What does free market finance do for Mexico?

[Dean]

Oh, I know: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-06-29/banks-financing-mexico-s-drug-cartels-admitted-in-wells-fargo-s-u-s-deal.html - "Wachovia's Drug Habit -Banks Financing Mexico Gangs Admitted in Wells Fargo Deal"

Interesting, the banks that have been linked - HSBC, BoA and Wachovia/Wells Fargo, are all some of the largest banks doing business in the US, and I've met with / written up contracts with all three in the furtherance of a home purchase.


This was no isolated incident. Wachovia, it turns out, had made a habit of helping move money for Mexican drug smugglers. Wells Fargo & Co. (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=WFC:US), which bought Wachovia in 2008, has admitted in court that its unit failed to monitor and report suspected money laundering by narcotics traffickers -- including the cash used to buy four planes that shipped a total of 22 tons of cocaine.


The admission came in an agreement that Charlotte, North Carolina-based Wachovia struck with federal prosecutors in March, and it sheds light on the largely undocumented role of U.S. banks in contributing to the violent drug trade that has convulsed Mexico for the past four years.
‘Blatant Disregard’



Wachovia admitted it didn’t do enough to spot illicit funds in handling $378.4 billion (http://www.justice.gov/usao/fls/PressReleases/Attachments/100317-02.Statement.pdf) for Mexican-currency-exchange houses from 2004 to 2007. That’s the largest violation of the Bank Secrecy Act, an anti-money-laundering law, in U.S. history -- a sum equal to one-third of Mexico’s current gross domestic product (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=MXGCTOT:IND).



“Wachovia’s blatant disregard for our banking laws gave international cocaine cartels a virtual carte blanche to finance their operations,” says Jeffrey Sloman (http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=Jeffrey%20Sloman&site=wnews&client=wnews&proxystylesheet=wnews&output=xml_no_dtd&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&filter=p&getfields=wnnis&sort=date:D:S:d1&partialfields=-wnnis:NOAVSYND&lr=-lang_ja), the federal prosecutor who handled the case.


And what was that one little thing that should have been stopping them from funding mass-murdering paramilitaries? A law? But I thought the free market was gonna do that!

[Havet]

What free market?

[Revolutionair]

The imaginary free market...







... Although I like Proudhon. :(

[Dean]

What free market?

Get a grip, kid. It was free market activity so long as the government didn't coerce Wachovia and BoA to take funds from the drug cartels - that is, that the action was a voluntary business relationship.

What a weak attempt to disassociate your propertarian ideology from market activity. But then, if we were to take you seriously, we'd have to believe that businesses will cease to act in their self-interest once the "free market" prevails:


Then how do you explain the success of the Cincinnati Time Store?
Apparently it was so successful that no other capitalist organization has found any value in perpetuating the system since.

But there's a little thing called marginal return on investment that makes the above store a terrible business model: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diminishing_returns

Of course, I wouldn't expect you to take real-world economics seriously. You would rather play around with idealist models, whose only purpose is to find the "moral economic system" regardless of viability or relevance to real systems.

This is why you need to stop reading mutualist crap and pick up some materialist analysis of economic activity.

[Havet]

Get a grip, kid. It was free market activity so long as the government didn't coerce Wachovia and BoA to take funds from the drug cartels - that is, that the action was a voluntary business relationship.

Simply because there was no government involved doesn't mean it was a free exchange of goods and services, in all its context, as I have previously used the term (http://www.revleft.com/vb/why-free-markets-t132366/index.html?t=132366).

For example, if 5 people own the whole world and engage in free exchanges of their property, it's still a free market - even though it's far from a free society. A free society probably implies a free market, but the reverse is not necessarily true. That's why I gave this (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1710331&postcount=6) definition of a free-market.

Obviously the existance of government acting within the fabric of society, and market institutions acting throught this mixed economy "fabric of society" are going to alter the hypothetical "natural" course if both were left alone. Hence why we need to look at it on a case by case basis.

All of the companies you mentioned have privileged special corporate laws (ie: they are incorporated).

The key attributes of corporate form all depend, directly or indirectly, on the legal identity of corporations as distinct persons apart from their shareholders and directors (and State corporation statutes presently establish this identity). For this reason (and part of what makes a corporation different from other forms of business organization) is that it is not subject to automatic dissolution and distribution and thus can exist beyond and apart from the composition of its shareholders. It will continue to exist even after the death of the last shareholder, unless it is dissolved by legal force, which under the State, can be due to simply not fulfilling filing and meeting requirements.

The corporation owns the assets, not the shareholders (they own only shares of the corporate entity, a mere abstraction of their rights to hire directors, receive dividends, dissolve corporation etc.). However, in practice, the corporate charter can contain instructions to dissolve the corporation voluntarily in the event of it being orphaned or the State will step in and do it (sometimes acquiring the property for itself). Of course, most shareholders leave their shares to their estate and heirs so the link is never broken; there would need to be no possible link to any eligible shareholder or heir, a rare thing. And, obviously, it also depends on the specific laws in place.

An asumption behind all of right-libertarian/conservative rethoric requires
the firm to be something that can be owned in the first place (http://insteadofablog.wordpress.com/2008/12/19/vaguely-defined-property-rights-indeed/)... If you want a "corporation" to be a joint stock entity for the collective ownership of property, I don't see the problem. But if you want to add other kinds of rights into that property right, like the right to rent labor and alienate their claim to the residual (while leaving them with the tort exposure), then I think you have a harder case without the state, or at least illiberal private lawyers.


we'd have to believe that businesses will cease to act in their self-interest once the "free market" prevails

I have never claimed that. Rather that once a free-society prevails, businesses self interest will be subject to contrary free-enterprise forces (such as competition, democratic decision, absence of artificial privileges) which will keep them more subject to consumer and worker's will.


But there's a little thing called marginal return on investment that makes the above store a terrible business model: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diminishing_returns

Would you care to explain in more detail how diminishing returns has affected the cincinnati time store? I don't understand, and I would like to understand before making a constructive fact-based counter-argument.


Of course, I wouldn't expect you to take real-world economics seriously. You would rather play around with idealist models, whose only purpose is to find the "moral economic system" regardless of viability or relevance to real systems.

bla bla bla


This is why you need to stop reading mutualist crap and pick up some materialist analysis of economic activity.

The "mutualist crap" i read is heavily based on marxist materialist analysis of economic activity, as my sources have shown several times.

[RGacky3]

Havets semantics, definitions and wording change by the day.

[Havet]

Havets semantics, definitions and wording change by the day.

No, they don't. If you payed attention, you would know that.

[Dean]

Simply because there was no government involved doesn't mean it was a free exchange of goods and services, in all its context, as I have previously used the term (http://www.revleft.com/vb/why-free-markets-t132366/index.html?t=132366).

For example, if 5 people own the whole world and engage in free exchanges of their property, it's still a free market - even though it's far from a free society. A free society probably implies a free market, but the reverse is not necessarily true. That's why I gave this (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1710331&postcount=6) definition of a free-market.

Obviously the existance of government acting within the fabric of society, and market institutions acting throught this mixed economy "fabric of society" are going to alter the hypothetical "natural" course if both were left alone. Hence why we need to look at it on a case by case basis.

All of the companies you mentioned have privileged special corporate laws (ie: they are incorporated).

The key attributes of corporate form all depend, directly or indirectly, on the legal identity of corporations as distinct persons apart from their shareholders and directors (and State corporation statutes presently establish this identity). For this reason (and part of what makes a corporation different from other forms of business organization) is that it is not subject to automatic dissolution and distribution and thus can exist beyond and apart from the composition of its shareholders. It will continue to exist even after the death of the last shareholder, unless it is dissolved by legal force, which under the State, can be due to simply not fulfilling filing and meeting requirements.

The corporation owns the assets, not the shareholders (they own only shares of the corporate entity, a mere abstraction of their rights to hire directors, receive dividends, dissolve corporation etc.). However, in practice, the corporate charter can contain instructions to dissolve the corporation voluntarily in the event of it being orphaned or the State will step in and do it (sometimes acquiring the property for itself). Of course, most shareholders leave their shares to their estate and heirs so the link is never broken; there would need to be no possible link to any eligible shareholder or heir, a rare thing. And, obviously, it also depends on the specific laws in place.

An asumption behind all of right-libertarian/conservative rethoric requires
the firm to be something that can be owned in the first place (http://insteadofablog.wordpress.com/2008/12/19/vaguely-defined-property-rights-indeed/)... If you want a "corporation" to be a joint stock entity for the collective ownership of property, I don't see the problem. But if you want to add other kinds of rights into that property right, like the right to rent labor and alienate their claim to the residual (while leaving them with the tort exposure), then I think you have a harder case without the state, or at least illiberal private lawyers.

Ah, so if it wasn't a corporation, it would have refused to work with paramilitary forces. Makes perfect sense!

Or, you might be blowing obfuscatory hot air.

I have never claimed that. Rather that once a free-society prevails, businesses self interest will be subject to contrary free-enterprise forces (such as competition, democratic decision, absence of artificial privileges) which will keep them more subject to consumer and worker's will.
Unfortunately, none of this has anything to do with the issue of whether or not a banking institution will provide services to violent paramilitary organizations.


Would you care to explain in more detail how diminishing returns has affected the cincinnati time store? I don't understand, and I would like to understand before making a constructive fact-based counter-argument.
The fact that you already assume that you will make a counter-argument says loads about how obsessive and single-minded is your approach to your wild, idealist fantasy realm. It's really pitiful that you only care about using theory to fulfill your own ideological prejudices. It might do you well to just get out there and, you know, learn about economics. Not just fringe mutualist "Marxist sympathizing" theorists.

