this is a sideline post to 'The failure of Anarcho-Capitalism.' As that post has gone off in many different directions, I would like to talk specifically about only on thing here. a few of you have already commented directly on this and i have read those posts but feel free to re-post them here for clarification.
Please give a direct, concise, analyses of the following statement: *One post, your best counter-argument, no responses -mgmcintyre*
"There is no reason to engage in the 'voluntary exchange of defensive services' with those whom you can physically dominate. Potential customers must necessarily pay less than they stand to loose to exploiters. Therefore, potential defenders must necessarily be able to profit more by exploiting those in need of defense."
Thanks in advance ...
mgmcintyre:Potential customers must necessarily pay less than they stand to loose to exploiters.
mgmcintyre:Therefore, potential defenders must necessarily be able to profit more by exploiting those in need of defense."
But this would all be pre-empted anyway, because people don't agree to unenforceable contracts. No predatory PDA could ever get funding from consumers in the face of defensive PDAs. Defensive PDAs will have the best long term profits because they are not constantly engaged in fighting other PDAs.
See internet example. Utter failure to rebut this.
Your argument implies both Hobbesianism and so-called "Social Darwinism" -- a war of all against all, where the strong dominate the weak. It completely discounts the significant real-world effect of moral and ethical beliefs on human behavior. Furthermore, there seems to be an instinctive, evolutionary basis for people's conscious moral and ethical beliefs. The vast majority of people do not kill, rape, steal, etc. because there's some group of people with a monopoly over the use of violence; no such monopoly exists. Instead, they do not kill, rape, steal, etc. because they typically believe those actions to be morally wrong.
Were all people willing and trying to dominate others at all times, they would only submit temporarily at best; they would counter-attack at the earliest possible opportunity when they felt they had the upper hand. There is no absolute measure of "strength" -- it's highly context-dependent. Bigger, stronger people can be defeated by smaller, weaker people through sheer cunning. So who's truly "stronger"?
Finally, I'd like to add that I will post in this thread as many times as I wish. I will not abide by any arbitrary limitations that you attempt to put forth. Hence this post is only my opening salvo in this thread.
The keyboard is mightier than the gun.
Non parit potestas ipsius auctoritatem.
Voluntaryism Forum
You don't take into account the following:
- Aggressors face risks and make time and money investments to rob you, lowering the profit below the "revenue" they steal from you
- Agressors have alternative career options without those risks. For example, they could become defenders.
- Some level of crime is always acceptable, as the price would be infinite for total protection. The price of human life is a finite number, determined by the market (you yourself can pay more or less as you wish). Human action would be impossible when we value human life as infinitely valuable.
It's called comparative advantage.
Personally, I don't buy any of the responses to to mgmcintyre's statement offered thus far. I think the two best arguments were made by Sieben and Consultant, but they still didn't win me over. Let me see if I can explain one at a time. First....
"This assumes they can corner the market. We repeatedly state there is a demand for protection, not exploitation. So that out of the many firms I could choose to patronize, I will choose the one who offers me the best deal. Once they have this contract, if they try to break it and take my stuff, they might be able to get away with it but their reputation on the market will suffer, and they will have no more clients, going broke." - Sieben
The thing I don't like about this argument is that there are a lot of unstated assumptions at play here. For one, Sieben seems to assume that there will naturally be a lot of firms on the defense market. But is that true? Suppose the cost of defense falls as you increase your customer base in a certain geographic area (say that it is cheaper on a per person basis to protect 1,000 people than it is to protect 1 person). This would give "large" firms a significant cost advantage. Maybe so much of an advantage that only a handful of firms would operate in this "market" and new firms would find it difficult to enter.
If that is the case, it isn't obvious to me that competition will eliminate "exploitation". Imagine you're living in Iowa and the goverment of the USA was essentially a big defense company. But the company has treated you wrong for long enough and you want to "switch" defense companies. Could you do that without moving? I doubt it. And even if you did move to some other geographic area with another defense company, are you sure competition would ensure that the other defense company was better? Hey, you basically have your pick of moving to a few hundred countries now. How has voting with your feet turned out so far??
I have other complaints with Sieben's argument (robbing from your customers may ruin your reputation, but what about robbing from other people's customers), but I want to move on and address Consultant's comments too.
"You don't take into account the following: #1 Aggressors face risks and make time and money investments to rob you, lowering the profit below the "revenue" they steal from you #2 Agressors have alternative career options without those risks. For example, they could become defenders. #3 Some level of crime is always acceptable, as the price would be infinite for total protection".- Consultant
"You don't take into account the following:
#1 Aggressors face risks and make time and money investments to rob you, lowering the profit below the "revenue" they steal from you
#2 Agressors have alternative career options without those risks. For example, they could become defenders.
