Does ultracapitalistic mean the same as OMNIcapitalistic.
Does EVERYONE understand accounting? Are all of the workers concentrating on NET WORTH? Does this mean that no one believes in company loyalty? Does this mean that everyone is aware of psychological manipulation in advertising?
You should check out THE SPACE MERCHANTS by Frederick Pohl
Dal Timgar
An anarcho-capitalist(AC) society could conceivably have all those institutions you fear would be absent. Why would think there would be no banks, exchanges, trade, etc.? Imagining an AC society isn’t as simple as extrapolating how our current institutions would work if they were privatized.
Businesses that offer services similar to those currently offered by government would have an extremely complex chain of interdependencies with other businesses, i.e. insurance, consumer watchdog services, reputation rating services, private defense agencies, arbitration agencies,etc.
There are some surprisingly elegant solutions to many of the problems that one would initially expect to prohibit the success of such a society but they require far to much explanation to get into here. It’s impossible to explain how one aspect would work without explaining how it relates to virtually everything else.
It’s impossible to explain how it would work because it won’t.
I supposed I’m a bad libertarian because at the end of the day contracts have to be enforced by, well, force. That is, if I pay someone to deliver product X, and they take my money but do not give me product X, I have to have some mechanism for getting my money back. I ask for my money back. He refuses. I go to court, and they order him to pay me my money. He refuses. The court orders the banks to hand money from his account over to me. The bank, against the wishes of their client, hand over my money…because if they don’t the cops will shut them down.
Without the threat of jail, or other serious consequences, what incentive does anyone have to avoid defrauding or attacking me? I suppose one could posit that such functions can be handled “privately”. But I don’t see the big difference between a “private” police agency that can arrest people who don’t pay their bills and our current governmental system. You still have cops arresting you, judges sentencing you, and prison guards confining you if you break the rules. It just seems simpler to form a giant consortium that can handle all these jobs at once. And I have a name for the consortium already picked out…
It seems to me that having to live under the myriads of private agreements and contracts that would have to exist before you could rent an apartment, drive a car on a road, open a bank account, or protect yourself from physical violence would be much more onerous and intrusive than our current system of public taxation, laws and law enforcement.
I’d suggest the OP would do well to look at 19th Century Britain. Not only the mega-rich industrialists but also the charity - look at the literacy rates in the latter half, for instance.
A number of previous posters have mentioned wealth, but it has ever been the case that the key to success is education.
AAAARRGHH!!
:smack: That’s Frederick Poule.
I agree with you to a large extent, Lemur866. I was taking “ultra capitalist” to mean laissez-faire economics, whereas another equally valid definition would be an economic system with rule of law, banks, institutional financial markets etc.
Certainly capitalism does need some sort of universally accepted system of rules to function. Remove those and the system you end up doesn’t really resemble capitalism at all, even though everyone in theory has total economic freedom. In fact it is my view that on the scale of economic freedoms (ie extreme communism to extreme libertarian economics) there is a certain sweet spot between the two extremes, where practical economic freedom is maximised. Increase theoretical economic freedom too much (no restrictions on monopolies, no action to try to curb external costs etc) and the resulting reduction in wealth (and therefore economic freedom) for most people completely outweighs the increase in economic freedom. Whats the point of being free to have your company do whatever it likes if you can’t afford the start up capital to even get it off the ground? I would advocate that to get the most out of capitalism it must be moderated by a central agency. Otherwise economies of scale lead to monopolies, capital tends to accumulate in the hands of the few, those few abuse that economic power, and most people end up worse off. The scenarios i suggested reflect my opinions on the matter.
I would be interested to see what your opinions on what an ultra capitalist (using your definition) society would look like? Would it be better or worse than our current system?
Another recent fiction you might want to read, or might want to avoid reading, is Jennifer Government by Max Barry:
all the regulations like for pollution or food safety would have to be there, its absurd to do away with them. but the enforcement or even the development of acceptable standards themselves could be contracted out to the private sector, why not ?
if you want to do away with taxes you could require the businesses themselves to pay the cost of enforcement of various quality standards. and police could be financed through fines, as well as by making prisoners work instead of watching cable.
the kernel of the government ( say supreme court, senate and president ) could in turn be financed by these agencies that they empower with the right to harass the population.
it has already worked similar to this in the feudal system. meaning the king basically sold power for money.
even now we IN EFFECT have people buy power, whoever has most money wins the elections. but it could become official like it was in the middle ages 