/lit/ - Literature

Military yes.

Police and courts, not sure.

Libertarians normally don't, anarcho-capitalists do.

IIRC, Rand thought people who thought everything could be privatized were insane.

No. Only anarcho-capitalists do that.

So, are all anarcho-capitalists clinically retarded or what?

I like Libertarian pornography

>>1994648
Yes. Yes they are.

>>1994661
Is it all CP?

No. Because that's a stupid idea, and your a stupid head.

It worked out decently in medieval Ireland, which had no concept of state law enforcement, and no standing army (just elaborate defensive alliances).

A disagreement over the law or finding of fact could result in a feud, but you had basically no hope of going against what was obvious to anyone or playing lawyer games with technicalities.

It was notably mild and reasonable, with most penalties being compensation of some sort, since to work well it needed a consensus that justice was being done, otherwise it would provoke feuds.

I think the main reason this kind of thing isn't common in the world is not that it doesn't work well, but that it doesn't lend itself to conquest, and therefore it doesn't propagate itself.

Regardless of its other merits, a species that doesn't grow or reproduce is doomed to eventual extinction.

>allowing corporations who are openly motivated by money to dispense their personal definition of "justice"

so let me get this straight. you dislike government, so instead you want a local corporation to protect you from the bad guys?

enjoy your mafia

>yfw the local "police" break your legs because you don't pay the mandatory protection money for living on their turf

>>1994730
...and what makes these corporations so scary to you when they aren't backed up by the absolute final word and irresistable force of state power, but instead depend on the consent of those they contract with?

The thing that makes corporations scary is when they're in bed with government, that constant flirting with fascistic alliance between the managers of private wealth and those of government legal power.

>>1994747
Maybe the fact that any trust or monopoly turns the corporation into a de facto government?

>>1994751
Monopolies are pretty much always created by government, usually deliberately.

The reason is because there's usually no real way to provide utilities without a monopoly/

>>1994747
they're the ones with the firearms

>>1994747
how about the fact that most serious problems with corporations come from a lack of government intervention, not active collusion with the government (although that is a problem)

that corporations will gladly sacrifice the well-being of their customers, employees or just innocent bystanders in order to increase profits if not actively penalized for doing so

you may say "oh private police forces would be forced to behave justly by the invisible hand of the free-market, if they didn't live up to their obligations you would just go to someone else" but any such business by the very nature of its product would be a monopoly, so you'd have to either go to them or go fuck yourself. freed of competition, they'd provide the bare minimum quality service to avoid creating a competitor (and if one arose, leveraging their increased bargaining power to crush them before going right back to fucking people over)

Xe (blackwater) is worse than the ordinary army in almost every metric except its ability to recruit, and a thousand times more corrupt.

Police, courts, and military, no. In fact I could be wrong but I thought one of the main ideas of Libertarianism was that those are probably the government's biggest responsibilities.

>>1994762
>Monopolies are pretty much always created by government, usually deliberately.

jesus christ no

Monopolies are the natural "end game" of unfettered capitalism. If a corporation grows in economic power and manages to destroy or consume all of its competitors, its impossible for a new company to come on the scene and compete with them. A sufficiently large corporation with no similarly sized competitors will simply have far too much bargaining power to let the underdog to break into the market.

Some, yes. I have known quite a few that would like to see privatized security forces and no police as well as militia's instead of military and a court system fashioned after medieval Ireland. They were anarchists of a sort, which is a form of libertarianism. They were surprising well researched in their ideas. I wouldn't mind seeing how a society like theirs would do in the modern world. The less extremist right libertarians usually see police, courts and military as the main responsibilities of the state. Also, they usually want minimal military only for defense. I don't know what left libertarians usually advocate, but I don't think they are big on private military, police and courts.

>>1994773

A state a corporation with several monopolies.

>>1994770
>how about the fact that most serious problems with corporations come from a lack of government intervention, not active collusion with the government (although that is a problem)

>how about the fact that my side of the argument is a fact

No, that is actually a major point in dispute. (And you're on the wrong side of it, so there.)

>any such business by the very nature of its product would be a monopoly, so you'd have to either go to them or go fuck yourself.
Go back and read the thing about the medieval Irish system.

