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jrodefeld posted:The market, in contrast, is not the "absence of all constraints" but is the exact opposite. The free market is a system of regulation that the consumers impose upon businessmen. The rules are strict and decisive. No one may be permitted to initiate force against anyone else. Live up to your contracts. Respect private property rights. If a businessman anticipates consumer desires and satisfies them, then they are permitted to continue to make a good living. If, on the other hand, they offer a lousy product, poor customer service or they act poorly and attract negative press, then the consumers can put them out of business in short order. What if both consumer and producer are collaboratively "initiating force" on a third party? For example, forced sex-work where a pimp (the business) provides an underage prostitute to a john (the consumer). The consumer is satisfied and has no reason to revolt against the business, and so the market regulation model you present would fail to regulate an initiation of force on the unwilling underage prostitute. Another example could be a person who sells stolen vehicles to a corrupt car salesman. Both the buyer and the seller know someone's private property rights were violated, but since both benefit, the business continues. LolitaSama fucked around with this message at 13:07 on Sep 30, 2014 |
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Sep 30, 2014 13:05
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Quantum Mechanic posted:What choice did they have? Go on strike, form unions, start their own plants. To be fair these options are much less convincing when you are talking about 1911 America or present day Bangladesh/India. A free society that began in a modern developed nation would be incredibly prosperous and workers' labor would be incredibly in demand.
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Sep 30, 2014 13:08
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LolitaSama posted:What if both consumer and producer are collaboratively "initiating force" on a third party? For example, forced sex-work where a pimp (the business) provides an underage prostitute to a john (the consumer). The consumer is satisfied and has no reason to revolt against the business, and so the market regulation model you present would fail to regulate an initiation of force on the unwilling underage prostitute. A rational john would not patronize the services of a coerced prostitute because engaging in risky criminal activity with a slaver would violate the john's contract with his DRO and they'd jack his rates or drop him for exposing them to increased liability. Removing or disabling his tie-clip cam would also violate his contract with his DRO, and even to get to the brothel he'd have to travel along some privately-owned road or property which would be constantly monitored by the property owner's DRO. All hail the panopticon, the all-seeing, all-knowing surveillance 
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Sep 30, 2014 13:11
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The Mutato posted:Go on strike, form unions, start their own plants. To be fair these options are much less convincing when you are talking about 1911 America or present day Bangladesh/India. A free society that began in a modern developed nation would be incredibly prosperous and workers' labor would be incredibly in demand. My workers are striking for better pay and conditions? Time to call Pinkerton!
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Sep 30, 2014 13:13
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VitalSigns posted:A rational john would not patronize the services of a coerced prostitute because engaging in risky criminal activity with a slaver would violate the john's contract with his DRO and they'd jack his rates or drop him for exposing them to increased liability. Removing or disabling his tie-clip cam would also violate his contract with his DRO, and even to get to the brothel he'd have to travel along some privately-owned road or property which would be constantly monitored by the property owner's DRO. Uhh minus the tie clip cam you just explained government right now. And who would sign up to a DRO that makes you put on a tie clip cam? Unfortunately the government could pass a law that makes you wear one.
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Sep 30, 2014 13:15
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VitalSigns posted:My workers are striking for better pay and conditions? Time to call Pinkerton! You know, or just put in a fire safety door which is much cheaper than hiring an expensive violent agency.
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Sep 30, 2014 13:16
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The Mutato posted:Unfortunately the government could pass a law that makes you wear one. The Constitution of the United States posted:Amendment IV Now read your own literature. Stephan Molyneux specifically cited cameras on every piece of private property at all times as the enforcement mechanism that would ensure anyone without DRO coverage is hounded out of every place in society. The Mutato posted:You know, or just put in a fire safety door which is much cheaper than hiring an expensive violent agency. Workers inevitably have other demands too. A fire door won't be the end of it, next you'll have to pay them a fair wage and stop demanding women let you gently caress them in exchange for keeping their jobs. I love how Libertarians claim things that actually happened would never happen. They just don't understand the world at all, it's so cute, like puppies trying to grab a tennis ball that's too big for their mouths 
VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 13:26 on Sep 30, 2014 |
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Sep 30, 2014 13:19
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VitalSigns posted:I love how Libertarians claim things that actually happened would never happen. They just don't understand the world at all, it's so cute, like puppies trying to grab a tennis ball that's too big for their mouths What is it they say about those who ignore history?  jrodefeld posted:It is always fallacious to look to the distant past and apply our modern standards for worker safety and living standards to presuppose that modern "Progressive" regulation and minimum wage laws would have improved matters. I don't know the specifics of the case you cited, but unless the workers explicitly agreed that the doors would be locked, then this was a rights violation and the employers should have been held accountable and charged with murder. If an unexpected fire breaks out in a factory and the workers expect the doors to remain open for them to be able to exit the building and instead they are locked shut by order of the owner, then that is murder clear and simple.
