Quote from: PoisonedDestiny on March 15, 2012, 08:36 ami've been studying alot lately, in a quest to hone my political beliefs. social and cultural aspects of my politics i have nailed down. my economic beliefs, however, are very flexible. i'm a stong believer in the free market, the truly free one, not the current neoliberal mess that dominantes global economics or past imperialistically dominated markets but an open, competitive, and highly accountable and transparent market with a strong but limited framework of rules to keep competition fierce (no monopolies or subsidies or even corporations)my knowledge of economics is limited to a few entry level college courses, but i understand the basics.my question is.. has anyone studied how SR operates as a free market? does it follow a particular model? does the independent nature of the vendors mean competition is robust compared to the economy as a whole? the heavily feedback driven system to me seems like a level of accountability that lacks in the real world. not just the world of drugs but the global marketplace in general. suppression of information and manipulation of regulatory bodies seems impossible here. any economic experts here? *destiny*Okay I'm going to take a crack at this one since my background is in economics, specifically Austrian (once I had un-learned most of the bullshit I was taught in university).SR follows the Rothbardian anarcho-capitalist model. Human beings, in general, come together and co-operate to attain their ends. This is contingent on a few foundational principles, along with understanding humanity itself. The first thing someone needs to come to grips with, acknowledge, and embrace as a a GOOD thing, is that all human beings act with their own inherent self-interest in mind. Whether that be physical, tangible self interest (food, shelter, clothing, transport, etc.), or things that hold a subjective element of self-interest (art, aesthetics, hobbies, charity, etc.).The second thing to understand is that all choices are made, i.e. Human Action is undertaken, at the exclusion of all other current possibilities. Humans are the ultimate discriminators, in that choice is the ultimate discriminator. The fact that I am taking the time to type this up right now means that I have decided that all other potential actions I could be undertaking at this time are foregone, and that I must see some benefit to myself to respond to this question, more benefit than any other action I could take at this time.This is praxeology. The acknowledgment and understanding of WHAT human action is, and WHY human action is. It's an abductive process - you can't apply normal deductive reasoning to economics except for in some very broad strokes which apply "most" of the time (supply/demand, price/demand, etc. and even there you have outliers). You have to understanding praxeology to understand the fluid mechanics of how this functions.The fundamental principles that drive Rothbardian society are that you are allowed to act within your own self interest, so long as you are not violating the inalienable rights of another person (negative rights). A negative right is a right than I may exercise without infringing on the same right that you possess. We both have the "right"/ability to post on these forums (as dictated by the property owner, but that's later), and in doing so my posting doesn't interfere with your ability to post. However, we both don't have the "right" to the exact same username (another term dictated by the property owner). This is for obvious reasons, but imagine if we socialized/publicized usernames so that everyone could have the same one. You have the right to your property, and I to mine. We cannot own the same piece of property in full because it is a scarce good (anything that cannot be instantly replicated ad infinitum - e.g. a house, a car, illicit product, your shoes, etc). So we structure our actions around our property and our self interest and the other rights that our inherent in our humanity.SR is set up the same way. As the owner of the property (SR, forums), DPR dictates what goes on here. He has the ability to remove access from anyone not playing by his rules. He isn't a "king" or "lord" because he doesn't use violence against those violating his terms, he simply withholds his property from them/bars access. He has set up a bunch of private "laws" that members of this community, who are here 100% voluntarily, must abide by. We stay here, we play by the rules. If we don't like the rules, we leave. It is of benefit to SR to structure the community in such a way that entices people to join and stay and play by the rules and make benefit of this place, as opposed to becoming authoritarian and enacting arbitrary restrictions (no usernames beginning with "A", have to make a new account for every purchase, can only post one time per week in the forums, vendor accounts cost $10,000.00, etc.). This would drive people away. DPR's self-interest inherently steers him to create a marketplace that welcomes legitimate vendors, discourages scammers (escrow, account bans, the forums and encouraging people to post complaints, etc.).Hans Herman Hoppe is probably the world's foremost authority on Private Law. I would recommend even checking out a few of his primer essays to understand how praxeology plays out in voluntary human association and how such structures are formed organically. It's pretty awesome stuff.The rest of the hard-line economics are pretty simple. Price reaction is fairly swift as vendors can adjust on the spot. Feedback is quick and very public, which can make or break a vendor. The market itself is a living place and as participation grows on both seller and buyer side I have noticed prices coming down in specific categories as the margins attract new vendors to meet the burgeoning buyer side. There are no formal regulatory structures in place except for the mods (who follow the property-owner's guidelines and act as "managers", in a sense) and SR admin/DPR. Vendors are 100% liable for all of the good and all of the bad and the community usually does a good job of keeping them in line or kicking them to the curb pretty quickly. This is all voluntary association stuff and I would encourage you to read up on rothbardian anarcho-capitalist society to see the metrics at play.One final thing about economics you should understand that most university courses don't teach and most philosophy classes won't touch. it's simple, foundational, and changes your entire perspective on things once you have realized it. it is this:**Every voluntary transaction is a good thing.**Let's say I walk into a shoe store and the owner shows me a pair of shoes for $40.00. I really like them, so I decide to buy them. I voluntarily trade my $40.00 for the pair of brand new shoes. In order to have done that, I must have decided that those shoes are worth more to me than the $40.00 I have in my pocket. If they were worth only $40.00 or anything less, I wouldn't buy them. At the same time, the store owner, by putting his price at $40.00, is telling me that the $40.00 in my pocket is worth more to him than the shoes he is offering.If we exchange our respective goods (another thing to read up on is money - in a completely free market, money is a GOOD, a commodity, that generally bears specific characteristics and is selected voluntarily by the market to fulfill certain roles to make the flow of goods and services easier/make everyone wealthier faster), we are BOTH wealthier for it. The store owner has received something he deems is worth more than what he gave, and I have received something I think is worth more than what I paid. Every voluntary transaction of every kind has this action going on, unless you have coercion involved (if you don't pay for this license, we will jail you/harm you/take your stuff and sell it because you owe us, etc).It doesn't matter if you are buying an ice cream cone from the guy at the stall one street over or paying for three prostitutes and a raucous night of frolicking in vegas. Everyone is wealthier if everything is voluntary. And everything about SR is voluntary - ergo, participation in SR makes everyone wealthier, our culture richer, and imbues the qualities that have propelled humanity to its most prosperous state in all of history in each and every one of us.Fuck me this turned out to be long. If you have any more questions on the mechanical side of things fire away, because that turned into a philosonomics rant lol.