The Free Market

[mediahasyou]

The correct price is zero.

 

[ronpaul4pres]

The correct price is zero.

I find it hilarious for you to say that when your signature has this quote:

"That government is best, which governs least." - Thomas Jefferson​

If the "correct" price is zero, wouldn't Jefferson have instead said:

That government is best, which governs zero.​

 

[Conza88]

I find it hilarious for you to say that when your signature has this quote:

"That government is best, which governs least." - Thomas Jefferson​

If the "correct" price is zero, wouldn't Jefferson have instead said:

That government is best, which governs zero.​

I heartily accept the motto,—“That government is best which governs least;” and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which I also believe,—“That government is best which governs not at all;” and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient.

HENRY DAVID THOREAU, Civil Disobedience, first paragraph, Walden and Civil Disobedience, ed. Owen Thomas, p. 224 (1966). This essay was first published in 1849.

 

[ronpaul4pres]

I heartily accept the motto,—“That government is best which governs least;” and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which I also believe,—“That government is best which governs not at all;” and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient.

HENRY DAVID THOREAU, Civil Disobedience, first paragraph, Walden and Civil Disobedience, ed. Owen Thomas, p. 224 (1966). This essay was first published in 1849.

Make no mistake: I agree with the Jefferson quote, but I find it difficult to follow it to the extreme: anarchy. It's an interesting topic to discuss in theory, but I'd like to see it work in practice. Can you point to any existing anarchical society?

 

[Conza88]

Make no mistake: I agree with the Jefferson quote, but I find it difficult to follow it to the extreme: anarchy. It's an interesting topic to discuss in theory, but I'd like to see it work in practice. Can you point to any existing anarchical society?

http://www.ozarkia.net/bill/anarchism/faq.html#part18

17. Have there been any anarcho-capitalist societies?


Yes, more or less. Since both anarchism and capitalism are theoretical models, it's hard to claim that any real situation is 100% stateless and 100% free market capitalist. But there are various societies that were, for all intents and purposes, stateless, and societies that implemented anarcho-capitalist "programs" such as private law. Here is a short list:

* Celtic Ireland (650-1650)
In Celtic Irish society, the courts and the law were largely libertarian, and operated within a purely state-less manner. This society persisted in this libertarian path for roughly a thousand years until its brutal conquest by England in the seventeenth century. And, in contrast to many similarly functioning primitive tribes (such as the Ibos in West Africa, and many European tribes), preconquest Ireland was not in any sense a "primitive" society: it was a highly complex society that was, for centuries, the most advanced, most scholarly, and most civilized in all of Western Europe. A leading authority on ancient Irish law wrote, "There was no legislature, no bailiffs, no police, no public enforcement of justice... There was no trace of State-administered justice."
* Icelandic Commonwealth (930 to 1262)
David Friedman has studied the legal system of this culture, and observes:

The legal and political institutions of Iceland from the tenth to the thirteenth centuries ... are of interest for two reasons. First, they are relatively well documented; the sagas were written by people who had lived under that set of institutions and provide a detailed inside view of their workings. Legal conflicts were of great interest to the medieval Icelanders: Njal, the eponymous hero of the most famous of the sagas, is not a warrior but a lawyer--"so skilled in law that no one was considered his equal." In the action of the sagas, law cases play as central a role as battles.

Second, medieval Icelandic institutions have several peculiar and interesting characteristics; they might almost have been invented by a mad economist to test the lengths to which market systems could supplant government in its most fundamental functions. Killing was a civil offense resulting in a fine paid to the survivors of the victim. Laws were made by a "parliament," seats in which were a marketable commodity. Enforcement of law was entirely a private affair. And yet these extraordinary institutions survived for over three hundred years, and the society in which they survived appears to have been in many ways an attractive one . Its citizens were, by medieval standards, free; differences in status based on rank or sex were relatively small; and its literary, output in relation to its size has been compared, with some justice, to that of Athens. - David Friedman, Private Creation and Enforcement of Law: A Historical Case

