|
Post by Bob Ill on Sept 18, 2011 16:18:18 GMT -5
....Almost everyone has a pet "problem" of society that they worry about. Tell me your pet problem and I will attempt to "solve" it using the concepts of private property and free markets. Let's not discuss abortion; it is too personal to have any agreement on a "solution".
This is a thought experiment for me; not a "test" for you guys. I want to try to tackle some complaints that maybe I haven't heard. Of course, I won't be offering government solutions; I don't believe in them. Any enforcement needed will be by private insurance/protection firms.
|
|
|
Post by sonofabelch on Sept 22, 2011 17:25:31 GMT -5
Hey Bob,
This should be a great platform to work some of this stuff out. When we're done, how about sending it to every congress-related idiot, the supreme court justices, and ever presidential candidate running next year. Maybe they'll learn something.
I have a couple of issues that I can't seem to work out in my mind, no matter how many web pages I read or speeches I hear on the subject. I understand that it's not a perfect world and I'll probably never get a concrete answer that satisfies every concern, but I reckon I'm still looking for some sort of starting point.
One issue I have is the issue of self-regulation and or control within a completely free marketplace/ society.
I think it's clear that self-regulation, when left up to those who work within the system, isn't going to happen. You can hand pick several instances when people have actually regulated their own industries but overall, the human tendency to drive others out of business to protect their own investments of time and money is historically been the rule rather than the exception.
A governmental style regulatory system is easily corrupted, bypassed, and bribed and we can see (in almost every society) where a government-run regulatory system becomes virtually worthless in terms of it's protective duties, or at least those that a society expects from them.
Simply put, a government, more often than not, is almost always a smoke and mirrors-based canvass that those with money and power set up to shield themselves from the fear of revolution. The reasoning behind the action is nothing more than setting up what appears to be an independent body which appears to be neutral. From there, companies can use this "legitimate" system of laws to their advantage.
Some simple and rather archaic examples of this can still be seen in many of Africa's and the Orient's governments. The European and Western versions are simply the same thing with many more ingredients mixed in. The more money involved (as well as the more people involved), the more intricate the system will be. But, when you strip things down, you still see the very same basic ingredients to each government- You'll see the money being protected by a seemingly neutral "government", which then will create laws and an environment designed to protect those with the money.
Often times, there's even very little money to protect. It simply becomes a play to protect the natural resources that are present within a geographical location. Again, we turn to some of the African nations. We'll see where very little (comparatively) money is involved early on, but still new governments are being installed after yet another "revolution" which are really nothing more than power plays designed to gain control of the resources (such as diamonds) in an area.
Anyway, we dont have to beat this horse too far down the road. We both agree that governments suck, are worthless, and are an affront to basic human rights. They exist only to preserve power, and then eventually extend that power to gain various advantages depending on the goals. They are easily corrupted and therefore useless in terms of neutrality.
Let's move ahead and hypothetically erase governments and see what the possibilities are. Let's take a look at a small american (geographically speaking, of course) town in a rural environment and begin to build it like a Sims game from the ground up. Starting with the basics, let's go with maybe 100 people in a wagon train and we'll have them stop in the boonies.
Sweet! They've now found their little piece of prime land next to a flowing river. It has mountains nearby filled with various ores and plenty of wildlife for the picking. It has fertile ground for farm land and plenty of other resources at it's disposal.
Normally, what would happen eventually would be that a few of them would put together some kind of community meeting and they'd decide that they'd be better off (or at least someone would convince them they'd be better off) if they would agree that a few of the more intelligent ones should be picked to do their talking for them when other bands of people came around, or if they would have to trade with other like communities in the area. What would result would be an embryonic form of a government.
But, that's not happening this time. These guys here are smarter than that and they've been burned before. No government for this group. Instead, they want to work under a completely free-market system. Now, I'm very much in favor of such a system, as it would seem that everyone would have equal opportunity under the premise that everyone could contribute to such a system using their own ingenuity. It's not about equal results, it's about equal opportunity, after all.
Here's my blind-spot, or the area I have the most trouble with: Just what would it take to regulate the system where the opportunity remains equal under such a system? I don't care about the results because that should never be a given. It makes folks lazy in the long run. I'm talking about how to insure the opportunity for success, or at least the ability to live independently.
