If you are an evolutionist . . .

[Phil153]

Chris - before Borodog goes on a rant about not getting his point, the incentive is profit and avoidance of strife.

Borodog thinks that everyone operates on a profit/utility motive, and that costly things (like being an arsehole to people, plundering, starting wars, abusing means or power, raping children, corporate fraud that might be discovered, and so on) will be avoided. That's the entire basis of his argument. He think institutionalized violence and fraud only exists where it is propped up by government monopoly, or after a government has destroyed society. He also thinks that the market will always supply what people want, so if they want freedom from warlords, the market will supply it. Any cultures where this doesn't happen (pretty much every society in history without a government, with a few minor exceptions), according to Borodog either do not respect property rights (which is required, lol) or came about through government destruction of society. Pretty convenient, no? Someone claims that AC fails in case X, and Borodog ticks a box:

[] the idiots don't respect property rights, duh. Nothing works without property rights!
[] a government was the cause!

Suffice to say, he's doing some massive shoehorning. As for the profit motive being supreme, he doesn't understand the world or human nature very well.

[ChrisV]

[ QUOTE ]
Any cultures where this doesn't happen (pretty much every society in history without a government, with a few minor exceptions), according to Borodog either do not respect property rights (which is required, lol)

[/ QUOTE ]

Ah, I think I've spotted the flaw in this plan.

[foal]

I've got to say, Borodog, you have been pretty obnoxious and full of yourself in this thread. Neither of these things make for a very pleasant debate. According to your theory about the free market leading to peace and order threads like these should not be very successful, yet here we all are rowdy as ever. Maybe we lack a concept of property rights?

[Borodog]

[ QUOTE ]
I've got to say, Borodog, you have been pretty obnoxious and full of yourself in this thread.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, pretty much.

[Borodog]

[ QUOTE ]
Chris - before Borodog goes on a rant about not getting his point, the incentive is profit and avoidance of strife.

Borodog thinks that everyone operates on a profit/utility motive, and that costly things (like being an arsehole to people, plundering, starting wars, abusing means or power, raping children, corporate fraud that might be discovered, and so on) will be avoided. That's the entire basis of his argument. He think institutionalized violence and fraud only exists where it is propped up by government monopoly, or after a government has destroyed society. He also thinks that the market will always supply what people want, so if they want freedom from warlords, the market will supply it. Any cultures where this doesn't happen (pretty much every society in history without a government, with a few minor exceptions), according to Borodog either do not respect property rights (which is required, lol) or came about through government destruction of society. Pretty convenient, no? Someone claims that AC fails in case X, and Borodog ticks a box:

[] the idiots don't respect property rights, duh. Nothing works without property rights!
[] a government was the cause!

Suffice to say, he's doing some massive shoehorning. As for the profit motive being supreme, he doesn't understand the world or human nature very well.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is about 80% true. Pretty good.

If you substitute "psychic profit" for "profit", it would become about 90% true.

[bocablkr]

Agree with you 100% Phil. Boro just doesn't understand the 'real' world. It is usually pointless to argue so I have pretty much stopped - just read his and the other ACer's posts and laugh to myself.

[Jetboy2]

[ QUOTE ]
. . . then you should be an anarchist. Do you see why?

[/ QUOTE ]

Nope.

The very first evolved humans were "cooperative".

Anarchy would not have worked in any way, shape or form.

[JMAnon]

[ QUOTE ]

but rather due to their systems of property rights, legal theory, and free trade, all of which developed on the market.


[/ QUOTE ]

All of which were established by a government. The market adapts to whatever given legal framework or property rights regime exists in a given area; it does not create them. None of the cultures I listed had legal systems that sprung whole cloth from the market. And despite what you may have heard, English common law was not particularly libertarian. Property use was regulated by tort law and real property law, both of which were extremely complex. The common law was simply another form of regulation based on rules crafted by judges and juries rather than a legislature or administrative body.