Law enforcement was about seeking a consensus of what is justice, and if that failed, it resulted in feud. You joined a tuath so you had someone to appeal to for justice. None of the tuatha had a monopoly on justice. All of them were motivated to be reasonable, because feuding always hurt both sides, but all of them were motivated to be willing to enforce justice, because otherwise they had nothing to offer their members and soon they would have none.

>>1994773
>If a corporation grows in economic power and manages to destroy or consume all of its competitors, its impossible for a new company to come on the scene and compete with them.
Without government enforcement of that monopoly power, how are they supposed to stop other people from providing the same goods and services?

Hell, corporations are creatures of government. They are entirely legal constructs, and have only the rights, powers, and protections granted to them by government.

They can't even exist without the state.

I dont think any intelligent person could argue in favour of these things being privatised. Even the most staunch libertarians understand the government has a role in society, and providing these three services is usually at the top of the list.

In answer to those arguing about monopolies, its pretty obvious that there are monopolies created and maintained by government intervention, and natural monopolies that operate under government supervision to prevent an abuse of their power.

>>1994795
scale of economy. If you can produce 1000 units for 1000 dollars while your tiny competitor can only produce 500 units for 1000 dollars, you can outcompete them simply by scale.

>>1994809
What's terrible about this?

If you don't pass the savings along to the customers, you can't offer a lower price and therefore you have no competitive advantage.

If you do pass the savings along to the customers, you're doing the same job more efficiently and giving people a lower price, you deserve all the business you get, and the guys who were going to be your competitors can go do some other productive thing.

>>1994790
>Law enforcement was about seeking a consensus of what is justice
Yay, lynch mobs!

Seriously, though. The reason libertarians are so fucking stupid is that they want to scale systems of governance that (arguably) work on extremely small scales up to a nation that has literally hundreds of millions of people in it. And if there's one goddamn thing that history has shown us its that ordinary people will fuck over people they don't know in the worst way if they're not forced to behave decently.

On a related issue, while libertarians bitch about the redistribution of wealth (on such a ridiculously inadequate scale that it hardly deserves being called that) talking about how private charities should take care of the poor, basically nobody donates to those charities because they're not coerced into doing so. The only places where food banks and homeless shelters are adequately funded are in areas where they're least needed - the most affluent neighborhoods.

I thank god that the ridiculous idol worship of police officers as noble defenders of order in this country will likely prevent privatized police forces from ever coming into widespread use (except maybe in isolated libertarian communities)

>>1994819
my bad, I wasn't clear. I was addressing the production side, not the consumption side.

And yes, the big corp would be more efficient, but is that acceptable if they have a monopoly on that efficient production?

It's like a metaphor I heard on BBC's business daily: success is like a tortoise shell. It protects you, but it slows you(r innovations) down. Monopolies by their nature stifle innovation, because there's no viable competition to spur innovation.

Meanwhile the little guy doesn't have the "down payment" of capital needed to develop innovative techniques. They don't have the innovative laboratory because they don't have the monopoly, while the one with the monopoly can forgo the use of any innovative laboratory and pass that savings onto consumers.

It's innovation vs a low price.

>>1994795
>Without government enforcement of that monopoly power, how are they supposed to stop other people from providing the same goods and services?

by punishing retailers and other distributors who sell their competitor's product.

by selling their product at a loss and subsidizing that loss with income from their other departments until the competitor is out of business.

by actually being ABLE to sell their product for less than their competitors, by manufacturing at a higher level and owning more elements of production.

by having a more powerful budget for marketing.

by having more market awareness.

outright sabatoge, legal or illegal.

seriously when was the last time a monopoly was broken by a startup?

>>1994819
>If you don't pass the savings along to the customers, you can't offer a lower price and therefore you have no competitive advantage.

If you do pass the savings along to the customers, you're doing the same job more efficiently and giving people a lower price, you deserve all the business you get, and the guys who were going to be your competitors can go do some other productive thing.

after your competitor leaves to do some other productive thing you raise the price to twice what it was originally

I think any reasonable person is aware that unrestrained capitalism is a bad thing and leads to monopolies. Even the most staunch conservatives know that some intervention is necessary. One only needs look to the past to see what happens when the government doesn't intervene with regards to monopolies. People get fucked in the ass.

>>1994822
>>Law enforcement was about seeking a consensus of what is justice
>Yay, lynch mobs!
Lynch mobs are what happens when people are inexperienced with doing justice for themselves. When people have nothing that works, they improvise something, and it's usually not very good. It's not at all the same thing as a mature consensus-based system.

