What praxeological precept(s) confirm anarchism over minarchism in providing for societal economic health AND societal security from external threats?

Economics Political Theory
341

Loosing money tends to make you very unpopular when leading a company. Not so much in democracies. The larger firms are large for a reason. They serve interests of their customers and stockholders the best, and the chance having Hitler, Mao, or FDR being the choice for a CEO in a company who’s on the equivalent of a fortune 500, and remaining so is astronomically low.-- sam armstrong

who says that sacking a competitor PDAs customers and taking its area of responsibility will always be an unprofitable venture.

IF war was always unprofitable then why have we had so many.

Was it unprofitable for the USA to take native american lands?

would the USA be more prosperous, free, stable, and peaceful if it had allowed the spanish, russian, french, or english to take the entire land mass west of the mississippi river ?

moreover, there is no paradigm that suggests that brilliant, charismatic, and motivated leaders like ceasar, alexander, khan, napoleon, et al would be denied within a free market framework from rising to CEO status in the dominant PDA.

what would the talents of these men be used for in an anarchic system — working behind the counter at 7/11 ?! – no, they would gravitate to enterprises that suit their talents, the PDAs and related insurance companies.

The only difference is that these leaders will attain power within a private versus public framework.

moreover, 99% of private firms fail, specifically they failed their stockholders and customers. In addition, many of these enterprises fail because of professional managers with golden parachutes who “gamed the system” with little or no risk to themselves when the companies they lead collapse (same as statist leaders and their cronies who likewise have no stake or risk in malinvestments).

the implication that the market, while superior to command economies, is not infallible or free of corruption is a dangerous notion – particularily when it applies to a monopolistic PDA responsible for defense against a statist threat or a PDA led by a brilliant ambitious meglomaniac intoxicated by the narcotic of absolutist power, fame, and glory.

power hungry charismatic and brilliant leaders like ceasar, alexander, genghis khan, napoleon, et al could easily move to the top of a PDAs heirarchy and use this power for personal gain and fame.

free markets dont eliminate or replace basic human foibles like greed, envy, lust, wrath, et al that have been the motivation for many conflicts.

342

moreover, 99% of private firms fail, namely they failed their stockholders and customers.

Exactly. They fail. They no longer exist. They have no more power. It’s all gone. Exactly what I’m saying would happen to the PDA who fails their stockholders and customers when they start a war. The key words in my quote was “on the equivalent of a fortune 500, and remaining so.”

You don’t get to point to the Enron’s of the world and say that that proves that a company can start a war and remain in business. That actually goes to support my position.

343

sam,

i was editing my last post.

Exactly what I’m saying would happen to the PDA who fails their stockholders and customers when they start a war.–sam

you saying the PDAs are deterred from waging war. I agree, they would be loath to confront survival level threats until these threats metastasized to a level that was irresistable.

then they would be at a severe disadvantage compared to statist threats who can wage war against isolated PDAs without restrictions. PDAs would also be loath to join mutual defense agreements since these would increase the likelihood of these PDAs of having to engage in a costly venture to defend a competitor with little or no financial benefit to themselves.

anarchists are inherently pacific and isolationist – and this is a negative when an isolated anarchic society is attacked by a statist regime. in sum, adjacent anarchic enclaves will not come to the aid of a competitor PDA. more likely they would assist the statist regime and add more customers when the competitor PDA was forced “out of business” by the statist invasion.

a statist cartel could out spend isolated PDAs and overcome their disadvantage in efficiency. also, PDAs would be severely restricted by the market from expanding power by waging war. Essentially they would all be timid and defensive in their posture toward any possible threats. they would forever be reacting to events and threats rather then guiding them.

344

And then…?

Let’s concede the statist who sacrifices general welfare for world warfare is able to win against a few an-cap societies.

Then what? His efforts are not proffitable in the long run, the an-caps wouldn’t go back to being slaves, and all the statist gets back are the type of resources he could have traded for in the first place.

I’d say the statist would eventually go broke, while surviving an-caps would thrive.

345

You omit the fact that if they don’t confront survival level threats, they cease to exist as well. That is not the case when deciding to start an aggressive war or not.

If a PDA refuses to defend their customers from survival level threats, they don’t get to retreat and protect other people. They loose all their customers because those customers now know that that company won’t protect them from survival level threats. Their business is gone. And other PDA’s won’t get their business by simply waiting for the other PDA to die, since all of it’s customers wealth will now be located in that taken over territory.

