Tyranny in AC land

[cpk]

There is really not much point in arguing what-ifs when it comes to anarchocapitalism. AC is justified by its proponents philosophically. If we adopted AC and our technological society collapsed back to a pre-industrial agrarian society, it wouldn't matter to its proponents. If an asteroid were discovered on the way and the market couldn't solve the situation and humanity perished as a result, it simply wouldn't matter.

ACers don't really care what happens to society as a result of adopting AC--that's not why they support AC. They support AC because they believe that government is immoral, and that the free market is the only logical arbiter of human interaction. Period, the end. Of course, the typical ACer thinks that society will be better off, but that is not the motivation behind the ACer.

As a result, it's pointless to discuss AC from the standpoint of "what if". It's not like anyone freaking knows what would happen anyway. The only way to argue it is to argue it from the standpoint of philosophy.

[hmkpoker]

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ACers don't really care what happens to society as a result of adopting AC--that's not why they support AC. They support AC because they believe that government is immoral, and that the free market is the only logical arbiter of human interaction. Period, the end.

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News to me. Didn't Murray Rothbard say that there were multiple reasons for the justification of libertarianism (moral AND consequential) that one could use to justify it in <u>For a New Liberty</u>?

[cpk]

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ACers don't really care what happens to society as a result of adopting AC--that's not why they support AC. They support AC because they believe that government is immoral, and that the free market is the only logical arbiter of human interaction. Period, the end.

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News to me. Didn't Murray Rothbard say that there were multiple reasons for the justification of libertarianism (moral AND consequential) that one could use to justify it in <u>For a New Liberty</u>?

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I'm going to re-do my previous post, because I was being snarky.

Anyway, I thought the consequentialist arguments were given by David Friedman. Friedman is a special kind of irony, because in The Machinery of Freedom he utterly demolishes most of the deontological justifications for anarchocapitalism. But I would still say that most of his consequentialist proofs of AC are philosophical in nature. The arguments take the form of "here's what we know about people, and therefore if we did X we would maximize utility." That's still philosophical.

You can argue these things all day long, but there's no empirical proof of any of it. You basically have to trust that the philosophy is correct before you embrace AC.

[cpk]

Here's an example, from Machinery of Freedom:

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Suppose I am lost in the woods and starving. I stumble upon your locked cabin, break in, and use the telephone to summon help. Being both grateful and responsible, I leave you an envelope containing enough money to pay for the damage several times over. The exchange is not voluntary; you did not give me permission to break into your cabin. But, just as with a voluntary transaction, we have both ended up better off (assuming my calculation of how much to leave was correct), so there was a net improvement.

In both cases--selling the apple and breaking into the cabin--the cash payment provided evidence that there was a net gain, but the gain was produced by the transfer not by the payment. The same two dollar gain would have occurred if you had accidentally lost the apple and I had found it, although in that case it would have been the sum of a four dollar gain and a two dollar loss instead of the sum of two one dollar gains (lose an apple valued at two dollars, get three dollars for you; gain an apple valued at four dollars, lose three dollars for me).

So far, we have been talking about changes, not about rules. The next step is to ask what legal rule will result in only efficient changes--changes that produce a net economic benefit. In the case of the apple, we want a rule that will result in the apple being transferred to me if and only if it is worth more to me than to you, since only then is the transfer an economic improvement. The obvious solution is to allow the transfer if and only if both of us agree to it. If the apple is worth more to me than to you I will make you an offer for it that you will accept; if it is not I will not. In this case, the solution is simply property rights, enforced by a punishment for anyone who steals an apple.

What about the case of the cabin? Property rights will not solve that problem, since the owner of the cabin is not available to rent out the use of his phone. This time the solution is a damage rule. If I break into the cabin (and turn myself in for doing so), I owe the owner a payment equal to the amount of damage I have done to his property. If the use of his phone is not worth that price, I will keep wandering; if it is, I will break in. That is, in each case, the economically efficient outcome.