#3 Some level of crime is always acceptable, as the price would be infinite for total protection".- Consultant
She makes an excellent point in #1. It is true that in attacking you, the aggressors take on a variety of risks and costs which lowers the net benefit of the theft. So when hiring a defender, you don't need to hire one that can dominate you, you only need to hire one that will raise the cost of stealing from you to the point that it is no longer profitable for aggressors to try. BUT I think mgmcintyre's point still stands that if you there is no reason to trade with a defense company that can physically dominate you. And if there are indeed economies of scale in defense provision, then I think it is pretty likely that you would only be dealing with defense companies that could dominate you. So that is bad news all around!
Over all, I am still strongly inclined to agree with mgmcintyre. At least, I don't think think his initial statement has been proven false yet.
Ambition is a dream with a V8 engine - Elvis Presley
I've created a PDA. I have X amount of employees. x is the average extra amount I have to pay my employees to take on the risk of being outlawed by the current customary legal system. I can exploit Y amount of people, or I can defend Z amount of people. Y people make Y' amount of money. Z people make Z' income. Y people will resist at y average cost to being exploited. Z people won't resist because it's voluntary. F is the number of firms who have made the calculation that exploitation is more profitable than defense. F firms will challenge in order to exploit the same people at f average cost. D is the number of other firms who have made the calculation that defense is more profitable than exploitation. D firms will challenge exploiters at d average cost. Z people will pay z' percentage of income for defense. I will be able to take y' percentage of income from Y.
Each firm is in this same position and before it decides to defend or exploit has to determine which of the following formulas is greater.
Y'*y'-Y*y-F*f-D*d-X*x or Z'*z'-F*f
There are a few things that we know about the formulas
1. Z' will be greater than Y' because it requires fewer resources to defend than to exploit
2. y' will be greater than z' for the reasons posted in the OP
3. As D increases, fewer firms will evaluate the first formula is greater than the latter
4. As F increases, both formulas will evaluate lower, and so it will be a wash.
5. If the difference between Z and Y is not greater than the difference between z' and y', and y and x are not big enough to make firms calculate that the latter formula is greater than the former, there exists a threshold of D which in reality makes the latter formula greater than the former
6. Every time a firm calculates the latter formula is greater than the former, that increases D, causing more of effect 3 to occur.
Actual calculation of these formulas would require market research which I do not have, but what I do have are two formulas where it has yet to be shown in all cases that the former will be greater than the latter. Intuition tells me that because the former formula has so much going against it, that the latter formula can succeed in evaluating to a higher value, creating a positive feedback loop, making the system stable against internal exploitation and thus against creation of a state/society based on an exploitive tragedy of the commons.
The root problem is not the monopolization of security, it is the monopolization of law. More specifically, it is the widespread acceptance that there should be a dual-law/dual-morality whereby the many are prohibited from performing actions reserved to the few or, conversely, that the many are to be compelled to perform actions on behalf of the few.
Under unitary morality/law, systematic exploitation would be impossible. A profit could always be earned by breaking people out of protection rackets.
Clayton -
Student:This would give "large" firms a significant cost advantage. Maybe so much of an advantage that only a handful of firms would operate in this "market" and new firms would find it difficult to enter.
I don't know why it is that when you talk about defense, which is obviously a scarce good like anything else, all of a sudden, all of the oldest economic fallacies about markets come back to play.
Really, it is much easier to dominate you by starving you to death, therefore, it is not wise to let the market feed you? Or provide you with shelter or clothing? All of the reasons you've stated are not unique to defense. If they are true, then they are true for everything else that can be provided by the market.
And I'm also curious why and how it is that a small minority that requires your voluntary funding and constant approval to maintain its capital value, can begin to dominate the vast majority by coercion? Absent of legitimacy granted by the vast public, I claim it is economically and practically impossible. Or at least very close to that.
If you want to claim that people will remain statists at heart, and work towards the establishment of a State again, then that is a different argument and a different problem. But this is not what the concern here is about. It is about how the Ancap society, which would at large, view any attempt by some firm to dominate by coercion as illegitimate, come to dominate anyway. It is precisely economics science that can demonstrate how such an even is highly unlikely.
Student:PS* To whoever asked, I am assuming that "defender dominates you" means they are "strong enough" to take what you are trying to protect at a net benefit (so the cost of fighting you for what you are trying to protect is not so high that it would prevent him from taking it from you).