You also completely neglect the nature of defensive war and aggressive war. PDAs who start aggressive wars loose funding due to no longer being able to count on insurance money from losses sustained in an aggressive war. PDAs who are involved in defensive wars gain funding due to wanting to preserve wealth from the invading aggressors plus what ever insurance they have on losses.

And why are anarchies inherently pacific? We are inherently non-aggressive, but that is not the same thing at all. I believe that’s been said more than once.

And what ever happened to the enemy of my enemy is my friend? Good PDAs would realize that they are directly threatened by statist regimes and would greatly enjoy a buffer between them and a threatening statist regimes because their business is incompatible with a state. If a mutual defense agreement decreases the risk of being invaded in the form of deterrence (and it would), why wouldn’t they join and pay those higher premiums for the decreased risk? Especially if they could get better insurance rates? To gain more customers? For how long? Until that aggressive state attacks again? The benefits of gaining increased security and lower insurance rates would out weigh in most cases the increased risk of being dragged into a conflict you were not initially part of, especially considering the likelihood of being dragged into it later anyway by the obviously aggressive state. Long term planning is a part of market economies you know. Speculators would be betting on the risk of war, and would be buying and selling security futures just like they do now. Those speculators would pay for insider information to bet on security futures, and there you have your anarchist Intelligence agencies.

One more thing. A statist cartel could also out spend an isolated state and take them over. How is it that statist cartels gets to be a bullet point against anarchist communities, but not for democratic republic minarchies?

I’ve seen you argue democratic peace theory before, which states that democracies won’t fight each other. Why do you believe that democracies would fight peaceful anarchies? So if we had a bunch of democracies, and a few anarchies, why would the democracies not fight each other, but would fight the anarchies?

346

ravochol,

I am advocating change within the current political framework. liberal democracy has been the vehicle from which tremendous improvements in civil and political rights AND increased standards of living have occurred.

specifically I think the present constitutional federal republic works because it provides for the following better than any competing system that currently exists:

(1) protects essential rights (bill of rights)

(2) provides checks and balances between power centers (executive, legislature, judiciary)

(3) further subdivides/decentralizes power in the form of state governments (10th amendment and balanced budget amendment)

(4) rejects pure democracy or prevents tyranny of the majority (republican form of government)i think that the anarchist plan to vilify and gut this system and replace it with an unproven system is precarious at best.

Without a strong theory of federalism, this results in the conclusion that the best of all scenarios would be a one world government - unless you believe in localism and that “many actors” is preferable to “fewer actors,” on the condition that the many actors are in a state of solidarity (non-agression/mutual defense) - independent but federated.

read democratic peace theory — we dont need anarchism to achieve global peace. peace can/ and is provided when nations become modern liberal democracies.

Try relocating within Western civilization to a place in which your tax dollars will not fund the war in Afghanistan, for example - it’s difficult. Federal level laws are inescapable within the states - no states are even using the power of nullification.

change is coming. most european nations have considerably reduced the size and scope of government starting with the scadanavian nations in the late 1990’s. with the collapse of the welfare state in greece, the rest of the EU is reducing government.

the USA will follow suit when the socialists now in power are removed in round 2. In the first round in 2006, the crony capitalists that dominated the bush administration and congress were removed. the American people know what the problem is they are struggling to find the right mix of representatives at the ballot box to get the ball rolling.

In fact, if democracy were more fully applied, some polities might well decide to be ruled by a monarch or something resembling one, or to institute laws considered repressive by most outgroups. I personally don’t see a problem with this, as long as the individuals concerned can leave if they decide to and the majority can alter or abolish the system if they tire of it.

interesting suggestion.

i’m not a historian, but it appears what you envision is what the roman empire was based on for hundreds of years.

though, I prefer our current system.

The anarchist utopia is one where no one has unwarranted authority over any other, but to the extent that some individuals [i’ll just say it] are evil, this is impossible. Anarchy is only approachable to the extent people are ethical, but to the extent that they aren’t, restrained government is preferable to unrestrained behavior by the unethical.

I am not an expert on AE, but I think von Mises agrees with your assessment.

Paying 10% in taxes is preferable to paying 20% in loss to banditry or extortion. If losing 20% to banditry were the expected alternative to the 10% in taxation, supporting the taxation is anarchistic as it reduces unwarranted authority by 10%. Making the taxes mandatory is even defensible, because free riders steal public goods from all others without compensating them, and in that way aggress against them.

