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

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!That doesn't follow either. What criteria are using to decide Somalia became less habitable? Life expectancy went up, wealth went up, health care went up, children were more likely to survive. There was war both before and after the collapse, the only real change was the state collapsed and the economy grew dramatically after that. It's a pretty open and shut case that Somalia was better off without the state.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.Like Gates, Rockefeller was the victim of a vindictive political assault on his company for the "sin" of rapid innovation, a vast expansion of production, and rapidly-declining prices. As with Microsoft, the political attack on Standard Oil was launched by Rockefeller’s less-successful rivals who sought to achieve through politics (i.e., legalized theft) what they failed to accomplish in the marketplace.Standard Oil was such an extraordinarily efficient company that even Rockefeller’s harshest journalistic critic, Ida Tarbell, described it as "a marvelous example of economy." The efficiencies of economies of scale and vertical integration caused the price of refined petroleum to fall from over 30 cents per gallon in 1869 to 10 cents by 1874, and to 5.9 cents in 1897. During the same period Rockefeller reduced his average costs from 3 cents to 0.29 cents per gallon.History contradicts you. If Rockefeller found a way to cripple competition with only free market mechanisms, then why didn't he enact monopoly rates? He did just the opposite and made his product cheaper! Once again, either you are wrong or reality is wrong.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.The situation with oil now is much different that it was in Rockefeller's time. Since the middle east only sold oil in U.S. dollars for so long, the U.S. stood to make a lot of money. This ensured that the already inelastic demand for oil would continue. Which means, the stage was set for a group like OPEC to cartel the oil companies. Normally, monopoly (oligopoly) rates would drive business away from oil to a new energy form, so oil companies had incentive to charge at competitive rates despite being capable of forming a cartel (since their product has an inelastic demand curve), but since demand for oil was coming right from the U.S. government (since it's wealth is tied to the petro dollar) A cartel could form and taxes would cover the cost. 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.- all firms talk smack about their competition. This happens with or without a state so this isn't an argument for the state, it's an argument against reality.- It makes perfect sense to not have your products be compatible with your competitions products. Again, this happens with or without a state so this isn't an argument for the state, it's an argument against reality.- Patents are only possible with a stateYou should draw from what I said that discarding data which doesn't fit your theory is backwards.You haven't shown my understanding of your previous post to be wrong. Besides, I've discarded nothing. I've made a claim, you've denied it, I've debunked your argument and now I'm waiting on you to provide substance supporting you. Free market is a type of economy, which is historically exploitative and prone to market bubbles. Non-cognitively asserted with no evidence or argument. Enter avesk. =/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.Show me specifically where Mises' logic goes wrong. He made his prediction not by chance, but because he legitimately understood the economy. This same understanding that lead him to predict the great depression also leads to anti-statism, since the state is the reason why such crashes happen in the first place. Have you even ever read up on Mises outside of what I've been writing to you?Like I said, you just ignore examples of monopoly.I literally just gave you an open invitation to make the case for these firms. That is the exact opposite of ignoring.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.And you completely turned down this chance. Alright, you've convinced me you have no argument here, you're just saying things so long as they sound like they kinda sorta support you. Even with government subsidies and barriers to entry, oligopolies almost never happen LET ALONE monopolies. If monopolies almost never happen WITH government intervention making such thing easier to accomplish, how do you figure they would happen more often (or even at all) with a state?Use actual historical examples to prove your point (and no, dropping a name does not count as an actual argument).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 on so many levels. Economic theory is based on actual occurrences within the market. If you theory is correct, then your market predictions will come true, if they don't, chances are you're a statist. You say that monopolies will form because monopolies have a market advantage... therefore they can form a monopoly. I'm going to leave that one as it is. ;)The last part of your argument is pulled right out of your ass. So (for example) a large nail-making firm will go out and buy up all the steel they can so that other nail making firms won't be able to make nails? Absolutely ridiculous. Even if such a firm was willing to commit financial suicide in such a way, the increased sale of steel would be interpreted as an increase in demand for steel, so more steel producers show up in order to get a piece of the action, thus increasing the amount of steel and lowering its value. This very act would result in just the opposite of crippling your competition.This can be applied to all forms of retail and production. 