Question about legit vs illegitimate businesses

[pvn]

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But, many people are not at that point yet. If we keep chugging away at people's belief in the legitimacy of the state, then it will suffer and die?

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no, it wont, it will give birth to a new state. Always has, always will.

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"past performance is no guarantee of future results"

[pvn]

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This is why borders are important, because borders are a mechanism for like-minded people to live together and be ruled by their own consent (the consent of the governed). If the USA is to remain a Constitutional Republic, people who live here had better mostly believe in the Constitution.

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What better borders than property lines? If the people around my neighborhood have some right to impose their "collective will" upon me simply because of proximity, then surely the people of the US have the same right to do so to the people of Canada, or Mexico; they're "in our neighborhood." And why stop there?

[bkholdem]

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This is true of black markets but not the Mafia. The Mafia is a group of people that are powerful enough to extort another group of people. Black markets created by government prohibitions fuel Mafias no doubt, but a Mafia is just a group of guys with guns and subsequently power.

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But violence itself doesn't scale. There are no nationwide networks of, for example, purse snatchers, or kidnappers, or bank robbers. It is only when prohibition creates black markets that large-scale organized "crime" can emerge.

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Isn't the government just a "large-scale organized "crime"" network. I mean it's taken 200+ years but saying "violence doesn't scale" seems awfully shortsighted.

I doubt seriously that it would take a government machine to create it, just time and money.

Cody

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It's the indoctrination mechanisms that scale here not the violence. They still have to send a guy in a blue jacket round to your house to take you away if you don't give them your money.

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Potato Potato (that really works better when you speak it). Violence can stay on a small scale. The Don gives orders and the foot soldiers carry those orders out. Violence doesn't need to scale, so long as the Don doesn't want to shake-down everyone himself.

Why is this even up for debate, I don't know too many ACists that think that simply "going AC" stops violence. My only objections was that prohibtion fuels the mob but that the two don't have to be linked. I would think this would be obvious.

Cody

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And how is a mafia going to develop to such a large scale without sections factioning off? That happens today in mini mafia's that are factions within factions.

If 90% of the population was for voluntary transations and against violent imposition how do you think a mafia would fare? What are they going to do when they are outnumbered 9 to 1 and scattered all across the country?

And of the 10% let's assume that they would all be willing to be the hardcore murderers (I think that's fair to say as I think it is true today that less than 1 in 10 will go kill for money). So there are some criminals scattered around the world in the middle of large groups of people against violence and for voluntary exchanges. What happens, does one guy go around openly recruiting for a mafia army from town to town?

If you were on a desert island stranded there with 1000 people and 100 don't want to pull their weight, say 50% of the 100 will try to talk their way into some free meals, etc and make some promises for stuff that they only back up inconsistently.

Now of the other 50, 25 will outright steal and 3 or 4 want to organize the island into a slave labor camp under the threat of severe punnishment up to and including dealth if the others do not comply (i.e. mafia).

What do you think is going to happen?

Do you think that maybe 50 or more of the 1000 will make a plan to kill off the murderers or do you think that everyone will submit and there will be 1 king (don), 3-4 semi kings, 100 cop/soldiers, and 895 worker bee's/slaves for the king and his close knit circle to feed off of?