Capitalism.

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(... snip ...)

In your model, were the "central command" represents [Booo!  Statist!] oversight, think it through.  The generals don't tell enlisted men how to march -- they lay out the grand plans for troop movement, so that the army doesn't march off in five different directions to fight 5 enemies of their choosing.  At some lower level of decision making, another bureaucrat looks at terrain maps & aerial photos, making sure soldiers don't need to march through oceans, or lava pits with no health packs in sight if we're playing *that*.  When it comes to picking up your feet to step over dead bodies, have no fear -- you'll still get to do that on your own

We agree, the best government is the most local.  The anarchists go to the extreme in this respect and only the government within each person is sovereign.

Sorry, but you've missed the point.  In this example the generals, who are nowhere near the marching cannon fodder, are "the government."  

I'll take this analogy and drag it to reality -- as in why it displays the opposite of Capitalism and does not work.

In reality, the bureaucrat in between can optimize any given order for his own goals, while the original goal need only be fulfilled as far as his superior understands it and cares to react. This happens on all layers of the top-down structure including supreme command unless the population restrains it. And remember: any organizer changing goals affects all layers below it in addition to their own problems.

What is worse, a bureaucrat in any real-world system has diminishing incentive to optimize for risk-reward in large systems. Why innovate when the risk is on you but the reward is not? It is worth it only where a superior actively plans for it. Generally: whenever the optimization target of an individual diverges from the globally desired one -- which it pretty much always does -- the overall result is horribly inefficient.

If you look through my other comments in this thread, you'll see i am not arguing that the marching army example is the paragon of efficiency.  I've chosen it as a counter argument to another triviality -- an allusion to laws of physics where MoonShadow attempts to illustrate the folly of market "interference."  And yes, use of "MoonShadow" in preceding sentence is intentional.  Sheds appropriately silly light on this debate

Trivial analogies are useless exactly because they are trivial. In reality, the problematic decision is not to avoid a lava pit. It is the analysis of some gradient in some material in some device for use on an unknown time-frame over multiple usage scenarios -- and millions more of such decisions. We have no human who is able to organize such complexity from above, nor can we expect a subordinate to do it locally without proper compensation.

Neither the complexity of a problem, nor the fact that an algorithm could be shown to generate sub-optimal solutions, implies that the algorithm is not the best one currently available, or that an alternative, untested algorithm is better.  
Solving the Traveling Salesman problem may be difficult, and the arrived at solution may be suboptimal, it's still unreasonable to conclude from above that "route planning is pointless" or that "each sales guy, by choosing his own route, will come up with a shorter distance than a planner."  I hope my point's clear.

The market is a great tool to both determine and execute said compensation. Any attempt to mimic it will roughly simulate a market; why not use it in the first place?

See above ^^^

[Rassah]

The only economic philosophy that respects the right of people to transact bitcoins without interference is capitalism.

Capitalism is an invenion of the state. Without bureaucracy and state sanctioning, capitalism is not possble.
The very idea of a free capitalism is oxymoronic, because it relies on protection of claims on private property.

That statement is really not that much of a stretch from saying:
Currency is an invention of the state. Without bureaucracy and state sanctioning, currency is not possible.
The very idea of a free currency is oxymoronic, because it relies on assigning of value on currency notes.

[Rassah]

By the way, just want to inject this into this whole conversation:
It's the 'right price,' at the 'right time,' for the 'right people,' in the 'right place.' That's what constitutes the 'right price.' A centrally dictated price will ALWAYS miss the time and/or the people and/or the location, simply because different people value things differently depending on those variables, and the only way to pick the 'right price' is to let the people involved give it to you.

