Monopolies in a stateless society

So recently I have been on a quest to refine my political ideologies, and while browsing YouTube I came across this video where the user is describing the existence (or lack there of) of monopolies in a stateless society.



Suffices to say, the user describes corrupt corporate power being a result of meddling on the part of government and that without government, corruption would decrease and competition would increase. He also goes on to say that it is a contradiction to support government which he believes is the most violent of all monopolies.

I can understand what he is saying, however I cant help but find it a tad naive. I posted a comment in the form of a hypothetical scenario and I wanted to post it here as well to get the ATS perspective.

Lets assume we live in a stateless society, and lets say there is a large oil company (i.e. Exxon Mobile) which is upset and concerned about its profits due to the increase in competition. What is to stop this corporation from hiring a mercenary force be it a corporate one (i.e. Xe or DynCorp) or a collection of individuals from around the world to commit acts of deadly force, corporate espionage, or subversive sabotage? Would a very large private corporation not simply be able to make a violent power grab and enforce its own set rules the same way an authoritarian government is able to?

Government by in large is a democratically elected group of individuals who are the servants of the people and are accountable to the people who have given them the authority to govern. A corporation is a collection of unelected individuals who in a stateless society with no governing body to pass and enforce law, would be accountable to no one.

Now I am opposed to unreasonable unchecked authority, in fact I have a lot in common with a great many anarchists. But I am having a hard time taking the positions of this video's creator seriously, and find it hard to believe that one can reject the authority of an organization of elected individuals, but embrace the authority of a private organization elected by no one.

I would appreciate some ATS insight on the subject. I'm going to get a sandwich, please post away!

These anarcho-capitalist people are always very sheltered and have never seen the reality of a dog eat dog world. They usually live in relatively upper-middle class suburbs, their parents have health insurance, paid their college and bought their first car.

You do not need a government, licensing, or regulation to have a monopoly. All you need is force. If the rival candle company does not want you there, they will just kill you. The same thing with a corporate power in a stateless society. People murder for money and power all the time... a free market is impossible because of criminal elements in the world. These criminal elements exist with or without a state, even more so and out of control in a stateless CAPITALIST society.

I think with the values currently common in our world, an anarchic society would be much less successful..it would be much easier for a group with vast resources to dominate the lives of common individuals.

The government is more involved in economics than was intended at the time America was founded. Federalization was supposed to be more about protecting rights, and defending the country than economic policy making.

For a people with high ethics and an unselfish disposition, a government would be less important. This is not the case in our world right now, and government is needed to uphold the law. Including corporate abuse.

The answer to whether or not government feeds monopolies...well as we have it the corporate complex, for which oligolopoly is a fair enough term, as disproportionate influence on the government. Bout government does prevent power abuse in some ways that would not be possible in anarchy.

So, I'd say government generally decreases the power of the biggest companies.

That guy doesn't know what the hell he's talking about. And for all the reasons the OP (and the others) listed. I'm pretty sure corporations do all kinds of shady and illegal things now in the name of profits while there ARE governments to, sort of, keep an eye on them. If there were no governments keeping an eye on them they would be violating us like Charlie Sheen in a brothel.

I hate our current government, and I don't trust them. But I distrust corporations more because THEY are a large part of the reason why government can't be trusted.

reply to post by Trustfund

If the rival candle company does not want you there, they will just kill you.

I also found it quite absurd that he used a candle company as his example of a company seeking a monopoly, any one can make candles, its a very simple task requiring little practice. But its a whole other story when we are talking about producing steel or drilling for oil and other natural resources, these resources can make or break a whole society. Its not as if Reebok and Nike will go to war with each other to corner the shoe market.

reply to post by Openeye


You've hit upon a serious issue within the capitalist/libertarian school of thought. I would generally classify myself as a libertarian, and have at times taken to an anarcho-capitalist view. Anarcho-capitalism is exactly what it sounds like: a belief that no government plus capitalist economics is the most free society. They postulate that private courts and legal systems along with private police and security would fill in the gaps to prevent the type of injustice via power grab that the OP mentions.

