From: matus (matus@matus1976.com)
Date: Thu Sep 11 2003 - 10:54:14 MDT
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Behalf Of Robbie Lindauer
>
>
>> If it is zero sum, there must be a winner and a loser. Are you a
>> loser merely because I would not do the welding for no trade
>> whatsoever?
>
>Neither loses or gains. I guess I misunderstood your question.
"Zero Sum" means that the sum adds up to zero, there is a winner and a
loser. Basketball games are zero sum, both teams can not be winners.
Non zero sum means both parties can be winners, though one may not when
as much as the other, they both come out on top. The classic example of
this is the prisoners dilemma game, in which two people are accused of a
crime, if either defects they get off scott free, but the other gets a
stiff sentence. However, if they both cooperate, they both get off with
light sentances. These exchanges exist throughout nature, in the way
animals share food (vampire bats, for instance) and the way individuals
trade goods. Non-zero sum models accurate predict all of these systems,
they are certainly no zero sums. I suggest reading Matt Ridley's "The
Origins of Virtue"
When you say 'niether loses nor gains' is that an objective statement of
fact? What are they not 'losing' nor 'gaining'? If I trade my skill
for yours, I feel I have won something, since otherwise I would have had
to spend years training at said skill. This is the inherient value of
money, it is a representation of man-hours worked or intellegint human
effort. You seem to imply absolutely that no one loses or gains, while
I feel I do win out, and so does the other party. If the other party
agrees, are you stating that we are both wrong and just diluded? Or is
your 'niether loses or gains' statement purely an opinion?
>> Effort? As in what, physical labor? Calories expended? What about
>> people who sit in front of a computer all day processing
>information,
>> turning not so valuable information into more valuable information.
>...
>> Does this not demonstrate that 'effort' as
>> directed through technology has no limit to its value?
>
>Each person should be able to determine the value of their own time.
>That's what freedom is.
You did not answer the question. Is their a limit to value that
technology produces?
And why is freedom the ability to determine the *value* of your time,
and not just what to *do* with your time?
>
>If you say "I'll give you a dollar to play guitar for me for an hour."
>
>I might do it, I might not. Depends on how I feel, if I'm free, etc.
If you say "Ill give you a dollar for that loaf of bread" and I might do
it or might not, perhaps I consider my effort put into that loaf of
bread as worth more than a dollar. I did, after all, grow the wheat,
grind thr flour, raise the cows for the milk, mix the concoction, and
the burn the coal required to heat it up. You think Ill sell that for a
dollar?
This is the fundamental contradiction in your stance, you state both at
the same time that "each person should be able to determine the value of
their own time" and in the next statement...
>
>I don't. I don't subscribe to the "commodity" supply and demand
>theory. I said so above - value is given by human effort.
Which is it, is value determined by the effort, or by how much person
thinks is own time is worth? How are you measuring 'value'? (hence my
comments on calories expended)
Additionally, should I give you a dollar for your guitar playing, you
still do not consider yourself to have 'won' nor 'loss' You have a
dollar where before you did not. What if a million people gave you a
dollar to all hear you play your guitar for a minute. What did you
lose? A few calories moving those fingers around perhaps, but you
gained 1 million dollars. Conversely, your audience each lost one
dollar, but they also got to hear some good classical guitar music
(hopefully) which some have though may have been barely worth a dollar,
but other may have been willing to pay five dollars, or ten, to hear the
sounds produced by your wiggling fingers on a piece of wood with some
strings. Did they not 'win' out also?
>> After all, if what you
>>> said above were true, I wouldn't be paying $8.95 for a BLT in
>>> Westwood
>>
>> Why not? If you can make a BLT cheaper, start your own BLT joint.
>
>"Efficient markets" If the theory is that food is becoming more
>available with time, it SHOULD follow that it would become less
>expensive with time too, right?
It has, it is cheaper than it has ever been before.
