If there are a bunch of cavemen hitting eachother on the heads, you can just pay them to do the economically optimal thing and take a cut. You can translate the benefits of the whole onto the individual. You’re worried that an individual might opt out of this and just try to freeload off other peoples work by stealing, but its easy to make stealing uneconomic. Even if it weren’t you can always pay interfering parties not to interfere ala coase theorem.
Btw, there is no solution to the prisoner’s dilemma. The whole premise is that prisoner’s can’t communicate or form contracts. Its usually used as an example of how a third party coercer can intervene to force them both to make the right choice, but that breaks the initial setup. Moreover, if a coercer can get involved, there’s no reason an entrepreneur couldn’t do the same thing.
The kinds of thought experiments you have to rely on to disprove anarchism basically have to be formulated like: “What if Aliens attacked every group who’s organizational philosophy started with the letter A?! Autocrats and Anarchists… ooo too bad Rothbard didn’t think of that one!”
Are you going to address what I said before about it not being in the self interest of people to aggress against one another? To the point where slavery is economically bad for both slaves and slaveowners? Its a reaally interesting article and has influenced me profoundly over the past few days. You should read it even if you don’t plan on agreeing.
Exactly. Consumers would never put themselves in this position because it defeats the point of purchasing security. Minarchists are worried that security firms will have tons of policeman and officers etc but its more likely that the market will be decentralized with many small providers so they can better serve consumers, since they no longer have to worry about the accountability issue.
For the case where monolithic defense is needed, more drastic checks can be taken. For example, the entrepreneur of superdefenseco could offer to have an explosive implanted in his brain that would be detonated if the majority of his consumers voted for it. This is absurd, and probably ocurrs to me atm because I’m on hydrocodone, but its an example of how an entrepreneur could check himself in order to provide more reliable service for consumers.
Based on the definitions I provided, are you still saying that ‘anarchy’ is ‘utopian’?
No, you misunderstand the difference between law and regulation. Law deals with future events, consequences for actions and the resolution of conflicts. Regulation deals with systematizing the prevention of law breaking. At best, law can be a disincentive for an action deemed illegal, it cannot disallow something unless it has the power to regulate.
Regulation falls under the scope of law. Libertarianism isn’t concerned with disincentivizing crime, only handling individual cases correctly. Nonetheless, the fact that libertarian punishment tends to be more severe than present systems might serve as a disincentive.
I don’t see how you can say that law deals with future events, unless you are talking about regulation. Unless you are talking about procedures for dealing with threats of violence, or the general process of codification, or the promulgation of law, I’d say we’re more concerned with historical events.
What would be an appropriate regulation in a libertarian legal system? If you can name something specific it might make more sense.
I think that we’re going to evolve past gangs by and large.
I agree.
Private security is hardly a “protection racket”. Gangs are good at beating people up, taking risks, shady dealings, or whatever. When trade is fully legitimized, pharmaceutical companies would outperform gangs because of their superior chemistry skills and such.
There isn’t really anything special about state-run uniformed police. In fact, they are a relatively new invention. How would property owners, let’s say a grocery store, deal with some thugs trying to get them to only sell their approved brand of sugar? They pay a security firm to protect them. If the threat is larger, maybe multiple firms would cooperate to handle the situation. It really isn’t rocket science.
What we can show is that a large percent of gang activity is due to drug prohibition in the US. Are people still bootlegging rum? No, because it was relegalized. A lot of property crimes associated with drug use come from users doing things like shoplifting to keep up their habit too. Without the steep markups by drug cartels, a heroin addict’s habit wouldn’t be more costly than a potato chip junkie. I forget the exact numbers from an estimate I did once on how much cocaine is marked up from field to end user. It was something like 4,000% or more. Most drugs really aren’t that much more costly to produce than a bag of sugar.
