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

There is no "objective" moral code NOW. Laws are constantly changing.There never is. Laws merely act as authority on the matter.When one government tries to take another governments land, it becomes a war. When two persons do the same, it's not nearly such a big deal. It can be solved via free market courts, but most of the time such things wouldn't happen as seen in the anarchic west.I really don't know how to respond to someone as delusional as you are, half of the time. You see a typical person makes a claim, you can contradict them, they accept it, and adjust their views. You can even mock or ridicule them so that they see how silly their reasoning is, forcing them to drop it. In your case you simply disregard anything that doesn't fit with your preconceptions by calling it "not a true example" or "tainted by state" and so you never have to actually think very hard because you already have your conclusion.I've encountered this a lot with young earth creationists over the years. You explain examples of how life evolves to them and they just purposefully reject it as "random chance" or "there are no transition fossils" or repeat ad nauseum stock phrases which have no depth. In your case these are "market solves X," "that's not a true free market," and "taxes are theft."It is already sufficiently demonstrated through modern and historical gang wars, tribal conflicts, and animal behaviour that conflict repeatedly occurs over resources, and that it can last years or even centuries if permitted. Any rational reader can determine that you are in denial of human nature.When did I ignore this? I used this very fact as an example! I said "Somalia still got better despite all of the Islamist and U.N. invaders attempting to re-establish a state" (paraphrasing). When a state plummets to civil war, especially almost three decades of civil war, it isn't better until the war ceases.Somalia got better after the fall of Siad Barre's government. If there was an outbreak of civil war and strife, then civil war and strife are better for an economy than one large government. You're a real idiot. Thank god you do my hard work for me. I could never make you look as stupid as you do when you say things like this.Look, I've told you what I mean when I say "anarchism". If you just can't get over that, replace the word "anarchy" in your mind with "anti-statism" whenever it comes up. =/No. Your entire view of what constitutes a best state, isn't anarchy, or informal government. You are anti-tax. That is where it ends.You say "a couple extra" As though it was a small gain and as though they were the only improvements. It wasn't and they weren't. Go back and check the link if you still don't get why. There were marginal improvements to a population in almost three decades of civil war. Life marches on, even in war.Also, I'm not saying televisions increased in Somalia as though having a television is the be all and end all of a successful economy. I said it to express the gain in wealth and the vast spread in media that occurred without a state to subsidies poverty. Civil wars remaining unresolved for over two decades is much higher on the list than being able to afford a television.A state brings stability. If a state was able to get hold of the area and expunge the Islamic factions, by now there would be a much higher quality of life because by now there would have been decades of time to rebuild the infrastructure and support basic needs.You're just... such an idiot. This is an example of an already existing state with an already existing tax base occupying a country. This has nothing to do with what I was talking about. An already existing state occupying a country =/= a new state emerging and it especially =/= a new state emerging in a nation of anti-statists. You're a fool.Occupied Japan shows us an example of how through much effort a culture can be subjugated and eventually remoulded to stand on its own and act as an ally towards the invaders.It's no surprise that you posted no arguments along with your link... again. I'm beginning to think you know what your saying doesn't make sense and you're just hoping I don't notice it either.Your argument was:How are you going to go about establishing a state? Religion? Persons aren't so stupid anymore. Convince them you can do more for them with their money than they can? Good luck. Even the current government has trouble with that, and they have the advantage of forcing children into twelve years of compulsory "education" camps to indoctrinate them in the values of the state. =/Occupied Japan is an obvious example of where we reshaped a culture.First of all, understand that gangs still exist now despite the state and in fact is a problem aggravated by the state through its subsidies over violence and it's repression on certain market demands. So a state is not the solution to gangs. Gangs form naturally as a means of power for a group with similar interests or backgrounds. They do not depend upon a state.Second of all, the state is a gang. The gang that "won" so to speak as it achieved the most power. So, to be against gangs is to be against the state, less you be a hypocrite. Evading the discussion.And finally, anarchic Iceland was known for it's constant feuding. This is because, without a state, chieftains couldn't conscript large numbers of unwilling men, so quarrels had to be settled between the quarrelers themselves. Which doesn't change the fact that you can buy favours from the leaders.This means nothing. First of all, there's just no way to know we jumped "two or more generations" thanks to the state without being able to see what would have happened had the state not existed. Second, this in no way shows that sweatshops where not a step up from what preceded it. We, as amongst the first to enter the industrial revolution, suffered through free market reform, child labour, pollution, and sweatshops. Modern developing nations can simply jump from farming to union-backed