to the enjoyment of his property includes the right to masturbate on his front yard. Is the community's ban on public nudity applicable to him?
Now, you may demonstrate by arduous and lengthy reasoning, that the exhibitionist who inherited the property is perfectly within his rights. But in the real world, very few people would choose to buy property in a legal environment where covenants could be so lightly tossed aside. The example can be extended to holders in due course of negotiable instruments, descent and distribution of estates, etc. People will naturally demand a single legal code for a geographic area and, by extension, a corresponding body of law with other polities. As I said, all the heavy lifting in this area has already been done.
And of course, in the real world, vigilante action would probably render the question moot. Again, so much for the pipe dream of a voluntary society.
Published: June 5, 2006 3:56 PM
Reactionary: "BTW, where did this site's fixation with insurance germinate? Is it from anyone with actual experience in insurance underwriting or risk management?"
That's a great comment!! As one who has dealt with real-world insurance agencies, I am skeptical as to whether political rule by insurance companies would be as efficient or beneficient as anarcho-capitalists like to claim. In Randy's Barnett's "Structure of Liberty" (which is actually a pretty interesting book) he outlines a vision of a future society run by so-called RMOS's ("Rights Maintenance Organizations" modeled after HMOs"). Given the sorry track record of HMOs, I'm not so sure RMOs are anything to look forward to.
I agree with Vince that legal systems need not be geographically connected or mono-centric in order to function. In fact, as I mentioned in an above post, both the Holy Roman Empire and the Ottoman Empire functioned with polycentric legal systems, where competing law codes overlapped with one another (common law, canon law, manorial law, merchant law, admirality law) or applied to different population groups within close geographical proximity (the Ottoman millet system). However, I think "Reactionary" has a valid point as far as semantic questions go. If you define "anarchy" in the perjorative sense of "no rules at all" what you end up with is a war of each against all where "rule" is carried out, formally or informally, by the biggest and the baddest.
I would define political anarchism as the idea of voluntary communities functioning according to their own mutually agreed upon rules without the interference of outside entities (like a central government). I agree that "anarchy" on the individual level is a bit difficult. There are plenty examples from history of anarchic communities (see "People Without Government" by Harold Barclay) but these communities typically had some set of norms rooted in religion, culture, family traditions, etc. If an individual wishes to exist apart from any kind of community at all, then the only option is to become a hermit or a vagabond. In the middle ages, they had a thing called "outlawry" which meant an individual was no longer under the protection of the law and anyone who wished could rob or kill him. This was a way of dealing with bandits or habitual criminals. America during its colonial and pioneer stages was relatively anarchic with lots of wide open unclaimed land and easy mobility, but there were still hangings of cattlerustlers and even religious persecution like the witch trials at Salem.
For a real world anarchist or quasi-anarchist civilization to come about, I think two things would have to happen. First, conventional states would have to come cascading down to due economic collapse or loss of public confidence (like the Soviet Union/Warsaw Pact circa 1989-91). Second, there would need to emerge an intellectual/cultural/philosophical elite with a generally anarchistic or quasi-anarchistic outlook (like today's elites are mostly liberals or Marxists). I think the end result would be small-scale political systems like the ancient Greek or Renaissance era cities, the polycentric order of the middle ages I've already mentioned, early America, indigenous-tribal societies, the traditional Chinese provinces, and contemporary micronations. Each of these would manage themselves according to their own norms, local customs and traditions, ideological preferences, material needs,etc.
When discussing these questions with anarchists and libertarians, I always like to point out the many ways where we disagree: property theory and economic arrangements, children, abortion, animal rights, the environment, religion, racial views, cultural differences, the handling of criminals and much more. I suspect these differences would play themselves out along geographical and institutional lines. The main problems are: How do you minimize the damage of skirmishes between localized groups (the original justification for Leviathan in the first place) and how do you prevent a new tyrannical central power from emerging (power tends to become more concentrated with time)?
Published: June 5, 2006 4:00 PM
Keith,
Your point about polycentric legal regimes is well taken, and I would also note that it is the competition between these different institutions which tended to limit their reach. Those are the very institutions, btw, which the anarchists seek to destroy.
IMO, the way to mitigate conflict would be to allow people with diametrically opposed views of morality and culture to segregate themselves by whatever criteria they choose. This is at odds with the Tower of Babel vision pushed by the progressivists and necessarily means some level of aggression by people seeking to preserve "merely" a way of life.
History shows that the only way to keep government small is to keep the governors in fear of being killed. Threatening capital flight is not enough. As we are seeing, when the central government needs a larger tax base, it simply imports one.
