How would the same hypothetical man express his preference for free shoe markets over shoe monopolies?
you can answer that question if you think that would help you make your point…
I thought you were trying to make a “hypothetical man” point… Or you can simplify and just tell me your point.
you made a challenge for evidence to be provided that something is the case rather than that something else is the case, you emphasise the empirical nature of the question, and you haven’t demonstrated that you can conceive that there is a test (information gathering exercise) that may be conducted/attempted which would reveal the empirical evidence either way (be it favourably or unfavourably)
I only challenged you to provide the evidence you claimed you had. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems that you initially misunderstood what I was replying to (free power mkts vs monopolies, and not peace vs conflict) so you jumped in intending to offer evidence on the peace vs conflict preference. Now that I clarified what I was referring to, your enthusiasm for evidence seems to have deflated.
Let’s try it from another angle: Why are most shoe markets free, while most power (force) markets monopolies?
no, lets stick to the topic, if i am being challenge to prove empirically, some persons preference for ‘free power mkts vs monopolies’ what would constitute evidence?
I hope you understand what I mean.you can demonstrate that the earth is a globe by the fact that you can sail around it, or take a picture from space. what can you do to prove that such and such a man ‘prefers’ ‘free power mkts vs monopolies’
(assuming that’s what you want to talk about and not ‘peace vs conflict’)
So you claim to have “evidence aplenty”…
…and now you ask me to tell you what that evidence might be?
its perfectly reasonable to ascertain your desired level of proof. either you will have a reasonable attitude to what you want proving, and then i would be bound to share my discoveries with you, or else i would have to admit to fail to provide the perfectly reasonable proof. OR, it turns out you have an unreasonable standard of proof and no evidence could be good enough for you.
Or you could just provide the evidence you claim you have and see what I have to say about it? Surely, you couldn’t be implying that asking me to elaborate on ALL evidence that could possibly be provided (not a small universe out there, you know) and to rank its acceptability would be the most efficient way to proceed for either of us.
well, you certainly claim to have a multitude of evidence on your side, so what does that look like? remember i said ‘either way’ ‘favourable or against’ show the quality of your evidence against…
There are plenty of instances of free markets existing in all goods and services that are randomly spread all across the planet and all through mankind’s history… except power (force) which overwhelmingly has been (and still is) a monopoly. Now your turn.
did you do what you promised to do, or something else?
They are qualitatively the same. It is simply easier to grow your own food than be your own protectionist. You can imagine that if a water company turned off the water to a city they might be up shit creek for a while… There are more ways to threaten a man’s life than with a gun.
The firm can always make this decision, but competition is an option too. There is more than one computer company… it just depends what is economic. There is an economic advantage to cooperate peacefully with other protection companies, but this does not mean capitulation. You don’t just automatically sell out to the dominant firm in the market.
If the dominant PDA wants to send dudes to attack you, defend yourself. It will raise his premiums more and he’ll lose business faster than you. There’s also no reason new PDAs have to enter the market as mom and pop shops… you can raise a very large amount of capital if you can convince investors it will pay off. In short, the only stable position on the market is where you are serving consumers at minimal cost.
Moreover, the dominant PDA could likely crush any individual startup companies, but this tactic cannot be repeated for very long. Its expensive and someone will figure a way around it. Its just like aggressive price cutting. It can work if some behemoth firm does it against an infant firm, but not against a continuum of different sized firms.
Another analogy to consider is of that between states. There are plenty of examples of militaristic states coexisting alongside peaceful ones. It has a lot to do with free trade. To be sure there are examples in far off history, but in recent times, it is highly irregular for states to attempt to expand their “customer” base. Why do you think this is?
Its possible for the market to exactly mimic modern statism. But it probably wouldn’t… read what I said about unenforceable contracts. This mosaic of territories would likely be something like, my apartment complex has its own security, your neighborhood association employs a nightwatchman etc etc… they could all be from the same company or they could be freelance guards.
The overall economic point I think is important: If people are doing something stupid, pay them not to do it and take a cut. If two PDAs go to war, you can buy them and conserve their assets. All sorts of other creative things too. Coase theorem and whatnot.
The whole point of the PDA getting a supermonopoly is so that it can basically be a slaveowner right? Then what I wrote about manumission and slavery being bad for both slaveholders and slaves applies. What’s going to be different about a PDA monopoly vs a State monopoly is the overhead; states have percieved legitimacy, reducing their oppression costs by 99%. Moreover, it might not even be economic for the owners of a state to oppress their people.
And also the unenforceable contract thing. You can’t get your contracts honored by a monopolist protection agency, how do you get consumers to go along with it? I wrote more about it previously.
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?
Only because the beneficiaries of the monopoly stand to lose so much more. There is nothing “hard” about fitting in that paradigm, the “hard” part is breaking the illusion that only the state can furnish the services. I don’t see any reason why it is inevitable.
I like how this thread has a spirited discussion and people are keeping their punches above the belt and avoiding making the argument petty.
I haven’t promised anything. I gave evidence. Now I am awaiting yours.
you can’t think of examples of the private use of force?(if that’s what you wanted?)
None of those (shoes, food, etc.) involve aggression. The power (force, gun) way is the only one that does. We could at least agree on this differentiating descriptor.
I have no problem equating territorial PDA monopolies with the state the world is in today. Do you? Today’s status quo would converge toward anarchic at the limit if all current states became smaller and more local. I’m arguing the inevitability of the territorial power monopoly, semantics (PDA, gang, state, etc.) notwithstanding.
Perhaps the only thing differentiating statism from your other examples is scope and size? If, at the limit, all states were shrunk to the size of condo associations and communities, would that still be statism? Perhaps the unattractiveness of statism is directly proportional with the size of the state and the amount by which its use of laws and power differs from the diverse subjective preferences and convictions of its members?
I know you’ve repeated this before but I still don’t get it. Wouldn’t that be rewarding and incentivizing even further “stupidity” down the road?
Not really. That’s pushing things into strawman territory. Today’s states (as power monopolies) are not slave-owners. And every (successful) power monopolist through history must have been smart enough to know the boundaries beyond which he must not “abuse” his power because: (1) he needs alive and productive “customers”, and (2) he wouldn’t want to suck them so dry that they’re left with nothing to lose as they become exponentially more threatening then. Of course, there have been plenty of stupid power monopolists, too; they didn’t last very long and were quickly replaced with other power monopolists.
Yes, the brain-bomb example didn’t look too serious, or was it?
I want examples of free (non-monopolist) markets in power (force) – examples where two or more power (force) “service providers” (gangs, warlords, mercenaries, PDAs, states, etc.) co-exist and peacefully compete on the same territory, just like shoe providers often do.
I thought it was up to the consumers (and not the monopolist) to decide whether he stays in business or not. At least that’s how things work in the shoe market. How come the power (force) provider has so much say as to whether he survives or not, while the shoe provider doesn’t?