Minarchists, on the other hand, recognize the potential difficulties of relying on corporations to police themselves, and support a small but sufficiently powerful state tasked with only a few narrowly defined and restricted powers. For most modern libertarians, the single role of a state is to prevent one key evil: the initiation of force. Force is defined somewhat broadly to include any affront to the rights (to person, property, and life). If restricted to this role, government could not engage in cronyism to grant monopoly power. It would be able to step in and prevent violent, coercive, or fraudulent power grabs by those who might desire a monopoly. In keeping with the non-initiation of force doctrine, that government could not use its power to initiate force itself. In the ideal libertarian society, most libertarians would settle on this non-initiation of force axiom as the ultimate end and differences between anarcho-capitalists and minarchists (those who believe in a minimal government) is centered around how it is best to achieve that end.

Moral of the story is to avoid letting anarcho-capitalism's extremism and naive nature turn you off to the possibility of robustly free markets and robustly free people. Please watch this video for a good explanation of the philosophy of liberty and see if it speaks to you. It's simple, visual only (just background music and text/images), but I find it compelling and powerful.

reply to post by hayek11


Capitalism is the anti-thesis of freedom. It is based off the exploitation of other classes.

Originally posted by Trustfund
reply to post by hayek11

 

Capitalism is the anti-thesis of freedom. It is based off the exploitation of other classes.

1. Why should we divide society into classes? They are, at best, false constructs imposed artificially on a world made up of the only real entities: individuals. You might be able to make an argument that huge corporations can be exploitative (I'll contend that government cronyism and corporate welfare largely cause that element), but you can't tell me that the owners of the mom and pop shops and small businesses in your community are exploiting other classes (many of them with incomes and lifestyles not too dissimilar to the classes they supposedly exploit).

2. What economic model is more free than one based on voluntary mutual exchange? Is a central body governing the distribution of goods more free? Do you imagine the Soviet Union was a paradise of planned economics? What of the cities with surplus newspaper and no toilet paper when the next town over had surplus toilet paper and no newspaper, but no mechanism (i.e. prices established in the market and free exchange) to get the surplus goods to the areas with shortages? Is the freedom to live within government prescribed quotas the ultimate in economic freedom?

Even if we could all agree that market economics are evil and exploitative, the fact remains that the socialist calculation debate is over and without prices (a function of markets, read Hayek's "Use of Knowledge in Society") you end up with rampant shortages.

I think your idea of how great planned economics are does not mesh with the reality.

What these so called "anarcho"-capitalists fail to realise, is that the state is the result of capitalism. A state system will always form around capitalism. Capitalism can not exist without it.

The major problem in society is the differing interests of the capitalist owner and the worker/employee. The state protects both the capitalist owner, and the worker. In fact it is the state that gives people the right, by law, to use property to make money from labour. Without the state to protect that right nothing would stop the workers simply taking over the means of production for themselves.

Anyone who thinks workers would still remain 'in their place' once the restrictions imposed on production by state law is removed are incredibly naive. Without the state capitalists wouldn't be capitalists for very long.

The states main purpose is to protect "private" property rights, and by that I mean economic property rights, the right to privately own the means of production, and deny that use to anyone else, for private economic gain.

Property rights (economics)

They trick people into supporting it by using the term "private" property rights, so people think they mean their personal private property. But it's not protection of the property itself, it's protecting the right to use private property for economic gain. Without that protection capitalism can not work. People are not stupid and they know what is in their best interest....

DETROIT -- A group of current and former Chrysler LLC workers who have long sought to have employees buy the auto maker are appealing to the Obama administration's auto task force in a longshot bid to win support for the idea...

Chrysler Workers Urge Obama to Support Ownership Push

Without the states protection the workers would not have had to do this. They would be the owners already.

They want to privatise law enforcement. Talk about a conflict of interest, they would be encouraging crime, profits have no morality. Privatization of any public services is a bad idea.

It would be just more for the capitalist class and less for the rest of us. We don't need the capitalist class, but they are nothing without us.

Just like American "Libertarianism" (see my sig), it's just another example of the right-wing appropriating left-wing terms. Anarchism cannot work without socialism, as anarchism is socialism. It cannot be anything else.

"Anarchism is stateless socialism" Mikhail Bakunin

reply to post by hayek11


We have classes because of capitalism. Really there are only two, the working class, and the capitalist/ruling class.

