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

The event you've just given is a perfect example of barriers to entry. You must understand, appealing to the government for a special advantage is only possible if there is a government. And the government is always happy to permit these advantages since it means they get to tighten their grip on the market further. If there wasn't a government, what would of happened? Well, the same thing that happens to all businesses that can't provide a service good enough to meet market demand.Government could care less about market. Strictly speaking the only way they could care is if it gives them a financial incentive.In pure anarchy there is no great authority to buy favours from. In any sort of tribe or proto-government, or council or elders, etc. there comes an authority which may be tainted with favours. All you're arguing for is a lack of authority which can never happen."Law" isn't something unique to government. You can have "laws" in a free-market. Perhaps law isn't the best word. call it, agreements. Correct. Mores is the sociological term.By living in a certain area you agree to not steal or kill. If you are caught doing these things, you will be shot/ostracized/whatever. If two persons voluntarily make an agreement, agree on a particular court should anything go wrong and they sign a contract then you have both law and anarchy. See what I mean?Correct, unless you have more firepower than the local residents in which case it is might makes right.Order is emergent. It comes from the bottom up, not the top down. You believe in evolution, don't you? So, did God build the DNA of animals, or did they emerge? It is both actually. Intelligence is involved in evolution, but not supernatural intelligence. Life evolves on its own, then eventually relationships emerge, and then animals and plants and fungi are evolving each other for their own needs. In this way it becomes top-down as birds and butterflies evolve flowers and fruit for their needs and those same flowers evolve animals to form special relationships with them.But anyway, in this context yes order is bottom-up.Then free-enterprise societies do have merits?No, I mean you can compare free and regulated markets.Somalia was not a country of anarcho-capitalists, yes. There were many governments trying to establish power, yes. But, it STILL outperformed Somalia back when it had one, big central government. Don't find that strange? Don't find that hilarious?Try looking at the big picture:Pre-civil war Somalia had a bad infrastructure and violence. Fighting erupts lowering the average age of death, and of course infant mortality raises. Monopolies were put in place by government. Collapse. What happens? Power struggles but at the same time needs take over and monopolies vanish, so infrastructure in some areas improves. However in the background wars are still happening. Some stability emerges as one faction takes power for a few years, before losing ground.So what we see is a still low age of death due to constant violence and child death caused by a level of anarchy, but it isn't everywhere and in the stable areas infrastructure moves on with a piggyback legal system called Xeer and in some areas Sharia, with technology being made that improves lives and can exist because monopolies ended.It's still bad however, lots of deaths occur. Warlords, gangs and factions exist. The civilian legal code is insufficient to end this.So when you look at a few numbers while ignoring everything else, yes Somalia improved, but not in the big picture with everything looked at.I wasn't asking you which you would rather live in relative to where you do live. Obviously it's still a third world nation and doesn't hold a candle to the much more capitalistic first world nations. Why is that? I bet on the governments and armies which keep the peace.But, out of the two it's clear post-collapse Somalia would be a much better place to live than pre-collapse Somalia for all (and many more) of the reasons I listed above.I disagree. Pre-collapse Somalia wasn't divided into zones of factions.Actually, we are the large ones. Think about it, does it even make sense that something weaker than us can control something stronger than us? If this is what you've been told, somebody has lied to you.It makes sense because that small something carries a big stick, and atomic weapons.Businesses exist because of the demand from us. They control the supply, but not the demand. Since they don't control the demand they can either submit to our demand, or fail.Or force us into a position where we can only demand from them.You're absolutely right. Companies offer what they can get away with, which is only so much before they start loosing employees to the competition, of whom has recently upped their dental plan to better accommodate their employees. The thing is, employee labour at this level is expendable so it's always a matter of finding an unemployed person to fit the job.This happened a lot many decades ago.You also forget that workers put up with a lot before quitting.I would point to this exact same situation as evidence of how solving a rather simple market problem has failed thanks to the states existence. How is it the state's fault? They followed the rules. It's really the fault of the companies for getting political after making bad promises.You can't "buy laws" from a government without a government. =3Without a government, it's based on agreements. I don't know about you, but I never