Anyway, lynch mobs are underrated. They were often formed by men with direct personal knowledge of the evidence of the crimes committed, in response to the apathy, corruption, or incompetence of the official judicial system.

What you can prove beyond a reasonable doubt, to uninvolved strangers, is not the same as what you know beyond a reasonable doubt. What is law is not the same as what is justice.

>>1994841
>after your competitor leaves to do some other productive thing you raise the price to twice what it was originally
You honestly think customers don't remember this shit and punish it?

>>1994866
>You honestly think customers don't remember this shit and punish it?

Surprise! This isn't hypothetical. And to answer your question- no, they don't.

>>1994835
>seriously when was the last time a monopoly was broken by a startup?
When was the last monopoly that wasn't built up or outright enforced by government intervention?

>>1994866
No. The average consumer gives not a shit. They'll just complain and buy the product they feel they need anyways.

>>1994872
Yes they do. People aren't as stupid as you imagine.

Tactics like this only work when they're also supported by government monopoly-supporting measures, such as unnatural barriers to entry into the field.

>>1994874
Oh! I can answer this one!

the ones that aren't inside the heads of deluded libertarians who desperately believe the free market to be a panacea (because free = natural and natural = good right) so they go through ridiculous mental gymnastics to blame every negative thing about capitalism on the government and believe that human beings are wholly rational actors, despite the ridiculous amount of evidence to the contrary!

>>1994887
Dude, what do you think Wal-Mart does?

>>1994866

How do your customers punish it? Being a monoply, they cant exactly go somewhere else to get their goods...

>>1994899
The free market will make sure there's always a new competitor willing to take advantage of a weakness in the monopoly.

>>1994905
see
>>1994835

>>1994905

This has become a circular argument. Consumer punish the monopolistic firm, who has beaten out all competitors, by buying from a competitor? What?

>>1994890
Pretty much anything but double their prices once their competitors go out of business.

Wal-Mart's whole emphasis is on permanent low prices, and on continuing to reduce them by whatever means available.

They have superior supply-chain management and are ruthless about cutting costs, even when it means sacrificing quality. That's a major reason they're not a monopoly and are never going to be one: they specialize in the low end, and not everybody is willing to buy something that will last half as long for a 20% lower price.

>>1994874
>When was the last monopoly that wasn't built up or outright enforced by government intervention?

the shame is we can't disprove this argument until we actually have a more free market and see if monopolies form or not

arguing with a libertarian is a real "no true scotsman" deal because we're never going to cut government down to a level they'd ever be happy with. and all the way down they'll explain away any problems as being the lingering results of collectivism and big government.

>>1994899
>>1994912
Don't be retards.

The argument here is, "Even though others are trying to start competing businesses, they're always getting crushed by a monopoly-seeking dump-then-gouge competitive model."

The reason it's wrong is that the customers notice what's going on, when the dominant player drops its prices way down when there's a competitor, and then raises them way up when that competitor went out of business, and when the next competitor comes along, they give it at least some of their business to keep it alive (and some of them refuse to deal with the dominant player out of sheer resentment).

>>1994922
>arguing with a libertarian is a real "no true scotsman" deal because we're never going to cut government down to a level they'd ever be happy with, and we're never going to study any history.

I would just like to point out that if one business develops a monopoly they don't have to lower prices to undercut their competition. They can simply kill the competition because they would have their own security firm.
What's the consumer going to do? If I know anything at all about human nature, not a God-damned thing.

>>1994925

I don't agree that's what would happen though. The existing monopolistic firm can ALWAYS porduce more efficiently than a newcomer. Alot of consumers seriously won't give a shit and will buy from whoever is cheapest. The newcomer has no advantage at all over the existing business.

>>1994913
>Pretty much anything but double their prices once their competitors go out of business.

Oh so you've never been in a town when Wal-Mart moved in. Let me enlighten you. That's what they do. They move into a town, they keep track of the prices in stores in the area (they actually send employees out to do inventory of smaller stores in the area) then they price their products usually around 10-20% less of everybody else. Most of the time, Wal-Marts in this stage are working at a loss for several years, but that's okay, because its a massive corporation and the other chains can subsidize that loss. Anyway, anywhere from 3-10 years later, every small business in the area has closed down. Guess what happens next. If you said "well of course Wal-Mart keeps its customers on the basis of its low, low prices, so they keep offering the locals great bargains in return for their years of patronage," well, I'm sorry, you're wrong. Wal-Mart jacks the price right back the fuck up. Of course, you're saying, well, why don't those customers punish Wal-Mart for doing that, by going someplace else to shop? Except there isn't anyplace else to shop. Not close enough to make it worth it.

