5 Questions for AC'ists

[SammyKid11]

Hi...I have read many of your posts espousing the wonderful glory which is anarchocapitalism. I've read some passages from Rothbard and a couple of articles by followers of his as well as a couple of articles from critics of AC. I have some burning questions for those of you who honestly believe this would be the ideal system.

Please Note: I am neither making a defense of the current system nor am I searching for a comparative analysis of today's society vs. an AC world. I certainly do not claim the current systems of government on this planet are flawless. But what I'm searching for are honest, straightforward answers to these questions, in and of themselves, that I currently believe provide serious pitfalls in an AC vision. Any of you that can provide such answers, I'd be grateful and anxious to possibly debate the ideas.

1) I buy a tract of land, erect a building, and start a small hardware store. Lowe's, wanting to quash my little rebellion, buys up all the land and roads adjacent to my store (since, I'm assuming there will be no "public" roads as "the public" no longer has a specific agent like representative government acting on its behalf). Pure, self-interested capitalism says Lowe's has just made a great business decision in the best interest of its stockholders, as now they disallow me nor any of my potential customers access to my hardware store. In an AC world, am I simply screwed (since I'm assuming there is no authority I can appeal to for relief)?

2) In an AC world, is there ANY mechanism to prevent monopolies that harm productivity, innovation, and consumers? Market forces have shown that without laws preventing such moves (and oftentimes even with laws seeking to prevent such moves), corporations will simply buy out and merge with their competition in order to own larger and larger shares of their particular market. Obviously competition between businesses sparks price wars, better customer service, more corporate innovation and responsibility...things that are good for Joe Q. Average Consumer. Is it the contention of AC'ers that:
a) Monopolies won't happen in an AC society.
b) There will be some mechanism to help prevent monopolies in an AC society.
or
c) Who cares if there are monopolies -- if the market won't weed out such forces on its own then the demand for diversity just wasn't strong enough.

3) Even if an AC society does manage to avoid powerful corporate monopolies over goods individuals desperately need, what is to prevent price-fixing and other trust-like activity between companies who remain separately owned? Do you AC'ers see any problem with Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, Nextel, and the other more minor carriers having a week-long convention in Aruba each year to collectively set a uniform price that all people wishing to subscribe to cell service shall have to pay each month? Don't anti-competitive measures like this destroy many of the market forces you all hope will curb corruption and make a totally free business sector more effective than a state? If you agree that activities such as the one I've described are antithetical to the very purpose of AC society, what mechanism would be in place to prevent these exact things from happening?

4) On nations...for AC to work, would it take the abolition of nations and the adoption of such a system by all of human-kind? If yes, then that's fine...just wondering if, in your opinions, this is a system that would require the end of all nations and governments. If no...who protects the AC society? Corporate armies? What if different corporations want to provide different armies and I choose to have my sovereign land protected by a different corporate army than my next-door neighbor? In all reality, are the pragmatics of such a scenario more than could be bore by a living, breathing society who maintained real foreign, unified, state-controlled enemies (or governments who simply find my land attractive)? Please elaborate on GROUP protection (from foreign armies, terrorists, etc.) in an AC nation that does NOT exist within the framework of an entirely AC world.

5) On justice: So I subscribe to Justice/Security Firm Alpha...you subscribe to Justice/Security Firm Bravo. I perceive that you have wronged me (I claim that you have beaten me up). So I go to Alpha and file a "security" report against you. They try to arrest you to bring you up on charges that you've wronged me...but you call Bravo, who comes to fight off Alpha officers trying to arrest you. What happens now? Your security firm has a vested interest in your continued business...mine has a vested interest in my continued business. Neither can be trusted as impartial. Your guys believe you, mine believe me. Even if it's written into all justice contracts that in such a situation, a case will be appealed to a third justice company, what's to stop you from just thumbing your nose at the third justice company's decision...after all, they're no authority that you recognize. And how can an AC'er even guarantee me an appeal process will be written into justice contracts...one justice company wanting to procure the business of people who wish to violate others' rights could simply offer "appeal-less" protection, which would then force more legitimate justice companies to provide "coercive detainment without appeal," lest the entire system become useless at preventing and punishing crime. But if Alpha goes after Justice Company for Criminals' client and Justice Company for Criminals wants to maintain its core market, wouldn't they forcibly defend criminal from Alpha's attempts to imprison him? Won't this situation eventually lead to all-out war that will result in one justice company "winning" and establishing a "monopoly on force." While governance may not be "human nature" - it sure seems to be an inalienable group dynamic. What say you, AC'ists?

