AC: The Economics of Revolutions

[bisonbison]

I think this is a definition that should please EVERYONE

State-like parties (professional mobs running protection rackets) will spring up almost immediately after the creation of a significant site of ACness. Such mobs have been a fact of life since at least the creation of the city.

In order to combat the threat of extortion or theft from these mobs, ACers will form cooperative leagues for mutual self-defense. These two coalitions (ACers and Mobs), in all their local franchises, will eventually conflict and civilians not party to either that live nearby may suffer collateral damage. If the local ACers lose, it is likely to result in a local monopolistic proto-state, so they'll be sure to fight hard.

Now, before the ACness forms, you don't know who exactly would be at risk from collateral damage, you don't who would play 'Belgium' in this rendition of Recent European History. But in any thought about the possibilities of ACness, each and every person will deduce his risk of suffering in this collateral damage by assessing his entire life, weighting thousands of factors by their importance to him, and computing that to a result. He'll make an economic decision.

Anyone who feels less at risk in the current regime will favor stability over revolution, and will conform to the rules of the state to the degree he finds worthwhile.

ACers must argue that the average person underestimates the current level of threat he faces, or underestimates the savings he'll achieve with ACness. Anti-ACers must argue that ACers overstate the current level of threat people face on average, or overstate the ACness savings. That's fine.

But we should make more allowance for the current state of things, since each and every sane being is a perfect little personal capitalist.


By the by, this is also why I think ACers are particularly dumb: they claim to be capitalists, shouldn't they understand that the current situation is just economics? People don't want to revolt for much the same reason so many ACers still pay their federal income taxes: the gains aren't worth the price.