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

[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?

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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.

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I would concede that the AC model is a "better" model than the other two. It is better, but this debate is a necessity even amongst the libertarian quandrant because of its ramifications. As far as your post, I would like to speak about natural monopolies not happening. How did government keep Microsoft competitors from rising up?

On another note, 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?

[Al68]

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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.

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You're right, the people on this forum are not apathetic. But some want to reduce government power, and others want to increase it. The people that aren't apathetic are divided.

[BCPVP]

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Ideal situations don't exist. Certain people will always desire to rule over all creation.

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Agreed, and I'm sure every other ACist here agrees with this as well. That is what seperates ACism from utopianism.

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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.

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Certain people in this forum deny that the U.S. was ever intended to be a limited government. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]. What values, are you referring to, btw?

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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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I think not having the apparatus makes a big deal in the discussion of whether such a society would eventually succumb to these grave deficiencies. I don't think you can just wave it away.

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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.

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I think you're quite wrong in your theory about anti-trust and I think you should read some of the stuff I recommended, if possible. You'll find that the history of anti-trust cases in the U.S. do the opposite of their stated purpose; which is that they stifle competition and hurt consumers. This is because much of the anti-trust laws are based on severely flawed theories about competition (specifically the mythical "perfect competition").

How much do you know about economics? Did you know that in order for their to be perfect competition in a market there must be:
1) Atomicity - there must be many small firms in a market
2) Homogenous products - no product differentiation whatsoever. Each product must be a perfect substitute for competitors' products
3) Perfect information - all information about prices is known by all firms and consumers
4) All firms have equal access to production technologies
5) No barriers to entry - so that a firm may enter or exist whenever it wants.

Do any of those sound realisitic? Under such a model, advertising your product would be considered anti-competitive. As economies of scale. Can you see how trying to enforce policies based on such absurd assumptions would stifle rather than promote competition?

[Mempho]

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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.

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That's an interesting argument and I would love to be proven wrong here. I mean that in all honesty. If a limited statist government, such as what the U.S. once represented, has those problems, what device prevents the establishment of such an apparatus through private enterprise in anarcho-capitalism.

I.E....Let's say I want to rule the world.

OK, I get rich selling widgets. I "indoctrinate" my son to believe that he has some divine right to rule over the people, he starts selling oil, software, along with his widgets. Time goes on and all of my descendants think we are supposed to rule the world. We eventually own all of the major media, most of the education systems, all of the law enforcement companies, all three of the major arbitration companies, almost all of the banking, etc, etc, etc.

I will concede that the process is probably much slower than the process that exists with an existing state, but what keeps this from being the ultimate end result in AC?

[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.

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That's an interesting argument and I would love to be proven wrong here. I mean that in all honesty. If a limited statist government, such as what the U.S. once represented, has those problems, what device prevents the establishment of such an apparatus through private enterprise in anarcho-capitalism.

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No appearance of legitimacy. (Acceptance by the general populace)

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I.E....Let's say I want to rule the world.

OK, I get rich selling widgets. I "indoctrinate" my son to believe that he has some divine right to rule over the people, he starts selling oil, software, along with his widgets. Time goes on and all of my descendants think we are supposed to rule the world. We eventually own all of the major media, most of the education systems, all of the law enforcement companies, all three of the major arbitration companies, almost all of the banking, etc, etc, etc.

I will concede that the process is probably much slower than the process that exists with an existing state, but what keeps this from being the ultimate end result in AC?

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It's completely pathological and absurd, no one family has ever been anywhere close to that rich and this isn't Parker Brothers, you don't just go around picking up monopolies.

[Mempho]

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It's much easier to it with government because they get everyone else to pay for it.

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This is a good answer. Wow, that's the answer. AC is much slower to devolve because of this. It still will eventually devolve, but at a much slower rate with the possible exception of external threats.

[Brainwalter]

Ready to join the Dark Side yet? [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[Mempho]

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Ideal situations don't exist. Certain people will always desire to rule over all creation.

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Agreed, and I'm sure every other ACist here agrees with this as well. That is what seperates ACism from utopianism.

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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.

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Certain people in this forum deny that the U.S. was ever intended to be a limited government. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]. What values, are you referring to, btw?

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Anarcho-capitalism does not cure the process by which our government was subverted but merely the apparatus by which she was subverted.

[/ QUOTE ]
I think not having the apparatus makes a big deal in the discussion of whether such a society would eventually succumb to these grave deficiencies. I don't think you can just wave it away.

[ QUOTE ]
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.

[/ QUOTE ]
I think you're quite wrong in your theory about anti-trust and I think you should read some of the stuff I recommended, if possible. You'll find that the history of anti-trust cases in the U.S. do the opposite of their stated purpose; which is that they stifle competition and hurt consumers. This is because much of the anti-trust laws are based on severely flawed theories about competition (specifically the mythical "perfect competition").

How much do you know about economics? Did you know that in order for their to be perfect competition in a market there must be:
1) Atomicity - there must be many small firms in a market
2) Homogenous products - no product differentiation whatsoever. Each product must be a perfect substitute for competitors' products
3) Perfect information - all information about prices is known by all firms and consumers
4) All firms have equal access to production technologies
5) No barriers to entry - so that a firm may enter or exist whenever it wants.

Do any of those sound realisitic? Under such a model, advertising your product would be considered anti-competitive. As economies of scale. Can you see how trying to enforce policies based on such absurd assumptions would stifle rather than promote competition?

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I'd like to read some more of the stuff you're promoting before making a decision or replying to your post. I don't think you can know enough about economics. Do you suggest I just search through your posts or do you have some specific items in mind?

[ojc02]

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I would concede that the AC model is a "better" model than the other two. It is better, but this debate is a necessity even amongst the libertarian quandrant because of its ramifications. As far as your post, I would like to speak about natural monopolies not happening. How did government keep Microsoft competitors from rising up?

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Well, microsoft doesn't have a monopoly...





Heck, even:



I never said companies wouldn't naturally get strong market share.

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On another note, 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?

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There are still a fair number of Dems on the board. I don't think there are so many Republicans... It's pretty hard these days to argue for social conservatism and technically the Republicans are supposed to be more economically free / low spending. The remaining social conservatives probably are over at SMP arguing ID vs evolution.

I'd like to think we're not hearing the statist side because they've conceded defeat on this topic, but I doubt it [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[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".

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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.

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No, I'm not. I don't give the "human moral compass" any credit. It is with government power that we have to rely on "the human moral compass". With corporations in AC land, at least it's likely that their desire to profit will outweigh their desire for political power. No moral compass is needed like it is with the government's power.

I already said that there's no guarantee against oppression. And yes, some rich guys may come along and decide they want to oppress people more than they want more profit. Which would be a defacto oppressive government. But historically, the situation you describe is very common with governments, so the fact that it's possible with AC is not really evidence against AC.

I'm not even an ACist, but AC would be an improvement over most governments that have existed, precisely because of the situation you describe happening with those governments.