Let's say there's 10 teams of surgeons supplying a total of 50 transplants per year.
~100 wannabe patients provide the demand at any given time, and the remaining 50 people either wait again next year (with an inflow of another 50), or they eventually die.
There's competition as well as luck in the auctions. Not all patients are compatible with all the donor lungs. However, if you bid more, you're more likely to outbid someone else if you're both good for the same pair.
Let's say there's a price curve something like this, (just making up some numbers here) :
$100k: 1 to 3 months
$50k: 3 to 6 months
$25k: 6 months to 4 years
<$15k: lower limit, and donor lungs get thrown out unless compatible patients cough up more dough

Just like Bitcoin fees, there's no fixed 'price' just increasing delays if you offer less.
But unlike Bitcoin, the example takes on a moral dimension because people's lives are left up to market 'chance' and surgeon profitability. Being a free market, it turns out that "10 teams" is the sweet spot. When there were only 8 teams, prices and profits were higher, but this enticed 4 teams of dentists to retool to do lung transplants instead. But when there were 12 teams, prices got a bit low and 4 teams had to restructure, returning to a total of 10.

But how many surgeries were done? Who cares! 10 teams is the sweet spot, and they'll do whatever is profitable, even if it means throwing out most of the lungs to maintain scarcity in the market. It doesn't even have to be deliberate -- maybe $15k is the charitable limit?

So we've got a rough model of a 'free' market. What if a government intervenes? Why is that so wrong? If we've got a model for what happens 'naturally' (as above), and we find that by intervening we can reduce the annual death rate from say 25 down to 10, then why not? One problem I have with having faith in a free market is the faith part. Why should a Libertarian leap-of-faith trump actual information gained from oversight? Perhaps there's some "information theory" insights we could gain here?

I think the answer is thus:

The only reason 12 teams is too high and 10 teams is the sweet spot is because 12 teams makes the lung transplant unprofitable, and 8 teams leaves room for more teams to take some of the profit. A government intervention could be to either reduce the prices, increase the number of teams, or force everyone, who doesn't need the procedure, to pay for it to.

In the first option, government forces the prices lower, meaning more patients can afford transplants, but now it's not profitable, so the number of surgeons will drop from 10 to, say, 8. Now even though more patients can afford the procedure, only 40 of them are done each year.

In the second option, the government could force more teams to do the procedure. But, as you said, if there were 12 teams, the prices got too low, so now even though 12 teams are forced to do the procedure, none of the 12 can really afford it. They will either have to force the prices to go up, reducing the number of patients that can afford it, or just quit entirely.

In the third option, you'll have 20 teams working, doing 100 procedures a year. All patients will be happy, and all doctors will be happy. Hopefully, the economy will continue to have enough profits for government to siphon them off to keep this setup going. But the two problems are, first, there's a real risk that the economy could get to a point where there isn't enough spare profit to support this, and second, everyone will be happy, and nothing will change. You'll have the same lung procedure done by the same people for decades, since there will be no incentive to either make the procedure cheaper, or to replace it with something different.

The only "faith" that a free market requires is that, if things are uncomfortable, someone will try to figure out how to make them more comfortable in hopes of reaping rewards for it. That's pretty much the gist of free market progress.

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By the way, just want to inject this into this whole conversation:
It's the 'right price,' at the 'right time,' for the 'right people,' in the 'right place.' That's what constitutes the 'right price.'

In other words, *any* price is the "right" price.  No matter what price Pinkie Pie pays for her lung transplant, that was the right price for her.  Nice save, tiger, though the rest of us simply call it "price," as in "that's the price you have pay, Pinkie Pie, or off to Poneville Glue Works with you!"

 
A centrally dictated price will ALWAYS miss the time and/or the people and/or the location, simply because different people value things differently depending on those variables, and the only way to pick the 'right price' is to let the people involved give it to you.

   How come *that* price isn't right, just like the rest?  Pinkie Pie is just as free to not pay the centrally dictated price.  She can vote with her hooves & prance that sweet ass right to the Glue Works.
Friendship is magic!

[crumbs]

By the way, just want to inject this into this whole conversation:
It's the 'right price,' at the 'right time,' for the 'right people,' in the 'right place.' That's what constitutes the 'right price.'