I'm sure you know it was I who asked. So I can only conclude that you're being deliberately snide and condescending by refusing to address me by name. Am I supposed to feel ashamed somehow for asking you what you mean by "dominate" and "strong enough"? Oh, sorry, but I don't.
Moving on...
Do you mean "net benefit" as perceived by the "dominator"? Couldn't the "dominatee" be then motivated to at least attempt to raise the "dominator's" perceived cost of taking what he wants?
Sieben, I don't think you understand what the implications of economies of scale, if you are comparing this to bidding for a market-size contract.
The wikipedia article would probably help:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economies_of_scale
And if you think gang wars are fought because other gangs create barriers to entry, I am not sure why you wouldn't think the same thing would happen with PDAs (certainly they can kill their competition as well).
I think I might sit this out for a bit and see if consultant or mgm have any comments.
I'm sure you know it was I who asked. So I can only conclude that you're being deliberately snide and condescending by refusing to address me by name. Am I supposed to feel ashamed somehow for asking you what you mean by "dominate" and "strong enough"? Oh, sorry, but I don't. Moving on... Do you mean "net benefit" as perceived by the "dominator"? Couldn't the "dominatee" be then motivated to at least attempt to raise the "dominator's" perceived cost of taking what he wants?
Sorry for the confusion. I wasnt trying to be snide. I really couldn't remember and I didn't want to scroll back. :P No offense intended. :D
You're right they could, but we are already supposing that there is an aggressor trying to steal your goods and that you are trying to hire a defender to defend those goods. Now we could introduce a second problem of trying to decide how to defend against rogue defenders, but then we could just as easily add more layers (how do you defend against rogue defenders of rogue defenders and so on).
For simplicitly, I would prefer to stick with the problem as established by mgmc. :)
Student:I don't you understand what the implications of economies of scale, if you are comparing this to bidding for a market-size contract.
Student: And if you think gang wars are fought because other gangs create barriers to entry, I am not sure why you wouldn't think the same thing would happen with PDAs (certainly they can kill their competition as well).
What I'm predicting is that since gangs lose a lot of money killing eachother, you *should* be able to just buy up all the cartels from the drug lords and organize everything more efficiently. You can't do this for reasons stated above.
Student:Sorry for the confusion. I wasnt trying to be snide. I really couldn't remember and I didn't want to scroll back. :P No offense intended. :D
Sorry then... I stand corrected.
Student: You're right they could, but we are already supposing that there is an aggressor trying to steal your goods and that you are trying to hire a defender to defend those goods. Now we could introduce a second problem of trying to decide how to defend against rogue defenders, but then we could just as easily add more layers (how do you defend against rogue defenders of rogue defenders and so on). For simplicitly, I would prefer to stick with the problem as established by mgmc. :)
I'll assume your answer to my first question was yes. Now if there's an aggressor trying to steal your goods right now, I don't think you'll be worried about hiring a defender. You'll likely be too busy trying to defend yourself, IMO.
Actually I just thought of something. In the absence of a state, strong interpersonal relationships would likely be much more important. Family and kinship ties may be especially important. So I don't think you'd hire just anyone to defend you -- you'd hire someone you know and trust well. Note that at this time I'm not presupposing the existence of "PDAs" and the like.
To be honest, I'm not sure why I didn't think of this sooner. I may be playing into mgmcintyre's hands, but there it is.
@sieben .. Ok, it's demolishing time.
sieben:okay.
sieben:this assumes they can corner the market..
sieben:We repeatedly state there is a demand for protection, not exploitation.
sieben:So, that out of the many firms I could choose to patronize, I will choose the one who offers me the best deal.
sieben:Once they have this contract,
sieben:if they try to break it and take my stuff, they might be able to get away with it but their reputation on the market will suffer, and they will have no more clients, going broke.
sieben:But this would all be pre-empted anyway, because people don't agree to unenforceable contracts.
sieben:No predatory PDA could ever get funding from consumers in the face of defensive PDAs.
sieben:Defensive PDAs will have the best long term profits because they are not constantly engaged in fighting other PDAs.
sieben:See Internet example. Utter failure to rebut this
mgmcintyre:No it doesn't. The hypothesis clearly states that "potential defender(s)" (plural) are better off exploiting. I explicitly don't assume that. You pose no argument as to why multiple defenders render the statement false.
mgmcintyre:An exploiter is not attempting to meet any market-demand, anticipate consumer-preferences, etc. He is too busy pillaging your village to care. His profits are related only to the quantity he takes minus what it costs him to take it. This should be a fairly obvious point." The point is that an aggressor does not have consumer support. You're saying it doesn't matter on a mechanical level. It matters on a market level because people who demand security can do something about it.
mgmcintyre:An exploiter is not attempting to meet any market-demand, anticipate consumer-preferences, etc. He is too busy pillaging your village to care. His profits are related only to the quantity he takes minus what it costs him to take it. This should be a fairly obvious point."
