Laundering $800 Mil in Drug $, How Did HSBC Execs Avoid Jail?

The collection of people who demand bread is effectively truncated by the price at which bread is sold. The higher the price the smaller the subcollection (i.e. the truncated collection) that "demands" it at that price. [If you imagine a graph of the derivative of the demand function relative to the price p, then the demand at price p is the area under the curve to the left of the vertical through p; i.e. the total area is truncated by the vertical through p].

It is often said by utopian libertarians that supply rises to meet demand, as if some sort of happy equilibrium is thereby attained. Rather, the most profitable price truncates demand and supply only rises only to meet the truncated demand. That's neither a system equilibrium nor is it always happy situation (especially in the case of necessary goods).

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Originally Posted by trish

The collection of people who demand bread is effectively truncated by the price at which bread is sold. The higher the price the smaller the subcollection (i.e. the truncated collection) that "demands" it at that price. [If you imagine a graph of the derivative of the demand function relative to the price p, then the demand at price p is the area under the curve to the left of the vertical through p; i.e. the total area is truncated by the vertical through p].

It is often said by utopian libertarians that supply rises to meet demand, as if some sort of happy equilibrium is thereby attained. Rather, the most profitable price truncates demand and supply only rises only to meet the truncated demand. That's neither a system equilibrium nor is it always happy situation (especially in the case of necessary goods).

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The snowy season apparently having now passed, I was given a free car snow scraper last weekend at the station where I bought petrol. A few weeks ago I suppose it would have retailed at about £9.99.

If I understand you correctly, your complaint is that a certain price may be too high for some to pay, and in the case of an essential like bread some people will go hungry.

The free market response is that prices are signals to the market. If 100 loafs of bread sell for £1 each then 100 people have £1 worth of value and the baker has £100 for his efforts. If there are are 20 people who couldn't afford the bread at £1, the baker has to calculate the value to him (risk/reward) of selling at, say, £0.90, in order to satisfy all 120 potential customers, against the possibility that another baker will enter the market and do the same, or similar, thereby nabbing all 120 bread purchasers.

Alternatively, let's say the baker made 120 loafs and tried to sell them for £1, but found only 100 customers at that price. Come the end of the day, with the bread approaching the point where he will either have to dump it, or sell it for less, he will, if he is rational, lower the price to the point where it can be afforded, even if that is only £0.10. Or he may give it away, so as not to have to store it. Either way, he now has more information with which to plan his price for the next day's batch.

We do not say that these or similar processes will inevitably happen in a free market. We merely say it is the most efficient system for meeting want by allocating resources, because in essence only 121 people are involved rather than the tens of millions who are prey to central planning. However this is a pragmatic argument and not the principled one most libertarians would deploy in favour of a free market.

Yet what we actually see in the market is corporations underselling their competitors, buying them up, raiding their coffers and jacking the prices back up once they’ve captured the market. The work by Von Neumann and Oskar Morganstern which I referenced in an earlier post (The Theory of Games and Economic Behavior) establishes (with near mathematical certainty) that this observed behavior is exactly what should be expected in an unregulated, poorly regulated or under-regulated market. Through coalitions, mergers and raids, a game that began with a multitude of rational players will be reduced to handful of players who rule effective market monopolies. Without regulatory devices in place to break them up (or better yet, prevent their formation), the quaint equilibrium which you depict is never realized.

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Originally Posted by trish

Yet what we actually see in the market is corporations underselling their competitors, buying them up, raiding their coffers and jacking the prices back up once they’ve captured the market. The work by Von Neumann and Oskar Morganstern which I referenced in an earlier post (The Theory of Games and Economic Behavior) establishes (with near mathematical certainty) that this observed behavior is exactly what should be expected in an unregulated, poorly regulated or under-regulated market. Through coalitions, mergers and raids, a game that began with a multitude of rational players will be reduced to handful of players who rule effective market monopolies. Without regulatory devices in place to break them up (or better yet, prevent their formation), the quaint equilibrium which you depict is never realized.

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Although it is a generalisation, I wouldn't dispute your characterisation of some corporations' behaviour, but I say that regulations suit the Big Boys down to the ground, because they're the ones who can afford compliance departments and lawyers to make sure they keep their noses clean. Regulations create barriers to entry which make it more difficult for other participants to enter the market to break up the monopolistic tendencies of the Big Boys. I've said before, and I'll say it again, in the world in which we live, many and perhaps most business people are not free marketeers but, in a regulated environment, they act rationally to protect their own interests. The most efficient mechanism to keep them on their toes is the constant threat someone else will come along and do the same thing, better and cheaper. The purest competition.

