In this thread, rettoper talks as if a PDA is one entity, instead of a bunch of people working together.
Here let me do it for you
In this thread, rettoper talks as if a PDA is one entity, instead of a bunch of people working together.
strawman!
My distinction:
preference = that which would be chosen, absent barriers
incentives = that which would be chosen, present barriers considered
Your argument seems to rely on universally peaceful intentions of an-cap individuals, which apparently rests in their ideology. Can an-cap society exist without needing to rely on this peaceful ideology? In other words, can incentives carry the day instead? Can the profit motive, for instance, successfully guarantee peaceful relations among an-cap individuals, regardless of their internal acceptance/rejection of the relative superiority of an-cap ideology?
Does this make sense?
Within anarchic society all PDAs will be driven by profit
There’s that word again. Not all anarchists are an-caps btw.
however, if the USA was motivated by profit than we would have bombed afghanistan and iraq into the stone age with carpet bombing using cheap iron bombs and taken their strategic resources (oil in iraq, minerals in afghanistan)
Correct, were this not at least somewhat democratic of a nation/planet (at least among the major states) they would have just carpet bombed and taken. Fortunately there is at least some public temperance of expansion in our current political sphere.
we would not be engaged in a costly and unprofitable exercise in democratic nation building.
Costly for whom? There are a lot of multinational corporations making tons of money off this. It is just the public in general that bears the brunt of the costs.
And really, you think our leaders care if they wind up democratic or not? Whoever gives us the resources on the cheap, democrat or dictator, that is who we support.
in contrast, war in ancap society would be terrible since it would not be guided by moral or humanitarian considerations. It would be guided primarily by profit.
Im going to tend to agree with you there
I see what you’re saying now. I think it’s too hard to say for sure that I could create an argument based on incentives in this case. How difficult are the barriers to overcome?
It’s a large part of it, yes.
Maybe. But if most people were against it, I don’t think that such a society would last.
If people see initiation of force as being more profitable for them, or stopping this force as being too costly, then there will be such fighting.
I’m just failing to understand the argument that such society that is more likely to be against the initiation of force would be more likely to use it.
Why?
I agree. ancaps have yet to explain why ancap society has never emerged from the detritus of myriad faiiled states despite the fact that when the state failed (1) anarchy was present and (2) free markets were present. Yet, from this favorable position, ancap society couldnt gain traction. it is always statism that emerges from anarchy.
Along with that a modern anarchist society that ermerged in teh 20th century(syndicalists in spain) were overrun by a larger more powerful statists force. Even though it wasn’t AnCap it still illustrates how hard it would be for a anarchists society to emerge and sustain themselves in a geopolitic full of states.
No, do you have a source or link ?
Here’s an overview:
Basically they purchased diamonds for cheap from conflicting factions which helped fuel the conflict. What i’m trying to get at is that people still brought diamons from this company despite the fact that they were engaging in questionable conduct. .I don’t think it would be any different for PDAs. So I think the AnCap view that everyone will want to adhere to the NAP is overly-optimistic. That brings me to another point. PDAs will operating on a profit/loss system so I think it would be likely that other nations(since nations are here to stay) could outsource their operations to a PDA(granted that they are efficient) so they have a definite source of income.
Wait,
You state yourself it is more profitable to trade for resources. Then you state that ancap societies will be motivated by only profit and those companies that are most profitable will be the dominant ones.
Then you state that those PDA that acquire resources through force and not trade will be the most profitable and therefore the most dominant.
But acquiring those resources through force would be less profitable… Meaning that those PDAs that use force would be less profitable than the ones who dont. So how again are agressive PDA going to take over the world?
my assertion that a PDA will use coercion to annex a valued resource if the resource can be obtained with a net profit is not an assumption – it is a logical fact. To reject it would be to assert that PDAs within anarchic society are not motivated by profit.
But they would still be competing with PDA who acquire resources peacefully through trade. As you said yourself an aggressive business model will be the less profiable one.
societies that place value on scarce resources based on morality will fail. in contrast, if a scarce resource is not valued properly by an owner who neglects to provide an adequate defense to securing it — it will be annexed by an aggressor PDA that correctly judges the value of the scarce resource.
moreover, an owner of a valued resource who cannot adequately defend it, probably is not utilizing the productivity of the valued resource to maximum effect. Hence, an owner who covets the resource because he recognizes its misuse will fund a PDA to secure this resource so he can better utilize its resources or benefits.