I agree, however I am surprised the anarchists on this site have not jumped down your throat for your assertion. In fact, the Rahn curve ( http://blogs.forbes.com/beltway/2010/06/29/the-rahn-curve-shows-government-is-far-too-big/ )demonstrates that maximum societal growth occurs at approximately 20% taxation/GDP (this includes all fed, state, and local taxes). at present I think we are approaching 40%. In contrast, nations in the EU, most notably sweden, norway, finland, et al are dramatically reducing the government as a percentage of gdp.

The benefit of true democracy coupled with decentralization is that it allows groups to decide on the threat level and the effort justified in countering it, and allows individuals who disagree to attempt a different solution with others who concur. The extent to which any system is effective at reducing the level of unwarranted authority, is, by my interpretation, the level to which it is anarchistic in practice.

true democracy is tyranny of the majority. I think our founding fathers added provisions to our constitutional federal republic to protect minorities and to empower the government to pass necessary laws that the majority would disapprove.

of course, if these laws are determined to be unjust, then our system allows the majority to vote out the representative in the next election. so this offers balance between legislative powers and pure democracy.

other beneficial protections against the tyranny of majority rule include the senate and the electoral college.

moreover, I advocate a balanced budget amendment that would prevent previous generations from screwing our kids and grandkids.

347

Rettoper, what do you think of increasing the quality of government through competition (see: http://athousandnations.com)?

I don’t think anarcho-capitalism can be ruled out because it hasn’t yet existed; I simply see it as an extension and evolution of the current world order. The current world trend has been toward anarcho-capitalism through the increase in the number of countries and the breakdown of old empires, and increasing the number of countries even further and encouraging competition between nations would only approximate anarcho-capitalism even more. Technology is a big driver behind this, and it may turn out one day that we find ourselves in an increasingly polycentric world order simply through evolution of current structures, and initiatives such as seasteading and eventually, spacesteading.

348

Thats an opinion, and the last part regarding the “improved standard of living”, is just blatantly wrong. Democracy’s do not create wealth, only markets can do this. What a democracy does instead is re-distribute the wealth generated by the market system. Your argument is just as much of a conflation as the democracy=freedom movement. It was anarchy that raised the standard of living, IE markets and long-term capital accumulation. It was democracy that stole from that system finding silly ways to justify itself, then redistributed it arbitrarily.

Furthermore your argument about democracy bringing peace is paradoxical.

You can only bring about the peace in democracy if the minorities of your systems continue to submit themselves as serfs. However no matter how you try and spin it your STILL talking about a coercive system built upon theft and aggression. Democracy ONLY works by aggression towards the minority, and only works well when minorities go along with it. It’s very opposite function of markets. There is no point in reading the rest of your post when your opening statements are all based on opinion, or self contradicting. Sorry to be blunt.

If it were true “praxeologically speaking” that people preferred democracies, you wouldn’t need legal positivism to maintain it’s existence. It would just exist on the market without any coercion necessary.

349

sam,

You omit the fact that if they don’t confront survival level threats, they cease to exist as well. That is not the case when deciding to start an aggressive war or not.

liberal democracies and statist regimes are proven more effective at eliminating threats since they exist, while anarchic societies dont exist.

the reason is that anarchic societies are decentralized. moreover, competing PDAs are not likely to assist a competitor PDA whose customers are under attack. whereas, all the resources from all 50 states will be directed against any single threat against a single state.

If a PDA refuses to defend their customers from survival level threats, they don’t get to retreat and protect other people. They loose all their customers because those customers now know that that company won’t protect them from survival level threats. Their business is gone.

you misunderstood my assertion.

I didnt say that a PDA wouldnt defend its own customers to the best of its ability — I stated that neighboring competitor PDAs are not likely to come to the assistance of a competitor PDA under attack by a statist regime. Where is the profit or logic in expending resources and capital to satisfy a competitor’s customers ?!

And other PDA’s won’t get their business by simply waiting for the other PDA to die, since all of it’s customers wealth will now be located in that taken over territory.

Neighboring PDAs who stood by while a competitor PDAs customers were overrun havent lost any marketshare or loss of revenue. Moreover, a competitor PDA might welcome a competitor’s demise at the hands of a statist threat since they could gain new customers. In sum, you can provide no paradigm or proof that an overrun anarchic enclave wont provide opportunities for contiguous anarchic enclaves.

