sam,
By the very nature of PDA’s and states, they are inherently at odds with each other because a state is a territorial Monopoly on defense. And again aligning with a state and aggressing makes them an outlaw and they lose all of their customer base, stock holders and staff as shown later in that argument, all of which would happen before or immediately after they made the agreement with that state. It is both a short term and a long term lose situation for the PDA.
investors dont give a rats ass who a rogue PDA aligns with as long as its actions turn in a profit, period.
what is all this talk about outlaw ?!
if an outlaw or outlaw behavior turns a profit then the outlaw will be considered a hero to those that funded him.
Again, see above for WWI analogy. Also, see above for PDA payment argument. You’re thinking of it all wrong. Imagine it more like a cellphone service. Verizon wireless has their own contract customers, but it also has pre-paid phones that you can buy. It’s not like they will refuse to serve you if you have an sprint plan. Also, verizon wireless sells bandwidth on their networks all the time to other companies. Wal-mart has a service called smart talk which is actually entirely based on Verizon’s network. An analogous PDA service is completely feasible because this setup overcomes all of the same objections that you think exist, but don’t effect firms decisions in reality
verizon and any other private enterprise doesnt give a rats ass about cooperation. they dont cooperate with competitors to be good citizens. they only cooperates when they can profit from the action and increase market share over their competitors. I guarantee that verizon or any PDA would never expend resources or cooperate with a competitor if it wasnt profitable irrespective of the damage to the rest of the industry of society in general.
when have corporations rejected profit for the good of competitors or the community in general? and why should they? if they arent in business solely to make money they fail.
end of story.
Obviously securing the centers of gravity will be up to the PDA’s, and those customers will obviously be paying more in order to secure them. Iraqi Insurgents are still able to make costs of invasion astronomically high, even in Iraq. Sure given any sufficiently one sided battle, an anarchic community will fail at defending itself. But that doesn’t make the existence of insurgents any less of a deterrent. And remember, we aren’t talking about a state invasion. We’re talking about a PDA, who has yet to install a state in which it can constantly extract resources from the populace, and civil resistance will stop them from doing that, or at least make it much more costly.
i dont know exactly what you are getting at here. My point was that if you have disparate competing PDAs, with disparate funding sources, and numerous free riders responsible for protecting vital centers of gravity it is infinitely more difficult than a single statist military, a single statist command and control, and a single funding source (no free riders)
If a preventative and preemptive war is truly that, then it is not an aggressive war. The PDA’s will surely have to convince the insurance agency of that, but if they can convince the Insurance agency that there will be fewer losses from a preventative war then an invasion by that state or firm, and that that state or firm will indeed invade absent the preemptive war, the insurance agency will underwrite it.
it doesnt matter what kind of war is fought. if it is profitable, it will be fought irrespective of whether it is just, unjust, preventative, defensive, et al.
anarchism doesnt eliminate immoral behavior, it simply makes it more profitable to engage in immoral wars since those funding and waging the war receive 100% of the plunder.
in contrast, you will have peace within a geopolitic of liberal democracies because those funding war (taxpayers) dont receive the plunder of profits from war, hence the wars for profit are far and few between and the leadership that engages in them are summarily voted out in the next election.
We aren’t arguing about statists, we’re arguing about whether or not it’s profitable for an existing PDA to start an aggressive war. This clearly doesn’t apply to them. Or if it does, then other PDAs will have all the same measures that that PDA has. And what is your obsession with enclaves? It’s not like the insurance agency can’t have it’s money and resources in different places. It’s part of being an insurance agency. They will contract with their own PDA’s to protect their property as well (which would obviously include stopping cruise missiles and nukes from attacking them). It’s not like that risk will stop insurance agencies from arising being profitable. Also, good luck convincing the world that nuking an anarchic society during your aggressive war was a necessary maneuver. And this isn’t an argument specifically against anarchy. Nuclear threat is an argument against ALL societies.
enclaves are essential to a profitable PDA. Why, it is far easier to have most of your customers in the same location, it is far easier to defend them from threats then to have them spread out all over the friggin countryside thousands of miles apart. so naturally PDAs will represent specific enclaves for economic reasons. however, I agree that funding isnt dependent on geography, but quality service IS!
also, if I am a PDA I dont need to convince anyone but venture capitalists, investors, and customers that a particular action is profitable. If a competing PDA is a threat to my security then nuking them is a reasonable course of action to protect my investment from loss.
in sum, your ancap “utopia” simply parrots what occurs in our geopolitic today. you offer nothing earth shaking or new, other than to gut peaceful, prosperous, free, dynamic, and stable liberal democracies and replace it with myriad more competing and disparate interests.
