Does The Economy Need a Referee?
Wednesday, October 19, 2011 at 4:27PM I recently appeared on Max Keiser’s "On The Edge" program. Unbeknownst to the viewer, we were having major communication problems. Max only could hear a small portion of what I said and I, likewise. But, right at the very end of the interview the communications worked again… that’s when the interview finally got interesting. Max stated that we “need a referee” in the economy. I replied, “I disagree. We don’t need a referee, I’m an anarchist…”
That was when the interview suddenly ended. It’s too bad because at that point it had just gotten quite interesting.
Max was parroting a fairly typical statist argument that we need a neutral arbiter, like government, to have a monopoly of force to act as a “referee” to protect the exploited from being devoured by the exploiters, and from all of humanity devolving into eating each other. This, simply is not the case.
First: Life isn’t a game, Max. And all a coercive referee does is make things worse. But, to go along with Max's analogy and to make that point, let’s look at some sports and how the rules and regulations influence their participants.
SOCCER
Or, as they say everywhere else in the world except the US and Canada: football.
In soccer, goals could be said to be a scarce resource. Unlike a game like basketball, where there are hundreds of scores per game, in soccer there is often only one or two. Like all games, soccer has a referee, and because goals are such a scarce resource the urge to manipulate the referee through diving is very high.
Furthermore, because there are very strict rules on things like physical contact and fighting it also encourages the participants to go to extremes in their attempts to manipulate the referee without fear of major repercussions. This is what makes soccer players roll around on the ground like they just had their kneecaps blown off by a sniper rifle when even the slightest of contact occurs. See the following video to see this isn't even an exaggeration!
Conclusion: When resources are tight and the referee plays such a big role in who can access those resources AND when there are very strict laws on any sort of contact it makes the participants act completely unnaturally and in immoral ways.
ICE HOCKEY
In ice hockey, goals are quite a scarce resource as well, but unlike in soccer the rules are not so strict on contact and self-policing. In fact, fighting just gets you five minutes sitting in a box.
In this case there are much, much less occurrences of diving. The reason is that if you do it there is a very good chance that a man nearly twice your size will come and beat you into submission and in many cases he won't even be penalized for it.
Because of this, rather than rolling around on the ice after being hit, because the referee has a smaller amount of say on who gets the scarce resources AND because you can get beaten up pretty bad for trying to manipulate the ref, hockey players have been known to play through broken legs, having 7 of their front teeth knocked out at one time and more. In other words, by having the players police themselves there is far less “crime” and immoral action.
UFC FIGHTING
In Ultimate Fighting, there are almost no rules and the referee rarely has any say in the outcome of the fight. In the UFC, fighters are highly respectful and usually pick up their opponent after defeating them, make sure he is okay and then they grab the microphone to tell the crowd what a great fighter and man he is.
Here, with almost no referee and no rules the people act highly civilized, proud and humble.
Conclusion? Even in sports little or no refereeing is preferable to making the participants act civilized and with honor.
But, does the economy need a referee?
DOES THE ECONOMY NEED A REFEREE?
What Max is missing here is that the referee is the cause of all the problems we are witnessing in the financial world today.
In Max’s world, the referee is the state, and it is supposed to be a neutral arbiter of disputes between members in society. In other words, in Max’s world, the state – a territorial monopoly on force that has never been used for good – is benign and good. It is the classical left wing reaction to the current state of affairs. It represents the views of many of the Occupy Wall Street protesters.
Max believes that the bankers control every aspect of our lives and the economy... and that in the end we control the state. But these are scarcely half truths. In reality, the state is used by the bankers to rig the playing field and to protect them from the real check on their affairs: free market competition.
Let’s not forget, the fractional reserve banking system is centralized and backstopped by government protections, like legal tender laws or monetary policy.
The referee was used to create this artificial, non-free market financial system where profits are private but losses are socialized. There would be no investment banks that were massive and highly leveraged without the “referee” protecting them from competition and offering them the backstop to cover their losses when they do ultimately collapse... of course, all in the name of protecting the consumer.
Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard argued that the best way to prevent inflation was not by outlawing it, or by forcing the central bank to adhere to some set of standards, which they would never do anyway, but rather by eliminating the legislation created by government (the “act”) that effectively cartelizes the industry (this is effectively state capitalism...aka fascism, corporatism, cronyism, etc.; as opposed to free market capitalism which precludes the use of initiatory violence or coercion).
