Capitalism.

[Rassah]

Ever heard of "economies of scale"?

The Libertarian pipe-dream, summarized:
-Toll booths on every bridge and at the end of every road.
-Fences around every park and ticket booths.
-Ad hoc guilt-ridden individuals 'volunteering' to pay hundreds of individual charities that specialize in things like: feeding the homeless, old-folks' homes, smallpox vaccines, educating the poor... (All that "community" crap that stops the unenlightened lower classes from lynch-mobbing the rich for being too financially successful.)
-Individually paying dozens of security contractors to secure the various trade routes for your food, water, and fuel.
-Local mini-Foxconn factories producing a few dozen Apple-like products per year for their local hipster communities.
- (Didn't really get to mention currencies... maybe another time...)

So you imagine the future with a radically different sociopolitical structure, but you imagine everything in it will be the same as things are now? Why not:
- Public transportation replaced with suspended rails going through the city and country, with pods, that you can rent, automatically traveling under them to preset destinations (patented idea, replaces road maintenance with something much cheaper). Subscriptions to road areas in the same way that you can buy a London metro ticket that gives you free ride within limited areas. Much more focus on teleworking from home. Personal VTOL aircraft to avoid roads altogether, flown with GPS and computer avoidance assistance.
- Community supported and sponsored parks, with gardens grown by shared owners or even produce by companies that want to show off their designer fruits and vegetables.
- Private security firms that get paid to keep communities safe, figuring out it's easier to pay that homeless bum some money to keep an eye out for anything suspicious, than to keep having to haul him away. People's income almost doubling in size due to lack of 45% tax means they can afford to support themselves, and have spare cash to donate as well. Saving money actually pays off due to deflation, so the culture saves instead of borrows, and even poor people can have what little wealth they own grow for them.
- Specialized delivery services that use high speed MAGLEV rails to send packages and containers wherever you want at hundreds of miles an hour, without need for drivers. Rails protected by fences, surveillance, and specialized drones that can take off, target people, and after sufficient warning incapacitate them with electric shock or gas.
- Hardware developers working around the world to invent new gadgets or improve on the old ones, and small specialized manufacturing buildings print out the components and assemble them for you, regardless of what design you downloaded, right there, within a few minutes/hours. No need to deliver almost anything except for raw materials and some specialized components. No one is limited to a version of an iPhone and has to wait for new versions any more. If someone comes up with a new feature, you just order the new component, or have it printed, and swap it on your phone.

Doesn't that sound fucking inefficient?
-To avoid being paralysed by paperwork, why not have some entity that consolidates a lot of that minor crap?

Paralyzed by paperwork??? Governments get paralyzed by paperwork. Regulatory stuff gets paralyzed by paperwork. Companies don't care about paperwork. And for whatever paperwork is needed, why have a company that does paperwork for energy, manufacturing, shipping, finance, and everything else, try to do it all at the same time? Talk about inefficient. Efficiency is specialization. Have a company that does payroll, as most businesses use now. Have a company that specializes in accounting. One that specializes in market research. Etc etc etc. Companies already us these well established nongovernment services.

-And what's the point of having 100% accurate accounting (e.g.: tracking who used what road with how much tonnage?) if the tracking makes the overhead far higher than the 'losses' caused by doing guesstimates instead?

Damn good question. Governments are required to do 100% accurate accounting and tracking, because they have to make everything they do public (well, most government agencies, anyway), and have to answer to their constituents, who want to make sure nothing is wasted (and, ironically, waste a lot in the process). Companies can easily figure out what should be tracked closely, and what you can guesstimate as being close enough, since all they care about is the bottom line.

-Mini smart-phone factories in every village is obviously inefficient bullshit. Corporations growing to monstrous sizes is not a result of government meddling, it's just more efficient that way. One exception here seems to be the US' "War On Terror" exploiting the Middle East for cheap oil, thus maintaining cheap supply lines. Without extremely cheap transport, many international corporations would probably collapse. Perhaps in this case, violence (evil as it may be) is more efficient than letting the Arabs restrict oil supplies and build more desert palaces?

So why wouldn't corporations grow to an enormous size without government? If it's more efficient to mass-produce, they will grow big and mass-produce. If it's more efficient to print and assemble locally, they'll do that. There won't be a government stopping them either way. As for cheap transport, those mega size container ships crossing between US, China, and Europe are not government owned. Besides, US doesn't get that much oil from the middle east, anyway. Much of it is domestic, and much of the rest is from Canada.

So if governments are evil phantoms with sham democratic processes, so what? Why not just call them private monarchies? Just reject the whole concept of 'public' and learn to love your (private, Capitalist) Big Brother.

Or we can ignore them. Thanks to new tech, it's getting easier and easier  

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[MoonShadow]

So you imagine the future with a radically different sociopolitical structure, but you imagine everything in it will be the same as things are now? Why not:
- Public transportation replaced with suspended rails going through the city and country, with pods, that you can rent, automatically traveling under them to preset destinations (patented idea, replaces road maintenance with something much cheaper).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkyTran

Subscriptions to road areas in the same way that you can buy a London metro ticket that gives you free ride within limited areas.

http://www.septa.org/fares/pass/independence.html

BTW, roads were never public land or publicly maintained before the foundation of the USPS, which provided funds and legal status for the public development of "postal roads".  Today, all roads are postal roads.  Makes one wonder how we ever had roads before the USPS.

