Its not that economists have to study psychology. Its just that they have to take into account the conclusions that psychology has made, namely that people don’t always act to achieve satisfaction, and common sense like that there are long term and short term ways of achieving satisfaction that are often contradictory, or their conclusions could turn out wrong.
He has no idea what praxeology entails, to be blunt…
Did you read anything I wrote?
Would you at least agree that assuming inevitability, instituting a law and force monopoly which reflects the subjective preferences and customs of the local community is highly preferable to establishing it via PDA (gang, mercenary, warlord) warfare? Empirically (historically), local communities have overwhelmingly (and across whole mankind) shown their preference for the former over the latter.
My text you quoted had no relevance to inevitability. Other parts addressed it.
We were talking about force monopolies and their inevitability (stickiness). Their case study would be a tad thicker.
Thx. The intro looked interesting. I’ll read it soon.
Actually, I think it’s a little more complicated. Power (force) has the magical ability (via affecting subjective preferences) to muddy up the definition of “criminal” and the masses’ acceptance of it.
No harm done. I was already aware of my non-omniscience . Any (short) article by him you’d recommend for my introductory thumbs up/down evaluation?
Liberty Student - I did read what you wrote. It’s a little unclear to me where you stand on the whole social enforcement thing.
Would you at least agree that assuming inevitability, instituting a law and force monopoly which reflects the subjective preferences and customs of the local community is highly preferable to establishing it via PDA (gang, mercenary, warlord) warfare? Empirically (historically), local communities have overwhelmingly (and across whole mankind) shown their preference for the former over the latter.
Why would I? I’d rather break the mentality altogether and work on showing people there are alternatives to outmoded, even criminal ways of defending themselves rather than feeding their insecurity. Why do you equate a PDA to gangs, mercenaries and warlords, though? I’d say most people prefer peace to conflict. And they have every reason to desire choice in the affair, rather than stick to some monopoly.
Well, I am for self defense and there is no reason why the old man cannot employ an agent for defense of his person and property. That would be voluntary and contractual.
What ERO and I are discussing is whether or not there can (or should) be a blanket social prohibition on some action, enforced either by a monopoly legal order, or by the mutual agreement of all legal providers within a territory. I am saying that the monopoly legal order is undesireable and the permanent mutual agreement of many providers unlikely (what is the purpose of different providers of law, if they all agree on the same laws the same way), and even more unlikely, that consumers would universally accept such prohibitions on particular activities.
IMO, the libertarian conception of free market justice is based on replacing courts and police, with market courts and police and then going back to replicating the very same frameworks that we either evolved past, or wish to run away from. There are a lot of excellent examples of tribal and commercial law which indicate directions we can test and develop, that might yield radically different results from what any of the theorists today propose as solutions (some great presentations at last year’s Seasteading Conference). And that’s always the problem for people who propose solutions in the present about a future that is dynamic and uncertain.
I am a big fan of listening to consumer demand. The future of law, libertarian law as it comes into action will be based around the demands of the end user, not around ticking boxes on a list of what is consistent with libertarianism according to X political philosophers. A real grass roots, market based anarchical system may barely even qualify as a legal system by our standards today. It might be incredibly simple, cheap, light weight and easy for anyone to use.
In fact, that is what I would guess consumers will demand.
Could there be evolutionary advantages explaining (justifying) this mentality and insecurity that is so prevalent across mankind? Do you believe that your effort to break them is more optimal (smarter) than this process of evolution? Must be fun to be playing God with complex and unpredictable entities such as the whole mankind.
They are all men with guns. The nuances between them are minimal and depend on the extent to which the power they wield has “adjusted” the subjective valuations and convictions of the agents subjected to that power. “Crime” is in the eye of the gun-holder.
You sincerely believe that mankind has not yet acted on this obvious preference simply because they haven’t heard what you have to say about it?
You sincerely believe that mankind has not yet acted on this obvious preference simply because they haven’t heard what you have to say about it?
if i interpret you charitably i can only respond that ‘mankind’ acts on this preference on a massive scale, there is evidence a plenty
If i interpret you uncharitably i will go the methodological individualism route and ask you to flesh out what you mean by ‘mankind acting’
We were talking about force monopolies and their inevitability (stickiness). Their case study would be a tad thicker.
Z, I don’t think that adding a second false mechanistic analogy really helps your case. There’s tons of history of societies maintaining order without monopoly provision of justice and security. That this history might be 2% compared to 98% of civilization’s history is meaningless. I don’t see an actual economic argument and the effectiveness of socialism is long discredited. All you’re left with is appeals to tradition or appeals to popular opinion. If you think such reasoning is valid, you should be advocating Ptolemaic astronomy as well.