Only under genuinely competitive free banking – where there is no central bank or legislation of any kind to help sustain fractional reserve banking - would inflation not exist. Each bank would worry about being called by its competitor if it over-inflated. There’d be no one to bail them out. Thus, they would not engage in the policy to begin with... it would be self destructive.
Instead, in today's world, the bankers set out to exchange favors with government. The banks get their protection from competition, their bailout funds, and the ability to create deposits fraudulently (none of which could happen under a genuinely competitive environment) and the government gets a blank check; and they are in it together to keep it going as long as they possibly can.
Referee? Hah.
COMPETITION IS THE REFEREE
The consumer’s best protection from exploitation and other shenanigans has always been competition.
Fascism, which is not the same as militarism, though it does lead to militarism, is a marriage between the statist left and the statist right; for the left it is the most practical application of socialism; for the right it is the most efficient means to protectionism and for “conquering” markets overseas.
The “referee” is largely the problem today. It obscures the immoral reality and nature of the state. The state can never be a neutral arbiter. Life is not a zero sum game. The free market is itself the best medium for democracy. Every dollar counts in the market. You can’t say that about every vote. Those evil bankers that Max so despises fear competition more than they fear the referee. And by even suggesting that the state can be a benign force for good Max is doing the bankers a great service. He is fooling many into thinking the referee works for us, not the elite.
The free market system works because it is anarchistic; not because of the quality of the refereeing.
An anarchistic society would be one that is free of statist coercion, economic depressions, legislative injustice, and even waste. It is not a vote for lawlessness and chaos. The statist apologists like to argue that it represents just that. But in fact it is the state itself that is the source of chaos.
We are seeing it everywhere in the world today.
Don’t be fooled into thinking that the banking elite is responsible for all of it, or that anyone could be exploited in a voluntary society. If you want to check the bad guys, all you need to do is unleash the forces of competition...the people’s choice.
Until we see that as a society we will continue to have wars, chaos, poverty and turmoil. In sports, the referee is often vilified and hated. We need to take this approach with life's referee, the government, if we want a prosperous future.
The referee in life and the economy doesn't help make the game better, it destroys it.
Reader Comments (52)
Let me just start my comment by saying this:
"Just because you believe it's True, it doesn't make it actually... True."
You firmly believe that the world doesn't need a referee to live. Well, I also believe that is True but i don't believe that is possible right now and if you give me a moment of you concentration, I will try to explain why.
I'm a science researcher, I work in the field of Autonomic and Distributed Communications, so decisions, consensus and competition among agents in a distributed environment, is something that I'm familiar with.
You gave some interesting examples by using sports but i would use better examples next time, since those are pretty... well honestly.. terrible, since violence and corruption among most of the players is actually a good reason to assure the need for a referee.
Why do I say this? Well, one thing interesting about Autonomic & Distributed Systems is that they are scalable. This means that when they grow in size, the increase in control traffic between agents is linear (linear or bellow that in complexity - See Algorithms Theoretical Analysis)
Since we are talking about Distributed Systems, resources control and scheduling for its utilization has to be achieved through consensus among agents, when competing for resources, since when an agent captures resources, others will lack of it, so it is imperative that agents don't capture resources forever, otherwise, the network will not work properly.
An interesting point about these systems (an this is were I wanted to reach) is that they need to have the ability to behave and communicate correctly, with other agents. If an agent goes rogue and deviates from the normal functioning and starts using and ceasing resources forever without consensus or out of scheduling, it is necessary that other agents intervene, in order to stop and isolate this rogue agent. But for this... they need to know how to detect, analyse, decide and act! For this... knowledge & intelligence is required.
So, without knowledge, without intelligence there is no detection, analysis, decision let alone any kind of action. We unfortunately are in a society of dumbness! In Europe it is estimated that there is about 2 million of researchers (for every field of research).... this is very very low in order to advance in science at a continuous rhythm... why? Because the research fields expand exponentially and if the knowledge of the population doesn't grow and stagnate, no expansion in science is possible.
There is also another problem! This kind of system is only resistant to a certain degree of corruption so the bigger the corrupt agents grow in number, the higher is the probability of a system failure to happen.
You said and well (in the US, I mean), that in the US schools are fields of dumbness and stupidity. In my opinion, you may be right among schools (and some universities/colleges) in America but for other Universities around the world, I have to say you are wrong. Going to the University was the best thing I made in my life, since it allowed me to get access to vast amounts of knowledge and to evolve at a personal and professional level.
Also, there is another thing that you are wrong and that is about the availability of knowledge. Knowledge is not fully available in the Internet. Want evidence? Simple... Go to http://scholar.google.com, search for scientific papers (recent ones) and well... try to download them! 90% of them require a subscription or a payment! So long for the free access to knowledge.