>
>I pay the $8.95 because even though I know I could buy a baby-pig for
>$8.95 and raise to a 1000-pound pig for around $100, enough to make
>about 5-10,000 BLT's (really hammy-ones), I don't because the trouble
>of dealing with it is worth paying for - that's the human effort part.
Did you say 'worth' paying for? But I thought you didn't win out?
Seems like, for a mere $8.95 you are paying someone else to raise smelly
pigs, the corn to feed them, a farm full of letuce, a farm of tomato,
the fertilizer and the equipment to cultivate those, and bread (maybe
some mayo) Yet the cost of this effort just happens to coincide exactly
with what you would pay for it as an even exchange? If you think $9 is
to high, what if it was $.9 dollars? Maybe you were willing to pay $2,
but can get it for less than one. Is there still no 'winner' or 'loser'
Maybe that grocer would have still made extra money if they sold it for
50cents, but they got almost a buck out of you. They are happier than
they were before, and you would have paid twice as much, so you are
happier. Is this not a non-zero sum interaction!?
>
>> Ok, your libertarian descriptions fit me as well, yet I certainly
>> wouldn't call myself a 'peacefull anarchist' (how do you propose it
>> remain 'peacefull' anarchy, btw?)
>
>I trust people who own big guns to not f-with other people who own big
>guns.
Great, so who ever has bigger guns wins out. And why do you call this
'peacefull' anarchy exactly? And how is this any better than the
current post-industrialize west system? Do you not think a local
warlord pointing a gun at your face to take some of your food you grew
on your farm is 'alienation of labor'? I don't exactly want to maintain
an arsenal, can I pay someone else to do it and ensure no one threatens
me with their aresenal? Isnt that, in a way, what I am all ready doing
with my taxes? After all, if someone comes up to me with a gun, I call
those people I pay, and they are hear to drag off the gun toting nut and
keep him, basically, from f-ing with me.
>> But I would like to hear more of what kind of system you would
>> propose.
>
>(I hope) I'll know paradise when I get there. Until then I'll just
>complain :)
That's fine, but what if the system you are proposing is worse. And it
kills millions of people. What if the system you are rallying most
against is what will bring the world to the closest it can possibly get
to an ideal world free of force? How are you determining, objectively,
what is the best way to persue such a goal. How are you determining,
objectively, that your goal will indeed be better, and it wont kill most
of its inhabitants. I am sure Pol Pot thought his goals laudable, but
1/3rd of the Cambodia population paid the price with their phsyical
lives, and the rest paid with their emotional lives. It seems like you
are just doing a lot of complaining, without looking at the consequences
of your suggestions. It also sounds like you are more like a social
anarchist then a 'peaceful anarchist'
>
>> Does your peacefull Anarchist society have property rights? Who
>> enforces them?
>
>Me, you, them. If, as you say, there's plenty of food, land
>and water,
>there shouldn't be any problem.
So we do have property rights then? Well, what if I want more property
than you think I should have? Is that when we whip out the big guns and
enforce that 'peacefull anarachy'? I said there is plenty of water and
food, not land. I do feel there is plenty of land, but there are more
and more restrictions on land use, this issue of reason magazine relays
that the number of regulations on land has increased 80% in the last
decade. Some cities and towns in the US have regulations on what
structures must *look* like. This and many other factors contribute to
the increase in the cost of land. But the population growth rates are
slowing as the world industrializes, most post industrial nations have
zero or less than zero birth rates, and as societies get wealthier and
more concerned with individualistic goals, that trend will only
accelerate.
But regardless, there may be plenty of food and water, but since we all
have property rights, what if I buy up most of the food production land
and charge what I want for the food. Does a gang of 'peacefull
anarchists' come beating down my fences with machine guns and iron bars?
You acknowledge that some people will not want to farm (I certainly do
not) perhaps they'll sell their arable land to me, and I'll form a large
industrialized agrictultural base, then sell the food back to them.
They will be free from the labor of farming, and I'll be free from the
labor of building cars, houses, telephones, etc etc etc.
