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#1
03-01-2006, 07:30 PM
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What the heck
I don't buy AC.
Well, i dunno, that might not be entirely true, and i'm not really sure what not buying it even means, so i'll go a little further. proponents of AC say that government is a net loss, many of these people go so far as to say that there is no value gained by government in the first place (not just less gained then that which is lost via inefficency). I'd like to hear some thoughts from AC people, and i'll be happy to provide what i believe are counter arguments in terms of how government can and does create value. In return i would like to hear from AC people, how property rights are in fact derived. Second i would like to know if AC ever existed in the pre-modern past (i'm of the thought that it did) and what the development of states from a previous AC past has to say about people desire for states, or inability to defend themseleves from states. Why do you think states original arrisal would be different then a new state genisis in the vacuum created if we somehow managed to creat AC here and now. Post-note: I've heard arguments that private property is created by mixing labor with unowned resources. I find this to be flawed. At what point does a stolen resource become legitamate? how many generations? how much labor must be combined with the resource, if i scatter seeds over a field is that the same as fencing it, or as plowing it? Essentially tell me what makes private property so "real" and tangible as it seems in AC theory. In my view actual claim over (legal as opposed to economic property rights) is a mechanism of society to promote the kind of long-view that borodog has previously talked about. However there is nothing inallienable about it, it's simply a means to an end. and for some help on getting where i'm coming from, I think AC fails to adequately account for collective action costs, as well as providing adequate incentive for an individual to accept the status quo and not challenge the property rights system. My basic argument with AC i believe, is that i see property rights as organic and evolutionary as opposed as known/static/completely definable. I'll be happy to clarify anything else. 
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#2
03-01-2006, 10:06 PM
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Re: What the heck
[ QUOTE ]
I don't buy AC. Well, i dunno, that might not be entirely true, and i'm not really sure what not buying it even means, so i'll go a little further. proponents of AC say that government is a net loss, many of these people go so far as to say that there is no value gained by government in the first place (not just less gained then that which is lost via inefficency). I'd like to hear some thoughts from AC people, and i'll be happy to provide what i believe are counter arguments in terms of how government can and does create value. [/ QUOTE ] A state is a territotial monopolist of coercion. In its capacity to define justice, it defines its coercions as "just" and then further coerces the governed into paying for them through taxation. Any coercion is essentially an involuntary transaction. In any involuntary transaction at least one of the parties to the transaction must lose ex ante; after all, if both both parties to the transaction believed they would benefit from it, there would be no need for coercion. The alternative to a society based on systematic coercion (i.e. an economy based on involuntary transactions, theft) is a society based soley on voluntary transactions. Under all voluntary transactions both parties benefit ex ante. Furthermore, the willingness of parties to engage in future transactions is dependent on the outcome of previous transactions; i.e. if you feel you were "shorted" in a transaction, you are unlikely to engage in that same transaction again. Furthermore, in an economy based on voluntary transactions, both parties to a transaction must first produce something of value in order to make an exchange and consume. In an economy based on systematic coercion, on party does not need to produce in order to consume, he simply coercively takes from the other party and consumes. To be sure, theft would occur in an AC society, but this would incentivize spending on security and defense. The state can not tolerate people defending themselves from state coercions, and simply defines such investments and actions to be illegal. Worse still, the defenseless condition in which the plundered finds himself in reduces his incentive to produce. All of these mechanisms make it abundantly clear that, ceteris paribus, societies based on systematic coercion must be poorer than societies based on respect of property rights and freedom of exchange. [ QUOTE ] In return i would like to hear from AC people, how property rights are in fact derived. [/ QUOTE ] "Property rights" are social norms that arise to non-violently settle disputes over the allocation of scarce resources (economic goods). The concept of individual ownership of economic goods arises as a natural outgrowth of ownership of the body. Most people other than Tom Collins recognize that each individual owns his own body. This is not an arbitrary philosophical decision. It is clear that no person can exercise the degree of physical control over another person's body that they can over their own. Control of your own body is simple and easy. Controlling someone else's is difficult and costly. Recognizing that each person owns their own body leads to a minimization of interaction costs. The extension of the concept of self-ownership to economic goods is natural. If you pick up a rock or stick, you control it simply and directly. If I want to acquire that rock or stick from you there are a few ways I can do it. I can persuade you to just give it to me, which you might. If I can't I can either offer to trade you something else for it (other goods or services) or I can try and take it forcefully. The latter is risky and can be costly, although I might judge the risk and cost of conflict to be justified by the value of the object in question or the toil required to produce something you value more than the thing I want. The very fact that you will defend "your" thing demonstrates how innate the concept of ownership is. Conflicts will always arise over ownership, since it is exclusive. Hence society needs some