With no governing body and no punitive system for leaving unsupplied a bunch of thirsty or hungry people, what REALISTICALLY happens in a “free market” is that you want to sell your chicken legs for the HIGHEST POSSIBLE VALUE PER CHICKEN LEG.
If that means moving business out of lousiana because of a hurricane and the people can no longer afford your chicken, but the well-to-do and nearby Texans can still buy at the high price, well, you move your business to Texas.
This really happens… globally, constantly. Examples include situations where landholders keep growing acres and acres of tea or cattle while their countrymen starve to death for lack of grain, or, large industries consume and pollute water supplies without regard for those downstream.
The fact is, I prove the point myself. If I had 50 hamburgers to sell, and 50 starving people were outside, I’d sell them to fat people before giving them away.
Why? Because I generally dislike people and like money.
If people sold their chicken legs for less than their highest possible value, then they would be wasting resources. You would use more effort to produce less. That’s regression. Eventually, you starve to death.
Sure. And the people in Louisiana, either work to afford chicken, or they move to texas. Just because they are situated in a bad spot, doesn’t give them title to the goods available to people who make good decisions on where to live. It is irrational (and regressive) to treat good and bad the same. That is actually chaos.
But that has nothing to do with AE, free markets, capitalism, or libertarianism.
Well, that just makes sense. Although, in America, the poor people are fat. But I digress.
There is nothing to stop you from making 50 hamburgers out of your own pocket for the poor. So why don’t you do it?
Maybe you just need a hug.
Sounds to me that you dislike yourself and feel shame when you work towards your own rational ends.
This is common. A lot of people are hungup on being guilty. It’s something the prosperous can afford. Self-indulgence. People in poor countries don’t have time for those emo-theatrics. They are hustling every day to stay alive and feed their babies. No time for narcissism, they have to be hopeful, productive, creative and positive.
If you’ve read literature on this then you should already know; nobody knows. Obviously a state couldn’t be formed in a stateless society and certainly couldn’t be formed by freedom-seeking anarchists. But basically, libertarian anarchists see competing private “governments,” similar to HOAs as the ideal.
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That sounds fine, but I don’t see why people should have to move unless they have agreed to some stipulation when buying a home or renting. Polycentric law is entirely possible.
Counties are a political concept, neither “county” owns anything. Only individuals do and privatization could go along way.
Why? If the authority sides with county A and not county B and, as you said, both communities depend upon the resources, there is still going to be a conflict.
And Most of those conflicts were the product of states. If you really believe that an over-arching authority could settle disputes then you must be for one world government.
If I have enough control and sway over the market, not only does selling a burger for a dollar become stupid (because you could have at least emptied your stockpile at $4 per burger), but the people selling burger meat, bread, and other supplies can earn more money from my $5 burger business than your $1 burger business.
Go get some business acumen and come back later. He who buys the lowest and sells the highest successfully is the king of mountain in capitalism…
Given the choice of undercutting my $5 burger business and setting up your own $5 burger business elsewhere, if you chose to undercut me and compete, you’re an idiot, especially if I was already established.
I control the market here. Go compete with Wal-Mart if you disagree.
However, if you can find a place with no access to a $5 burger joint/wal-mart, and set up your own? Go for it… you’ll make lots of cash…
But hooking up poor people with $1 burgers is rarely profitable.
If ending world hunger was a profitable business, there’d be no world hunger…
my point: It’s only not profitable because the people who sell the components make a better life for themselves by selling them at higher prices to serve more wealthy markets.
Capitalism is unethical. Period.
Government is judged by its ethos. Period.
I don’t understand this. If you sell $1 burgers, that is a different product than a $5 burger. If they are exactly the same, people will buy the cheaper burger and your $1 business will boom. But really, I have no idea why you are fixated on burgers.
Ad hominems are unnecssary and don’t make your point in debate.
More burger fixation. Bla bla bla.
Maybe. Maybe we need to hire poor people, to make the $5 burgers, so they can afford the $1 burgers. Now they are no longer starving.
But ending world hunger is a profitable business. Unfortunately, the state crowds out the market with aid. See my homegirl Dambisa Moyo on that.
Anyway, the idea that world hunger is different than Cleveland hunger or Detroit hunger is ridiculous.
But that is completely false. Computers and cell phones get cheaper and cheaper. Books get cheaper. All sorts of goods get cheaper, and more ubiquitious in free markets. Poor people today, live like kings compared to poor people 150 years ago. Like I said, poor people are fat in the west. In the west, people pay a premium to be skinny.