Once restrictions on drug research are lifted my guesstimate that alcohol use and drunk driving deaths would drop at least 50%. There are safer and arguably more enjoyable options out there, and many more substances yet to be discovered. The problems caused by government go beyond just gangs to the communities plagued by their violence.
Yes I found it unsatisfactory. Unless I misinterpreted what you were saying, it basically was that gangs are violent because bad people are in gangs, and that these people are too short sighted to see what would be good for them.
I agree that violence is born out of short sightedness, but where does that come from? Is it because these people are ‘naturally’ short sighted, or maybe as I have said later, its due to the fact that they are dealing in illegal contraband, and the very nature in dealing in something like that forces you to take a more short sighted approach. I like that better, but even then I wonder if that is enough of a reason.
If you have read my posts in other threads, you will be able to tell that I’m no state apologist and wish it to go away forever. However, I was challenged on “if you say that violence is bad for business, then why do gangs still engage in it? What is the number one thing that attracts police attention? Bodies. So really it is in these gangs interest to sell work out their differences peacefully, and following up on that why do they really need territory to sell their drugs? It hasn’t got anything to do with the government imho. Its either because they are trying to forge regional monopolies, and then jack up prices (if they are really, really intelligent and powerful) or, (much more often) its because that’s how the game works, you just can’t show weakness by sharing a corner. This is where my point about human psychology (especially collective psychology) not always working in an economically ‘logical’ direction, especially when you consider that all of this is what leads the cops in.” and I was wondering if I had enough of an answer.
But then you agree with me that they lack economic rationale? And that things would be different if better entrepreneurs could get involved?
On the face of it, one’s desire to be the victorious aggressor seems efficacious… but in the presence of peaceful economic alternatives, its not. I spelled this out in my second post and again in my response to Z. Its an idea thats new to me, so I’m playing with it trying to get it just right. I think it will be very powerful.
Now that I think about it from this angle, the government is basically saying they’ll send SWAT teams at anyone in the business, so you HAVE to buy guns and make yourselves so dangerous that the police won’t come knocking.
The pirated DVD market doesn’t work like this. I’m sure everyone who pirates DVDs would love it if they could have a regional monopoly, but it would raise the cost of their product too much to pay for the necessary aggression.
Making deals with other gangs, or just paying them not to interfere is going to be more economic. You are roughly hitting on something though. Demand for involuntarism cannot be satisfied voluntarily. So, its a shame, but I think we just have to concede that for people who reaally want to be king alpha male and nothing else, the market is not their best way to achieve this.
However, while the market may not be optimal for these power grabbers, it also has automatic checks on them. So even if everyone were engaged in constant plotting to take over the whole system, we don’t have much reason to expect everyone else would make it easy. I won’t rule out that its impossible, because anything is possible in any society. We simply have to ask ourselves which organizational paradigm gives humanity its best chance.
Sorry for double post, but I really think you underestimate how sorry the participants in this market are. These are the guys who got kicked out of highschool for attacking the teacher, are regular drug users themselves, and live in the very very short term. They are regular victims of child abuse and live in the world of police brutality.
And they’re always dealing with a bunch of other people as crazy and screwed up as they are.
You can screw human beings up so bad that nothing works.
I don’t see what exactly that has to do with it. This person I am debating with and I are having a couple of different arguments going on at the same time and the other has to deal with praxeology and how he thinks that isn’t sufficient to study economics, instead thinking you would also need to use psychology.
So I don’t think its really necessary to get into the psychology of these people. Unless you think that they value the pleasure they get from gang violence/sense of belonging, etc. than making more money by running a peaceful gang? That seems like maybe that explanation could work. But I would hope for some real ‘market forces’ reasons, specifically ones that can be blamed on the fact of the state.
For instance, it doesn’t seem like marijuana dealers require any sort of territorial monopoly. But then again, they aren’t really ‘run’ by gangs, at least not at the micro level. Seems like with things like heroin, crack, or maybe crystal meth, that seems like a much bigger deal (largely based on views from The Wire). What about these harder drugs or the market for them causes for them to be sold by violent territorial monopoly gangs? What stops them from being simply sold at a certain level of discretion a la marijuana or pirated DVDs?
