If by definition everything we do is necessarily self-interested, then I can’t really say. I just wonder how much retroactive reasoning is going on when people say it is.
Aka warlords. The problem with this line of thought is that entrepreneurship is a function of property rights, not the other way around. If you just push a big, red button and make the State disappear, you will also create a propery rights vacuum, which will lead to all manner of looting. Hoppe is right on this one that the State is the de facto owner of the property it controls. The question is how to perform an orderly liquidation of those assets… it’s not a trivial problem. But the first order of business is secession… we have to reduce the magnitude of the problem before we can hope to break it up in a manner that doesn’t lead to social breakdown and chaos.
Clayton -
Well, let’s be clear - the formal sense in which all human action is necessarily self-interested does not act as a predictor of whether an individual will act selfishly or selflessly in the ordinary sense of those words. Genuine altruism (for example, giving up your seat for a disabled person or giving up your lunch for a homeless person, etc.) is compatible with the formal sense of self-interest. Perhaps it’s your self-image, your core ideals, the way you were raised, your cultural identity, or any of a number of other factors that were the reasons why you acted altruistically. The point is that, as long as there is a reason why, then your actions can be analyzed and understood in terms of cause-and-effect. Formal self-interest is a blanket concept which happens to correspond nicely with 99% of human action (ordinary self-interest), the 1% of out-of-band circumstances or truly extraordinary human behavior (neither illness nor easily amenable to analysis) can be neglected for the sake of analysis.
In fact, Mises is very clear in the opening chapters of HA to delineate the extents of the science of praxeology. It only concerns those aspects of human behavior which can be known on the basis of deductive inference from praxeological axioms. In particular, in the case of catallactics (voluntary exchange), a necessary condition for any action to be analyzed is that all parties be acting voluntarily.
The blind application of praxeological theory of voluntary exchange to situations where threats of force or other forms of manipulation and coercion are present is a simple blunder. You see this on these boards when people talk about “security markets” as if there is no element of coercion involved. There is a reason why Mises did not analyze a free market in security … the tools of voluntary exchange are simply not powerful enough to analyze it. What happens when one “free market” security agency bombs the headquarters of one of its competitors? Clearly, this is not voluntary exchange so the laws that govern producers and consumers in free markets do not necessarily apply. That doesn’t mean we can’t analyze the production of security using different tools but it does mean we need different tools. Unfortunately, many people do not realize this and blindly charge ahead.
Clayton -
Praxeology covers all actions. The actions of private security firms wouldn’t be fully contained in catallactics, but they would be fully contained in the larger field of praxeology. Suicide and pathological behavior are covered as well. A suicidal man is simply one who believes his state of affairs would be better if he were dead. (Only physiologically involuntary “action” is not covered, but then we’d also hesitate to call it suicide.)
Yes, but I think BP’s objection is that this statement is purely taxonomic - until you’re actually deriving useful predictions about human behavior, the fact that all action falls under the umbrella of praxeology is relatively meaningless.
Clayton -
Anarchist society, if it existed for any length of time, would logically be violent.
Self-interested economic actors will always use armed force to obtain wealth if peaceful exchange is not possible or more costly than the use of force.
It would be irrational and inefficient for profit seeking individuals and firms in anarchist society to forego economic gain for pacifist motives.
Note that the anarchist is naive and deluded to think that government is the only organized entity to use coercion to obtain desired ends.
I second that doublefacepalm making it a quadruple facepalm. Would’ve considered it more of an
In the words of the late, great Anarchicus Naivius, “Warlords? What warlords?”
Clayton -
Amusingly,
when Marxist and the anarcho-capitalist ideologues are painted into an ideological corner from which they cannot extract themselves, they eerily resort to similar inane retorts devoid of factual, logical and emprically supported arguments.
Indeed, the trollish graphic retort is the last refuge of the failed ideologue.
See previous three posts.
Which leads to the demand for protection services, the supply of which drives up the cost of the initiation of force.
You are using the word “pacifist” incorrectly. I have never met a pacifist anarchist, and certainly not in the Mises forums. Only using force/violence/etc. in self -defense is certainly not pacifism.
I know a lot of anarchists, and not one of them holds this opinion.
You would have to actually state a proposition (make an argument) in order to paint someone into an “ideological corner.” Instead, you offered a psychoanalytic theory of the naivete of anarchists. Even if true, it’s irrelevant to the truth or falsity of anti-statism (genetic fallacy).
Clayton -
"when Marxist and the anarcho-capitalist ideologues are painted into an ideological corner from which they cannot extract themselves, they eerily resort to similar inane retorts devoid of factual, logical and emprically supported arguments.