You haven’t proven that. You haven’t proven how voluntary and peaceful exchange is unethical. If it is, are you implying that the opposite (coerced and violent exchange) is ethical?
I don’t dislike myself or feel guilty when I work for my rational ends.
I just told you that I would sell burgers to fat people before giving them away.
That doesn’t mean that the decision I make is correct or ethical in that case…
The ETHICAL decision is to give away the burgers, even if it means the business fails, because keeping some poor people alive to see the next day is more important than the PROFIT MARGIN I can achieve from said burgers.
The PROBLEM is that you assume, in any given scenario, a very wrong assumption: That business decisions are governed by principle of bare-bones survival of the business.
They are not.
They are governed by what generates the most profit and makes the executives the most wealthy.
The HIGH ORDER WEALTH of top executives is more important to them than the well-being of the business, and the well-being of the business is more important than ending the suffering of those in need.
I support that system daily, happily, because I have money. However, because I am a logical human, I also can recognize that it is flawed and unethical.
THUS, any movement to a more logical, systematic, and scientifically controlled system, I support.
Free market capitalism is the antithesis of a scientifically planned and engineered economy. It SUPPORTS chaos because the MOST PROFIT is found in the act of ORGANIZING that chaos.
I support the system that cuts through the WEB of profit, and gets right down to LOGICAL ORDER.
Math, science, logic, democracy, teamwork and control will always be better than “HUR DUR I WANTS MORE MONEYS LEMME DO IT MY WAY PLUS MY DADDY OWNS THIS LANDZ LOLZ.”
I’d like to respond but instead I’d just rather emphasize what LS already stated. As he said exactly what was needed far better then I could. Giving away resources for less then their worth is wasteful of scarce resources. You will cause more starvation and blight under the philosophy of philanthropy. Whats worse is your condoning forced philanthropy which isn’t philanthropy or at all. It certainly isn’t altruistic to steal from one and give to another. Instead, forced philanthropy is a lie one tricks himself into believing to hide his or herself from admitting reality. In such a scenario you loose additional resources to maintain that compulsory institute which manages redistribution.
The underlying point here is your naked ignorance to economics and I don’t mean this as an attack. If you truly want to defend the state you will need at least a tad bit of economic understanding. Ironically in the scenario you stated above in the absence of government you would have benefited far more people than if the situation were regulated.
I’ll quote the same Rothbard quote again as you seem to have missed it and it is extremely relevant here.
In the particular case you mention, I presume it is certainly a tremendous logistical problem to import an invading army and hope to keep them there long enough to make money from the mine.
In the OP’s case, where the river and the enemy are just down the block, violence would be much easier.
There have been plenty of wars and invasions and violence over resources throughout mankind’s colorful history. Hey. Lew Rockwell has a podcast telling everyone to buy a gun and learn to shoot because the gov may collapse.
I guess I didn’t understand the point you are trying to make.
Then why did you say you don’t like people or money? If you serve people for money, but you like neither people or money, then it sounds like you are a very conflicted individual. Either you’re lying, or you’re acting irrationally.
That depends how you define ethics. Libertarians consider it unethical to initiate force. I don’t see how you have violated that ethic by engaging in voluntary exchange. I do think you are confused, because you assume your clients are from a class, and aren’t individual economic actors.
What would you call that ethic? We might call it collectivism. Where you put the welfare of others ahead of your own. The “My Brother’s Keeper” paradigm.
I don’t understand this. What is a “principle of bare bones survival of the business”?
All businesses should be governed by making the most profit. If the business is not making the most profit, then labour and capital resources should be shifted to the next most profitable endeavour. This is why we calculate prices. In order to make rational A ↔ B decisions.
Businesses don’t exist to end suffering of those in need. They exist to generate profit by satisfying consumer demand. I’m not sure what the revelation here is.
You still haven’t defined ethics. You also have claimed you support two opposite ends simultaneously.
Yep. It is the opposite of socialism.
Non-sequitur. It supports chaos by ending it? Prices organize, and profit is an incentive to organize efficiently. Nothing more, nothing less. What you have proposed is chaos. Inefficiency, and disorganization.
It’s been tried in the 20th century. All of those countries collapsed. Socialism doesn’t work. Mises has explained this. I assume you are familiar with the calculation argument?
And how do you order a system without profit? “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need”?
Ok, well you are right about logic. But math and science are not logic. Neither is democracy or control.
Again, the Soviets had democracy, and they had control. They also had mass murder and famine.
Perhaps you should cut back on the hurr durr, and learn a little about AE.
