Some newb thoughts on AC (long)

[hmkpoker]

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I just don't see how you can expect a self regulating market to keep wealth distribution in check.

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1) The single greatest concentration of power and wealth (the state) does not exist.

2) Corporations will not exist, because no court would hold a ficititious business entity as culpable rather than the human beings operating the business. This means that businesses can no longer go public with extremely limited liability, thus making it much more difficult for businesses to grow to some of the market-irrational sizes we see today.

3) The state cannot provide protection for drug companies, insurance companies, banks and other massive businesses, meaning that they must face the brunt of competition. (With a six-figure loan and a handful of mexicans, I could produce morphine and thebaine derivatives more cheaply than Merck. I don't think they'd like that.)

4) The rich have substantially less access to cheap credit, making it both more difficult for them to hoard valuable assets (real estate), and easier for the poor who no longer have to pay for their free lunch through inflation.

5) Technological improvements lead to lower barriers to entry, making the phenomenon of a natural monopoly more difficult as time progresses.

6) As competition becomes more intense over time, greater capital reinvestment is demanded of the business owners. This means that a greater percentage of the profits must be reinvested in the resource department (the employees) in order to keep the business afloat.

[Poofler]

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2) Corporations will not exist, because no court would hold a ficititious business entity as culpable rather than the human beings operating the business. This means that businesses can no longer go public with extremely limited liability, thus making it much more difficult for businesses to grow to some of the market-irrational sizes we see today.

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Can you expand on this? If company X caused Y billion dollars of damage, who pays?

[tomdemaine]

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"Well the government isn't perfect, so we simply must disband government period!"

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The government is pretty much perfect at achieving it's intended goal. It's the stated goals that aren't being achieved but then they were never meant to be.

[cpk]

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Can you expand on this? If company X caused Y billion dollars of damage, who pays?

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If the company had the cash, the company would just pay it. If not, the shareholders of the company would pay, pro rata. Probably. It depends on the "libertarian law code," but almost all ACers don't believe in limited liability, though there's nothing preventing liability indemnification schemes from emerging. If you were going to be a passive investor in a company, you'd probably want to purchase some form of liability insurance, or you could end up being ruined.

[Poofler]

Right, so why wouldn't you have big public corporations?

[AlexM]

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Right, so why wouldn't you have big public corporations?

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A corporation is a government entity that specifically protects the owners from liability for the acts of the corporation. Without the government protection, it becomes too risky for people to invest in goliath companies where you can't even keep track of a thousandth of what is being done in your name and it's much safer to invest in smaller businesses.

[Girchuck]

So, who invests in the next generation Intel fab which will cost 10 billion dollars? Where are we going to have the tech breakthroughs if we can't get the money to build better computers?

[Poofler]

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Right, so why wouldn't you have big public corporations?

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A corporation is a government entity that specifically protects the owners from liability for the acts of the corporation. Without the government protection, it becomes too risky for people to invest in goliath companies where you can't even keep track of a thousandth of what is being done in your name and it's much safer to invest in smaller businesses.

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Why can't you get around this in AC where contracts are king? Suppose a drug company releases a harmful drug. All they have to do, when selling the product, is writeup a defacto limited liability agreement with the user.

[almostbusto]

ACist being against limited liability is kind of silly as other posters have mentioned. risk mitigation is serious business and in anything even close to an ACist society there would be all sorts of contracts and insurance companies that would pool and redirect liability away from passive investors who don't desire taking on all the liabilities resulting from owning their chosen investment vehicle.

Sole proprietorships aren't going to be able to build planes trains and automobiles so backing away from corporations and governments is silly.

[ShakeZula06]

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Government is a necessary evil.

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You're assuming your conclusion.