It's a long time since I studied Game Theory, so I won't bite off more than I can chew. Suffice to say, we have a regulated market. In almost everything, in your country and in mine. Hell, I gather in the US nowadays you can't even sell lemonade outside your house without a permit (was it not, incidentally, for a similar obscenity that the Arab Spring got going?). And yet the position you describe above still obtains. So we're not in that position of overbearing corporations protecting their own positions because of a free market. It may be that we're in that position because the regulation currently is inadequate in terms of solving these problems but, aside from the implications for liberty of ever-increasing regulation, it seems to me you're chasing a fool's gold, because in a land of laws, which both our countries still purport to be, the regulators will always be playing catch-up, introducing new regulations to deal with the latest deemed abuses where the old regulations are powerless. The only way around this, and this is in fact increasingly what is happening, is to frame legislation in terms of its aspirations, leaving legal compliance a matter for quasi-official 'guidance' the result of which is that, in point of fact, we are no longer a land of laws so much as we are governed arbitrarily according to bureaucratic whim. So I suppose we always get back to the principle of the thing: are we, or are we not to be dictated to?

Where, btw, do you stand on government monopolies?

You have several times alluded to a problem with which I sympathize. Unlike systems composed of inanimate parts (like a steam engine which is regulated by a governor) nations and markets are systems composed of people and the regulators are also people. Too often regulators fail in their duties, either because they have misunderstood the situation over which they were to preside, they overcompensated or undercompensated or they are just plain corrupt. The same complaint can be made of the legislators who write regulations into law. The law is often written by committees who suffer under a misunderstanding, or a regulation can be the result of a poor compromise or it might simply written by parties with an interest in subverting the purpose of the regulation. All these are valid complaints. But a demonstration that regulation is difficult, can be corrupted and needs constant monitoring is not a demonstration that unregulated markets will fairly and efficiently distribute goods at reasonable prices to all who require them. For that we need a separate proof that demonstrates exactly those libertarian claims.

The failings alluded to above are also failings of self-rule in general. We are not unacquainted with the necessity for checks and balance in democratic government, and we are not unacquainted with the failings of the system of checks and balances and the need for constant monitoring, yet we do not take this to be a reason to abandon self-rule in the form of a democratic republic.

Not sure exactly where I stand on government monopolies. Depends on how they're defined, implemented, the services they provide etc. In the U.S. various government entities run state and national parks, wetlands etc. and most citizens are pretty happy with the service. We understand ourselves to be custodians of those lands and we care for them through governance. Of course the lumber industry and others would prefer free reign in those areas. I'm not sure if that counts as a government monopoly, but if it does I think it works fine. The interstate highway system is another example that I and others (imo) are happy with (if you want to call it a government monopoly). At one time telephone communication in the U.S. was a public/private monopoly. Bell had one of the best research institutions in the world until the monopoly was broken up. When it existed technology was such that it made sense to have one entity coordinate all national service. But with advanced technology those services can be rendered on a individual bases by different entities. The moral being a monopoly might make sense at one stage of an evolving industry and not at another stage.

You have several times alluded to a problem with which I sympathize. Unlike systems composed of inanimate parts (like a steam engine which is regulated by a governor) nations and markets are systems composed of people and the regulators are also people. Too often regulators fail in their duties, either because they have misunderstood the situation over which they were to preside, they overcompensated or undercompensated or they are just plain corrupt. The same complaint can be made of the legislators who write regulations into law. The law is often written by committees who suffer under a misunderstanding, or a regulation can be the result of a poor compromise or it might simply written by parties with an interest in subverting the purpose of the regulation. All these are valid complaints. But a demonstration that regulation is difficult, can be corrupted and needs constant monitoring is not a demonstration that unregulated markets will fairly [you and I probably mean different things by this word: to me, it is a process; you, I suspect, it is an outcome] and efficiently distribute goods at reasonable prices [reasonable? the value of something is what someone is willing to pay for it. Intervention by planners to set a 'reasonable' or 'fair' price will warp the market and make it less efficient] to all who require them. For that we need a separate proof that demonstrates exactly those libertarian claims [the claims you say we make are, I think, rather different from those we actually make, because we use different definitions, but it is certainly logically correct to say that the failure of a particular regulated system no more means that a free market will succeed than it means greater and/or different regulation will succeed, although when the failures of regulation develop a family tree we might begin to suspect that those failures are a feature not a glitch].

The failings alluded to above are also failings of self-rule in general [but regulation is not self-rule, it is the opposite of self-rule]. We are not unacquainted with the necessity for checks and balance in democratic government, and we are not unacquainted with the failings of the system of checks and balances and the need for constant monitoring, yet we do not take this to be a reason to abandon self-rule in the form of a democratic republic [quis custodiet ipsos custodes? I have never heard an answer, much less a satisfactory answer, to this question].

Not sure exactly where I stand on government monopolies. Depends on how they're defined, implemented, the services they provide etc. In the U.S. various government entities run state and national parks, wetlands etc. and most citizens are pretty happy with the service. We understand ourselves to be custodians of those lands and we care for them through governance. Of course the lumber industry and others would prefer free reign in those areas. I'm not sure if that counts as a government monopoly, but if it does I think it works fine. The interstate highway system is another example that I and others (imo) are happy with (if you want to call it a government monopoly). At one time telephone communication in the U.S. was a public/private monopoly. Bell had one of the best research institutions in the world until the monopoly was broken up. When it existed technology was such that it made sense to have one entity coordinate all national service. But with advanced technology those services can be rendered on a individual bases by different entities. The moral being a monopoly might make sense at one stage of an evolving industry and not at another stage.

