Silk Road forums
Discussion => Silk Road discussion => Topic started by: PoisonedDestiny on March 15, 2012, 08:36 am
-
i'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. supressionj of information and manipulation of regulatory bodies seems impossible here.
any economic experts here?
*destiny*
-
If you would like to recommend to you this, http://mises.org/media/categories/199/Economics-101, as a good primer for the mechanics of free market economics taught by Murray Rothbard. I get the feeling it would be hard to get data for this study.
-
i'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.
-
@Anarcho47: Austrian School rocks. Respects.
-
yes, yes it does :)
-
Great primer Anarcho.
You said:
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).
We've used this guiding principle to craft the "rules of the game" here as well. If you read the seller's guide, you'll see a restricted items section:
Do not list anything who's purpose is to harm or defraud, such as stolen items or info, stolen credit cards, counterfeit currency, personal info, assassinations, and weapons of any kind.
Do not list anything related to pedophilia.
Now, while trading in any of these items does not harm either party in the transaction, and is therefore acceptable as an isolated event, we recognize that the transaction would not likely exist without the existence of a victim as well, and so we don't allow them.
This morality is simple, powerful and profound. In any given situation, you can use it to judge what is right and wrong. If someone is being forced to act against their will without provocation, then it is immoral. The criminal in any immoral event can be discovered by finding who is initiating the use of force or fraud. It then follows that the only acceptable use of force is in self defense against the criminals initiating it.
-
i'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.
i agree with DPR that was a great little primer!! lovely examples.. you really made a boring (to me often) subject interesting. i've been fleshing out my political worldview lately and i've been stuck on what economic system i favor. i suppose you could call me anti-corporate free market. which SR is. there are no sponsors or huge firms.
of course corporations themselves aren't so much a problem as the fact that they seem to be violently attempting to supress a true free market. once again.. it is in their self-interest to destroy competition. so it's merely a logical result.
heres one: does our current economic system (in the fleshy world) truly act as a free market or is it a market heavily corrupted and loaded with involuntary transactions? from my understanding a true free market has never existed on a large scale. intersections of powerful monopolies and their government lapdogs seem to damage this concept. i believe a truly free market to be a wonderful thing, something that can unite the left and the right. what we have now out there seems a perversion.
i've mutated slowly from progressive to libertarian left.. all because of SR. it gave me faith in markets again.. albeit ones truly free and transparent.
hope i don't sound too ignorant here.
"SR: Putting the Free in Free Market again!!!!"
*destiny*
-
i'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.
i agree with DPR that was a great little primer!! lovely examples.. you really made a boring (to me often) subject interesting. i've been fleshing out my political worldview lately and i've been stuck on what economic system i favor. i suppose you could call me anti-corporate free market. which SR is. there are no sponsors or huge firms.
of course corporations themselves aren't so much a problem as the fact that they seem to be violently attempting to supress a true free market. once again.. it is in their self-interest to destroy competition. so it's merely a logical result.
heres one: does our current economic system (in the fleshy world) truly act as a free market or is it a market heavily corrupted and loaded with involuntary transactions? from my understanding a true free market has never existed on a large scale. intersections of powerful monopolies and their government lapdogs seem to damage this concept. i believe a truly free market to be a wonderful thing, something that can unite the left and the right. what we have now out there seems a perversion.
i've mutated slowly from progressive to libertarian left.. all because of SR. it gave me faith in markets again.. albeit ones truly free and transparent.
hope i don't sound too ignorant here.
"SR: Putting the Free in Free Market again!!!!"
*destiny*
the "Wild West" had probably what has been closest to a free market in the last few centuries, and the economy in general through the 1800's was much more laissez-faire than the past 100 years (which is why a loaf of bread was the same price in 1790 as it was in 1890).
I highly recommend the book "the not-so Wild West", which covers the economics and the anarcho-capitalist social structure that existed largely through that era.
Today's markets are a bled of progressive socialism and fascism/corporatism: A heavy dose of central planning by a huge violent entity (the state) and acquisition/redistribution of resources from less represented groups, in the democratic sense of the word, to more representative groups (which ensures perpetuity until bankruptcy). And then to compliment that you have a state that can auction off the largest list of rent-seeking "opportunities" in the history of mankind, which means "the merger of corporation and state" via PPP's, subsidies, regulations written by corporations (superseding much more powerful free market regulations, as in banking).
It's a nasty picture out there. On here is very close to rothbardian laissez-faire, and it's made an interesting case study for me as well as a nice vending opportunity :)
-
i'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.
i agree with DPR that was a great little primer!! lovely examples.. you really made a boring (to me often) subject interesting. i've been fleshing out my political worldview lately and i've been stuck on what economic system i favor. i suppose you could call me anti-corporate free market. which SR is. there are no sponsors or huge firms.
of course corporations themselves aren't so much a problem as the fact that they seem to be violently attempting to supress a true free market. once again.. it is in their self-interest to destroy competition. so it's merely a logical result.
heres one: does our current economic system (in the fleshy world) truly act as a free market or is it a market heavily corrupted and loaded with involuntary transactions? from my understanding a true free market has never existed on a large scale. intersections of powerful monopolies and their government lapdogs seem to damage this concept. i believe a truly free market to be a wonderful thing, something that can unite the left and the right. what we have now out there seems a perversion.
i've mutated slowly from progressive to libertarian left.. all because of SR. it gave me faith in markets again.. albeit ones truly free and transparent.
hope i don't sound too ignorant here.
"SR: Putting the Free in Free Market again!!!!"
*destiny*
the "Wild West" had probably what has been closest to a free market in the last few centuries, and the economy in general through the 1800's was much more laissez-faire than the past 100 years (which is why a loaf of bread was the same price in 1790 as it was in 1890).