factories and stiff market control to prevent monopolies and buying of favours. That way they need not suffer our mistakes. It depends on what they want.I've decided I want mandatory bone marrow donations from every American whom falls within certain bone density bracket. Sure, this means more persons will need bone marrow transplants and everyone in the country will generally have less bone marrow because of this... and now there's less motive to get the proper calcium intake as everyone is forced to give bone marrow anyway; but it's the right thing to do. The idea of redistributing wealth is based on the fact that we all tend to have a surplus of money, and the cost while high is much less when split amongst a large population, so that effectively we all pay a small amount so that some can afford an expensive good. In this case housing, welfare, unemployment, etc.The thing is, avesk, you haven't actually shown that more violence happened after the collapse of the Somali government (stats)... you've just asserted it. It doesn't matter though, because:I provided a link to freedomhouse and wikipedia. The conclusion is an obvious one.1. These violent groups are just mini-states... which explains why they are violently trying to establish power.Ah, I remember this part, it's exclusion of relevant data so that you can keep your pet delusion. See, if we accepted that factions naturally develop in a power vacuum, then your delusion that anarchy can work would crumble because it would be apparent that anarchy leads to a state with violence in between. Solution? Call the factions mini-states, so you can ignore them.Creationists do this with transitional fossils by saying "Where is the missing link behind and in front of your fossil in the chain?"2. Even with all these states rushing to establish power, Somalia still saw growth in life expectancy, doctors, wealth etc. etc. etc.Which doesn't matter if every three or four years a new faction forms and starts bombing your cities and shooting your civilians.No, the demand for literacy made illiteracy non-existent. The state merely monopolized the supply. There was a government back in the middle ages too and they did everything possible to ensure the surfs couldn't read. Written language goes back for thousands of years, so do universities. None of them achieved what we did. I know, I know, it was all a massive, inter-era and inter-governmental conspiracy to keep people dumb.Are you saying that government invented the demand for better foods? that persons don't want better food without a government to subsidies it for them?Since you seem to have forgotten the point of the discussion:Six thousand-nine thousand years ago, the idea of markets was different and it couldn't have driven the breeding for better foods (at least directly) since there was no known outcome for selectively breeding grasses. They simply used a method that worked, and produced food.... What? Perhaps you just haven't been told, but everything that falls within the U.S. border is U.S. property. The property is taxed as your "rent" for living.You only "own" your property to the extent that they don't take it from you.Actually not. This what private property distinguishes.The great depression was caused by a massive expansion in credit without the expansion of any real differed consumption. Without a federal government to monopolize currency, this isn't possible. No, it was caused by insider trading, collusion, etc.The New Deal tried to prevent this from happening again.That's what I meant by "hold back". Holding back persons from amassing wealth.Taxes don't stop the wealthy from anything. Taxes work better at stopping entrepreneurs from becoming wealthy. Taxes are included in barriers to entry, I guess you just didn't know that either. ;)Taxes provide income redistribution, which is designed to help us, it can however be hijacked by business interests. That is why we have oversight.Besides, welfare is a horrible system. I can't believe I actually have to explain this to you. I mean, you're literally the first statist I've ever debated stupid enough to think it is. And that includes communists. =/The New Deal provided funding for the morbidly poor and unemployed, allowing them to get back on their feet. It also, and this is critical, regulated the market in hopes of preventing another great depression.Without a state, things become incredibly cheap. Nominal wages typically don't raise as much as the price of everything else falls, which makes sense given that firms become more productive as a result of competition and general hyper-sensitization. Without a state, people are paid almost nothing for labour. It evens out.So, on a free market a poor person can live on less, which means there's less need for welfare, which means it won't matter if a few Scrooges hoard there cash away from the charities.http://mises.org/daily/2225http://mises.org/daily/4655The problem people like you have is a lack of scale. You think small things can solve big problems, or that big issues are soluble with a few small market properties.In this case, you think it is only a few greedy men (actually true because relative to the population the rich are a tiny minority) and therefore they cannot be much of a threat to the workers (ignoring that they command the majority of the country's wealth). So your sense of scale ignores that a few scrooges hoarding really means millions of men and women earning a combined minority of wealth.What does wealth do? It buys power. So by letting those scrooges hoard, you allow them to buy taxes and barriers to entry, and so we see the corruption of the spirit of the tax system thanks to your blind faith in a simple solution to a complex problem.Short answer: Tragedy of the commons refers to common land, not privately owned land. This is a phenomenon seen with public property (i.e. government property i.e. commons) NOT private property.In case you're not aware, private property combined makes up common land. The model still holds true, therefore.