When is a completely free market bad?

[rkbabang]

You and many others think that, I and many others don't.  I think self interest incentives mean that some sets of human beings are better at regulating.  It is not an inherent trait some humans posses, it is inherent based on situations.  Humans are extremely prone to fraudulent activities under the right set of circumstances, I think relying on everyone to individually regulate themselves in every single facet of their lives would be just about the most inefficient thing that could ever happen, it would be exhausting.  Not that the current situation is amazing or anything, just that I think a balance is more ideal.  I think the worst situations would be the two at either extremes of the spectrum.

 

Self regulation, self policing is a concept in economics and business.  It does not mean 'any human(s) monitoring any human(s) being in any capacity ever' like you are implying.

 

 

Yes, exactly.  I couldn't run every facet of my life.  That is why you hire experts to do certain things for you.  My only abjection is having some of these forced upon me without choice.  Not only that, the fact that the rest of society thinks that these experts should be able to force me to do certain things rather than suggest them.  It turns service into servitude.  I would object to being forced to use a certain automachanic who I wasn't allowed to negotiate prices nor fire and go somewhere else if I was unhappy, just as strongly as I object to using the monopoly government protection services.  Also the incentives are such that the people who hold these positions of power are the very people who should never be given such power.  You shouldn't look for the most power-hungry sadistic individuals in society and tell them I am at your service and will do whatever you say. There is a reason you can tell someone is a cop or a politician just by talking to them even when they are not working and have no uniform on.  There is a certain type of person who gravitates to those jobs, and with no "keeping the customer happy" requirement, it is a disaster.  There will always be theft and aggression, I'm not saying those things can be gotten rid of.  I'm only saying we shouldn't institutionalize them accept those things as being okay.  In a sane society the people who perpetrate theft and aggression would be considered criminals, not public servants.

[turar]

Governments are simply groups of human beings trying to self regulate themselves and others using aggressive, unprovoked violence and theft.

I was merely trying to picture specific situations in the society you propose, but you keep talking in generalities. Yes, governments are simply groups of people. Just like the groups of people in anarcho-capitalist world. What's the difference then? Sooner or later groups of people will use force and coercion against another group of people, for better or worse. I don't see how labeling something as "anarcho-capitalist" changes anything.

[rukawa]

Wow, I don't think either of you could be more pedantic if you tried. 

 

I wasn't trying to be pedantic. I was attempting to point out a fatally flawed assumption of most big-government liberals. The idea is that government is somehow special. Above and beyond mere mortals. It has no biases, no interests. It does thing based on the "common good". Its this neutral arbiter. Basically its God. That is your essential argument. You find me pendantic because I questioned your assumption and since the assumption is so ingrained in your thinking you think I am being pendantic.

 

All I am really doing is pointing out how ridiculous your assumption is. I don't hate Government. I don't hate Corporations. I don't believe in anarchy or even libertarianism. I find these philosphies ridiculous and I do think rkbabang's ideas are insane.

 

But I find the ideas of modern liberals on the way Government works to be hopelessly naive and completely ahistorical. How did it come to this? The classical liberals were far far smarter about all these issues. Adam Smith lived three hundred years ago and he was way smarter.

 

Its in the News. Its on TV. Do you read about how corrupt Chris Christie is in New Jersey. Or do just say, "oh its a Republican" and so it doesn't count? I don't get it. You live in Canada. Maybe youv'e read about Dalton McGuinty and the cancelled Gas Plants. The corruption and horrendous decision making surrounds us. I don't get how you don't see it?

[rkbabang]

Governments are simply groups of human beings trying to self regulate themselves and others using aggressive, unprovoked violence and theft.

I was merely trying to picture specific situations in the society you propose, but you keep talking in generalities. Yes, governments are simply groups of people. Just like the groups of people in anarcho-capitalist world. What's the difference then? Sooner or later groups of people will use force and coercion against another group of people, for better or worse. I don't see how labeling something as "anarcho-capitalist" changes anything.

 

It is impossible to answer in specifics.  Picture a world where insuring against loss was always done by the government. There was no insurance industry at all.  If you got in a car accident you filed a claim with the department of autoinsurance and hope they gave you something.  Same with your house or business.    In such a world without hundreds of years of prior insurance industry history it would be impossible to answer the questions "how would private insurance work?"  "How much would it cost?" "What if the insurance company didn't pay you?"  "What if the private insurance company went broke and couldn't pay anyone?" "Who would insure the insurers?" etc.    But it would be easy to say that these are simply things that can be worked out through market competition. And that it is wrong for the government to steal money from everyone to insure property without giving us any choice in the matter.

So what would a private security/protection system and legal/tort system look like? Who would keep track of property titles? How would you this that or the other thing?  There have been whole books written on such topics and they all don't agree with each other, so I have no idea.  I do know that if there is a demand then people would come up with a way to attract customers and make money from providing such services, and that it is wrong to use theft to fund such systems now.

 

[RichardGibbons]

Oh boy, it was only a matter of time before someone mentioned Somalia.

 

Well, yeah.  You are arguing for a particular system of government.  Seems pretty obvious that you'd want to talk about the place where that system of government has been tried.  I mean, why the heck would you want to ignore the evidence where it has been tried?

 

That said, I take it from your response that you basically wouldn't want to live in Somalia, despite the fact that it's the best example of what you want in existence today.  So, for you, this is more like a "I want to complain about the government, and saying that it's violent gives me an excuse" type of argument.  Got it.

 

It is impossible to answer in specifics.

 

I'm shocked!  So to summarize your argument, "unicorns and fairies exist, but you don't want to talk about where we can find them." OK.

 

The thing I find fascinating about this whole discussion is how quickly the whole idea breaks down the second one starts talking about specifics, yet people still believe they are making a credible argument.  It's like evidence and basic reasoning are totally irrelevant.

 

I think I read 20 years back, though I can't recall the source, that  all societies have roughly the same percentage of people with extremist beliefs.  In Islamic cultures, that might manifest as people interpreting the Koran in a violent way.  In the USA, it might manifest as the right-wing Christian views.  In Europe, it might manifest as people believe Marxism can work.  I wonder if this is another example of that.

 

[rkbabang]

I think I read 20 years back, though I can't recall the source, that  all societies have roughly the same percentage of people with extremist beliefs.  In Islamic cultures, that might manifest as people interpreting the Koran in a violent way.  In the USA, it might manifest as the right-wing Christian views.  In Europe, it might manifest as people believe Marxism can work.  I wonder if this is another example of that.

 

I would agree with that 100%.  In some societies some of these crazy extremist views were "Blacks are human beings", "Women should be equal to men", "The king isn't really a god"....  It is from the crazy extremists, when they are correct, that progress eventually comes.  The "realists" are always happy to keep things as they are, for no other reason other than because that is how things currently are.