A Laissez-faire society, and business to business violence

Miscellaneous General
1

Ok…

I understand government is a violent monopoly. I get that. Basically I am an anarchist who can’t yet defend anarchy very well. Well, maybe that’s an exaggeration. I can’t defend it nearly as well as I would like. My brain is still geared to defending minarchism.

I have a friend from Poland (from the real world, not the internet) who doesn’t get it. He and I have been going back and forth about government. He is a smart guy, and if I can convince him of the rightness of liberty, he will be a powerhouse of a spokesman. I need to address a few problems he has with the laissez-faire society concept. Here are some high points of our latest exchange (the subject is business to business violence):

People don’t tend to advertise the fact that they bombed a competitor, so the customer may not be aware of this sort of thing.
And I didn’t pull the bombing, shooting and other violent stuff out of a hat - in the 90s, before the government started to get its act together (somewhat - it’s still mostly a bumbling operation), these used to be quite common in Poland (and the former eastern bloc generally) Where governments are weak, like Ukraine, for instance, this still happens regularly.
The fact that in the developed world business-related violence is not as common is mostly a function of government regulation, which tends to even out the playing field (even as it distorts it in other places).

I don’t know what to say about this with two exceptions:

  1. Poland is part of what Richard Maybury calls Chaostan. It never got the concepts of liberty. There was never a series of Polish “Cato’s Letters”. There was no polish Patrick Henry or Thomas Jefferson.

  2. A company might not advertise that they have killed a competitor, but how many competitors could they kill before the consumers found out about it?

The problem I am having here is that this man actually knows of this stuff happening, first and/or second hand. How can you refute that? And if you can’t, is he right? And if he’s right, do we abandon Rothbardian or Tannehillian anarchy and go back to being minarchists?

Here is his side of another exchange. Like the one above, you can get the context easily without reading what I wrote:

Talk about markets just magically sorting themselves out is nonsense - markets do not exist outside human interaction. If you let people organize their affairs as they please, you have to accept the idea that they will try to limit access to them in various ways. If you don’t, you need something to ensure that they don’t. Either way, you end up with some kind of restriction. It’s not a question of whether free markets are better, it’s whether a completely unregulated market is at all possible.

Now, here he is being a little dishonest, I have to admit. No one, certainly not I, claim that markets sort themselves out magically. The free market has built in mechanisms that tend to keep people in line and/or channel their greed in a positive direction.

Another problem with this one is that he says people will try to “limit access”. Of course, this usually involves people using the power of the government.

Anyway, help. I have seen this guy debate before, and it’s not pretty. He has the ability to totally devastate me on this subject.

2

  1. Governments do tend to advertise that they bombed another country.

  2. Risking conflict among businesses expends resources which could otherwise be used for production.

  3. His idea indicts himself as someone who would do it, while forgetting that others can and most likely will find out.

  4. Markets will sort themselves out so long as they aren’t interfered with by a government. Such as they are now.

3

logic flaw - correlation does not imply causation

misstatements - less interbusiness violence is not a function of increased gov. regulation but a function of increased cooperation/competition - goverment regulations tend to distort the playing field, the free markeyt evens it out.

4

What I see is there are people who accept criminality as a part of life and do not want to do anything about it. The motivation for me to rid the State is due to moral and lawful reasons. It’s as simple as that. Everything about the State’s existence is based upon crime. As Knight stated it’s more about this man you’ve been talking to accepting businesses doing crime, “he has indicted himself”. I mean if he and others don’t like it, then why don’t they rid these criminal actions or at least show a willingness that he doesn’t want these crimes to exist? Has the free market really spoken out against these businesses and have people stopped supporting these criminals? Isn’t that the call? If the State could perform without committing crimes, then I would be all for the State, but even if the State rid all taxes somehow and stopped committing mass murder somehow, there is even the crime of slavery that the State commits that it would have to somehow overcome. Yet, at this point, I don’t think there would be a State left. Governance by concerned individuals meeting every once in awhile to discuss what is happening in the community, but not State.

Also, these businesses that have committed crimes, are they still in existence? If so, then why? Why are these crimes tolerated? Do people buy into them, and support them? So many unanswered questions.

For me, it’s about living in a world that is moral and lawful. Immorality and criminality will happen, but does that mean I sit back and let it corrupt society? No. Is this really about accepting some crimes and not others? If somebody willingly accepts crime, then they are accomplices of the crime. To simply say you don’t, words, simple words of willingness to not accept the crimes of others, then you are a lawful man or woman. It doesn’t even necessarily have to do with ridding all crimes if doing so would be difficult at first until enough people came together and actually wanted to be lawful. So being forced, like the State does, into partaking with their crimes, this partaking can be washed from anybody’s hands if they are willing to not partake. It’s simply a choice to be a criminal or not. I don’t see what’s so hard to be lawful, or at least to want to be lawful. And if this man will tolerate crime, then he is just as much a criminal as those committing the deeds. He is what the courts would call an accomplice.

It really is a moral choice in ones life to follow the law. It is good to follow the law. That’s the effort. I would ask him if he wants to rid crime or support crime? Must I say more…

5

When you disagree with someone it “forces” them to defend their position. Arguing and debating don’t help make a sale. Smart people enjoy talking about details and specifics but it doesn’t help your case to focus on these.

  1. Get agreement on the Big Picture: Does he think the world would be a better place in general without the state? Most people will admit this and it’s a huge step towards them opening to a new worldview.