In the very least, immigration and capital flight from the overrun anarchic enclave would benefit neighboring anarchic enclaves

You also completely neglect the nature of defensive war and aggressive war. PDAs who start aggressive wars loose funding due to no longer being able to count on insurance money from losses sustained in an aggressive war. PDAs who are involved in defensive wars gain funding due to wanting to preserve wealth from the invading aggressors plus what ever insurance they have on losses.

not all wars represent a net loss to the aggressor. if a PDA and insurance company determine that there is a net gain from attacking a neighboring anarchic enclave or statist regime, then they will attack.

what is the logic in denying yourself a profitable course of action. If anarchic or statist neighbor X has scarce resources whose annexation would benefit anarchic society B — then society B will attack.

Moreover, does anarchic philsophy discount the utility of preemptive and preventative war as a cost saving measure ???

if they do, then this is another example of why no anarchic societies exist today.

And what ever happened to the enemy of my enemy is my friend? Good PDAs would realize that they are directly threatened by statist regimes and would greatly enjoy a buffer between them and a threatening statist regimes because their business is incompatible with a state.

you sound like a neocon. based on your statement above, it appears that you support American involvement abroad.

do you advocate entanglement in foreign conflicts ? do you advocate a series of defense agreements and mutual defense pacts ?

If a mutual defense agreement decreases the risk of being invaded in the form of deterrence (and it would), why wouldn’t they join and pay those higher premiums for the decreased risk?

you cant be an anarchist and a neocon at the same time. choose.

the reason anarchists avoid mutual defense agreements is because they force members to engage in constant war. this is how WWI degenerated from a local conflict to a continent wide conflict.

amusingly, like most anarchists you are probably opposed to USA projection of power abroad in the form of mutual defense arrangements, yet you are advocating the exact same policy to defend anarchism ?!

One more thing. A statist cartel could also out spend an isolated state and take them over. How is it that statist cartels gets to be a bullet point against anarchist communities, but not for democratic republic minarchies?

because all of the advantages a statist regime has over an anarchic society is not present when dealing with a liberal democracy.

(1) liberal democracies share a common political bond that unites them. hence NATO, SEATO, et al.

(2) liberal democracies have a centralized miiltary command and control structure (central government)

(3) liberal democracies are not restricted by the profit motive when allocating resources for war (unlike anarchic society, they can deficit spend during wars)

(4) liberal democracies have an advantage over statist regimes in that they are largely free market societies. (they retain much of the economic benefits of anarchic society without the liabilities)

I’ve seen you argue democratic peace theory before, which states that democracies won’t fight each other. Why do you believe that democracies would fight peaceful anarchies? So if we had a bunch of democracies, and a few anarchies, why would the democracies not fight each other, but would fight the anarchies?

More likely the democracies would come to the aid of any ancap society under attack by the last few statist regimes that exist.

moreover, in a geopolitic dominated by liberal democracies, anarchic societies would not be at risk of attack.

at this point, if anarchism works – it would flourish and might replace classical liberalism as the dominate system.

350

yuberries,

Let’s concede the statist who sacrifices general welfare for world warfare is able to win against a few an-cap societies.

I am not conceding anything. If war was not profitable then why so many of them?

will mankind become suddenly and miraculously become enlightened when anarchic society emerges and come to the (false) realization that war is not “profitable” ?

Then what? His efforts are not proffitable in the long run, the an-caps wouldn’t go back to being slaves, and all the statist gets back are the type of resources he could have traded for in the first place.

first, the anarchist is going to be dead – see the USSR (50 million murdered), china (100 million murdered), et al

second, if the statist can realize a net gain from war, then there will be war.

third, if the statist leadership sees an anarchic society has a potential threat, then there will be war. the statist leadershipwill incur a net loss from an immediate war in order to avoid a greater loss having to fight an established more powerful anarchic society in the future.

351

filc,

Thats an opinion, and the last part regarding the “improved standard of living”, is just blatantly wrong. Democracy’s do not create wealth, only markets can do this.

it is not an opinion that significant improvements in standards of living, civil and political rights have occurred since 1776 within liberal democracies.

in sum, if the markets have created wealth, and I agree they do, then they have responded far better under liberal democracies then any other system, including anarchism.

recorded history has shown that within anarchism, nothing beneficial to mankind has been created. Moreover, it is ridiculous that the masses would adopt anarchism over liberal democracy when the former is unproven, perhaps unsustainable, and hasnt produced a dime of wealth or rescued a single soul from despotism.

What a democracy does instead is re-distribute the wealth generated by the market system.

then we need to adopt a balance budget amendment and enforce equal protection under law. we dont need to scrap the system that has worked better than all others to eliminate laws that redistribute wealth.

