To tell you the truth, I feel that very little exchange takes place in the shadow of coercive power if by ‘coercive power’ you mean a government[sup]*[/sup]. Where coercive power is a factor, I think it is because the property or wealth being protected in such transactions is greater than can be reasonably commanded by a person or persons in the first place; which is to say, the most lucrative areas of theft are those that could only exist in a context of force in the first place. There is simply no way to have a billionaire in anarchy. You could not protect yourself, nor could you find enough people to protect you. What wealth separation exists would only come about because people could not find it in their interests to do otherwise.
I mean, let’s state a truism: no one robs a bank because they think they’ll be caught. This is as true with banks as it is with anything. The rise of government executive power, and the removal of people’s ability to defend themselves through various subtle means (some legal, other cultural), have created a scenario, at least in modern America, where the order of the day is to comply with everything an armed robber demands. The impetus, ostensibly, is simply that “your life isn’t worth it.” This is absolutely true: it isn’t worth it. But for all the talk of the great protector, it is a funny thing to hear or think about. So instead of private or public protection, we’ve instead switched to private and public insurance (in the case of banks). Hard to discourage thieves when you face unarmed and compliant victims everywhere!
The local shopkeeper and myself get along quite well without government. I do not steal, and he does not cheat; and, more importantly, I do not not steal because of the threat of fines or imprisonment, and he does not not cheat because he wouldn’t be in business very long if he did.
I honestly believe you overestimate the power of government here. Vastly.
Of course, the Mafia had property protected by the government, too. They were free riders in a very real sense, except where they got police benefits through corruption and bribery which was a little more expensive.
*[sub]Of course, there is also the ‘coercive power’ of personal retribution, a diminished public reputation, etc., but this is not normally what we mean.[/sub]
To clarify, I was using “coercive power” more broadly than just government. I certainly mean “the shadow of coercive power” to mean “if I cheat this guy, he might punch me in the nose”.
Sure, but be wary of the fallacy of composition. You and I do this because we’re living (and have been brought up) in a society where the returns to being “peaceful and honest” (to use Lib’s catchprase) are pretty damn high.
In that case you are quite right that interactions of all kinds, from chemical to broadly physical to social and inter-personal, are underneath the shadow of consequences. But this is just a truism. I thought we were focusing more on specific forms of coercive power, such as those which would cause involuntary actions, i.e. those which we typically consider actionable or punishable in some way.
It is a difference of perspectives here, because I don’t think the returns are any higher now than they would be absent a law to the contrary. Generally speaking, shoplifting (for example) is very prevalent and hard to stop by legal means; instead, as you see when you go shopping, localized solutions are the order of the day, currently in the form of hidden or difficult to remove (or both) security devices and checkpoints for them. No store I have ever been to depends on the legal system to enforce their property rights. The legal system provides an ostensibly objective method for arbitration which is backed up by force, but apart from the discouragement angle of getting caught and punished by the system, such property rights are not well-protected. Anarchy, as such, would still have recourse to ad hoc (in the truest sense of the word) arbitration. In general, the services the government performs in a legal sense would be replaced by such ad hoc organizations. Fairness demands I admit that the arbitrariness of ‘local’ ‘law’ would be a large impediment to ostensive objectivity. I think that the value of such objectivity is questionable.
griffen2, when you use a theory to arrive at a formula, but when you plug in data you get 73 = 26, you know it’s time to throw out the formula.
Instead, you blithely announce that there must be something wrong with reality, and carry on advocating your formula.
What the hell do you think government arose out of? Do you think the world was just created with market stifling governments already in place? In the beginning was anarchy, the ultimate free market. And after a few thousand years, what we have is government. Now read your last sentence
Your basic problem is that the above is in fact the perfect refutation of your own position. As you so ably point out, under your theory, government is antithetical to your idea of a free market, yet governments the world has. Under your theory, government arising out of unhampered market processes makes no sense, yet arise it did.
Time to chuck out your theory, by any reasonable measure.