I highly recommend the book "the not-so Wild West", which covers the economics and the anarcho-capitalist social structure that existed largely through that era.
Today's markets are a bled of progressive socialism and fascism/corporatism: A heavy dose of central planning by a huge violent entity (the state) and acquisition/redistribution of resources from less represented groups, in the democratic sense of the word, to more representative groups (which ensures perpetuity until bankruptcy). And then to compliment that you have a state that can auction off the largest list of rent-seeking "opportunities" in the history of mankind, which means "the merger of corporation and state" via PPP's, subsidies, regulations written by corporations (superseding much more powerful free market regulations, as in banking).
It's a nasty picture out there. On here is very close to rothbardian laissez-faire, and it's made an interesting case study for me as well as a nice vending opportunity :)
i'm glad free market doesn't equal corporate control. seeing the actions of the libertarian right, i always assumed pro-free market equals corporate domination. in a world of lassie faire economics, corporations would simply replace government. oppression would continue.
now the more i read and listen, i realize it's the state that gives corporations this kind of power. you can have a robust and vibrant free market without corporations automatically blossoming into being. i mean.. corporate personhood is granted by the STATE, is it not? and subsidies, charters, and forced opening of new markets by military force. without the state, and the powers granted by the state, corporations wouldn't be scary? these are the conclusions i'm coming to.
from the East India Company to modern oil companies... corporations and the state have been in bed. weaken the state and you weaken corporations.
that's why i think the progressive thought of using the state to supress corporate power is the wrong way to play. but there are bridges that unite us, from left to right.
wild west economics. never even considered it. but it makes sense. i suppose true free markets tend to exist in frontiers. whether physical or digital.
this is why i think without a frontier we have become lost and stagnant. ideas are getting recycled and people are entrenching. and it's going to be a century or more before we open up the final fronteir.. until then we have cyberspace.
and i'll admit the free market has done well for me too as a consumer here. with a little investigation i have made out very well on SR, and have actually saved tons of money that would have been wasted on the street. so to those that complain about the prices here.. you just aren't looking hard enough!!
*destiny*
-
i'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.
Anarcho, I always enjoy reading your posts- they are concise, rational, logical, and reasoned. Your beliefs closely mirror my own, although you are much more of a wordsmith... Keep them coming, and don't worry about how long they are :)
-
I consider myself a libertarian and I advocate laissez-faire free market economics for purely moral reasons. Although economics as a social science is fascinating, and I think the United States debt crisis,mortgage crises,etc. is indicative of serious problems with Keynesianism and the artificial manipulation of credit/interest rates, I find the moral argument for a free market to be truly sufficient on its own.
First off, I understand government as an institution which has been granted an authoritative monopoly over the use of force in society by the consent of the governed, those who voluntarily pay taxes. The only thing which separates the government from a private company is their right to subject people to force, which is accomplished through the use of prisons and through the use of armed law enforcement officers.
If you live in a society which holds freedom to be a god given right, than the one law your government ought to enforce is the rule of voluntarism. Freedom of speech, of association, property rights, contractual obligations, these things must all be protected so long as they are exercised in a manner which does not infringe on the equal right of others. Force must only be used by the government to protect these rights for tax paying citizens.
So, in the realm of trade, it seems obvious to me that forcefulness should be used protect honest and informed trade between consenting parties. Fraud is a violation of liberty, theft is a violation of liberty, but voluntary trade is not a violation of liberty. All people should receive equal protection under the law to trade goods and services voluntarily.
The notion of equality is what leads me to condemn protectionism, moral legislation, all those nasty things governments feel it is acceptable to do. Some fancy government social scientist might say that in order to strengthen domestic manufacturing industries we should put tariffs on foreign manufactured goods and people will only find it affordable to buy domestic. This may have either good or bad economic repercussions, depending on who you ask, (I would say bad, certainly for consumers) but that is besides the point. There is a moral transgression here. Some people are receiving unequal treatment under the law. Force is being used to promote involuntary trade. This I hold to be morally wrong.
And then you get tax policy which targets people's choices, such as outrageously high taxes on cigarettes. I know they are bad for me, but I am choosing to buy them with full awareness of the risks, and who are you to condemn me for that? Its not ok to discriminate against people for things they cant control, like race and gender, but its ok to discriminate based on their choices? The things which truly define their identity? (Choices which do not infringe upon other people's rights) That is bullshit. We on this forum choose to do drugs, which is in theory a truly victimless crime, and they want to put us in jail for it. That is immoral.
And I live in Canada so someone might say that if I smoke I will consume more socialized healthcare resources when I get cancer, so I should pay for it in cigarette taxes. Well, I have an answer to that: make people pay for their own healthcare. "But doesn't everyone have a right to their life? Don't people deserve healthcare if it is possible to give it to them?" At whose expense do they deserve healthcare? At their own expense or at the VOLUNTARY expense of others, see:charity. No one has a right to take the fruits of another person's labor by force.
To quote my favorite author, Robert A. Heinlein: "TANSTAAFL!" There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. If you eat lunch and don't pay for it, someone else did, by spending time growing the food, and cooking the meal, and what not. Something never comes from nothing.
I would recommend to anyone interested in libertarianism, to read 'The Moon is a Harsh Mistress' by Robert Heinlein. Its my favorite book in the whole world, makes you laugh out loud and shit. I didn't mean to rant so long when I started, I'm supposed to be writing an essay, hope the mailman brings my speed today.
I love the silk road.
eidt: just thought I would add that I realize morality is totally subjective, a matter of taste really. I am a fan of Ayn Rand but I don't totally buy her philosophical premise. This is just what I believe is right and therefore I am compelled by my conscience to act in accordance with this at all times, and to try my best and convince the rest of humanity to agree.