In other words, *any* price is the "right" price.  No matter what price Pinkie Pie pays for her lung transplant, that was the right price for her.  Nice save, tiger, though the rest of us simply call it "price," as in "that's the price you have pay, Pinkie Pie, or off to Poneville Glue Works with you!"

 
A centrally dictated price will ALWAYS miss the time and/or the people and/or the location, simply because different people value things differently depending on those variables, and the only way to pick the 'right price' is to let the people involved give it to you.

   How come *that* price isn't right, just like the rest?  Pinkie Pie is just as free to not pay the centrally dictated price.  She can vote with her hooves & prance that sweet ass right to the Glue Works.
Friendship is magic!

Because government intervention is not like private enterprise. Subsidies are ultimately caused by brutal, coercive taxation, whereas private investment is caused by kind, philanthropic billionaires. Therefore a price with governmental interference is less morally right.

At the risk of sounding reconciliatory, i think you're pointing to a fundamental problem of the "hands-off" approach:  Both the tyrannical state & the benevolent billionaire were born by it.
"Hands-off" had to be the initial state for both, if we take God & aliens out of the equation.  
Libers choose to abandon their "hands-off" approach & yank the bit on their reasoning, before it prances them into inevitable though unpleasant conclusion:  the same freedomz that birthed the good stuff also mothered slavery, dictatorships, fascism, etc., etc.  

There's an old joke:
-Dad, what's the white stuff in bird shit?
-Son, that's bird shit too.
I doubt many here get the joke.

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The only "faith" that a free market requires is that, if things are uncomfortable, someone will try to figure out how to make them more comfortable in hopes of reaping rewards for it. That's pretty much the gist of free market progress.

"Progress," left unqualified, is a handy word -- strong, positive, irrefutable & meaningless.  Just don't set a goal, and no matter where you meander, you're making progress.
Our beloved, untempered-with free market gave us everything that we know -- meddling states, kindly billionaires, commie despots of dubious decent, batshit-crazy mass murderers, slave traffickers, dope addicts, financiers, US presidents.

Each and every one feathering his nest in his own way, figuring out how to make things more comfortable, hoping to reap rewards -- you, the junkies & puppet dictators alike.

[NewLiberty]

 the same freedomz that birthed the good stuff also mothered slavery, dictatorships, fascism, etc., etc.  

There's an old joke:
-Dad, what's the white stuff in bird shit?
-Son, that's bird shit too.
I doubt many here get the joke.

When is an ice cream cone not a cone?
When its a koan.

The white stuff, is also that the will to freedom ended these things many times.
When birthing, the kids don't always turn out as you might like, insights for child-rearing notwithstanding.

[NewLiberty]

c) I just don't see how, in the absence of government 'coercion', private enterprises would ever get the same kind of information. E.g.: surgery costs and patient numbers would be private and confidential. That information obviously has value to potential investors, but if it's all hidden in silos then the claimed "higher efficiency" of non-interventionism would just be an illusion. Efficiencies would only reach local maxima.

The only reason this makes any sense is that National Governments have co-opted the insurance industry.
Fear sells.

[NewLiberty]

In the third option, you'll have 20 teams working, doing 100 procedures a year. All patients will be happy, and all doctors will be happy. Hopefully, the economy will continue to have enough profits for government to siphon them off to keep this setup going. But the two problems are, first, there's a real risk that the economy could get to a point where there isn't enough spare profit to support this, and second, everyone will be happy, and nothing will change. You'll have the same lung procedure done by the same people for decades, since there will be no incentive to either make the procedure cheaper, or to replace it with something different.

What if instead of the government doing this to us, folks choose what they want to reduce their costs on by prepaying through pooled insurance?
Churches and Fraternal Organisations and other community groups used to do more of this but have been muscled out.

[Rassah]

E.g.: the government refunds up to $20k whenever a patient gets the transplant done.
The effect is that from the pool of 100 people, suddenly a lot more can afford transplants, and the increased demand pushes up the price curve. The higher prices encourage more teams of surgeons to invest and offer their services.
The opportunity cost however, is that they have to take the funding from somewhere else, whether by increased taxation or (more likely) reorganising some existing budget.