Maybe you can get technical knowledge or "how to's" tutorials to do practical stuff but access to recent scientific research notes and papers is very slim... and costly.
So i can easily state that society is not ready for a full blow Anarchism system since the agents in this distributed system (the people) don't have the knowledge to live in it! The next best thing is a distributed system with referee's which can be modelled to work well (science has already proven this). Maybe in a century or two, we will be advanced enough has a society in order to achieve an anarchist system but until then... we have to stick to the next best thing.
To conclude, i want to say just a small comment about a statement of yours.
"An anarchistic society would be one that is free of statist coercion, economic depressions, legislative injustice, and even waste. It is not a vote for lawlessness and chaos. The statist apologists like to argue that it represents just that. But in fact it is the state itself that is the source of chaos."
Well, that is not possible to prove... Why? You need to test it, take note of the results and test it again with the same initial startup base, but since this is not possible (to reset the entire system to the initial state), it is not possible to firmly say without any shadow of a doubt that an Anarchistic Society would be the one free statist coercion, economic depressions, legislative injustice, and even waste. ACtually that is an Utopian state and that is not possible since we are humans and humans are inequitably flawed and prone to fail.
This is my opinion about the post, (sorry it got so big).
Cheers! :)
Factors that tend to reduce the share grabbed to zero or below:
- Death
- Children
- Needs, which can be satisfied in exchange for resources
Most socialist believe that if you allow someone to buy a big farm and to keep a billion dollars, then he will only get richer and his farm bigger, or at least, that those will never be reduced. So wrong.
Whatever skills to provide goods and services that he had to earn this living, will not be seen in his children. They will waste (pay in exchange for goods and services) way more and at faster rate than their father could ever accumulate.
I believe socialists worry about that, because they never themselves are true producers. They think they produce something needed and that they do it efficiently, but somehow there is no demand by a free market for their efforts, it is always from a public purse and through coercion. To them, obviously, if they were allowed to keep this river of honey (flowing from a concentration camp called government), they would grow way too rich. And they would. This is because they experience no forces of friction in their artificial market.
Thus they actually have no idea, how hard it is, not only to accumulate, but also, and often even harder to maintain.
I would say that if this was true, then we would see some big fish growing to the point that it would be able to swallow mountains. For the same reason that we do not see it in fish, we should not worry about it with people or corporations.
Besides, the world does not any single example, of anyone at all, getting out of hand, on his own honest work. And yet, there are many examples of people and organizations getting way over abusive and out of hand, and in every single case, like a clockwork, we find that it could not happen without government.
Next let's talk about these referees, I fear it is you who may not be looking at these events with an open mind. Perhaps, you're not to blame, you've probably grown accustomed to eating steak and are afraid to face the Matrix that you have grown up in. Here in the cheap seats, (let's be clear, unless someone's enjoying the rare air that the FED or Rothchild's breath), then even some of the millionaires and billionaires are sitting in the cheap seats - if you catch my drift Claymore. Let's stay with the sports theme for another minute. Make no mistake the game, the big boys are playing is winner take all.
While it's taken the better part of this century for the latest round of their game to play out, starting perhaps with their little party in 1913 on Jekyll Island for instance and we'll say half time was when Nixon scored a touch-down for the Rothchild's team by taking us off the Gold Standard, then what we're seeing are the last few plays of a very nasty team. A team who by the way has not only enjoyed the interaction with their referees calling all the shots but by the looks of it OWN the referees. George Carlin and Bill Hicks said it best, they distract us (the public) constantly, they want us to fight each other while they run off with our money.
Claymore this is World Cup Rugby, it's getting dirty on the field and I think I hear your mother calling you home.
Now for a quick review of history. Many men such as Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson and others fought to protect our country from Central Banks, they wanted to preserve smaller Government. So seriously, you have to stand back for a minute and realize you're not in a lab, there are people's lives at stake, there are people's life savings at stake. So my question to you sir is: Do you really think you know more than Thomas Jefferson? Do you really think a keynesian take, which are usually the ones who defend and welcome more and more referees to run interference in what should be an open market is the solution?
Do you understand who will go home with the trophy (hint: Rothchilds and others) when this game is over. Oh, by the way they'll just rest up for the next game, so it never ends for their team. They understand the game, that's why they're playing it so well, that's why almost no one on the planet is taught Austrian economics, it's not by accident. That's why almost none of the public can answer even in the most basic terms what is or why we need a FEDERAL RESERVE to handle and control our money.