Your argument is just as much of a conflation as the democracy=freedom movement. It was anarchy that raised the standard of living, IE markets and long-term capital accumulation. It was democracy that stole from that system finding silly ways to justify itself, then redistributed it arbitrarily.

how can you credit ancap society for the benefits of civilization when ancap society has never existed ?!

and if your system did indeed exist, why was it so weak and pitiful that democracy was able to “steal from it” ??

if your going to support a system it should:

(1) have existed

(2) be sustainable or able to defend itself from competing systems

Furthermore your argument about democracy bringing peace is paradoxical.

You can only bring about the peace in democracy if the minorities of your systems continue to submit themselves as serfs. However no matter how you try and spin it your STILL talking about a coercive system built upon theft and aggression. Democracy ONLY works by aggression towards the minority, and only works well when minorities go along with it.

if your referring to a pure democracy than your argument is correct. however within the broad category of liberal democracies, the USA is a constitutional federal republic.

we have a constitution (bill of rights) to protect essential rights from the tyranny of the majority

we have checks and balances within our government to protect against both the tyranny of the majority and emerging despotism

we have decentralization of government within our federal system to further reduce the power of the central government.

the system is not perfect, but it is the best system that has evolved since the dawn of civilization.

in contrast, what anarchists are advocating is scraping thousands of years of political evolution to return to square one. the statists currently under the thumb of liberal democracy would love this opportunity.

If it were true “praxeologically speaking” that people preferred democracies

i never said that paraxeology states that people prefer democracy. i think that ultimately every system is proven only by a combination of coercion and cooperation, whether it is a system’s ability to defend itself from external threats or deter subversion from internal threats.

history has at least shown that anarchism has proven inadequate in defending itself from both internal and external threats.

352

angurse,

You are more than welcome to engage in serious and substantive debate on this thread. However, since you continue to engage in excessively spurious and wasteful exercices in logical fallacies and semantic diversions deviod of fact, logic, and empiricism (see below) then I am not going to waste my time with you.

Instead of actually pointing out fallacies (whether accurately or not), pointing out semantical diversions devoid of fact, logic, and empiricism (whether accurately or not), and respond to questions asked (whether gauging the question accurately or not) you’ve just gone on to repeat all that has been answered and addressed as some sort of proof of something “disturbing.” Disturbing, indeed.

Your latest post is a continuation of the disturbing pattern illustrated above.

In summary, it appears that with your latest post you will continue to pile fallacy on top of fallacy, engage in sematic distractions, cite books you have “read” to support arguments in the absence of any supporting analysis, red herring links to amazon.com of books you have “read” in the absence of any supporting argument , ad hominems (labeling those who challenge your arguments as “fools” and “liars”), and hyper-critical nitpicking of posts that contribute nothing substantive to the debate

I addressed all of your points. If you can’t coherently grasp what a logical fallacy actually is, what semantic distractions actually are, yet continue to spew accusations of such, you’ve got it backwards. It is you who cannot engage in substantive debate; rather. I questioned your reading skills earlier, your complete lack of a response and continued avoidance of points made just adds credence.

353

Exactly. They fail. They no longer exist. They have no more power. It’s all gone. Exactly what I’m saying would happen to the PDA who fails their stockholders and customers when they start a war. The key words in my quote was “on the equivalent of a fortune 500, and remaining so.”

your “logic” is supported when it concerns goods and services other than security and survival. If a private company or the entire oil industry collapses, then consumers can seek alternatives from other sources of energy (coal, gas, solar, wind, et al). The consumer is inconvienced for a short time until the market readjusts from cyclical episodes of creative destruction of failed industries, companies, out of date policies, obsolete technologies, et al

however, when this collapse occurs to a PDA providing defense as a result of an attack from a statist regime — there is no tomorrow, there is no creative destruction and rejuvenation.

there is only defeat and most likely enslavement and/or death.

in contrast, liberal democracies understand the real threat from statist regimes and they have demonstrated that they are more than capable of not only deterring statist aggression by rolling back and destroying statist threats.

354

angurse,

You are more than welcome to engage in serious and substantive debate on this thread. However, since you continue to engage in excessively spurious and wasteful exercises in logical fallacies, semantic diversions devoid of substance, and personal attacks then I am not going to waste my time with you.

In summary, it appears that with your latest post you will continue to pile fallacy on top of fallacy, engage in sematic distractions, cite books you have “read” to support arguments in the absence of any supporting analysis, red herring links to amazon.com of books you have “read” in the absence of any supporting argument , ad hominems (labeling those who challenge your arguments as “fools” and “liars”), and hyper-critical nitpicking of posts that contribute nothing substantive to the debate.