[quote user"mgmcintyre"]Ok, so because there is a demand for defense and no demand for exploitation, you will try to find the best deal? hmmm (as opposed to when you look for the worst deal, i guess)[/quote] Are you saying i'm just pointing out the obvious? It IS obvious that firms who provide defensive services can obtain revenue voluntarily from their customers. They do not have to fight with their customers or other PDAs for income. Fighting is expensive.
mgmcintyre:Contract! Did you delete a few sentences there? That was like 'pahse 2' of the "underpants gnome's" business-plan. You forgot the part where they didn't sign a contract and just pillaged you instead. How did you get a contract. This is the whole question im asking.[/.quote] They offered it to you in order to obtain exclusive rights to your revenue without fighting with other PDAs or customers. Minarchists seem to think that life is just a big game of Risk... [quote user="mgmcintyre"]Their reputation would improve, because more people would be afraid of them.. They never had any clients to begin with, only victims.
[quote user="mgmcintyre"]Their reputation would improve, because more people would be afraid of them.. They never had any clients to begin with, only victims.
mgmcintyre:Well, there goes your voluntary society.
mgmcintyre:Consumers? There it is again. There are no consumers. The use of force does not require a voluntary exchange and thus does not need to be mutually beneficial (or in demand) to be profitable to the exploiter. Defensive PDAs have consumers. You take it for granted that all PDAs will be engaged in all out war against one another and regular citizens. Did it ever occurr to you how expensive this would be? That the market might be able to find *some* other arrangement?
mgmcintyre:Consumers? There it is again. There are no consumers. The use of force does not require a voluntary exchange and thus does not need to be mutually beneficial (or in demand) to be profitable to the exploiter.
mgmcintyre:I would of thought they would be busy fighting off the aggressive agencies. Isn't that why they exist?
mgmcintyre:I will address your Internet thing one more time, in more detail. The Internet example is not of particular relevance to this discussion. This is copied and pasted from before, and my rebuttal went unanswered. Again though...
mgmcintyre:I will address your Internet thing one more time, in more detail. The Internet example is not of particular relevance to this discussion.
mgmcintyre:Strictly speaking, one can not exercise the use of force over the Internet, any more than i can harm you with a phone call. It doesn't matter what your philosophy of violence and theft is. There's a way to "pillage" consumers on the internet and a way to "protect" consumers on the internet.
mgmcintyre:Strictly speaking, one can not exercise the use of force over the Internet, any more than i can harm you with a phone call.
mgmcintyre:You can't actually steal anything over the Internet either, any theft that took place would actually occur at some real point, say at an ATM, bank teller, merchant storefront, warehouse, etc.
mgmcintyre:These acts of theft would/do fall under the jurisdiction of the government, whose activities dramatically drive down the profitability of this type of behavior.
mgmcintyre:Thus all Internet security companies, just like all combination-lock makers, merely augment self-defense measures and do not fall into the category of defense-providers. "Here's our product, good luck."
It is not cost efficient to throw hackers in jail. It is not cost efficient to have live security guards watching every website. I don't know what your expectations are, but internet PDAs keep the vast majority of users safe, and that's the whole point of security.
And remember my analysis which said we should expect internet security to fail more than real life security? Because individual laymen cannot enter the market of security. Because hackers can launch thousands of attacks simultaneously with a click of a button. Because you have to install third party software on your computer, which could easily be patched for aggressive purposes. Because most people have NFC what a firewall is and can't make educated comparisons between different products...
Your arguments basically boil down to speculation that no one can come up with any way to protect consumers. This is ridiculous because if its such a difficult problem, there will be big bucks for anyone who solves the problem. Even if the market fails the way you speculate, anarcho capitalism still has the best set of incentives of any system to correct the failure.
To press with your analysis, you have to prove a priori that it is impossible for there to be strictly defensive firms on the market. I hate to be blunt, but it seems pretty obvious that one way you could solve principle-agency problems (click on the link for other ways) is to simply make the principle and agent the same entity. I.e. have a consumer owned company. You'd probably speculate that they could then use these gunz to go attack other people not part of the company, ignoring other people's ability to defend themselves with similar structures, ignoring opportunity costs of focusing on warfare rather than production, and ignoring ostracism, which has proven historically to be a very effective means of enforcement.