Um, how is this any different then the current market based system?
>People would have to recognize the value of what they'd achieved to
>make it worth keeping.
And if they do not recognize the value of what they achieved, what then?
Is it not worth keeping. What if others recognize the value, but the
producer does not, even though he continues to produce and others
continue to consume.
>
>> Do they have a right to take my provisions?
>
>That's an ethical issue, not a legal one. They have no right to steal
>from you, but you SHOULD share with them if you can, that
>would be "The
>right thing to do."
And what if I do not share with them? As I said, it's a hard winter
coming up, and I prepared for it. They wasted away their productive
summer nights drinking and playing cards at the saloon. This winter,
they stand to starve or freeze, I and my family will do neither.
However, should we divide up my provisions, perhaps some 50% of them
would not starve or freeze, but 50% of my family would. What is the
'right thing to do'?
>
>> Who forces the Doctor to treat
>> my ailments to achieve 'adequate' health care?
>
>Assuming you've been nice to your doctor, why wouldn't he be nice to
>you?
Maybe, maybe he is sick of performing brain operations. Or maybe he
only became a doctor because his dad wanted him to, and now that he can
survive without have to perform brain surgeries, he is perfectly content
to sculpt clay instead of perform operations. What then?
The more something is valued by more people, the higher people are paid
to perform that service, and the more likely people are to perform that
service.
I do not understand how you could say something like the above, yet
previously say:
>>If you say "I'll give you a dollar to play guitar for me for an hour."
>>
>>I might do it, I might not. Depends on how I feel, if I'm free, etc.
And not realize the contradiction. How about 'I'll give you a dollar to
perform that brain surgery' He might do it, he might not. Depends on
how he feels, right? He's free, after all. Of course, I'll die, but he
is free! You also say "Each person should be able to determine the
value of their own time" Perhaps the good doctor feels his time is
valued at 1 million dollars per second of operation time. He is, after
all, free to determine the value of his time, is he not?
>> Especially If I can not
>> pay him, and no government exists to coerce him.
>
>He should help you. The Government isn't exactly helping right now.
But what if he does not want to help me? I hear lots of 'shoulds' and
'it's the right thing to do' but no concrete answers to problems. And
Sure the government is helping, we have no shortage of brain surgeons.
The system, kept in place (for the most part) by governments, helps to
ensure that money is a representation of effort or man-hours worked and
has value, that no one with a big gun will hold you up and take all your
bread, and that worth is determined by the consumer and the producer in
competition, yet both benefit. You insit that worth should be
determined solely by the producer E.g. "Each person should be able to
determine the value of their own time" and seem to suggest that value as
determined by an interaction of consumer and producer leads both to be
'unfree'
>
>> Shall my best friend
>> just hold a gun to his head?
>
>How about asking nicely, most people are reasonable when
>asked.
What about the people who are not reasonable?
If the
>doctor knows that he can't extract unreasonable fees for his services,
>then he will ask for reasonable fees.
But I thought you said "Each person should be able to determine the
value of their own time" What if the value of his time is an
unreasonable fee to me?
>If a doctor becomes known as
>"That guy who cheats dying people" then his business would dry up
>pretty quick I imagine.
Ah, so if he charges more than people are willing to pay, he will go out
of business!!! Robbie, how is this *any* different than a market based
capitalism? Your statement above directly contradicts the idea of
determining the value of your own time freely. The two can not
co-exist. They are a logical contradiction, you can not have A and
not-A simaltaneously. Either he determines the value of his time, or
all the parties involved determine the value (the producers and the
consumers)
>
>> (Oh, right, you said a 'peacefull
>> anrachist', I suppose Ill just ask him politely to perform required
>> operation)
>
>Sounds good, but I'd expect you to have planned well enough that you
>could pay a reasonable fee and/or contracted with some insurer.