Your quote: "it is not possible to firmly say without any shadow of a doubt that an Anarchistic Society would be the one free statist coercion, economic depressions, legislative injustice, and even waste. ACtually that is an Utopian state and that is not possible since we are humans and humans are inequitably flawed and prone to fail."
Perhaps you didn't mean it to sound this way, however that statement smacks of wanting a "referee" a "parent" a "BIG BROTHER" to watch over us at all times because we're "inequitably flawed and prone to fail." Well what's wrong with trying and failing, science used to have the courage to do that. I'm an Art Director and sometimes artists try and fail and then we try again, that's how we grow. Let's face it, these so called experts have been trying and failing and oh, wait they're not failing, they're making sure we always bail-out their moral hazard with our savings...mmmm...think about it, who Watches the Watchmen?
Replying to just this part. This is the methodology of empiricism. If you employ deductive reasoning starting from axiomatic premises, you do not need to "test" the conclusions. The conclusions are universally true, since the premises (axioms) are universally true. And this is the methodology used by political philosophy to make the case for anarchism. Hence, there is no need to empirically prove it. It is always true.
Also, saying a society is not ready for such a system is a judgement based on your observations in a particular field. On what basis would you extend one observation to all humanity? Simply extrapolating human behaviour in one case to all of human behaviour is scientifically invalid, even in empiricism.
Ok, first i will start to give you all some information about my life in order for you to understand a bit more, why did I wrote what I wrote. To start, I'm not American n'or Canadian, I'm Portuguese :)
Portugal is a Social State (be aware that Socialism is very different from Communism.), the result of a revolution that took place at the 25 of April of 1974 (the Cradle Revolution) and took down a Right Wing Fascist Dictatorial Government, so a Big Brother system is something my country is familiar with :)
In the times previously to the Cradle Revolution, it was very hard to access knowledge and only those with monetary possessions (money inherited, parents with solid financial companies and others sources of high income) would be able to study at higher levels of education (medical doctor, lawyer, electrical engineering and other degrees) with the exception of merit scholarships but these were very very rare. This was a way of controlling the People, to deny the access to Knowledge and that is why Portugal, nowadays has a big problem with the elder society that is getting unemployed... because they don't have the technical knowledge to access new jobs.
Due to right wing decisions in the beginning of the 90's, our Agriculture, Industry and Fishing's, have been constantly and gradually put to an end. Subsidies coming (or imposed if you ask me) by the European Union, were used to "pay to not produce". Strategic state companies such as Electric company (EDP) or Telecommunications company (PT) were privatized and the revenues coming from those companies that would allow to maintain the social state and would allow the investment in the economy, were no longer available for that...
Why did this all happen? Simply... the people did not have the knowledge to understand what was happening... Remember when I said, access to knowledge was denied in order to maintain control over the population? This was one of the results... a society without knowledge will never have the ability to self-organise.
Maybe i took a "too much of a Science Guy" approach, I confess that and for that, I'm sorry. Unfortunately, we can never be fully impartial. Our life will always influence our opinions.
" Oh, by the way they'll just rest up for the next game, so it never ends for their team. They understand the game, that's why they're playing it so well, that's why almost no one on the planet is taught Austrian economics, it's not by accident. That's why almost none of the public can answer even in the most basic terms what is or why we need a FEDERAL RESERVE to handle and control our money."
You got my point Bill Lodderhose, control the access to knowledge and you will control the people! :)
"Who Watches the Watchmen?" you ask? well, the ones that are being watched! :) Give to the people access to knowledge and the Watchmen will fear the ones that they Watch :)
Kashyap, you commented about Philosophy knowledge which is not verifiable knowledge. Just because a group of people says something is inequitably true, doesn't make it True... In fact, we have the opposite in this world, it's called Mass Stupidity! :)
I'm glad my comments spawned so many others! :) It's good to discuss these themes with people that have different approaches a problem! It gives me the opportunity to improve myself! Thank you all for that :)
Oddly enuf, Jeff the anarchist has a statement below here that that these posts don't appear until moderated, LOL.
Good point Steve!
Jeff here, is the referee :)
If I were to use the same rhetoric as the government and its brainwashed tax slaves then I would counter your argument by saying you are lucky to live in a world where I allow your comments to exist. :)
Unlike the state, Anarchism is full of rules, but all the rules are private, and the benefits or losses (yep, losses, something the state always socializes) that are due to the implementation of those rules affect only the owner of the that private property who instituted the rules.