"Diminishing returns" refers to lower profits given the repeated input of capital and sales - that is, the more of a product is sold (or on the market), the less scarcity value it has, and therefore the less profit can be made on single units. It's explained fairly well in the article I linked to.


The "mutualist crap" i read is heavily based on marxist materialist analysis of economic activity, as my sources have shown several times.
I wouldn't give a damn if they were based on my own materialist analysis; the fact is that they (or more accurately, your interpretation of them) is woefully obsessed with justifying the mutualist paradigm - not discovering how real systems work. You've said so yourself that you're "uninterested" in how "private security" will exist in mutualism - even though the question of violence in at the heart of your concept of "the state" and "artificial privilege"!

The thing is (yet again!) I'm discussing real shit, and you're not. Unless you can explain how the drug cartel system is fundamentally driven by non-market sources, you're totally off base and should leave the discussion. As it stands, market values, finance and sales are all market forces, and none of these are examples of "disempowered markets"! To the contrary - it is the hegemony of market forces!

[RadioRaheem84]

Why is there never a perfect example of capitalism for right wing libertarians? Apparently, the third world isn't capitalist enough for them considering the lax regulations and the first world isn't enough for them because of the regulations! But whenever they want great and grand examples of capitalism's beauty they point to the most regulated of capitalist countries; the mixed economies of the Western and Asian world!

They are so inconsistent.

[Havet]

Ah, so if it wasn't a corporation, it would have refused to work with paramilitary forces. Makes perfect sense!

I just pointed out how the state was involved, proving how there isn't a free-market in its fullest sense after all.

In any case, even if it wasn't a corporation, it could still have worked with paramilitary forces. Communist states have done that throughout history. Whether its because of the profit motive or some other motive, any institution may do hideous things, even if democratically managed.


The fact that you already assume that you will make a counter-argument says loads about how obsessive and single-minded is your approach to your wild, idealist fantasy realm. It's really pitiful that you only care about using theory to fulfill your own ideological prejudices. It might do you well to just get out there and, you know, learn about economics. Not just fringe mutualist "Marxist sympathizing" theorists.

Oh, would you rather i'd just automatically agree with you because you are an all mighty all knowing person? I smell religion...


"Diminishing returns" refers to lower profits given the repeated input of capital and sales - that is, the more of a product is sold (or on the market), the less scarcity value it has, and therefore the less profit can be made on single units. It's explained fairly well in the article I linked to.

Ok, thanks. So now I understand that. What I don't understand is how can you claim that diminishing returns was the cause for the disappearance of the cincinnati time store given that:
a) The product being sold (a store where you could directly exchange with other people time and labor) was the only one in the region, therefore it was a very scarce "product"
b) The store never even gave profits because, as I understand from what i've read, the owner did not charge people to put up ads in there.


...is woefully obsessed with justifying the mutualist paradigm - not discovering how real systems work.

How real systems work is explained by the mutualist paradigm. Again i feel obliged to point out that you should read some history (http://www.mutualist.org/id10.html).


You've said so yourself that you're "uninterested" in how "private security" will exist in mutualism - even though the question of violence in at the heart of your concept of "the state" and "artificial privilege"!

I'm uninterested in the anarcho-capitalism justification of private defense agencies. I have no idea how mutualist security will be achieved, or if it will be achieved at all, just as you have no idea if a new communist revolution will be successful. But there are reasons to believe that security handled at a local level, communally (in mutualism), the free possession of weapons for self-defense and the lack of means for private enterprises to grow powerful enough, will prevent any private dictatorship by the means of arms.


Unless you can explain how the drug cartel system is fundamentally driven by non-market sources, you're totally off base and should leave the discussion.

It is because of State laws (non-market forces) that restrict supply that make drug trafficking so lucrative, since they artificially inflate its price.

I don't usually link to blogs, but after a quick google search, this one here (http://www.humblelibertarian.com/2009/04/how-we-caused-mexico-drug-war-and-how.html) offers a good economic explanation to the problem and its solution.

Hell even Manuel Zelaya (http://archivo.laprensa.hn/ez/index.php/laprensa_user/ediciones/2008/02/23/zelaya_sugiere_a_eua_legalizar_drogas) asked the USA to consider legalizing drugs

[Dean]

I just pointed out how the state was involved, proving how there isn't a free-market in its fullest sense after all.

In any case, even if it wasn't a corporation, it could still have worked with paramilitary forces. Communist states have done that throughout history. Whether its because of the profit motive or some other motive, any institution may do hideous things, even if democratically managed.
Actually, the point is that it is the black market, which is in fact the only free market. Plenty of commodities have high prices, and "artificially" high ones at that, without resorting to violence.

Oh, would you rather i'd just automatically agree with you because you are an all mighty all knowing person? I smell religion...
That's right, pull out the "religion" argument. I've already devoted a large sum of time describing how childish are flippant arguments describing ideologies as "religions," but its such an obvious point that I won't repeat it here.


Ok, thanks. So now I understand that. What I don't understand is how can you claim that diminishing returns was the cause for the disappearance of the cincinnati time store given that:
a) The product being sold (a store where you could directly exchange with other people time and labor) was the only one in the region, therefore it was a very scarce "product"
b) The store never even gave profits because, as I understand from what i've read, the owner did not charge people to put up ads in there.
:laugh: "Their commodity was the store"? What the fuck? You really don't understand economics at all, do you?

How real systems work is explained by the mutualist paradigm. Again i feel obliged to point out that you should read some history (http://www.mutualist.org/id10.html).
What a preposterous article. The state has routinely broken up monopolies because large centralized organizations threaten the state's power. It's further ridiculous for the article to root cartelization solely to state power.

Furthermore, this isn't a lesson in history; it's designed - from the beginning - to prove Austrian nonsense. Its primary quotes are partisan theorists. I haven't read an article in a long time that had such a terribly obvious, self-fulfilling ideology littered throughout like this.


I'm uninterested in the anarcho-capitalism justification of private defense agencies. I have no idea how mutualist security will be achieved, or if it will be achieved at all, just as you have no idea if a new communist revolution will be successful. But there are reasons to believe that security handled at a local level, communally (in mutualism), the free possession of weapons for self-defense and the lack of means for private enterprises to grow powerful enough, will prevent any private dictatorship by the means of arms.
Sure, until people start to purchase and sell services. :rolleyes:




It is because of State laws (non-market forces) that restrict supply that make drug trafficking so lucrative, since they artificially inflate its price.

I don't usually link to blogs, but after a quick google search, this one here (http://www.humblelibertarian.com/2009/04/how-we-caused-mexico-drug-war-and-how.html) offers a good economic explanation to the problem and its solution.
The first place I go to to understand the root causes of the drug trade are libertarian blogs. What a shock that they blame the state!


Hell even Manuel Zelaya (http://archivo.laprensa.hn/ez/index.php/laprensa_user/ediciones/2008/02/23/zelaya_sugiere_a_eua_legalizar_drogas) asked the USA to consider legalizing drugs
Surely the arms trafficking and human trafficking are exclusively state-driven problems, too.


You know what the most pitiful thing you said here was? "State laws (non-market forces)." Sorry, those are market forces. They deal in the relationship within commerce of aggregate supply and demand, of which the state is clearly an actor in - and subject to the market forces in the exact same way that leaders are subject to the contemporary power systems.:


The point was that the conditions for singular leadership are neither created by the given individual, nor is the enactment of his or her policy created by him or her. It is the struggle for survival or expansion of any given power system that makes individual activity effective; simply put, without resonance through a practical power system which is responsive to the leader's policies, they will fail - either totally, by deeply reorganizing the system in an undesired way, or marginally, by failing to achieve any of the goals set out by the leader.
You see, its not a question of the "big bad meanies (the state) asserting their own will and making everything terrible." It's the manifestation of market forces in a market economy that defines how power systems are expressed in society.

[Havet]

Actually, the point is that it is the black market, which is in fact the only free market.

*sigh*

The only reason the black market is so rampant in mexico is due to state laws as I have proven earlier. Please stop evading the point.

Tell me, what is the definition of a black market?


an illegal market in which goods or currencies are bought and sold in violation of rationing or controls


Plenty of commodities have high prices, and "artificially" high ones at that, without resorting to violence.

But of course. The scarcer the good, the the lower its supply, the higher its price to those who demand it. But its not the common case. Most commodities/services wouldnt have artificial high prices if state barriers to entry and granted privileges weren't in place.


:laugh: "Their commodity was the store"? What the fuck? You really don't understand economics at all, do you?

Are you telling me that you can't even realize that I made a typo and I meant to say that "The service was the store"?? How about using some common sense and contextualizing what I say next time before trying to use a typo as an excuse to refrain from adressing my points?


What a preposterous article. The state has routinely broken up monopolies because large centralized organizations threaten the state's power. It's further ridiculous for the article to root cartelization solely to state power.

Just because there are several cases where the state has broken up monopolies doesn't mean it didn't have anything to do with HOW those businesses achieved such a monopolistic position. Either you start bringing some more concrete examples or we are not going to get anywhere with this abstract talk you enjoy so much.


Furthermore, this isn't a lesson in history; it's designed - from the beginning - to prove Austrian nonsense. Its primary quotes are partisan theorists. I haven't read an article in a long time that had such a terribly obvious, self-fulfilling ideology littered throughout like this.

I doubt you have read it given your description of it.


