Political Theory

Re: Anarchocapitalist's business plan

Stranger — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 03:37:45 GMT

demosthenes:
What is it with minarchist's obsession with the idea of a state reforming in an ancap society? It's just speculation, and even if it did happen, at least we got to experience free markets for the time before it happened. This speculation does not change the fact that free markets and competition are better than states in monopolies on all fronts, and it does not change the fact that minarchists hold the contradictory view that taxation is wrong for most things but good for some things.

Actually, the problem for this theory is that if we find a way to destroy the state and institute an anarcho-capitalist society, then any attempt at restoring the state would be completely impossible as we could just re-apply the same means we used to destroy the state the first time!

It is an attempt to refute the stability of a free society by the contradiction of the state's existence. If we can destroy the state, the theory is falsified.

Re: Anarchocapitalist's business plan

Stranger — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 03:35:00 GMT

That's a conspiracy, not a business plan.

Re: Anarchocapitalist's business plan

bbnet — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 03:33:10 GMT

Good luck 'marketing' in our neighborhood, we have a full time pda coop manned by residents with an state of the art arsenal that makes other hoods shudder. Your only chance would be to carpet bomb us all from a very very high altitude.

While you might be able to kill us today, you then can't kill us tomorrow. Today for you, tomorrow you sorrow.

Re: Anarchocapitalist's business plan

Ansury — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 01:10:32 GMT

baxter:

>1. What is the point you are trying to make?

Upstart competitors and defectors can undermine cartels in a free market. But things are different in the private security business. The upstarts and defectors can be forcibly suppressed. Hence, the profit motive will cause an inexorable trend toward the formation of cartels and unethical behavior. i.e. basically what we have right now. Once people are fed "free" "education" about the virtues of the private security firm, it's pretty much game over.

Edit: customers who attempt to opt out - another risk to cartels - can also be suppressed.

Have you factored in the huge cost of "suppressing" all of this dissent and competition? Could a security firm that thinks this way even grow into a significant size in the first place, without it's customers flocking to more peaceful and defensive firms?

If it were that easy to "suppress dissent", why doesn't the USSR now occupy all of Eurasia? Since you seem to be implying that private firms would grow into a sort of authoritarian state (similar enough to the Soviet Union to make the comparison)--I think the comparison demonstrates that this "business model" falls apart in the end anyway, assuming it could even develop in the first place... which I don't think it would.

Once such a society exists, it seems unlikely that it would one day simply fall apart and descend into a dictatorship with deals made behind closed doors. You might have better luck challenging the feasibility of attaining such a society without some douche bags showing up to outlaw it "for the good of all".

Re: Anarchocapitalist's business plan

demosthenes — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 00:45:37 GMT

What is it with minarchist's obsession with the idea of a state reforming in an ancap society? It's just speculation, and even if it did happen, at least we got to experience free markets for the time before it happened. This speculation does not change the fact that free markets and competition are better than states in monopolies on all fronts, and it does not change the fact that minarchists hold the contradictory view that taxation is wrong for most things but good for some things.

Re: Anarchocapitalist's business plan

Jonathan M. F. Catalán — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 00:18:40 GMT

baxter:

The upstarts and defectors can be forcibly suppressed.

How? You are making the assumption that one group of firms has a greater amount of force than the other. I don't think this necessarily follows.

Hence, the profit motive will cause an inexorable trend toward the formation of cartels and unethical behavior. i.e. basically what we have right now. Once people are fed "free" "education" about the virtues of the private security firm, it's pretty much game over.

I'm not sure how any of that follows. Security firms compete; it doesn't make sense that competing security firms would feed their customers information that seems to drive customers away from them.

Re: Anarchocapitalist's business plan

twistedbydsign99 — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 00:15:59 GMT

baxter:
Once people are fed "free" "education" about the virtues of the private security firm, it's pretty much game over.

I can't feel sorry for a people that accepts their own enslavement.

Re: Anarchocapitalist's business plan

baxter — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 00:13:49 GMT

>1. What is the point you are trying to make?

Upstart competitors and defectors can undermine cartels in a free market. But things are different in the private security business. The upstarts and defectors can be forcibly suppressed. Hence, the profit motive will cause an inexorable trend toward the formation of cartels and unethical behavior. i.e. basically what we have right now. Once people are fed "free" "education" about the virtues of the private security firm, it's pretty much game over.

Edit: customers who attempt to opt out - another risk to cartels - can also be suppressed.

Re: Anarchocapitalist's business plan

DD5 — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 23:45:31 GMT

1. Who's going to finance this declaration of war on civilians? Assuming most people are already customers of the 50 firms, they will not agree to finance the conquest of their own enslavement.

2. The firms that will continue to obey the law will easily out compete any such criminal activity.

3. Your business plan is sound only in the Statist world.

Re: Anarchocapitalist's business plan

Jonathan M. F. Catalán — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 23:40:13 GMT

baxter:

Do you not agree that my business plan is sound?

1. What is the point you are trying to make?

2. What makes you think that one of your competitors won't take advantage by stealing your customers from you, after your business proves to be untrustworthy? Whilst it may be a sound business plan for you, it does not follow that it is necessarily the best business plan for your competitors.

Re: Anarchocapitalist's business plan

twistedbydsign99 — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 23:38:14 GMT

baxter:
Do you not agree that my business plan is sound?

What makes you thinks that the security firms out strip the people they serve in terms of weapons.

Re: Anarchocapitalist's business plan

tacoface — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 23:35:52 GMT

No.

Anarchocapitalist's business plan

baxter — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 23:32:40 GMT

Hypothetical question here:

Hi, I live in an anarchocapitalist society and I run a private security firm. There are 49 other private security firms and I'm convincing them to merge all 50 firms into one huge private security firm. We are also going to change our charter so we can force unwilling people to be customers and we can extract wealth from them. Dissenters will be shot. Plus we are thinking of investing in advertising which will convince most dumb people that they want to be customers anyway. We own a lot of guns so the people and most likely any other security firms can't stop us. I think this plan is going to generate a lot of profits. Also, if there are any other upstart security firms to challenge our monopoly, we will just shoot them.

I know monopolies tend to be inefficient. But I think we can merge and start extracting wealth before the inefficiencies become a real problem and threaten the viability of our business.

Do you not agree that my business plan is sound?