This board, is a private resource, no one is bound to use it, and as is proper for any private resource, it is being fully managed in full accordance with the rules and regulations that the owner believes would benefit his goals. If the owner is wrong, then the rules he imposed will generate a loss for him. No one else is affected, you can always post on Obama's Twitter Page.
Yes, Jeff is not a referee on his private property, but an owner, as you should be as well, and I support such rights of your's to the point that you, for instance refuse doing business with me because of my color, and beyond. He is not judging your behavior, he simply chooses to conduct his business with you or not.
The main difference here is that a referee is NOT choosing the path of his own business, instead, he INTERVENES into the business of two or more other parties, which by the definition, is NONE OF HIS BUSINESS.
The second difference is that there is no public watching the capitalist " competition", so we can not judge if there are fair or not, and can not really understand the decisions made by the referrees unless one is very knowledgeable and not gullible.
So, there might be a necesity of a referee, but a non corrupt one, specialist in this "sport", not just any ofiicial, and also more transparency. That could mean more education in the domain of capitalism (obviously the only way to run humanity so far, if ethical and not glamorized like the US have made it, nor demonized like others did,) and perhaps some form of elected (again, no glamour or big bucks ) of a comittee made of all horizons of people, formed of course, known for their wisdom, sense of ethics etc...) sounds utopic, this a kinf of "tribal counsel" still,otherwise, I do not see any good coming from a totally free market because moneymaking does not favour altruism and thisone is fundamental for evolution. Just imagine a game of any sport without refree AND with no public, where it is ALL about winning (the cool, playful, detached BIG businessman, I believe, exist only in hollywood movies, eventhough some do exist, I hope))
First,
>> "Oddly enuf, Jeff the anarchist has a statement below here that that these posts don't appear until moderated,"
Folks, this way misses the point. Jeff is not making an argument for lawlessness. Just that it is ludicrous to think that the state can be a neutral arbiter and better check than free market competition.
The truth is that competition puts economic power in the hands of the consumer. The referee, insofar as it is used to protect crony capitalists and labor monopolies, puts economic power in the hands of the producers -to be split between the left and the right -the left thinks labor is the producer; the right thinks the owner of capital is the producer. This is the status quo. To reject the state, however, is not a vote for lawlessness. Perhaps a better term, which many Austrians tend to prefer, is a "private law society". In this society you would have law. The police and judiciary would simply be private.
The debate is not over whether to have law or not; it is over whether it is better provided by a coercive monopoly or competitive agencies. I know some readers will think that would be worse because then the rich could just buy the police, etc. It's not that simple. But that's another idea altogether. The point is that in anarchist society you could still have a moderator. It just wouldn't be a bureaucrat in Washington.
Some anarchist writers have used the cooperative as a model for society as they would see it. We all know there are rules in a co-op. This would not change under anarchy. What would be different is that there would be true consent (not like Max thinks). You would have the right to secede from any organization or community whose rules you didn't like. You can't really do that in a society whose rules are all made by one big central planning bureaucracy. Jeff is just saying that, like the structure of production, society itself can sort out norms and create spontaneous order. There would still be law.
The difference between private and public law can be a matter of ethics. Rothbard wrote a lot about this subject. I'm not myself that adept at understanding law. But he wrote that there are laws that reflect norms in society, which are meant to ensure harmony...the protections of property, enforcement of social contract, etc....and there is legislation created by bureaucrats that amount to privileges.
Second point,
>> "Actually, many things in life are a zero sum game. You eat continuously or you die. You get medical care or you die. You have shelter or you die. Letting the most powerful control all of these without any oversight...as bad as fascism."
Steve: this isn't quite what Jeff meant. Of course there are many things in life that are zero sum. And a free market system won't change that.
There are also many things that are positive sum (exchange). There are many things that are negative sum (government). Your examples are pointless. Look, "life is exchanges." Within that sphere, which can be properly called free market capitalism, Jeff is contrasting voluntary exchange, which is mutually beneficial by definition, with exchanges where the referee tilts the playing field. The criticism is basically that "game theory" is an inappropriate framework for understanding society, which is a complex organism, founded on complex relationships between people guided by the principle of the division of labor.
Ed Bugos
Modern civilizations today prize equality over fairness. In spite of evolutionary evidence, our societies have created systems to support useless members of society. These members of society, given lower average intelligence, are thus allowed to reproduce, and often do in greater numbers, because they're not very intelligent and will screw around with anyone.
The result is idiocracy. There are more and more stupid people who do nothing to make society better and would not be able to work in an Anarchist system.