[so a monopoly is ok if people like it, for whatever reason? thus a company selling chocolate bars at an undervalue in order to drive out a new competitor is desirable if its chocolate bars remain popular?]

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Originally Posted by an8150

an8150

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Perhaps we can agree that communism is the natural condition of mankind [you mean that when Ugg and Grunt first crawled out of the primordial ooze feeling peckish and Ugg snared a frog for dinner, he noticed Grunt looking at him enviously and was confronted by the choice of sharing or not, realising that if he didn't then Grunt might try and take the frog from him by force, or that Grunt might starve and then he'd be left alone, or that by sharing on this occasion then Grunt might share the fruits of his labour subsequently, or that by sharing neither would have enough and they would both starve? Well the frog is Ugg's property. It is the fruit of his labour, although there is no rule of law to uphold property rights, and the land on which it was found has presumably not been claimed by Ugg. So I suppose I'd say that at this stage, we have a sort of hybrid, where property is literally up for grabs, but sharing, or perhaps bartering (part of a frog now, in the hope of a return favour later) is on the radar; but what if they both find a frog? if their frogs are of equal plumpness then all we have is the acquisition of property rights by each, absent the application of force by either to denude the other of his frog. The scenario can be sliced and diced a number of ways, but I rather doubt that Ugg, if he is initially the most successful scavenger, is going for any length of time to apply the principle of 'from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs'],...[everything belongs to everyone? so if we were in the same room together right now, and I walked over to you and started to remove your watch and car keys, you wouldn't stop me?].

I am puzzled by your ignorance, as you do reveal yourself to have a sound intellectual background -there is a wealth of evidence on the lives of others for whom private property has little or no meaning, not all of them pre-literate 'stone age' tribes in the Amazon basin -island communities in the South Pacific were led astray/corrupted by missionaries, merchants and traders, by the military -yet the evidence shows they did not covet belongings and shared -I was even told by someone from Tonga a few years ago that they still help each other to other peoples things -cigarettes, to take one trivial example. In the Middle East, there was a mis-conception by early European and American travellers who complained they were being robbed by the Bedouin when the bedouin merely took what they believed was theirs, not sharing the European concept of private property -even the rustling of sheep/horses/goats/camels is seen as part of economic recycling rather than theft. As in A hustles goats from B, C hustles goats from B, A hustles goats from C... Marx was not the first to argue that capitalism has turned everything into a commodity that can be bought and sold, and which must therefore have an owner, but he did describe in withering detail how men and women who had once owned their own tools and even in the harsh conditions of feudal production had their own plot of land to farm, end up centuries later owing nothing, tied to a machine performing tasks that could be and these days often are being performed by robots. The point being that it was difficult for merchants and traders to deal with non-capitalist societies until they integrated them into the 'modern world system' to borrow Wallerstein's term -in some cases the local people were exploited by traders precisely because the concept of ownership was not strong, and barter appeared to be a good deal; this seems both the positive and negavtive pivot on which early relations between traders and first nations in North America turned, until the only 'solution' to people who did not want to become part of a market-led society was genocide.

I don't wear a watch, and would not be pleased if you entered my home helped yourself to the things I value most, but that is not what the debate on private property is concerned with.

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[so a monopoly is ok if people like it, for whatever reason? thus a company selling chocolate bars at an undervalue in order to drive out a new competitor is desirable if its chocolate bars remain popular?]

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what the monopoles I listed have in common is not that people liked them but that the people run them. National parks, the interstate highway system, for example, are not out to make a profit. We regard their maintenance as our duty and we maintain them through governance.

Regulation is indeed self-rule when it is legislated into law by a democratic republic.

This is old news.

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Originally Posted by Stavros

Perhaps we can agree that communism is the natural condition of mankind [you mean that when Ugg and Grunt first crawled out of the primordial ooze feeling peckish and Ugg snared a frog for dinner, he noticed Grunt looking at him enviously and was confronted by the choice of sharing or not, realising that if he didn't then Grunt might try and take the frog from him by force, or that Grunt might starve and then he'd be left alone, or that by sharing on this occasion then Grunt might share the fruits of his labour subsequently, or that by sharing neither would have enough and they would both starve? Well the frog is Ugg's property. It is the fruit of his labour, although there is no rule of law to uphold property rights, and the land on which it was found has presumably not been claimed by Ugg. So I suppose I'd say that at this stage, we have a sort of hybrid, where property is literally up for grabs, but sharing, or perhaps bartering (part of a frog now, in the hope of a return favour later) is on the radar; but what if they both find a frog? if their frogs are of equal plumpness then all we have is the acquisition of property rights by each, absent the application of force by either to denude the other of his frog. The scenario can be sliced and diced a number of ways, but I rather doubt that Ugg, if he is initially the most successful scavenger, is going for any length of time to apply the principle of 'from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs'],...[everything belongs to everyone? so if we were in the same room together right now, and I walked over to you and started to remove your watch and car keys, you wouldn't stop me?].