mechanisms whereby disputes over ownership can be settled otherwise there would be perpetual violent conflict over scarce resources (as is the case in the animal kingdom). Fortunately for us, human beings have the unique capability of forethought, to plan alternate courses of action and rationally predict the likely outcomes of these plans (although not all plans or choices are guaranteed to be good ones; still any amount of planning and rationality is better than none). Hence most people see the costs of perpetual conflict are higher than the alternative, and society develops mechanisms to minimize conflict. There are basically two systems required: a system for establishing and demonstrating ownership, and a system for non-violently resolving disputes. One could imagine many different systems for establishing priority of ownership claims, but the simplest, most universal, and least arbitrary seems to be based on first occupation, AKA homesteading. So the first person to appropriate a resource from nature owns it. The concept of "labor mixing" is outdated and confusing in my opinion. "Mixing one's labor" with something is neither necessary nor sufficient to establish ownership. If I pick up an unowned rock, I don't need to "mix my labor with it", i.e. modify it in any way, in order to own it. I just need to pick it up and declare to the world that it's mine. Furthermore, if I go onto my neighbor's already appropriated land, cut down a tree and make a chair from it, I don't own the chair. I'm just a trespasser, a vandal, and a thief. As society develops, a need for systems of public recordation and notification become necessary to establish ownership in the event of disputes. This is what titles and deeds are. The more valuable the good in question, the more elaborate the protections and safeguards on the establishment of ownership. Lastly, a system of dispute settlement is needed in the event that conflict arises over ownership. Any records establishing ownership are consulted, but this always essentially comes down to a judgement made by at least one human being. There must also be repercussions for failure to comply with judgements (else the process would be useless). I don't think any of this analysis is in much dispute between anarchocapitalists and statists. Where they disagree is over the details and the process. Verious flavors of statists would argue that certain economic goods should not be "up for grabs", i.e. that certain things cannot or should not be owned. Statists believe that the various mechanisms described for establishing property rights, establishing documentation of ownership, resolution of ownership conflicts, and enforcement of judgements must to a smaller or larger extent all come from centralized coercive monopolies. An anarchocapitalist like myself believes that what is property is settled by the market to minimize conflict. The market establishes systems to document ownership to minimize conflict. The market establishes mechanisms to resolves disputes to minimize conflict (duh). The market establishes mechanisms to enforce judgements to minimize conflict. The market does all of this because conflict is costly, and markets act to minimize transaction costs through economization amongst consumers and competition amongst producers. [ QUOTE ] Second i would like to know if AC ever existed in the pre-modern past (i'm of the thought that it did) and what the development of states from a previous AC past has to say about people desire for states, or inability to defend themseleves from states. Why do you think states original arrisal would be different then a new state genisis in the vacuum created if we somehow managed to creat AC here and now. [/ QUOTE ] All societies are anarchocapitalist to a certain extent; that extent being which industries have not been monopolized by their governments. Typically statists argue that certain industries like defense and security, the courts, and roads should be monopolized at a minimum. But usually they rapidly advocate the monopolization of other industries, like education, firefighting, health care, consumer protection, labor advocacy, public transportation, gambling, and on and on and on. Search for my thread on Monarchy vs. Democracy for an explanation of why governments arose in the first place, and why they are unnecessary in a modern advanced technology high degree of division of labor society. Historically, there have been some societies that were essentially anarchic, Medieval Iceland, the American West, etc. They worked very well. But what you have to understand is that in history all things are not equal. A large state can easily extend its influence into a smaller territory simply by overwhelming application of force, particularly if it enjoys a technological edvantage, regardless of the nature or lack thereof of government in the subjugated territory. So the fact that an anarchocapitalist territory has not managed to arise and remain in place doesn't bother me as far as the soundness of the theory goes. What bothers me is the very real possibility that there may simply be no way of getting rid of states completely, rather than merely periodically changing who has the power and redrawing the lines between them. [ QUOTE ] Post-note: I've heard arguments that private property is created by mixing labor with unowned resources. I find this to be flawed. At what point does a stolen resource become legitamate? how many generations? how much labor must be combined with the resource, if i scatter seeds over a field is that the same as fencing it, or as plowing it? [/ QUOTE ] See my earlier comments about the "labor mixing" concept. As I said, it is misguided. As for how long must elapse before ownership of stolen goods becomes "legitimized", that's a cultural issue for the most part, but there are objective factors that contribute. If the theft occured so long ago that everyone involved in the transaction is long dead, I think it's simply unlikely that a social norm would develop that would allow judgements in favor of the descendants of the victims and against the descendents of the aggressors. After all, it wasn't the descendents that did the robbing. It's a generally accepted social norm that while wealth can be inherited (I can leave my worldly goods to my sons), debt cannot (if I die owing $100,000 to creditors they are SOL, and cannot hit up my sons for the money). [ QUOTE ] Essentially tell me what