* Rhode Island (1636-1648)
Religious dissenter Roger Williams, after being run out of theocratic puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1636, founded Providence, Rhode Island. Unlike the brutal Puritans, he scrupulously purchased land from local indians for his settlement. In political beliefs, Williams was close to the Levellers of England. He describes Rhode Island local "government" as follows: "The masters of families have ordinarily met once a fortnight and consulted about our common peace, watch and plenty; and mutual consent have finished all matters of speed and pace." While Roger Williams was not explicitly anarchist, another Rhode Islander was: Anne Hutchinson. Anne and her followers emigrated to Rhode Island in 1638. They bought Aquidneck Island from the Indians, and founded the town of Pocasset (now Portsmouth.) Another "Rogue Island" libertarian was Samuell Gorton. He and his followers were accused of being an "anarchists." Governor Winthrop of Massachusetts Bay called Gorton a "man not fit to live upon the face of the earth," Gorton and his followers were forced in late 1642 to found an entirely new settlement of their own: Shawomet (later Warwick). In the words of Gorton, for over five years the settlement "lived peaceably together, desiring and endeavoring to do wrong to no man, neither English nor Indian, ending all our differences in a neighborly and loving way of arbitration, mutually chosen amongst us."Pf
* Albemarle (1640's-1663)
The coastal area north of Albemarle Sound in what is now northeastern North Carolina had a quasi-anarchistic society in the mid-17th century. Officially a part of the Virginia colony, in fact it was independent. It was a haven for political and religious refugees, such as Quakers and dissident Presbyterians. The libertarian society ended in 1663, when the King of England granted Carolina to eight feudal proprietors backed by military.Pf
* Holy Experiment (Quaker) Pennsylvania (1681-1690)
When William Penn left his Quaker colony in Pennsylvania, the people stopped paying quitrent, and any semblance of formal government evaporated. The Quakers treated Indians with respect, bought land from them voluntarily, and had even representation of Indians and Whites on juries. According to Voltaire, the Shackamaxon treaty was "the only treaty between Indians and Christians that was never sworn to and that was never broken." The Quakers refused to provide any assistance to New England's Indian wars. Penn's attempt to impose government by appointing John Blackwell, a non-Quaker military man, as governor failed miserably.Pf
* The American "Not so Wild" West - various locations
Most law for settlements in the American West was established long before US government agents arrived. Property law was generally defined by local custom and/or agreement among the settlers. Mining associations established orderly mining claims, cattlemen's associations handled property rights on the plains, local "regulators" and private citizens provided enforcement. Yet most movie-watching people are surprised to learn that crime rates were lower in the West than the "civilized" East. Cf: The American Experiment in Anarcho-Capitalism: The Not so Wild, Wild, West
* Laissez Faire City
A more recent unsuccessful attempt to start a new country, LFC attempted to lease a hundred square miles of land from a third-world State in order to start an anarcho-capitalist society, taking Hong Kong as a guide. When that fell through, some members moved to Costa Rica, where the State is relatively weak, there is no standing army, and what little State interference there can usually be "bought off." There remain small libertarian communities in the central valley (Curridabat) and on the Pacific coast (Nosara).

 

[Andrew Ryan]

You're an anarchist Conza?

 

[Conza88]

You're an anarchist Conza?

No. I despise anarchists.

I'm an anarcho-capitalist / minarchist / libertarian... - (Underlined) is when I am talking to sheeple, or the profoundly uninformed. I'm more than happy to take any path to less government, less state... more freedom and liberty.

 

[ronpaul4pres]

http://www.ozarkia.net/bill/anarchism/faq.html#part18

OK - but what such society currently exists? If one does exist, how large is it? Can it thrive with, say, one million people living in that society?

 

[nickcoons]

It doesn't matter whether maliciousness was intended or not - it depends how the public perceived my (in)action. In any case, you didn't answer my question: are we not slaves to society?