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Sep 30, 2014 13:27
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The Mutato posted:You know, or just put in a fire safety door which is much cheaper than hiring an expensive violent agency. And hey, that's just it, my point. Leaving fire doors unlocked is absurdly cheap and saves hundreds of lives, yet the free market failed to provide incentives even for that. Like holy poo poo. That is a colossal failure.
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Sep 30, 2014 13:30
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I find it amusing that you think that the free market in 2014 provides no incentives to cheaply avoid a gigantic PR scandal and possible lawsuit like murdering a factory full of workers.
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Sep 30, 2014 13:33
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The Mutato posted:I find it amusing that you think that the free market in 2014 provides no incentives to cheaply avoid a gigantic PR scandal and possible lawsuit like murdering a factory full of workers. Like goddamn, you can't be serious. e: or is 2013 "ancient history"? Or maybe 'the state' forced the owner to threaten workers with the loss of a month's wages somehow. Polygynous fucked around with this message at 13:42 on Sep 30, 2014 |
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Sep 30, 2014 13:35
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The Mutato posted:I find it amusing that you think that the free market in 2014 provides no incentives to cheaply avoid a gigantic PR scandal and possible lawsuit like murdering a factory full of workers. Why avoid something when embracing it can be more profitable? Research has shown that "negative publicity" has at times increased sales at businesses, particularly when the product or company was previously unknown. EDIT: formatting LolitaSama fucked around with this message at 13:44 on Sep 30, 2014 |
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Sep 30, 2014 13:40
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VitalSigns posted:And hey, that's just it, my point. Leaving fire doors unlocked is absurdly cheap and saves hundreds of lives, yet the free market failed to provide incentives even for that. Management must have forgotten to activate the libertarian computer brain that every rational actor has installed in his head, to allow him to always make the choices that maximize his utility.
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Sep 30, 2014 13:41
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Considering the Deep Water Horizon explosion and subsequent spill happened even in an environment that libertarians and plutocratic conservatives decries as being over-regulated, you can just imagine how well our oceans and coasts would look in Ron Paul's America. Because consumers totally have access to all the info there to make rational buying decisions on a local level to not consume the petroleum distillate and plastics that came from BP's oil-drilling ventures, following it all down the line to make an effective boycott. Free market will reward the companies who don't cut costs in safety, because there is totally no situation that could ever happen where every large company does the same practices or colludes to create choice less scenarios! This has never happened! Not ever! Surely! Also I'm sure lunch counters would desegregate themselves. Logic!
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Sep 30, 2014 13:41
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Sorry, in a developed country. This has been pretty much what the entire thread's debate has been assuming. i am harry posted:Does Libertarianism have an opinion about resolving our climate issue? But hey, let's discuss this. It is crony capitalism that props up polluting businesses, not true capitalism. It is easy for big corporations to convince bureaucrats and government officials to allow them to continue polluting, because just as not all the rich company fat cats are not benelovent, neither are the government officials. Furthermore patents and regulatory barriers to entry prevent innovation and competition, further allowing the big companies to stay stagnant with polluting technologies. Without government laws defining what is and isn't pollution, there would be room for people to band together and sue companies they believe to be violating their property rights. Finally, there would still be private funding for climate science AND a market for information about how environmentally friendly certain companies are. It may not be perfect, but I believe it is better than the current system. e: I feel like a lot of the disconnect between you guys and libertarianism comes from not realising that many of the example failings of the "free market" that you point out come from corporatism, not true capitalism The Mutato fucked around with this message at 13:46 on Sep 30, 2014 |
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Sep 30, 2014 13:44
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Whose property rights is a coal-fired power plant violating?