makes private property so "real" and tangible as it seems in AC theory. [/ QUOTE ] There are two schools. There is the natural rights school and there are the "consequentialists". The former derive systems of property from axiomatic deductions about human nature, whereas the latter seek to develop systems that have the "best" (although that is subjective) consequences (usually in terms of minimization of conflict). Conveniently, they arrive at the same general answers. There is in fact a triple coincidence between the system derived from natural law, the system that appears to produce the best concequences, and the systems that seem to develop organically in the real world, which should lend some credence to the ideas. [ QUOTE ] In my view actual claim over (legal as opposed to economic property rights) is a mechanism of society to promote the kind of long-view that borodog has previously talked about. However there is nothing inallienable about it, it's simply a means to an end. [/ QUOTE ] I agree. Also, there is a large cultural component. Recently I read a post by pvn where he posed the question of what system other than capitalism could possibly develop under anarchy, if people's ability to own property and freely exchange it were uninhibited. The answer is entirely culturally dependent. As I have noted before, it is entirely possible for cultures to exist that, while they recognize private property rights in consumer goods, they don't recognize private property rights over the factors of production, producer goods, land and natural resources, etc. Such cultures have existed all over the world and are properly described as anarchosocialist, and they never advanced beyond the stone age (see some of my other posts for an explanation of why). [ QUOTE ] and for some help on getting where i'm coming from, I think AC fails to adequately account for collective action costs, as well as providing adequate incentive for an individual to accept the status quo and not challenge the property rights system. [/ QUOTE ] This seems like handwaving to me. The fact is that society is orderly and stable not because of government but rather because of individuals. Do a forum search on "Why Anarchocapitalism is a Non-Starter" for a rebuttal I wrote that explains this. [ QUOTE ] My basic argument with AC i believe, is that i see property rights as organic and evolutionary as opposed as known/static/completely definable. [/ QUOTE ] This is not at odds with anarchocapitalism in the slightest. In fact it is the anarchocapitalists who recognize that the market provides organic and evolutionary solutions to problems (including conflicts over property) without central planning or systematic coercion.
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#4
03-01-2006, 11:35 PM
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Re: What the heck
[ QUOTE ]
BTW i think we have some fertile ground here. [/ QUOTE ] Not surprising, given all the fertilizer Riddick keeps throwing around. q/q
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#5
03-02-2006, 12:09 AM
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Re: What the heck
[ QUOTE ]
Not surprising, given all the fertilizer Riddick keeps throwing around. q/q [/ QUOTE ] [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]
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#7
03-02-2006, 04:50 AM
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Re: What the heck
Riddick. Borodog. Jaxmike. Whichever. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] q/q
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#8
03-02-2006, 04:57 AM
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Re: What the heck
[ QUOTE ]
Riddick. Borodog. Jaxmike. Whichever. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] q/q [/ QUOTE ] You are a true troll. Jaxmike would probably never have thrown his hat in with the ACers. He's too socially conservative. I don't see why Andy/Cola allow you in here. You never really contribute anything to threads except to degrade people.
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#9
03-02-2006, 09:47 AM
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Re: What the heck
But you have to say, however baseless and trollish it was it was quite a good quip.
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#10
03-05-2006, 11:01 AM
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Re: What the heck
Sorry for taking so long.
[ QUOTE ] In any involuntary transaction at least one of the parties to the transaction must lose ex ante; after all, if both both parties to the transaction believed they would benefit from it, there would be no need for coercion. [/ QUOTE ] This is not true, one of the main uses of government (and i know this is going to ruffle feathers) is to help people commit to doing things. I know that most AC don't believe commit problems to be very important, but i and most statists do. A simple example where government provides a BETTER situation Ex Ante is the prisoner's dilemna game. I assume you are aware of it, but i'll give a breif outline for those following along. Essentially two criminals are caught by the police, and the police have enough evidence to convict both of them with trespassing (1 yr in jail), but not enough to convict them of robbery (10 yrs). The police take each to a seperate cell and tells them if they confess and rat on the other guy they'll get 0 yrs, and the other guy will get 20. If they both confess they get 10. Essentially each criminal is better off confessing, regardless of how the other guy acts (0<1 should the other guy stay silent, 10 < 20 should the other guy talk). A common solution to this incredibly difficult problem, is to add another player with a monopoly on force, for instance a mafia boss. Here, the boss can subject the criminals to an even worse outcome if they should talk (death) and thus ensures that both will not talk and they'll recieve a combined 2 years in jail, rather then the previously expeced 20. This is one example, but you could look towards how efficent the mob was compared to individual criminals, or even groups of criminals with no "higher" enforcement mechanism. The criminality of what i'm talking about has very little to do with the theory behind, it's just a simple example, i could be more complex and talk about state gov. with regards to pollution or over-fishing. Again, i'm sure there is a cost to the mafia government, but