Animal cruelty and child molestation in AC land

[LinusKS]

The mafia is a good example of how government would work if representative democracy were somehow eliminated, and no other kind of government were allowed to take its place.

A better example is feudalism.

Feudalism is what happens when the descendants of organized gangs and leaders of armies give themselves titles and coats of arms, and look for ways to institutionalize and legitimize their reign.

The owners of land in medieval Europe were called kings, but they did not start out that way. In the beginning, they were simply strongmen, who gathered enough followers to control certain areas through intimidation and organized violence, or by conquest.

They were paid protection money - which in the dark ages went by other names: "danegeld," for example, and "sergeantry." Later these payments were simply called taxes, or rent.

In this way, they were exactly the same as any crime family, that would control neighborhoods or unions or industries by threatening, or in some cases carrying out threats, against anyone who stood against them.

In all cases, they rely on their ability to control the means of production, which in turn allows them to extort money from those who work. The profits extracted from workers, in turn, allow them to pay the soldiers, mercenaries, or "private defense agencies," so they can either expand, or protect the turf they already have.

A few hundred years ago, some people decided that this form of government was immoral, and that people should rule themselves through a democratic process, rather than being subjected to the whims of those among them that were richest, or the most violent or well-armed.

This decision - the one that resulted in democracy, and all of the advantages we enjoy today (compared to the dark ages) is the one that anarchocapitalists are seeking to overturn.

Anarchocapitalism is not "no government."

It's government by the rich, and by the violent.

[hmkpoker]

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Bingo. Not to mention big pharmaceutical corporations enjoy the protection of their products, which are illegal for anyone else to make. A mom and pop oxycodone business could easily drive Pfizer out of the market.

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Uh, what? Economies of scale?

WalMart:M&P Retail as Pfizer:M&P Pharma.

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That came out wrong. Yes, in a free market, M&P oxycodone would lose to big pharma. My point was that, if it were legal, my buddies and I could take out a seven figure loan, buy a plot of land in Texas to grow opium poppies on, pay some Mexicans to harvest, extract and refine the oxy, and sell it at a lower price than what Pfizer currently hawks. (The caveat is that if it were legal for me, it would presumably be legal for them too and they'd undercut me even more, so it wouldn't happen.)

[LinusKS]

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Give me a break. The "organized crime" you're so afraid of taking over is already here. And it's here because the majority of people, like you, believe in their right to shake you and me down, not because there is some inevitable law of nature that makes thuggery, with all of its associated risks and costs, more porfitable than just satisfying customers better than the competition.


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No, pvn. You have to pay your taxes because the majority of us believe that if you want to enjoy the privileges and advantages of being part of our society, you must also pay your fair share.

[Borodog]

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The mafia is a good example of how government would work if representative democracy were somehow eliminated, and no other kind of government were allowed to take its place.

A better example is feudalism.

Feudalism is what happens when the descendants of organized gangs and leaders of armies give themselves titles and coats of arms, and look for ways to institutionalize and legitimize their reign.

The owners of land in medieval Europe were called kings, but they did not start out that way. In the beginning, they were simply strongmen, who gathered enough followers to control certain areas through intimidation and organized violence, or by conquest.

They were paid protection money - which in the dark ages went by other names: "danegeld," for example, and "sergeantry." Later these payments were simply called taxes, or rent.

In this way, they were exactly the same as any crime family, that would control neighborhoods or unions or industries by threatening, or in some cases carrying out threats, against anyone who stood against them.

In all cases, they rely on their ability to control the means of production, which in turn allows them to extort money from those who work. The profits extracted from workers, in turn, allow them to pay the soldiers, mercenaries, or "private defense agencies," so they can either expand, or protect the turf they already have.

A few hundred years ago, some people decided that this form of government was immoral, and that people should rule themselves through a democratic process, rather than being subjected to the whims of those among them that were richest, or the most violent or well-armed.

This decision - the one that resulted in democracy, and all of the advantages we enjoy today (compared to the dark ages) is the one that anarchocapitalists are seeking to overturn.

Anarchocapitalism is not "no government."

It's government by the rich, and by the violent.