Society as a whole benefits because a heretofore under-utilized resource is now more productive thanks to coercion.
In sum, all resources will approach a point where they are defended by a force commensurate to the perceived value of the resource – otherwise that resource is subject to predation if it is undervalued and subsequently underdefended. Moreover, coercion can be used to increase societal productivity and living standards when peaceful exchanges are not possible.
An ancap society will put economic value on resources. The rest of this is only your opinion. You are making a bunch of assumptions. As you have said acquiring resource through force is the least profitable means. If you cant trade for a resource that means that you value the resource less than its owner. The forcefull acquisition would make society poorer. So a society that accepted the forcefull acquision of resources would be the weaker society.
again, subjective value judgments have no place in a profitable and productive society.
Subjective value has everything to do with economic wealth, profitablility, and productivity. It is the basis of trade.
giant_joe
So what?
go back and read your own post. I stated that transparency would not exist in the PDA industry or in a PDA. You challenged that assertion and I rebutted you.
And wouldn’t the subsribers of this service want to know what this company is up to?
they might, but the primary concern of investors or subscribers is profit and security. If tranparency negatively impacted the ability of their PDA of choice to compete against other PDAs the investor would gladly surrender full disclosure for continued dividend checks.
If they didn’t give out this info, wouldn’t other companies get suspicious? I have no obligation to feed myself. It doesn’t mean I don’t. I have no obligation to disclose personal information. It doesn’t mean I don’t.
of course. but it would be suicide to open up the books to competitors in the PDA industry. It would be equivalent to the USA releasing all classified material to potential enemies. Customers and investors would acknowledge that a PDA required secrecy to be profitable. however, in contrast to the military in liberal democracies – within ancap society no other agency or industry would have access to the PDAs classified material.
Even if the assertion about their secrecy were true, I still fail to see how this makes PDAs more dangerous than state militaries.
within the USA military establishment – the civilian government is constantly privy to everything the miltary does. This forestalls the possibility of a coup de tete and the emergence of absolutism. There is no such transparency in the ancap PDA industry.
All the security firms I’ve seen in the free(er) market aren’t secretive of their operations.
not true. private security firms are regulated by the state or they are not obligated by anything other than force to reveal operational secrets.
The militaries of countries tend to be secretive and sometimes aggressive inwardly and outwardly. I’ve never seen someone driving around in a Brinks truck kill anyone for their wallet. It’s just very unconvincing that people who are against coercion in general would support a PDA for protection, and then do nothing about it when it is being aggressive.
comparing security firms today with those in ancap society is like comparing apples and oranges. brinks is a bit player and heavily regulated by the state so obviously it is neutered. In contrast, there would be no central authority to regulate and restrict security agencies in ancap society. Moreover, the dominate and dangerous PDAs in ancap society wouldnt be glorified delivery boys – they would possess battleships, bombers, battle tanks, aircraft carriers, et al.
in sum, virtually everyone on the planet expect sociopaths are against coercion to attain ends, yet when has that ever stopped these same people from using coercion when necessary to secure wealth, power, and security?
So I will “fail” if I prefer to start killing people and I don’t? This doesn’t make any sense.
strawman. read my posts more thoughtfully.
I stated that if coercion was profitable it would be used when peaceful means were not available.
This doesn’t make any sense. Investing in a firm today because of “social causes” is one thing. An ancap society shunning a PDA for being secretive and aggressive is another. In a society that is averse to coercion, they’ll have no interest in keeping around an aggressive PDA.
again you keep making moral value judgments.
just because you are personally pacifist doesnt mean that society as a whole will reject the profitablity and utility of using armed force to obtain wealth, power, and security.
moreover, in your fantasyland society of moralists, we wouldnt need PDAs since morality would protect unguarded valued resources alone.
people dont invest in moral enterprises, they invest in profitable ones. PDAs objective is not to attain some moral high ground - they are in business to make a profit and if a valued resource can be obtained at a profit by force, then force will be used.