Maybe there actually isn’t much turf war gang violence and this whole debate is flawed. I think another cause of gang violence is that I believe gangs (or at least some of them, specifically thinking of Mara Salvatrucha aka MS 13) make their new recruits kill a random (or not random) person. This only seems necessary because you need to be able to kill to be in a gang, and that the gang needs its members to be loyal, and now they all you know that you have murdered someone.
Then there is also violence against witnesses, which is also only because drugs are illegal.
as for how it applies to when nothing is legal, its sort of like if there are people out there 'bringing things down to the lowest common denominator" how do you rise above that and not ‘play the game’ I think that is somewhat easier in that when everyone is outside the law, and has their own protection service, then I think the crackdown on these gangs would be waaaay tougher than it currently is if they decided to get into the business of running the whole show in a given area, forcing protection money out of everyone. Maybe the problem now is that the police have no incentive to put an end to gangs, and even if they did they probably lack the capability.
I thought I made my position on this clear. I’m not sure what can be gained by repeating myself. If you disagree with my answer, please tell me why. Restating your position isn’t advancing our discussion.
Q. Do you agree with X?
A. No, I agree with Y.
Q. Do you agree with X?
A. ???
I clearly explained the (the very important) differences between regulation and law. They are not synonymous.
Then we’re not talking about what is not allowed (regulation) but instead about how conflicts are resolved and to what standards (law).
sigh
Whatever the participants in a legal order agree to. Libertarianism is subjective voluntarism.
Decisions aren’t based on decisions People can have whatever arbitrary, subjective values and then they act off those. This is where the subconscious comes in.
Rothbard:“Praxeology rests on the fundamental axiom that individual human beings act, that is, on the primordial fact that individuals engage in
conscious actions toward chosen goals. This concept of action contrasts to purely reflexive, or knee-jerk, behavior, which is not directed toward goals. The praxeological method spins out by verbal deduction the logical implications of that primordial fact. In short, praxeological economics is the structure of logical implications of the fact that individuals act”
So we would argue that people have conflicting values between group-ism and personal satisfaction. It doesn’t change the fact that they still act out of their preferences for these things. His framework is just wrong.
The fact that time preferences have a range says nothing about praxeology.
Oh please. The rational expectations theory does not apply to the Austrian school at all. Praxeology is used to illuminate the calculation problem.
Moreover, even if people are stupid and can’t figure out what to do, you can just pay them to do something productive. That’s the basic MO of entrepreneurship.
Dear lord if you cannot win send him to these forums. No one should ever be judge in their own case, particularly the masses. You can AT LEAST run the calculation problem and knowledge problem against this though.
Its not so much the psychology as it is their education. They don’t understand how free trade works. They’ve only been educated about violence.
You can blame the state because it openly and continually attacks the drug market. It does not attack the pirated DVD market or duty-free market. This necessitates drug firms to be very very dangerous in order to deter police. And a drug cartel could fail at any minute. You could die at any minute. You could have to kill at any etc… it attracts the worst of the worst. I mean if you replaced congress with a bunch of randomly selected gang members what do you think would happen? These are special people.
There’s more police action directed against harder drugs, especially meth. The media doesn’t really harangue pot smokers, and many people feel like marijuana should be legal. So it would be a giant PR disaster if cops started rounding up loads of MJ dealers. People are more likely to view it as the state attacking innocent people than protecting children from drugs.
Its also harder to grow/make the heavier drugs. It depends on the drug but this is generally true.
These are all good. You should ask him for objective statistics about the drug war… and ask him why gang violence INCREASES with more state intervention. You can find charts like this easily. His basic prediction is that there would be more or the same violence if drugs were free from state intervention.
