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

[pvn]

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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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1) What stops them from doing this now?

2) What stops new firms from filling the demand the other 99.9999% of people would have for defense services?

[pvn]

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

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Yeah, and they hate money, so they will ignore revolutionary ideas just because they come from people outside of their club. Oh, wait, there's a whole industry of people who look for people with no other funding options but good ideas.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venture_capital

[pvn]

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But what would prevent people from forming a state in AC land?

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To get to an AC condition requires widespread support among the population. A population that works to escape the state isn't going to just quietly roll over for the first tinpot wannabe who comes along.

[pvn]

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Too bad for all the wage slaves who live from paycheck to paycheck and carry huge debts. Nobody is forcing them ofcourse, but how is an average guy going to get ahead without taking huge loads of debt?
Pay for college, pay for books, for rent, groceries, while studying and holding minimum wage dead end job. Most people aren't born on a third base.
So, now that he got a job, and a kid and mortgage, where is he going to go? He'll play along and work 70 hour weeks to support his company's little adventure. Once you are a wage slave with tons of debt and a family to care about, you don't quit your job anytime you like. And in the first place, if you are looking for that sweet job to pay for your mortgage, you'll sign a lot of contracts and won't even think about it twice, until it bites you in the ass.

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Strawman of the week. And that's saying something, considering some of the "arguments" in this thread.

[mosdef]

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To get to an AC condition requires widespread support among the population. A population that works to escape the state isn't going to just quietly roll over for the first tinpot wannabe who comes along.

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Sort of...

Once you let AC run for a little while, things could conceivably get better overall if the markets do a better job of sorting things out than the state. I buy that.

But after some time, there will be (due to the nature of markets and just good ol' randomness) a group of people that aren't doing so well. Maybe they're dumb, maybe they're lazy, maybe they're unlucky, but there will be a group of people that will think that AC has been going badly simply because they're not getting what they want. This group could be very large, and this group would be highly succeptable to latching on to the first socialist promising them the fair world they deserve.

[pvn]

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I think US was the only country that benefited from WW II
Half of the world's gold reserve and half of the world's GDP in the 50s, all because the Europeans destroyed themselves and lost all of their colonies


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Americans certainly did benefit from WWII... before the US entered it. How much better off would Americans have been if they never entered the war?

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After the Cold war, I seem to recall a very nice peace dividend in the 90s. That was not so great as the 50s prosperity and didn't last quite as long, but Russians fared a lot worse in that time.

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So first war is good, then peace is good. What, exactly, is bad? No matter what, we win!!!

[Al68]

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Before you can get the people to work in your sweatshops you have to somehow make sure that they'd be worse off without the jobs you offer.

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Are you suggesting that a company that hires poor people are somehow responsible for their being poor to begin with? How so?

[pvn]

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Good points all. Before you can get the people to work in your sweatshops you have to somehow make sure that they'd be worse off without the jobs you offer.

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And how do you do that? By offering something *better* to them. Else they won't work for you.

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So, if they are worse off, it does benefit you after all, otherwise they wouldn't work for you and make you a tidy profit.

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Right, you're better off, they're better off. That's what voluntary transactions are all about.

[Al68]

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But what would prevent people from forming a state in AC land?

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To get to an AC condition requires widespread support among the population. A population that works to escape the state isn't going to just quietly roll over for the first tinpot wannabe who comes along.

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Sure, but populations can be manipulated with time and effort. Just look at the US. At one time, having a government do the things it now does would be unthinkable to almost everyone. Now these things are supported by most.

Maybe this would take more time to happen in AC than in a minarchy, but they could use minarchy as a first step along that slippery slope.

I would think that the creation of a minimal minarchy in AC land would be fairly easy compared to the task of turning that minarchy into a monster like the US did.

[pvn]

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To get to an AC condition requires widespread support among the population. A population that works to escape the state isn't going to just quietly roll over for the first tinpot wannabe who comes along.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sort of...

Once you let AC run for a little while, things could conceivably get better overall if the markets do a better job of sorting things out than the state. I buy that.

But after some time, there will be (due to the nature of markets and just good ol' randomness) a group of people that aren't doing so well. Maybe they're dumb, maybe they're lazy, maybe they're unlucky, but there will be a group of people that will think that AC has been going badly simply because they're not getting what they want. This group could be very large, and this group would be highly succeptable to latching on to the first socialist promising them the fair world they deserve.

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So we have yet another aspect of AC where the absolute worst-case scenario is basically about the same as the status quo.