Freedomain Radio

.I have deleted this post. I think I recieved enough good advice from the community here.

 Have you tried out the argument from morality as it applies to these senarios? Maybe that would provide a common thread and a labor saving device.

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DaveDoggOwns:

 For as long as I have been a market anarchist, I have not been able to convince one person into accepting market anarchy. There are a couple of arguements I always come across that I don't really know how to respond to.

1) The rich have more purchasing power than the poor and the middle class, so the DRO's will always tilt in their favor. Therefore, DRO's are prone to corruption regardless of free competition.

That's an excellent sales pitch I can start a DRO targeted at such people at the expense of not having any rich clients but since the rich are obviously interested in services like anti kidnap protection that doesn't interest the middle class I can pass off savings in overheads as a virtue as well.

 2) When people want to help the poor, they do not want to tax themselves they want to tax the rich. Just becuase people are willing to vote for the welfare state doesn't mean they intend to provide private charity in the absence of a state. So you can't use that fact that most people want to help the poor in the statist society as evidence that people will want to help the poor in a free society.

Pardon my poor memory but there was a McCuistion video where that guy who had to go to hospital for stress said that during a period where the perception was that the government was giving less to the poor , private donations went up so that would be an example of people "intending to provide private charity in the absence of a state", well not merely intending but actually doing so.

3) You are not supporting poor people's freedom if you do not help them. (ie me the socialist am more libertarian than you)

See above, it seems obvious that people do mean to help them and not into either soft or hard gulags.

4) You do not believe in equality of authority if you do not believe in equality of socioeconomic conditions. (ie everyone has the same rights, but not everyone recieves the same benefits from those rights)

Equality of socioeconomic conditions would require equality of effort to be just can't see that being applied without violence.

5) The free market is not a money democracy. Some people have more purchasing power than others.

It's not a democracy at all what's the point?

That's all I can think of right now. If I don't get good answers to these objections I'm going to have to change my philosophy.

If you aren't willing to put in the hard work to test your philosophy then it probably isn't something you should hold it certainly isn't something you have worked at.

1)The poor people would not keep supporting DRO's that don't represent them as they want them to. A DRO would meet the demands of a poor person if there was market demand in an open market.

2)Should people help the poor in a free society. I don't think so. I think that businesses will create jobs for anyone that wants one and anyone who doesn't want one is either not worth supporting or disabled. The disabled would most likely be covered by a disability insurance offered by the DRO if they want it. If not then they are dependant on charity.

3)You are not supporting poor people's freedom now. Plus how many socialists give to charities versus lobby the government. Put your money where your mouth is. What does freedom have to do with social position. You can be poor but be the freeest person in the world as long as all your interactions are voluntary. Lack of money does not affect your level of freedom in a anarchist society.

4)Rights only exist when government exists such as the Bill of Rights. These just give you a few freedoms. In an market anarchist society you would have almost total freedom limited by a few minor rules. I don't believe that equality will happen in a market anarchist society because there are people that grow up to be more productive than others and that is inevitable. You could not have equality with governement and you couldn't have equality without unless the people who had more than others gave away their hard earned resources until everyone had the same bank account balance and income. I don't believe in a egalitarian society and I don't think it has ever existed or will ever exist in the future. There is no authority in market anarchist society unless it is voluntary.

5)Sure but that's because either they work harder or have richer parents which is just luck. Democracy has been disproven for centuries anyway.

 

As Stef said in a recent podcast, we need to "Stop Defending Freedom!"  These people you're arguing with don't have a leg to stand on when it comes to being logically consistent, nor do they have ANY empirical evidence that their "philosophy" has any merit (and much evidence to the contrary).  Therefore, I would open up a can of Socratic questioning:

DaveDoggOwns:

1) The rich have more purchasing power than the poor and the middle class, so the DRO's will always tilt in their favor. Therefore, DRO's are prone to corruption regardless of free competition.

How will DRO's "always tilt in their favor"?  Anyone is prone to corruption... so, would you rather have consumers in charge or a violent monopoly that can impose its will on the consumers (ie. you)?

