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RE: Response: Sorry Libertarian Anarchists, Capitalism Requires Government

in #anarchy8 years ago

Did you read my post? ;) One of the major themes was "What do you mean when you say government?" When I say we don't need governments, I define exactly what I mean so that it's very clear. Your response uses the word "government" to mean something else, and claims that I said we don't need that. That's a strawman fallacy. We need organization; just not slavery.

When I say we don't need government, I mean we don't need slaves and masters. You can build a building without slaves, Pharaoh. :)

Other than that, I would say you're falling victim to Binswanger's first great fallacy: separating force from economics. Economic law is immutable, and it restricts all human action. If you cannot get the resources to do X, you cannot do X. This is not up for debate, and it is not subject to change. If you have no copper, you can't make copper wire.

A classic human bias is to undervalue information you do not yet understand. Learn economics (real economics like Austrian economics, not fantasy-land Keynesian economics which depend on fraud-based currency), and you'll understand why markets work.

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So imagine we are in a completely free market. And I manage to be so smart that I am so rich that I can buy all the copper in the world. How are you gonna make copper wire if I refuse to sell it to you ?

Absurd hypothetical is absurd. But if you want a serious answer, I'm not. I'll just upgrade to fiber.

I couldn't reply on your last post so I reply here. Well, if you are no seeing that in the current world things like oil, food, finances, electricity ... are controlled by a small group of people, you are clearly living in fantasy land. Small banks, electricity companies have been destroyed, which has led to giant too big too fail banks and electricity companies. They do whatever they want. They destroy any form of competition. Saudi Arabia is doing the same with oil. So the US invented fracking ? No problem, they use their influence to lower oil prices temporarily and all the fracking industry is destroyed. So now they have a monopoly and everyone else is going to think twice before trying to enter.

I read part of your post. I stopped when I got the feeling that once again it was going to be some libertarian talk about how bad governments are. I think most libertarians don't even have a clue why they don't want a government. But maybe you are different. So I will read the remainder ;-)

I was willing to grant you all the copper, as absurd as that is (something which could never be accomplished in reality unless everyone had already deemed copper worthless), but you definitely can't do that with water. There's too much; you would not be able to maintain control of it. If you cannot maintain it, you cannot own it (homesteading principle).

It is not absurd hypothetical. A group of 5 people could team up and own all the copper in the world. They could agree to not compete but cooperate in their advantage. This is called an oligopolie. You should know because you are the economic genius.

So if I manage to control the water supply than you are gonna drink coca cola ?

Oh, I'm very aware of those problems in this world. I also understand, at a fundamental level, how we got here, and what the solution is to fix it and make sure it doesn't happen again. I wrote a post about it, maybe you've read it? ;)