No, France wouldn’t lose insurance protection if they could convince the insurance agency that that they were going to be invaded later on as well. And the insurance agency would have been much more willing to allow it since they would be monetarily on the hook for all of the damages from the next invasion.
how would you or anyother ancap adherent know what the market would do ?!
i am constantly amused when ancap adherents claim they know how the market would perform under certain circumstances. If ancaps are so cocksure about predicting market mechanisms they why are so many of them dependent on government funded student loans ?
in sum, you dont have a clue how market forces would react to competing PDAs and their interests.
You still haven’t refuted that “same ole’ crap yet.” The reason liberal democracies generally don’t fight each other is because of mostly free trade. Anarchies will have that same condition, only in much greater quantities.
manifestly absurd,
if that was the case we wouldnt have invaded iraq in 1991. we would have continued to engage in a lucrative oil trade with them and kept the global price of oil low.
liberal democracies dont wage war because we share a common bond of respect for life and liberty, AND those that wage war (military), those that command war (civilian leadership), and those that fund war (taxpayers) represent disparate and competing interests that tends to reduce the chances of war being fought for other than security reasons. moreover, unlike ancap PDAs, these entities are all transparent. in contrast, PDAs in an ancap society would develop weapon systems, train, fund, and execute provocative actions in the shadows thereby increasing distrust and global tensions.
moreover, liberal democracies understand that they dont represent a threat to each others security, only statist regimes need fear liberal democracies.
What the hell was that? That had nothing to do with my point. This entire section is about a PDA invading in an attempt to occupy the invaded land and extract it’s resources, not a preventative war. Also throwing out IP as another bullet point in your favor, when you know full well there are arguments that IP doesn’t encourage, but retards IP development which you haven’t even come close to refuting, is moronic. But I will leave that to another debate for now.
absurd assertion. preventative war and a war to annex resources of any kind can be the same. a PDA can attack and take a strategic target to prevent a threatening competitor PDA from obtaining vital war making resources or a geographically critical position.
history is full of peaceful, non-aligned, and prosperous nation-states and anarchic enclaves being overrun by large armies seeking to deny the strategic value of the enclave to another competitor.
You have to prove economies of scale. You can’t just say it as an argument for monopolization of an industry. Do you even know what diseconomies of scale are? How about the internal calculation problem?
diseconomy of scale doesnt mean that a walmart like PDA cant out compete smaller PDAs. It simply means that when a PDA reaches near monopoly status it may not be as efficient as when it was slightly smaller. it doesnt imply that it will lose power relative to smaller competitors.
the bottom line is that a PDA or a cartel of PDAs will emerge as a hegemon and then your “utopian experiment” is shit out of luck and subject to the whim of a single CEO or corporate board, hence you have absolutism or oligarchism.
How about the fact that those checks and balances are failing, and they will never be put back in place due to a massive public goods problem inherent to democracy, which is knowing your government representatives, Researching and knowing the correct policy to put in place, knowing how your representatives would vote, going out to vote for that representative knowing how little your vote counts, having to go against major lobbies with way more money, marginal interests, and time than you. You expect a ridiculous amount of people to do that. Sorry, it’s never going to happen. For more, I’d really really REALLY recommend you watch this lecture on it.
This in fact is the real force that anarchists have to deal with. Until we can over come this just once, we will never see an anarchist society. But, we only have to overcome it once. Liberal Democracies have to deal with it forever.
since 1776 we have seen unparalled improvements in civil and political rights within liberal democracy, especially if you have been a slave, woman, or didnt own property. moreover, the system has demonstrated that it is dynamic. Today in Europe we are seeing dramatic reductions in the size and scope of government as the people see that the welfare-warfare state in untenable.
the same will occur within the USA starting in 2010 and progress further in 2012. admittedly the process is slow, however the upside is that it is largely peaceful and substantive change can and does occur.
nonetheless, the next 20 years will be critical. if we cant reduce the size and scope of economic coercion that is damaging societal health and well being then the ancap alternative will become more popular, sadly the statist alternatives will likely gain favor to a greater degree.
however, I will be on the ancap side, if the heretofore successful although not perfect, experiment with constitutional federal republicanism fails.
