On Sat, 9 Nov 1996 Suresh Naidu <snaidu@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca> Wrote:
>> John:
>>Anarchy means no government,
>Suresh:
>No, anarchy means no authority.
Well then, despite what I have always thought I am not an Anarchist, I don't
see how any sane man could be. I certainly believe in authority, I think my
bank has the authority to stop you from spending my money and I think my PPA
should have the authority to stop you from killing me. My doctor may have the
authority to cut me open with a knife, but you have no such authority.
>We had industrial laissez faire before, and more damage was
>done to people and planet in that brief 100 years than any
>time period preceding.
I assume you're talking about the 19'th century, and it's true, life was
pretty grim compared to now, but it's more meaningful to compare it to things
as they were before the 19'th century, not as they are now. Never before in
Human History had the average person been so rich or lived so long. Never
before in Human History had there been greater advances in Science or
Technology.
>It has no institutionalized authority. Which I see has
>having no government.
If there is no institutionalized authority who runs the elections? You don't
believe in managers so people will need to vote about every 10 minutes.
Who stops the black market? If your factory votes to sell its product for $10,
and another factory a thousand miles away votes to sell the same thing for $5,
you're going to need another institution, in this case storm troopers,
to stop me from buying from them.
>> John:
>> 2) At any one time in any one place, only one [government]
>>may exist.
>Suresh:
>Not so. You can have hordes and hordes of them, all over.
>If you don't like one, leave
And that is exactly why what you're proposing is a government, it's not
enough that I quit, I must leave. In a true anarchy if I want to change from
one PPA to another, all I have to do is pick up a phone, tell the new PPA my
credit card number for the premium, and that's it. I don't have to move
anywhere.
>>John:
>>The consumers can vote for higher quality, lower prices and
>>less pollution. The workers can vote for higher wages, more
>>time off, and better health care. It's paradise, everybody's
>>happy.
>Suresh:
>Please, do you really have that kind of disrespect for people.
I like people, some of my best friends are people, but I do have that kind of
disrespect, contempt might be a better word, for elections. The workers can
vote to give themselves any wage they please, but the idea that they will
actually receive such a wage sounds like something out of Monty Python.
If the factory doesn't have the money it can't pay the wages regardless of
the vote. End of story.
>I don't think the consumers will vote for cheaper products
>if they realize that the workers can't afford to feed
>themselves as a result.
You are acting like it's obvious that the more a factory charges for its
product the more money the factory will make and so the more it can pay its
workers. You are acting like there is a simple relationship between the price
of an object and the total amount of money made by the manufacturer.
You are profoundly wrong.
What price of a product would maximize profits and thus benefit the workers
the most? I haven't the slightest idea. The ideal price is determined by
trillions of factors interacting in hideously complex ways, the human mind is
far too puny a device to figure it out from first principles, the idea that
you could obtain this enormously valuable information from an election, the
same process that placed our current crop of Bozos in power, is utterly
ridiculous. Fortunately we don't need to calculate it, the market will
quickly let us know if we are very far from that ideal price.
John K Clark johnkc@well.com
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