To make matters worse, many intelligent members of society are brainwashed to believe the system is the right thing and end up clinging to its security and the little wealth it brings them, which leads them to believe offspring could upset the sustainability of their luxury life, and they end up having only one child, or none at all, further lowering the amount of intelligent people in society.
Heck, even animals go to great lengths to prove their they are superior in order to be selected for reproduction. This, of course, goes hand with hand with nature and survival. Only keep what can make the species better.
Did you ever hear of animals with a modicum of intelligence reproducing with handicapped members of their species? Or of homosexual animals producing offspring? No. Because it's against survival logic.
Why would you want to propagate lower grade genes. That's like promoting the death of your species.
This is highly controversial of course, because humans get attached, but our society has been brainwashed in keeping alive everyone, because that's supposedly fair. But it's not fair at all. A large percentage of the population does not deserve to have the lives they have. If they can't survive by themselves, we should the rest of the society support them.
I am not calling for genocide. I'm simply calling for the bettering of my own species, i.e. not promoting the multiplication of bad genes. My take is humans could be much better. I'm certainly against the dumbing down of the population for the benefit of a few, which is exactly what the International Bankers have succeeded at doing.
If we had not promoted the reproducing of humans with bad genes, we would not have to be attached to a handicapped member of our family, because there would be far fewer occurrences of them.
I myself am flawed. I'm homosexual, not by choice, but by brain construction. The part of my brain which controls the natural instinct of being attracted to the opposite sex is broken. When I was fabricated in my mother's womb, some bad genes made a mistake, and that part of my brain is female, despite the rest being male. The stupidest thing I could do in all my life is reproducing with my own genes. I'm intelligent, so it's unfortunate, but I wouldn't want to promote what is essentially a flaw in my species.
Now, for many, they think it means I don't accept homosexuality. No, of course not. If societal norms had not pushed down the whole "being normal" thing, we wouldn't have that problem in the first place because homosexuals would not have hidden and lead normal lives, having kids like everyone, which ended up making 11% to 18% of our gene base wrong in terms of sexual orientation.
1. Society isn't ready for anarchy yet.
Most anarchists I know readily acknowledge this and see the move towards a truly free society as a gradual and evolutionary one, rather than a sudden and revolutionary change. This in no way negates or disproves anarchists' assertions that the existence of a state is A) Immoral and B) Counter-productive to the best interests of the VAST majority of humanity.
2. Anarchy as an "unproven" and "Utopian" model.
First off...anarchists I know of do NOT say total freedom would result in "Utopia". Only that it would be DRASTICALLY preferable to what exists now. Big difference. On the contrary, I would say STATISTS are the actual "Utopians"...they persist in a religious-like belief that granting a TINY # of humans near god-like power over the rest can result in a society where virtually every problem (hunger, homelessness, education, environment, etc.) is eliminated. Believing that a small minority of people are capable and entitled to such power is, quite frankly, insane.
Secondly...since the state (as powerful as it is) is incapable of REALLY controlling the actions of 100's of MILLIONS of individuals...well, this alone indicates that the VAST majority of folks are well-behaved and civil to one another, as well as capable of navigating life on their own. If people were as bad as many statists make them out to be...there is NO WAY a small minority could keep them in line. In short, in their PRIVATE lives and interactions, people ALREADY demonstrate the capacity to function w/o the coercion of the state forcing their actions.
3. People are "too dumb" and/or "incapable" of handling freedom.
The same was said, less than 200 years ago, about slaves descended from Africa. So, this isn't really an argument AGAINST anarchy so much as a rationalization of the current system.
1. QUOTING YOU:
"Actually, many things in life are a zero sum game. You eat contunuously or you die. You get medical care or you die. You have shelter or you die."
You're not applying the term "zero sum game" properly. You're talking about biological necessities/functions which are WHOLLY unrelated to the topic at hand. A ZSG necessitates there be a winner and a loser--there is no middle ground. Example: I point a gun at you and demand your money--in this case I win and you lose. I achieve a benefit at your expense while you achieve none. All of the things you listed...my eating doesn't necessitate that you (or anyone else) starve...same for medical care, shelter, etc.
2. QUOTING YOU: "Letting the most powerful control all of these without any oversight...as bad as fascism."
Nation-State Govts.--HAND DOWN--are "the most powerful" corporations (run by mere mortals like you and me) which have EVER existed. They've accumulated the power to, basically, wipe out all of humanity. If you're worried about "the most powerful" dominating us all...then why are you DEFENDING the very thing you claim to oppose?! This is a very puzzling and contradictory position to take...this is what statism does to your brain!
