Statism - the Most Common and the Most Dangerous Religion
What are the laws? A set of rules enforced by the state authorities under the threat of violence and created by politicians. Yes, precisely by those politicians, who are not being considered as trustworthy by most of us; on the contrary, they are the last ones, who can be trusted and considered as moral authorities or idols.
image source: http://dexterpress.com/God-Bless-America/
The vast majority of people agree that a decent person respects the laws; simply because it is right and we were brought up to it. What are the laws actually? A set of rules enforced by the state authorities under the threat of violence and created by politicians. Yes, precisely by those politicians, who are not being considered as trustworthy by most of us; on the contrary, they are the last ones, who can be trusted and considered as moral authorities or idols. Even if all the deputies and senators agreed on something that would be presented as a recommendation, it would not be anything that a decent person should automatically follow; but as soon as the same politicians make the same thing a law, many will condemn those who refuse to follow this rule. Isn't it absurd to judge what is right, only based on if it has undergone some formal bureaucratic approval process or not?
The state propaganda, which we have been exposed to already from behind the school benches, makes the statism (belief in the state) the most widespread religion of the present and the danger is that it is not being considered as a religion, although it has all its features: We have been guided to the unreasonable worship of sacred symbols (the flag, the emblem, the anthem) since childhood, the state (as a whole, not its specific failures) is totally excluded from critical thinking (the state is presented to the students as the necessity without any discussion). The binding national education program includes the education of students for citizenship and so on. Regardless of whether these things you find to be right or wrong, it does not change the indoctrination’s existence – the state is rendered to our children as an idol.
The democracy is not much different; people just get used to apply that word as a synonym for something desirable and good. It is said, for example, that democracy means freedom of speech. In reality, however, democracy is simply the rule of the majority; hypothetically, the freedom of speech may not be restricted, but certainly it can be. Sometimes the democracy is considered to be freedom in general; it does not make any sense at all – the proof is any democratically accepted law that restricts one’s freedom. Any atrocity can be democratic if a sufficient number of people agree with it; and definitely, no illegitimate act becomes legitimate through voting.
So what is the alternative to the state and democracy? As anarcho-capitalist I say - the free market; I understand that not everybody agrees with me, which is perfectly fine. However, alarming is the absence of the all-society discussion on this extremely important topic, which concerns absolutely everyone. In the childhood, the necessity of state is simply instilled into the heads of everybody. We were told that we need the state; otherwise there will be an absolute destruction. When one becomes acquainted with the idea of a stateless society, one who has never thought about it, this person immediately “knows” that “it would not work” without even thinking about such an extremely complex topic. And that is the goal of every propaganda – people certainly “know” something without thinking about it at all.
Source - http://clanky.urza.cz/index.php?linkID=411, https://www.mises.cz/?action=clanky&ID=etatismus-nejrozsirenejsi-a-nejnebezpecnejsi-nabozenstvi-2154.aspx
This article was translated with the permission of the original author, Urza.
Thats the thing... I dont think humans are inherently good enough to think something like anarcho-capitalism would "work out".
All the examples i see make me reason that natural human Nature is selfishness. Even as a natural survival instinct.
People will only do what they think benefit them the most. Even If It means good deeds for another person.
Who ever do good deeds, in the essence, do It for selfish reasons, even If the reason itself is a Noble one. The ultimate reason for the good deeds is that their actions Will make people feel they are contributing to the world THEY think its better.
Yes, politicians suck, but in democracy we have a check and balance system, where i might work in a perfect way, but improve things over time.
In a "no rules" world, It would be totally ok (in lawful sense, not moral) If i act to monopolize the production of food, create a way that would make extremely hard to anyone else produce Any food, and then only distribute the food only to whoever i think deserves It.
No rules world is an ideal one, but i Impossible to reach because of human Nature.
We have an anarcho-capitalism experiment right here on steemit. People is Free to post/flag/vote anything that they(selfish reasons) think is the more valuable to the community.
And what is the results we see? Flag/vote Wars, people using their big bag of money trying to give/take money to what they selfish reasons say have value.
And who Win this war? Whoever have the biggest pile of money. And what happens to the small Guys? Get swallowed by one of the sides, or disappear among the posts related to these Wars.
Unfortunately, what happens here is an example of How arnacho-capitalism wouldnt work...
People do not have to be good or modest in ancap. The greed and selfishness are important properties of humans even in the anarcho-cap. Nobody says that good deeds are made selflessly or without benefits. For somebody the good feeling is enough to help someone but I know the "somebody" is not everyone. Good deeds from everyone are not necessary in the ancap world.
If you try to monopolize anything and you will set the prices too high, new producers will appear and the higher price you have, the more competition you have.
The good example of this is the Standard Oil (you should google it).
There are 2 options: you have good prices (that is ok) and nobody cares or you set high prices and people might get greedy and start the same (or similar) business and they will become your rivals.
For example in our country the thing is that the regulations for mobile operators are so strict, that there are just 3 of them. They made a deal and now we have higher prices because of no competition. But if there were no state, we would have more mobile operators, more competition in this area and lower prices. But we can say that it is relatively OK that they made a deal, because the prices are not unreal and many people can afford it. But if the prices were really high, some people will start business in this area or many of us will start using other forms of communication.