Historically, the one with the most means and the most drive will come out on top. Once on top, the historical tendency is to grow larger, thereby driving out more and more competition along the way until such time that there comes a time when on person, or one company/ provider is left standing. From that point, and for the most part, only violent uprisings or government intrusion is able to beak apart the grip of the monopoly. What body under a completely free market society would be able to effectively regulate this historical certainty?
In modern America, government intrusion has virtually wiped out the monopoly system (then again, has it really?), creating the illusion of fair play. But without a government, what would be the strongest method to control a company that's running wild like a snowball rolling downhill?
If the answer is some kind of regulatory board or system, are we then talking about implementing a pseudo-governmental system but simply calling it something different? Also, by what authority would some kind of regulatory panel extend it's arm? What would give it the muscle needed to insure the opportunity for success for all? Let's say some regulatory board shows up and tells company X that they can't sell their apples for $1 a piece, by what authority do they stand on to force that company to lower their prices? What would keep company X from simply sending in their own hired security firm and arresting any regulatory person who was stupid enough to come around talking trash?
Furthermore, we could surmise that company Y could set up shop next door and sell their apples for .75 cents apiece, thereby driving down the cost to the consumer. Sounds all kinds of jiffy until company X decides to pay the only apple supplier a kickback from each bushel they sell, thereby locking up the only real means for resupply for company Y. In this case, company Y is shit out of luck, and company X remains the only place to get your apples. What means could legitimately stop practices like these under a completely free-market society?
Of course, I've overly simplified some of these issues and things can get very complicated when you insert real-life scenarios, but the basic premise is the point I'm trying to make: what can be used as a legitimate means to regulate a business, an industry, or even a market-based society without the normal burdens set upon it by a government in the classical sense?
Thanks!
|
|
|
Post by Bob Ill on Sept 23, 2011 11:11:13 GMT -5
.....WOW! That was one meaty post. I am not sure I can absorb it all but I guess that your main point involved "regulating" business monopolies. First, I would say tht we have been brainwashed to think that they are automatically bad, but my view is that only forced or coerced ones are. If one company becomes the best at supplying apples by pleasing voluntary consumers, I would argue that there is no problem yet. It is only when the first company used force or coercion against apple supplier #2 that there is a problem. If the original settlers divided the property in a fair way from the start, apple cultivation would be somewhat equal. It would only vary by effort, luck and skill.
In a free market, minus force, business regulation will be by the market, alone. Good providers of goods and services will succeed and poor ones won't. You mentioned the diamond mines. If property owners owned the mines, and could protect them, there would be no question of who the diamonds belonged to. If you mean restaurants and such, I never have understood why a restaurant would want to cheat or poison their clients. There is no need to regulate an "industry"; that is a fictional thing. All they need to do is compete to have the best restaurant.
In human nature, vast differences in talents exist. Minus force, different outcomes will still evolve. As long as force or coercion aren't used, that is the most peaceful sustainable outcome possible.
There would be a free market in speech and advice. I think people naturally take advice from smarter people. That's fine, as long as they aren't forced to take it. I would want all settlers to agree to 1) do everything they agreed to do and 2) not encroach on other persons or their property.
|
|
|
Post by sonofabelch on Sept 23, 2011 16:00:40 GMT -5
Uggh- double post. My computer glitched right when I hit send.
|
|
|
Post by sonofabelch on Sept 23, 2011 16:08:26 GMT -5
heh, sorry about that. My stupid fingers kept going and before I knew it, it was posted up there.
Anyway, my concerns are with the very real possibility of force or coercion being used to gain an advantage in an industry or market.
Not wanting it to happen is fine, but history shows that it will come into play eventually. I don't think monopolies are necessarily bad, per se, but if force and coercion are used to create them, that's when it changes the outcome unfairly. A society's choice based on preference may drive others in an industry under, but that's fair play. It would be up to the others to either find better ways to serve the public, or get out of the game. I'm all for that.