The capitalist class have a monopoly over the means to produce, the rest have to accept hourly labour in order to live, thus the 'working class'.

This would not change if you got rid of the state. But to me stateless capitalism is an oxymoron, a state system will always form around capitalism. It's how our present state system formed in the first place.

If you want to learn how capitalism became our economic system....

Feudal Origins of Capitalism

reply to post by ANOK

What these so called "anarcho"-capitalists fail to realise, is that the state is the result of capitalism. A state system will always form around capitalism. Capitalism can not exist without it.

What a load of bovine excrement! It is your commie marxist BS that cannot exist without the state to enforce its theft you commies call wealth redistribution.

Capitalism must have a free market to exist and we do not have that and have not had it for at least 60 years... The commies here that obsessively call their marxist thievery capitalism over and over are getting tiresome...

Originally posted by hayek11

Originally posted by Trustfund
reply to post by hayek11

 

Capitalism is the anti-thesis of freedom. It is based off the exploitation of other classes.

1. Why should we divide society into classes? They are, at best, false constructs imposed artificially on a world made up of the only real entities: individuals.

Part of the problem here is the way these false constructs are imposed in the first place. After 30 years of hard-right Thatcherite economics, in Britain, you're more likely to inherit such a construct than you were the 50 years previous. Social mobility has gone backwards.

Despite the protestation of a right wing elite, it's not socialists, loony lefties or anti-capitalist fruitcakes that's split society up into these apparently misleading and unhelpful classes. All they've done is describe them and put labels on them. It's the right wing God of Markets and Capitalism that actually gave birth to the classes in the first place.

Originally posted by hawkiye
What a load of bovine excrement! It is your commie marxist BS that cannot exist without the state to enforce its theft you commies call wealth redistribution.

Socialism is ultimately stateless. I am not a Marxist. And why so rude?

Capitalism must have a free market to exist and we do not have that and have not had it for at least 60 years... The commies here that obsessively call their marxist thievery capitalism over and over are getting tiresome...

But capitalism is not free-markets. Capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production. A term coined by the LEFT. Free-markets have existed for centuries, capitalism is only around 250 years old. Capitalism has never been and never will be free-markets. If you really think you are free, then you don't understand what freedom is.

If you think a minority monopolising the means to produce is a free-market system then you fail to understand it.
True freedom can only come to all when we all have access to the means to produce, so that no minority class can take advantage of the majority by their private economic ownership.

Sorry you're tired of hearing it, I'm tired of ignorance! Deny ignorance, eh? Honestly I think you're just upset because you can't deny what I say, and it upsets your world view.

Originally posted by ANOK
Honestly I think you're just upset because you can't deny what I say, and it upsets your world view.

edit on 12/1/2012 by ANOK because: (no reason given)

Maybe when someone manages to monetise cognitive dissonance and then copycat programmers develop various apps that do the same thing, the new market competition in cognitive dissonance monetisation will make his cognitive dissonance go away.

Or something.

Originally posted by ANOK

Originally posted by hawkiye
What a load of bovine excrement! It is your commie marxist BS that cannot exist without the state to enforce its theft you commies call wealth redistribution.

Socialism is ultimately stateless. I am not a Marxist. And why so rude?

Capitalism must have a free market to exist and we do not have that and have not had it for at least 60 years... The commies here that obsessively call their marxist thievery capitalism over and over are getting tiresome...

But capitalism is not free-markets. Capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production. A term coined by the LEFT. Free-markets have existed for centuries, capitalism is only around 250 years old. Capitalism has never been and never will be free-markets. If you really think you are free, then you don't understand what freedom is.

If you think a minority monopolising the means to produce is a free-market system then you fail to understand it.
True freedom can only come to all when we all have access to the means to produce, so that no one take advantage of the majority by their private economic ownership.

Sorry you're tired of hearing it, I'm tired of ignorance! Deny ignorance, eh? Honestly I think you're just upset because you can't deny what I say, and it upsets your world view.

edit on 12/1/2012 by ANOK because: (no reason given)

Socialism has never existed without some means of enforcement!

Capitalism is born of free markets. You have been preaching your BS all over this board and calling your brand of theft capitalism. Socialism is not stateless you have to have the state to steal the means of production from the private parties who developed it. You want someone else to develop the means of production and then steal it from them without making the sacrifices they did to develop it and make it viable.

