Debate: Free-Market Police: Better or Worse?
Side: Much, much better...

Of course you can know. Find two identical market niches, one regulated and one unregulated. Compare them while removing irrelevant consequences due to unique situations.Example: Intellectual Property in the USA and China. In the USA tight regulations has created all sorts of device incompatibility problems, has stifled the creation of cheaper lookalike/reproductions of expensive labels, and has resulted in expensive goods. In China it is almost the opposite: built-in decryption and/or lack of respect for patents means much more compatibility, reproductions are everywhere, and digital content is cheaper because DVDs are pirated which means they sell closer to production cost.Now adjust for censorship imposed by China and we see overall much more freedom when a big business is disallowed to affect laws.Communism = anti-statism now? Fine, then Hybrid = Monarchism. If "look-a-likes" are selling in China, it means there is demand for cheaper electronics AND these cheaper electronics are profitable. The fact that these replicates aren't sold here only proves that state regulation has enacted subsidies and regulations allowing large firms to overcharge for their products by suppressing the expansion of cheaper electronics. Actually, reading your comment, it sounds eerily like an anti-statist argument. Especially the "overall much more freedom when a big business is disallowed to affect laws." part.Hierarchies emerge into states because states are another tier of management.All states are hierarchies, but not all hierarchies are states. There's no reason why all hierarchies must end in massive fiat land claims and several coercive monopolies, this is just something you're assuming.Standard Oil.Now watch as you ignore it, like how a creationistStopped reading here. I know where this is going and once again it's going to be wrong.Now that I think about it, you made this same point in our other debate, so there's no point in addressing it here as well.Wars were frequently due to in-fighting as it was expected for young men to pillage.You mean like when a bunch of Irish teenagers would get together and engaged in, in the very words you quoted, "hunting and raiding in forests during the warmer months"? Those damn teenagers, kicking up the bushes and whatnot. Surely this proves anarchism fails. XDBesides, I'd take a country with "in-fighting pillages" over the monolithic wars coming from the rest of Europe any day.Actually, between 800AD and about 1400AD the Islamic world was nearing and fading from the height of scientific knowledge. In Europe between 1400AD and 1650AD was a period of great minds.Definitely better than subsisting on war and skirmishes.This is mere opinion. "Nearing and fading from the height of scientific knowledge" and "a period of great minds." means nothing. Even then, this scientific knowledge could only come from natural demand for knowledge.Also, I agree that subsisting on war and skirmishes is stupid, this is part of the reason why I oppose the state in the first place.You cannot make those claims. You're just guessing that taxes and state are requisite, when all that was shown is that a repressive state ended.I absolutely CAN make these claims.- State and taxation ended- economy flourishedI've spent the last couple weeks outlining the theory to you of why this would happen, then I've shown you an example of this actually happening. Sure, you can say this only shows that a "repressed state ended", but then you would just be ignoring everything that happened after the collapse.  Why aren't you arguing for Xeer or Sharia? Those actually had a respectable impact on recent Somalia.I'm not saying Xeer or Sharia are great laws, or even totally consistent, they merely show that law can be both emergent and functional.You're comparing a collapsed state to two horrendously corrupt and poor states, and then propose that because the stateless one does better, this proves that states handicap development. Try comparing to a state that isn't handicapped.... ... ... Okay, I'll be more explicative. I'm starting the clock before the collapse and then comparing the three nation's progress. All three started as highly statist poverty stricken hell-holes, but one saw huge economic growth that wasn't seen by the other two.This nation was Somalia. The one with the collapsed state.Also,"this proves that states handicap development. Try comparing to a state that isn't handicapped."This is contradictory. Though, I'm assuming the second time you said "state" you meant something closer to "nation". Either way, this is a very anti-statist statement to make.You never heard of ongoing civil war by newly developed factions?You're doing that thing again. That thing were you back out of your previous statements by being vague. The point still stands that if the civil war you were talking about was ongoing from before the state collapsed, it was a war unconnected to the collapse. Therefore you would be lying to say that the collapsed state sparked the civil war.Not a death squad.There is no group more fitting of the title "death squad" than states.The state is presently accountable. An invasive state is not.See, this is the sort of vagueness I'm talking about. Am I to guess your arguments again? Accountable to whom? Us? The way the state is set up, it's clear they expect us to be accountable to them. Otherwise they wouldn't need to make their monopolies coercive.An invasive state would become accountable if it's invasion was a success, so it doesn't matter.Ireland and Iceland, da?Ireland proves only that Christianity was an easy religion to spread hundreds of years ago. The fact that England spent hundreds upon hundreds of years failing to take over Ireland via military campaigns proves that coercion is not enough to conquer an anarchy.They had control of their clans and property. Buying favours from them would entail affecting their decisions with their clans.No. I'm going to say this again. a Tuath was a NON-geographic organization. Tuatha owned absolutely no property and a chieftain ONLY owned his own property. Nobody else's. The Chieftain oversaw the tuath meeting, but he didn't have any more say than any other person. He didn't make edicts. He didn't have the final word. The entire event was voluntary.For example, as businessman A I buy a favour from chieftain B so that he requests his subordinates buy their goods from only my market.You're arguments are getting weaker and weaker by the post. So now capitalism fails because a businessman can pay a respected member of society to speak well of his product? Air tight argument you've got there. =/They didn't find it better. They found it necessary. Kind of like how the African slaves didn't find working in cotton fields better than fighting tribal wars in their homeland or living in villages, they found it a necessity.The factory owners chose to pay low wages, as little as possible, because there was high