If you try to monopolize food, you will have a competition. If you try to monopolize water and you buy every spring of water, people will import from others. They can dig wells or collect rain water.
I do not know much ways how to make extremely hard to anyone else produce any food. Maybe just be the state and command them. In ancap there would be just 2 main rules (in case of minarchism more). The principle of non-aggression and the inviolability of property rights. I cannot imagine a way how to make hard for people to make food without disrupting these "laws".
Yes, the Flag/Vote Wars are here. Here on Steemit people have an opportunity to make posts less valuable or even less visible. But I can't imagine where the right to this would be in "real life". You have no way to "swallow" the small guys with the principle of non-aggression. To some extent we can say this is a disrupting of property rights but users agreed with it. Everybody here knows people have the right to flag posts and that it may happen.
I hope I have explained it in a clear way. I am just learning and I try to oppose you. I do not know everything (I should say that I know just something) about ancap, so you should better send the comment, you posted here, below the post of a "true anarcho-capitalist". I am not able to oppose you in the way the longtime anarcho-capitalist would do.
Debating about things os one of the ways to learn more about something. And i always like to debate about topics that are thoughtful to learn more about It, and in the process generate something better. That How dialetics Works.
And assuming what you dont know is more than the right way. And i ask because i dont know either. And i like the anarchy Idea, but i cant see a way that it would work.
But here is my thoughts:
Too many regulations kill the market/competition
Too little regulations kill the consumer.
Based on what i know, the central Idea would be that the market regulates itself.
But here is a real world example:
Small local foodstores/market were pretty normal and each neighborhood had their own local market. Small business, low revenue good enough for the owners to have some profit.
Then come Walmart. A Company that started small, an inteligent owner, gets big, and start to cannibalize the market, with really low prices, because got big enough to get cheap deals from the suppliers.
Ok, so far, normal competition.
But, the way Walmart aggressively grows, he doesnt brake none of the 2 rules.
It is Just big enough and have enough cash to sell with low prices with temporary losses for time enough to kill all the competition around.
This is called dumping. At this moment there is market regulations that forbid the dumping to allow a Fair playfield on the market(It may still happen, but, It is against the current law)
What i think would happen on acap? They would Just keep dumping everywhere they entered, rise the prices when there is no competition, and when somebody try to enter the market, they have enough funds to dump the price again until the New competition dies again.
This have been done in the past, and thats why antitrust, antimonopoly, antidumping laws appeared.
All markets are easily manipulated with enough money.
When you have a state, it is harder for you to establish a company and get all the authorization for everything for selling alcohol, food, etc.). But not in 1880s in the US:
I can use the Standard Oil example. They controlled 90-95% of all oil production in the US. They were trying to use some practices to destroy its rivals. But as soon as they set the price higher, the some rivals appeared on the market again.
This is an endless circle. You set high price, you have more rivals. In the ancap the rivals would appear instantly, because all you have to have is just the product you want to sell.
Walmart is a great example. But why is that so bad when they would have so big percentage on the market (and there is definitely not just Walmart who is big)? People like when they are able to buy everything on one place where you can find maybe everything. The department stores are the same. But when the price is so high, many people will notice and care it is high and they will buy it somewhere else. If the price is too high it would instantly motivate someone to produce those things.
Many people will always buy food in the small local foodstores, because here in many cases they know what they are buying.
So, I just think that in the free market, the rivals will response much faster than in the "state market". When Wallmart sets lower prices, it is OK for consumers. When the prices are higher, the competition will respond to that much faster.
There wouldnt be bureaucracy difficultying the process If creating a New Business but what about running the business?
A player big enough would buy almost all the suppliers production in the area.
Then comes a New Guy, tries to buy from that supplier a small quantity to start his business, then the big Guy say that If he sell to the small, he wont buy anything from them anymore ( wich could be 90% of the production)
The supplier now refuse to sell to the New Guy or he Will Go bankrupt. Then the New Guy never get competitive prices.
What happens if the big player buy almost all the suppliers production in the area? The price of the food will go higher. What happens if the price of the food go higher? It will be more profitable for people to start a business in food producing, so more people will have a business in food producing, so the price will stabilize itself.
If the big player buy almost all of the food again, more people will start a business in this area.
When a New Guy tries to buy from supplier a small quantity he will have someone from whom he will buy (but the price is too high) or not, so he might start a business in food producing (not just selling it).
You can't force everyone to sell just to you. And even if you somehow do this, new suppliers will start business because of this.
If you look again at the Standard Oil example, you would know, that they were using dumping of price, too. But the result was just that they make oil more affordable for everyone. If they buy everything from the rivals and then they set price higher, the only result was that new rivals came instantly to the market.
Why was that? Because in 1880s there was a (more or less) free market in this area. But if you have many regulations, the New Guy cannot become a supplier instantly, so the market will stabilize itself after a long time and these practices can be profitable for the big player.
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I like this article, i would like take it and make a translation to spanish, could you give me permission to do it? I just will take some paragraph..
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