Quote from: pine on February 23, 2012, 02:33 amQuote from: anarcho47 on February 23, 2012, 12:39 amI would argue more for the case that the invention of the individual gun was what ushered in the end of the feudal era more so than the development of markets. The ability for an individual to protect his property against multiple assailants with one affordable tool has never before existed in history.Government does not function under market principles, ever. They feed off of the market using violent coercion. The only argument I can make for a state is a couple of tiny roles that would encompass the entirety of a country universally, like border defense. Even courts and arbitration could be "opt-in/opt-out" if both sides of a dispute agree to use alternatives (as is often the case with private business disputes, since the effectiveness, efficiency, and "justice" of public courts has been demonstrated to fail all litmus tests a great majority of the time). Monopolization of anything is ineffective and requires a violent backdrop. It is counter to improving economic conditions, in all instances. Therefore, it makes no sense to possibly argue FOR such an institution in any but the most "necessary evil" sort of context, which would be minarchist at MOST.This individual arguing for unions needs to do some studying of wage history in the US and child labor, like what happened to wages before unions were given the weight of government violence and entrepreneurs started becoming the most politically demonized "class" of citizen (as it is today), or how many "child laborers" were actually effected by the enacted legislation against it (i.e. how much of the child labor issue the private market had already dealt with LONG before the demigods with guns decided to pass laws for political gain).Something I am curious about. Do corporations exist in this view of the world anarcho?This question is prompted by the essay "The Nature of the Firm" by Ronald Coase, in which it successfully argues that corporations and governments are essentially communist entities. Now, I'm sure most people reading that would be thinking "whatisthisshit.jpg". But actually it's a profoundly important question, why do corporations exist?After reading it, I came to the conclusion that Capitalism is not about corporations at all. They are like little islands in the pacific, surrounded by a vast body of water that is the market. The market is the transaction between corporations and individuals, but it is not the individuals or the corporations themselves. Bizarre though that may sound, it explains a whole lot of other things.So, you see, I came to the conclusion that in a real anarchy-capitalist world, there would be no corporations, just individuals working on the basis of contracts collecting together momentarily and scattering after work was completed. If you think about it, it could be that we're gradually heading into this direction in the far distant future. You would have a central state perhaps, but the concept of corporation would be vastly more fluid than it is today. Think of Amazon's Mechanical Turk Machine, and you understand the direction I'm coming from.I think the main function of a corporation serves to disassociate ownership from liability. It is an artificial legal construct, given its own supposed rights, and treated under the eyes of the state as if it were a living breathing human.Many of the FUNCTIONS of a corporation could and would be taken care of with basic contracts. Communism is a state-enforced ideology, voluntary association is not. This is why I have no problem with co-operatives making products and "socializing" the profits - they are voluntary associations and therefore a valid part of the market. That being said, name me one single thing a co-operative ever invented, something that wasn't created by an individual risking what they had on an idea and a prayer and a set of balls.There is a sort of "middle ground" in there where members (i.e. owners) of a business that decided to publicly auction itself off would voluntarily agree to take tiny slices of liability (or not, because that would discount the share prices against a competitor who, everything else being equal, opted to leave that liability on management and majority owners). You are right about the landscape changing, and I think in many ways it's for the better, and driven by the massive expansion of the division of labor that the internet has accommodated. It's do or die now, and we'll see more Kodak's and IBM's not too far down the pipe.I advocate for the private handling of all matters of society, whenever it's feasible. I believe if there is a genuine need, there is an entrepreneur waiting to fill it. And when profit margins are high because you are the first one in to the game, that attracts competition like blood does sharks. it's the way of things. If you look at all of the mature industries margins are low and getting lower (fiat currency has play on this, but that's a whole other issue), while emerging businesses have five times the ROE and five times the net margin. Dinosaurs are going to die (publishers, existing entertainment models, for example), freeing up billions in resources for determined people to take and use to serve their fellow man. It's an extraordinary time, and the sooner we get the collapse of nation-states out of the way (in western countries, about 80% of them are mathematically unsustainable, so it's now a "time" game), the better off we as a species will become.