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Sep 30, 2014 13:47
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Doctor Spaceman posted:Whose property rights is a coal-fired power plant violating? Everyone whose air/water is hosed up by the coal pollution.
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Sep 30, 2014 13:48
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The Mutato posted:Sorry, in a developed country. This has been pretty much what the entire thread's debate has been assuming. And if you remove the bureaucrats and government officials everything would be sunshine and rainbows.  but but true capitalism
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Sep 30, 2014 13:48
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spoon0042 posted:Like goddamn, you can't be serious. Man, you don't even have to go to Bangladesh for that. Just a decade of Texas not bothering to enforce common-sense regulations about storing tons of fertilizer and a town gets levelled even though no rational businessman would ever risk his capital assets and the huge liability of turning your plant into a 6 kiloton bomb just waiting to go off. Just kidding, actually the company officers didn't care about liability, because they were woefully underinsured and Texas law doesn't require fertilizer manufacturers to carry any liability insurance at all! How weird, the state completely declined to regulate minimum insurance, and the company didn't bother to get coverage for more than 1% of the damages they did...
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Sep 30, 2014 13:49
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spoon0042 posted:And if you remove the bureaucrats and government officials everything would be sunshine and rainbows. I think you'd be surprised. If I run some sort of transportation company and I want a bridge built (that no one else really cares about), in the current system all I have to do is bribe someone in the government a tiny fraction of the cost of that bridge (or maybe I have a buddy who can pull some strings) and he can redirect taxpayer funds to it. With no government, I have no one to bribe. My only option is to pay a bridge building company the entire cost of the bridge.
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Sep 30, 2014 13:51
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Does true capitalism follow a  Curve where less regulation results in worse outcomes but even less regulation is somehow better?
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Sep 30, 2014 13:52
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The Mutato posted:I think you'd be surprised. If I run some sort of transportation company and I want a bridge built (that no one else really cares about), in the current system all I have to do is bribe someone in the government a tiny fraction of the cost of that bridge (or maybe I have a buddy who can pull some strings) and he can redirect taxpayer funds to it. With no government, I have no one to bribe. My only option is to pay a bridge building company the entire cost of the bridge. And remove all engineering standards for said bridge in the process. Win win.
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Sep 30, 2014 13:54
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VitalSigns posted:Man, you don't even have to go to Bangladesh for that. Liability insurance would be necessary in a free society. Sounds more like the failing of a monopolised legal system to me.
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Sep 30, 2014 13:55
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Guys, it's late here and I am behind on some work so I'll have check back in tomorrow for more riveting debate. Hopefully jrodefeld can come back and take over, and maybe clarify some of my points.
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Sep 30, 2014 13:59
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I don't know why I'm jumping in on this but anyway. Jrodefeld, for what it's worth I've argued extensively in these forums against many pro-minimum wage arguments. I know both sides of the debate well.jrodefeld posted:I've returned from hiatus. I can't locate my other thread so I'll start on this thread. Real life intruded and I don't have the luxury of posting on random internet forums as much as I might like. In any event, I actually like this forum. While I disagree with most of you, I genuinely find it to be especially well run and the discussions are substantive and interesting. And, evidenced by this thread, you all seem to having more than a passing familiarity with libertarian ideas. This is wrong. There is always a surplus in a market transaction. The market may assign a value of $9 to someone's labor but to any particular employer that labor may be worth far more. This is identical to surplus in the consumer market where you might be really really thirsty and encounter a vendor selling water. You pay the market rate for the water, even though it's worth far more to you at that moment. In both cases there is a surplus which a minimum price could tap into. Everyone won't just stop buying the product because the price went up, most will just pay the higher price. quote:Therefore it can be reliably predicted that an unskilled laborer whose marginal productivity is lower than the minimum wage, for example a teen only worth $6 an hour, will be rendered perpetually unemployed. I can anticipate that some of you will argue that without a supposed floor for wage rates, the greedy businessmen will simply push wages as low as possible forcing workers to work for 50 cents an hour. The reason this won't happen is that competitive firms, in their competition with each other, will be in need of good workers. If an employer is paying his workers too little for their abilities (i.e. too much lower than the marginal