Who cares what Rothbard thought? Anything he came up with that I actually agree with I strongly disagree with how he got there. Fruit of the poisoned tree intellectually.

The whole anarcho capitalist model he proposed is flawed and worthless.

Has someone definitively proved that our model for education was worse before we all adopted the Prussian model (unadultered military-style socialist indoctrination)?

If not, than is it really on Rothbard to explain how something that already existed could exist?

You've already definitively proven you know nothing about Rothbard or the AC model once in this thread. Just stop.

Because I don't see how it's possible to end the state monopoly on force without another state almost immediately (after a period of bloodshed) immediately popping up?

I have yet to ever hear an AC person explain to me why they are less dumb/naive than communists in their incredibly silly view of human nature.

I don't give Marx much credit either... Does that mean I know nothing about him or his model?

We didn't have a model for education at all before the 1800's besides tutoring and private schooling for the priveleged... With a few scattered universities. I'd say the standard of education for the average person has improved drastically during the 20th century. Literacy rates certainly agree with me.

Do you really believe that any education that disagrees with your (crazy) viewpoint is 'unadulterated military-style socialist indoctrination'? Unadulterated is a word like 'always' and 'never' that is nearly always wrong. Military style education has a meaning as well and you'll have to define your terms. Socialist indoctrination... Huh. I guess that depends on your definition of the word socialist... It certainly doesn't fit the definition of the socialist school of political science and philosophy.

What's with you numb skulls in this thread idealizing a past that you clearly know nothing about? I really wish that relatively young people could stop harping for the 'good old days'. You're not supposed to do that until you're 50 at a minimum. And guess what? The old days were better in some ways in worse in others. We live in a pretty good time actually, and if you live in the US you probably live in the best possible historical combination of time and place in human history. Enjoy it instead of bitching about it please.

I couldn't disagree more. America was not 'pretty frikin good' for the vast majority of Americans from 1850-1942. For much of that period we had what you've described as 'the closest we got to libertarianism'.

Income inequality isn't some little problem that 'balances out in the end' because of human nature. It's human nature to prefer to be the guy making 50k a year in a neighborhood where everyone makes 15k than to be the guy making 100k a year in the neighborhood where everyone makes 300k.

It's also the nature of a truly free market that firms are free to cooperate with each other. And they do. And cooperation is the polar opposite of competition. This leads to monopoly. They were called 'trusts' and they encompassed basically every industry.

If you know a fair bit about microeconomics you understand that monopolies are bad economically with significant dead weight loss.

The place where we disagree pretty strongly is that Libertarians believe that people are intrinsically good and won't actively screw other people over... And I know for a fact that humans are on the aggregate animals who aggressively pursue their own interests at the expense of others. This is what happens when you know a lot about history and economics... You start to realize that math that contradicts history is flawed somehow.

Also for those who are going to wring their hands and say 'but under defacto libertarianism from 1850-1930 the economy grew at double digit rates!' I'd like to point out that a country going through industrialization is going to see similar growth rates almost no matter what form of government it has. Notice that the Chinese are seeing the same effect now and they're a socialist (not communist obv) country.

This isn't an endorsement of socialism btw... It's just pointing out that the world has seen similar growth rates under a wide variety of governments over the last century in situations where a country has a lot of room to grow.

I'll start a thread eventually but it's gonna take a ton of writing. As a sneak peek. I fully understand that humans will screw each other over if at all possible and I believe that monopolies are almost impossible to keep without government interference.

That's wrong. Monopolies are the natural state of affairs throughout most of human history because they produce way more profit for producers in the long run than any form of competition. Obviously government has been used as a force to help this process--but that's a case of business capturing government to help complete it's objectives, not a result of government. You're giving government credit for creating monopolies when monopolies are actually the biggest downside of capitalism. (and I'm a capitalist fwiw)

Are you Ralph Nader?

If the government were restricted to the powers laid out in the Constitution for example, business would have no opportunity to "capture the government." On the other hand if the government does not have these restrictions then of course business will do whatever they can to make more money including heavily influencing politicians.

Response to the rest to come when I feel like it lol.

Yes instead they would simply have the freedom to do what they like. And they would form monopolies like they did in the 1850-1900 period.... When the federal government was much closer in size to the one you'd prefer.

I wasn't arguing that government is lily white in the whole process and obviously that we need more of it. I was arguing that blaming the government for monopolies (when monopolies are the standard throughout history under a wide variety of governments) is dumb.

Look at criminal organizations. You get tons of territorial monopolies that arise naturally and then are defended violently if necessary.

Yea, you're right. I meant in the context of a system that protects property rights, I just didn't word it that way. Violence is the ultimate way to keep a monopoly but things get a ton harder when violence can't be used by anyone involved (individuals, businesses, governments and otherwise.)