No, you chose to take a profession in medicine and focus on that entirely. If others in society don't want to purchase your services, you are free to make other choices, such as hunt or farm for your own food. While this may not sound very appealing, in practical terms, you'd have to be a jerk of enormous proportions if you were good at what you did and everyone shunned you anyway.

I believe I already successfully argued that there is a cost associated with living in a society,

In society as we know it, there is. We live under the premise of a social contract, to which everyone is born with an obligation to be sacrificed to some degree for the benefit of others that are perceived as being more needy.

But if we're talking about a free society, then the only costs are those of voluntary consumption. I may choose to pay for someone else to grow my food instead of growing it myself, for instance.

but here's another argument: let's take the simplest form of society: two people. Let's examine a two person society: a married couple. To live together, they must be willing to make concessions to the other. When single, they each had more personal freedom (agreed?), but they chose to form a union, which brought more security and pleasure than the personal freedoms they left behind.

Before answering this, I'd like to clarify the term "freedom" (or "freedoms"). You seem to be using it generically to mean "the ability to do whatever one wants." I would qualify that by adding "...as long as force is not initiated against anyone else." When you say that the individuals in a marriage had more "freedoms" when single, I assume you're referring to things like dating other people, making financial decisions independently, that sort of thing. But I would contend that freedom is not quantified by the number of things we're allowed to do.

In a marriage contract, it's common for the terms to include that the two remain faithful to each other. Both people still have their same rights; that is, to take any action so long as force is not initiated against anyone else (in the case of infidelity, breech of contract). There are certain specific actions that people do give up, so I agree with what I think you're trying to say in this instance, but I would not call that conceding freedom.

I was thinking of this happening indirectly. I assume you're familiar with PMI and its requirement to be paid when the owner has less than 20% equity.

That's becoming less common (or perhaps until recently), but I understand your point.

Let's say someone had 25% equity and the value of their property dropped such that the owner only had 19% equity after the drop. It is conceivable that someone could be spending everything he makes just to get by and an additional monthly charge in the form of PMI could be the straw that broke the camel's back.

Putting aside for the moment that this person probably would not have qualified for this loan (or maybe he would have a few years ago ), when someone borrows money, they agree to the terms. If the terms indicate that they may need to pay PMI under certain conditions, then they accept that risk going into it.

Back to the question: let's say I know that dropping the value of your property will hurt you (financially or otherwise), and I act in ways to drop the value of your property. Am I using force against you?

I say "yes" because you have been forced to do something you would not otherwise have. It may be more difficult, but it is surely possible for one to operate within the rules of the game to get another to bend to your will. A simplified example of this is a game of chess.

I would say that this is not force. Let's say that you and I were neighbors and both had our houses for sale. Let's say that in order to assist in selling my house, I increase the curb appeal with a fresh coat of paint and other superficial improvements. Because of this, potential buyers are more attracted to my house than to yours, which causes you to have to lower your asking price to get people interested. This has cost you a quantifiable amount of money. Have I initiated force against you?

The problem is that in both your case and mine, I haven't done any damage to your property. Arguing that I have initiated force against you not only doesn't work philosophically, but it doesn't work practically either. It's far too subjective allowing neighbors to sue each other for damage because they're increasing the value and attractiveness of their own homes.

My home has lost about $100k in value over the last year. Has someone initiated force against me? Who can I sue?

I own my home, not the value of my home, so I am not entitled to any particular value. So if I lose value, nothing that is mine has been stolen from me. All I own is the physical property, whose value may change on a whim. Value can increase or decrease for any number of reasons, most of which are unintended. Home values often increase very little with superficial remodeling, most home value changes are due to changes in the market, not because of some intentional action on the part of a home owner or his neighbors.

OK, but the fact that they haven't been held accountable doesn't mean that they cannot be.

Given that there is very little incentive for most people to hold them accountable, they likely will not be any time soon on any large scale.

