Statism, AC, and Corporatism- The End Result is the Same

[BCPVP]

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These indispensable "investors" would be exactly the wealthy gatekeepers of the so-called "free market" who would, in fact, be its de facto controllers.

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I'd love to hear your "libertarian" alternative where this wouldn't happen. Lay it on us!

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I don't remember Skidoo ever claiming to be a libertarian.

He does seem to be confusing someone "controlling" his own money with "controlling" the market as a whole.

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Oops. Thought I was responding to Mempho. I'd be open to hearing about Skidoo's ideal government where such "problems" are solved.

[Mempho]

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Do you realize how relatively poor the 10 richest people are? Do you realize how easy it would be to defend against them?

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Purchase the media sources and you can change public opinion. Some people will know "the truth" but, to the general populace, "the truth is on CNN."

The scary part is not what gets covered on the news, it's what doesn't.

[Al68]

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What I mean by corporatist is that corporations dictate government policy even if it undermines the best interests of the masses. Most is pretty much consolidated. There is a market for unbiased media, surely enough of a market to garner more ratings than say, MTV9, and yet we don't have it. There's a demand and there's not a supply. No, we get Anna Nicole Smith in this country. Corporations don't want honest media coverage. Otherwise, they'd be having a debate on something like SPP, the Fed, or taxation right now on television. Where is the free market?

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Well, I still don't know what you mean. What government policies (laws) are you referring to? Can you give a relevent example (of a government policy, not a situation in society)?

And of course I'm skeptical, because historically, libertarian policies have been claimed by many to be "dictated" by corporations.

Lack of an unbiased media (which I agree is the case) is not evidence of anything. "Unbiased" is subjective. Some people think the mainstream media is biased to the left, and others think it is biased to the right. There could never exist a media that all would call unbiased.

[Mempho]

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These indispensable "investors" would be exactly the wealthy gatekeepers of the so-called "free market" who would, in fact, be its de facto controllers.

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I'd love to hear your "libertarian" alternative where this wouldn't happen. Lay it on us!

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I don't remember Skidoo ever claiming to be a libertarian.

He does seem to be confusing someone "controlling" his own money with "controlling" the market as a whole.

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Oops. Thought I was responding to Mempho. I'd be open to hearing about Skidoo's ideal government where such "problems" are solved.

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Since you thought you were responding to me, I'll try to give you an honest hypothesis:

Ideal situations don't exist. Certain people will always desire to rule over all creation. They have existed throughout history (Caesar, Napoleon, Hitler). Some people are more benevolent, others more viscious in their attempts to rule. My thesis contends that all of the political segments have their inherent vulneralbilities (statism, fascism, and libertariansim). Not only do they have their inherent vulnerabilities, but they all will eventually fall due to those vulnerabilities and it is just a matter of time.

Judging from a preponderance of evidence perspective, the United States, as we knew it, will probably not exist in 30 years. The U.S. has been a good attempt at limited government, but, when final history is written, the country will have been undermined by those vulnerabilties that remain present in anarcho-capitalism. The U.S. was once a very laizzez-faire place and that place exists no longer. Anarcho-capitalism does not cure the process by which our government was subverted but merely the apparatus by which she was subverted.

It is my contention that a very craftily designed government consisting of heavy anti-trust and otherwise very light regulation could have avoided this end for a longer period of time. Unfortunately, my vision is not reality.

The reality is that our people have grown fat and lazy and wish to be entertained at all times by the trifles of life. Most of them care little about the search for truth and they do not demand it. Like Rome, our citizens will have failed to keep a vigilant watch on liberty and, as the end result, our citizens will have lost that liberty.

When the end is told, when we are living that nightmare, you will probably wonder where it all went wrong. All of you on this forum can take solace in the fact that your hands were clean, for you were not amongst the apathetic. You did care and I hope that solace is enough to strengthen yourself against the future.

[Al68]

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An ACist should answer this, but I'll give it a shot. In AC land, oppressing others would reduce profits. Of course these ten people may have priorities more important to them than profit, but then how did they get so rich? This is not a guarantee against oppression, but nothing is.