The ancaps are against the initiation of force to realize their ends.
this is the myth of anarchism.
Namely they reject the utility of using armed force to obtain wealth, power, and security.
perhaps, this is why no ancap society has ever existed – it is founded on a house of cards.
in sum, the notion that the means by which profit and productivity is obtained trumps the actual attainment of profit is another utopian moral value judgment placed on society by faith-based ideologues who reject the free market.
hence, when you reject certain profitable machinations within the free market (coercion), you reject free market economics.
You cant laud profit while rejecting profitable enterprises that use coercion to obtain profit.
the means arent important or the morality of the means, if they are ultimately profitable.
Plenty is based in faith. I have faith in reality and in my perceptions, in that they are real and I experience them.
utopian societies that reject the utlity of coercion to obtain wealth, power, and security simply because they believe that armed force is immoral will fail.
All I am saying is that they would be more averse to the use of violence because they generally agree with the NAP, hence why they are an ancap society in the first place.
again your making a subjective moral value judgment. Just because you claim that most people would be averse to violence to the point that they would reject violence to obtain wealth, power, and security – doesnt make it true.
in fact, the utility of coercion in forcing positive change in society has been realized many times throughout history. Those that reject its utility for subjective moral reasons will end up on the ash heap of history that is reserved to those who forego profit and beneficial change because they disapprove of the means used to accomplish that change.
I don’t know what it means for a society to be “founded” in something. Founded spiritually? Morally? Economically? In general, they’d adhere to the NAP and allow the free market to take it’s course. I don’t think that’s a wild claim as to how such a society would generally look like.
ancap society is based on profit – hence capitalism.
the profit driven allocation of resources to the most productive users and uses.
if armed force can redirect this capital to more productive use than would otherwise be the case, then force will be used irrespective of the moral handwringing of disapproving pacifists.
jackson larose,
Not necessarily. There could be non-profit armies (perhaps with some ideological impetus). Ideas are just as powerful motivators as profit.
if you think ideas and non-profit armies are as “powerful” as ancap artifices then you are not an ancap.
moreover, if a PDA or any other enterprise in ancap society was motivated and driven by anything other than economic profitability, that enterprise would soon fail.
Some historical examples:
The reason why these examples are less likely to be re-enacted:
the entities that you listed would be soon fail in ancap society since they would be unable to compete with more efficient profit driven PDAs
Sensical, but assumes that coercion and resultant subjugation are profitable. Police states are very, very expensive to maintain. Take the eventual failure of:
These states didnt fail because they used coercion to attain power, wealth, and security. They failed because competitor states used coercion more effectively against them.
Given your usual assertion that anarchic societies have no real precedent, it is equally as difficult for you to forecast the negative outcomes of an anarchic society as it is for an anarchist to predict the theoretical benefits.
empirically speaking you are probably correct. however, praxeology confirms that anarchic society would be far more wealthy than statist regimes and more wealthy than liberal democracies. nonetheless, this would be prone to absolutism from a hegemon PDA cartel forming since no societal checks, balances, decentralization, and transparency exists to deter hegemon PDAs from forming.
specialization of labor and economy of scale confirm that eventually a cartel of dominate PDAs would form and likely assume absolutist power
“power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely” – lord acton.
“People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public…” adam smith
When is the last time you heard about the successful annexation of a nation-state by another? If anything, the trend is clearly leading towards liberation.
this is true primarily due to pax americana.
note that wherever the USA holds sway peace, prosperity, freedom, and stability reign (western hemisphere, europe, and asian pacific rim)
indeed, after hundreds of years of constant, destabilizing, and costly warfare, Europe is pacified thanks to US hegemony and the establishment of liberal democracy
however, where the USA does not hold sway coercion is in full bloom http://nobelprize.org/educational/peace/conflictmap/conflictmap.html
Given the current ideological stance of the population of the world (well, the west at least), I think it would be safe to say that the Liberal and Humanist Revolutions brought about by the Enlightenment were successful in shifting the norms in a way which makes it very, very difficult to wield despotic power over an unwilling populace. Back in the day, the kings and emporers usually had some sort of “Divine Right” to fall back on. The lack of that in a Humanist world, combined with the relative affordability and abundance of serious weapons, makes empire, especially a profitable one, rather hard to envision.
astute observation.