That isn’t an argument against Mutual Defense Agreements. Not even close.
i have stated previously that an expertly managed alliance can actually reduce the chances of war and increase security. but often, these agreements are mismanaged or become outdated and actually increase the chances of war and reduce the security of those involved
Liberal Democracies are not infallible. What’s your point. Again, this isn’t an argument against Mutual Defense Agreements, nor PDA’s. Also, the failure of one PDA’s business structure does not mean the entire industry’s failure. The other PDA’s will acquire very cheaply all of the failing firms remaining resources, and be able to use those resources for defense.
PDAs consolidating and merging will lead to a hegemon PDA which in turn will lead to absolutism. so when your PDAs seek out competitors to align with in mutual defense arrangements you might increase security while the downside is that you centralize security which is more dangerous to societal security from the establishment of a single hegemon PDA with most of the munitions, trained fighters, and control of vital centers of gravity.
if you want lasting peace — democratized the globe.
bullshit
thanks for the link, however I will read it later since I dont want to lose what I posted.
In anarchy, Gold (not green) is the only color that matters. Also, that’s a pretty lame argument. The reason the U.S. is a melting pot (to the extent that it actually is) is because of freedom of movement for capital and labor. This would be even grater in anarchy. And they would have common businesses serving them all. Why do you think McDonalds is a business on every corner of the earth. Why do you think that the Geico of PDA’s wouldn’t have customers throughout the anarchic society? There’s no reason for them to not cater to each of those enclaves even if they did exist, which they wouldn’t because of that same melting pot you claimed.
valid argument. increased trade and interaction among disparate groups leads to reduced tensions and greater cultural integration.
however, liberal democracies offer the same trade and interaction benefits among disparate groups without the uncertainty associated with surrendering security to disparate, competing, and shadow PDAs
why gut an existing and popular system that offers the same benefits that you even admit, MCDONALDS.
moreover, no ancap has convincingly explained to me why PDAs are even necessary if market forces eliminate the need for armed conflict.
They also did it before there was even a constitution in place. What makes you think people won’t defend their communities? Your enclave model is bullshit as shown above. People are charitable, and Anarchy will make them more so, not less. People fight for ideas. Anarchy is an Idea, and would gain the same support as any constitution could muster if it were just a wide spread. But even if they weren’t, it’d still be better defended than your average liberal democracy.
they will defend their own tiny religious, ethnic, racial, communal,et al enclave – but they will be less inclined to defend an adjacent enclave that they share no common heritage, history, or political system.
free riders will also deter effective resistance to neighboring areas under attack. for example, there is no provision to ensure that everyone impacted by a threat contributes to its defense. moreover, a free rider who is not protected could be in possession of an important strategic or geographic resource or objective. essentially, a PDA would have to expend resources defending a non-paying customer in order to protect paying customers or investors.
in reality, if my PDA cant defend me, I simply move my business to the bigger aggressor PDA thereby rewarding aggression.
if you cant beat them, join them.
paradox of defense within an ancap society
in sum, I havent read much on the free rider issue. I am interested to learn how ancap society adjusts for this eventuality.
if you dont respond convincingly I will read more from hoppe, rothbard, murphy, dilorenzo, et al.
I’m sure you’ve heard the critical mass argument before, so this is just a rehash of an earlier refuted bait.
the bottom line is that opinion matters.
you cant force societal change if society doesnt buy into your ideas.
and at present, anarchism is rejected by the overwhelming majority of elites in business, arts, academia, politics, science, et al.
more importantly, it is utterly rejected by the overwhelming majority of the masses.
to paraphrase the old adage:
in the free market, great ideas are like assholes — everyone has one and they all stink.
translation: if you cant sell ancap society to the masses, it aint going to happen.