productivity of their labor) then a competitor will bid them away from their current employer. Thus the wage rates for workers will inevitably rise towards the level of their marginal productivity but never exceeding it. Again, not if their labor is still worth the minimum wage to the employer, in many cases this will be true. Note that it really is the case that decades of industrialization, automation and outsourcing have wiped out most of the jobs that have easy alternatives. Many, probably most jobs that are still around are around for a reason that won't disappear for a small minimum wage increase. quote:It is an intellectual error to simply claim that all workers are worth, say, $10 an hour. How could you possibly know that? Only a free market for wage labor can possibly determine the per hour value of labor services. What minimum wage laws amount to really is compulsory unemployment, period. I agree it's an intelectual error. But the question comes down to whether it does more harm than good, not whether it breaks an unbending principle or not. quote:In a free society without a State that erects barriers to economic activity, all economic actors will have far more options than they do today. So it is furthermore wrong to assume that workers will have no recourse but to work for wages. On the contrary, each worker will have an ability to become an entrepreneur himself, risking his capital for the potential greater reward of future profits. It is a far riskier proposition than trading his labor for wages but without the regulatory barriers and bureaucratic red tape, the cost of entry into the market will be exponentially lower than it is today. Why is it immoral to adopt a minimum wage but obviously not immoral to stand by and watch someone suffer whose not earning enough income? Your fundamental problem is that you hold up your principle, non-aggression, as outweighing all other competing rights and values. Worse, you continuously argue on faith that a well functioning, non-aggressive society must flow from the rigid adoption of that principle alone - it doesn't. Nothing in real life is that simple and even if we agreed that the only thing we cared about was preventing aggression an actual society that achieved this would have to use some amount of aggression to get it. That's basically what everyone here is arguing for.
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Sep 30, 2014 14:02
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The Mutato posted:Sorry, in a developed country. This has been pretty much what the entire thread's debate has been assuming. Nope, you're moving the goalposts. You claimed fire safety laws weren't necessary in 1911 in the aftermath of the Triangle disaster because The Mutato posted:Question: what do you suppose would have happened if there was no state to enforce those laws? Would the workers have continued to blindly work in the unsafe factories after such a major, publicised event like that fire happened? Nice try. The Mutato posted:there would be room for people to band together and sue companies they believe to be violating their property rights. The Mutato posted:Everyone whose air/water is hosed up by the coal pollution. Wait wait wait. I thought we could only take people's property if we had absolute proof they initiated force against me: jrodefeld posted:To conclude, stolen property should be returned, but those that seek to overturn existed property claims must be expected to provide proof of theft. The Mutato posted:Liability insurance would be necessary in a free society. Sounds more like the failing of a monopolised legal system to me. It's necessary now. I'm sure that in hindsight the owners wish they had had enough insurance to cover their assets, but they didn't get it beforehand. Who enforces this in Libertaria? Business owners are people, people are going to make bad decisions sometimes. Even if the free justice system works perfectly and the owners go to jail after the fact, what good does that do the widow who is entitled to cash compensation for her husband's death that she has no way to collect now that the underinsured business is insolvent and its owners are bankrupt prisoners? VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 14:15 on Sep 30, 2014 |
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Sep 30, 2014 14:11
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The Mutato posted:I find it amusing that you think that the free market in 2014 provides no incentives to cheaply avoid a gigantic PR scandal and possible lawsuit like murdering a factory full of workers. It did back in 1911, too. The Mutato posted:Everyone whose air/water is hosed up by the coal pollution. Which, first of all, requires your justice system to define contaminating someone else's land to be a violation of their property rights. It also requires you to be able to prove where the pollution is coming from, which might be possible from a single coal plant (but not guaranteed!), but not, for example, a coal seam gas field. This also assumes that the landowner has the money to sue, in particular holding onto a lengthy court case against the polluter who is more than likely still polluting. Basically "well someone whose land is ruined by pollution can just sue" sounds great right up until you give five seconds thought to how it would actually work in real-life situations of environmental contamination.
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Sep 30, 2014 14:13
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Waaaah the Christians are out to get me
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The Mutato posted:You know, or just put in a fire safety door which is much cheaper than hiring an expensive violent agency. It's never been about cost. It's about putting poors in their place before they get more ideas about their own labor's worth.