And what if I did not? A significant majority of the population does
not 'plan well enough' for such things, yet society generally expects
them to receive the same 'adequate' health care that others who do plan
well enough receive. Who forces the Doctor to perform the operation
when there is no government that collects taxes or insists employers
give employees health benefits if working full time, in effect forcing
the masses, despite their stupidity, to prepare for such things.
(Who
>in turn would pay because if they didn't you'd be pissed and so would
>the rest of their customers.)
An insurer would pay because I would be pissed? What if they had bigger
guns than me? Would they care if I were pissed?
>
>> Truthfully, I don't understand how this system could
>possibly exist,
>> unless each and every person in it is immortal, perpetually healthy,
>> and always with shelter and food.
>
>Maybe. Maybe not. I say it's worth a try because THIS isn't working.
The system you propose is basically what we have in place in most post
industrilized west nations, barring the existence of the things most
minarchist liberterians generally object to (drug war, subsidies,
intereference of business by government, etc) Seems you should just be
a minarchist libertarian, and move to new hampshire with the rest of us
in a year or two.
'THIS' isnt perfect, but it's the best thing we have seen so far, and I
fear your sytem would be far far worse.
>
>> Is that so? I guess most communist governements just never
>got to sit
>> around long enough to turn into full anarachies.
>
>It's an empirical question and so I am agnostic about it.
Huh? You are agnostic about empirical questions?
The Chinese
>government, if it's Communist, has an opportunity to become a
>government-less body. I doubt that they will, personally.
They show no trends suggesting their political structure will change.
They remain as closed as possible.
>> How does peaceful anarachy alleviate global poverty? (food,
>shelter,
>> and adequate health care)
>
>By letting people benefit from their own land and labor.
In what cases to people not benefit from their labor? The only case I
can think of is when people are not granted the fruits of their labor,
i.e. slavery. Which doesn't exist anywhere anymore. What if people
want to all sell their land because they don't want to farm, and buy
land on the water? There is only so much land on the water, what if
everyone wants to move there?
>> What
>> is 'forced alienation of our labor' and what about volunteer labor.
>
>Forced alienation of our labor is TAXATION or other kinds of coerced
>(in the broad sense of "essentially forced") extraction of resources
>and time.
But isnt being forced to charge a 'reasonable' fee, as in the case of
our Doctor, a form of coercion? Isnt that why you consider it not being
free, and why you use the qualifier of "Each person should be able to
determine the value of their own time" instead of "each person should be
able to determine what to *do* with their time" If I am forced to
charge less than what I think my services are worth, I am still
FORCED!!! In the first possible example I give you of where someone
values his time differently than what others value you, you assert that
the value should be a reasonable interaction of those, this is exactly
what the supply and demand curves determine. Pick up any intro to
business book, and replace 'supply' with 'how much one values his own
time' and replace 'demand' with 'how much others value your time' and
youll see the same thing.
>
>> I
>> also note, we can not exist without labor, we must labor for
>our food.
>> How is that dichotomy settled? Food will not fall from the sky and
>> into your mouth, and with no government to provide it, where will it
>> come from?
>
>I expect a nice little farm might do the trick. On the Kibutz groups
>of people come together to build farms that sustain them and then take
>turns on it. That's ONE way. Another way is just to farm your own
>land. Another way is to provide a sufficiently valuable service that
>other people would simply give you food.
So you play the guitar, and I bring over some tomatoes? Isnt that a
little inconvenient, how about I give you a piece of paper, or a gold
coin, that basically amounts to 12 tomatoes, and in exchange you play
your guitar. Is it just the concept of money you don't like?
>
>I know guitarists that make their livings this way, for instance.
>
I am sure they do, but do people give them coin, or do they give them
bread and tomatoes?
>
>> If I chose to stop working,
>> I would lose my house.
>
>
>Not stop working, we are in agreement that you must produce to provide
>for yourself. Try stop paying taxes.
Then who will protect me from the people with big guns? What if I want
to pay for that protection service?
>
>Alienation simply means taking something that was yours and making it
>someone else's. Forced alienation is when someone MAKES you do it.
