The following is relevant about how the leaders are not in control:
http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/06/02/new-world-order/http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4946&cpage=1#comment-402737Let me expound a bit on socialism and the ilk.
Although it is true that some (perhaps even most) very wealthy people misallocate capital, so one might think it is better to redistribute to the masses, redistribution that is not able to distinguish productive from parasitical entities, thus destroys productivity with no clear gain in transfer between parasites.
The reason wealthy people misallocate capital is for the same reason that top-down centralized polices can't anneal (optimize) local opportunities. I wrote extensively about this math at the following linked blog comment:
http://www.mpettis.com/2013/05/21/excess-german-savings-not-thrift-caused-the-european-crisis/#comment-23309Also see what I wrote today in another blog.
http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4946&cpage=1#comment-402781@Monster:
Rather I think we elect leaders to make decisions,
because we disagree and there exists a power vacuum that enables such leaders to have power to force us to agree (and this is why when the misallocation implodes economically, the pent up resentment can explode into violent civil war).
The key factor that enables this deferral of responsibility is the power vacuum due to the top-down capacity to control individual actions. Where technology is able to eliminate the ability to control individual actions (e.g. the 3D printer example upthread), the government has no malicious function (government could still try to compete with private industry to provide services more efficiently as Jessica Boxer astutely pointed out). I had expounded upthread as follows.
I add to Michael Hipp’s points (i.e. political action does not adequately empower individual choice and representation), that the power vacuum is only resolved in favor of (all) the individuals where technology exists to empower the individuals to route around top-down control. Political action can purport to empower certain groups, maybe even the majority, but this is obfuscated [in] mutual self-destruction, e.g. see my prior post. Is the current regulatory capture of the state by the banks not sufficient evidence that the individual is not protected from the power vacuum?
Winter pointed out upthread that government exists where it can enforce a (partial) monopoly on force, and I noted it can only do so where that force can generate funding to sustain the force against and "free" gifts (misallocative self-destruction) for its constituency.
The government hides its funding in our short-term myopia on the ramifications of debt, taxes, and social promises (unfunded liabilities). In short, the government can over promise an unrealistic nirvana (which the masses readily embrace) and then has the power to make us pay for the misallocation of resources.
I have been
making the point to a group who desires to make an anarcho-currency (I named it "SocialistCoin") designed to redistributes capital to prevent it from concentrating, that the power vacuum does not derive from the fiat (fractional reserve) money system (and thus can't be eliminated by eliminating fiat or capital concentration in a currency); rather this is just one of the means of obscuring the theft that arises from the fundamental power vacuum. I also made the point that redistributing capital from producers to non-producers destroys the capital, analogous to that we can't redistribute an auto mechanic's tools to a nurse and expect them to be utilized.
Thus the conclusion is that the only changes that improve the condition of mankind are technologies that enable individuals to be free from top-down control.
These eliminate facets of the power vacuum (people have to tolerate or able to route around their disagreement), thus improving the annealing (optimization) of the economy to local opportunities and generating more prosperity for all. I posit that all sustained prosperity (gains in standard-of-living) has been due to such individual-freedom enabling technologies, e.g. the automobile, the telephone, the computer, the coming 3D printer, open source, etc..
Thus the main technological benefit of anarcho-currencies is the elimination of top-down control over the movement of capital so that producers are not harmed by coming implosion of global socialism, i.e. the anonymity and the lack of centralized control (e.g. over debasement, acquisition, and transfer). Thus the relationship between anti-money laundering laws and an anarcho-currency is important.
And this ties into the theoretical existance of a 78 year (3 x 26 maturity generations) technology disruption cycle I have mentioned numerous times, where the socialism incentivizes the masses to not adjust to technological shift, wherein the masses are being funded by government and debt to continue chasing opportunities in antiquated technological skills and jobs.
All those who want a gold standard or to pull a French Revolution on the heads of banksters, are not even close to recognizing what drives prosperity for the masses.