Published: June 5, 2006 4:25 PM
Keith,
You make some good points. I have argued in the past that the entire world would have to be anarchist in order for anarchism to survive, because it would be very weak against an invading army of statists or any group of thugs within the anarchist societies who wanted to take control and didn't care about the niceties of consistency in logic.
Published: June 5, 2006 4:28 PM
Keith Preston sez;
"If you define "anarchy" in the perjorative sense of "no rules at all" what you end up with is a war of each against all where "rule" is carried out, formally or informally, by the biggest and the baddest."
I would submit, in light of recent events, that that end is EXACTLY the place to which -archy has brought us.
Published: June 5, 2006 4:52 PM
Paul
You say
"This is economic calculation, and it is this that a centralized socialist economy simply cannot do because there is no private ownership in the means of production and hence no prices, and no entrepreneurial profit based motive to shift resources to their optimal application for optimal consumer satisfaction"
Evidently you havent read my article carefully at all otherwise you would have realised that one of the main points I make is that in order for a socialist economy to meet the objections raised by the economic calculation argument it cannot be a centralised economy; it has to be polycentric since that is the only way one can ensure an adequate feedback mechanism is in place without which economisation of factors cannot proceed effectively
Clearly you have not understood at all the arguments I have been making against the ECA; I suggest you re-read the article with a little more circumspection this time
Robin
Published: June 5, 2006 6:55 PM
Reactionary:"IMO, the way to mitigate conflict would be to allow people with diametrically opposed views of morality and culture to segregate themselves by whatever criteria they choose. This is at odds with the Tower of Babel vision pushed by the progressivists and necessarily means some level of aggression by people seeking to preserve "merely" a way of life."
Reactionary:"History shows that the only way to keep government small is to keep the governors in fear of being killed. "
These two are probably as insightful as any political statements ever made. I couldn't agree more. A point that I'm always trying to drive home to liberals and leftists is that if you try to force populations naturally inclined to distrust or dislike one another together, what you end up with is Rwanda, not Scandanavia.
Roger M:"I have argued in the past that the entire world would have to be anarchist in order for anarchism to survive, because it would be very weak against an invading army of statists or any group of thugs within the anarchist societies who wanted to take control and didn't care about the niceties of consistency in logic."
A federation of anarchic communities, each with their own militia/guerrilla/mercenary army, could probably hold its own fairly well against an invading force controlled by a cumbersome, bureaucratic foreign state. (It seems to be working well enough for the Iraqis and Afghans. Of course, not all invaded nations are lucky enough to have the likes GWB and Rumsfeld commanding the enemy, LOL!) But the need to combine their forces would probably result in the emergence of something approximating a central goverment even if the invaders were successfully repelled.
Switzerland is far from an anarchy, but it's probably closer to it than most other states. Yet Switzerland was one of the few European nations to stay out of both world wars, despite the fact that the Swiss border the Germans.
Vince:"I would submit, in light of recent events, that that end is EXACTLY the place to which -archy has brought us."
The problem of controlling power has existed since time immemorial and probably always will. The only real solution I can think of is the one suggested in the above quote from "Reactionary".
Published: June 5, 2006 10:06 PM
Robin,
“Clearly you have not understood at all the arguments I have been making against the ECA; I suggest you re-read the article with a little more circumspection this time�
I didn’t have the inclination to refute the entire article line by line. What I did was to show you how this significant statement of yours “It inadvertently highlights a serious flaw in the ECA.� is plainly false and demonstrates your lack of understanding of his argument. Perhaps you would like to address this and show me how I am wrong, rather than to redirect to another point your paper makes which is also mistaken, but which I did not address and won’t until we finish with the one at hand.
I have shown in refuting one simple and significant aspect of your paper that you don’t understand what Mises was talking about. Understanding him first, or show signs that you do, and then refute him if you still feel inclined.
Published: June 5, 2006 11:31 PM
Reactionary,
“As I pointed out to Vince, the voluntary society ends the moment someone is forced to abide by an arbitrator's decision with which he disagrees. To get around this problem, the anarcho-communists simply abolish the institution of property. No rights can conflict because no rights are ever enforced. This is the state of nature called anarchy.�
There is no getting around this problem of requiring conflict arbitration and resolution given that we are imperfect humans. Abolishing private property and not enforcing property rights is not anarchy, it is simply chaos. Those who most rampantly dominate and threaten and take the possessions of the others by force will be the state or some other form of criminal organization. The others will be the ruled class. We have a semblance of this right now, with some respect for property which mitigates it to some extent.