[Sifmole]

Bumping.. because the ACers have avoided responding for 2 hours to good questions.

[pvn]

[ QUOTE ]
1) I buy a tract of land, erect a building, and start a small hardware store. Lowe's, wanting to quash my little rebellion, buys up all the land and roads adjacent to my store (since, I'm assuming there will be no "public" roads as "the public" no longer has a specific agent like representative government acting on its behalf). Pure, self-interested capitalism says Lowe's has just made a great business decision in the best interest of its stockholders, as now they disallow me nor any of my potential customers access to my hardware store. In an AC world, am I simply screwed (since I'm assuming there is no authority I can appeal to for relief)?

[/ QUOTE ]

Wouldn't it be easier for them to just buy you out directly?

Regardless, this is only "good business practice" if there are a known number of competitors, and that number is fixed, and that number is very small. More competitors spring up. They can't buy out everyone forever. Standard oil tried this, failed, and had to resort to government to prevent new players from entering their market.

BTW, if someone buys up all the land around you, get a helicopter.

[ QUOTE ]
2) In an AC world, is there ANY mechanism to prevent monopolies that harm productivity, innovation, and consumers?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes. The market. Only government can create monopolies.

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Market forces have shown that without laws preventing such moves (and oftentimes even with laws seeking to prevent such moves), corporations will simply buy out and merge with their competition in order to own larger and larger shares of their particular market.

[/ QUOTE ]

And without government-erected barriers to entry, new competitors will enter the market.

[ QUOTE ]
Obviously competition between businesses sparks price wars, better customer service, more corporate innovation and responsibility...things that are good for Joe Q. Average Consumer. Is it the contention of AC'ers that:
a) Monopolies won't happen in an AC society.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not only will they not occur, they CANNOT occur.

[ QUOTE ]
b) There will be some mechanism to help prevent monopolies in an AC society.

[/ QUOTE ]

The market is the mechanism.

[ QUOTE ]
or
c) Who cares if there are monopolies -- if the market won't weed out such forces on its own then the demand for diversity just wasn't strong enough.

[/ QUOTE ]

If one company drives out its competitors, that isn't a monopoly - it's just one company that out-competed all the others. If it tries to take advantage of it's newfound position, it creates opportunities for new competitors. It can only maintain that dominant position by continuing to outcompete all other players.

The elimination of competitors is NOT the same as the elimination of competition.

[ QUOTE ]
3) Even if an AC society does manage to avoid powerful corporate monopolies over goods individuals desperately need, what is to prevent price-fixing and other trust-like activity between companies who remain separately owned? Do you AC'ers see any problem with Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, Nextel, and the other more minor carriers having a week-long convention in Aruba each year to collectively set a uniform price that all people wishing to subscribe to cell service shall have to pay each month? Don't anti-competitive measures like this destroy many of the market forces you all hope will curb corruption and make a totally free business sector more effective than a state? If you agree that activities such as the one I've described are antithetical to the very purpose of AC society, what mechanism would be in place to prevent these exact things from happening?

[/ QUOTE ]

Cartels are notoriously unstable. Whenever such price-fixing agreements have been reached (despite government efforts to prevent them), members of the cartel secretly violate such agreements because their incentive to do so is much stronger than the incentive to maintain cartel prices.

Before the theory of "natural monopolies" became popular, it was common to see mutliple utilities compete in a single city; when their efforts to form cartels continually failed due to this market incentive to break ranks, the "smarter" players in the industry went to government to create utility monopolies (in the public's interest, of course).

Note, BTW, that there are currently so few players in the wireless phone world because the government places an arbitrary limit on the number of licenses it grants in any given geographical area.

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4) On nations...for AC to work, would it take the abolition of nations and the adoption of such a system by all of human-kind?

[/ QUOTE ]

No, that is not a prerequisite. Of course, it would be preferable.