Anyway, sorry I’m not better help. It doesn’t seem like he’s too savvy on game theory, and the ideas im pitching a new to me. Lets keep this thread going so i can at least learn more.
[edit: just saw your second post
If two gangs are killing eachother over turf, just pay them not to kill eachother. Or buy their turf from both of them. You can give them a better deal than if they continue in the status quo.
The coase theorem is so interesting to me because it concludes that the initial distribution in property rights doesn’t matter in terms of how resources will be used (it matters to the players though). It seems to have applications in every single one of the dumb “what if” scenarios where statists think something sub optimal will happen.
If people are doing something stupid, you freaking pay them to do something better and take a cut. Its how you have civilization.]
[edit2: Oh and its a non sequitur to prefer democracy just because people act in groups. You can have group action without attacking the minority. There is never any economic reason to interfere with peaceful homesteaders]
I thought I made my position on this clear. I’m not sure what can be gained by repeating myself. If you disagree with my answer, please tell me why. Restating your position isn’t advancing our discussion.
Q. Do you agree with X?
A. No, I agree with Y.
Q. Do you agree with X?
A. ???
Rothbard talks about two senses of something being utopian, “literally impossible” like socialism or “hard to envision”. You said:
I’m saying a society which is anarchistic but “doesn’t allow” something is Utopian.
What do you mean by “utopian”? Also, you could simply answer my question, but I guess being stubborn is your new meme.
I clearly explained the (the very important) differences between regulation and law. They are not synonymous.
Regulation is a subset of law. Do you agree?
Then we’re not talking about what is not allowed (regulation) but instead about how conflicts are resolved and to what standards (law).
How would a society which you would describe as fully anarchistic and libertarian enforce things which are not allowed without there having being a conflict?
Whatever the participants in a legal order agree to. Libertarianism is subjective voluntarism.
Security firms are likely to have subscribers agree to certain rules and conditions, as well as develop standards amongst various firms. People can’t be compelled to hire security firms though. This means that conflicts will arise where there are no preexisting agreements on what law (or “regulation”) is. If I subjectively feel that it is okay to steal your 10 oz. of gold on today’s date but anyone punishing gold thieves any time after today is completely unjust, how does the “libertarian” judge find in this case between 2 people with no previous agreement on what law is?
Impossible. “Doesn’t allow” to me is regulation. And regulation is very unfriendly to anarchism.
Please don’t get emotionally distraught and overly sensitive when we debate. It is counter-productive.
It can be. Depends on your definition of law.
Isn’t that the point of libertarian anarchism? We don’t engage in interventionism. We resolve conflicts, we can try to peacefully avoid them, but to use force to stop conflicts from starting is very unlibertarian IMO.
Also, the notion of a fully libertarian and anarchistic society is a static model, which is probably as unlikely as me winning the lotto without buying a ticket. Anarchism by definition will not have a static social model, and so for it to be fully anarchistic AND libertarian for more than a brief moment in time would require some degree of force, as I think it is very unlikely to occur but by accident.
There may be no security firms at all. There may be no judges. Subscribers to either such service would dictate what the rules and conditions are to the firms, not vice versa. The customer is always right, and on an open market, people will pay for their preferences to be serviced, rather than accept what limited options are presented to them.
Where did the judge come from? Who hired him? Why would you show up to court to be judged?
All those questions presume a lot. We need to address how we even got to that scenario, what processes and norms are in place that would lead to a judge having to make a decision tabula rasa.
Impossible. “Doesn’t allow” to me is regulation. And regulation is very unfriendly to anarchism.
Please don’t get emotionally distraught and overly sensitive when we debate. It is counter-productive.
“Not allowing” murder isn’t the type of “regulation” unfriendly to anarchism. Who said that I am emotionally distraught? I am just sick of you deliberately being difficult. Very few people would come up with “regulation” as the word meaning “not allowing”, at least on their first guess.
Anyhow, it seems like we are mostly on the same page, but I really wasn’t sure there for a second.