This is literally THE REASON why Wal-Mart is such a powerful company. Well, that and exploiting cheap Chinese slave labor- another free market success story!

>as good a place as any
Any ideal government or economic system is, in the end, exactly the same as any other.

>>1994939
>Wal-Mart jacks the price right back the fuck up.
No they don't. This is conspiracy theory bullshit. You usually hear this from the same people who claim 9/11 was an inside job.

There are plenty of disadvantages to unrestrained capitalism other than monopolization and price gouging. What about working conditions for laborers? Also, if there's a labor surplus, such as those that exist in numerous third world countries, wages will drop to almost nothing until the labor surplus disappears-- that is, people starve to death or leave. And while libertarians might argue that free capitalism would lead to full employment, there is unfortunately no way to test that hypothesis without putting huge segments of the populace at risk.

>>1994922
>arguing with a libertarian is a real "no true scotsman" deal because we're never going to cut government down to a level they'd ever be happy with

yeah except we do have examples of what happens when the government is smaller and intervenes less. it's called the past. y'know, when there were all those giant monopolies that were fucking america in the ass? then the government broke them up. crazy!

libertarians read history in a very different way from conventional historians, in the sense that they dont read it at all. over the years, a revisionist history has been cobbled together in order to make the cause of the oil and steel barons "big government" and not the natural result of unfettered capitalism. And because I don't subcribe to their view of history, which by the way is incestually perpetuated only by libertarians, I am simply disregarded as ignorant.

>>1994950
>I have never lived in a small town where a Wal-Mart moved in
>no corporation would EVER do that!

I don't. I can't speak for anyone else (there are a shitload of different people calling themselves libertarians).

>>1994913
>>1994950
>>1994939
I know this argument is a bit out of place, but Wal-Mart can still create a monopoly while catering to customers who want higher-quality goods for higher prices. All they really have to do is establish a subsidiary that fills that niche. Once it does, they have a full monopoly as a holdings company.

So... have you guys read any of my books? I know they're long and all, but I think I made some pretty decent observations on the state of England under virtually unrestrained capital... what? No, you haven't read them? Ok.

>>1994950
Uh, yes, they do. I guess I can't convince you with anecdotal evidence, but I know that that's exactly what they did when they moved into my hometown.

I thought this was pretty common knowledge... Isn't it the basis of their entire business model?

>>1994955
>When the Wal*Mart first came to town, we were amazed by how cheap everything was, and what a good deal it seemed like, so we all stopped shopping at the other stores.

>Years went by, and the other stores went out of business, and we got used to seeing the Wal*Mart prices so they didn't seem so low any more, plus we've also owned the goods for long enough to notice their inferior quality, and now we're not so happy always shopping there.

>The only explanation is that they used predatory pricing to drive out competition and then jacked up the prices!

>Why no, I can't name you any SPECIFIC prices they jacked up...

Predatory pricing is one of those folk fantasy things that lots of people believe in, except the people who seriously try to observe it or analyse how it would work.

This is laughable. Corporations get too large and stop competitors from entering the market? Have you ever heard of regional airlines? They spring up all the time, and rely on cheaper fares and better service to get customers from the bigger airlines. Why don't you save those ridiculous Socialism 101 lectures fro your weekly meetings instead of here?

>>1994964

This reminds me of the South Park episode where a Walmart moves in. All the townspeople agree not to shop there, but then they all end up shopping there anyway to "just get one thing," because Walmart's cheaper, open later, has a greater variety of goods, etc.

I think that's a pretty good model of what happens in real life. You're living in a fairy tale if you think people will "punish" monopolies by shopping at places that are more expensive and/or less convenient. At least, not enough people will do that to make a difference. And yes, I used South Park as a reference in my argument.

