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

It's a nice theory, but the recurring theme of my posts has been for fair competition on the market, not my opposition to taxation. Don't get me wrong, I do oppose taxation, but only because taxation is the means of sustaining the states many coercive monopolies, which are the opposite of fair competition, therefore I oppose taxation. So you oppose taxation.FYI, I grew up with my mom (single parent) with my brother and sister living a lower-middle class lifestyle. The states done nothing to me personally (at least, no more than anyone else), I oppose that state for intellectual reasons alone. If we were to have verbal communication, you would see I talk about the state in much the same way I would talk about physics, but since we can't you'll just have to take my word for it. You have an emotional reason for being anti-state. If it was purely intellectual you wouldn't be grasping at straws like Somalia and Ireland. Something is biasing you and you may not even know what it is, or might not be prepared to admit it here.Persons solve problems all the time. It's what they do. At the very least, even if all the "trade rout blocking" and "unethical behavior (?)" you mention were to happen and unsolvable, it would still result in a more firm-fair market and require these large firms to be more competitive anyway.In the 19th century, industrialists became famous for monopolising specific utilities, services and goods markets. It became so that you frequently had to pay the monopoly you were competing directly with, for services or goods that only they provided. For example if you wanted to compete with Standard Oil, you had to use railways that they controlled.I keep bringing this up because Standard Oil is one of the greatest examples of what is so terribly wrong with monopolies but also how natural they are in a world that has no way to prevent them (meaning no laws that block insider trading and rates).Microsoft has a history of behaving in a similar manner. You are now forced to pay them money on most new computers that you want to buy, because they sign deals with hardware companies. Intellectual Property owes much of its heavy-handed contribution in legislature to them and the RIAA and MPAA. Thanks to Microsoft, open-sourced software has a lot of fear surrounding it in the general population. These are all anti-competitive practices which markets allow.... ... ... ... ... ... Wow. Okay... congratulations. You just stupefied me by saying by far the most... I don't even know a word for it. I'm just going to get right into this.So, your argument is essentially "theories are not perfect, therefore anything you have to say that relies on theory is automatically flawed". Talk about a fucking cop-out. Maybe I should have written it in French. No. I said that theories are imperfect so you need to treat evidence as more authoritative. In other words, because theory is not all-encompassing, when you have new information which contradicts it, you don't discard the data, you modify the theory.The same can be said for economic theory. The theory "natural monopolies don't happen/ are unsustainable" (depending on how you define a monopoly) may only be a theory, but since it has held true thus far AND there's strong logic standing behind it, one can comfortably derive that monopolies will not happen naturally. You can even take it a step further and recognize that monopolies are more likely when the state is present as that's pretty much what the state is. Case in point you just ignored Standard Oil in your statement and elected to support the theory, instead of modifying the theory to accept that monopolies happen. You also ignored Microsoft and De Beers as important modern examples.Why do monopolies happen? Because they are more efficient than a bunch of small, competing businesses. Monopolies have a natural advantage.The only difference is my theories come from the Austrian School of Economics, the school that has produced more correct prophecies than any other school of economists in all of human history. What have your theories done? What have you proven? Which of your prophecies have come to fruition? Where's your school of economics? If I can't be right because theories can't be right, how can you be?This reminds me of some Christians I've debated with who claim that because some generic prophesies in the bible have been fulfilled, everything else in the bible must be true.I've already had this discussion with you before. The only vindication that predictions give is to the model that made those predictions. Free market economics isn't a part of that. If you're trying to say that a free market works because some arcane models unrelated to it could be interpreted as predicting our recession, then you've just used the same reasoning as those aforementioned Christians.It also misses the point entirely that we shouldn't judge an economic model's viability by its present ability to be predicted successfully, but instead by its ability to be fair towards the classes both in regulatory mechanisms and in distribution of wealth.It should never be necessary to have to explain something like this in a debate. I mean, this is a-priori stuff. I get the feeling this is a "last resort" sort of thing. You've run out of arguments, so as a last resort you've decided your just going