Sure, until people start to purchase and sell services. :rolleyes:

Which, whether you like it or not, will eventually happen between communes in your idealized society. Trade is an essential activity of human action, and it is always happening, although it can be expressed in different forms (trading money for a product/service, trading a product/service for a product/service, trading a directly democratic vote for a product/service, etc)


The first place I go to to understand the root causes of the drug trade are libertarian blogs. What a shock that they blame the state!

Coward. You resort to dismissing an entire economical argumentation (which IS based on basic microeconomic notions commonly accepted) simply because they disagree with you without actually proving how what is being said is incorrect.


Surely the arms trafficking and human trafficking are exclusively state-driven problems, too.

Oh I see what you did there. Trying to be sarcastic, are we?

Why do you think it's called arms trafficking (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics#Worldwide_politics_and_legislation)?

As far as human trafficking goes, it's not something that will go away if "human trade is legalized" (which is a ridiculous notion, even by right-libertarian standards, since it goes against their axiom of self-ownership). It is indeed the fault of greedy profit-driven small gangs and even businesses.

Even if we lived in a socialist commune, there are motivations to want to have people into working for "the greater good" and not receiving the same benefits of the people from the commune (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStFovpAY54&feature=related).


You know what the most pitiful thing you said here was? "State laws (non-market forces)." Sorry, those are market forces. They deal in the relationship within commerce of aggregate supply and demand, of which the state is clearly an actor in - and subject to the market forces in the exact same way that leaders are subject to the contemporary power systems.:
:laugh::laugh::laugh:

Markets typically don't use direct violence to enforce a trade. There is a seller and there is a buyer, and they usually agree by common consensus on engaging in the trade. The state, however, uses direct violence. In fact, the State is only violence. If the state did not have any armed power it would not be able to enforce any of the laws voted under representative democracy.

Of course, there are the problems of the conditions around which regular consensus market trade is changed and, employees for example, are kept in an artificially low position of power which businesses will glady try to maintain at all costs.


You see, its not a question of the "big bad meanies (the state) asserting their own will and making everything terrible." It's the manifestation of market forces in a market economy that defines how power systems are expressed in society.

This has always been the problem between you and I. You keep insisting on vague and abstract terms when it is required that we both focus on individual examples and analyze how they interact with one another (and their synergy). A bottom-up analysis, imo, is much more scientifically accurate than a top-down abstract analysis.

[Skooma Addict]

I guess all of the negative consequences of a black market are due to the free market....somehow.

[RGacky3]

I guess all of the negative consequences of a black market are due to the free market....somehow.


The black market is the freest of markets.

Heres the thing, its like this for free market folk, the less regulation the crappier society gets until there is no regulation then its perfect. THATS their argument, which they can keep fighting for, but its stupid.

[Skooma Addict]

The black market is the freest of markets.

Heres the thing, its like this for free market folk, the less regulation the crappier society gets until there is no regulation then its perfect. THATS their argument, which they can keep fighting for, but its stupid.

Black markets emerge due to excessive regulation. All of the problems which come with black markets do not arise from the fact that they are markets, but the fact that the markets have been driven underground by the government.

[Zapatas Guns]

Black markets emerge due to excessive regulation. All of the problems which come with black markets do not arise from the fact that they are markets, but the fact that the markets have been driven underground by the government.

Any regulation at all in a CAPITALIST country can cause a black market. This will always happen. There will always be others that want to exploit and try to move up the socio-economic latter.

Look at ridiculous DRM on software and DVD movies. It has created a black market or those items without DRM. DRM laws are there to enforce proprietary ideas. As usual, the government is set up to protect the interests of the wealthy and powerful. The artist that does all the work get pennies for each album sale and the recording company makes boat loads.

Take child pornography. I doubt we will find many people that believe child pornography is appropriate. It is regulated by being banned. That does not stop perverts from trying to make it for profit or from pervert from watching it for their own pleasure.

These are all problem in capitalist societies because everyone is trying to be cut throat to get one up on someone else.

[M-26-7]

Markets typically don't use direct violence to enforce a trade. There is a seller and there is a buyer, and they usually agree by common consensus on engaging in the trade. The state, however, uses direct violence. In fact, the State is only violence.

First of all, violence occurs between buyers and sellers all the time. Typically this happens when buyer and seller meet on extremely unequal terms. In American history, poor men who have sold their labor to very rich men have been known to feel the business end of a Pinkerton Detective Agency billy club if they tried to collectively withhold their labor. In the third world today, you can be murdered by private goons for trying to organize a trade union. So yes, it is safe to say that the "free market" produces coerced "transactions" between the rich and poor every day.

Often, however, the bulk of violence or misery generated by a large financial transaction is inflicted not on the buyer or the seller, but on a third party. As with the Bhopal disaster, which has been responsible for thousands of times more deaths and injuries than Chernobyl (the worst state-run industrial accident that I can think of).

And you are correct: often this violence against third parties is perpetrated by the government, at the behest of capitalists.

Another example involving the Mexican government and a Yankee bank springs to mind:


CHIAPAS

The uprising in the southern state of Chiapas is now one-year old and, apparently, no nearer to resolution. The leader, or spokesman, of the movement, sub-commandante Marcos, remains adamant in his demand that the incumbent PRI governor resign and be replaced by the PRD candidate who, Marcos argues, was deprived of victory by government fraud in the recent election. Marcos continues to lobby for widespread social and economic reform in the state. Incidents continue between the local police and military authorities and those sympathetic to the Zapatista movement, as the insurgency is called, and local peasant groups who are sympathetic to Marcos and his cronies.

While Zedillo is committed to a diplomatic and political solution th the stand-off in Chiapas, it is difficult to imagine that the current environment will yield a peaceful solution. Moreover, to the degree that the monetary crisis limits the resources available to the government for social and economic reforms, it may prove difficult to win popular support for the Zedillo administration's plans for Chiapas. More relevant, Marcos and his supporters may decide to embarrass the government with an increase in local violence and force the administration to cede to Zapatista demands and accept an embarrassing political defeat. The alternative is a military offensive to defeat the insurgency which would create an international outcry over the use of violence and the suppression of indigenous rights.

While Chiapas, in our opinion, does not pose a fundamental threat to Mexican political stability, it is perceived to be so by many in the investment community. The government will need to eliminate the Zapatistas to demonstrate their effective control of the national territory and of security policy.

This is from a 1995 Chase Manhattan Bank memo to the Mexican government, telling them that in order to make their country appear secure to outsiders, and hence attractive for investment, they need to commit genocide against the peasants in the state of Chiapas.

[RadioRaheem84]

I am surprised skooma hasn't yet figured out that a critique of the state (especially in a capitalist country) is not a critique of socialism. A lot of right wing libertarians assume this.

[Havet]

First of all, violence occurs between buyers and sellers all the time. Typically this happens when buyer and seller meet on extremely unequal terms. In American history, poor men who have sold their labor to very rich men have been known to feel the business end of a Pinkerton Detective Agency billy club if they tried to collectively withhold their labor. In the third world today, you can be murdered by private goons for trying to organize a trade union. So yes, it is safe to say that the "free market" produces coerced "transactions" between the rich and poor every day.

I completely agree, except i'd add something. Normally violence is more prone to appear when inequalities are experienced. Now you might say: "are you mad Havet? free-market practically breeds inequalities! just look at history!"

And i have! I have looked at history and I have seen how numerous times (http://www.mutualist.org/id10.html) (not in absolutely all cases, mind you), these inequalities are set up by an agency of legitimized coercion (a representative democracy government, for example) which, given its monopoly position on force and its centralization of resources, makes it an easier target of businessmen who don't wish to deal in terms of market transactions but would rather have the State "balance" the things in favour of them, usually in the form of corruption.


Often, however, the bulk of violence or misery generated by a large financial transaction is inflicted not on the buyer or the seller, but on a third party.

And you are correct: often this violence is perpetrated by the government, at the behest of capitalists.

That bolded part is extremely important. Thanks for bringing it up. Most of the times economic interests are what drive violence.


Another example involving the Mexican government and a Yankee bank springs to mind:

This is from a 1995 Chase Manhattan Bank memo to the Mexican government, telling them that in order to make their country appear secure to outsiders, and hence attractive for investment, they need to commit genocide against the peasants in the state of Chiapas.

Once again this goes into the line of reasoning we were both explaining. Economic interests (which, I should add, are in an artificially position of power due to their interactions with the State, directly and indirectly, purposefully or unintentionally) many times drive violence, something that should be opposed in its entirety.

[RGacky3]

these inequalities are set up by an agency of legitimized coercion (a representative democracy government, for example) which, given its monopoly position on force and its centralization of resources, makes it an easier target of businessmen who don't wish to deal in terms of market transactions but would rather have the State "balance" the things in favour of them, usually in the form of corruption.


So without a representative democratic government I suppose buisinessmen would just give up and play fair right?

The buisinessmen HAVE to corrupt a represetnative government, because its representative, without a representative government they don't need to corrupt anyone because they just set up their own power.

Its like blaiming the state for the BP spil because they let BP get away with safty violations, and then saying that somehow they would have not done the safty violations without any laws to violate.


All of the problems which come with black markets do not arise from the fact that they are markets, but the fact that the markets have been driven underground by the government.

Ic, so I suppose the only reason they don't play fair is because there are "fairness" laws that they have to violate, if they did'nt exist I guess they would just play fair would'nt they?

Its like saying now one would smoke weed if it was legal.

[Skooma Addict]

Any regulation at all in a CAPITALIST country can cause a black market. This will always happen. There will always be others that want to exploit and try to move up the socio-economic latter.