One major concern is that the subsidies never stop, so we go from reorganizing budgets to more and more taxation to support more and more subsidies. The same doctors you are subsidizing will end up making major donations to politicians to encourage them to keep the subsidies, with donation money coming from those same subsidies. Subsidies are a great idea, but only in a benevolent dictatorship.

To me it seems that
a) Entrepreneurs and researchers are more likely to notice a large, inefficient market (>12 teams of surgeons) than a smaller one (only 10 teams), and they're more likely to be enticed by the extra money being thrown at the problem by the government.

My main concern is that more doctors will start pursuing the market with the same subsidized procedures, since that market has plenty of money to go around, instead of trying to figure out how to change the established market with something else. Eg, we heavily subsidize corn, so we end up investing into a lot of corn-based product development, putting corn in most of our foods, instead of figuring out if other plants would be a better alternative, or even looking into whether growing so much corn is having an extremely negative effect on our farms and environment.

c) I just don't see how, in the absence of government 'coercion', private enterprises would ever get the same kind of information. E.g.: surgery costs and patient numbers would be private and confidential.

That information can be found out by competition in the market. Short story - the same way we find out whether or not we should mine Bitcoin, or what to buy and sell our bitcoins for, despite not knowing how many other people out there are mining/buying or sitting on the sidelines.
Long story - A new team of surgeons wants to enter the market and compete against the other 10 teams. The only surgery costs they need to know are their own. They can find the price of the surgery the other doctors charge. Then, if the price on the market is < this new team's costs, they know they can't compete, and shouldn't enter the market. They also know that those existing surgeons are doing something new to make the procedure cheaper. If the price on the market is > their own costs, they know they can make a profit, and will enter the market. Based on how much higher the price is compared to their own costs, they can also see how much more advanced and cheaper their procedure is to their competitors, and/or that there is a huge demand for such procedures, and not enough surgeons to provide them.

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The only "faith" that a free market requires is that, if things are uncomfortable, someone will try to figure out how to make them more comfortable in hopes of reaping rewards for it. That's pretty much the gist of free market progress.

"Progress," left unqualified, is a handy word

"Progress," as in the opposite of "stagnation." As in "change," things becoming different, uncomfortable stuff being replaced by more comfortable stuff, people getting more access to stuff, new products and services being offered. You know, "progress."

So progress to you is simply ... change?  As in "out of the frying pan & into the fire."  "Pinky Pie coughed up her lungs and died.  Progress."  "Applejack was ground up & fed to Rarity.  Progress."
Protip:  Life is flux.  No matter how you do it.  Don't try to make meaningless tautologies sound glamorous.

Libers choose to abandon their "hands-off" approach & yank the bit on their reasoning, before it prances them into inevitable though unpleasant conclusion:  the same freedomz that birthed the good stuff also mothered slavery, dictatorships, fascism, etc., etc.  

You would tell a slave that he still has his freedom, even while you whip him while he's chained to a post, because his slavery is just the result of him running around, free, on African plains, before getting snagged in a net. After all, it was his freedom that allowed for him to be snared, shipped, and sold to you as property.

I'd tell him that you you made him into a slave because you found it profitable, and no one stopped you 'coz enlightened self-interest & frictionless market are always right.  You were free to enslave him, he was free to enslave you, but you got the upper hand & there you are.  I'd also tell him "you're part of the wonderful thing called progress!   Thank your lucky stars for this opportunity, and thank them again that your life is not stagnant."

Or would tell a girl that she is still unviolated and a virgin as you rape her, because it was her virginity that led to her rape.

I would tell her that if she lived in Rassahland, people would be free to do bad things to her & call it progress.  Than i'd buy her an ice cream & tell her not to worry 'coz we live in what Rassahlandians hate the most -- a state with meddling laws that prohibit that sort of thing.