But what are some good ways, devoid of any government idiocy, that a free market system could encounter and repel the unfair advantages created from greed or force?
|
|
|
Post by Bob Ill on Sept 23, 2011 16:55:03 GMT -5
.....Well, in a free market, all could arm themselves to the best of their ability. They could use free speech to try and persuade others to take the side of peace instead of force. They could employ professional guards to protect them. They could buy insurance against attacks by their rivals. They could shun and boycott violent persons and firms. They could refuse to deal with violent persons.
Nothing really new but maybe forgotten since we have been brainwashed that only the state should have big weapons and soldiers. The thing is, there used to be rulers by "divine right". Now, there is a more modern scam...rulers by "democratic representation". They are both balony.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Sept 23, 2011 19:26:01 GMT -5
I say the following with all do respect to ones loved family.
here we go again talking about this dream land where there is no Govt. To me.. a waste of a good mind, because the govt will never go away.
I get your point and exercise. but to me I equate it as to walking backwards. or blowing out on a joint. I think I have become too much of a thinking man to get involved in an argument with someone who will never understand where I am coming from..I ain,t saying that people in New York are any smarter or dumber than folks down south but we definitely have a different world view..Bob your obviously against government solutions to any problems u may have. But I ask you if your father or mother or grandparents returned their monthly social securety check to the US treasury..And their medicare cards, Did they burned them up. do you realize that if the gov,t listened to Bush 2 and privatized social securety as he wished a few years back the fund would now be completely slashed because it would have been invested in the stock market.."Private Insurance/protection funds are just that..They are profit making entities with no gov,t regulation. It is almost as if we are fucked up now because of privatization..They, the gov,t, have surrendered their soveirnty to private firms and crooked corporations who police themselves with no accountability...The fox has been left guarding our chicken coop..Best advice is to stay clear of morons lest they give you agida..They ain,t worth your time.
i would also like to speak about SOB's point but with all do respect i find i can only comment on this instead of playing the game.
Burton J Cobh Jr.
|
|
|
Post by Bob Ill on Sept 24, 2011 10:08:27 GMT -5
.....Note: I woke up thinking about this first discussion and realized that what would happen in an anarchy is not a current "problem". Force and coercion already happen in markets now. The police close down drug sales, prohibit children's lemonade stands, license occupations, inspect businesses, tax everything and regulate almost every good and service I can think of. This is the world I want to consider in this thread - the world of almost total regulation and coercion. Let's leave, for now, the problems of a world that could be and consider current pet peeves.
|
|
|
Post by sonofabelch on Sept 24, 2011 13:54:18 GMT -5
Well, for me, what to replace current roles filld by government is a pet peeve lol. Or, at least it's something that I have no answer for anyway. I was hoping to get some insight or something that would make sense. Regulation of a market system is just one of my issues though. Again, I'm all for a lessening of government influence to the point of eliminating most if not all of it.
But for discussion's sake...
Replacing a police force with private security sounds good on some levels, but then again, by what authority would they work under? Would a private security firm have the moral right to run out and find someone that wronged me simply because I paid them to? What if the ones they are being paid to find turn around and pay them more to come back for me? It could really turn into a "jsut who do they think they are" kind of thing.
Corporations could higher their own security to protect their interests, but just what would give the security company the legal standing to operate in the first place, and by what standards would the operate? Same for security firms that are hired by individual citizens, of course.
Other pet peeves of mine are easier to work out, though. For instance, education. I'm completely against a government forcing families to pay taxes for a government system of education, and continuing to make them pay if they choose to put their children into private institutions. Seems to me that if I sent my kids to a private facility, I should not have to pay for public education through taxes. The same can be said for many other services ranging from police protection to trash disposal.
One point for Muc- Bush's SS bill would not have forced peole to withdraw any amount of their accounts and put it into th stock market. What he was proposing was the option to withdraw up to a third (if I remember the number correctly) of what was in their "accounts" and invest it into certain funds. It was the option to do so that was a key to the proposal. Nothing in it required people to do anything. They would still have the option to leave their accounts alone and ride out the regular system if they chose to.
Yet, the press went out and completely distorted and blew out of proportion what it really was. This is where we got the famous "starving seniors" stories and stuff like that.