Organizations that are in the business of protection have an incentive to reduce harm and reduce risk. Example: shopping mall security guards.
Organizations that are in the business of taxation have an incentive to increase harm and increase risk. Example: the USA.
This is all you need to understand to see why we live in such a violent world.
Is there anything new in this thread? Or is it a repeated re-hashed attepmted of the following?
At a glance it looks like a bunch of repeated assertions.
Why?
Because, unlike other anarchist frameworks, I dont think there are any safegaurds against purchasing power in an-cap. Those with purchasing power will decide what companies do, or even which exist. So, if it proves profitable to forcibly displace a people and take their resource on the cheap, I fail to see how an an-cap society would be able to stop that. Im not saying that it will neccessarily prove profitable ever to engage in warfare, but if it does, once again, I fail to see how an-cap would stop it.
southern,
Wait,
You state yourself it is more profitable to trade for resources. Then you state that ancap societies will be motivated by only profit and those companies that are most profitable will be the dominant ones.
you are correct
Then you state that those PDA that acquire resources through force and not trade will be the most profitable and therefore the most dominant.
strawman. i never stated that.
the dominate PDA might very well use peaceful means to attain power, wealth, and security. However, the PDA that rejected the utility of coercion to obtain power, wealth, and security because of moral reasons would fail relative to a PDA that utilized any profitable means to obtain power, wealth, and security including coercion.
But acquiring those resources through force would be less profitable… Meaning that those PDAs that use force would be less profitable than the ones who dont. So how again are agressive PDA going to take over the world?
all things being equal, acquiring resources through peaceful means is always more profitable than by coercion due to opportunity costs from coercion. However, not all valued resources can be obtained by peaceful means, hence the PDA that effectively uses force to obtain these valued resources will dominate the pacific PDA that rejects coercion for moral reasons to obtain power, security, and wealth when no other means are possible.
But they would still be competing with PDA who acquire resources peacefully through trade. As you said yourself an aggressive business model will be the less profiable one
the PDA that is the most effective at gaining wealth, power, and security will be the dominate PDA irrespective of what method that PDA uses to obtain its wealth, power, and security.
Hypothetically speaking, it is possible that the dominate PDAs will emerge by peaceful means. Nonetheless, if a PDA rejects coercion when peaceful or voluntary exchange of a valued and profitable resource is not possible than that PDA will lose relative power, wealth,and security to the PDA that uses any means available, including coercion to earn a profit.
An ancap society will put economic value on resources. The rest of this is only your opinion. You are making a bunch of assumptions.
prove it is wrong. just saying it is so is an opinion and assumptions also. at least mine is supported by arguments and logic.
As you have said acquiring resource through force is the least profitable means.
strawman, I never said that. i stated that acquiring valued resources by peaceful means is generally less costly than by coercion. however, if the owner of the valued resource offers to sell his property or resource for no less than $500 billion and the PDA that covets the resource can take it by force for considerably less money, then the use of force is obviously more profitable means by which to obtain the valued resource.
If you cant trade for a resource that means that you value the resource less than its owner.
No. If you cant trade for a resource that ultimately is annexed by force it simply means that the owner has overpriced it while under defending it.
The forcefull acquisition would make society poorer. So a society that accepted the forcefull acquision of resources would be the weaker society.
No. It means that society has been forced to use coercion to remove inefficient owners of valued resources who did not maximize the resources true potential.
an example would be the NEw world. Using pacifist ancap logic, the bounty of the free world would be squandered and unrealized because the native americans could hold this resource perpetually without fear of losing it to coercion from the newly formed United States.
by any objective measure, the Americans utilized the valued resource that is the continental USA to better effect than the native american had. hence society as a whole is economically more efficient productive, and better served.
of course, if it was possible for the USA to purchase indian lands at a price below that which resulted from war, then it would have been done.
unfortunately, the native americans were not open to peaceful exchange and the Americans were averse to paying what they consider were exorbidant fees for native american land.
