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#1
11-02-2007, 08:49 PM
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The government/market distinction depends on a cultural artifact.
There is only one difference between "government" agents and "free market" agents: non-government agents voluntarily abstain from violent coercion.
Without this cultural norm for non-violence in the private sector, society would be pure AC. Am I wrong? 
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#2
11-03-2007, 12:02 AM
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Re: The government/market distinction depends on a cultural artifact.
[ QUOTE ]
Without this cultural norm for non-violence in the private sector, society would be pure AC. Am I wrong? [/ QUOTE ] Yes you are. Capitalism implies a cultural norm for non-violence, as property rights apply to all humans. Without a norm for non-violence (which arises naturally), you wouldn't have AC.
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#3
11-03-2007, 12:36 AM
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Re: The government/market distinction depends on a cultural artifact.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] Without this cultural norm for non-violence in the private sector, society would be pure AC. Am I wrong? [/ QUOTE ] Yes you are. Capitalism implies a cultural norm for non-violence, as property rights apply to all humans. Without a norm for non-violence (which arises naturally), you wouldn't have AC. [/ QUOTE ] Exactly. Without a cultural norm for non-violence, you'd have a lot of dead people and a lot of destroyed wealth. You'd have utter poverty. You'd have chaos. You'd have anarchy, technically, but not in any useful sense of the word, and you certainly would not have capitalism, since (among other reasons) anything that resembled capital would be destroyed.
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#4
11-03-2007, 01:00 AM
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Re: The government/market distinction depends on a cultural artifact.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] Without this cultural norm for non-violence in the private sector, society would be pure AC. Am I wrong? [/ QUOTE ] Yes you are. Capitalism implies a cultural norm for non-violence, as property rights apply to all humans. Without a norm for non-violence (which arises naturally), you wouldn't have AC. [/ QUOTE ] Exactly. Without a cultural norm for non-violence, you'd have a lot of dead people and a lot of destroyed wealth. You'd have utter poverty. You'd have chaos. You'd have anarchy, technically, but not in any useful sense of the word, and you certainly would not have capitalism, since (among other reasons) anything that resembled capital would be destroyed. [/ QUOTE ] Thanks for the replies. But given this new information, I don't understand how textbook AC claims to be viable outside a utopia. Won't there always be a significant minority of people who are happy to do as much violent coercion as they can get away with? In general, I'm interested in reading more discussion on the viability of any moral code that doesn't reduce to "might makes right." But it seems 90% of 2+2 has me on ignore, so I'll just have to wait for someone else to bring it up. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]
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#5
11-03-2007, 01:09 AM
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Re: The government/market distinction depends on a cultural artifact.
[ QUOTE ]
Without this cultural norm for non-violence in the private sector, society would be pure AC. [/ QUOTE ] Close, but it's the other way around. Without the cultural norm for accepting violence from government agents that you wouldn't accept from normal people you'd have AC.
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#6
11-03-2007, 01:19 AM
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Re: The government/market distinction depends on a cultural artifact.
[ QUOTE ]
But given this new information, I don't understand how textbook AC claims to be viable outside a utopia. Won't there always be a significant minority of people who are happy to do as much violent coercion as they can get away with? [/ QUOTE ] Yes. But this doesn't mean a utopia is required. Those people also exist under a state. They don't magically stop liking violent coercion just because someone flips the statism switch. If there are more than some critical number of these people, everyone else is basically [censored] *no matter how they organize*.
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#7
11-03-2007, 01:37 AM
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Re: The government/market distinction depends on a cultural artifact.
[ QUOTE ]
Those people also exist under a state. They don't magically stop liking violent coercion just because someone flips the statism switch. [/ QUOTE ] Exactly...to simplify terms, let's call the innately violent people "bad" and the innately non-violent people "good." Our problem is this: the good people have to find a way to violently coerce the bad people into being less violent. But how this is possible in AC unless more (most?) good societal agents now voluntarily choose to be violent? It really seems logical to have a monolithic institution for handling all the good-condoned violence. Isn't life much more predictable this way?
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#8
11-03-2007, 01:38 AM
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Re: The government/market distinction depends on a cultural artifact.
[ QUOTE ]
Our problem is this: the good people have to find a way to violently coerce the bad people into being less violent. [/ QUOTE ] Self-defense != violent coercion.
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#9
11-03-2007, 01:42 AM
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Re: The government/market distinction depends on a cultural artifact.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] Our problem is this: the good people have to find a way to violently coerce the bad people into being less violent. [/ QUOTE ] Self-defense != violent coercion. [/ QUOTE ] That's just semantics, right? Only violence coerces muggers to stop mugging you. (Of course you could try non-violence, but precedent suggests you will fail.)
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#10
11-03-2007, 01:43 AM
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Re: The government/market distinction depends on a cultural artifact.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] Our problem is this: the good people have to find a way to violently coerce the bad people into being less violent. [/ QUOTE ] Self-defense != violent coercion. [/ QUOTE ] Well, it is, sort of, in a trivial sense. But this isn't a useful way to use the word since he's conflating initated violence with reactive violence. And there's a good possibility he's conflating these on purpose, since he's been around this forum enough to know better.
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