355

angurse,

you are mistaken in believing that you can defend logical fallacies with logical fallacies.

My post of Sat, Jul 24 2010 12:07 AM illustrating one of many of angurse’s logical fallacies:

the deconstruction of logical fallacy:

my post:

It is not my theory, it was developed based on years of research by the COW research group. SInce you disagree with the tenet that a change in the balance of power increases the likelihood of war between adversaries, please provide your source or educate us by providing your explanation of why the COW research team’s conclusions are incorrect.–Rettoper

angurse’s strawman reply:

I’ve given a very obvious challenge to the original statement. There are a wide array of complex factors that lead to war, from the political, to religious and ideological, to the cultural and economical.-- angurse

deconstruction:

using angurse’s logic – causal mechanism Z is false because causal mechanisms W, X, and Y are true.

challenges to angurse:

(1) produce the quote in which I said that political, religious, ideological, cultural, and economic factors do not lead to war.

(2) produce the quote in which I said that a change in the balance of power was the only causal mechanism leading to war.

(3) produce the quote in which I said that a change in the balance of power always leads to war.

(4) explain the “logic” of how a causal mechanism for war (change in the balance of power between adversaries) is “proven” false because other causal mechanisms for war exist (politics, ideology, religion, et al)

My post of Sun, Jul 25 2010 10:55 PM debunking angurse’s repeated use of logical fallacies to defend logical fallacies.

enjoy:

angurse fallacy #1 (selective memory loss):

I didn’t say power perception/uncertainty (or Z) was flat out false or couldn’t be a factor–angurse (posted today)

And power is always shifting, unless you have some pet definition of “power equilibrium” this theory is obviously false (emphasis added).–angurse (posted Jul 22 2010 12:19 PM)

also, “Z” is not “power perception/uncertainty”, it is a change in the balance of power between adversaries. Cease misrepresenting my statements. More likely, if you dont understand a statement, dont make assumptions ask for clarification.

angurse Fallacy #2 (strawman defense):

I’m challenging the emphasis being placed on it (by yourself) as either a necessary or a sufficient cause.-- angurse

and I am challenging you to produce the quote I claim that a change in the balance of power was “a necessary or a sufficient cause” for every conflict

angurse fallacy #3 and #4 (strawman and inverse post-hoc ergo propter hoc):

With the very obvious fact that there isn’t ongoing war of all against in spite of the fact that power is always shifting, Z obviously isn’t sufficient in lieu of W, X, and, Y. --angurse

(1) produce the quote in which I claim that conflict always results from a change in the balance of power

(2) produce the quote in which I claim that a change in the balance of power is the only factor for conflict.

(3) produce the quote in which I claim that a change in the balance of power must be present in every war.

angurse fallacy #5 (strawman again, you seem to like the strawman defense):

And there are plenty of examples where it isn’t even necessary.–angurse

produce the quote in which I claim that a change in the balance of power is always required for every conflict.

angurse fallacy #6 (evading)

Easy enough.–angurse

citing logical fallacies are not substantive responses to the challenges I issued.

My challenges remain unanswered.

angurse fallacy #7 ( posting incomplete statements from me that misrepresent my positions)

The quote from me that angurse cut and pasted to support his oft-used and bogus claim that I said that all wars are fought due to a change in the balance of power:

of course they are. History and empirical evidence confirm this.-- Rettoper Jul 21 2010 12:40 PM

My entire quote:

of course they are. History and empirical evidence confirm this.

most wars are fought when one adversary sees a change in the balance of power and uses this temporary advantage to prey on his competitor.–Rettoper Jul 21 2010 12:40 PM emphasis added

using angurse’s logic “most wars” = “all wars”. In sum, while an incomplete cut and paste of my response appears to “support” your assertions, you have misrepresented the substance of my post by intentionally omitting the pivotal statement that conclusively debunks your bogus argument. Moreover, many would consider this tactic intellectually dishonest.

angurse fallacy #8 (extreme selective memory loss)

my challenge to angurse:

(3) produce the quote in which I said that a change in the balance of power always leads to war.–Rettoper emphasis added

angurse’s reply:

I never made such a claim to you --angurse (posted today!!)

angurse’s earlier reply

No, there hasn’t been continuous war against all, like there would if the theory was correct.–angurse (posted on Jul 22, 2010 9:53 PM)

and incredibly, angurse debunks himself in the exact same post with this statement:

With the very obvious fact that there isn’t ongoing war of all against in spite of the fact that power is always shifting, Z obviously isn’t sufficient in lieu of W, X, and, Y. --angurse (posted today !!) emphasis added

angurse fallacy #9 (semantic diversion or theory disproven by misspelling, grammer, or faulty wording)

It isn’t a causal mechanism, a causal mechanism is a process in which the outcome (in this case war) is generated. --angurse

using angurse’s logic – Rettoper’s argument that a change in the balance of power increases the likelihood for war is proven false because causal mechanism is not the proper term used to describe a change in the balance of power.

angurse fallacy #10 (appeal to authority and red herring)

You have simply overemphasised its (change in the balance of power between adversaries) importance as a factor–angurse

The quote angurse used to support the preceding fallacy:

“War arises because of the changing relations of numerous variables–technological, psychic, social, and intellectual. There is no single cause of war. Peace is an equilibrium among many forces. Change in any particular force, trend, movement, or policy may at one time make for war, but under other conditions a similar change may make for peace." - Quincy Wright

Using angurse’s “logic” or lack of understanding of wright’s quote:

(1) Rettoper’s citation (COW’s 45 year empirical study) is debunked because angurse produced a quote from “quincy wright”.

(2) wright’s quote “proves” that a change in the balance of power between adversaries is not a primary cause of war.

(3) a change in the balance of power can lead to peace – so the assertion that a change in the balance of power is a primary factor leading to war is proven false.

(4) since wright didnt state that a change in the balance of power is the primary causal mechanism for war, this theory is “proven false”. amusingly, using angurse’s “logic” I could also cite wright’s statement to support the COW research since wright didnt specifically say that the COW conclusions were false either, so hence (using angurse’s “logic”) a change in the balance of power as a primary factor for war must be “proven”.

In sum, wright’s statement adds nothing substantive or earth shaking to the debate – it is simply another red herring from angurse

challenges to angurse:

(1) produce the statement by wright that debunks the COW assertion that a change in the balance of power is not a primary factor for conflict.

(2) produce the statement in which I claim that a change in the balance of power cannot lead to peace

(3) explain your “logic” in assuming how a change in the balance of power as a primary causal mechanism for war is disproven simply because wright correctly states that it is not the only mechanism for war.

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I was inot this thread for a while, but then I got back out of it for maybe 4 pages. I tried to get back in, but I just have to say

TL;DR [Too long; Didnt read] (sorry I had to play the ADD card all too often used in our society. But, jeez there are a lot of pages of VERY VERY VERY long posts… it would take hours to get back in… )

It is an interesting topic nonetheless.

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Already answered your challenge in my previous three posts. Feel free to actually address the questions and points made whenever your ready, if you aren’t willing, able, or ready, … no problem. However, completely dodging the posts and repeating obviously unsubstantiated remarks (see last post) isn’t going to help you achieve the substance you claim to desire.

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Rettoper, I don’t think you’re being fair in your assessment that ‘war must be profitable because war exists’. You’re missing the point that the state is only able to engage in war because it has subsidized the cost of it to the involuntary taxpayer. It’s not fair to say that activity X is profitable when the vast majority occurrences of X have been coercively funded, empirically speaking.

Whether a state could coerce its slaves to fund the bombing of the entire world or not is beyond the point. What I’m saying is that it is very less likely that people would bomb the universe if each has to choose and bear the risks.

The statist himself always has a net gain from war anyway as he hasn’t invested any of his own capital in it anyway.

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Correlation not causation.

Capital accumulation occurs natural over time. Democracies just happen to be the most recent statist fad. That doesn’t mean democracies get credit for rises in the quality of living. Thats like saying every invention in communist Russia was a product of communism, when actually were simply products of human nature and markets. They just were able of working around whatever obstacles that were in their place.

Great then drop your silly argument that liberal democracies somehow create wealth. Democracy’s only negate the market, you can only argue that they negate it to a lesser degree then other political systems.

Because as I corrected you above your seeing things in binary. It’s not Anarchy vs democracy. All political systems are in place besides the market structure, but do not and cannot replace the market system. You simply cannot remove or replace the market, anarchy(the market) is always there and is impossible to get rid of. That is really one of the points of praxeology. We’ve used markets since the dawn of human kind if you think about it.

I thought you said anarchy has never existed?

How do you know the success or failure of a market within an anarchic system if it has never existed?

Ofcoarse there is no such thing as “markets” existing within “anarchy”. The two terms are synonymous. Markets are anarchy. You must stop thinking in binary. There is no such thing as having anarchy or not having anarchy.