>>1994964
> Isn't it the basis of their entire business model?

that's half of it. but the half my libertarian friend here will probably cite is their ability to offer really low prices in the first place by buying on a ridiculous scale and exploiting cheap Chinese labor. that is their stated business model (okay the Chinese part maybe not so much) but the whole "underselling local competition, even at a loss, to run them out of business then jacking prices back up" is as much an integral part of their business plan than anything else. I worked at the local wal-mart in high school, and the managers made it clear (when ordering us to go to local stores and covertly document their prices) that it was wal-mart's recipe for success. I didn't really think anything was wrong with it at the time and I don't think it was really a secret since they were telling us dumb high school kids about it. it's probably not written down in some handbook anywhere but its definitely their overall business philosophy.

What crap is this? If I get mistreated -- i.e. the prices go up -- I go to a competitor. These are the same sad arguments I heard at college about the evils of capitalism. If capitalism is so bad, why did the Soviet Union collapse and why has China allowed privitization of industries? There are millionaires in China now, did you know that?

>>1994978
I think you're badly confused about what a monopoly is.

A real monopoly has the power to abuse the customer, to extract unfairly high prices and give subpar service. Even if there's only one business that serves some need, it's not a monopoly if it's pressured to serve the customer well and fairly by the *potential* for new competition.

People will punish a wannabe-monopoly for gouging them when there was no competition, by favoring any competition that becomes available.

They won't punish a strong competitor for serving them well and giving them low prices.

>>1994967
dude it was literally part of my job when I worked at wal-mart to go to the local retailers, document their prices for items we sold (in my department) and reprice everything we had at 20% off the lowest price I could find, even if it was less than the actual unit price. the "predatory pricing" as you call it was explained to me by my manager as "good business sense" and I did it every week until there wasn't anyplace left in town selling pet shit and we started steadily raising the prices

it's not mythological you loony it's the reason they're successful

>>1994981
...except the "then jacking prices up" part is complete and utter bullshit.

Of course they want to check the prices of their competitors and try to give better prices. That's perfectly normal competitive behavior, and not a sign of some kind of evil plan to drive their competitors out of business so they can gouge the customers later.

>>1995003
Why not? There's no incentive not to. Driving their competitors out of business and gaining a monopoly, if just in a certain area, means that they can price things however they want since there are no real alternatives for the consumer. That means more gain for them.

>>1995003
>...except the "then jacking prices up" part is complete and utter bullshit.

kinda pisses me off that you talk out of your ass like this but whatever, guess they don't have wal-marts where you come from and its not like my anecdotal evidence is worth two tugs of a dead dogs cock anyway so believe what you want to believe, I sure as hell ain't gonna convince you either way

>>1994992
>dude it was literally part of my job when I worked at wal-mart to go to the local retailers, document their prices for items we sold (in my department) and reprice everything we had at 20% off the lowest price I could find, even if it was less than the actual unit price.
So, your job as a bottom-of-the-food-chain minimum wage Wal-Mart shelf stocker involved the authority to set prices, even to set them below cost?

Sure thing.

Why are people so willing to tell lies to win anonymous internet arguments?

>>1995003
I noticed this with the televisions. There was no meaningful competition in the area at all. Wal-Mart had a 32'' 720p 60hz LCD television for $320. The Sam's Club across town (about twenty miles away) was selling a 32'' 1080p 60hz LED television for $300. Wal-Mart had no competition in the area, it has the most expensive televisions I've ever seen.
I only noticed this because I'm buying a tv.

>>1995017
Managers can afford to trust their employees with this kind of thing because they can fire a guy like him at any time for no reason. It's like Tokugawa-era japan.

>>1995013
Alternatives would tend to crop up if prices were raised to an unreasonable level. The only thing really unique about Wal-Mart is the variety of products offered; everything it sells is also sold by someone else, usually for a comparable price. The reason it's so successful, in my opinion, is because it's a one-stop shopping option. People are lazy, they don't want to go to a supermarket for food, then an outdoors shop for ammo, then a mall for clothes. And if you look at the people who regularly shop at Wal-Mart, they obviously pay little mind to the quality of products being sold.

>>1995013
>There's no incentive not to.
The problem with predatory pricing is that it's very, very expensive. You're not in business to kill competitors, you're in business to make money, and while predatory pricing deprives your competitors of profit, it means you're making a loss every time you sell something.

The problem with price gouging, even in the absence of conveniently available competition, is that it crushes customer loyalty and creates a strong pressure for competition to arise.