  2. Get agreement that his day to day life would be safe. Help him to visualize the way it would be to allow him to solve his own objections: What would you do tomorrow if you woke up and there was no government? What would your parents do? What would your friends do?

You might get some resistance here. People like to think that everyone would riot and business would rape the consumer. When they have to list all of the good people they know (including themselves) and realize that these are GOOD people who would do good things, they should start to get more comfortable with the idea.

  1. He needs to see the details for himself. Agree with his statements and then ask (play dumb) questions to get the answer you want. Example: “You’re right. Companies wouldn’t advertise blowing up their competitors. But, I wonder where they would get the money to pay for it?”

Wash, rinse, repeat…

6

Here is the reply I came up with. I didn’t directly plagiarize anyone here, but I was inspired. I have often said that I am not really a very smart guy, I just read and digest the words of guys I consider to be smart, and then regurgitate them later at appropriate times. The link to this reply is on my facebook page, which can be found here. You should be able to see it even if you aren’t a facebook friend of mine. This is what I wrote back to my friend Simon:

I am not sure what you mean by “magically free”, and then later when you mentioned “markets just magically sorting themselves out”. I don’t know anyone who thinks like this. Markets have built-in mechanisms whereby sifting occurs. No economist that I have read or met thinks that there is anything magic about the free market.

Regarding the business-to-business violence that you witnessed and/or are directly or indirectly aware of: there is (or was) some kind of government apparatus in play in those countries. Business-to-business violence happens or has happened under an interventionist government paradigm (actually, that’s redundant, since government is, by nature, interventionist). Even if the government was weak, it still existed. It’s not unlikely that any company engaged in violently suppressing competition would have the guns of a corrupt government assisting or protecting them in some way. Even if the government wasn’t directly assisting these violent companies, the victims might not be anxious to take revenge because of whatever government apparatus exists. I have been to many, many 3rd world shit-hole countries, and though they had bumbling and/or corrupt governments, they still arrested, tried, convicted and jailed people. It might very well be the case that the violent company was less frightened of the government that the victim company.

I am also going to presume that in the Ukraine and in Poland there are either strict gun laws, or that there is an outright ban on gun ownership. If that is the case, then it is precisely the violent companies that will have the guns, because people intending to do violence in the first place will not hesitate to also violate gun laws. And it will be the case that, by and large, the victims will be disarmed. They will have few options for retribution, outside of breaking the law themselves or calling on whatever government apparatus exists. If it is corrupt, it might take a payoff from the perpetrators of the crime. If it is weak and inept, it might take years to solve the crime, or they might never solve it, either closing the book on the case or arresting the wrong person.

All of this (strict gun laws and/or outright bans and corrupt and/or inept government) conspires to give people and/or companies willing to do violence carte blanche.

Now, take government out of the picture. This is the hard part, but there are a few salient points that make business on business violence less likely. No one claims it’s not going to happen, but it happens now under government, so we wouldn’t really be worse off.

  • Doing violence against competitors consumes resources that could be otherwise channeled towards production. Internecine conflict is expensive and…

  • Doing violence against competitors who are very likely armed is dangerous. Violently suppressing competition puts the perpetrator of violence in the very precarious position of having retaliatory force being visited on him. But if the perpetrator of violence is willing to take that risk he should probably realize that…

  • Engaging in an all out war with a business rival is not only personally dangerous, but it makes no sense, economically. It wastes resources, and destroys the reputation of the firm in the eyes of the consumer. The winner of a war between companies in a laissez-faire society would ultimately lose in two ways: first, while he and his rival are warring (and wasting valuable resources) other companies will quickly form, rush in and sop up the customers who have been neglected, and second it will be impossible to keep such a war hidden from the public, and in general, people tend to not do business with violent people.

  • Anytime there is a need in the market, there is someone with a profit seeking motivation who will fill that need. If I own a company, and there has been violence done to me in the past by competitors, or I suspect it might happen, there will be a firm willing to accept payment in exchange for security services.

Both Murray N. Rothbard in For A New Liberty, and Morris and Linda Tannehill in The Market For Liberty address these issues far better than I can. I strongly urge you to read them. The pdf versions of these two books are here and here, and the free audiobook versions are here and here.

A little footnote: the countries you are familiar with (vis-à-vis this discussion) are part of what Richard Maybury calls “Chaostan”. Chaostan (which is roughly from the Arctic Ocean to the Indian Ocean and Poland to the Pacific, plus North Africa) never ‘got’ the concept of liberty. There were never any Polish “Cato’s letters”, in terms of both content and impact. There was never a Ukrainian Patrick Henry or Samuel Adams.

You said “The fact that in the developed world business-related violence is not as common is mostly a function of government regulation, which tends to even out the playing field (even as it distorts it in other places).” Keeping in mind that you are a bright guy and very likely far more intelligent than me, I feel compelled to remind you that correlation isn’t causation. I had a cup of coffee this morning and the sun rose. There were no nuclear weapons until women got the right to vote.

It is just as likely that business-related violence isn’t common in the developed world because businesses have learned that mutual cooperation and voluntary exchange is beneficial and that engaging in violence against competitors makes no economic sense, or alternately, in a darwinian sense, those companies that would do business at the point of a gun are constantly and consistently weeded out… except the government, which can only do business at the point of a gun.

So, what’s the optimal level of regulation? I say 100% regulation of all markets everywhere… regulation by the consumer, that is! As Mises said, “consumer is king”. The consumers determine which businesses fail, and which flourish.

Finally, I can only say that flying bananas sound like a lovely meal. I’ll take mine grilled with peanut butter, please.