I am puzzled by your ignorance, as you do reveal yourself to have a sound intellectual background -there is a wealth of evidence on the lives of others for whom private property has little or no meaning, not all of them pre-literate 'stone age' tribes in the Amazon basin -island communities in the South Pacific were led astray/corrupted by missionaries, merchants and traders, by the military -yet the evidence shows they did not covet belongings and shared -I was even told by someone from Tonga a few years ago that they still help each other to other peoples things -cigarettes, to take one trivial example. In the Middle East, there was a mis-conception by early European and American travellers who complained they were being robbed by the Bedouin when the bedouin merely took what they believed was theirs, not sharing the European concept of private property -even the rustling of sheep/horses/goats/camels is seen as part of economic recycling rather than theft. As in A hustles goats from B, C hustles goats from B, A hustles goats from C... Marx was not the first to argue that capitalism has turned everything into a commodity that can be bought and sold, and which must therefore have an owner, but he did describe in withering detail how men and women who had once owned their own tools and even in the harsh conditions of feudal production had their own plot of land to farm, end up centuries later owing nothing, tied to a machine performing tasks that could be and these days often are being performed by robots. The point being that it was difficult for merchants and traders to deal with non-capitalist societies until they integrated them into the 'modern world system' to borrow Wallerstein's term -in some cases the local people were exploited by traders precisely because the concept of ownership was not strong, and barter appeared to be a good deal; this seems both the positive and negavtive pivot on which early relations between traders and first nations in North America turned, until the only 'solution' to people who did not want to become part of a market-led society was genocide.

[You are too kind, but I don't see why your descriptions of Bedouin, etc. are any closer to the State of Nature - the natural condition of mankind, as you put it - than are mine. They're just different ways that different societies developed. So when you say that 'communism is the natural condition of mankind', I take you to mean that in the State of Nature everything is held in common. I agree that there are societies where that has happened, but I cannot see why that is any more natural a development upon climbing out of the primordial sludge than Ugg deciding that the frog he found is his. Take another example: studies of very young children suggesting that they sometimes share when there is no obvious gain to them in doing so. On the other hand, any parent of young children has witnessed in them the urge to acquire and to accumulate. I'd suggest that urge is even stronger where fundamentals such as hunger are at stake: if Ugg reckons he'll starve if he shares even a morsel with Grunt, then Grunt is on his own. A little further down the evolutionary tree, Ugg might start to consider the benefit to him of delaying satisfaction of his hunger by giving Grunt some frog, in return for Grunt's assistance slaying a sabre-tooth tiger. A primitive trade, if you will. Or maybe they'll Bedouin it up, who knows? ]

I don't wear a watch, and would not be pleased if you entered my home helped yourself to the things I value most, but that is not what the debate on private property is concerned with.

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[Oh, but I think it is when you say, 'private property is theft'. As it happens, that's long seemed to me a non-sensical formulation because it recognises the status and attributes of property - that ability to have it stolen - whilst presupposing property held in common, which by definition cannot be stolen. But that's incidental: if you believe private property is theft, then those items you 'value most' are either things you've stolen, in which case there's no moral bar to my taking them, or they're private property, properly meant, and I should get my hands of them.]

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Originally Posted by trish

what the monopoles I listed have in common is not that people liked them but that the people run them. National parks, the interstate highway system, for example, are not out to make a profit. We regard their maintenance as our duty and we maintain them through governance.

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Then your earlier complaints about monopolistic behaviour by big firms in fact have nothing to do with their behaviour, and everything to do with who runs them. Thus bad behaviour is fine, if it's the state doing the running.

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Originally Posted by trish

Regulation is indeed self-rule when it is legislated into law by a democratic republic.

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But that's sophistry, trish: were it materially true, then the legislation of a democratic republic to the effect that everyone must keep a diary every second of every day for the rest of their lives would still mean that we were self-ruling. Yet obviously we would not be.

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Originally Posted by an8150

Then your earlier complaints about monopolistic behaviour by big firms in fact have nothing to do with their behaviour, and everything to do with who runs them. Thus bad behaviour is fine, if it's the state doing the running.

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I believe, if you read back over what I said, that profit motive distinguishes the two. It has everything to do with behavior.

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Originally Posted by an8150

But that's sophistry, trish: were it materially true, then the legislation of a democratic republic to the effect that everyone must keep a diary every second of every day for the rest of their lives would still mean that we were self-ruling. Yet obviously we would not be.

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Now that's sophistry!

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Originally Posted by trish

Now that's sophistry!

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No, it's a reductio ad absurdum...

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Originally Posted by trish

I believe, if you read back over what I said, that profit motive distinguishes the two. It has everything to do with behavior.

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OK, bad behaviour is fine if a) it's done by the state, and b) there is no profit motive? (setting public choice theory aside, of course).

Actually, let's not set aside public choice theory. Have a look at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/vi...uffering-video

What bad behavior? Saving our wetlands and forests?