Violence certainly helps maintain anything. It's certainly been used to maintain a large number of monopolies through history. Hell a lot of monopolies have been given out by monarchs--and obviously that comes with the fact that the monarch can obviously **** people up for infringing on the monopoly.

The thing is... if you artificially remove government and violence from the situation completely you STILL get monopolies. It just makes a lot more sense for all of the producers to get together and present a united front against the market place and their employees than it does for them to 'compete'.

Basic microeconomic theory holds that in the long run all firms in a competitive market will have 0 profit. A monopoly will a LOT of profit over the long run. It's not hard to see why monopoly is waaaay better for capital interests than competition. That's why antitrust regulations (even enforced imperfectly) are the poster children for 'good regulation' from government.

It's also worth pointing out that some things are natural monopolies. Obvious examples are power companies. The ULTIMATE natural monopoly is the one on violence. It's a ****ing nightmare when that monopoly breaks down because it's such a natural monopoly. If you asked me to name the top 5 things for a place to 'not be a hellhole' number one would be a stable government (any kind will do in this situation) with firm control over its territory. Democracy is nice but if it's a choice between Despotism and the nightmare that is 'instability' I'll choose the Despotic regime nearly every time. (obviously instability can be an acceptable cost temporarily to get rid of a really nasty regime... but if I have to choose between Somalia and pretty much anywhere else I'll choose Somalia)

There are regimes that desperately need to go through instability obv like North Korea. But those are absolutely the exception rather than the rule.

Enough about anarchism in this thread. The OP stated that 'economics is really simpler than people want to admit' which is wrong and that 'the greed of the rich is strangling everyone else' this is partly true and partly false.

It just blew my mind that you actually said this. Read the Chapters about big business discrimination and antitrust in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.

Anti Trust laws in the US are beyond ridiculous and are almost entirely political in the way in which they are upheld. For example, if you raise prices you are acting like a monopoly, if you keep your prices the same as your competitors then you are colluding, and if you lower your prices below your competitors, it is unfair competition.

And yet strangely they have worked. You can tell they've worked because except in the case of true natural monopolies like power and cable tv (which isn't a true monopoly because it has competition from other technologies) we don't really have any in America. Hell we even broke up Bell (even if it took a long time).

We're far from perfect competition granted... But what's going on on the ground every day shows that what you're saying is absolutely untrue. I have a large number of services that I purchase that are sold far cheaper than other similar services. I also have several services that I pay more for than the going rate. I find no real life evidence of what this book says in my daily life.(or professional life where I go to college to study this stuff and spend a lot of time researching investments for myself)

Regulation doesn't have to be perfect. It's going to be administered by people who are flawed. It's going to be used unfairly. It's going to be used to screw one person versus another. What matters about regulation is what impacts it has on a macro scale. On the macro scale we don't have the massive monopolies of the last 5000 years in America. We just don't.

That's completely absurd.

Scenario -

I have been selling Commodity A for 20 years. My net wealth is $1 billion.

Venture Capitalist Joe now starts selling Commodity A. His start up funds are $90 million.

I could just buyout Joe's company or merge with him and control the market without a government to tell me otherwise.

Well I assumed we were discussing coercive monopolies (wiki it), which is the general definition of monopoly when talking about them in an economic sense. Just a vanilla monopoly is not at all a bad thing.

Old article, but applicable.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...t-as-god/6397/

PS: free market is actually my default response but... well it's not omnipotent and should not be taken for granted.

You could do that forever into infinite? Or maybe like, a couple more acquisitions tops, depending on your assumptions behind "$1 billion net wealth".

If what you're doing is profitable enough to make you a billion dollars in 20 years, you think you're only going to face a couple of sub $100 million dollar upstarts in a commodity bull market?

Your counter argument is completely absurd.

No it isn't. If there is no government there to regulate, then the rational choice would just be to monopolize any market and control it from top-to-bottom.

Every business owner would probably love to monopolize his market. Duh.

Some business owners may even briefly achieve monopoly.

But above market returns attract competitors. The principally attractive way to keep competitors away is to use government.

Also, dude, your answer once again was completely oblivious to what I had to go and point out: your $1 billion net wealth is $1 billion, not infinite.

You have missed my point completely. I am not saying the current form of governments are good or just always. But without any government it would be all too easy for people with a vast array of capital to drive out competitors. Laissez-faire capitalism would never function properly.

And, dude, the $1b net wealth scenario has nothing to do with it being infinite or not. It was merely to show that without any form of government whatsoever people would have a supreme leg up on competitors and markets.

And, you neglect the fact, in business you may not even need to compete with competitors if you have such advantages.

Lets say Commodity A requires Commodities B+C to make.

Commodity C is produced by 2 companies. Your competitor deals with the company you didn't choose because of prices.

You could simply go to the 2nd company and offer a much bigger contract to the company you do not deal with and thus form a monopoly after your competitor's current stock of commodities are sold.