>>1995017
oh man, its great when a smug asshole reveals that he doesn't know what the hell hes talking about. it feels fantastic to tell you that, yes, employees ("associates") are allowed to set prices at wal-mart in order to maintain "competitive prices" ("predatory pricing" as you call it). you enter the changes into the inventory using your price scanner and an override code (usually the last four digits of the store's number in reverse) and it changes the price in the database so it scans correctly up front and other associates dont price shit wrong.

you're objectively wrong, and because you've consistently acted like such a douchebag about it, I do not hesitate to admit to taking great pleasure in rubbing your face in it

>>1995017
>So, your job as a bottom-of-the-food-chain minimum wage Wal-Mart shelf stocker involved the authority to set prices, even to set them below cost?

>Sure thing.

>Why are people so willing to tell lies to win anonymous internet arguments?

Now that I think about it, there's actually a commercial for Wal-Mart where an employee does this, so I don't know why you're being so smug about something that seems totally plausible.

>>1994991
So you're saying it's only a monopoly if they abuse their customers? That's an interesting definition. When is there ever absolutely no potential for competitors to arise?

But that's besides the point. I'm just saying that I doubt people will shop at more expensive stores in order to punish Walmart, at least not in significant numbers, even if they knew Walmart would later raise prices once the competition was gone. I honestly doubt that most people think that far ahead.

Honestly though, I don't necessarily believe that Walmart goes on to gouge prices. I think they remain reasonably cheap even when their competition is dead and gone. My problem with Walmart is that they use virtual slave labor in order to keep the prices so low-- an issue that the libertarians in this thread have yet to address.

>>1994962
Slag off, you old fuddy duddy. They're too busy reading my "Romola" and my translations of Feuerbach to be worried about your glorified soap operas.

>>1995044
>I asserted that bottom-level employees not only had the authority to set prices below cost, but were required to as a matter of policy.

>Now I assert it again, with less specificity about what and more about how!

>Boy, I sure proved you wrong!

>>1995081
> with less specificity about what and more about how!
You mean more specificity, right?

>post in thread
>check back a few hours later
>realize my post has been deleted
>I know my post was here because it's in my browser history

MODS = NAZIS

>>1995068
>1911
>Still reading "Romola"
I seriously hope you guys don't do this.

>>1995049
You mean, the commercial where they price-match, when a customer brings in evidence of a lower advertised price from a competitor?

Yeah, price-matching at the register is exactly the same thing as going around pro-actively changing marked prices to below cost based on independent research of competitors' prices without consulting a manager.

>>1995081
>>1995081
>>1995081

I'm just a anon passing through, but you are deliberately ignoring information that you responded to.

>dude it was literally part of my job when I worked at wal-mart to go to the local retailers, document their prices for items we sold (in my department) and reprice everything we had at 20% off the lowest price I could find, even if it was less than the actual unit price.

You did respond to this, so I don't know what your problem is. You lost this argument, you are wrong,.

>>1995081
dude just drop it. I know you're full of shit, you know I'm right, so what's the point? this is all anonymous, nobody is going to remember you acted like a smug asshole about something and were completely wrong. well, except for me, but I don't know who you are. just leave the thread, hide it, and try to forget about it.

>>1995114
>Now I have not only asserted my claim twice, I have presented myself as an impartial third party and asserted to have found my assertions convincing!

>My defense is impenetrable!

>>1995101
Careful, complaining is grounds for a banning.
4chan isn't as free as it likes to think it is.

>>1994722
>medieval Ireland
>what we should aspire to

I was really tempted to just laugh and blow by your post but I decided to give you the benefit of the doubt.

>A disagreement over the law or finding of fact could result in a feud, but you had basically no hope of going against what was obvious to anyone or playing lawyer games with technicalities

How is there a law in the first place if there's no centralized legal system? And what the fuck, are you advocating mob rule?

>It was notably mild and reasonable, with most penalties being compensation of some sort, since to work well it needed a consensus that justice was being done, otherwise it would provoke feuds.

So this works because if it doesn't there'll be civil war? Why even take that risk? And what if a monopoly with a huge privatized military force treated an average Joe unfairly? What's he going to do? Seems he'd lose a Feud pretty handily. This is why we need state-controlled armies. You guys are fucking loons I swear.