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Sep 30, 2014 14:31
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How do I calculate the damages from pollution? Is it on the basis that an unwanted substance is wafting onto my property? Can I sue my neighbor for farting upwind of my yard? Or does there have to be actual damage? If it's damage, can I get an injunction or payout against estimated future damages from the motorists driving by with leaded fuel, or does that smack too much of arbitrary seizure because those damages may never materialize? Do I need to wait until my kid grows up with health problems from lead poisoning before I can sue, and will the owner of the street next to my house help me identify the drivers in the stack of pictures I diligently took of every passing car over the past 18 years so I can name them as defendants? Or should I have thought further ahead and bought a house next to a street whose owner requires auto registration plates for easy identification? Oh yeah, and what if it's determined during the case that my kid's toys contained lead because they relabelled by a dishonest supplier from a cut-rate Chinese factory. Does that destroy my case, or can I add the now-defunct supplier (who was, of course, long-ago ruined by the free market's reaction to his perfidy) to the list of defendants and have the court determine objectively the contribution of each to the levels of lead in my son's tissues. VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 14:41 on Sep 30, 2014 |
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Sep 30, 2014 14:31
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Libertarianism is prettymuch defined by the fact that its mechanisms and adages seem simple and effective on the surface until reality and the complexity of how the world works dismantles the entire argument. It's exactly why it is so effective at getting people to believe it. Essentially, libertarianism doesn't have answers to the concept of externalities that don't dissolve instantly through scrutiny or historical comparison.
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Sep 30, 2014 14:33
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The Mutato posted:Guys, it's late here and I am behind on some work so I'll have check back in tomorrow for more riveting debate. Hopefully jrodefeld can come back and take over, and maybe clarify some of my points. If you feel comfortable tagging out to a poster who needs to tie himself in knots to explain how feudalism and child slavery are acceptable, maybe you should do some ponderin'.
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Sep 30, 2014 14:38
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The Mutato posted:Go on strike, form unions, start their own plants. To be fair these options are much less convincing when you are talking about 1911 America or present day Bangladesh/India. A free society that began in a modern developed nation would be incredibly prosperous and workers' labor would be incredibly in demand.
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Sep 30, 2014 14:58
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What exactly makes Libertarians think that, sans environmental regulation and a strong state to enforce it, that business won't just loving dump their radioactive waste and toxic pig poo poo into the rivers or put lead back into gasoline? What exactly makes them so sure we won't wind up like Beijing or worse, with pollution advisories and smog so thick it disrupts traffic? Or try to pass off radioactive waste as a beneficial additive? Pre-emptively, "Rational Self Interest" of any party, business or citizen, is not an answer. Literally everything since the industrial revolution onward proves this is not the case.
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Sep 30, 2014 15:02
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Rhjamiz posted:What exactly makes Libertarians think that, sans environmental regulation and a strong state to enforce it, that business won't just loving dump their radioactive waste and toxic pig poo poo into the rivers or put lead back into gasoline? What exactly makes them so sure we won't wind up like Beijing or worse, with pollution advisories and smog so thick it disrupts traffic? Lead in gasoline is probably the best example of the unworkability of "just sue the polluters" because the obvious targets (gasoline and automobile manufacturers) aren't the ones actually doing the polluting and suing them for contamination makes as much sense as suing knife manufacturers for stabbings or accidental injuries, but suing the polluters means identifying every motorist who drives by you and going after them in court while having to stay home to continuously add more defendants as people drive through your neighborhood...or the courts have to deal with assigning specific damages in the class action case of Literally Everybody In America v Anyone Who Has Ever Driven A Car.
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Sep 30, 2014 15:14
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What makes Libertopia so special that negative PR, practicing rational self interest, and other companies/consumers not associating with companies that pollute can totally work and end pollution, but it can't work in today's fascist/statist world because the state also increases the financial penalties of not taking certain measures to reduce environmental harm? Like, if you asked "what makes a full communist state so special that it can stop pollution while a capitalist state cannot?" I can at least point to the communist economy being structured in way where the person running the powerplant doesn't really benefit from not implementing the environmentalist policies they're supposed to unless they start siphoning money out of the powerplant's budget into their own pocket (which would be hella illegal instead of just the company deciding a raise for its CEO is a much better use of money than things like not polluting as much). Even if I can't prove that would help, I can at least point to where it's possible for the communist state to improve upon what capitalist states do. Libertarian societies meanwhile only seem capable of using the some of the tools available to a capitalist state, but not others and with no replacements for those lost tools.