turnover. Workers were dispensible, death was everywhere.All firms pay as little as they can get away with, but whomever offers the most desirable working conditions will be able to expand faster than their competition because workers will naturally gravitate towards their firms and factories.You seem so hell bent on the industrial revolution being a terrible time, but what you don't seem to realize is that the Industrial revolution lowered work hours, raised real wages, raised life expectancy and reduced the need for child labor compared to pre-industrial times. No matter how you look at it, the industrial revolution was an improvement on society.I'll share a story with you, so you might understand this a little better. A boy was interviewed about how he was recruited. He said that he and a bunch of children were asked if they wanted to go on a trip to the country, enjoy meats, and so on. He of course said yes and they were on their way. They would sign these contracts which mandated their servitude until 21 years old. There was much pomp as if they were selected for something special but they arrived at a labour facility. I read about how a boy, whose job it was working with thread the entire day, I believe twisting scraps together, would wait for the shift to end each day, and then walk to his bunk sore and cry himself to sleep, waiting, praying for death.These factories were little better than slave shops and we allowed them, because after all there were no laws against them, and they emerged from the technology, and once they gained momentum the protests fell on deaf ears because in parliament the wealthy had a louder voice than the working class. You have no idea how wretched this life was, and how it is what must occur when there are no prohibitions against it, because it exploits a commonly available environment: mass production technology, a surplus of labour, and a demand for cheap goods.And I suppose you know first hand how "wretched" this life was?You've already admitted in this sob-story that parliament (you said "wealthy" too, but since the wealthy only have extended market control thanks to the state, it doesn't matter) suppressed the voice of the public, so there's not much else to say here, but...This is the story of one boy. There's no real facts or statistics in it. It may not even be true. I mean, wishing for death? If he was really "wishing" for death he would have simply offed himself.The fact remains that the industrial revolution was a net utility. It took state intervention to abolish them. A mere hundred years ago people were working like this, but enforcement of those labour laws made these factories unheard of in the US and Britain.Again, demand for better working conditions comes from the public, not the state. This wasn't a matter of the state supporting the wishes of the market, but merely a matter of the state no longer suppressing it. When ever a new invention comes about, the inventor has the ability to overcharge for his product as he has a temporary monopoly on it. He can continue to exploit the market in this way until somebody reverse-engineers it or something. After that an economy of scale builds up until the price of said product represents it's actual market value.It's the same deal with the industrial revolution. Many of the inventions of the time were new (obviously), which gave the inventors a temporary advantage on the market that allowed them to be exploitative. Normally this phase doesn't last very long because other capitalists see how over-priced this new product/service is and enter it because there is a profit to be made. The market floods with new suppliers and each is forced to either provide a better service and/or cheaper product in order to remain competitive. The only way for the temporary monopoly phase to be extended is through state patents. A patent allows the inventor to extend his market mini-monopoly as no one else is allowed to produce the product/produce in the same manner. Whipped, penalised and beaten workers tend to be more productive too,No they don't. They're sluggish, shabby and tend to kill themselves. Clearly you've never owned a business. with the advantage that you need not raise overhead costs because of a soaring replacement worker population. However, don't believe me, look into the standard practices of sweatshops.Expendable workers get paid less than less-expendable workers. This is both obvious and true with or without a state. This doesn't mean that because they are expendable they will be whipped and beaten, merely that they don't see the same benefits. I mean, it doesn't even make sense from a capitalistic standpoint. Why pay someone to whip your workers when you can just fire the unproductive ones and replace them. It wouldn't be hard, seeing as there's such a surplus or workers, after all. Happy workers are more productive, this is a proven fact. It just wouldn't make any sense to go out of your way to make your workers more miserable when in the end it only hurts your own profit. So why then did these poor conditions continue from around the mid-1700s to the early 1900s? Why did it take bloody worker protests and state intervention if the secret to higher productivity was merely happy workers?Are you trying to say there was not a state at this time? Hmm?Quality of life has improved down the ages since the end of the middle ages. You're argument fails.I don't think it is, especially since the vast majority of workers would agree with me.Really? YOU, of all people, don't think it would be unreasonable for the world to concede to YOUR preferences? Big surprise there! XDIt took state intervention to officially declare unions legal, because the default position was that they were to be violently repressed.Even weaker still. Come on, avesk. You really think this is a good argument???I don't even know where to begin with something like this... The only reason why the state had to declare unions legal was because it first made them illegal.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combination_Act I suggest you read this:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaelic_ireland  I don't know why you think I haven't read it already. I have, it just didn't say anything contrary to anything I've been saying.I suppose this is just another example of you, posting a link while offering no argument or even specifying what part of the link is meant to support you in an attempt to "vague up" the debate... again.Which seems to happen all the time.Precisely why the state needs to be abolished.Factory farming is an example of this. So was/is mass agriculture in some areas.And even weaker still. Factory farmers are making a profit. This is proof that they are not taking more animals than they can upkeep.Do you not understand how the market works? This is intro to economics 101 stuff. If you can't upkeep your livestock, you loose profit. Therefore if you're making a profit you are not conducting business beyond your means.