Or tell a prisoner that they are free to go wherever they want to, while locking them in a cage, because it is freedom that leads people to be locked in in cages.

Why don't you try to answer that for me, and i'll tell you if you're right.  Feel free to use wikip & ask your parents for advice.

Do you really not see that one state does not continue to be the same state when something fundamentally changes? Freedom is freedom. An act of enslavement, dictatorship, or all others mentioned is not the result of extension of that freedom, it's a direct violation of it.

Your fascination with virgin rape is mildly unsettling, while your unwillingness to grasp trivial concepts borders on malice.  Reread my posts.  Learn them.  Know them.  Read them again -- then reply.

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By the way, just want to inject this into this whole conversation:
It's the 'right price,' at the 'right time,' for the 'right people,' in the 'right place.' That's what constitutes the 'right price.'

[...]
I can't tell if you really didn't get that every person's "right price" is different Someone's price for a lung transplant may be hundreds of thousands of dollars, while someone else's may be $10k, since they would rather not spend more than that, and instead leave the money for their family.

What I'm beginning to get is you're a sociopath, and fail to understand that even though a child may not have 100k, or even 10k for a lung transplant, his need for one is no less than that of a 60 yr. old money man who couldn't care less if he lives or dies, has no family, but plenty of cash to throw around.  I understand it.  It's called empathy, it's called compassion, it's called human kindness.  Though you can't be blamed for not having any, you can at least wiki those words & make an effort to understand what motivates normal people.

At the same time, some surgeon's price could be hundreds of thousands of dollars, since they don't care how many procedures they have to do a year, while others by charging so much will not get any customers, and will have to charge lower prices to convince people to buy their service.

Even better example is something as simple as water. Water is worth little to a mechanic[...doesn't get how water works, rambles about charging moar for water because profit...]

On a related note, I know some people are big fans of that "my pony" show, and hey, to each his own, but you seem to be a bit too fanatical about it, and you interjecting it into your arguments so often is a bit offputting.

A fur trying to out me as a brony?  You're one strange pussycat.

Also, I don't know about others, but I only saw the first(?) episode of it many years ago, and don't remember the names, the characters, or what the show is even about. You using your favorite show as examples in your arguments means I often have no idea what you are talking about, and probably makes me miss some nuances

Nah, has nothing to do with you not knowing my fovoritest bestest show in the whole world.  You're just not very bright.  Wanna play with string?

of the characters or situations I am unaware of. And I'm sure I'm not the only one who gets confused.

Don't worry about it -- you're not missing much.  Intelligence is overrated.  'Sides, you look so cute when you're confused!  Wanna get in the van?  Who's the best pone?

I can only infer so much from "pony" and "glue factory." So if you wish to discuss this topic, could you please stick to things we may actually know about?

Murr mew, just how much are you in fer, fur?

[NewLiberty]

The only economic philosophy that respects the right of people to transact bitcoins without interference is capitalism.

Capitalism is an invenion of the state. Without bureaucracy and state sanctioning, capitalism is not possble.
The very idea of a free capitalism is oxymoronic, because it relies on protection of claims on private property.

Maybe... if you assume that all protection must be only from state, and that more people are wicked than not.
But these assumptions seem extreme, and depressingly pessimistic.

It's not extreme. It's empiric history instead of science fiction, plain and simple.

Our premises are too far apart. We have little hope at agreement on this point.
I do not experience the state as my protector, to you it is the only protector.  I do not see wicked people everywhere, and you do.  To you, I am fiction plain and simple.  
Whether historic fiction or science fiction I could not say.

[crumbs]

The only "faith" that a free market requires is that, if things are uncomfortable, someone will try to figure out how to make them more comfortable in hopes of reaping rewards for it. That's pretty much the gist of free market progress.

So progress to you is simply ... change?  As in "out of the frying pan & into the fire."  "Pinky Pie coughed up her lungs and died.  Progress."  "Applejack was ground up & fed to Rarity.  Progress."
Protip:  Life is flux.  No matter how you do it.  Don't try to make meaningless tautologies sound glamorous.