Look at ridiculous DRM on software and DVD movies. It has created a black market or those items without DRM. DRM laws are there to enforce proprietary ideas. As usual, the government is set up to protect the interests of the wealthy and powerful. The artist that does all the work get pennies for each album sale and the recording company makes boat loads.

Take child pornography. I doubt we will find many people that believe child pornography is appropriate. It is regulated by being banned. That does not stop perverts from trying to make it for profit or from pervert from watching it for their own pleasure.

These are all problem in capitalist societies because everyone is trying to be cut throat to get one up on someone else.

This doesn't really contest what I said. The great thing about markets is that society as a whole is benefiting from people trying to satisfy their own ends. People do not need to care about the common good in order to benefit it.

And besides, there would still be black markets in socialist societies.


I am surprised skooma hasn't yet figured out that a critique of the state (especially in a capitalist country) is not a critique of socialism. A lot of right wing libertarians assume this.

Where in this thread could you possibly draw the conclusion that I did not know that a critique of the state is not a critique of socialism? What you are doing is taking your favorite imaginary "right-libertarian" strawman which you use to generalize everyone who disagrees with you, and then you critique the positions which your imaginary straw man holds as if those positions are held by other people who disagree with you.

[RGacky3]

The great thing about markets is that society as a whole is benefiting from people trying to satisfy their own ends. People do not need to care about the common good in order to benefit it.

If you mean rich people when you say society as a whole, then yeah, thats the point about the market, it is'nt concerned about people, its concerned about how much money you can get from them, which means obviously that poor people get very little consideration (this is economics 101, I would think you free market whizzez would have figured this out by now).

[RadioRaheem84]

Where in this thread could you possibly draw the conclusion that I did not know that a critique of the state is not a critique of socialism? What you are doing is taking your favorite imaginary "right-libertarian" strawman which you use to generalize everyone who disagrees with you, and then you critique the positions which your imaginary straw man holds as if those positions are held by other people who disagree with you. Well then you wouldn't be at odds with many people in here. Would you care to enlighten me with a right libertarian critique of socialism and that doesn't fall into the "statism" framework you guys tout often?

Also, why do you guys always mention that society benefits from markets when only a few really do and the rest just "trickles down" to the rest of us? Why is this more of a benefit than having the economy be democratically run?

[Skooma Addict]

If you mean rich people when you say society as a whole, then yeah, thats the point about the market, it is'nt concerned about people, its concerned about how much money you can get from them, which means obviously that poor people get very little consideration (this is economics 101, I would think you free market whizzez would have figured this out by now).

If rich people were as poswerful as you claim, then how come of those in the top 1% in 1999, only 44.6% were still there in 2007?

But no, I do not mean rich people when I say society as a whole. "The Market" is not concerned about anything. The way you are using the term "the market" doesn't make sense.


Well then you wouldn't be at odds with many people in here. Would you care to inform of a right libertarian critique of socialism and that doesn't fall into the "statism" framework you guys tout often?

I don't know what a "right-libertarian" is. So I do not know of any "right-libertarian" critiques of socialism.

[RadioRaheem84]

I don't know what a "right-libertarian" is. So I do not know of any "right-libertarian" critiques of socialism.

Quit acting dumb. As opposed to a left-libertarian, meaning libertarian socialist. A libertarian in the American sense of the term; a strong proponent of free markets, Friedman loving, Mises reading, cappie.

[Skooma Addict]

Quit acting dumb. As opposed to a left-libertarian, meaning libertarian socialist. A libertarian in the American sense of the term; a strong proponent of free markets, Friedman loving, Mises reading, cappie.

Given that the last 3 qualifiers are meaningless, you are defining a "right-libertarian" as "a strong proponent of free markets." However, the number of different groups who could fall under that banner is far too large for you to generalize them all as "right-libertarians." Take for example those who are for free markets but who are against even the most basic social freedoms. Under your definition, they would be "right-libertarians." But then you would be grouping them under the same flag as people like Roderick Long. It makes no sense.

[Havet]

So without a representative democratic government I suppose buisinessmen would just give up and play fair right?

The buisinessmen HAVE to corrupt a represetnative government, because its representative, without a representative government they don't need to corrupt anyone because they just set up their own power.

Its like blaiming the state for the BP spil because they let BP get away with safty violations, and then saying that somehow they would have not done the safty violations without any laws to violate.

Without a representative government, we could instead have a system of direct governance (direct democracy), in which it becomes increasingly difficult to corrupt the agents of power because each agent holds less power and the power overall is more disperse. The unit of "power-holding" being each individual citizen.

[Dean]

Without a representative government, we could instead have a system of direct governance (direct democracy), in which it becomes increasingly difficult to corrupt the agents of power because each agent holds less power and the power overall is more disperse. The unit of "power-holding" being each individual citizen.

Sure, if the financial character of the market didn't create unequal power distribution. But it does, and always has.

I guess people, when equally competing for resources, are just going to change their entire mode of market activity? Your ridiculous mutualist fantasy will only exist when people use the market to try to equalize assets, not try to maximize their own utility, the latter of which is what occurs today, and always has.

I've realized that in every thread here, you're leaping onto phrases like "free market," redefining them, and then arguing for them as if the discussing even had anything to do with your own crazy organizational theory. It's a desperate defense of your ideology in the context of a discussion that had no interest in your ideology and never will, primarily because even Skooma Addict doesn't think that a market economy will naturally become an egalitarian wonderworld, as much as he loves them.

The unit of "power-holding" being each individual citizen.
This is absurd. People simply don't have power just by nature of their being human. It takes more than that, in particular, a viable political structure which disperses power. You keep just describing these ideals as if they represented real material phenonomena. They don't, and its far more absurd than idealist communism because at least the latter can see, after thousands of years of experience, that markets do not, in fact, disperse power - they consistently create power centers, which are such due to
-agricultural, mineral and building resources
-central locations for trade
-control over or favor from political structures
-possession of capital
-possession of diversified holdings
-possession of financial products
-enough money to lend it for a profit

There is absolutely no reason to think that all or even most of these critical financial game-changers will disappear once everyone has "equal economic power" to exchange on the market floor. Those who see and execute ways to maximize returns will come out with more financial power. Once they accrue those returns - how convenient that those who were seeking a profit now have more money to invest! The class of capitalists will in this way always be engendered in a market.

You're ravings sound like a primitivist version of the following:

We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that perfect world in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality -- one vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock, all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused.
...except that you don't even seem to see that the world is, in fact, made up of business interests.

[Dean]

Given that the last 3 qualifiers are meaningless, you are defining a "right-libertarian" as "a strong proponent of free markets." However, the number of different groups who could fall under that banner is far too large for you to generalize them all as "right-libertarians." Take for example those who are for free markets but who are against even the most basic social freedoms. Under your definition, they would be "right-libertarians." But then you would be grouping them under the same flag as people like Roderick Long. It makes no sense.

Real helpful. Just because he failed to point out the social policy of right-libertarians, doesn't engender this ridiculous critique of yours. He forgot to mention their propensity to support the US constitution, too! He must think right-libertarians don't support gun rights!

You're false ignorance about "right-libertarians" does nothing but obfuscate the discussion. Google (http://www.google.com/search?q=right-libertarian) was readily available, but nope! You had to make semantics the central theme of the discussion by instead levying the question against him. Real productive.

[RGacky3]

If rich people were as poswerful as you claim, then how come of those in the top 1% in 1999, only 44.6% were still there in 2007?


Because other people got rich, but what does that have to do with what I was talking about?


But no, I do not mean rich people when I say society as a whole. "The Market" is not concerned about anything. The way you are using the term "the market" doesn't make sense.


The Market is concerned about profits. Thats why there is more money to be made catering to wealthly people because they HAVE more money.


Without a representative government, we could instead have a system of direct governance (direct democracy), in which it becomes increasingly difficult to corrupt the agents of power because each agent holds less power and the power overall is more disperse. The unit of "power-holding" being each individual citizen.

I agree.

[Havet]

Sure, if the financial character of the market didn't create unequal power distribution. But it does, and always has.

Prove it then, that it was through completely free-trade and without any intervention whatsoever that the market has created an unequal power distribution.


I guess people, when equally competing for resources, are just going to change their entire mode of market activity? Your ridiculous mutualist fantasy will only exist when people use the market to try to equalize assets, not try to maximize their own utility, the latter of which is what occurs today, and always has.

Interesting, I always thought communists rejected (http://www.revleft.com/vb/army-altruists-attempt-t137098/index.html?t=137098&highlight=rational+choice+theory) rational choice theories and other rand-esque hypothesis.

Even so, as i've said countless times, I do not ignore that people will try to maximize their own utility. I do not see any historical evidence or reasonable argument that proves the proposition that under certain circumstances ("my" definition of a free-market; free-trade of goods and services without any artificial privileges and equal opportunity to access resources) utility maximization will lead to inequalities of such great scale that will unbalance social "harmony" (if that is not too much of an utopian concept)


This is absurd. People simply don't have power just by nature of their being human. It takes more than that, in particular, a viable political structure which disperses power.

I think you did not read my reply with careful attention (as usual). I specifically mentioned a directly democratical system. Where did you get the idea that i thought humans had some sort of "intrinsic individual magic power"??


There is absolutely no reason to think that all or even most of these critical financial game-changers will disappear once everyone has "equal economic power" to exchange on the market floor. Those who see and execute ways to maximize returns will come out with more financial power.

Once they accrue those returns - how convenient that those who were seeking a profit now have more money to invest! The class of capitalists will in this way always be engendered in a market.