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Originally Posted by an8150

No, it's a reductio ad absurdum...

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It's absurd, but no reduction.

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Originally Posted by trish

What bad behavior? Saving our wetlands and forests?

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Or even "saving peoples' lives". Go on, have a look at the link I provided in comment #97, I dare you.

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Originally Posted by an8150

Talking about thought being involved, have you given any to my question?

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What question? You don't really expect me to dig through all your off topic blatherings in order to find a question mark, do ya? You & your antisocial church of the fuck everybody else just aren't interesting enough to exert any effort trying to be a mindreader. Got a question? Ask it. I'm sure it won't be hard to find a 4 year old who can explain the stupidity of your demigod.

In my post #85 I already mentioned the necessity for checks, balances, oversight and persistent monitoring that is inherent in all significant systems composed of human beings. In that same post you may remember that my approval of government monopolies was contingent on a number of factors...implementation being one of them. Once again, in any system, human or otherwise, regulators will fail. That doesn't prove they aren't necessary. Indeed Von Neumann and Morganstern have demonstrated to near mathematical certainty the necessity of regulatory devices in market systems. Similarly government programs fail and even governments fail. Even democratic ones. That doesn't prove that government programs (such as the NHS) nor that democratic governments should not exist.

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Originally Posted by trish

In my post #85 I already mentioned the necessity for checks, balances, oversight and persistent monitoring that is inherent in all significant systems composed of human beings. In that same post you may remember that my approval of government monopolies was contingent on a number of factors...implementation being one of them. Once again, in any system, human or otherwise, regulators will fail. That doesn't prove they aren't necessary. Indeed Von Neumann and Morganstern have demonstrated to near mathematical certainty the necessity of regulatory devices in market systems. Similarly government programs fail and even governments fail. Even democratic ones. That doesn't prove that government programs (such as the NHS) nor that democratic governments should not exist.

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Ho, boy. trish, the blood and treasure that has been expended on getting the NHS right. Now there's a religion we Brits almost all get behind. Except those of kneeling at the Randian altar, of course.

I wonder if a private company could have survived if it had done what the angels of the NHS did in Staffordshire. Just kidding, I don't really.

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Originally Posted by hippifried

What question? You don't really expect me to dig through all your off topic blatherings in order to find a question mark, do ya? You & your antisocial church of the fuck everybody else just aren't interesting enough to exert any effort trying to be a mindreader. Got a question? Ask it. I'm sure it won't be hard to find a 4 year old who can explain the stupidity of your demigod.

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And here was my question: "So government can print as much money as it likes, with no ill effects?

Good grief. Doing my damndest to avoid an ad hominem reply, and realising that I'll probably regret asking you this, but, um, have you considered why, if your proposition is correct, your government doesn't just print enough money to make you all billionaires? "

Which was in response to your comment, "As for the ability to afford all this mythical "government largesse": All monies are coined by the state, & always have been. Money is merely an artificial concept to simplify barter. Nowadays it's nothing but numbers in a ledger, with a little bit of pocket change. We can crunch the numbers & afford anything we want. That's WE. Collectively."


I don't enjoy tormenting you because you're extremely stupid, I enjoy it because you're a boor.

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Originally Posted by an8150

Ho, boy. trish, the blood and treasure that has been expended on getting the NHS right. Now there's a religion we Brits almost all get behind. Except those of kneeling at the Randian altar, of course.

I wonder if a private company could have survived if it had done what the angels of the NHS did in Staffordshire. Just kidding, I don't really.

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Of course they would have survived. Bhopal, for just one example.

[QUOTE=an8150;1279748]
but I don't see why your descriptions of Bedouin, etc. are any closer to the State of Nature - the natural condition of mankind, as you put it - than are mine. They're just different ways that different societies developed. So when you say that 'communism is the natural condition of mankind', I take you to mean that in the State of Nature everything is held in common. I agree that there are societies where that has happened, but I cannot see why that is any more natural a development upon climbing out of the primordial sludge than Ugg deciding that the frog he found is his. Take another example: studies of very young children suggesting that they sometimes share when there is no obvious gain to them in doing so. On the other hand, any parent of young children has witnessed in them the urge to acquire and to accumulate. I'd suggest that urge is even stronger where fundamentals such as hunger are at stake: if Ugg reckons he'll starve if he shares even a morsel with Grunt, then Grunt is on his own. A little further down the evolutionary tree, Ugg might start to consider the benefit to him of delaying satisfaction of his hunger by giving Grunt some frog, in return for Grunt's assistance slaying a sabre-tooth tiger. A primitive trade, if you will. Or maybe they'll Bedouin it up, who knows? ]

--You don't seem to be following my argument, in which the invention of private property as the foundation of modern socio-economic relations is an historical development. Within that concept are modes of behaviour such as competition, financial transactions, rent, debt and credit and so on. These were not common to human societies universally, and still today there are formal prohibitions on usury in some countries (whether they are held to or not is another matter). It is profoundly wrong to think that either Bedouin societies or South Pacific islanders lived in a 'state of nature' -the Hobbesian concept was derived from his experience of civil war, and the absence of government -there is no evidence that in the absence of government societies collapse into an orgy of violence, which is ironic given that your own dreamland has an absence of government, but you don't call it a 'state of nature'.