Indeed, the trollish graphic retort is the last refuge of the failed ideologue."
When the self conceited constitutionalist fundamentalist makes continuous non sequiturs he often tries to convince himself that the reason people made fun of him was because they don’t understand what they’re talking about and had no retort.
Which leads to the demand for protection services, the supply of which drives up the cost of the initiation of force. – JackCuyler
High demand, puts additional pressure on inefficient managers to adequately fund a level of security that deters predation by more efficient managers.
Essentially your argument supports my assertion that mismanaged firms will see their resources annexed by more efficient firms because they will not be able to fund a level of security that is proportional to the economic value of their resource. Hence, anarchist society will reward the most efficient economic actors with ever greater holdings. In contrast, actors who are not motivated by economic gain or who mismanage their resources will see them lost through an inability to properly fund a level of security to deter predation.
You are using the word “pacifist” incorrectly. I have never met a pacifist anarchist, and certainly not in the Mises forums. Only using force/violence/etc. in self -defense is certainly not pacifism. --JackCuyler
Let me clarify. Anarchists who will not use coercion even when it results in a net increase in profit are not anarcho-capitalists – they are anarcho-pacifists because they have subordinated economic profit for peaceful coexistence.
Let me prove that you are not an anarcho-capitalist with the following challenge:
If you were the manager or an investor of a corporate military agency and identified a mismanaged firm that was not effectively generating the level of revenue required to adequately defend that resource and you had the means to take that resource by force and realize a net profit on the ‘exchange’ – would you fund this venture ?
If not, I don’t see how you can call yourself an anarcho-capitalist when you have intentionally rejected an economically profitable course of action.
I know a lot of anarchists, and not one of them holds this opinion. – JackCuyler
Based on the feedback I have gotten from some self-proclaimed anarchists I was under the impression that they believed that most organized coercion would disappear with the elimination of government. However, I will take your word that this is not true.
I stand corrected.
Are you suggesting that there will be gangs protecting every resource? You must play a lot of Heroes of Might and Magic.
Such behavior is immoral but it is an accurate description of the state order.
We do not assert that - in an unhampered market in security - people will be less immoral (less inclined to aggress than they are in a statist society). Rather, the assertion is that there will be no persistent underproduction of security and, therefore, the opportunities for such sophisticated aggression will be minimal or non-existent and the profitability of specializing in such aggression will not rise above the level of profitability of specializing in any other kind of crime.
Clayton -
So if you don’t beat up everyone smaller/weaker than you and take their wallets as you walk down the street, then you can’t call yourself a capitalist and must call yourself a pacifist instead?
- So if you don’t beat up everyone smaller/weaker than you and take their wallets as you walk down the street, then you can’t call yourself a capitalist and must call yourself a pacifist instead?
Hoo boy I love me some reductio ad absurdum. It’s basically saying “if you don’t rape, murder, and steal, you’re not a capitalist”. WTF?
Pacifism is the rejection of all violence. A voluntary system merely rejects agressive violence. Sentinel, you’re forgetting a very important point: Morality and empathy are ends in and of themselves. A materially “profitable” venture that results in a large deal of moral regret or empathetic pain can, in fact, be unprofitable overall. Real free-market exchange and action is all about psychic profit, not material profit. Thus, rejecting aggression does not exclude you from being a capitalist or an entreprenuer.
@Wheyous,
No, I am not suggesting there will be gangs protecting every resource. However, every resource will have to be defended or a deterrent must be in place to prevent predation of that resource.
The firms that would defend these resources would be highly professional and efficient corporate military agencies funded by investors, clients, or there own plunder. They would posses missile, tanks, bombers, aircraft carriers,et al. Moreover, they would serve a beneficial purpose in a free market by maximizing the efficiency of societal resources.
If the manager/owner of a valued resource was unable to efficiently manage that resource, They would not be able to fund a level of security proportional to the economic value of that resource. Hence, that resource would be at increased risk to be annexed by force by more efficient economic investors, firms, et al.
The final result would be the release of resources that were previously denied to the marketplace by mismanagement.
So if you don’t beat up everyone smaller/weaker than you and take their wallets as you walk down the street, then you can’t call yourself a capitalist and must call yourself a pacifist instead? – z1235
Exactly.
However, the violence would not be personal, it would be motivated by economic gain.
Equally important, it would allow for a more efficient and dynamic society since inefficient owners who did not generate a reasonable return on these valued resources would not be able to fund an adequate level of security due to mismanagement.
The constant threat of predation would force managers/owners of valued resources to maximize their resource or face the possibility that they would lose it.
Of course, the smallest and the weakest wouldnt have much to worry about since the likelihood of theft correlates with the value of that resource.