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.Now your a common conspiracy theorist. You have no evidence to back up this claim (no surprise), it's just asserted and it doesn't even make sense.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.Ah, so now the argument changes from "Anti-statism can't work" to "it's just not viable". Regardless if a theory accurately reflects how the market works, then one can derive correct predictions from it. Since mine have and your haven't, either you are wrong or reality is wrong.Yet it is the case that I patiently wade through your shallow thoughts hoping for a sign of common sense.Easy to say when your arguments have no substance.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.LOL! Now I'm wrong because I'm actually educated on the matter? Alright avesk. XDYour argument is that wealthy firms can buy up all the roads and not let their competitors use them? What? How would they enact such rules? Are they going to search every vehicle gestapo style? Are they going to buy every road that leads out of every town? Do you have any idea how large a firm would have to be relative to all its competition to do such a thing? Even WITH state support, no firm has been capable of such a thing.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).Wow. Alright, I've already dealt with the Microsoft thing. I googled "standard oil buying trade routes" because that was news to me, but the only thing that came up was this very post you made claiming this. Flooding the market with cheap goods is a perfectly fine way to make money. If the demand for cheap goods is there then what's the problem?It seems like you're just trying to make the free market fit your idea of it.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.If De Beers was able to profit from selling a cheap product, then it's competition was over selling.De Beers is well known for its monopolistic practices throughout the 20th century, whereby it used its dominant position to manipulate the international diamond market. The company used several methods to exercise this control over the market: Firstly, it convinced independent producers to join its single channel monopoly, it flooded the market with diamonds similar to those of producers who refused to join the cartel, and lastly, it purchased and stockpiled diamonds produced by other manufacturers in order to control prices through supply. However, the transformation of the company, from the late nineties to present, to a more responsible one is starting to become more widely known. A range of factors contributed to the need for change in the De Beers model in 2000. In the 1990s, it became increasingly evident that De Beers' industry custodianship and supply-controlled model was no longer viable. De Beers was also unable to conduct business in several jurisdictions where it had interests or a corporate presence due to their dominance in the diamond industry. In addition, more producers from varied locations such as Russia, Canada and Australia chose to start distributing diamonds outside of the De Beers channel, thus effectively ending the monopoly.There you go. When a problem arises, the market is completely capable of solving it. Why did their model stop being viable? It doesn't say, but I would bet my ass it had to do with the reasons I outlined earlierIt'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.Bull. Shit. It took me about 4 seconds to pull of statistics on life expectancy in Somalia pre and post collapse. It went UP 5 years, which means it actually became EASIER to survive after the state collapsed. Either you didn't look very hard or YOU'RE cherry picking (the lack of) data. ;)Did you bother to read the PDF title? It says on the paper, 15th century Ireland.I was asking specifically about Wikipedia and on Wikipedia it only talks about these wars relative to pre-600 C.E. Ireland. Your new source is fine and all, and I addressed it, but in this particular point I wasn't talking about it.It is enough that historians find the period fraught with war.No, no it's not. If there's no facts, then what are these historians basing their information on? I happen to know for a fact that for a very long time historians were polled on whether Ireland was peaceful or not, since the only data suggests war from foreign invaders. If you scanned the document you'd know that Ireland was in turmoil because of rival leaders in Ireland fighting for supremacy.The "fighting for supremacy" was mostly the Uí Néill against the Eóganachta, which weren't even really tuatha. the Uí Néill won and their power peaked during the 8th century. After that, they lost power and no records of tuatha warring are shown after that. I gave you authoritative sources which describe the warlike area.Words are easy to misinterpret. That's why I'm more of a numbers guy. If the Irish tuatha really did result in more death and corruption than the mega-states throughout the rest of Europe, then fine, otherwise, not so fine.