@ highlighted: Up to a certain point. Power is not infinite or intemporal in a dynamic and free market economy. The non-existance of artificial barriers to entry increases competition, which removes a market share of a certain companies which you (as everyone else) would be scared of achieving and maintaining a monopoly position.*

Furthermore, as the currency would not be up to a centralized entity (currently in the USA, it is up to the private Federal Reserve Banking), rates of interest would not be changed at whim in order to foster short-term (catastrophic) profits (something that happened in this current economic downturn), so investment return would happen on a greater time scale and in less quantity, yet more safer and less volatile to an hypothetical Wall Street's rampant short-term profit chasers.

*EDIT: In the overwhelming majority of recorded monopoly cases you will always find that it was the private businesses which took advantage of already established centralized institutions of power, either directly or indirectly, in order to achieve a greater market domination

[Dean]

If rich people were as poswerful as you claim, then how come of those in the top 1% in 1999, only 44.6% were still there in 2007?
Meanwhile, the top 1% of us workers (executives) earned a pay increase of 28% to 33% of gross US wages and salaries. Yep, they couldn't be powerful at all! http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124813343694466841.html#articleTabs%3Dinteractiv e, http://www.economicpopulist.org/content/executives-get-33-all-pay-us-wsj

[RGacky3]

Prove it then, that it was through completely free-trade and without any intervention whatsoever that the market has created an unequal power distribution.



Theres never Been a Free market without intervention, because thats impossible.

However what you have to proove is how the intervention directly CAUSED the enequal power distribution.

[Dean]

Prove it then, that it was through completely free-trade and without any intervention whatsoever that the market has created an unequal power distribution.
So, your entire proof is based on the fact that we don't live in an anarchistic society? Sounds like you've found the perfect edifice - nobody will ever be able to critique you, then - because not a single word of what you discuss is allowed to be checked against the real world. So fucking pedantic.

Prove that you can allocate natural resources without creating a ration-based power structure.

[Dean]

Theres never Been a Free market without intervention, because thats impossible.

However what you have to proove is how the intervention directly CAUSED the enequal power distribution.

That doesn't matter. For hayenmill, intervention is the only possible cause for any market conditions he deems morally repugnant.

[RGacky3]

That doesn't matter. For hayenmill, intervention is the only possible cause for any market conditions he deems morally repugnant.

And I suppose everything good that happens is BECAUSE of the market.

His argument is akin to saying "everyone that gets drunk drinks out of a drinking recepticle, thus drunkenness is due to use of a drinking recepticle, if people just took the glass out of drinking there would be no drunkenness."

That sounds dumb but thats the EXACT argument, there is no way to proove it because drinking is ALWAYS done (by definition) out of drinking recepticles.

[Havet]

Theres never Been a Free market without intervention, because thats impossible.

Why is it impossible? What IS impossible is for political structures and markets to coexist without each trying to benefit from the existence of one another.


However what you have to proove is how the intervention directly CAUSED the enequal power distribution.

How do you define "power distribution"? Do you mean wealth, real earnings, GDP, or something else?

[Havet]

So, your entire proof is based on the fact that we don't live in an anarchistic society? Sounds like you've found the perfect edifice - nobody will ever be able to critique you, then - because not a single word of what you discuss is allowed to be checked against the real world. So fucking pedantic.

It is you who were trying to differentiate between markets and politics in the first place, when you try to blame markets exclusively for the problem (and you use the term markets, in this context, as free-trade) while politicians are "innocently" dragged inside by the greedy capitalists.

Well, I am merely proving I can do the same. If you wish to blame markets and private property exclusively for everything then you need to show instances where markets and private property exist alone and degenerate into the problems we also see today.


Prove that you can allocate natural resources without creating a ration-based power structure.

Again with the vagueness. Either you narrow it down to a more specific example (properly justfying why a single certain factor, for example, the existence of private property, was to blame for a certain negative consequence in a society, with facts and sources) or we are not going to understand each other.

[RGacky3]

Why is it impossible? What IS impossible is for political structures and markets to coexist without each trying to benefit from the existence of one another.


Because the Market is a state institution, the state enforces property laws.


How do you define "power distribution"? Do you mean wealth, real earnings, GDP, or something else?

Wealth pretty much, you know what I mean, the ability to buy things.

[Havet]

Because the Market is a state institution, the state enforces property laws.

That depends on your definition of state. It is true that traditionally the state (a centralized socio-political institution, usually in the form of an oligarchy or a representative democracy) has used the police and military to protect its citizen's private property.

But that, of course, is not the only way to protect it. This is why I insisted on explaining why some older definitions of State do not have the sufficient explanatory power (occam's razor) to be the best definitions (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1480146&postcount=1).

Because if I am in a community where there is an intersubjective consensus (ie: common agreement) that everyone owns their plot of land and respects their neighbour's plots, will I be a state if I defend it against an outside invasion? No. Nor am I a "state institution".


Wealth pretty much, you know what I mean, the ability to buy things.

Ok, so now we have to be more specific. Do you know of any situation that could be used as a proof that I am wrong? This is easier for me to analyze (through individual examples, and then extrapolate, if possible, to the whole), because just proving a vague "how state intervention increased unequal wealth distribution" is rather difficult. Mainly because the state sometimes acts to equalize wealth distributions (eg: increase progressive taxes) and sometimes acts to increase the unequalities of wealth distribution (eg: privileges to existing businesses which allows them to maintain their market position and prevent wage earners to start their own company)

[Dean]

It is you who were trying to differentiate between markets and politics in the first place, when you try to blame markets exclusively for the problem (and you use the term markets, in this context, as free-trade) while politicians are "innocently" dragged inside by the greedy capitalists.

Well, I am merely proving I can do the same. If you wish to blame markets and private property exclusively for everything then you need to show instances where markets and private property exist alone and degenerate into the problems we also see today.
No, you're not proving that you can "do the same" and my argument has never simply been "market evil, the end." For one thing, the entire political body is fundamentally flawed in that proper education and news are not applied to the system of voting which is meant to be "representative" of its constituency.

In fact, if you cared to analyze politics, you'd be able to see that political positions are a form of capital which provides for management of markets. But so are all the private petrol and energy firms, too.

But I never blamed the market as the sole system responsible for the accumulation of capital. For you to pretend that your multi-month long tirade agaisnt gov't as the sole provider of "artificial" market conditions is nothing more than an allegory for my arguments is absurd.

But it explains why you erroneously thought that Mexican drug violence was the result of a "repressive state" - the Mexican police and army are instrumental in the drug trade, by helping with kidnappings, assassinations and the transport of drugs across the border! :lol:

Again with the vagueness. Either you narrow it down to a more specific example (properly justfying why a single certain factor, for example, the existence of private property, was to blame for a certain negative consequence in a society, with facts and sources) or we are not going to understand each other.
You made this ridiculous clause earlier (my emphasis):

I do not see any historical evidence or reasonable argument that proves the proposition that under certain circumstances ("my" definition of a free-market; free-trade of goods and services without any artificial privileges and equal opportunity to access resources)
Right, no "artificial" privileges but we are supposed to erect a system which ensures equal access to limited resources, which is further agitated by the fact that people do not live in proximity to equal resources. That is, we can't expect Africans to have equal access to arable land by nature of their location.

You keep going back to "artificial" to justify why you reject certain market conditions. Yet nowhere is this clause made clear. I'd be interested to hear you describe a single market condition which you don't think is "artificial."

[Dean]

But that, of course, is not the only way to protect it. This is why I insisted on explaining why some older definitions of State do not have the sufficient explanatory power (occam's razor) to be the best definitions (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1480146&postcount=1).

Because if I am in a community where there is an intersubjective consensus (ie: common agreement) that everyone owns their plot of land and respects their neighbour's plots, will I be a state if I defend it against an outside invasion? No. Nor am I a "state institution".

I'm glad you finally posted the source for your insane concept of the state, let's review it:

What is it?

Or more directly, what constitutes statist behavior? What kind of actions must an association or community undertake, or what characteristics must they develop, to make them a state?

OK, let's see you answer this.


The Marxist Definition: The state is a product and a manifestation of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms. The state arises where, when and insofar as class antagonism objectively cannot be reconciled.

Although the Marxist argument is both helpful for developing theory and historically accurate, it’s really useless for what we’re trying to figure out here. The Marxist definition is really answering the questions of, “What has been the historical role of the State?” and “How does the State typically do?”. What we’re looking for here, is “what differentiates statist activity from non-statist activity?” If we’re trying to answer the question of, “does violently seizing private property and redistributing it make our anarchist commune a state?” or “does defense from outside aggression make us a state?” or “does taxation make us a state?” then Lenin’s definition is worthless. In those situations, we’re acting just like a modern or historical state would, by enforcing our will (or protecting it) over a geographic area and a population, but we’re not necessarily acting as an organ of class rule, nor are we exhibiting the irreconcilability of class antagonisms. While the state is a product of class antagonisms, and while it could wither away as those antagonisms do the same, it’s not answering our question.
So, wait - you wanted to know "what constitutes state behavior" and yet something describing "what the state does" and "its historical role" is not useful?



The Alternative Definition: A State is a person or group of people who exercise ownership over property that they have not acquired through the prevalent, inter-subjective criteria of ownership.