Most business man and any highschool econ professor will tell you the following.
A) Consumers detirmint he price of goods,
B) Cheaper is better, both for business and consumers. The cheaper you sell your widget the more profitable your company will be and more competitive you will be in the market.
So who is it that needs business acumen?
If your selling 5 dollar burgers you won’t be controlling the market for long. It’s borderline folly to assume you ever did in the first place. The only institute which can control any market is one which practices compulsion. You obviously think coercion is ethical. Perhaps MAC should force everyone at the barrel of a gun to buy apple. Does that sound more ethical to you?
Please explain how voluntary exchange amongst individuals is unethical.
Your childlike fairytale idea of ethics will end up in national wide hamburger shortage. Do this to all food and you have famine. Good job. Sounds like your ethical stance really helps alot of people.
Giving away resources = death.
Great than you agree with us. Using logical and rationalism. Even if you could argue that extortion, theft, and violence was logical it’s not as efficient as voluntary cooperation. One method destroys wealth, the other creates.
Profit is just symptom of creating wealth. If you eliminate profit you will eliminate the creation of new wealth and then we are again back to that blighted stage we had before. You need to get your terms straightened out. Communism is pretty much what youa dvocate and by the way, it is scientifically impossible to succeed. Both theoretically and technically.
Vuala
Do you have a mathematical formula which can universally reveal the desires of each man, women, and child on earth? When you do let us know. Untill then anarchy is a better method.
YO APRILEAST, I’M REALLY HAPPY FOR YOU, AND I’M GONNA LET YOU FINISH… BUT DAS KAPTIAL FOR BEGINNERS IS THE BEST BOOK OF ALL TIME YOU SHOULD ACTUALLY READ IT.
I’d like to hit on this point as well as I think this is a katrina reference. Katrina is entirely the governments fault. In the absence of the government no one would be stupid enough to buy and build property below sea level in hurricane alley. New Orleans as it exists today may never have existed at all. Or it may have actually existed, oh I don’t know, ABOVE SEA LEVEL like any common nonsensical human being would want.
Such a tragesty would never had happened in the first place. At worst there would have been some wind damage and marginal flood damage above sea level. It’s this false sense of protection that people like you feel the state gives us. The truth is not even the collective body of superman you think live in the state can stop a walled in town below sea level from becoming flooded during a hurricane. Honestly the Gov’s engineering corp should be ashamed they thought it would work in the first place. Complete idiocy.
It’s un-economical and just downright stupid. All you have to blame for that is the Gov. In a free market land owners would be smart, and build their house on dry land. The idiots who don’t will loose their home. We don’t reward idiots.
So who pays for these idiots to continue building property below sea level? Perhaps we should devote your entire life’s savings to maintain a sub level city. We should reward those peoples lunacy with your hard work. That sounds like a great idea!
"Altruism asserts that every man has a moral obligation to help other men. At its core, this is a dogma professing that each man is, in actuality, worth less than every other man and must sacrifice himself to others. Not only does this create a paradox (if everyone followed this consistently, nobody would possess anything of value, as everyone would continuously be giving to others), but it rests upon the understanding that the self is worthless. As soon as a man begins to work for others more than himself, he has negated his own existence; he views himself, and eventually any individual’s life, as only a sacrifice for “the good of mankind.” For all that, though, “mankind” is simply the overarching group encompassing all acting individuals. It is folly to be devoted to mankind at the expense of oneself, as one is always part of mankind by definition.
“Between egoistic individuals, every social connection, conversation, or just any interaction more than bumping into someone on the street, will result in a net benefit to both or it would not have occurred. In looking out for his own interests, a man often inadvertently benefits others as well – certainly, he sees other men as means to an end (personal satisfaction), but he realizes that he must have something of value to offer them in order to receive something of value in return. Two egoistic men cannot profit from an interaction in which neither offers anything of value to the other. Altruism, by contrast, always results in a net loss to at least one party. The altruistic man begins to see others as a drain upon himself, as a parasite. Every interaction he enters with someone “less fortunate” (itself a degrading judgment, to say the least) entails a sacrifice. The recipient of altruism may even grow resentful of such treatment, implying as it does that he is reliant upon others’ charity and goodwill, incapable of looking out for himself.”
If you people really think that there would be no towns and communities with some kind of “government” running them, then I think we’ve stumbled upon another argument against anarchy, that being that Anarchism is a dangerous utopian idea. Any ideal system of governance won’t work if everyone has to already agree with it. this is one reason why minarchy would never work. very few people are minarchists.