Bill gates started his company in his garage he did not have any monopoly on the means of production. The vast majority of businesses in the US were started similarly only a few at the top used the state to get their wealth by suppressing the free market competition giving them unfair advantage over their would be competition. And this you call capitalism when it is socialism/fascism.

You have the same opportunities as they all did you are just to lazy to do what it takes so you preach your brand of ism and play games with labels to try and obscure your your true motives. You want to steal the fruits of the labors of others and call it socialism/freedom etc. while denigrating capitalism when everything you describe as capitalism is socialism/communism/marxism/fascism or what ever you brand it on any given day which are all just various related methods of theft. You are just a lazy thief...

Originally posted by hawkiye
while denigrating capitalism when everything you describe as capitalism is socialism/communism/marxism/fascism or what ever you brand it on any given day which are all just various related methods of theft. You are just a lazy thief...

edit on 1-12-2012 by hawkiye because: (no reason given)

So a political movement driven by the desire to own the means of production and take them out of the hands of a capitalist elite is "lazy"? What do you think people want to do with that means of production once they have them, shut them down and open Marx-themed free smoothie and yoghurt bars? You do realise that, historically, the support for various forms of socialism, labour movements and the like have tended to come from people working 10, 12, 14 hour days in hard, manual labour environments? And all those other people angry because they've no voice when a corporate elite take their factory abroad and they're left without any work because more and more firms go abroad?

How the # is any of that "lazy"?

reply to post by hawkiye


There is no more of a lazy thief than a capitalist who earns their living from the labour of others.

Labour pays for the means of production, not capitalists. Why do you think they hire labour? To be nice? No, it's how they make money, money they then use to invest to make more money. The workers do not benefit from the investment of money their labour produced. The capitalist owner is not necessary.

But life doesn't have to be a competition for resources. So sad for the capitalist to lose their privileged life from exploiting and profiting from other people. If the workers owned the means of production we could end our economic problems.

Shared ownership helps diversify rather than concentrate wealth – which is what we desperately need to do to revitalise our economy. It roots the value it generates in communities, keeping assets and resources from being transferred from local communities and low-wage employees to multinational corporations and their owners.

The key to global prosperity: worker ownership

Capitalism creates artificial scarcity of resources in order to make profits.

Whether today's global overcapacity is seen as cause or effect of the economic crisis, one thing is certain: it isn't easy to make a profit in a world awash with overproduction. Capitalism is born in conditions of scarcity and is unable to function outside of them. So it seems logical that the crisis creates a tendency to restore these conditions artificially. But how does this affect the chances of the global economy to find a way out of its present predicament?

Artificial Scarcity in a World of Overproduction: An Escape that Isn't

The people who suffer the most from artificial scarcity are the poor. Poor because of a lack of resources. All they need is the means to produce, the means are not scarce their use is simply denied. Worker ownership, socialism, is based on community needs, rather than the profit of the private owner. Industry is used to meet needs, not make profit for private owners at the expense of the rest of us.

"What is to stop this corporation from hiring a mercenary force be it a corporate one (i.e. Xe or DynCorp) or a collection of individuals from around the world to commit acts of deadly force, corporate espionage, or subversive sabotage? Would a very large private corporation not simply be able to make a violent power grab and enforce its own set rules the same way an authoritarian government is able to? "

I don't think we should automatically assume that this violent power grab is going to work. Imagine if you worked at McDonald's and some Burger King thugs came in and said "We're taking over you're working for us now! You will show up every day to work as here as Burger King employees from now on! Expect many changes seeing as we are a different company!",

Would you or any of your co workers actually show up for work the next day? I don't think so. Also, how do we know that the former consumers of McDonald's are now going to just switch happily hand over their money to what is now Burger King since they preferred McDonald's in the first place?

If some big oil company did the same do you think those guys who break their backs every day on oil rigs risking their lives are going to show up for work every day knowing that their company just got violently taken over and also they have no idea if they'll still be paid the same wage anymore, same pension,etc...??

"Government by in large is a democratically elected group of individuals who are the servants of the people and are accountable to the people who have given them the authority to govern."