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No appeal to morality, certainly, but it is philosophical. An example of how a law against burglary might work. But in the end, there is a normative appeal to "efficiency." This is what I mean when I say it is philosophical. No attempt, really, is made to show what would actually happen in the real world--only that this sort of law is "more efficient."

As if efficiency is the only thing people care about. I mean, you might object to a system of law that allows the wealthy to commit burglary with impunity. And so on. But whatever, that wasn't the point of my post.

Though he continues, later:
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Before ending the chapter, there is one final qualification to be made. Economic efficiency is only an approximate measure of total utility and total utility is only a very partial description of what I and, I think, other people value. Even if we can prove that certain legal rules are economically efficient, it does not necessarily follow that we should be in favor of them.

What I find interesting and useful about the economic analysis of law is not that it tells me for certain what the law should be but that it starts with objectives based on what most of us want and apparently unrelated to questions of right and wrong and ends with answers--conclusions about what the law should be--not all of which are obvious.

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[tolbiny]

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Suppose I am lost in the woods and starving. I stumble upon your locked cabin, break in, and use the telephone to summon help. Being both grateful and responsible, I leave you an envelope containing enough money to pay for the damage several times over. The exchange is not voluntary; you did not give me permission to break into your cabin. But, just as with a voluntary transaction, we have both ended up better off (assuming my calculation of how much to leave was correct), so there was a net improvement.

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This can only be right if you assume that you can assign the correct value of the apple to the cabin owner. If he is also starving and relying upon that apple for enough sustinence to walk into town to get food then no amount of money will make up for the fact that he is no condemmed to death by your actions. The author makes the ASSUMPTION that he can correctly assign how another person value's a product, time or service. On the other hand a person in a voluntary trade makes the assumption only for himself not for another, and so the analogy fails. (the analogy also fails because AC is anarco- CAPITILISM and assumes that there is enough basic nessecities met to allow for the accumulation of capital. No system can make 3 apples feed 4 people if each person needs 1 apple to live).

[Nielsio]

I've tried to answer specifically these questions:

Market anarchy objections
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...5077&amp;page=

[cpk]

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Suppose I am lost in the woods and starving. I stumble upon your locked cabin, break in, and use the telephone to summon help. Being both grateful and responsible, I leave you an envelope containing enough money to pay for the damage several times over. The exchange is not voluntary; you did not give me permission to break into your cabin. But, just as with a voluntary transaction, we have both ended up better off (assuming my calculation of how much to leave was correct), so there was a net improvement.

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This can only be right if you assume that you can assign the correct value of the apple to the cabin owner. If he is also starving and relying upon that apple for enough sustinence to walk into town to get food then no amount of money will make up for the fact that he is no condemmed to death by your actions. The author makes the ASSUMPTION that he can correctly assign how another person value's a product, time or service. On the other hand a person in a voluntary trade makes the assumption only for himself not for another, and so the analogy fails. (the analogy also fails because AC is anarco- CAPITILISM and assumes that there is enough basic nessecities met to allow for the accumulation of capital. No system can make 3 apples feed 4 people if each person needs 1 apple to live).

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Don't look at me, this is your guy, David Friedman.

[AlexM]

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LOL, what would happen under statism if someone amasses 51% of the known wealth?

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I'm not saying it's a good thing no matter what. I just think it'd be easier to amass that much wealth under AC.

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No, it would be much, much harder. You wouldn't have the government protecting you.

[Dan.]

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LOL, what would happen under statism if someone amasses 51% of the known wealth?

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I'm not saying it's a good thing no matter what. I just think it'd be easier to amass that much wealth under AC.

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No, it would be much, much harder. You wouldn't have the government protecting you.

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The government protects my wealth now? Lol at that.

[AlexM]

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Also, as I pointed out earlier, offense is tougher than defense. 51% of the resources doesn't guarantee victory in war. (See: UK v. US, 1776, e.g.).

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Or U.S. vs. North Vietnam.