To answer your question, I'd strongly tend to believe the government is to blame. But, if you replace "raspberry" with "alcohol" and ask the same question, I'd tend to say that alcohol producers are to blame (because I'd agree alcohol isn't a necessity).

So you think the government is to blame only because raspberries are more of a necessity than alcohol?

Regardless, let's get back to the original question: is it possible for a small group to affect a larger group without government? Yes.

Of course. A relatively small group of people at Microsoft have affected much of the world.

Let's go back to my married couple example, and let's say they have children. It is entirely possible for one parent to, say, gamble away a paycheck and screw things up for the whole family.

It's possible only because one spouse gives up their rights to control their property, or they choose to combine their property such that it's jointly owned. There is a prerequisite of an agreement for this to happen.

Or, let's say a CEO makes a bad bet on future directions in the market and is forced to lay off employees when the market moves in an opposite direction. It surely doesn't take government to screw things up for a larger population (even if they usually do! ).

No, of course not. I don't think I'm claiming that people's actions can affect other peoplpe.

 

[Conza88]

OK - but what such society currently exists? If one does exist, how large is it? Can it thrive with, say, one million people living in that society?

 

[ronpaul4pres]

No, you chose to take a profession in medicine and focus on that entirely. If others in society don't want to purchase your services, you are free to make other choices, such as hunt or farm for your own food. While this may not sound very appealing, in practical terms, you'd have to be a jerk of enormous proportions if you were good at what you did and everyone shunned you anyway.

"Unlikely" doesn't mean "impossible," which would be necessary to refute my claim.

My point is that most humans are not self-sufficient (e.g. they don't produce all the food they eat) (I'm not saying they couldn't be self-sufficient - I'm just stating their current state). We realize that for the benefit of everyone, it is more efficient if we depend on one another. The farmer depends on the doctor to heal him, and the doctor depends on the farmer for his food. That's a direct example; we can have indirect dependencies as well, and our society has an extremely complex web of dependencies.

For those people that are not self-sufficient, they are bound to the choices of others. That is to say we never have 100% control over our own lives - not even in a so-called "free" society. The best we can do is come close to 100%, but there is no such thing as absolute personal freedom in society.

"What if I choose not to live in a society?" you ask? Given that self-sufficiency has a non-zero cost (e.g. purchase/claim land, invest time to learn how to farm, invest significant time in food production instead of other pursuits, etc.), that choice comes at a very expensive cost (I'm not saying some aren't willing to pay it, it's just that most of us don't).

In society as we know it, there is. We live under the premise of a social contract, to which everyone is born with an obligation to be sacrificed to some degree for the benefit of others that are perceived as being more needy.

But if we're talking about a free society, then the only costs are those of voluntary consumption. I may choose to pay for someone else to grow my food instead of growing it myself, for instance.

My claim is that every society (including a "free" society) has an underlying cost. Every human has the need to eat, and since the vast majority of us don't grow what we eat, we're at the mercy of others (they're at our mercy, too, so there's some balance).

Before answering this, I'd like to clarify the term "freedom" (or "freedoms"). You seem to be using it generically to mean "the ability to do whatever one wants." I would qualify that by adding "...as long as force is not initiated against anyone else." When you say that the individuals in a marriage had more "freedoms" when single, I assume you're referring to things like dating other people, making financial decisions independently, that sort of thing. But I would contend that freedom is not quantified by the number of things we're allowed to do.

In a marriage contract, it's common for the terms to include that the two remain faithful to each other. Both people still have their same rights; that is, to take any action so long as force is not initiated against anyone else (in the case of infidelity, breech of contract). There are certain specific actions that people do give up, so I agree with what I think you're trying to say in this instance, but I would not call that conceding freedom.

Your definition of "freedom" is compatible with mine. However, I'd like to make clear that I don't believe we're born with one static Freedom. I believe that we have a set of many freedoms that may change over time.

