From: John Clark (jonkc@worldnet.att.net)
Date: Tue Sep 05 2000 - 07:53:06 MDT
Paul Hughes <paul@planetp.cc> Wrote:
>>Me:
>>The best way to maximize anything is to make it a commodity, the market
>>does exactly that with freedom and justice.
> Ah, so you're saying it is a commodity!?
Yep.
> At least your honest about it.
Thanks.
>Until you can explain how those lacking key economic success tools can
>also thrive in such a system, you're going to have a lot of resistance on your
> hands, and the meme of socialism will continue to thrive. My challenge to people
>on this list is for them to convince the rest how such a system will benefit them
>more than the one we have now.
Apologies to the long time members of the list, I've said all this before.
In Anarcho- Capitalism, there would still be police and there would still be law,
but it would be private police and private law. PPL's (privately produced law)
in a anarchic world would have private protection agencies (PPA's) to
back them up. Disputes among PPA's would be settled by an independent
arbitrator agreed to by both parties BEFORE the disagreement happened.
Something like that can happen today. When companies sign complicated
contracts they sometimes also agree on who will arbitrate it if differences
in interpretation happen. Nobody want to get caught up in the slow, expensive
court system run by governments. The arbitrator would be paid by the case,
and because he is picked by both sides, it's in his interest to be as just as
possible. If he favored one side over another or made brutal or stupid
decisions he would not be picked again and would need to look for a new line
of work. Unlike present day judges and juries, justice would have a positive
survival value for the arbitrator.
All parties would have a reason to avoid violence if possible. The disputing
parties would not want to turn their front yard into a war zone, and violence
is expensive. The successful protection agencies would be more interested in
making money than saving face. Most of the time this would work so I expect
the total level of violence to be less than what we have now, but I'm not
such a utopian as to suggest it will drop to zero. Even when force is not
used the implicit threat is always there, another good reason to be civilized.
And I'm not talking about justice only for the rich. If a rich man's PPA makes
unreasonable demands (beatings, sidewalk justice, I insist on my
mother being the judge if I get into trouble) it's going to need one hell of
a lot of firepower to back it up. That kind of an army is expensive because
of the hardware needed and because of the very high wages it will
need to pay its employees for an extremely dangerous job. To pay for
all this they will need to charge their clients enormous fees severely
limiting their customer base and that means even higher charges. They could
never get the upper hand, because the common man's PPA would be able to
outspend a PPA that had outrageous demands and was just for the super rich.
A yacht cost a lot more than a car, yet the Ford motor Company is far richer
than all the yacht builders on the planet combined.
No system can guarantee justice to everybody all the time but you'd have the
greatest chance of finding it in Anarcho-capitalism. In a dictatorship one
man's whim can lead to hell on earth, I don't see how 40 million Germans
could have murdered 6 million Jews in a Anarcho-capitalistic world. Things
aren't much better in a Democracy, 51% can decide to kill the other 49% ,
nothing even close to that is possible in Anarchy, even theoretically .
In general, the desire not to be killed is much stronger than the desire to
kill a stranger, even a Jewish stranger. Jews would be willing to pay as
much as necessary, up to and including their entire net worth not to be
killed. I doubt if even the most rabid anti Semite would go much beyond 2%.
As a result the PPA protecting Jews would be much stronger than the one that
wants to kill them. In Anarchy, for things that are REALLY important to you
( like not getting killed) you have much more influence than just one man
one vote.
>>Me:
>>Somebody is going to win it's just a question of who.
>And why is that? Why not a win-win for everyone?
Because everybody is not equally smart, kind, hard working, or lucky.
>Are you unwilling to admit that there is always a better way, a better idea than
>the one you currently possess?
I am willing to admit that like every other human invention the free market is not perfect.
Without a doubt the best system is one where everybody simply does exactly what I tell
them to do, however for some that reason I can't imagine I've found other people are
somewhat less enthusiastic with the idea.
The second best system would be run by somebody who always knew what the right
thing to do was, had the moral courage to actually do it, and had the leadership
qualities to convince others to do it too. Unfortunately such moral paragons are a
little hard to find.
The Free Market I'm afraid is a distant third.
>I'd prefer that everyone wins.
I'd prefer it if gravity was a repulsive force not attractive, but wishing does not make it so.
John K Clark jonkc@att.net
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