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Actually, all of this is incorrect. Feudalism gets a bad rap. Before it was corrupted by those seeking to centralize government, it was actually a fairly nice, decentralized system. It wasn't paradise, of course; there was little accumulated capital. Productivity was low and hence so were standards of living. But land-owners had no special rights or privileges that peasants did not. Peasants were not bound to their lords in any way; they could freely move to the land of neighboring lords. These estates were small and numerous, and hence there was fairly stiff competition amongst land-owners for workers. If a lord was too much of a dick, the peasants simply left. Without peasants to work the land, a bad land-owner was quickly a pauper himself.

I need to start an OP on this.

[latefordinner]

some have argued that in some forms of fuedalism that the internal society of the peasants was quasi-anarchic and mostly socialist.

[bkholdem]

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Now imagine there's no law whatsoever. What will Mafia type groups do? They'll take over completely. They'll be demanding protection money from every business on every street. And who will stop them? No one. An advanced security firm might be enough to protect Bill Gates and occasionally, desperate citizens might band together, risking their lives, but for the most part, organized crime will run roughshod.

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What magic power does government have that free market security firms will not have in dealing with the mob?

And note, protection money rackets are not enough to sustain a nationwide network of thugs. And there are no nationwide networks of purse snatchers. The thing that sustains these huge enterprises is contraband. And without the state, there is no contraband.

When the mob goes head-to-head with legitimate, voluntary business, the mob loses.

Without the foundation provided by the black market in drugs/prostitution/gambling/etc, what power base will the mob have to run protection money rackets?

And why will the population be unable to stop them?

Why am I not currently being shook down (by the mob, at least)?

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This is exactly right. The mob's bread and butter is running the 'illegal' rackets. They can not survive shaking down your average Joe's. They need the money and power that comes from the gambling rackets, drug rackets, etc. and then they can supplement here and there into the unions or shaking down businesses (mostly illegal businesses is who they shake down anyway).

People are simply not going to pay the mafia because they are having their lives threatened if they don't. They will band together and take action. The mafia does not have the manpower to take on hundreds and hundreds of business men and towns folk. It simply is not worth it. They need the monopoly over the drug trade and they can muscle in on illegal businsesses 'taxing' bookies, drug dealers, high earning theifs who want the protection from them, etc.

Otherwise you have a gang of men who are supposed to survive by going door to door threatening to kill peple if they do not pay. Are 10-20 mafia thugs going to take over a town of thousands of people? How? By instilling the fear of death into the townsfolk? Guess what, they can do that now! The police can not stop this, if people are willing to kill you the police can not protect you.

What will happen is the townsfolk will simply kill them (some smaller subset of them will anyway). And the mafia already knows this that is why they do not operate like this. They tax illegal businesses.

The issue is that the government IS THE MAFIA. Their 'taxes' have the air of legitimacy, that is why they get away with it. If they simply came door to door with guns knocking and asking for 50% of your income they would be murdered! They use propaganda to sell the idea and have the money taken out of paychecks. The government can not do come door to door with guns to collect their taxes and neither can the mafia.

[Borodog]

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some have argued that in some forms of fuedalism that the internal society of the peasants was quasi-anarchic and mostly socialist.

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Yep. I could see that easily.

[hmkpoker]

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some have argued that in some forms of fuedalism that the internal society of the peasants was quasi-anarchic and mostly socialist.

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Very much so. When populations are low and there is little produced capital, tribal anarchy is much better than capitalism.

[AlexM]

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Now imagine there's no law whatsoever. What will Mafia type groups do? They'll take over completely. They'll be demanding protection money from every business on every street. And who will stop them? No one. An advanced security firm might be enough to protect Bill Gates and occasionally, desperate citizens might band together, risking their lives, but for the most part, organized crime will run roughshod.

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You've got this backwards. Security firms would do a much better job of this than government can.

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a government that can be voted out

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Uhm... no they can't. They control both "sides".

[pvn]

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Give me a break. The "organized crime" you're so afraid of taking over is already here. And it's here because the majority of people, like you, believe in their right to shake you and me down, not because there is some inevitable law of nature that makes thuggery, with all of its associated risks and costs, more porfitable than just satisfying customers better than the competition.


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No, pvn. You have to pay your taxes because the majority of us believe that if you want to enjoy the privileges and advantages of being part of our society, you must also pay your fair share.

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That wasn't me you were replying to.

But anyway, how do you now I want to "enjoy" all that stuff? This is like netflix charging me $20 a month without asking me, then telling me "but you get to enjoy all of these movies!"