In fact, in the absence of government, societies will normally devise rules that seek to maintain peace. Amongst the Bedouin, for example, the practice of 'blood revenge' is viewed as pointless if every time someone from clan A is killed someone from the offending clan or tribe must also be killed -so property, usually in the form of camels, wheat etc are traded instead on the advice of tribal elders, as the property belongs to the tribe in common. You have also not considered the widespread existence in the Middle East and East Africa, of the 'moral economy' where, again in the absence of government, land was farmed for the benefit of the community rather than for markets. It was a way of ensuring that everyone participated in production, and received their fair share of the results. Indeed, the conflict between the moral economy of say, Kenya, was at the core of the Mau Mau conflict, just as both the Ottoman and later the British governments sought to replace the moral economy of Palestine and TransJordan with a market economy, which had already emerged in some parts of Palestine anyway; it was also common in parts of Lebanon and Syria. Critical to the transition are notions of efficiency, which the free marketeers argued was enhanced by market relations, and ownership, in which land farmed in common became private property, enriching some, impoverishing others: not all fields are as productive as others, and what once benefited all now benefited only a few. In Syria and Iraq, the commercialisation of agriculture through the creation of estates impoverished thousands and enriched a few, and was the source of much conflict both before the end of Ottoman rule and after it.

This means that in the absence of government, human societies will find ways of managing their relations to minimise violence and social disorder, which must be part of your Eden to Come; the problematic element has been the introduction of competition and market-led relations: on the one hand a driver of progress and change; on the other the cause of much misery, poverty and alienation -but you yourself admit there will be losers as well as winners; but you won't say what you will do with the losers.

[Oh, but I think it is when you say, 'private property is theft'. As it happens, that's long seemed to me a non-sensical formulation because it recognises the status and attributes of property - that ability to have it stolen - whilst presupposing property held in common, which by definition cannot be stolen. But that's incidental: if you believe private property is theft, then those items you 'value most' are either things you've stolen, in which case there's no moral bar to my taking them, or they're private property, properly meant, and I should get my hands of them.
--Marx's most radical challenge: money is the acme of private property, there can be no freedom until money is abolished -even the Bolsheviks couldn't handle that one.

[quote=Stavros;1280028]

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Originally Posted by an8150

but I don't see why your descriptions of Bedouin, etc. are any closer to the State of Nature - the natural condition of mankind, as you put it - than are mine. They're just different ways that different societies developed. So when you say that 'communism is the natural condition of mankind', I take you to mean that in the State of Nature everything is held in common. I agree that there are societies where that has happened, but I cannot see why that is any more natural a development upon climbing out of the primordial sludge than Ugg deciding that the frog he found is his. Take another example: studies of very young children suggesting that they sometimes share when there is no obvious gain to them in doing so. On the other hand, any parent of young children has witnessed in them the urge to acquire and to accumulate. I'd suggest that urge is even stronger where fundamentals such as hunger are at stake: if Ugg reckons he'll starve if he shares even a morsel with Grunt, then Grunt is on his own. A little further down the evolutionary tree, Ugg might start to consider the benefit to him of delaying satisfaction of his hunger by giving Grunt some frog, in return for Grunt's assistance slaying a sabre-tooth tiger. A primitive trade, if you will. Or maybe they'll Bedouin it up, who knows? ]

--You don't seem to be following my argument, in which the invention of private property as the foundation of modern socio-economic relations is an historical development. Within that concept are modes of behaviour such as competition, financial transactions, rent, debt and credit and so on. These were not common to human societies universally, and still today there are formal prohibitions on usury in some countries (whether they are held to or not is another matter). It is profoundly wrong to think that either Bedouin societies or South Pacific islanders lived in a 'state of nature' -the Hobbesian concept was derived from his experience of civil war, and the absence of government -there is no evidence that in the absence of government societies collapse into an orgy of violence, which is ironic given that your own dreamland has an absence of government, but you don't call it a 'state of nature'.

In fact, in the absence of government, societies will normally devise rules that seek to maintain peace. Amongst the Bedouin, for example, the practice of 'blood revenge' is viewed as pointless if every time someone from clan A is killed someone from the offending clan or tribe must also be killed -so property, usually in the form of camels, wheat etc are traded instead on the advice of tribal elders, as the property belongs to the tribe in common. You have also not considered the widespread existence in the Middle East and East Africa, of the 'moral economy' where, again in the absence of government, land was farmed for the benefit of the community rather than for markets. It was a way of ensuring that everyone participated in production, and received their fair share of the results. Indeed, the conflict between the moral economy of say, Kenya, was at the core of the Mau Mau conflict, just as both the Ottoman and later the British governments sought to replace the moral economy of Palestine and TransJordan with a market economy, which had already emerged in some parts of Palestine anyway; it was also common in parts of Lebanon and Syria. Critical to the transition are notions of efficiency, which the free marketeers argued was enhanced by market relations, and ownership, in which land farmed in common became private property, enriching some, impoverishing others: not all fields are as productive as others, and what once benefited all now benefited only a few. In Syria and Iraq, the commercialisation of agriculture through the creation of estates impoverished thousands and enriched a few, and was the source of much conflict both before the end of Ottoman rule and after it.