If people wanted to invest some of their accounts and it backfired on them, it would have been their loss, simple as that. The trouble with Bush's plan and the main reason for it's opposition is that if a significant amount of people decided to withdraw a portion of their accounts and move it to the private sector, then the government would have to readjust how they spent their budget. In other words, they'd be shit out of luck with many of their pet projects because it would expose the SS system for what it really is: a Ponzi scheme.
The SS fund is set up to appear to be used for nothing but SS payments. Instead, what really happens is that funds earmarked for the SS system is tossed into teh general fund and used for thousands of other things besides SS. The govt estimates how much they will pay out to those who qualify for SS benefits and then uses the rest for other bullshit.
If people were to withdraw portions of their "accounts", then the general fund would collapse, thereby affecting a large portion of the government's business. A "Ponzi" scheme works much in the same way as the SS accounts do. You get more and more people to "invest" into what is supposed to be a specific use, and then you turn around and use that money for other things, hoping you will have enough to pay out the promised benefits.
On the civilian or corporate side, if you run your business like this, you are busted and sent to jail under numerous federal investment and racketeering laws. On the government side, you call it the Social Security program, put some idiot in charge of it, and smile as you fuck the public in the ass.
Now, what happens when you mismanage a system such as the SS system for decades and look the other way? Well, one day, you come out and tell the public that the population is growing too fast and you have to increase their contributions all while increasing the age limit for drawing the benefits.
In the private sector, you run to Argentina to avoid extradition so you don't have to face racketeering, tax evasion, mail fraud, and various other violations under federal law.
So, although Bush's plan was vilified in the press, what he was trying to do was offer people a portion of their own money back so they could then invest it in the private sector if they so chose to for retirement purposes. The congress realized that if that choice was there, many would jump on it in a second. It wouldn't have done a thing besides expose the SS system for what it really is: a sham and a criminal operation made legal because, well..., because the government says so.
|
|
|
Post by Bob Ill on Sept 25, 2011 10:22:01 GMT -5
I say the following with all do respect to ones loved family. here we go again talking about this dream land where there is no Govt. To me.. a waste of a good mind, because the govt will never go away. I get your point and exercise. but to me I equate it as to walking backwards. or blowing out on a joint. I think I have become too much of a thinking man to get involved in an argument with someone who will never understand where I am coming from..I ain,t saying that people in New York are any smarter or dumber than folks down south but we definitely have a different world view..Bob your obviously against government solutions to any problems u may have. But I ask you if your father or mother or grandparents returned their monthly social securety check to the US treasury..And their medicare cards, Did they burned them up. I honestly don't know, but you do realize that these programs are quite new; SS - the 30's; Medicare - 1965. But, muc, the government kept failing banks alive with funny-money! In a free market they would have failed. I respect your decision to avoid this discussion and understand your reasons for doing so.
|
|
|
Post by Bob Ill on Sept 27, 2011 8:20:35 GMT -5
Hey Bob, ....From that point, and for the most part, only violent uprisings or government intrusion is able to beak apart the grip of the monopoly. What body under a completely free market society would be able to effectively regulate this historical certainty? In modern America, government intrusion has virtually wiped out the monopoly system (then again, has it really?), creating the illusion of fair play. But without a government, what would be the strongest method to control a company that's running wild like a snowball rolling downhill?... BTW, the government is a monopoly (over the use of force), and one with all of the negative qualities normally associated with them - rising prices, shoddy service.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Sept 27, 2011 13:37:48 GMT -5
dont forget to include greed and corruption too
|
|
|
Post by Bob Ill on Sept 28, 2011 10:46:12 GMT -5
dont forget to include greed and corruption too O.K. My contention is that since all humans are susceptible to temptation towards corruption and greed, none should be given absolute power over others to exercise these qualities using force or coercion. The courts, being part of the state, will never punish members of its own group. The difference between the state and any other "monopoly" is that the state forces customers to fund their services (school system, police, military) while other providers have to coax customers. If you don't like General Motors, there is Hyundai.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Sept 30, 2011 21:06:02 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by Bob Ill on Oct 1, 2011 14:08:49 GMT -5
....So, is this your pet societal "problem"? ".... the plundering by the criminal class on Wall Street and accelerated destruction of the ecosystem that sustains the human species,..."
|
|