When you remove the binary analogy your whole argument breaks apart. You must understand that any system placed over markets is nothing more then a negation of the market itself. Thus democracy is a negation of anarchy to a degree, not a replacement. It does not replace anarchy, markets, as nothing can do that. Instead it only interferes with it’s natural behavior.

To digress for a moment, others have already pointed out the fallacy that if it hasn’t been tried, and succeeded, then it simply must be wrong. Yet we cannot look at politics in this way as it makes no coherent sense what so ever. There are democratic communist countries, democratic socialist parties, democratic fascist parties ect… A democracy is not a replacement for dictatorships, communists, socialists, and fascists. Instead the democracy is simply a vehicle which brings these political ideologies into power. Where as it used to be done overtly via direct assault back in the feudalist days. It’s now done in the same way but in a covert fashion.

Example1

Example2

Example3

Additionally if we took your reasoning seriously we would not be considering Liberal democracy’s as the most succesful economic methods. Since no “true” liberal democracy has successfully sustained itself. Instead we’d really have to consider State Capitalism and fascism as being the most successful political method..

List of largest Countries by GDP

But to return to my previous point, it makes no sense what so ever to classify things as democratic, liberal, socialist, or communist. Especially when the democratic system is nothing more then a vehicle which makes the other methods realizations. Democracy is entirely compatible to a degree with every political system out there.

So to summarize everything I have already stated, there is no such thing as Democracy vs Anarchy. As far as taxonomy goes the two cannot be compared whatsoever. A democracy is like an array of stones in a river. The market is the river. You can arrange the stones numerous ways but you cannot stop the river, at some point it will spill, or over time it will wear down your rocks. The market is the mississippi river, you cannot stop it.

Now back to defending anarchy. The system needs no defense what so ever. Your attempting to discredit it goes in vain, as I can almost guarantee that a majority of your daily affairs are done on the market. Perhaps you’ve taken it for granted and forgot that. The fact that democracy’s of all types cannot eliminate the market is further evidence that the object must exist. Ofcoarse if you understand praxeology you need not even analyze it that far.

The term liberal democracy really makes no sense what so ever. One word refers to “freedom” the other refers to a system of justifying wide-scale coercion, which is the exact opposite of freedom. It seems like a form of doublespeech to me. I don’t know how you define democracy but it generally boils down to “majority rules”. There are a number of twinks and changes, odds and ins, which attempt to hide this but it always boils down to that.

What you are actually doing when you vote is participating in attempt wide-scale coercion. It’s one of the most perverted acts man has created. Giving you the ability to do to your neighbor behind closed doors, what you would not be allowed to do to him in broad daylight. When you vote you are in effect attempting to force every other person on the face of the planet to involuntarily behave in accordance with your desires or wishes. You are in effect trying to force people against their will, to act in a manner that they would not have done had they been left alone.

That is the exact opposite of liberalism or freedom.

You assume that constitutions or bill’s of rights are in universal agreement upon their inception. Such an assumption is fairly outrageous and can safely be marked off as false.

Oh yes ofcoarse we see how well those work. We expect the system to tattle tell on itself right? I guess there was never a reason for these kinds of organizations?

You also will never be able to prove to us that a “liberal democracy” will be capable of keeping itself limited. In fact if we go by YOUR reasoning, not mine, then we would have to all agree that all democracies are incapable of limiting their size and can only perpetually grow, becoming more intrusive over time.

There is no historical example of a democracy voting itself into minarchism. There is plenty of history of governments ending in violence to reduce their size instead.

So you see, it is not me who needs to prove that anarchy works. It works every day. Instead it is you that needs to prove that democracies to not have a negative effect on the market, which ofcoarse is logically impossible. You also have to prove to us that democracy can control itself, which you cannot.

Fresh milk shows up at the store every morning by the magic of anarchy. I am typing this to you by a creation done in anarchy. There is no need to prove that human nature works, such a task is meaningless. It’s not a matter of working or not working, it just is.

To the contrary, anarchy(markets) is the most consistent long lasting economic phenomena of human nature. That will remain the case until we figure out how to live in the world of Star Trek.

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This is a mistake he makes which can be fixed by understanding economic calculation. There is no way of measuring the profitability of war, since it’s function is forced coercively. When coercion is applied the measurement of profit in an economic sense is meaningless.

However it’s typically safe to assume that it is not profitable, and destruction is can generally be regarded as a type of capital consumption, the opposite of capital accumulation. In other words it causes poverty.

This is most clearly outlined in the broken window fallacy.

I also explained a little bit about economic calculation here.