Reactions to AC

[Taciturn]

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I love this hypothetical. It's even better than the "coke and pepsi battling it out in the streets" hypothetical.

What prevents this? Who's going to *pay* for it? Bill Gates is going to get into the business of snatching purses? Stealing rice bowls? He's going to be lowering his hourly rate by engaging in such low-profit, high risk activities. He can make more money - a LOT more money - engaging in voluntary commerce.

Large-scale gangs are built around *contraband*. Only government prohibition can enable profits big enough to overcome the high costs of violence. There are no nationwide networks of bank robbing gangs, or purse snatching gangs, or three-card-monty gangs.

How is Bill Gates going to hire this army? He doesn't have a widespread indoctrination program where kids are raised from birth worshipping the flag, exposed to propoganda glorifying military service, constant barrages of pro-Bill jingoism. Kids aren't going to be coming out of highschool high on the idea of working for Bill's killing squad for peanuts. He's going to have to pay real money.


How much does Bill Gates actually have? He needs *liquid assets*. You can't fuel a war machine with shares of Microsoft. Imagine Bill starts this campaign. What do you think is going to happen to share prices when it becomes apparent that he's using Microsoft to engage in this behavior? Would you buy shares in the US Military? We're spending $8,000,000,000 PER MONTH in Iraq, and they're producing about 1,000,000 barrels of oil per month (and not much else). Even in the case where we're actually stealing all of the oil, you're talking about $8,000 per barrel. Thats more than 100x what it's trading for on the free market.

Yes, large scale violence looks like an insanely profitable plan to me.

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Fair enough - I did post this, I should discuss it. This bat-[censored] crazy hypothetical of mine was a cheap way for me to jump on your statement that a powerful entity in AC land would not be able to engage in sustained aggression against others because that entity would not hold a majority of the society's power. You ignored the possibility of entities joining together to hold a majority of power.

For whatever reason, I thought it would be a good idea to use the subject of your hypothetical, Bill Gates, in an over the top scenario where power is consolidated. The specifics of this hypothetical were essentially pulled out of my ass without regard for my ability to defend them, and without considering whether they are supported by the argument that you have still not responded to.

Regarding your comments:

Is your first paragraph suggesting that Bill Gates himself would be stealing purses and so on? I thought it would be pretty obvious that his hired hands would do anything like this - perhaps I am misreading it.

Yeah, Gates would be foolish to devote his energies to contraband if there were no government. Protection racket was used because it was the first thing that popped into my head, and I don't see how it implies contraband. But, you're right, this type of activity may not be the best use of Gates' time, he would be more profitable focusing on something else.

Bill Gates doesn't have a widespread indoctrination system from which he can recruit people, but neither does anyone else. Isn't relative power what's important?

I'm not going to defend the hypothetical. It was poorly thought out from the beginning and I regret posting it.

[iron81]

This is now the 2nd longest thread in Politics history. The longest is my election night thread with 1001 posts. If this thread makes it to 1000, I'm locking it. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[valtaherra]

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[/ QUOTE ] Do you believe violent theft, pillaging, and murder is part of human nature?[ QUOTE ]
Yes

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I don't think being a homicidal maniac is part of human nature

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Wait, what?

[Richard Tanner]

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This is now the 2nd longest thread in Politics history. The longest is my election night thread with 1001 posts. If this thread makes it to 1000, I'm locking it. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

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NAZI, NAZI!!! Iron hate's free thought [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img].

Cody

[valtaherra]

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[/ QUOTE ] If so, what does the word "society" mean to you? [ QUOTE ]
A community where there are sufficient disincentives to murder, pillage, steal, and do other naughty things that would harm the community.

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Its very telling then when asked what "society" means you mention nothing along the lines of cooperation and instead describe it as "disincentives" (punishment? executions? jails? threats?) against what you already believe is not part of human nature.

[Richard Tanner]

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[/ QUOTE ] Do you believe violent theft, pillaging, and murder is part of human nature?[ QUOTE ]
Yes

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I don't think being a homicidal maniac is part of human nature

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Wait, what?

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THis isn't my point, but reading it I'd guess:

"violent theft, pillaging, and murder" being part of human nature isn't equal to all people being homicidal maniacs.

Cody

[valtaherra]

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society develops to curb the violence.

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Society develops to survive, not to curb violence.

Property emerges to curb violence.

Search SMP for Borodog's OP "On Capitalism."

[valtaherra]

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In anarchy, a powerful group that wants your things is not going to restrain from using violence to steal from you based on some goody two-shoes notion of human nature. Perhaps the only thing that would prevent them is a group that is even more powerful/has more guns, etc.

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Nobody wants to be violently assaulted and robbed, so powerful groups that exist to defend people from being violently assaulted and robbed would have a plentiful stream of revenue from everyone from individuals, small businesses, to mega corporations.

Where do powerful groups bent on homicide and burglary get the resources to operate, and how could they ever be more powerful than groups that draw revenue to fund defensive resources from virtually everyone in society?

[valtaherra]

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Good thing there's all sorts of space to build "competing" roads on

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There are. Many different locations can be reached via dozens of different road selections.


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it's also fortunate that road-building isn't a capital-intensive, land-intensive natural monopoly.

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Right, good thing its not. I built a 500' road from my house to a main road. Didn't cost much money, and only took up a small narrow strip of my property.

[valtaherra]

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Then as long as he doesn't walk on your roads without paying, he's fine. If he ever does though, you quite legally shoot him for trespassing, and/or sue him for his house (damages), depending on your personal predilections.

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So I take it these evil road companies are going to expend resources monitoring this poor man's house to make sure he doesn't leave, and evil, sadistic operators will be standing by to shoot him on sight. Otherwise the market legal system will gladly uphold the evil road companies malicious extortion practices. That just makes tons of sense.

How do these road companies make money?