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If yes, then that's fine...just wondering if, in your opinions, this is a system that would require the end of all nations and governments. If no...who protects the AC society? Corporate armies? What if different corporations want to provide different armies and I choose to have my sovereign land protected by a different corporate army than my next-door neighbor? In all reality, are the pragmatics of such a scenario more than could be bore by a living, breathing society who maintained real foreign, unified, state-controlled enemies (or governments who simply find my land attractive)? Please elaborate on GROUP protection (from foreign armies, terrorists, etc.) in an AC nation that does NOT exist within the framework of an entirely AC world.

[/ QUOTE ]

Short answer: insurance.

Longer answer: again, you're asking for a specific answer that only the market can provide. We already have competition in private security forces; there's no reason to believe that competition can't scale to completely replace state-provided police, or on up to national defense.

Really long answer: http://www.mises.org/etexts/defensemyth.pdf

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5) On justice: So I subscribe to Justice/Security Firm Alpha...you subscribe to Justice/Security Firm Bravo. I perceive that you have wronged me (I claim that you have beaten me up). So I go to Alpha and file a "security" report against you. They try to arrest you to bring you up on charges that you've wronged me...but you call Bravo, who comes to fight off Alpha officers trying to arrest you. What happens now? Your security firm has a vested interest in your continued business...mine has a vested interest in my continued business. Neither can be trusted as impartial. Your guys believe you, mine believe me. Even if it's written into all justice contracts that in such a situation, a case will be appealed to a third justice company, what's to stop you from just thumbing your nose at the third justice company's decision...after all, they're no authority that you recognize. And how can an AC'er even guarantee me an appeal process will be written into justice contracts...one justice company wanting to procure the business of people who wish to violate others' rights could simply offer "appeal-less" protection, which would then force more legitimate justice companies to provide "coercive detainment without appeal," lest the entire system become useless at preventing and punishing crime. But if Alpha goes after Justice Company for Criminals' client and Justice Company for Criminals wants to maintain its core market, wouldn't they forcibly defend criminal from Alpha's attempts to imprison him? Won't this situation eventually lead to all-out war that will result in one justice company "winning" and establishing a "monopoly on force." While governance may not be "human nature" - it sure seems to be an inalienable group dynamic. What say you, AC'ists?

[/ QUOTE ]

Sigh. "All out war" is bad for business. Do you think Coke and Pepsi will have their delievery guys shoot it out in the street? Why is justice any different?

I use a Sprint cell phone, and if I call a Verizon customer, the call goes through. Sprint and Verizon recognize that it's better for their business if they have agreements to allow their customers to easily interact with each other. Why is justice any different?

[pvn]

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Bumping.. because the ACers have avoided responding for 2 hours to good questions.

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize I had some responsibility to monitor this board 24x7 for questions that have already been posed four xillion times in the last three months. If you're really itching for an answer RIGHT NOW, use the "search" feature.

[Sifmole]

[ QUOTE ]
5) On justice: So I subscribe to Justice/Security Firm Alpha...you subscribe to Justice/Security Firm Bravo. I perceive that you have wronged me (I claim that you have beaten me up). So I go to Alpha and file a "security" report against you. They try to arrest you to bring you up on charges that you've wronged me...but you call Bravo, who comes to fight off Alpha officers trying to arrest you. What happens now? Your security firm has a vested interest in your continued business...mine has a vested interest in my continued business. Neither can be trusted as impartial. Your guys believe you, mine believe me. Even if it's written into all justice contracts that in such a situation, a case will be appealed to a third justice company, what's to stop you from just thumbing your nose at the third justice company's decision...after all, they're no authority that you recognize. And how can an AC'er even guarantee me an appeal process will be written into justice contracts...one justice company wanting to procure the business of people who wish to violate others' rights could simply offer "appeal-less" protection, which would then force more legitimate justice companies to provide "coercive detainment without appeal," lest the entire system become useless at preventing and punishing crime. But if Alpha goes after Justice Company for Criminals' client and Justice Company for Criminals wants to maintain its core market, wouldn't they forcibly defend criminal from Alpha's attempts to imprison him? Won't this situation eventually lead to all-out war that will result in one justice company "winning" and establishing a "monopoly on force." While governance may not be "human nature" - it sure seems to be an inalienable group dynamic. What say you, AC'ists?