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I see what is being said here. I really do. The simple answer is that, since you have the best hand, are unlikely to get drawn out on, and you don't want to lose any customers, so you slowplay until it's too late.

People that make billions of dollars are typically very smart. Don't box them in as a typical sucker. They know exactly how to play the game.

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I think you misunderstood me. Deciding that making more money is more important than oppressing people is not being a "sucker".

[ojc02]

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BTW, back to your point that in a free market, power will concentrate and be used to erect barriers to entry, in your example of your awesome airline business model, which market participants are flexing their concentrated power to keep you out of the market?

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Let's make the assumption that my business model is, in fact, superior. Let's further assume that I could get enough debt and equity financing for 10 jetliners and that 10 jetliners would be of "sufficient mass" for me to start a viable airline (this would be about the bare minimum for the floatation of my business model).

Now, if you grant me these assumptions, do you not believe that the large carriers would engage in predatory pricing on the routes that I run in order to eliminate the threat I pose with a superior idea?

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Liquidity in the Capital markets prevents predatory pricing. If your airline is truly more efficient than the existing ones, then it would be a tremendous investment opportunity. If the legacy airlines start predatory pricing, you can also drop your price and use the investment money to beat them. The potential reward for the investors is huge. When the legacy company goes bankrupt (or is crippled), your company will enjoy a very large market share.

The only thing that prevents this from happening is government rescue packages for inefficient airlines and the additional potential for anti-trust lawsuits against your new company when you establish strong market share. Ironic eh?

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I don't disagree with the government being a huge issue here. FWIW, I view our current government as corporatist (something that I don't think the masses of the populace believe just yet). I am for much, much less government than we currently have. I think the libertarian corner of the graph is the right place to be and I think that we would get along just fine politically in today's political spectrum. I do, however, fine myself being more moderate in my views. We share the same direction, but not the same distance.

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I am probably in a very similar situation to you but I'm aaalmost ready to accept AC. Of the concerns you have, I think several are not warranted, monopoly / anti-trust in particular. One concern that a lot of people have is that we'll wind up with a ton of evil monopolies who'll reduce everyone's standard of living. The fact is though, that natural (ie no gov interference) monopolies just don't happen for all the reasons we've already gone over. All monopolies that have ever existed have been for one of the following reasons:

1. Government legislation restricting entry into the market (eg Post Office)
2. Corporate Taxation. This causes the smaller firms to not have as much capital as they otherwise would, making it more difficult for them to compete with the big leviathan companies.
3. Government subsidies for politically connected companies.
4. Bankruptcy rescue packages for politically connected companies.

It's also amusing (or upsetting) to note that the Sherman act was originally introduced to *maintain* local monopolies in the meat packing industry and keep prices high.

[Mempho]

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An ACist should answer this, but I'll give it a shot. In AC land, oppressing others would reduce profits. Of course these ten people may have priorities more important to them than profit, but then how did they get so rich? This is not a guarantee against oppression, but nothing is.

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I see what is being said here. I really do. The simple answer is that, since you have the best hand, are unlikely to get drawn out on, and you don't want to lose any customers, so you slowplay until it's too late.

People that make billions of dollars are typically very smart. Don't box them in as a typical sucker. They know exactly how to play the game.

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I think you misunderstood me. Deciding that making more money is more important than oppressing people is not being a "sucker".

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No, I just think you are giving the human moral compass more credit than it deserves. Eventually, the situation will occur when the wrong person gets the money. Then, all hell breaks loose.

[Brainwalter]

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The U.S. has been a good attempt at limited government, but, when final history is written, the country will have been undermined by those vulnerabilties that remain present in anarcho-capitalism. The U.S. was once a very laizzez-faire place and that place exists no longer. Anarcho-capitalism does not cure the process by which our government was subverted but merely the apparatus by which she was subverted.

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This is what makes no sense to me. The early US Republic was not AC. It was an attempt at limited government, but it was definitely statism. Most people believed a state was necessary and proper so a state they had. It's this failure which has pushed many of us Libertarians toward AC: the evidence that limited statism (minarchy) does not work because once authority is ceded the rulers will increase their powers, maybe slowly, but steadily.

