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

That doesn't make sense. I'm using Ireland and Somalia as examples of functional anti-statism, therefore I'm emotional? That doesn't follow at all.They are functional insofar as they exist(ed) towards a purpose. By any higher criteria they fail to function. That's the point.A state in perpetual fighting is not a good place to live. You're grasping at straws for using these examples. It's like if in advocating communism I used Stalin's Russia as an example of communism that worked.Sure, the people were miserable, and there were no human rights... but the collectives produced output, and that's all that matters!Okay, we've gone through this already. Standard oil is not an example of a free market monopoly.Missing the point? Rockefeller and his associates actively impeded competitors in ways that would be illegal in a regulated market, such as blocking competitors' distribution routes and using insider prices for associate companies in order to run competition into the ground.States would have to invest in U.S. dollars in order to get oil, which both allowed the U.S. to grow despite running two major deficits and paved the way for oil companies to collude and become price makers, when they otherwise would be price takers.Standard Oil grew because of Rockefeller's unethical practices and shrewd decisions. If the free market doesn't favour monopolies then your argument would look like it applied to a bunch of small businesses in the oil industry. Put another way, why didn't state interference affect all oil companies and cause them all to become competing giants.Standard Oil grew amongst many competitors when what you said would affect all of them, not just one business.Microsoft doesn't have a monopoly and it especially doesn't have a coercive monopoly. I would take firms making deals to help each other out over the states coercive monopolies any day. But a Mac. =/Maybe since you don't keep up, I'll elaborate. Microsoft has used something called "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" and "Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt" to harm competition. It signs deals with premade computer manufacturers to use its operating system. It supplies money to overseas hardware developers which produce a bios that just so happens to be incompatible with Linux. It uses patents to try and intimidate rival software and operating system developers. It was even fined for failing to conform to standards of antitrust in the EU.I know exactly what you said.1. Theories are imperfect because there is always information they don't account for2. Theories must be changed when new information arises (which will always happen given No.1)3. Therefore, any theory I come up with is automatically flawed.Apparently not.You should draw from what I said that discarding data which doesn't fit your theory is backwards.The economic theories I propose come from over a hundred years of direct observation by the Austrian School of economics, which in turn are derived from thousands of years of human history. Given this, they have produced more accurate predictions than any other school of thought. The ones using flawed theories are not us, it's the rest of you statists. Free market is a type of economy, which is historically exploitative and prone to market bubbles. Predictions of how markets will behave is a form of mathematical theory derived from statistics gathered from history and present day economic interactions. Predicting when the next recession will hit is not because of a model inherent to free market economy but the theory developed from looking at economic behaviours.In other words, buying into Mises predictions does not mean their economic suggestions necessarily correct.You threw out standard oil and I went into great detail to show you how it's not an example of a free market monopoly. You didn't debunk it, waited a few posts and then threw it out again. If you focused on my actual argument even half as much as you focused on me, this would of been a much quicker debate.Like I said, you just ignore examples of monopoly. Theory says that monopoly is impossible, monopoly happens, it must be the fault of something else because the theory is always right.You would get a lot more respect if you replied along the lines of "Yes, monopolies are inevitable. How do we deal with them?" Pretending that you have the perfect solution to prevent monopolies, which just so happens to revoke your financial responsibility towards society, and ignores any counter-examples out of hand makes you into a crackpot.Like I've said, repeatedly, if a monopoly forms from being more efficient than every other like firm in existence (it hasn't happened yet, but lets just see where this takes us) than as soon as it stops being more efficient (monopoly rates) it makes room for smaller firms to under sell them.It would make you so much more credible if you didn't heavily rely on economic theory instead of practical experience. Economy of scale means that a monopoly has a natural advantage. Now let's look into human behaviour. How will humans subvert economic theory? They will buy out services and goods that possible