If the socialist says "In a Democracy, we vote for representatives and... [etc]" then you can pose the solution to let Walmart monopolize all products and services and we can vote for its president every 4 years.  That will work out much better right?

DaveDoggOwns:

2) When people want to help the poor, they do not want to tax themselves they want to tax the rich. Just becuase people are willing to vote for the welfare state doesn't mean they intend to provide private charity in the absence of a state. So you can't use that fact that most people want to help the poor in the statist society as evidence that people will want to help the poor in a free society.

If they won't do anything themselves, then the socialists really don't care about the poor, right?  Plus, there would be more abundance in a Stateless society; the number of poor reduced to the point that it would be largely inconsequential.  How does the State currently work to NOT cause and propel these problems?  How will it not eventually fail? (as if it already hasn't every time it's been tried in history)

DaveDoggOwns:

You are not supporting poor people's freedom if you do not help them. (ie me the socialist am more libertarian than you)

Buddhists choose to be poor and would refuse anything I'd try to give them, so I'm not sure what "poor" means.  If it means someone who is poor by a vice, then simply throwing money at the problem will only exacerbate it.  If it is poor by circumstance, then charities and others will be more than happy to help (and there are also many charities to help those with vices as well).  Regardless, forcing someone to pay by threat of violence for anything is also infringing on freedom, so I don't understand the logical consistency of the argument.  How will the socialist system not fail to perpetuate and worsen the problem through its subsidation of it?

Also, where is the empirical evidence that socialism has ever worked better than the free market for any of these problems???

DaveDoggOwns:

You do not believe in equality of authority if you do not believe in equality of socioeconomic conditions. (ie everyone has the same rights, but not everyone recieves the same benefits from those rights)

Authority is an illusion and, therefore, I don't believe in it in general.  Did it become a tanglible concept when I was away from the boards today?  How can equality be forged by the end of a gun without being a contradiction in logic?

DaveDoggOwns:

That's all I can think of right now. If I don't get good answers to these objections I'm going to have to change my philosophy.

To what?

DROs are arbitration and defense institutions. A person could not contract with a DRO to compel his neighbor to practice better oral hygiene. It doesn't operate that way. A DRO functions similarly to Brinks and ADT, with the addition of arbitration.

add: A DRO would likely also provide some kind of reputation rating system along the lines of what the Better Business Bureau does. We already see this in practice on services such as Amazon, Ebay, Newegg, GameTZ, etc.

Why are poor people poor? It's an important question.

This looks like it'll a long and interesting thread and I hope my contribution helps.

1. The majority of people are middle class or poor. No doubt there would be DROs who service only the very rich and have clauses about protection from stalking, kidnapping, alien abduction or frizzy hair, but most DROs would not find it profitable to focus on small percentages of the population.

All purchasing power means is that someone can buy a big house, expensive cars, yachts and shit like that, it does not mean that they can, in a free society, rule over those who have less capital.

In our current statist society things do indeed work that way, so I can certainly empathize with that concern, however misguided it is.

An analogy that might help is the auto industry. The rich can afford to buy cars that are more expensive and the auto manufacturers profit more (we'll assume for now) from the single sale of an expensive sports car then a cheaper midsized sedan or budget compact car. But what do we see most in the market? Sedans and budget compact cars. That is because those cars, even though there is less profit made from selling one of those, so many more of those are sold over the sports cars, that it becomes more profitable to market to the poor and middle class, hence why Toyota and Honda are as big as they are.

2. It helps to have statistics that show poverty going down before welfare and then going up after welfare and increase in charitiable donations when taxes decrease, but there will always be counter arguments and statistics to that that are on equal standing as your statistics and counter arguments. So, IMO, it's best to approach this one with the argument from morality or to let them prove to you that it is just to steal from everyone to give to a small group of people or that it even helps lift them out of a poverty we assume they do not want to be in.