I don't get how you see the US-Republic's failure as an indictment of AC. And I don't get the last bit - in AC, an absence of government, how is government going to be subverted ala US-Fed? What the ACists are saying is that even Minarchy cedes too much power that is ripe for abuse.

[Mempho]

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BTW, back to your point that in a free market, power will concentrate and be used to erect barriers to entry, in your example of your awesome airline business model, which market participants are flexing their concentrated power to keep you out of the market?

[/ QUOTE ]

Let's make the assumption that my business model is, in fact, superior. Let's further assume that I could get enough debt and equity financing for 10 jetliners and that 10 jetliners would be of "sufficient mass" for me to start a viable airline (this would be about the bare minimum for the floatation of my business model).

Now, if you grant me these assumptions, do you not believe that the large carriers would engage in predatory pricing on the routes that I run in order to eliminate the threat I pose with a superior idea?

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Liquidity in the Capital markets prevents predatory pricing. If your airline is truly more efficient than the existing ones, then it would be a tremendous investment opportunity. If the legacy airlines start predatory pricing, you can also drop your price and use the investment money to beat them. The potential reward for the investors is huge. When the legacy company goes bankrupt (or is crippled), your company will enjoy a very large market share.

The only thing that prevents this from happening is government rescue packages for inefficient airlines and the additional potential for anti-trust lawsuits against your new company when you establish strong market share. Ironic eh?

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't disagree with the government being a huge issue here. FWIW, I view our current government as corporatist (something that I don't think the masses of the populace believe just yet). I am for much, much less government than we currently have. I think the libertarian corner of the graph is the right place to be and I think that we would get along just fine politically in today's political spectrum. I do, however, fine myself being more moderate in my views. We share the same direction, but not the same distance.

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I am probably in a very similar situation to you but I'm aaalmost ready to accept AC. Of the concerns you have, I think several are not warranted, monopoly / anti-trust in particular. One concern that a lot of people have is that we'll wind up with a ton of evil monopolies who'll reduce everyone's standard of living. The fact is though, that natural (ie no gov interference) monopolies just don't happen for all the reasons we've already gone over. All monopolies that have ever existed have been for one of the following reasons:

1. Government legislation restricting entry into the market (eg Post Office)
2. Corporate Taxation. This causes the smaller firms to not have as much capital as they otherwise would, making it more difficult for them to compete with the big leviathan companies.
3. Government subsidies for politically connected companies.
4. Bankruptcy rescue packages for politically connected companies.

It's also amusing (or upsetting) to note that the Sherman act was originally introduced to *maintain* local monopolies in the meat packing industry and keep prices high.

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I would concede that the AC model is a "better" model than the other two. It is unique that all of the arguments have come from the AC side and that I have had zero replies from statists or corporatists. The traditional right-left spectrum of American politics has been completely silent in this thread. Considering its length, I find that silence to be extremely telling. Did all the hard-core Democrats and Republicans leave the board?

[ShakeZula06]

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In AC, what stops the ten richest people in the United States from buying up all of the law enforcement and all of the military and using it for the oppression of others?

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The richest people have substancial control over these things now. It's much easier to it with government because they get everyone else to pay for it.

There is a nature of politics that is constantly occurs in democracy. It's much easier for the rich to get elected. What percentage of congress would you describe as coming from wealthy families? Add to this that re-election rates are incredibly high, and that if a senator loses he's most likely losing to another rich guy, and the impact of special interest groups (typically run by the rich) how is government's role not to do whatever a very small elite percentage of rich people want? And the worse part is that the rich aren't doing it with their own money but rather every American's money, so it doesn't matter if what they're doing is unprofitable, because they aren't paying for it.

It would never be profitable for Halliburton to fund the Iraq war (over $360 billion already spent) but Haliburton has made a lot of money to the detriment of others through intitation of force because of the government, not in spite of it.

Just look at Iraq. The US is spending $2 billion a week and they can't even control a small country that relative to themselves is very poor and doesn't even have the power to tax it's inhabiants. They can't even control it, let alone profit from it. But since the cost is externalized onto taxpayers the rich are profiting from it.

You want to protect everyone from the rich, but we see your solution is actually the problem.