competitors would need to stand a chance of threatening them. If we're talking about a state, they will buy political sanction. Then they will charge monopoly rates. Possible competitors will be snuffed out because they are impeded at several levels.Wrong. The predictions have came true because the theorists proposing them have had an understanding of the economy to such an extent that they can accurately make deductions even on major crashes. It is same line of reasoning that lead Mises to foresee the great depression that also points towards anti-statism. Yet it couldn't be the case that they see a lack of state as a means to obtain even more power...Gullible to the end.Once again, your argument is non-cognitive and full of un-backed assertions. Yet it is the case that I patiently wade through your shallow thoughts hoping for a sign of common sense.Utter failure. You're saying that one should not accept economic theory based on its proven accuracy, but instead should be accepted based on what you think sounds "fair"? It doesn't matter if YOU think it sounds fair if it isn't applicable to reality. Logic 101.Surely you understand this. Note the qualifier "viable." Eugenics is a completely true and accurate model for predicting how to improve the health of society's members but it is not viable for most of us.Perhaps if you learned to understand things past the superficial, I wouldn't have to be typing this. I'm not saying monopolies don't happen on free enterprise because firms only act a certain way, I'm saying it because there is no mechanism in a free market to produce monopolies.Economy of scale exists in a regulated market and a free market. Human nature exists in a regulated market and a free market.Monopolies exist independently of regulation because the bigger a business is, the more efficient it becomes at its ability to produce goods and profits. Bigger businesses have more power than smaller ones and may act in more unethical ways to stifle competition. A small business cannot buy all roads in the state so as to charge competitors but a big business can, for example.But hey, if your thinking is limited to what your book on economics says, no wonder you cannot understand why people in power will cheat the system to keep it.As long as the market is competitive (which is to say, so long as there is a market) monopolies cannot form. But even if they did (fallback) it would only be sustainable to the extent that they remain better than the rest of their competition. As soon as they act abusive (monopoly rates, etc.) they defer their customer base to other firms.Now let's play the "Market is smarter than you" game!As long as the market is competitive (let's end competition as per Microsoft, Standard Oil, and De Beers; this means FUD, buying patents that competitors would need, buying up trade routes as per Standard Oil, and in De Beers' case flooding the market with cheap goods like your competitors because you've bought up so much supply).As long as they remain better (if they end competition then they become better at staying in power).As long as they act abusive (Price Fixing as per De Beers, software that dictates terms to you as per Microsoft; made possible because competition has been made to vanish).You're re-bringing up two of these that I've already debunked, but you have yet to counter debunk. But, if you want to make the case that De Beers and US Steel were able to enact monopoly rates with no drawback from the market I'm all eyes.De Beers bought up supply, then eliminated competitors by flooding the market with cheap goods that the competitors were selling premium. When they were out of the market, De Beers proceeded to engage in price fixing.Bullshit. I found many statistics just fine. Your essentially saying my statistics are wrong because you can't find counter statistics. This is childish. You wouldn't take this sort of bullshit from a Christian, why should I take it from you?It's amazing how selective your English comprehension is. I said that the topics we are discussing have little in the way of statistical data and so it would be a weak argument to argue from statistics because the data is weak. It is incomplete.Put a very simple way, if your statistics are talking about number of televisions but not the number dead from civil war, then your data is distorted.Alright smart ass, relative to the Wikipedia article, they were referring to pre 600 Ireland as that's the only time it lists these supposed wars. Did you bother to read the PDF title? It says on the paper, 15th century Ireland.Anyway, you haven't shown any actual statistics, I am sympathetic however to your situation as finding solid evidence of these wars from so long ago is no easy task, but I managed to find statistics supporting me, you should be able to do the same.It is enough that historians find the period fraught with war.Historians consider this time turmoil because Ireland was under constant invasion.If you scanned the document you'd know that Ireland was in turmoil because of rival leaders in Ireland fighting for supremacy.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.I gave you authoritative sources which describe the warlike area.