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Sep 30, 2014 15:18
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DrProsek posted:Like, if you asked "what makes a full communist state so special that it can stop pollution while a capitalist state cannot?" I can at least point to the communist economy being structured in way where the person running the powerplant doesn't really benefit from not implementing the environmentalist policies they're supposed to unless they start siphoning money out of the powerplant's budget into their own pocket (which would be hella illegal instead of just the company deciding a raise for its CEO is a much better use of money than things like not polluting as much). Counterpoint: The environmental record of actual communist states?
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Sep 30, 2014 15:28
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The Mutato posted:Liability insurance would be necessary in a free society. Sounds more like the failing of a monopolised legal system to me. Necessary how? Why? Who the gently caress is going to take these businesses to task?
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Sep 30, 2014 15:28
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Who What Now posted:Necessary how? Why? Who the gently caress is going to take these businesses to task? A rational business would never risk insolvency by underinsuring their capital assets and opening themselves up to liability claims of many times what their business is worth. Oh, they did? Well, sorry about your crippling medical expenses from your injuries and the loss of income from your dead spouse, but your example will prompt others to do a full audit on the books of every company before they buy a bag of fertilizer, so comfort yourself with that thought cuz you ain't getting any money from those bankrupt clowns. Really though, if you didn't insist on opening the West Fertilizer Company's books yourself before living nearby, you have no one to blame but yourself for your misfortunes. A rational consumer would audit every business in town and then sell their house if they determined any one of them couldn't afford to pay out in case of a disaster. 
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Sep 30, 2014 15:32
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wateroverfire posted:Counterpoint: The environmental record of actual communist states? E: way too wordy, condensed: My point isn't that a communist state is the most environmentally friendly state, I'm saying that the tools that a libertarian society has for dealing with a company that is polluting are the same as a capitalist state's tools for dealing with polluting companies, minus things like the state being able to bring people up on criminal charges. Therefore, libertarian societies can't really offer any benefits to environmental protection because they're basically a weaker version of the status quo. To contrast that, if you argued with a communist whether or not a communist state can stop a power plant from polluting, you could actually list tools a communist state has for dealing with polluting companies that a capitalist state does not have and vice versa and then argue whose tools are better. burnishedfume fucked around with this message at 16:07 on Sep 30, 2014 |
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Sep 30, 2014 15:46
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The Mutato posted:Liability insurance would be necessary in a free society. Sounds more like the failing of a monopolised legal system to me. Do you know what liability insurers do to control risk? (at-least in heavy industry and transportation) They hire, or they force the client to hire, or they force the client to force another party to hire, an independent third party to provide a survey regarding whatever they are insuring (or sometimes they also do this internally.) That independent third party (or internal insurance company risk management employee) what does their survey consist of? Usually it's a survey to ensure that whatever they are insuring is in accordance with good standard practices (and here's the kicker) all national and international regulations. Liability insurance (again especially for heavy industry and transportation) is very dependent on government regulations, because those regulations are often the standards by which risk is reduced. A specific example: If one is going to insure the international shipment of say a power plant transformer, one (or several) of the parties (be it shipper, line, freight forwarder, insurer, etc) involved is almost always going to hire a surveyor (usually for insurance or self insurance purposes) to issue (and to ensure in reality) a certificate saying the shipment was in accordance with the international regulatory recommendations (in this case Annex 13 of the IMO Code of Safe Practice for Cargo Stowage and Securing) Further, how do these regulatory standards come into being. Well bad poo poo happens and people die. But on top of that somebody has to pay out for the damages. When enough bad poo poo happens for the same drat reason repeatedly insurance companies get together and say we need to do something about this. They collaborate with government agencies, experts, politicians, and participate in coming up with those bodies of regulation they will later use and rely on to reduce risk. Regulation is in the interest of liability insurers, and there is a long history of liability insurers partnering with government to help produce good regulation. The more I think about it that whole process of liability insurance and independent third party surveyors is probably where the DRO idea comes from. Well it doesn't work without the independent standards, ie government regulation.
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Sep 30, 2014 16:40
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