Published: June 6, 2006 12:43 AM
Reactionary,
“BTW, where did this site's fixation with insurance germinate? Is it from anyone with actual experience in insurance underwriting or risk management?�
There’s nothing magical about insurance companies, aside from them seeming to be a logical place to suspect that protection, police and court services might immerge from in a free market. The point is that the free market could and would provide such services, and insurance companies seem plausibly motivated to provide them.
You, on the other hand, have no interest in considering how the free market would provide such services because you are convinced this is the exclusive role and domain of a coercive state (minarchy). But if you were to consider how these services could possibly be provided in anarchy, it might seem to you, as well, that insurance companies would indeed be highly motivated to provide such protection services to mitigate costs associated with paying out claims due to theft and aggression.
Published: June 6, 2006 1:07 AM
In my long experience of dealing with communists (including the anarcho variant), socialists, facists and all the other sundry types of collectivists, they are all characterised with the same overwhelming lust for getting something for nothing- especially other people's property. In each and every case they are fixated on seeking an easy way to obtain the benefits of propety but without the responsibility owning property brings, nor the effort to earn it or even the effort to maintain it. They want your stuff for nothing.
What it boils down to is that these guys want to steal, destroy and discard. Most of them lack the honesty of the common crook and they definately lack the stomach to embark on the actual act of mass theivery themselves. They need trained muscle to do that for them. Hence they tell lies in order to disguise what it is they are proposing and what it is they are supporting.
As the Matai would maintain: all collectivists are liars who should never be trusted (or ever assisted).
Forget the collectivists. They have nothing to give you (including their ideas which they can never explain rationally) but you have everything to lose. You are wasting time arguing with such critters.
Sione
Published: June 6, 2006 1:56 AM
"As one who has dealt with real-world insurance agencies,"
You have dealt with insurance companies in an anarchic state?
I had no idea that there were insurance companies that did not have to comply with state law. News to me, where do I sign up? I would like to get the most basic coverage for my car and my health.
My only vice is smoking, I'm a relatively safe driver, can I pay according to my risk?
Or did you deal with government regulated pseudo insurance companies? Was it in a mandatory health or auto insurance state?
"A federation of anarchic communities, each with their own militia/guerrilla/mercenary army, could probably hold its own fairly well against an invading force controlled by a cumbersome, bureaucratic foreign state."
That's precisely what decentralized non-geographically contiguous private insurance agencies will do. I don't see how you can say "federation of anarchic communities" and discard the decentralized insurance model as a different species of animal.
"The idea of millions of people each running around with their own contract between themselves and the rest of the planet, subject to change upon unilateral notice, is absurd and unworkable, which is why no successful system of human organization has ever adopted such a model."
Lets compare this to wireless networking:
That's like saying that each person will have a wireless network card with its own protocols, its own frequencies, and will bleed into other frequencies. There is no way to work it out- it's absurd and unworkable - oh wait except there
is a standards body (private organization) that allows you to use your card anywhere in the world, with some trivial modifications. There are litereally thousands of technological standards that work together. Open Source is just about the best example. Thousands or programs, developed accross the world, tied together by people accross the world, packaged, and transmitted to people accross the world. None of them have to cooperate with each other - but the authors realize that it would be best if it did. And the packagers specifically ties together those cooperating programs to increase consumer satisfaction. I have been satisfied with this decentralized model for 9 years.
People and insurance companies will have every incentive to work out a decent legal system
among themselves - subject to pear review (a la ebay, ex). There will be no 'up is down' contrarian organizations that will actually be able to survive - merely because people like predictability - and will choose to enter an organization that is compliant with the largest possible 'conflict-free' market. The only exception of course is local communes (a pooling together of previously private property in order to socialize that property) who will indeed adopt a very different set of rules. But eventually, some sort of workable solution will be reached for those that want to deal with that society - even if it's a middle ground, lose/lose or win/win outcome.
"Even in a radically decentralized society, localities will (as they have done for all of history) adopt rules applicable to their members by virtue of their residence in the locality. Individuals purporting to dissent from the local covenants would be driven out as free riders."
Our ancestors didn't have the internet nor the telephone. I find more in common with certain people all over the world than on my block. My only preference for neighbors is that they act in a civil non-threatning manner, however my standards for others is a bit higher (I'm sure this applies to most people on this board). I would prefer to do my business with anyone I please, not subject to the rules decided for me by my physical location. For instance, I would not like my block to tell me I can't receive products from X, because I can obtain it from someone on my block.