Actually, I think it’s a little more complicated. Power (force) has the magical ability (via affecting subjective preferences) to muddy up the definition of “criminal” and the masses’ acceptance of it.
I could care less about moral relativists’ definitions of “criminal”. We can discern between two categories of action with certainty; those which are the hallmark of societal cooperation and arise from the actions of mutually beneficial trade (concomitant to the mental episode of subjectively valuing another’s goods more than one’s own), then those which are “transactions”, not accompanied by such mutuality. The “sticky force” of people striving to protect private property is no less magical than the one you are talking about. If the former hadn’t been winning out for millennia, you wouldn’t be sitting there on a computer right now.
Would you at least agree that assuming inevitability…
Again, you can’t make such assumptions about millions of people not even born yet, so your point is completely invalid.
Z, like you said this isn’t going to go anywhere and it gets old repeating myself.
liberty student, it is too overwhelming to have to fully explain things in thread after thread. I still have to get back to trulib on some stuff so I am going to make a new thread later. I’m not planning on posting here again unless it is about gangs.
Z, you did not address my rebuttal to your post, but also consider this.
Your disctinction between normal goods and power is false. People fear men with guns because they want to live. People also fear famine because they want to live. Your logic predicts that a monopolist food producer could corner the market by threatening to starve people to death. Obviously if one ever did this the competition would move in…
Similarly, if a security firm ever aggressed or threatened to suspend the security of consumers, another firm could just pick up the unsatisfied demand…
Maybe you think food is a trivial example, but famine has historically been a great killer.
Could there be evolutionary advantages explaining (justifying) this mentality and insecurity that is so prevalent across mankind? Do you believe that your effort to break them is more optimal (smarter) than this process of evolution? Must be fun to be playing God with complex and unpredictable entities such as the whole mankind.
Must be fun trying to hide your statism behind specious arguments concerning a supposed “inevitability”, mirite? And yes, I do think people need to see things work in action to help them let go of suboptimal methods of organisation, PARTICULARLY when they force these on others. So yeah, don’t try pull the “central planner” card on me when you’re the one who thinks statism (somehow) is superior at organising defence.
They are all men with guns. The nuances between them are minimal and depend on the extent to which the power they wield has “adjusted” the subjective valuations and convictions of the agents subjected to that power. “Crime” is in the eye of the gun-holder.
Then let’s just call the state the biggest gang?
You sincerely believe that mankind has not yet acted on this obvious preference simply because they haven’t heard what you have to say about it?
I’d say it has more to do with states getting an early advantage and the supposed “lack” of alternatives (as a result of their outlawing them) has somewhat dampened people’s ability to envisage alternatives, yes. Much like if the state produced all shoes. How could free action -possibly- compare, right?
Bingo. Let’s also call the biggest gang the state, for complete equivalence, and we’re in full agreement.
Any hint as to why/how mankind overwhelmingly “discovered” free shoe markets, while remaining utterly “ignorant” about free power (force) markets? Why/how is power so hard to fit into the free market paradigm where most other goods and services fit so nicely? Why did Mises himself exclude it?
These are strawman analogies. The food monopolist can not prevent people from growing their own food, hunting, or trading/buying food grown/produced/hunted by others – not without the aid of a force monopoly, that is. The latter monopoly is always the instrumental one.
Unless the other firm calculates that joining the first one may be more profitable than fighting it. Btw, isn’t this how things are done already with/between states/gangs/parties? A mosaic of territories, each monopolized by a different security agency, is indistinguishable from how the world already is today.
[EDIT: Sieben, I’ll read your last couple of posts again and see if anything warrants a reply. Let me know if there’s a point you consider especially powerful and would like addressed.]
I prefer to be interpreted charitably. I’d be interested to see the evidence.
I meant the whole of individual subjective preferences (6 billion “human action” atoms) reflecting the state of the world today.
I’d be interested to see the evidence.
you want to see the evidence of some people at some times preferring peace to war?
I meant the whole of individual subjective preferences (6 billion “human action” atoms) reflecting the state of the world today.
what?
No, evidence that people prefer free power (force) markets to power (force) monopolies.
well i prefer it… but is that what was being argued anyway?
I responded to this:
So I assumed the choice was not between peace and monopoly (absurdly obvious), but between free power markets and their monopoly counterparts.
if we played an imagination game of pure hypothetical wonderfulness,… what might a hypothetical man do to demonstrate he prefers ‘free power markets’ over ‘monopoly counterparts’?, (if you like you can assume that lots of other hypothetical man are indulging their love for ‘monopoly counterparts’