My shift is over, I will respond to the rest of the posts later.
thanks,
Organizations that are in the business of protection have an incentive to reduce harm and reduce risk. Example: shopping mall security guards.–stranger
I am not talking about glorified security guards or local PDA whose primary responsibility is law enforcement.
the PDAs I am referring to have aircraft carrier, bombers, tanks, et al.
their niche is defending and taking strategically valued resources (the strait of hormuz, fulda gap, niger uranium mines, green river oil formation, et al)
Organizations that are in the business of taxation have an incentive to increase harm and increase risk. Example: the USA.-stranger
not liberal democracies. they primarily fight wars for ideological reasons. read my previous posts on why war is difficult to wage among liberal democracies when compared to PDAs in ancap society.
primarily, within liberal democracies those that wage and fund war do not reap the economic benefits , hence wars must have ideological motives to be fought by a liberal democracy. Of course, the military industrial complex does benefit from these wars and will support them – however economic benefits alone will not lead to war within liberal democracies.
in contrast, PDAs within ancap society that wage war and fund war benefit directly and exclusively from the successful execution or war and subsequent plunder.
This is all you need to understand to see why we live in such a violent world. – Stranger
your statement is correct because those that wage war within a statist regime benefit directly from the successful execution of war – when the world is democratized then war will become largely obsolete since the ideological motivations for waging war within liberal democracies will no longer exist, namely the preservation and promotion of life and liberty.
i am out for good now.
later
Yes. It seems that his assertions are proof enough to him. I’ve had enough of this.
giant_joe,
I had to correct your misstatements before I check out.
Why make this assertion? Do people just throw morality out the window all of a sudden?
by what economic value judgment do you assert that the use of armed force is always immoral or unproductive ?
Currently, world leaders go to war for their interests and the supposed interest of their states. Over 1 million Iraqis have been displaced/killed in the name of humanitarian goals.
there is alot of misinformation on the iraq war that is circulating among ancaps. This is one of the more popular fallacies.
the truth:
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2008/pr02/en/index.html
note that by any objective, rational and independent measure – the world health organization of the UN is not a neocon front group.
Rettoper wrote the following post at Sat, Sep 11 2010 1:02 AM:
Organizations that are in the business of protection have an incentive to reduce harm and reduce risk. Example: shopping mall security guards.–stranger
I am not talking about glorified security guards or local PDA whose primary responsibility is law enforcement.
the PDAs I am referring to have aircraft carrier, bombers, tanks, et al.
their niche is defending and taking strategically valued resources (the strait of hormuz, fulda gap, niger uranium mines, green river oil formation, et al)
How could that be a business? Who would pay for this?
Organizations that are in the business of protection have an incentive to reduce harm and reduce risk. Example: shopping mall security guards.–stranger
I am not talking about glorified security guards or local PDA whose primary responsibility is law enforcement.
the PDAs I am referring to have aircraft carrier, bombers, tanks, et al.
their niche is defending and taking strategically valued resources (the strait of hormuz, fulda gap, niger uranium mines, green river oil formation, et al) – REttoper
How could that be a business? Who would pay for this? --stranger.
there are myriad strategically vital centers of gravity that are worth billions of dollars in rents, royalties, and fees when exploited to maximum effect. Moreover, these centers must be defended by large PDAs from predation by other large PDAs.
the mississippi river delta, north pole oil reserves, chile’s lithium desposits, et al are examples of lucrative centers of gravity that would be profitable to hold.
it is illogical to assume that these valuable resources would not be taken by force if they were inadequately defended and a net profit could be realized with their annexation. moreover, the PDA holding these resources could leverage this new found wealth to acquire more centers of gravity.
contrary to the faith-based utopian assertions of moralist ancaps – morality will have little bearing on the machinations of PDAs operating within a free market framework.
Indeed, morality will be largely absent in anarchic society since its utility in determining economic value is incalculable – in contrast profit seeking is the primary driving force in ancap society and the actions of its dominate PDAs.
Is there anything new in this thread? Or is it a repeated re-hashed attepmted of the following?
What praxeological precept(s) confirm anarchism over minarchism in providing for societal economic health AND societal security from external threats?
At a glance it looks like a bunch of repeated assertions.–filc
A “bunch of repeated assertions” that remain unchallenged by any substantive, logical, or empirically supported arguments from sam, filc, jon, yuberries, angurse, et al.