>>1995114
hes gonna think you're just me samefagging so I probably shouldn't respond to you but he isn't ignoring that post. he's saying I'm lying about my experience, which is kinda stupid, when he could have just said "anecdotal evidence is not proof" and that my experience was just one point of data or whatever and it probably doesn't apply to most wal-marts

I mean he would still be wrong but at least its an argument, instead of just openly calling me a liar. its kind of impossible to argue with someone who does that, which would be frustrating except I'm pretty sure he knows I'm right and is just arguing to save face now

>>1995129
I don't know why I'm even bothering to say this but that's not me

but hell, you'll just call me a liar again so whats the fucking point

>>1995138
>So this works because if it doesn't there'll be civil war? Why even take that risk?
You take that risk under any system. There's always the potential for an unpopular law or application of a law to provoke violence.

The rest of your post is too stupid to reply to. You don't seem quite capable of reading words and understanding what they mean.

Bit off-topic, but this is /lit/ so:

What are some good pro-socialist books? Prefferably non-fiction. Books that literally just argue socialism. My current view is all for capitalism but I just want to see what the other side really has to say.

>>1995144

Also, you forgot to mention that Medieval Ireland gets raped by English in the end.

>>1995138

Thanks for clearing that up.

I know what you mean. I have a friend similar to this, though I don't talk to him anymore. He would constantly attack the information that you would present as being unreliable or try to bog you down in the minutae of your argument. In his mind (to use this as a metaphor) if there was a scratch on a laptop the whole thing was unusable.

I personally find the whole argument enjoyable.

>>1995173

Whoops, I flipped those post references around. My mistake.

>>1995173
think you got your links swapped

>>1995181
>>1995179
hey finally proof that we're not the same person - the spam portal would have stopped us from posting that close together, right?

>>1995188
spam filter, sorry!

>>1995144
>he's saying I'm lying about my experience, which is kinda stupid
...because nobody ever lies about their experiences on the internet to try and win an argument.

You realize that your position here is basically that we should believe that anything anybody claims, without any evidence, right?

Your story isn't plausible. It makes sense that a department manager might send sales associates out to scout the competition, but not that he'd also assign you use that information to change all of the prices yourselves by your authority as a front-line sales associates according to a completely inflexible rule, rather than bring it to him so he could set new prices according to his judgement.

It's not completely impossible, but it doesn't make sense, and it's not the sort of thing you should expect people to just believe on your word as a random anonymous.

>>1995188
>implying that the experienced samefag doesn't know how to post simultaneously from two different IP addresses

OP, to be honest privatized police forces, courts, and military would get everything done faster and more efficiently. The only real argument to this would be that soldiers wouldn't exert as much effort since they're fighting for a paycheck and not for a country or some abstract idea politicians came up with. However, the obvious cons outweigh the pros.

>>1995164
>You take that risk under any system. There's always the potential for an unpopular law or application of a law to provoke violence.

Conveniently you neglect to mention how much easier that is without a centralized government. If there's a state with an army civil war is much less likely.

>The rest of your post is too stupid to reply to. You don't seem quite capable of reading words and understanding what they mean.

This isn't even close to an argument and could be recycled to fit any post.

You say:
>A disagreement over the law or finding of fact could result in a feud, but you had basically no hope of going against what was obvious to anyone or playing lawyer games with technicalities.
>you had no hope of going against what was obvious to anyone

If you are a monopoly with your own private army you do have a hope against going against the obvious. If one measly powerless person in your anarcho-capitalist dystopia is mistreated by a monopoly with a private army he is flat out fucked. Who will he appeal to without a centralized judicial system? And if there is one and military isn't centralized, there's no force behind the judicial system's decisions. As long as a monopoly can afford a powerful private army, it becomes an unstoppable despot.

Unless you left huge holes in your original statement which would explain for this obvious error, I am left to believe that this system is extremely flawed and the reason it never existed anywhere or anytime outside of medieval Ireland is because it was fucking stupid.

>>1995220
its perfectly plausible. in fact, its what happens.

what do you want me to say? do you want me to admit that you're right to be skeptical of my story, because its perfectly normal to lie in an anonymous argument? I wasn't even arguing with you until you contradicted my actual real-life experiences

and why would I do that anyway? I'd know I was lying. I wouldn't get any satisfaction from being right, like the satisfaction I feel right now. do you just lie all the time on 4chan because there are no consequences? that's silly.

or do you want me to admit that my story is implausible? it isn't. you only think it is because you disagree with my thesis, which is also not so much subjective opinion as much as it is something I actively participated in. you can't believe me because it would contradict your ideology. so you act like a condescending ass and call me a liar, and then when other people claim that my anecdote seems plausible, you accuse them of being me in disguise. (disproven, btw, by us posting at the exact same time)

you're so obsessed with your backwards ideology you're fighting long past the point where a reasonable person would realize it's time to at the very least switch tactics or better yet abandon the argument

>>1995237
>and military would get everything done faster and more efficiently.