[ QUOTE ]

There have indeed been a number of thriving anarcho-capitalesque societies, including but not limited to the American west, the pre-state Alaskan frontier, Medieval Iceland and Ireland, and some parts and times of Medieval Europe. That these eventually succumbed to government is not an argument in favor of government or against anarchy. In some places it was a cultural problem, i.e. in the American west many people still believed in the Government Fairy, the same on the Alaskan Frontier, so government is what they got. Medieval Iceland and Ireland were conquered by invading governments, but that isn't a knock on anarchy either, it's a knock against being smaller, having fewer resources, and being behind the technology curve. As pvn has so eloquently pointed out, when the Death Star enters orbit it doesn't matter what form of government or lack there of the US has. All else being equal a society based on an untrammeled free market will produce rings around a modern style neo-mercantilist, interventionist, welfare-warfare state. As it was it took mighty England almost a thoudand years to conquer almost Stone Aged Ireland.



[/ QUOTE ]

Your response contains a great number of factual assertions that are unsupported by evidence. In particular, your claims about production are not supported by historical example.

The American West did not begin to thrive until they were under the control of territorial governments. I wouldn't count Alaska as a flourishing civilization even today. What scientific innovations or population explosions took place in Renaissance Iceland and Ireland? Please provide evidence or citations to authority.


[ QUOTE ]
No, it doesn't. Better adopted, clearly. Better adapted, hardly.



[/ QUOTE ]

Except that time and again, governments have outperformed anarchies. It is not like there has been a shortage of anarchic regions throughout history. They just haven't performed nearly as well as regions with governments.

[ QUOTE ]

Your argument could just as well be claimed to show that history presents a "strong case" for religion as the "better-adapted" form of philosophical endeavor than science.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree.

[ QUOTE ]
It isn't


[/ QUOTE ]

I disagree. Religion helps keep the worker bees in line. It is possible that eventually religion will outlive its usefulness to societal progress and stability. If so, we are not there yet.

[JMAnon]

[ QUOTE ]

The largest non military growth periods for these civilizations were during minimal central control times, and the military expansion in each of these situations was a major factor in destroying the prosperity which allowed the military expansion in the first place.

[/ QUOTE ]

In some cases, the central government was less interventionist during periods of the greatest growth, but your factual claim is way overbroad. America's economy, scientific progress, and population truly bloomed during times of increased regulation in the late 1800s and particularaly after WWII, not during the libertarian heyday of the early 1800s. England, Rome, and Ancient Greece all had strong central governments in place during the periods of greatest innovation in arts and sciences.

In any event, none of the examples I cited were anything close to anarchies during periods of massive growth and progress.

[tolbiny]

[ QUOTE ]


In some cases, the central government was less interventionist during periods of the greatest growth, but your factual claim is way overbroad. America's economy, scientific progress, and population truly bloomed during times of increased regulation in the late 1800s and particularaly after WWII, not during the libertarian heyday of the early 1800s.

[/ QUOTE ]

My knowledge of the late 1800s is not strong, but post ww2 saw a dramatic DECREASE in regulations and centralized control when compared to the 1930s and ww2 years.

[ QUOTE ]
England, Rome, and Ancient Greece all had strong central governments in place during the periods of greatest innovation in arts and sciences.

[/ QUOTE ]

Periods of greatest innovation is misleading. The 1990s was a period of phenomenal innovation, and those innovations were far more complex than the much simpler agricultural innovations that turned Europe around after the dark ages. Crop rotation, proper fertilization and irrgation, proper breading and selection, these things are "simple" when compared to the wealth of knowledge and capital that is required to build a computer. Yet the agricultural innovations are what built up enough capital to allow that beginnings of the industrial revolution by freeing people from having to farm and allowing their labor to be put to use elsewhere. Capital builds upon capital, science and the arts flourished during times of strong(er) centralization only because advances prior to that centralization made it possible. What you call the period of greatest innovation was not at all what I would call the period of greatest innovation.