3. QUOTING YOU: "Oddly enuf, Jeff the anarchist has a statement below here that that these posts don't appear until moderated, LOL."
This statement of yours has been addressed (i.e., a privately-run/owned website is NOT a govt.), but I must comment on the sheer cluelessness of this statement. How in THE HELL could you compare these two totally different methods of human interaction and, incredibly, think you were making an actual POINT? This is your mind on STATISM...any questions?
Two basic maxims of free-market philosophy are:
1. You will get more of that which you subsidize.
2. You will get less of that which you tax.
In the modern socialist/fascist democratic state, non-producers are subsidized while producers are taxes in order to provide this subsidy.
Applying the above 2 maxims would give you a society where non-producers are incentivized to multiply while producers are incentivized to decrease.
What makes this more grotesque is that many of the producers have been brainwashed into believing that their being forced to subsidize non-producers is perfectly moral and normal.
The whole idea of govt-as-ref has been tried innumerable times and has ALWAYS FAILED.
Those who adhere to this premise believe political power (i.e., the legalized power to coerce, steal, and murder) can be given to mere humans who will only wield it wisely. They seem to believe there is a race of humans, somewhere out there, who are immune from corruption, pettiness, mental-illness, favoritism, etc.
Take govt. courts, where justice/fairness are allegedly upheld, for example: You have a govt.-appointed/paid judge (who has near-total immunity for his courtroom actions) presiding as a 'neutral' party/'ref...a govt.-appointed/paid prosecuting lawyer...a govt.-licensed defense lawyer...govt. appointed/paid cops & investigators...all sworn to uphold govt.-passed 'laws'...a govt.-educated jury given strict instructions on how they should enforce the 'law'...and then there is the defendant/citizen whom ALL of the above govt. agents are allegedly SERVING. If these people are serving ME...why are they ordering ME around at gunpoint and making me do things against my will? ALL of them are paid w/money confiscated (be it taxes, fines, lawyer fees, court fees, etc.) from citizens/defendants OUTSIDE their little govt. gang...in short, their very LIVELIHOODS depend on continuing and expanding the system of legalized extortion. But statists imagine these people are NEUTRAL REFS?!
It is a totally delusional worldview.
Some of you stated that since Jeff owns Dollar Vigilante, he is allowed to apply the rules that fits his needs and if someone wishes to interact in this forum, that someone must comply to his regulations. Well, in this case, since this is a blog, I can concur. But... what if it was something else... something that it could decide whether a person would live or die.
Let me give you one real example (again from Portugal... I love my country, despite the recession...)
Here in Portugal, there are several water companies in several regions of the country and all have one thing in common... they all represent monopolies! One of the things that the FMI agreement stated was that, companies owned by the state should be privatized and this raises a problem. Since these companies are clearly monopolies and since they supply water, that all Portuguese Citizens need to drink in order to live, who would regulate and avoid that these new privatized companies, would end up charging forbidden prices for the water supply, if there was an Anarchical system, here in Portugal?
Since there is no way for a new company to born in a month or a year (or ever), because of the costs to build a new pipeline infrastructure in order to compete in a free-market style, these new privatized companies have the possibility of charging very high prices in order to obtain the maximum possible profit... I'm really interested in knowing how that problem can be solved.
In my opinion the existence of a referee could be seen as someone belonging to a group, that was allowed by the majority of the group, to take higher level decisions. There is nothing wrong with that, as long as the group maintain an eye on the referee and understands what the referee is doing and how it affects the group (knowledge about how things work). If someone doesn't agree in how the group works or doesn't wan't to comply with the rules, that someone is free to leave. Simple! :)
I think that there is the misconception that a Whatchman has "super-powers", well... i don't see that way. I see the referee as someone that was simply elected by the group (like someone that is better fitted for the job) to take decisions that can actually affects the group, but i don't see the difference from this job when compared to other jobs such as, a doctor that helps ppl to feel better or an civil engineer that builds houses for people to live.
Ed Bugos actually got my point when he stated:
"The debate is not over whether to have law or not; it is over whether it is better provided by a coercive monopoly or competitive agencies. I know some readers will think that would be worse because then the rich could just buy the police, etc. It's not that simple. But that's another idea altogether. The point is that in anarchist society you could still have a moderator. It just wouldn't be a bureaucrat in Washington."
@Ed Bugos, when you stated this:
"The criticism is basically that "game theory" is an inappropriate framework for understanding society, which is a complex organism, founded on complex relationships between people guided by the principle of the division of labor."