This makes sense when we think of the whole life cycle. When we're born, we have very little freedom. We do little more than eat, breath, cry, and soil our diapers. As the baby grows older on towards being an adult, it gains many freedoms (crawl around the house, stay at home without a baby sitter, drive a car, etc.).

Any two consenting adults have the freedom to have sex. I believe this conforms to your definition of "freedom" because "consenting" fits within the requirement of "...as long as force is not initiated against anyone else." But, entering into marriage is a "loss" of the freedom to have sex with whomever one chooses.

And, the loss of particular freedom is a good thing because of the freedom that one gains. It makes sense that freedoms are gained when you think of a married couple as more than just the sum of the individual parts.

Back to the question: let's say I know that dropping the value of your property will hurt you (financially or otherwise), and I act in ways to drop the value of your property. Am I using force against you?

I say "yes" because you have been forced to do something you would not otherwise have. It may be more difficult, but it is surely possible for one to operate within the rules of the game to get another to bend to your will. A simplified example of this is a game of chess.

I would say that this is not force. Let's say that you and I were neighbors and both had our houses for sale. Let's say that in order to assist in selling my house, I increase the curb appeal with a fresh coat of paint and other superficial improvements. Because of this, potential buyers are more attracted to my house than to yours, which causes you to have to lower your asking price to get people interested. This has cost you a quantifiable amount of money. Have I initiated force against you?

I'm not claiming that the loss of value is an indication of force. I'm stating that the implications from the loss of value proves force. If I were to extend my chess analogy, I would claim that you used "legal force" against me. You didn't cheat the rules, but you surely "forced" me into a situation I didn't want.

If you define "force" as purely "illegal", then I'd have to agree with your conclusion of "no" for both your an my examples. However, I'm not so sure we can think in black & white terms. A good example for this is Blockbusting. Real estate agents played by the rules, but there was something clearly immoral about the whole thing.

The problem is that in both your case and mine, I haven't done any damage to your property. Arguing that I have initiated force against you not only doesn't work philosophically, but it doesn't work practically either. It's far too subjective allowing neighbors to sue each other for damage because they're increasing the value and attractiveness of their own homes.

I agree with your statement below that "I own my home, not the value of my home," but I would also be quick to point out that "damage" doesn't have to be purely physical. While I also agree with you that we shouldn't allow neighbors to sue others in your example, I wouldn't completely rule out such action (I can't think of a situation right now, but that doesn't mean one doesn't exist).

My home has lost about $100k in value over the last year. Has someone initiated force against me? Who can I sue?

Alan Greenspan!

I own my home, not the value of my home, so I am not entitled to any particular value. So if I lose value, nothing that is mine has been stolen from me. All I own is the physical property, whose value may change on a whim. Value can increase or decrease for any number of reasons, most of which are unintended. Home values often increase very little with superficial remodeling, most home value changes are due to changes in the market, not because of some intentional action on the part of a home owner or his neighbors.

Agreed.

Given that there is very little incentive for most people to hold them accountable, they likely will not be any time soon on any large scale.

Sure, but we have power to hold some accountable. That's reason enough for some hope.

So you think the government is to blame only because raspberries are more of a necessity than alcohol?

Perhaps I shouldn't have said that - government shouldn't be dictating what is "necessary."

I should note, though, you specifically chose "raspberry" since it shares many traits to "strawberry." I couldn't see how alcohol manufacturers would be hurt in that example.

Of course. A relatively small group of people at Microsoft have affected much of the world.

It's possible only because one spouse gives up their rights to control their property, or they choose to combine their property such that it's jointly owned. There is a prerequisite of an agreement for this to happen.

No, of course not. I don't think I'm claiming that people's actions can affect other peoplpe.

I'm glad we agree on that. I was making the point because you said "The 'handful of people' are politicians who use force via central economic planning. This is a good argument for why government should not have the legal ability to initiate force." Given that a "handful of people" can screw things up with or without force - I'm not sure there is such a "good argument" as you claim.