Also, the notion of a fully libertarian and anarchistic society is a static model, which is probably as unlikely as me winning the lotto without buying a ticket. Anarchism by definition will not have a static social model, and so for it to be fully anarchistic AND libertarian for more than a brief moment in time would require some degree of force, as I think it is very unlikely to occur but by accident.
I’m not sure I fully agree with this (again probably some semantics), but it is an important point and I will try to get around to addressing it in the proper thread.
Yes, there seem to be a lot of them sticking around.
Z, I don’t see the point of adding the word sticky to run of the mill monopolies. There were barely 3 democratic republics in Europe before WW1, so it is a blip in the long strand of human history at best so far. I would say that this form of societal organization has about as much sticking power as Studebakers proportionately.
I’m glad we agree on the seductiveness of power and its ability to affect/change the preferences of the masses.
“Power” goes beyond violence and illegitimacy. I think you would like this paper.
They can earn even more by not retiring the guns with which they shot the dictators and the gangs.
Criminal behavior leaves people open to some nasty fates. It isn’t worth it to me and you apparently think it is a little more simple than it really is. Remember our talk about “compensation ratio”?
Skepticism may be an understatement.
I mean this in the nicest sence of the word. The problem is ignorance. Read something by/about Adolf Reinach.
My opinion on the OP is that gangs seem to be much stronger in areas where the government has done it’s greater damage to society. That being said, the people who are living in that section of society are desperate and when you have a group of people or gang offering them a place to live, shelter, and money, I don’t think it’s hard to expect that the gangs will gain a much larger following and become more destructive.
Anarchism as ERO pointed out is the absence of rulers. This is why I don’t like this idea of societal prohibitions managed by some societally selected judges, to ajudicate and maintain THE LAW.
It reeks of republicanism to me, although I am sure that is not what ERO meant, it’s how I see it.
I’m a voluntarist. I don’t claim any particular school of ethics. I believe ethics are preferences, and preferences are subjective. I do support the notion of private property (scarce resources, lines of delineation as clear as possible between mine and thine, so as to avoid conflict) and that all relations involving persons and property should be voluntary.
If someone is on your property or trying to injure your person, I think one can do what one can to defend one’s life and property. But the idea that there needs to be social enforcement of things which can’t be done like intruding, is silly. Someone might pay someone to intrude so they can practice defeating a burgular in hand to hand combat. Maybe they want to mock it up to train a PDA. Maybe they get a sexual thrill out of a stranger in the house with a ski mask on.
What makes an action impermissible in a free/libertarian/ancap/voluntarist society is when it is coercive. When it is involuntary. And to think we should or even can disallow involuntary behavior, is just beyond the scope of my understanding.
We have to acknowledge that there risks to living in a free society. Risks that cannot be legalized away with some argumentation or objective conception of rights/ethics. One of those risks is that people are going to do dangerous and violent things sometimes. What makes a society free/libertarian/ancap/voluntarist is how we identify which actions have caused harm (by having a definition of harm aka LAW), and how we pursue justice (making the injured party whole, RESTITUTION).
The problem is much bigger than mere enlightenment. Even if every agent in the market was fully enlightened about the benefits of non-aggression, voluntarism, and free markets (a big if) , there will be plenty of them for whom aggression and crime would/could potentially yield much more than the alternative.
Instating a monopoly on force turns this into a self-fulfilling prophecy, licenses the behaviour and stifles alternaties to it from developing. There’s certainly nothing “inevitable” about it…
Liberty Student - So you are against people voluntarily choosing private defense companies to enforce private property rights or the defense thereof? A 90 year old man might find it rather difficult to defend his property on his own, if need be. I believe it would be in his best interest to possibly take part in some sort of social enforcement of private property, such as a private defense company that has been born through a free market system and not a government one.
People can have whatever arbitrary, subjective values and then they act off those. This is where the subconscious comes in.