Let me add something that I learned when I researched in the field of Game Theory.
Game Theory requires that the agents act Rationally and humans, are very far from that. Also, markets don't have a rational behaviour and that's why Game Theory has lost its place in the economic system, to Econometrics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Econometrics).
@Philosophista
When you stated:
"Did it ever occur to you the population is stupid Because of the system?"
Well, I agree but changing the system to Anarchy wouldn't change that, it would actually kill the system altogether... See it as, feeding a child that passed trough a long period of starvation. You need to feed the child properly and very slowly in order for the body to slowly absorbs the nutrients and recover.
The apply's to the current society, it needs time to change and it needs a transition period and probably a transition system that has referees, while society get's educated.
The biggest problem with Portugal after the revolution, was that people weren't accustomed to be free... They didn't knew what fredom was... and after the revolution, some problems erupted :S
@Shane, you stated that i said:
"Anarchy as an "unproven" and "Utopian" model."
I never said that. What I said was:
" it is not possible to firmly say without any shadow of a doubt that an Anarchistic Society would be the one free statist coercion, economic depressions, legislative injustice, and even waste. Actually that is an Utopian state and that is not possible since we are humans and humans are inequitably flawed and prone to fail."
There are no perfect system and problems will always erupt, that's how nature works. :)
Our society is very differentiated. We have doctors, engineers, entertainers, lawyers, etc... each and everyone has it's own special gift and we will never be able understand and learn everything. Every time we get sick and need to go to the doctor, we select him and delegate to him, the decisions that can lead us to recover or to the coffin... hey, humans aren't perfect! Referee's will always be there in but the difference is, if the People has enough knowledge and education, they have the ability to choose and to substitute the referee/government/lawyer/doctor, what ever you want to call it...
I think it's a matter of having the right tools in order to be trully free, or in other words, to be truly educated!
Sorry again for the big post... Cya you all!
And it's the laws of market. One day, one guy will want to get richer, and will start selling at a lower price to undo the hold of the competitor, and the same will happen with the other competitor, and so on and so on. Water is eventually gonna be the cheapest it can be. Conversely, a Government has no competition, and is free to charge you whatever tax it wants for the water. Not happy? The taxes can simply be "shifted". Oh, medical expenses have increased and what not. And then Government reports are top secret, for your protection of course, so you have no way to audit what they're really robbing you for.
Still not convinced? I'm sure millions of thirsty, angry humans have something to say about the company's business.
Claymore: "Game Theory requires that the agents act Rationally and humans, are very far from that. Also, markets don't have a rational behaviour and that's why Game Theory has lost its place in the economic system, to Econometrics "
First off, understand what rationality is. Rationality is defined as the ability to act according to the best of one's judgement. To act, you need to have some idea of a causal link between your action and the desired outcome. This is derived from the fact that action is purposeful behaviour (action has to have a purpose, which is to achieve the desired outcome).
Now, it is axiomatically true that all men act. Which means, they see some causal link between their action and desired outcome. They judge that 'this' action is necessary in order to achieve 'that' outcome. May be true, may not be true. But they do act according to the best of their judgement, i.e. they are rational.
Game theorists have no clue as to how men act in the real world. They create zero-sum game type of circumstances in which "self-interest leads to a lose-lose situation", and use this "Nash equilibrium" to 'prove' market failure. Seriously, how can anyone fall for such nonsense. There is no parallel whatsoever between game theory and the real world. Humans don't live in a vaccum satisfying the conditions required for game theory to work.
As for Econometrics, its a joke. It's an off-shoot of a flawed epistemology. Econometrics attempts to establish causal links between phenomena caused by human action using empirical data. That's the methodology of physics, applied to rational beings with a volitional consciousness. You can get a better idea on methodological issues here: http://mises.org/resources/94
The reasons given for why anarchy wouldn't "work" are apparently the same as the reasons given for why freedom wouldn't "work". http://mises.org/daily/5076
You didn't understand me... I stated:
"Here in Portugal, there are several water companies in several regions of the country and all have one thing in common... they all represent monopolies!"
Let me reformulate. In each region of the country, actually in each district, there is only ONE water company!
Each region can only receive water from ONE company! This is clearly a monopoly since i am unable to buy water from any other company because well... there is no other company...
Now, take your conclusions from there...
Again... I'm not American, I don't know how the American government really works and to what accounts does the American People has access to. In Portugal, all state expenses are public and can be accessed from the Internet. That why we know how incompetent they were in the last 30 years...