This means that in the absence of government, human societies will find ways of managing their relations to minimise violence and social disorder, which must be part of your Eden to Come; the problematic element has been the introduction of competition and market-led relations: on the one hand a driver of progress and change; on the other the cause of much misery, poverty and alienation -but you yourself admit there will be losers as well as winners; but you won't say what you will do with the losers.

[Oh, but I think it is when you say, 'private property is theft'. As it happens, that's long seemed to me a non-sensical formulation because it recognises the status and attributes of property - that ability to have it stolen - whilst presupposing property held in common, which by definition cannot be stolen. But that's incidental: if you believe private property is theft, then those items you 'value most' are either things you've stolen, in which case there's no moral bar to my taking them, or they're private property, properly meant, and I should get my hands of them.
--Marx's most radical challenge: money is the acme of private property, there can be no freedom until money is abolished -even the Bolsheviks couldn't handle that one.

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You don't seem to be following mine. Ships in the night, etc.

Couple of other points:

1. I don't argue for the absence of government.
2. As to what I personally would do with the losers, that would depend upon my means and my assessment of whether they deserved to be assisted.

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Originally Posted by trish

Of course they would have survived. Bhopal, for just one example.

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According to wikipedia, the plant was 49% owned by the Indian government, and the disaster has given rise to criminal prosecutions.

But more specifically, I meant: what would have happened to a private company in Britain, or the US, in 2013, had it been responsible for what occurred at Staffs NHS.

Obviously the size, wealth and power of the company determines how well it can ride out disasters.

So as a libertarian, how do you feel about copyright and patent protections?

[quote=an8150;1280142]

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Originally Posted by Stavros

You don't seem to be following mine. Ships in the night, etc.

Couple of other points:

1. I don't argue for the absence of government.
2. As to what I personally would do with the losers, that would depend upon my means and my assessment of whether they deserved to be assisted.

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We are on the same ship, its called SS Capitalism, a system that has grown to global dominance since evolving along with (perhaps because of) the city states of Europe in the late medieval age. The moral economy tends to produce indifference in advocates of free market solutions precisely because it offers a verifiable alternative -in fact in many cases the option of a moral economy is deployed in a crisis -extended drought, famine, floods, etc, as a means of minimising the impact of such events; it is in fact a rational way of spreading risk and reward, but does require the prior belief that a village/community is such an entity and shares its values. Capitalists who promote individual self-interest enter this arena with a bag of tricks called lending, borrowing, rent, debt and in some cases have lent money to poor farmers in bad times, only to foreclose on the debt before it can be paid back, so that someone who subsisted on his produce must now pay rent on his own land to an absentee landlord. Free marketeers cannot understand how anyone would find this objectionable, regarding it as a transaction that both parties entered into knowing the risk even though one party was exploiting the downside of the other.

Rothbard, Hoppe, von Mises, only discuss morality when it is on their side, justifying rent, debt and credit; their historical interest may be in the value of currency, money supply, interest rates, industrial production and state intervention, but suggest that there is another moral dimension to economics and their eyes glaze over...as you wish, but you don't offer much insight into your brave new world.

[quote=an8150;1279941]And here was my question: "So government can print as much money as it likes, with no ill effects?[?QUOTE]
Yes. I'll explain it one more time, since you & others have such a problem grasping the idea that money is just a barter simplification. Money's an abstract. It ain't real. It's created by whatever powers that be need to keep track of trade values of various merchandise that aren't directly related. For example: How many tons of sand is needed to trade for that cow, so you can swap it for the iron ore you need to make yourself a new knife? I, for one, am glad I don't have to go through that kind of BS anymore instead of just going to the knife store. Money can be anything. It could be gold, if people could be talked into carrying all that excess weight. It can be cigarettes in prison (Yes, money can be a consumable & still be stable.). Currency can be no more than slips of paper scrip & numbers in a ledger, which is what almost all money is today, worldwide. Money is created by debt, destroyed by payoff or charge off, & grows by the interest added. Yup, right out of thin air. The only reason to think that lending institutions don't need regulation is not understanding money in the first place.

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Originally Posted by an8150

I don't enjoy tormenting you because you're extremely stupid, I enjoy it because you're a boor.

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Even though I'm not a farmer, I'm sure I could seem boorish to know-nothing upper class wannabes. It's probably just because I find the egoist cult, its demigod, & its followers so extremely stupid.

Should our Escort friends here in the USA go to jail?

It depends on which lawyer you ask.

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Originally Posted by buttslinger

Should our Escort friends here in the USA go to jail?

It depends on which lawyer you ask.