3. Freedom as compared to what? Freedom to buy a Ferrari Enzo?

4. The sentence in the parantheses is a universal criticism, something that can apply to everyone in every instance. Everything and everyone has it's/their own advantages and disadvantages. To take a simplified and possibly overused example, the rich have a lot more money but they also have more responsibility while the poor have less responsibilty.

In regards to the unparanthesesed part of that, you could also respond by pointing out that while that may be true, it's invalidated by the fact that the person asking that question believes the same thing. In some idealized Marxist society (esp. from those who haven't read Marx, like myself) of perfect economic egalitarianism, there would still be a ruling class who would excert far greater power than Oprah excerts over her mass of wailing sit-com stereotypes (AKA viewers).

5. The burden is on the person who makes this point to demonstrate how purchasing power limits consumer choices.

 

I'm curious, why are you a market anarchist and how did you come to that conclusion?

Belluavir:

I'm curious, why are you a market anarchist and how did you come to that conclusion?

I'm pretty sure he's a mutualist "anarchist." He's stated it on other threads. Like here: http://freedomainradio.com/board/forums/p/22268/177530.aspx#177530

He believes workers should own production. Meaning, that cashiers at McDonalds should make decisions about international business matters, organizational structure, marketing, product planning, etc. He's the type of anarchist that believes capitalists aren't workers themselves, that workers with less skills have more "rights." Calling himself a market anarchist is misleading.

DaveDoggOwns:

 For as long as I have been a market anarchist, I have not been able to convince one person into accepting market anarchy. There are a couple of arguements I always come across that I don't really know how to respond to.

1) The rich have more purchasing power than the poor and the middle class, so the DRO's will always tilt in their favor. Therefore, DRO's are prone to corruption regardless of free competition.

 2) When people want to help the poor, they do not want to tax themselves they want to tax the rich. Just becuase people are willing to vote for the welfare state doesn't mean they intend to provide private charity in the absence of a state. So you can't use that fact that most people want to help the poor in the statist society as evidence that people will want to help the poor in a free society.

3) You are not supporting poor people's freedom if you do not help them. (ie me the socialist am more libertarian than you)

4) You do not believe in equality of authority if you do not believe in equality of socioeconomic conditions. (ie everyone has the same rights, but not everyone recieves the same benefits from those rights)

5) The free market is not a money democracy. Some people have more purchasing power than others.

That's all I can think of right now. If I don't get good answers to these objections I'm going to have to change my philosophy.

 

This title of this thread should be edited to read: 'Already Answered but Willfully/Subconsciously Avoided Conclusions of Market Anarchy Rather Than Working From First Principals."

I feel frustrated when reading post after post about the conclusions "market anarchy." I'm convinced that the philosophical analysis of first principals applied to common events and future solutions is the real value proposition for FDR, not an "argument from position." The conclusion, market anarchy, is just a way to save time and summarize some basic concepts when discussing them with new people. The conclusion isn't what matters, the methodology does. ADDRESS THE METHODOLOGY.

I'm part of the 'lower-middle class.' What happens if I become as successful, or 'oppressive', as I intend to become? Wouldn't this contradict the fragile premise these recurrent objections stem from? Listening to this pessimistic, static, and slimey view of existence is depressing. But it's a waste of time to say this because it won't be considered.

Saying "That's all I can think of right now. If I don't get good answers to these objections I'm going to have to change my philosophy" tells me that philosophy is like buying a used car to you. You can't buy different truths. But please, go ahead and 'change' your 'philosophy.' Are you expecting someone to plead with you and talk you out of it? Maybe then you can quote someone and use an argument from authority.

I feel like Scrooge right now; "Bah Humbug!"

 "1) The rich have more purchasing power than the poor and the middle class, so the DRO's will always tilt in their favor. Therefore, DRO's are prone to corruption regardless of free competition.“

I wonder, would you say a Honda runs roughly as reliably as a Rolls Royce? Do people suffer when they drive the cheaper option, or do they get the most value that they can afford, as much as a company can provide to entice their dollars?

 

 

 Allright, thanks guys. I think you provided excellent responses and have given me some new ideas.