signed anything agreeing to use government services. I've never signed anything stating that I agree to these laws bought by wealthy IP owners.Don't you find it stupid that you should be tethered by the agreements of others? You are either tethered by their agreements or in an anarcho-capitalist society they hire a private militia to break into your home and beat you for copying their files.Look at welfare. What a cluster-fuck that is! The only reason why welfare exists is because there is a demand for the poor to be taken care of. But, if persons already want to give money to the poor... why do we need welfare? Wont persons start up charities and the like to accomplish this? Before welfare existed this existed but was insufficient.My point is, government is like a retarded version of the market. I don't mean this as an insult to the government, but merely as a factual observation. It's retarded in a very definitional manner. Government is taking things persons already would do on their own and sending it through a looong struggling process just so it can meet a lesser end and call itself a success. Things like public schools, roads and water, and social healthcare seem to disagree with you.The government can organise money better than private business in certain circumstances.And why not? When the demand is great enough, even the neck of a giraffe will extend to reach the food at the tree tops. Because there is no profit in good ethics. Ethics are a matter of self-restraint out of public interest. This isn't optimal for business.And these better grasses and fruit, did they not come from market demand? If there was demand for these things already, would persons not naturally invest in it with or without a government forcing us to?Do you need to be forced to do things you already want to/are already doing? I do not believe a market as we know it existed eight-thousand years ago.Besides you missed the analogy.Understand, they aren't proposing libertarian answers because they are libertarian, they are libertarian because the answers suggest libertarianism.They are typically wealthy businessmen driven by that one juvenile feeling, "no more taxes! stop stealing my money!"Then everything else follows. They aren't interested in a comfortable society for all, but one where their money is theirs in totality.Why? What can a company do when all it's workers are on strike? Take its remaining revenue and hire militia to beat them? And you think this company will remain competitive on the market after word of this gets out?I sincerely do not. ;)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_busting History disagrees with you, my friend. Need I remind you that the amount of radios, phones and televisions rose several hundred(!) percent in Somalia once it because a free-market? A monopoly on telecommunications existed during the government. Also there probably aren't any sweatshops there, because our businesses find it too unstable.The market tends towards unity. That's why there is only a handful of methods for measurement.The only time unity doesn't occur is if it's not a big enough deal for there to be significant market demand.Perhaps it seems like I'm just shrugging off this one, but really, that's all there is to it.I think you didn't understand me. Vendor lock-in prevents useful technologies like an all-in-one media player from existing.Yeah, yeah. Anarchic Somalia was terrible, that explains why it rose from one of the worst countries in northern Africa to one of the best... Oh wait, no it doesn't. ;)It's not the best. Quit looking at selected data, look at the whole.You do know that anarchism is the lack of a political agenda, right? It's just, it seems odd that you keep talking about me as though I'm trying to push an ideology on you. I'm saying they're ALL stupid, just as an atheist would say all the religions are stupid. Anarchy is the lack of government and ruling authority. It may have ideologies and agenda, look at anarcho-capitalism.3. There is empirical evidence showing Ludwig's predictions. As per expectation, your analogy doesn't follow.Or, are you saying that empirical evidence is worth the same as the scriptures of the old testament?I guessed you missed the point. A theory is useful if it can accurately and reliably predict results, not just one time things.That's quite a bold claim coming from you while you know nothing of the Austrian School of Economics' track record.... =/I read your weblinks and it is idealism with no useful basis in reality.Then you're straw-manning me as this definition of "anarchy" is not what I've been talking about, avesk. "Tribes" coming together to improve trade in ways they couldn't alone is not a government. It isn't a government until it starts taxing.There you go. This isn't about government or authority, it's about rich people hating taxes and devising a name for taxless governments called anarchy, and you bought into it.Just something to note, what you've said in no way shows that the government is an improvement on the market. I think you being able to work in a comfortable job is indicative enough.If you have to work 16 hours a day for 50 cents a day, then you can say that.Persons naturally come together in large groups to increase trade. This doesn't have to result in a government as anarchic Ireland has proven.In fact, coming together and not forming a government worked a hell of a lot longer than any government has. =DIreland wasn't an anarchy, they had rules, authorities. It lacked a combined state.