[/ QUOTE ]

Sigh. "All out war" is bad for business. Do you think Coke and Pepsi will have their delievery guys shoot it out in the street? Why is justice any different?

I use a Sprint cell phone, and if I call a Verizon customer, the call goes through. Sprint and Verizon recognize that it's better for their business if they have agreements to allow their customers to easily interact with each other. Why is justice any different?

[/ QUOTE ]

[/ QUOTE ]

Ok, you do it again -- you avoid the question.

First, why is all out war bad for business? A group of exceedingly rich individuals will be willing to pay a security company do this -- its a free market and there is no law against it. There will be people willing to risk their lives for a really good salary from this security company. So what happens? Don't just say it won't because in a completely free utterly unregulated market it will happen. People already pay people to kill other people, its a market that already exists; you can hardly deny that it will still exist if you remove all barriers to its existing.

Second, do you realize that Verizon and Sprint don't cooperate and carry others phone calls out of the "its better for both companies"? There have been several instances in the long past where companies with a greater control over the network attempted to shut out others by not carrying their calls. That is why the regulation is there now, because this exact thing that you say won't happen already has.

Oh, and what good would buying a helicopter do for the business which has just had all access routes cut off. Is he supposed to ferry the customers in via helicopter? And his question is hardly ridiculous. Why wouldn't a large company simply crush each startin competitor by doing similar activities?

Monopolies would be an almost guarantee -- why? Assume a company can achieve a level of dominance that allows them the choice of innovating to stay ahead of new competitors or eliminating competitors via various means; this is a safe assumption because it has happened several times already in history. It is actually cheaper to eliminate the competitor in many cases that it is to innovate in order to keep ahead -- especially for a large company. Examine Microsofts behavior throughout the 90s for a case study.

These are the kinds details of implementation that cause AC to fall apart.

[bocablkr]

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Regardless, this is only "good business practice" if there are a known number of competitors, and that number is fixed, and that number is very small. More competitors spring up. They can't buy out everyone forever. Standard oil tried this, failed, and had to resort to government to prevent new players from entering their market.

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Not true. Standard Oil did not fail - in fact it became the first real monopoly because of it. The government broke it up.

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Yes. The market. Only government can create monopolies.

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Not true. Ask Standard Oil, ATT, Microsoft to name a few.

[Darryl_P]

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Oh, and what good would buying a helicopter do for the business which has just had all access routes cut off. Is he supposed to ferry the customers in via helicopter? And his question is hardly ridiculous. Why wouldn't a large company simply crush each startin competitor by doing similar activities?


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Don't forget the airspace issue. If you can own land, then why not airspace? In that case, even the helicopter wouldn't do you much good.

[timotheeeee]

[ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
Regardless, this is only "good business practice" if there are a known number of competitors, and that number is fixed, and that number is very small. More competitors spring up. They can't buy out everyone forever. Standard oil tried this, failed, and had to resort to government to prevent new players from entering their market.

[/ QUOTE ]
Not true. Standard Oil did not fail - in fact it became the first real monopoly because of it. The government broke it up.

[ QUOTE ]
Yes. The market. Only government can create monopolies.

[/ QUOTE ]
Not true. Ask Standard Oil, ATT, Microsoft to name a few.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm just going to regurgitate what I've heard ACers say. AT&T was a government created monopoly, and Microsoft isn't, nor was it ever, a monopoly. I know nothing about Standard Oil.

[Sifmole]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Oh, and what good would buying a helicopter do for the business which has just had all access routes cut off. Is he supposed to ferry the customers in via helicopter? And his question is hardly ridiculous. Why wouldn't a large company simply crush each startin competitor by doing similar activities?


[/ QUOTE ]

Don't forget the airspace issue. If you can own land, then why not airspace? In that case, even the helicopter wouldn't do you much good.

[/ QUOTE ]

I guess -- but who would you buy the airspace from? Or would there be an "air" grab period? I guess there couldn't really be one right, because who would organize it?

[Darryl_P]

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I guess -- but who would you buy the airspace from? Or would there be an "air" grab period? I guess there couldn't really be one right, because who would organize it?

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I guess the airspace would just come with the land underneath it.

A complicating factor might be dogs, though. As far as I know, they think they own the land they live on also, so we may need some man-dog arbitration agencies too [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]