Magnus:

Why are poor people poor? It's an important question.

It's because Bill Gates and Donald Trump hoarded all the wealth for themselves and they won't share.

 

Magnus:

Why are poor people poor? It's an important question.

 

The TRULY poor are commonly poor because of their government. Same with those in the West who are poor, the only difference is that our current "poverty line" is about at the same level as very wealthy people 150 years ago. And they didn't have the internet or TV's.

 

DaveDoggOwns:

 For as long as I have been a market anarchist, I have not been able to convince one person into accepting market anarchy. There are a couple of arguements I always come across that I don't really know how to respond to.

1) The rich have more purchasing power than the poor and the middle class, so the DRO's will always tilt in their favor. Therefore, DRO's are prone to corruption regardless of free competition.

  Time to introduce the challenger to "The law of anarchist evil X", which states; "Any evil that anarchy is claimed to give rise to will subsequently be found under Statism and will be found to be increased by the actions of the State. ".  Under the present system the poorer party has no power to contract so that it will be heard in a court not influenced by wealth.  As a result we get almost exclusively the poor going to jail and civil cases, when the poor even bother to fight them, being usually won by the wealthy.  The exception is cases fought on contigency where the plaintiff's case is strong (or at least credible enough to go to court if the defendents don't fold to avoid massive court costs).

DaveDoggOwns:

 2) When people want to help the poor, they do not want to tax themselves they want to tax the rich. Just becuase people are willing to vote for the welfare state doesn't mean they intend to provide private charity in the absence of a state. So you can't use that fact that most people want to help the poor in the statist society as evidence that people will want to help the poor in a free society.

  So let's try my little law again and see if it works.  If people are not prepared to help the poor at their own expense then it follows that they are not prepared to vote to help the poor at their own expense.  It therefore follows that if they should find themselves benefitted by a law that imposes costs on the poor they would not stop this.  Therefore we should expect many laws under a State that benefit the politically powerful non-poor at the expense of those poor that are politically impotent (a.k.a. the poor).  Immigration restrictions, tariffs, minimum wages laws, licensure laws, morgage-interest tax deductions, laws that favour union members, need I go on?

DaveDoggOwns:

 

3) You are not supporting poor people's freedom if you do not help them. (ie me the socialist am more libertarian than you)

  So let's try my little law again and see if it works.  Are you hurting poor people's freedom is you don't help them?  Is keeping government not hurting poor people's freedom?  If all I did for poor people was not kidnap them for having unapproved plants and compounds or practising a profession without my permission I'm still ahead of the government.  The Australian government has been "helping" aborigines for almost 200 years which might be why they make Africa's health statistics look good.

DaveDoggOwns:

 

4) You do not believe in equality of authority if you do not believe in equality of socioeconomic conditions. (ie everyone has the same rights, but not everyone recieves the same benefits from those rights)

  OH NO!  People won't get the same benefit from their rights!  So my right to post my philosophical thoughts on the internet won't get the benefit of having thousands of people thinking I'm a competent philosopher like they do with Stef.  Well welcome to reality.  Some people aren't capable of getting the same results from the same resources as others.  That doesn't give them the right to more resources.  In any case nobody wants the same benefits from their rights.  Some guys want to work 30 hours a week, crash in the mediocre appartment and watch TV the rest of the time, others are happy to work 60 hours a week to buy jets and travel the world.  Others want to do very little except indulge their curiousity, chat about things that interest them, be with their kids and maybe invent a miracle baldness cure*.    Providing no force is used to achieve them all these very unequal combinations of effort and reward are valid.

DaveDoggOwns:

5) The free market is not a money democracy. Some people have more purchasing power than others.

That's all I can think of right now. If I don't get good answers to these objections I'm going to have to change my philosophy.

 Wow, it's like the "Law of Anarchist Evil X" was designed for this one.  Will list the ways in which government causes people to have more power over the use of capital, land and labour than others as soon as I get some spare time.  Twenty years should do it.

 

 

 

* That is to say a cure for not being bald.