The assumption behind this definition is really that there are no “natural rights” that justify property, or ownership in any form. In reality, standards for obtaining property – like “finders keepers”, or possession and use - are determined by implicit agreements among people and communities. Today, these agreements are for the most part forced upon citizens by the state via property law. Now one could argue this view of property, but that’s a subject for another thread. The point of this definition is that a state is any entity which exercises ownership over property without fulfilling the common and agreed upon methods. For example, in the United States, the common conception of property is finders-keepers, or a Neo-Lockean interpretation of natural rights. A state would be any entity who can obtain property without having, what is considered, a natural right to that property. What qualifies the United Kingdom or the U.S. as states is that they exercise ownership (which, as expanded upon above, is the same as a monopoly of the use of force) over a geographical area, without having any commonly accepted claim to ownership over that area. The usefulness of this definition, is that it draws a line of distinction between someone defending their property (not a state), and someone forcefully taking another persons legitimate property (statist behavior).

As for the example above, if a militia defends the land they occupy, they are not exercising ownership over something they don’t have a claim to; they’re just protecting their own property. In my opinion, one of the biggest questions an anarchist has to answer is whether or not they would go around violently seizing private property, and whether or not such an action would make them a state. Under conventional definitions, it would. Under this definition however, it could be argued that the private property was a claim to property not operating under the conventional implicit agreement (which in an anarchic society would probably be possession), and was therefore a state. So in fact, the anarchists were just rectifying a wrong (statist activity), and were not contradicting their ideology.

To sum up, the Marxist definition and the traditional definition of a state are inadequate (while the former is useful and historically accurate), and the alternative listed above provides the clearest and most coherent description of a state. This is of course up for discussion, so what are your thoughts?
Utter crap. The prevalent standards for obtaining property are purchase and sale via contract law. Most property is obtained this way, and its not hard to justify state activity on the same grounds.

Now I know why you've been parroting this bullshit line as if it meant something. Too bad that its nothing more than obfuscation, and furthermore, the author makes a more coherent argument for using the Marxist definition than his own!

Whatmay be more important is that he is ignoring the private forces present in a state. Why should we excise the state from its economic base for its definition?

[RGacky3]

Because if I am in a community where there is an intersubjective consensus (ie: common agreement) that everyone owns their plot of land and respects their neighbour's plots, will I be a state if I defend it against an outside invasion? No. Nor am I a "state institution".

Intersubjective consensus is not nearly enough authoritarian enough to ensure property rights enough to have a market, the whole concept of the market requires profit, which means one person is willing to give up something for something else that gives one of the parties profit (be it time or whatever), there becomse a point to where people just won't have that consensus when they are loosing out, which means you can't have a market.


Do you know of any situation that could be used as a proof that I am wrong? This is easier for me to analyze (through individual examples, and then extrapolate, if possible, to the whole), because just proving a vague "how state intervention increased unequal wealth distribution" is rather difficult. Mainly because the state sometimes acts to equalize wealth distributions (eg: increase progressive taxes) and sometimes acts to increase the unequalities of wealth distribution (eg: privileges to existing businesses which allows them to maintain their market position and prevent wage earners to start their own company)

The proof is simply a priori in the sense that the more money you have, the easier it is to get more money, and thus more power, also the empirical evidence that less regulated nations have more economic inequality historically.

BUt if you can get some direct connection between inequality in wealth and power AND state intervention, and show that without it that inequality in wealth and power would not exist, then we're having a conversation.

[Dean]

Intersubjective consensus is not nearly enough authoritarian enough to ensure property rights enough to have a market, the whole concept of the market requires profit, which means one person is willing to give up something for something else that gives one of the parties profit (be it time or whatever), there becomse a point to where people just won't have that consensus when they are loosing out, which means you can't have a market.
He thinks that people will attempt to maximize utility, but wont seek a profit.

In addition (I failed to notice this other fallacy of his): there is no reason to expect a consensus in a competitive system (or any system, really).

Hayenmill loves to throw absolutes about: the market can do no wrong unless "artificial conditions" are around (which can only make sense if artificial meant bad, which we both know is a terrible way to define economic terms).

He proposes a 'self-evident' market foundation to justify his entire paradigm - that there will be "equal access" to resources, that everyone will have equal economic power, basically. This is the case for him because he wants it to be this way, and then he describes the obvious fact that, if people are completely equal in the context of competition, the market can't become capitalist. But there is no such thing as equal competition, for the simple fact that both parties are deliberately trying to maximize returns, and not all people have equal knowledge, skills or understanding, nor do we have have access to equal resources.

And now, we are to believe in complete, universal consensus - despite broad, "equal" competition. Absurd.

[Havet]

For one thing, the entire political body is fundamentally flawed in that proper education and news are not applied to the system of voting which is meant to be "representative" of its constituency.

ok


In fact, if you cared to analyze politics, you'd be able to see that political positions are a form of capital which provides for management of markets. But so are all the private petrol and energy firms, too.

Dude, everyone knows that. But if you cared to analyze human history, you'd know the only way to deal with this is to decentralize politics up to a point where it is no longer profitable for any party, whether a business or political institution, to use political positions as capital. OR, as communists propose, just abolish all businesses and political positions will cease to be a form of capital, since there won't be any for-profit entities after it, right? Something tells me it don't work that way, i wonder what could that be...


But I never blamed the market as the sole system responsible for the accumulation of capital. For you to pretend that your multi-month long tirade agaisnt gov't as the sole provider of "artificial" market conditions is nothing more than an allegory for my arguments is absurd.

Well, actually you are right! You never blamed the market. You blamed "the system", and everytime you tried to support your position you go pick up only examples of erroneous market activity!


But it explains why you erroneously thought that Mexican drug violence was the result of a "repressive state" - the Mexican police and army are instrumental in the drug trade, by helping with kidnappings, assassinations and the transport of drugs across the border! :lol:

Really? What proof do you offer? I see no indication otherwise...

(the only statist help I've seen was actually from an american consulate employee)

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/world/mexican-police-drug-cartel-enforcer-says-he-targeted-consulate-employee-for-aiding-rival-gang-97719329.html

I suppose this (http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/world/stories/DN-arrest_01int.ART.State.Edition1.29442ec.html) could also be as closest as to what you are claiming...

But here we see another "kind of help"

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jan/03/mexican-police-top-drug-lord-nabbed/

But wait! It turns out they are indeed helping each other!

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2010/06/15/2010-06-15_thugs_kill_10_mexican_police_in_latest_drug_war _bloodshed.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/24/7-ciudad-juarez-police-am_n_550593.html

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=121751&sectionid=351020705

Yup, sure sounds as mexican police are helping the drug business

You know, you are a real piece of work. To make an accusation like that, and NOT provide any evidence, just shows what your real intentions are in this debate.


Right, no "artificial" privileges but we are supposed to erect a system which ensures equal access to limited resources, which is further agitated by the fact that people do not live in proximity to equal resources. That is, we can't expect Africans to have equal access to arable land by nature of their location.

Hence the "trade" part required in any market system. Of course some countries have better natural resources (and you are assuming the notion of a country would exist in a decentralized mutualist society!), but there are plenty of other things the africans have (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_resources_of_Africa) that can trade for technology to enable arable land (it is currently possible to shape deserts with the aid of bacteria (http://ecowanderer.wordpress.com/2009/05/09/bacteria-can-prevent-desertification-in-the-future/), but they could just as easily trade it for structures that allow for an in-door, controlled environment farming.


I'd be interested to hear you describe a single market condition which you don't think is "artificial."

free-competition, the freedom to produce and freedom to trade one's products

Competition IS a non-artificial market condition. HOWEVER, in this current society, the existence of a privilege-granting state is obviously going to alter the mechanisms that drive and maintain competition.


For example, competition may be legally prohibited, as in the case with a government monopoly or a government-granted monopoly. Tariffs, subsidies or other protectionist measures may also be instituted by government in order to prevent or reduce competition. Depending on the respective economic policy, pure competition is to a greater or lesser extent regulated by competition policy and competition law.


So, wait - you wanted to know "what constitutes state behavior" and yet something describing "what the state does" and "its historical role" is not useful?

Re-read what he said


What we’re looking for here, is “what differentiates statist activity from non-statist activity?” If we’re trying to answer the question of, “does violently seizing private property and redistributing it make our anarchist commune a state?” or “does defense from outside aggression make us a state?” or “does taxation make us a state?” then Lenin’s definition is worthless.


Utter crap. The prevalent standards for obtaining property are purchase and sale via contract law. Most property is obtained this way, and its not hard to justify state activity on the same grounds.

Are you purposefully misunderstanding what's being said? We are not talking of what the common way currently IS, but what a way COULD BE. OBVIOUSLY (as in, obvious troll is obvious) that in present societies law is handled on a court level by governments. In an hypothetical mutualist community, we are talking of several other emergent alternatives, such as:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycentric_law

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_law

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customary_law


Whatmay be more important is that he is ignoring the private forces present in a state. Why should we excise the state from its economic base for its definition?

Exemplify or stop talking like this

[Havet]

Intersubjective consensus is not nearly enough authoritarian enough to ensure property rights enough to have a market, the whole concept of the market requires profit, which means one person is willing to give up something for something else that gives one of the parties profit (be it time or whatever), there becomse a point to where people just won't have that consensus when they are loosing out, which means you can't have a market.