Are you absolutely sure about that? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline_Deregulation_Act#History_of_airline_regulation_and_the_CAB
http://www.businessinsider.com/old-1960s-photos-of-seoul-korea-2013-4?op=1
Remember the topic was capiaism, and allowing the free market to do it's thing, versus whatever is the opposite of capitalism and free market. Please stay on topic.

wut

You would tell a slave that he still has his freedom, even while you whip him while he's chained to a post, because his slavery is just the result of him running around, free, on African plains, before getting snagged in a net. After all, it was his freedom that allowed for him to be snared, shipped, and sold to you as property.

I'd tell him that you you made him into a slave because you found it profitable, and no one stopped you 'coz enlightened self-interest & frictionless market are always right.  You were free to enslave him, he was free to enslave you, but you got the upper hand & there you are.  I'd also tell him "you're part of the wonderful thing called progress!   Thank your lucky stars for this opportunity, and thank them again that your life is not stagnant."

Waitwaitwait. Are you saying that, once he is forced into slavery, he is no longer free?

I? Where?  Point with your paw

Then I am saying that once you force regulation and capital controls on a free market, it's no longer a free market/capitalism.

Murr.  See above.

If you disagree, then you say that a slave is also still free, since apparently changes in someone's state of being have no effect on whether they are still what they used to be.

Stop forcing your yiffy logic on me, meow hiss!  Your yiffing reasoning leads to contradictions, yiffing deal with it.

Because that is exactly what you keep saying over a over and over: that capitalism leads to dictatorships, slavery, etc, I.E. State A leads to the opposite of State A, which is absolutely no different from saying that freedom leads to slavery, virginity leads to lack of virginity, freedom of movement leads to being stuck in a cage, etc. There are only two possible reasons you could be saying this: 1 - you're a idiot, 2 - you're deliberately changing and misleading the topic is. I think you're the one who needs to go and re-read what the rest of us are talking about before joining the actual conversation.

бpыcь!

[crumbs]

I can't tell if you really didn't get that every person's "right price" is different Someone's price for a lung transplant may be hundreds of thousands of dollars, while someone else's may be $10k, since they would rather not spend more than that, and instead leave the money for their family.

What I'm beginning to get is you're a sociopath, and fail to understand that even though a child may not have 100k, or even 10k for a lung transplant, his need for one is no less than that of a 60 yr. old money man who couldn't care less if he lives or dies, has no family, but plenty of cash to throw around.  I understand it.  It's called empathy, it's called compassion, it's called human kindness.  Though you can't be blamed for not having any, you can at least wiki those words & make an effort to understand what motivates normal people.

How about we agree that I am a sociopath, because I don't deny reality, and don't deny that there will be MANY children who die around the world because there is a lack of food, medical care, etc, and that you are a sociopath because you would "save the children" by holding a gun to people's heads and force them to save them, until no one has any money or will to work left, and the whole world dies? Remember when everyone was forced to work in Ukraine, in order to make sure that all the children are able to get basic bread and foods? And then 6,000,000 died? Yeah, you're that sociopath.

Incidentally, how much of yuor own money are you giving up to make sure that children are not dying because they can't afford medical care? Whatever it is, you're still not giving enough, because children are still dying. So, unless you have no money left for anything but food and water, you are still killing little children, you sociopath.

I'm not a brony, I'm really not much of a fur, either, and I'm not the one outing you as a brony (?) whateverthefuck that is. I think you just did all of that yourself. And btw, I have no clue what you are talking about regarding the van crap either. Let me know when you are ready to have adult conversations. Or better yet, don't.

I get it.  You're an admitted clueless sociopath.  I think we're finally getting somewhere  Anything else you'd like to confess?

edit:

[MoonShadow]

This has devolved into childish fight.  I've had enough of it.  This thread is now locked.

BTW, Crumbs...

You're a dick, and I've not yet seen another side of you.  If you have any redeeming merit, start clinging to that side of yourself.