We have these and no, they don't, and also they're corrupt as fuck and do really horrible things with no accountability or oversight while charging the charging the government way more than it would cost for the military to just do the job on its own (the only reason we need the contractors at all is that we have an all-volunteer army and need more bodies on the ground)

>>1995256

Or better yet admit they are wrong and try to better themselves by admitting as such.

>>1995253
>a monopoly with your own private army
What the fuck does this even mean? Do you even know what the word "monopoly" means? Do you just sprinkle it around randomly to decorate your sentences?

>your anarcho-capitalist dystopia
My anarcho-capitalist dystopia... in medieval Ireland... which was pretty nice to live in compared to its neighbors.

Stop with your half-assed first guesses at how it might work, and read a little about it. You might learn something.

And for Christ's sake, I wasn't advocating for the system to be used in the modern world. I was giving a historical example of a system with private police and courts. You know, relevant information about the subject at hand, as opposed to wild off-the-cuff theorizing.

Learn to read words.

>>1995256
>I am not lying.
>I am not lying.
>I am not lying.

>>1995289
>I am not samefag.

>If asserting a claim once isn't convincing, surely reasserting it four of five times with added emphasis and ridicule of doubters is making an airtight case.

>this thread

>>1995292
>a monopoly with your own private army
>What the fuck does this even mean?

And you suggest I am incapable of reading? It's self-explanatory, but I'll re-iterate with synonyms: a privatized military force owned by a rich corporation. You know, the topic of the thread? The thing OP mentioned? "Privatized police forces, military and courts"?

You can't exactly fund a military if you're not rich, so only the very wealthy would be able to maintain privatized militaries, thereby granting them unlimited power with no balancing governmental fore to keep any semblance of justice.

>Stop with your half-assed first guesses at how it might work, and read a little about it. You might learn something.

In other words completely disregard everything you said and look it up myself? I am basing my questions off of your assertion. This is the third time I'm asking you how any kind of system could work with privatized militaries in the hands of corporations and instead of answering me you tell me to look it up myself. That's not how a debate works. Either provide me with some kind of fact or don't bring it up at all.

>And for Christ's sake, I wasn't advocating for the system to be used in the modern world.

OP specifically says:
>Do Libertarians actually advocate

Now when you post an example of a system I am assuming you are advocating it since that is the point of the thread. Unless you address the implausibility of any justice taking place in a system where corporations control all of the military power I am not going to continue wasting my time.

>>1995343
>"monopoly" means "a rich corporation"
gtfo

You're too stupid for 4chan.

>>1995304
at this point its plain that you suspect I'm telling the truth and you're just unable to reconcile that with your beliefs. your entire argument at this point is simply that I'm lying.

thankfully, since I actually haven't samefagged in this thread, I'm pleased to know that other people recognize that you're full of shit too. you can continue to believe that all those guys were me, but please note that nobody's stepping up to defend you either (that's not an invitation to samefag under the pretense that I'm already doing it- I'm not, and it'll be painfully obvious when you do, please don't be that guy)

I'm not gonna respond to anymore posts if they're just gonna be you saying that I'm lying, so bye I guess...

>>1995360
>your entire argument at this point is simply that I'm lying.
...and your entire argument that you're not is that everyone should believe everything anyone claims on 4chan, no matter how implausible, because Anonymous has no reason to lie, especially when he's trying to win an argument.

>>1995373

See you later anon.

>>1995360

No, he has provided evidence (which, while debatable, has more inclination toward truth given the defense of his assertions in post>>1995256), as well as other third parties verifying information (as the post with the Wal-Mart commerical seen here with >>1995108
and >>1995033
where other third parties verified a claim)

You, however, have merely stated things don't work that way, that can't be true, and not given any evidence of markets either working this way or corporations actually doing the things that you claim. Therefore, since he has provided information/evidence (debatable, but not implausible) while you have not, I declare him winner.

+10 internets to the anon who claimed to work at wal-mart

>>1995407
>>1995407

I flipped reference posts again in the beginning. My mistake.