BUMP..
mgmcintyre:BUMP..
Why in the world would you bump a thread without replying to Sieben? Are you implicitly stating that his post isn't even worth replying to?
BTW, the only other person I've seen bump a thread around here (lately) has been... you guessed it, xarthaz! Coincidence???
@autolykos
Autolykos:Why in the world would you bump a thread without replying to Sieben? Are you implicitly stating that his post isn't even worth replying to?
I already replied to his post. I demolished it line by line. He didn't even attempt to answer the question. He simply assumed he got a defense contract from people who could have stolen what he needed defended. His argument might as well have been "because i said so." Also, I said put your best argument in one post ... not another pointless, swirling, conversation where the main point of the question is dodged again and again.
Autolykos:BTW, the only other person I've seen bump a thread around here (lately) has been... you guessed it, xarthaz! Coincidence????
The only people I've seen here who can't formulate a logical response and/or assess a basic one line statement is Sabien and Autolykos. Coincidence????
mgmcintyre:I already replied to his post. I demolished it line by line. He didn't even attempt to answer the question. He simply assumed he got a defense contract from people who could have stolen what he needed defended. His argument might as well have been "because i said so." Also, I said put your best argument in one post ... not another pointless, swirling, conversation where the main point of the question is dodged again and again.
Uh, didn't you see where he responded to your "demolition"? You have yet to respond to that. Please, I know you're not blind...
And who cares about you saying "put your best argument in one post"? Since when are we supposed to listen to your arbitrary commands?
mgmcintyre:The only people I've seen here who can't formulate a logical response and/or assess a basic one line statement is Sabien and Autolykos. Coincidence????
Perhaps you'd like to enlighten me on how I "can't formulate a logical response and/or assess a basic one line statement". Otherwise this is just a drive-by posting intended to stroke your own ego.
Also, just for grins and giggles -- can anyone tell me whether writing posts consisting solely of the word "bump" is a common practice around here? My admittedly limited experience suggests it isn't. That's why seeing both mgmcintyre and xarthaz each "bumping" a thread seems so unusual to me. If bumping threads is common around here, I'll gladly stand corrected.
And who cares about you saying "put your best argument in one post"? Since when are we supposed to listen to your arbitrary commands?\
I started the thread and intended to format it in a specific way. If you don't like, go start your own. Or continue to troll here with your childish "i won't cooperate with you" attitude, i really don't care. Im just gonna ignore you from now on anyway.
Bumps: I guess if this is the only froum that you have ever been on and you "don't understand computers," then you might not of heard of bumping posts. So yes, again, you stand corrected. And no, I didnt respond to Sabien's (your?) other post because he didnt say anything new related to the question.
If you forgot what that was, go read the origional post.
It's Sieben.
Also, a bump every day or so is completely appropriate. There are a lot of topics, and sometimes orphan discussions drown out these ones that require much more thought and consideration with each reply.
mgmcintyre:I started the thread and intended to format it in a specific way. If you don't like, go start your own. Or continue to troll here with your childish "i won't cooperate with you" attitude, i really don't care. Im just gonna ignore you from now on anyway.
I can assure you, I'm not trolling. My intention is not to get a particular emotional response from you. Rather, it's to point out the foolishness of trying to control how people post in a thread, even one that you started. If you find non-cooperation to be childish, then I'm guilty as charged. Anyway, it seems you're ignoring me at least half the time already -- ignoring me all the time won't make much of a difference to me.
mgmcintyre:Bumps: I guess if this is the only froum that you have ever been on and you "don't understand computers," then you might not of heard of bumping posts. So yes, again, you stand corrected. And no, I didnt respond to Sabien's (your?) other post because he didnt say anything new related to the question. If you forgot what that was, go read the origional post.
Sieben and I aren't the same person. Nor do I think that you and xarthaz are the same person, though to be perfectly honest, I suspect the two of you may be "tag-teaming" around here.
As I think I stated clearly in my last post, I hadn't seen anyone bump in threads on this forum. Then again, I'm also new to the Mises.org community. Based on what Liberty Student has said, I'll gladly stand corrected on this one.
liberty student:Also, a bump every day or so is completely appropriate. There are a lot of topics, and sometimes orphan discussions drown out these ones that require much more thought and consideration with each reply.
Fair enough, and thanks for the heads-up. Again I stand corrected.