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And which judge you pull.

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Originally Posted by trish

And which judge you pull.

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Oh that's cute:tongue:

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Originally Posted by trish

Obviously the size, wealth and power of the company determines how well it can ride out disasters.

So as a libertarian, how do you feel about copyright and patent protections?

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Great point. Patents and copyright are indeed government intervention in the economy. So is a minimum wage law. And, well, child labor laws. I mean, a libertarian/fully free market paradise would consist of 10 year olds working down the coal mines.
Or we could go back to the 1880s where people worked 7 days a week and 10 to 15 hrs. a day.... I mean, would, say, the Kochs really have a problem with that???
I mean, that's a fully free market.... No restrictions, no government intruding on corporate space, as it were.

History of Child Labor:

http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/a...ry-child-labor

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Originally Posted by Ben

Great point. Patents and copyright are indeed government intervention in the economy. So is a minimum wage law. And, well, child labor laws. I mean, a libertarian/fully free market paradise would consist of 10 year olds working down the coal mines.
Or we could go back to the 1880s where people worked 7 days a week and 10 to 15 hrs. a day.... I mean, would, say, the Kochs really have a problem with that???
I mean, that's a fully free market.... No restrictions, no government intruding on corporate space, as it were.

History of Child Labor:

http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/a...ry-child-labor

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Standing Ovation!

If US businesses really believe that the government is intruding on their rights so badly why don't they start by refusing to accept the subsides, tax exemptions and deals to harvest public lands of their resources so that corporate America can really show that they don't believe in government intervention?

The biggest problem capitalists have is also their greatest gift. Their greed knows no bounds and their ambition to win is all encompassing. There are of course exceptions and those who once they have gained great wealth engage in great philanthropy. But the need to win at the game is greater than the money itself, which is why humans will do things as stupid as the whole housing bubble was and to spend so much money trying to unseat a President who did not send a one of their asses to jail when so many deserved to be convicted of fraud.

Succinctly put Ben. Thank you.

No need to try & tie copyrights to child exploitation in what's left of this conversation (a stretch at best). The egoist cult is already the loudest bunch of crybabies when it comes to protection of intellectual "property". The whine remains the same: "Please government... Protect my property for me, but don't interfere with me taking someone else's."

The egoist cult are NOT libertarians.

Was reading Richard Fortey's Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms this morning and ran across this quote,

"As with bluefin tuna right now, when an animal finally gets rare, the price goes up, and those same market forces push ever onward towards extinction. The very last one will be the most valuable."

The capitalistic mechanism behind this one example underlies numerous tragedies, old and modern, and not just tragedies for flora and fauna but ourselves as well.

If we continue to give free reign to our greed and the greed of those who would exploit our resources for their benefit and ours, then we have no right to act surprised when we wake up and find our resources are polluted and depleted.

No system of oversight and regulation will be free of error and corruption, but certainly regulation and oversight are indispensable for our future survival.

Fair points, Trish, which also apply to a range of amimals who, year on year find humans taking up their space -bears in some parts of the USA and Canada, various primates and also big cats and Rhinos in Africa -it isn't just illegal hunting for skins and horns, but population growth and urban sprawl that may doom some animals, like Tigers and Rhinos to complete extinction, although we will always have wildlife tv programmes as a record. How one saves Polar Bears if the warming of the Arctic takes place over an extended period of time removing their habitat, I don't know -round them up and re-locate them to Siberia? Zoos?

But crucially, it is not just regulation and oversight, but planning that is problematic -real change on a range of issues needs long term planning, and while corporations that rely on natural resources can plan 50 years ahead, politicians are always worried about being re-elected: Obama might be free to act because he doesn't face re-election, but enough Democrats and Republicans are hedged in by their re-election prospects, and their forward thinking often doesn't extent beyond the next election which is also the case in the UK.

On issues like climate change, where the 'sceptics' are doing all they can to prevent long term policy changes becoming law, it results in disappointing decision making, if any. In the case of renewable sources of energy, because the frackers are convinced they will make the USA self-sufficient in hydrocarbons for 'years to come' the next wave of capital investment is more likely to be in unconventional hydrocarbons rather than renewables who need it most precisely because of the technological obstacles to realising its potential as a mass energy source, if it ever is likely to be one. But how long will unconventional hydrocarbons meet US demand? And then what? Can any government make policy now that will be relevant 50 or 100 years from now? After all, someone who is 25 years old, and can expect to live until they are 85 is in this mix for the next 60 years, it is policy making for the rest of their lives.

I believe that it is the case that the science, at its best, is not a core problem, but that the politics is -because it impacts investment decisions where science can improve what we have while creating something new.

Can we afford not to make long term decisions on the environment, on energy, on water resources? It is curious that in Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, a substantial part of the world is ruined/destroyed by nuclear war or accident, he doesn't seem to be interested in the potential impact of climate change evern though the book was published in 2003.

And, if we do go for long term planning, how can we be sure it will turn out to have been the right policy option that was taken -as it were, the road we decided to travel on....?