Yet we see examples (not perfect, but existent nonetheless) of places where alternatives to contemporary state law protecting private property emerged:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_anarchist_communities#Icelandic_Commonweal th_.28930.E2.80.931262.29



"In the absence of a formal structure for the definition and enforcement of individual rights, many of the groups of associates who came seeking their fortunes organized and made their rules for operation before they left their homes. Much the same as company charters today, these voluntary contracts entered into by the miners specified financing for the operation as well as the nature of the relationship between individuals. These rules applied only to the miners in the company and did not recognize any outside arbitrator of disputes; they did not "recognize any higher court than the law of the majority of the company."

on company's relation to their employees:

"In addition to the rules listed above, company constitutions often specified arrangements for payments to be used for caring for the sick and unfortunate, rules for personal conduct including the use of alcoholic spirits, and fines which could be imposed for misconduct, to
mention a few.'In the truest nature of the social contract, the governing rules of the company were negotiated, and as in all market transactions unanimity prevailed. Those who wished to purchase other "bundles of goods" or other sets of rules had that alternative."
on how land disputes were settled:

"A mass meeting of miners was held June 8, 1859, and a committee appointed to draft a code of laws. This committee laid out boundaries for the district, and their civil code, after some discussion and amendment, was unanimously adopted in mass meeting, July 16. 1859. The
example was rapidly followed in other districts, and the whole Territory was soon divided between a score of local sovereignties.'"

resolving of disputes:

"While the mining camps did not have private courts where individuals could take their disputes and pay for arbitration, they did develop a system of justice through the miners' courts. These courts seldom had permanent officers, although there were instances ofjustices of the peace. The folk-moot system was common in California. By this method a group of citizens was summoned to try a case. From their midst they would elect a presiding
officer or judge and select six or twelve persons to serve as the jury. Most often their rulings were not disputed, but there was recourse when disputes arose. For example, in one case involving two partners, after a ruling by the miners' court, the losing partner called a mass meeting of the camp to plead his case and the decision was reversed.44 And if alarger group of miners was dissatisfied with the general rulings regarding camp boundaries or individual
claim disputes, notices were posted in several places calling meeting of those wishing a division of the territory. "If a majority favored such action, the district was set apart and named. The old district was not consulted on the subject, but received a verbal notice of the new organization. Local conditions, making different regulations regarding claims desirable, were the chief causes of such separations."4~ "The work of mining, and its environment and
conditions, were so different in different places, that the laws and customs of the miners had to vary even in adjoining districts."4"

competition for justice:

"In Colorado there is some evidence of competition among the courts for business, and hence, an added guarantee that justice prevailed.

The civil courts promptly assumed criminal jurisdiction, and the year 1860 opened with four governments in full blast. The miners' courts, people's courts, and "provisional government" (a new name for "Jefferson") divided jurisdiction in the mountains; while Kansas and the
provisional government ran concurrent in Denver and the valley. Such as felt friendly to either jurisdiction patronized it with their business. Appeals were taken from one to the other, papers certified up or down and over, and recognized, criminals delivered and judgments accepted
from one court by another, with a happy informality which it is pleasant to read of. And here we are confronted by an awkward fact: there was undoubtedly much less crime in the two years this arrangement lasted than in the two which followed the territorial organization and regular government"


The proof is simply a priori in the sense that the more money you have, the easier it is to get more money, and thus more power, also the empirical evidence that less regulated nations have more economic inequality historically.

Well i'd like to see that empirical evidence. Not that I don't believe it; it makes sense, since traditionally (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reagonomics#Deregulation) "less regulation" has always meant increasing artificial privileges for the rich. When someone says, less regulation, they usually talk of privatization, but privatization is usually jsut transfering a public monopoly towards a government-granted private monopoly. The regulation (the fact that its a monopoly, and competition IS restricted) is still there!


BUt if you can get some direct connection between inequality in wealth and power AND state intervention, and show that without it that inequality in wealth and power would not exist, then we're having a conversation.

As i've explained before, there are reasons why state intervention can produce both inequality and equality. It depends on the specific areas of economic intervention.

My only source has historical evidence of state intervention in the economy as well as logical explanations to the events that came after it. To give you an example:


Tucker himself neglected two major forms of state intervention, which had long been or were currently becoming decisive in his time: primitive accumulation and transportation subsidies. Without the state's role in robbing the peasantry of rights of copyhold, commons, and other traditional rights in the land, and turning them into tenants at-will in the modern sense, there would have been no majority of propertyless laborers forced to "sell their lives in order to live." Without the system of social control imposed by the state, the working class would have been a lot harder to manage. In England, for example, the Poor Laws (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poor_Laws) and Vagrancy Laws (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vagrancy_(people)#History) amounted to a Stalinesque internal passport system; the Combination Act (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combination_Act), and various police meaures by Pitt like the Riot Act (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riot_act) and suspension of habeas corpus, together placed everyone below the small middle class beyond the protection of so-called rights of Englishmen. The creation of the so-called "world market" was brought about by the brutal and heavy-handed mercantilist policies of Great Britain.

Internal wikipedia links added by me for greater clarification


So a mutualist treatment of Marx's "declining rate of profit" would characterize it as a continuing increase in the rate of state intervention necessary for profits to exist at all. In the nineteenth century, it required only the kinds of legal privileges Tucker described, which were largely embedded in the general legal system, and thus disguised as a "neutral" framework governing a free society.

The larger-scale state capitalist intervention, generally identified with Whigs and Republicans in the mid-nineteenth century, led to a centralization of the economy in the hands of large producers. This system was inherently unstable, and required still further state intervention to solve its contradictions. The result was the full-blown state capitalism of the twentieth century, in which the state played a direct role in subsidizing and cartelizing the corporate economy. As regulatory cartelization advanced from the "Progressive" era on, the problems of overproduction and surplus capital were further intensified by the forces described by Stromberg, with the state resorting to ever greater, snowballing foreign expansionism and domestic corporatism to solve them. They eventually led to New Deal corporate state, to a world war in which the U.S. was established as "hegemonic power in a system of world order" (Huntington), and an almost totally militarized high tech economy.

A positive rate of profit, under twentieth century state capitalism, was possible only because the state underwrote so much of the cost of reproduction of constant and variable capital, and undertook "social investment" which increased the efficiency of labor and capital and consequently the rate of profit on capital. (155) And monopoly capital's demands on the state are not stable over time, but steadily increase:

...the socialization of the costs of social investment and social consumption capital increases over time and increasingly is needed for profitable accumulation by monopoly capital. The general reason is that the increase in the social character of production (specialization, division of labor, interdependency, the growth of new social forms of capital such as education, etc.) either prohibits or renders unprofitable the private accumulation of constant and variable capital. (156)

155. See references to O'Connor op. cit., above, notes 66-68.

66. O'Connor, op. cit., pp. 6-7.

67. Ibid. p. 24.

68. Ibid.

156. O'Connor, op. cit., p. 8.

[Dean]

Well, actually you are right! You never blamed the market. You blamed "the system", and everytime you tried to support your position you go pick up only examples of erroneous market activity!
What makes market activity "erroneous"?




Really? What proof do you offer? I see no indication otherwise...

(the only statist help I've seen was actually from an american consulate employee)

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/world/mexican-police-drug-cartel-enforcer-says-he-targeted-consulate-employee-for-aiding-rival-gang-97719329.html

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jan/03/mexican-police-top-drug-lord-nabbed/

I suppose this (http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/world/stories/DN-arrest_01int.ART.State.Edition1.29442ec.html) could be as closest as to what you are claiming...

But wait! It turns out they are indeed helping each other!

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2010/06/15/2010-06-15_thugs_kill_10_mexican_police_in_latest_drug_war _bloodshed.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/24/7-ciudad-juarez-police-am_n_550593.html

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=121751&sectionid=351020705

Yup, sure sounds as mexican police are helping the drug business
Petulent child, it wasn't hard to look up the exact examples I cited:
http://www.google.com/search?q=mexican+military+escort+drug&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=TwV&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=mexican+police+colluding+with+kidnappers&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=


You know, you are a real piece of work. To make an accusation like that, and NOT provide any evidence, just shows what your real intentions are in this debate.
What as that now?




Hence the "trade" part required in any market system. Of course some countries have better natural resources (and you are assuming the notion of a country would exist in a decentralized mutualist society!), but there are plenty of other things the africans have (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_resources_of_Africa) that can trade for technology to enable arable land (it is currently possible to shape deserts with the aid of bacteria (http://ecowanderer.wordpress.com/2009/05/09/bacteria-can-prevent-desertification-in-the-future/), but they could just as easily trade it for structures that allow for an in-door, controlled environment farming.
No, I'm not assuming that countries will exist. I never even mentioned a country, kid! Their existence would allow for your ridiculous resource sharing to work better, but not fully equally. But its a moot pint because its part of your obfuscation and nothing more.

Face it. Local access will directly affect the amount of capital and capital resources some people have over others.


free-competition, the freedom to produce and freedom to trade one's products

Competition IS a non-artificial market condition. HOWEVER, in this current society, the existence of a privilege-granting state is obviously going to alter the mechanisms that drive and maintain competition.
Apparently, its the only thing that you think will alter the mechanisms of capitalism.


Re-read what he said

Are you purposefully misunderstanding what's being said? We are not talking of what the common way currently IS, but what a way COULD BE. OBVIOUSLY (as in, obvious troll is obvious) that in present societies law is handled on a court level by governments. In an hypothetical mutualist community, we are talking of several other emergent alternatives, such as:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycentric_law

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_law

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customary_law

Exemplify or stop talking like this
:laugh: Sure thing, idealist baby.

You're never going to understand any real world phenomena because you refuse to even glance at real world systems.

What trite trash. Good job at forcing yourself in the most hermetic, delusional ghetto ever represented on this site though :thumbup1:


Tell me again, bright eyes, how unequal distribution of resources will be equally managed without some kind of management system? And don't pull some bullshit about "countries" because I mention "Africa." What. Stupid. Shit.