A perfect description of being forced to charge 'reasonable fees' You
are taking somethning that isnt yours (my time, skills, and effort) and
making me give it to you for less than I think it is worth. How do you
resolve this contradiction?
>
>> I have little need for rock
>> throwers, but need computer programmers.
>
>People manage to figure out valuable things that other people want.
But you said "Each person should be able to determine the value of their
own time" Maybe I want to be a rock thrower, and I can throw them
really well, and I think it has a lot of value. I do, after all, get to
determine the value of my own time.
>They don't need governments to show them how to do this. Governments
>come in when small groups of people band together and force other
>people into submission by violence.
Oh, like being forced to charge a 'reasonable' fee?
>
>> Agreed, tentatively. But are some governments 'less bad'
>than others?
>> Say, for example, Pol Pot's Cambodia vs. Australia?
>
>Not clear.
NOT CLEAR!!!! Have you not seen the pictures of piles of skulls? The
Tual Song prison camp, where 20,000 political prisoners went in and
SEVEN came out? The official decrees to 'smash' dissenters and enemies
of the people?
>It may be that the underlying factors which support
>Australia also support Pol Pot.
But it isnt, since Australia's economy is not run by the will of one
individual who has absolute power. The Khmer rouge executed anyone with
money, glasses, ability to speak multiple languages, doctors, etc. etc.
I suggest you read the Democide page's article on cambodia
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/WF.CHAP6.HTM
"In proportion to its population, Cambodia underwent a human catastrophe
unequaled by any other country in the twentieth century (see Figure 1.2
of my Death By Government). It probably lost slightly less than
4,000,000 people to war, rebellion, manufactured famine, and
democide--genocide, nonjudicial executions, and massacres--or close to
56 percent of its 1970 population. Between 1970 and 1980, from democide
alone, successive governments and guerrilla groups murdered almost
3,300,000 men, women, and children, including 35,000 foreigners. Most of
these, probably as many as 2,400,000, were murdered by the communist
Khmer Rouge, both before and (to a much greater extent) when they took
over Cambodia after April 1975"
I understand that the CIA was funding
>Pol Pot's campaign against his people.
>
You understand incorrectly. But I wont dwell on this point, as it
deviates from the topic.
>> No, but I don't see how any of the ideas you propose would make it
>> objectively make it likely that you would live any longer. Though I
>> would certainly entertain any evidence.
>
>Number one killer in America for males over 30 (me) - Heart Disease.
>Major cause of heart-disease - STRESS. Major cause of stress -
>overwork.
Over-eating is a far larger cause of Heart Disease, and people over eat
because food is so damn cheap and consumer goods so inexpensive, leading
us to live more sedantary lives than ever before. Plenty of people work
with No stress also, work does not absolutely cause stress.
>
>Number 2 killer - Cancer. Number 1 cause of cancer - unknown
>environmental factors. I personally attribute them to the pollutants
>required by modern cities to keep the engines greased.
As Damien has addressed this, I'll pass. But suffuce to say, in this
example your hunch is entirely wrong. The most predominant cause of
cancer is diet, which is again because food is so damn cheap. And of
course, these killers are only killers in the post industrial west,
someone in Burma, for example, could only hope to worry about dying from
cancer, since they'll never get enough food or live to old age to worry
about it.
>
>>>> As Gorby pointed out in the late 80's, Singapore generated
>>> more wealth
>>>> than the ENTIRE Soviet Union. But it must have been
>because it was
>>>> exploiting the working man, right?
>>>
>>> Without any doubt.
>>>
>>
>> Did the people of singapore live better lives than the people of the
>> soviet union?
>
>Which people?
All the people, as an average, both the mean and the median. Did they
live better lives or not?
>
>I hear Gorby had a really, really nice limousine. Maybe there were
>more really-really-nice limousines per capita in Singapore
>than Russia,
>I don't know.
Can you think of any way to measure the quality of life besides
'limosuines per capita'?
Regards,
Michael Dickey
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