to write off anything I say because it's theory, well guess what, the same can be said about you and your "hybrid" theory.If you learned to read, maybe I wouldn't be addressing this now.If biology, my subject of interest, worked like your economics, we wouldn't have modern genetic theory and epigenetics. That's because Mendelian Genetics says that genes only behave a certain way, and all the evidence that interactions are more complicated at the molecular level would be ignored by people like you. Think about that every time you say "monopolies don't happen in an unregulated market."It doesn't even make sense from an evolutionary standpoint, which is the market that economics derives from. Evolution has no intent, no bias, no corruptibility however its history is full of examples where a single species has dominated an environment.Once again your argument is abstract and non-cognitive. You say a lot, but your words have no substance. You haven't actually shown anything I've said to be wrong here, you've just asserted it.Standard Oil, De Beers, US Steel, Microsoft.Now watch as you ignore them.Have you ever considered posting an argument with statistical substance? Even once? If I'm incorrect, it should be easy for you to post counter evidence that stands behind actual figures, not just non-cognitive conjecture. Looking back on your previous posts, there's very, very little actual substance to your arguments. Statistics are useful for subjects which are complicated, ambiguous, and well-documented. The Industrial Revolution was not well-documented. The occurrence of modern monopolies is not ambiguous, but well-documented and certain.In short, it is enough that I can show you examples of monopolies.Referring to Somalia, it isn't exactly easy to find detailed statistics in a war-ravaged collapsed state.Somalia isn't a story of factions emerging and fighting for dominance. You are alone on that theory. Every other economist to chime in recognized that Somalia is a story of a state collapsing and other states rushing in to establish power. I wonder if FSTDT takes quotes from Libertarian fundamentalists. I think I'll post this there.Of course, it's entirely possible that your "knowledge" of Somalia comes only from Mises and Youtube, so instead of doing your fucking homework you are just spouting inanities.This would have been a very easy argument for you to provide statistical substance to, but you didn't. Well, go on. Show me where on Wikipedia it shows Ireland going through a depression caused by non-monopolized currency. Show me where on Wikipedia it lists these apparent battles between different tuatha. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaelic_Ireland#Warfare Gaelic Ireland was a land of continuous warfare, as túatha fought for supremacy against each-other and (later) against the Anglo-Normans.[28] Throughout the Middle Ages and for some time after, outsiders often wrote that the style of Irish warfare differed greatly from what they deemed to be the norm.[28] The Gaelic Irish preferred hit-and-run raids (the creach), which involved catching the enemy unaware and storming their strongholds. If this worked they would then seize any valuables (mainly livestock) and potentially valuable hostages, burn the crops, and escape.[28] The cattle raid was often referred to as a táin bó in Gaelic literature. Although hit-and-run raiding was the preferred tactic in medieval times, the Cogad Gáedel re Gallaib recounts lengthy pitched battles and the use of boats in tandem with land forces.[29] It was not unusual for armies to launch long-range attacks, setting up camps along the way.[29]http://www.deremilitari.org/resources/pdfs/ocleirigh.pdf Flanagan, Marie Therese (1996). "Warfare in Twelfth-Century Ireland". A Military History of Ireland. Cambridge University Press. pp. 52-75.In all of Wikipedia, the only time it even mentions warfare between tuatha is in this single sentence "Gaelic Ireland was a land of continuous warfare, as túatha fought for supremacy against each-other and (later) against the Anglo-Normans." but there are so many problems with this.1. Exactly how much war are we talking about? To what extent?2. The article it links to admits to having NO SOURCES.3. It's talking about pre-600 C.E., which is before the time of anarchic Ireland anyway.http://www.deremilitari.org/resources/pdfs/ocleirigh.pdf I'm baffled by how 15th century translates to 600CE.Of course, if you expect modern quality statistics for a region that was fighting itself over a thousand years with different evolving customs and politics, and all of this happening during the dark, lower and high middle ages, they I think you might be a bit batty. In any case I think it is enough that historians consider the period in constant turmoil.Well, I've been giving you all the chances in the world to show me these statistics. No ones stopping you. Go on, give me some actual numbers.The statistics show that there was a slight increase in average life span, a major drop in infant mortality, improved radio/television/internet access, etc. However you ignored completely Al Shabaab, Islamic Courts Union, the Transitional Government, the warlords who horded foreign supplies, the disputes about Sharia and especially the public executions, and so on. You only favoured those things that made your position look good, instead of looking at it all.