Well, I think it goes without saying that this simply isn't how things work. It's supposed to be this way, but human nature being what it is, since government is just a collection of power hungry sociopaths, it never works this way.

reply to post by ANOK


We're being prevented from seeing eye to eye because we define capitalism differently. I define capitalism as free markets because that's one sense of the term. Apparently you leftists use the far less charitable definition of capitalism as some mean old rich guy telling you what to do all day at work. The leftist definition of capitalism as controlling the means of production and exploiting labor to use those means to bring value misses a broad swath of real live (as opposed to socialist fantasy) economic activity. I know a guy who owns a small shop in a town I used to live in. His shop is successful and has a lot of customers who love his business because it brings hard to acquire objects to a rural town. He is virtually always tending shop and I've only known him to have one employee— an old classmate of mine in college who was happy to gain experience and income in the expertise of the shop and shop owner. By my definition, he's engaging in capitalist entrepreneurship, but I would assume he's being very evil in the eyes of the left by controlling the means of production (the cash register and wares?) and apparently exploiting his one employee (clearly she's being exploited while being paid and trained in this area of expertise, am I right?) Is a small business owner like this an exploitative evil capitalist? Does he provide value for society? If so, how does a socialist system accomodate people like him, the market processes necessary for his business to thrive, and would socialism put the kibosh on my friend if he was doing a great job and people asked him to open other stores all across the area (making him more of a big capitalist meany with more need to "exploit" people at decent wages)?

I also take issue with the idea that the workers don't need the capitalist. I'm afraid you socialists don't have a clue about how businesses start. They aren't typically inherited turn-key operations that materialize from the ether. As mentioned, Bill Gates started his business in his garage. Many other businesses required extensive personal investments of money made — you guessed it — by being "exploited" in the job market. As we all know, businesses frequently fail and often through no fault of the entrepreneur (wrong location, wrong time, wrong product, wrong strategy, plenty of reasons why). The initial investor bears all of this risk. Some hourly laborer is, by law, required to be paid for work performed. A business owner of a failed venture usually loses everything. This risk is large, daunting, and serious. Does your socialist system make any accomodation for the evil capitalist who risks everything to start businesses? Who would start new businesses in an environment where they knew, should they be (GASP!) successful, any investment of time, labor, and resources would be lost to the "workers" who had no risk and simply get to enjoy the fruits of a productive and established business? Unless socialism can create an effective incentive structure for staring businesses and facing the risks involved, a socialist country would enjoy zero innovation in any segment. What the "worker revolution" model of socialism does, as I see it, is suggest that in reward for the risks faced and investments of time, labor, and resources made, the entrepreneur should be rewarded by being tossed out on his ass with nothing to show for it. It's a bunch of whiny cry-babies who are upset they're not making as much money as the boss who want to kick him out and take over the business HE has invested in, HE developed conceptually, and HE bore the risk of failure through the uncertain early life of the business. Whether or not the motivations for socialism are lazy, it is inherently a philosophy of laziness by focusing on identifying things of value and rather than creating their own to rival it, encourages the forcible (government involved? likely) seizure of valuable things created by others.

Originally posted by hayek11
reply to post by ANOK

 

We're being prevented from seeing eye to eye because we define capitalism differently. I define capitalism as free markets because that's one sense of the term. Apparently you leftists use the far less charitable definition of capitalism as some mean old rich guy telling you what to do all day at work. The leftist definition of capitalism as controlling the means of production and exploiting labor to use those means to bring value misses a broad swath of real live (as opposed to socialist fantasy) economic activity. I know a guy who owns a small shop in a town I used to live in. His shop is successful and has a lot of customers who love his business because it brings hard to acquire objects to a rural town. He is virtually always tending shop and I've only known him to have one employee— an old classmate of mine in college who was happy to gain experience and income in the expertise of the shop and shop owner.

The definition doesn't miss anything, This guy isn't the problem by anyone's definition. You're offering a straw man here. Who the hell is against small shopkeepers who don't employ any staff? Seriously, what a bizarre argument you're offering here.

However, does he make all the things he sells? Where do they come from? What about his shop-fittings? How are they produced? How is the shop powered?

Let's pull back the curtain, and then we'll talk.