it provides at least in some places, for people to act logically as a group, rather than logically as individuals. [ QUOTE ] All of these mechanisms make it abundantly clear that, ceteris paribus, societies based on systematic coercion must be poorer than societies based on respect of property rights and freedom of exchange. [/ QUOTE ] I clearly disagree on this point, as i believe there are agreements that people would like to make, but are incapable of committing to without outside enforcement power. I will agree that this is not a costless transaction, and that for people to get this benifit they must (or at least some must) suffer individual compulsion. This is certainly a point at which AC can make a very valid argument vs. Statism, but it does not preclude the state from producing more value ex ante, which is what i'm concerned with at the moment. That being said, i see the state as far more responsive to the people then you do, i think. [ QUOTE ] "Property rights" are social norms that arise to non-violently settle disputes over the allocation of scarce resources (economic goods). The concept of individual ownership of economic goods arises as a natural outgrowth of ownership of the body. Most people other than Tom Collins recognize that each individual owns his own body. This is not an arbitrary philosophical decision. It is clear that no person can exercise the degree of physical control over another person's body that they can over their own. Control of your own body is simple and easy. Controlling someone else's is difficult and costly. Recognizing that each person owns their own body leads to a minimization of interaction costs. [/ QUOTE ] Perfect. I think ownership of the body is the SOLE axiomatic and unalienable property right. I really don't see how any of the other property rights you speak of flow logically from this. I understand how declaring something your own, or holding it adds to the legitamcy as it will make someone else trying to take it costly. However this is not a logical argument for an entire property rights system save one where you are physically defending everything you own, all the time. The question we must ask ourselves, i think, is why would people respect property distinctions? I don't think there can any arguement made on a "higher" level than people find property distinctions useful. There is no logical or rational basis for initial property rights allocations in my opinion, they're fairly arbitrary. however, once we get past that step i think we agree on why property rights (for society as a whole) is a good thing. We both want people to create new value in whatever form, and for people to do so, it is neccesssary for them to have ownership of that value. That provides the incentive for economic growth. What is important is that people profit from creating value. For this to happen you must have a property rights system of some kind. I think we both agree on this. So we come to two conclusions, A) ownership of the body is axiomatic B) ownership of property is neccissary for economic growth Nowhere does this provide any logical justification for how property is initiated. We can come back to this at some other point. The main conclusion for me, is that people don't respect property rights of other because that ownership is "right" or "just" but because it's a useful, but value neutral, distinction. I don't believe that a declaration to the world of ownership justifies anything. Why should I? A property system is stable and useful when it's in everyone's best interests to respect what are esentially arbitrary distinctions. Again this is why people can inherit wealth. Not because it is just that someone should have a great deal of property based on whom their parents are, but as a way of incentivizing the parent to contribute to society (You agree with this right?). Therefore i see property distinctions as value neutral on a societal level, though certainly this does not hold true individully. Ok so there's all of that. From this i draw the conclusion that the value of a property rights system is directly proportional to how likely it is that people will continue to acquiesce to property distinctions that are not "real" in the way ownership over the body is "real". This ownership can't be touched or tasted. In fact it can't even be demonstated. In any sense that an individual's ownership over property is a "real" thing it is only in as much as everyone else credibly commits to abide by the "rules of the game". An economic system's job, in my opinion, is to make sure that everyone has the incentive to keep playing by the rules. Throughout history the most commonly used method is a redistributive system. I would argue, as i think would you, that the system should try in almost all cases, to redisribute as little as possible. The driver of economic growth is sureness in ownership, and as you redistribute the profits of someone's investment, you de-insentivize investment. However, what is crucial for investment in the first place is a society that respects property rights. Essentially redistribution is the price paid by those who invest to the rest of the people (who really are coercing the rich here, but i don't see anyway around it) for continuing to recognize their ownership of something which is commonly taken as an assumption, but should not be. I have a paper that is percisely on the above topic that i wrote if anyone is interested in reading it. So that's why i think A) government can create value and B) why ownership isn't as inallienable as AC makes it out to be. I really didn't do justice to your post, or explain fully my views, because quite simply we're at WAY too broad a level to cover everything in one post. From now on can we try to stick to fewer points per post? it gets really difficult to address all the issues brought up by the other poster adequately. If there is anything i can clarify please let me know. As a final note, i think the development of the modern welfare state was a rational thing, and while i disagree with how it is conducted (50% tax rate is excessive and unneccisary, and surely stunting to growth) i think that it is not a coincidence that modern capitalism took off, exactly when the King of England gave control over taxation to the parliment. There have been and always will be a lot of problems, however government i think, is suprisingly effective.
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