"Say, for example, a private community decides by unanimous vote to ban the public display of nudity. Then, a homeowner dies, leaving the property to his son, who decides his right to the enjoyment of his property includes the right to masturbate on his front yard. Is the community's ban on public nudity applicable to him?"
Only those that vote DECIDE. He doesn't have a special right to masturbate on his front yard, he does have the right not get physically aggressed for doing so. People can actually look down on him for doing it, but can't attack him.
However this problem can be solved by a type of contract. The owner agrees to abide by the rules of 'no public nudity' PRIOR to purchasing his home. Upon death, the contract is transfered to his son, who has the option to ACCEPT it whole or REJECT it in part. If he rejects it in part, his only remaining option is to sell or rent the property (whatever measure he [or others] think is fair in stopping him from masturbating in front). If he ACCEPTS it but then violates the rules - he will be subject to a fine (I think this will be a pretty standard clause, with the possible added rule that his non-compliance will be reported to his agencies and possibly effect his contract rating).
"And of course, in the real world, vigilante action would probably render the question moot. Again, so much for the pipe dream of a voluntary society."
If the voluntary society is a pipe dream, then either you are a nihilist or ansoc is not a voluntary society?
That's what I get from deconstructing that sentence.
I agree with the latter.
It's preceisely that rub of anti-voluntarism that I get when I debate ansocs.
Published: June 6, 2006 2:10 AM
Paul
To begin with I do not claim that the economic calculation argument actually asserts that the ability to compute profit and loss that guarantees individual success in the market. So your inference that my significant statement "is plainly false and demonstrates your lack of understanding of his argument" is itself plainly false and demonstrates a lack of understanding of my own argument
What I wrote in the article does not seem to me to be particularly contentious: "Just because a system of market prices affords one a set of figures with which one can perform precise calculations does not mean that these figures will turn out to be correct – that is to say, will unerringly guide the entrepreneur towards a positive net income". What I was merely pointing out was that emphasising the "preciseness" of market calculations - which what the ECA certainly does - can be highly misleading and that is indeed a flaw. Or shall we call it a contradiction that proponents of the ECA unwittingly tend to overlook.
You can't quite seem to make up your own mind on this matter characterising what I say as an "absurdly simple minded and superficial understanding of Mises’s argument" and then in the next breath as something that is "plainly false and demonstrates (a) lack of understanding of his argument"
You then go on to completely contradict yourself. Having conceded the point that the ability to compute profit and loss is no guarantee of a positive net income you then go on to assert: "This process of profit and loss motivated shifting of resources from one industry to another ensures maximized consumer satisfaction and maximized efficiency of allocation of scarce resources." Note the word "ensures" in the above sentence. This exactly illustrates the completely muddleheaded approach of proponents of the ECA that I was getting at.
Now perhaps you might care to address the point raised in my earlier post:
"Evidently you havent read my article carefully at all otherwise you would have realised that one of the main points I make is that in order for a socialist economy to meet the objections raised by the economic calculation argument it cannot be a centralised economy; it has to be polycentric since that is the only way one can ensure an adequate feedback mechanism is in place without which economisation of factors cannot proceed effectively"
You claim this point is "also mistaken". Perhaps you might care to explain why you think this is the case. Also, you might care to explain how you imagined I advocated a centralised socialist economy when I explictly and on several occasions rejected this.
Robin
Published: June 6, 2006 4:46 AM
Paul,
You are laboring under a misunderstanding of the business of insurance. You claim that insurers "would indeed be highly motivated to provide such protection services to mitigate costs associated with paying out claims due to theft and aggression." If that were the case then they would already be doing it. Insurers would be actively involved in the day-to-day management of their customers' affairs. They don't do this because it is an unwarranted and uneconomic exposure to risk well beyond their premium receipts. Insurers who involve themselves in a customer's risk management are no longer insuring just the customer; they have to insure themselves as well. In a market competing for premium dollars from good risks, your idealistic but financially ignorant anarchist insurer would quickly go bankrupt in competition with more savvy insurers.
I've got it! We could grant an insurer a territorial monopoly over a certain pool and, to encourage the insurer's active role in providing various risk management services, we'd grant it limited immunity!
Here's how it would work: everybody in the pool would pay a certain amount to the insurer to spread the risk of accident, criminal behavior, and sickness. In exchange, they would agree to be bound by the insurer's covenants. Violators would be arrested by the insurer's enforcement arm and tried before the insurer's tribunal. Those convicted would have their property seized and would face their choice of indentured servitude or exile.
Is this sounding familiar yet?
Published: June 6, 2006 8:49 AM
Has anyone here actually observed how municipal police departments actually work? The citizens of the affluent, politically connect