[Havet]

What makes market activity "erroneous"?

Activities in which the oucome allows one party to exploit the other through the use of direct/indirect force. Examples: A company stealing something from another company, fraud, a business using the current mixed economy as an opportunity to undercut wages. All of these are results that do not benefit society. I was using erroneous in that sense.


Petulent child, it wasn't hard to look up the exact examples I cited:
http://www.google.com/search?q=mexican+military+escort+drug&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=TwV&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=mexican+police+colluding+with+kidnappers&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

So, we see examples where the police aids the criminals and examples where the police is hurt by the criminals. Now, do you still think this...:


But it explains why you erroneously thought that Mexican drug violence was the result of a "repressive state" - the Mexican police and army are instrumental in the drug trade, by helping with kidnappings, assassinations and the transport of drugs across the border!

...is a true sentence? It's half-true at best.


What as that now?

Still, it had to be ME to ASK for the EVIDENCE. You should make it a common practice to just throw in a link instead of continuing with these petty games that waste time.


Their existence would allow for your ridiculous resource sharing to work better, but not fully equally.

Full equality is an utopian goal since we live in an imperfect and dynamic world. You are never going to be able to offer africans the same resources other countries have, just as how western countries aren't as rich in some raw materials as africans. Resource distribution is not equal because of geographical properties (geological processes that form the rich minerals), and political ones (slavery, exploitation, dictatorships, corporations)


Face it. Local access will directly affect the amount of capital and capital resources some people have over others.

So what?


Apparently, its the only thing that you think will alter the mechanisms of capitalism.

You asked me to "describe a single market condition which you don't think is "artificial."" (even though there are more). That's what I did. Stop trolling.


:laugh: Sure thing, idealist baby.

Lack of arguments and presence of insults

Too bad


Tell me again, bright eyes, how unequal distribution of resources will be equally managed without some kind of management system? And don't pull some bullshit about "countries" because I mention "Africa." What. Stupid. Shit.

For this I will refer to my old thread pertaining this matter:


COM.: "But your object is identical with that of Communism! Why all this to convince me that the means of production must be taken from the hands of the few and given to all? Communists believe that; it is precisely what we are fighting for."

pertaining "management system"

INDV.: "You misunderstand me if you think we wish to take from or give to any one. We have no scheme for regulating distribution. We substitute nothing, make no plans. We trust to the unfailing balance of supply and demand. We say that with equal opportunity to produce, the division of product will necessarily approach equitable distribution, but we have no method of 'enacting' such equalization."

Com.: ''But will not some be strong and skillful, others weak and unskillful? Will not one-deprive the other because he is more shrewd?"

INDV.: "Impossible! Have I not just shown you that the reason one man controls another's manner of living is because he controls the opportunities to produce? He does this through a special governmental privilege. Now, if this privilege is abolished, land becomes free, and ability to capitalize products removing interest, and one man is stronger or shrewder than another, he nevertheless can make no profit from that other's labor, because he cannot stop him from employing himself The cause of subjection is removed."

COM.: "YOU call that equality! That one man shall have more than others simply because he is stronger or smarter? Your system is no better than the present. What are we struggling against but that very inequality in people's possessions?"

pertaining a true definition of equality

INDV.: "But what is equality? Does equality mean that I shall enjoy what you have produced? By no means. Equality simply means the freedom of every individual to develop all his being, without hindrance from another, be he stronger or weaker."

COM.: "What! You will have the weak person suffer because he is weak? He may need as much, or more, than a strong one, but if he is not able to produce it what becomes of his equality?"

INDV.: "I have nothing against your dividing your product with the weaker man if you desire to do so."

So, from here we see that if Africans are indeed in an underpriviliged position then we should do everything in our power to help them by convincing others to help them

[Dean]

Activities in which the oucome allows one party to exploit the other through the use of direct/indirect force. Examples: A company stealing something from another company, fraud, a business using the current mixed economy as an opportunity to undercut wages. All of these are results that do not benefit society. I was using erroneous in that sense.
Too bad that this "erroneous" activity has been an important factor in all past business relationships, especially wage-labor. By relating "erroneous" to "forceful" you are implying that there is some kind of logical discrepancy, or otherwise objective refutation of forceful business models.

Unfortunately, we have seen that force is consistently a great business model.


So, we see examples where the police aids the criminals and examples where the police is hurt by the criminals. Now, do you still think this...:

...is a true sentence? It's half-true at best.

Still, it had to be ME to ASK for the EVIDENCE. You should make it a common practice to just throw in a link instead of continuing with these petty games that waste time.
The point was to refute the concept that the drug trade exists despite the state. As we can see, that is only "half true" at best. Look up the history of the Zetas to learn more (hint: Mexican special forces).

Also, you're being petulant by making arguments and refusing to do rudimentary research when I describe specific occurrences that refute your point. It'd be one thing if I'd simply said "you're wrong." But by describign specific phenomena, I bring evidence to the table, which can be fact-checked.


Full equality is an utopian goal since we live in an imperfect and dynamic world. You are never going to be able to offer africans the same resources other countries have, just as how western countries aren't as rich in some raw materials as africans. Resource distribution is not equal because of geographical properties (geological processes that form the rich minerals), and political ones (slavery, exploitation, dictatorships, corporations)

So what?

...

So, from here we see that if Africans are indeed in an underpriviliged position then we should do everything in our power to help them by convincing others to help them
That excerpt said nothing about resources equality; in fact, you've all but conceded that resource allocation will not be equal. But "we should try to help them" (real compelling market condition there! :laugh:).

So, basically, your premise:


Even so, as i've said countless times, I do not ignore that people will try to maximize their own utility. I do not see any historical evidence or reasonable argument that proves the proposition that under certain circumstances ("my" definition of a free-market; free-trade of goods and services without any artificial privileges and equal opportunity to access resources) utility maximization will lead to inequalities of such great scale that will unbalance social "harmony" (if that is not too much of an utopian concept)
Is untenable now.

Or, you will always describe the market as "unfree" so long as your conditions aren't met (notably, you think that profiteering and unequal power are all "unfree market conditions") so these markets of yours will be "erroneous" and we still can't just a bit of your theory. Makes sense.




You asked me to "describe a single market condition which you don't think is "artificial."" (even though there are more). That's what I did. Stop trolling.
So, the only conditions in the market are vague concepts like "competition"? Profiteering isn't one, as far as I remember. :laugh:

[Havet]

Too bad that this "erroneous" activity has been an important factor in all past business relationships, especially wage-labor. By relating "erroneous" to "forceful" you are implying that there is some kind of logical discrepancy, or otherwise objective refutation of forceful business models.

I agree, "erroneous" activity has been crucial in the rise of capitalism, in order to sustain itself and maintain itself.


Unfortunately, we have seen that force is consistently a great business model.

Agreed


The point was to refute the concept that the drug trade exists despite the state. As we can see, that is only "half true" at best. Look up the history of the Zetas to learn more (hint: Mexican special forces).

Great! So we've reached a middle term. Drug trade does not exist despite the State (something i've never claimed) or that it exists purely because of the state (which I haven't claimed either)


Also, you're being petulant by making arguments and refusing to do rudimentary research when I describe specific occurrences that refute your point. It'd be one thing if I'd simply said "you're wrong." But by describign specific phenomena, I bring evidence to the table, which can be fact-checked.

I'm only annoyed because its something I have to constantly beg. I'm soryr if it has hurt your feelings. It has always been my understanding that when discussing here in revleft one should always link to their sources in the very same post instead of waiting for someone to ask for them in order to save time.


That excerpt said nothing about resources equality; in fact, you've all but conceded that resource allocation will not be equal. But "we should try to help them" (real compelling market condition there! :laugh:).

Well, the number of NGOs is a well-documented fact in market based societies. [1]

[1]: Stone, Diane. "Transfer Agents and Global Networks in the ‘Transnationalisation’ of Policy", Journal of European Public Policy.austiniskewl, 11(3) 2004: 545–66.


So, basically, your premise:

Is untenable now.

Ok, so it seems that I have badly explained it myself. In any case:

Equality of access to resources is usually meant as the abolition of the privileges that prevent the working class from competing with the holders of capital because they have not, and cannot get, the means of production.

It follows that if they had access to land and opportunity to capitalize the product of their labor they would either employ themselves, or, if employed by others, their wages, or remuneration, would rise to the full product of their toil, since no one would work for another for less than he could obtain by working for himself.

Now, integral to this scheme is the establishment of a mutual-credit bank that would lend to producers at a minimal interest rate, just high enough to cover administration (see: Miller, David. 1987. "Mutualism." The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Political Thought. Blackwell Publishing. p. 11).

Some modern forms of mutual credit are LETS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LETS) and the Ripple monetary system project (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripple_monetary_system). HOWEVER, since they still operate in a capitalist environment, they are still subject to competition of privileged, for-profit corporations, which will eventually alter the natural way these banks would work in an unprivileged environment.


So, the only conditions in the market are vague concepts like "competition"? Profiteering isn't one, as far as I remember. :laugh:

Nobody claimed it was the only condition. Profit is the main drive force of current markets, especially short-term profits, since "we" (i'm assuming USA) live in an inflationary society where the value of the currency is determined by a government-granted private monopoly.

[RGacky3]

Drug trade does not exist despite the State (something i've never claimed) or that it exists purely because of the state (which I haven't claimed either)


It does exist dispite the state, if it was legal the drug trade would still exist, but it would be subject to state regulation which would mean the murders and such would stop.