Personal VTOL aircraft to avoid roads altogether, flown with GPS and computer avoidance assistance.

http://matternet.us/

http://www.incrediblehlq.com/

- Community supported and sponsored parks, with gardens grown by shared owners or even produce by companies that want to show off their designer fruits and vegetables.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/travel/destinations/10great/2009-09-03-apple-farms_N.htm

http://www.huberwinery.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GE_Consumer_%26_Industrial#Appliance_Park

GE's appliance park was the original 'industrial park'.  How did it get it's name, might you ask?  From the 50 acres of company maintained parkspace on the East side of the employee parking lot provided to the public free of charge.  Eventually the city parks department took over maintaince of the privately owned park, and since then portions have been sold off to other companies; so little of the original park remains, but my point is that we used to do things this way.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biltmore_Estate

The Biltmore estate is ran as a private park, but there is some fees depending upon what exactly you want to do.  Walking the gardens is still free.  And yes, it's still privately owned.

http://bernheim.org/

Berhiem Forest is a private park of huge proportions in Kentucky that is as large as many state parks.  It was priavely oned once, and now it's owned and maintained by a fountation that the original owner stipulated in his will shall forever be a public park, and shall forever be free to access.  The Bernhiem foundation does receive some state tax funds indirectly via state agriculture education subsidies, as it's the primary location for aborists to study in Kentucky.  True to their word, all of the forest is hike accessible during daylight summer hours; but there are portions that are so difficult to access, no one besides the arborists are known to have ventured there in years.

My point is this, we can and often do these very public things privately today.  Whether or not these privately owned public spaces accept public funds today or not, they aren't dependent on the support, or likley even the existance, of the state.

[Rassah]

Gee, thanks MoonShadow. I was hoping he wouldn't bother googling and wouldn't find out that all those "crazy future ideas" I had were things that have already been thought up and done. Guess I don't have much imagination either 

[NewLiberty]

Most of what is "public" is less public than the private open spaces.
Some have suggested that Nixon's "environmental movement" took vast amounts of private land for the government away from the owners for environmental reasons, and essentially so that they minerals and oil and trees could be sold to back the national debt, when we left Bretton Woods.
So ironically, the more that is public, the more funding there is for the war engines.

[MoonShadow]

Most of what is "public" is less public than the private open spaces.
Some have suggested that Nixon's "environmental movement" took vast amounts of private land for the government away from the owners for environmental reasons, and essentially so that they minerals and oil and trees could be sold to back the national debt, when we left Bretton Woods.
So ironically, the more that is public, the more funding there is for the war engines.

All that federally "owned" land, particularly out west, is the perfect example of the American form of communism.  Undeveloped land is the most basic of resources, required for any form of industrial production I can think of.  By definition, communism is public ownership of the means of production.  There has never been any claim that those resources actually need to be in production to qualify for the definition.

[DiamondCardz]

Every currency is vulnerable to Capitalism, it's only the people who use the currency who can prevent it.

[amincd]

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

[crumbs]

So you imagine the future with a radically different sociopolitical structure, but you imagine everything in it will be the same as things are now? Why not:
- Public transportation replaced with suspended rails going through the city and country, with pods, that you can rent, automatically traveling under them to preset destinations (patented idea, replaces road maintenance with something much cheaper).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkyTran

Lolz.  Another freeloader project sucking misguided government grants "Unimodal hired a NASA subcontractor to build simulations of the vehicle and dynamics using funding from a US DOT grant." --your wikip link.

Subscriptions to road areas in the same way that you can buy a London metro ticket that gives you free ride within limited areas.

Lolz. Wholly owned by Transport for London (TfL), which "is the local government body..."  Another ugly statist institution. 

http://www.septa.org/fares/pass/independence.html

Lolz. Another statist conglomerate "Originally SEPTA's function was to coordinate government subsidies to the railroads and transit companies, absorbing PSIC and SEPACT in 1965, and by 1966 all commuter lines were operated by the PRR and RDG under contract with SEPTA. Inevitably negotiations led to the purchase of the assets..."

BTW, roads were never public land or publicly maintained before the foundation of the USPS, which provided funds and legal status for the public development of "postal roads".  Today, all roads are postal roads.  Makes one wonder how we ever had roads before the USPS.

  Thank goodness for USPS, another statist institution? 

[...more stuff]

My point is this, we can and often do these very public things privately today.

Yes, we can, some things, and certainly not often.

Whether or not these privately owned public spaces accept public funds today or not, they aren't dependent on the support, or likley even the existance, of the state.

An absurd & unfounded assumption.  If non-statist societies are as successful as you believe them to be, they should be commonplace.  Sadly, they're nonexistent.  Remember, you're not trying to simply show these (thus far undefined by their proponents -- tighten up, guys!) stateless societies are metaphysically possible to create, you must show them to thrive, defend themselves against & encroach on existent states.¹

1. Unless you plan to start your stateless society in outer space, unclaimed & of no interest to modern states, it will have to encroach on existent states.

[de Heydon]

Some of the participants of this thread, may wish to investigate a new forum at http://crossingborders.board-directory.net/.

Hope to see you there.

[NewLiberty]

So you imagine the future with a radically different sociopolitical structure, but you imagine everything in it will be the same as things are now? Why not:
- Public transportation replaced with suspended rails going through the city and country, with pods, that you can rent, automatically traveling under them to preset destinations (patented idea, replaces road maintenance with something much cheaper).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkyTran

Lolz.  Another freeloader project sucking misguided government grants "Unimodal hired a NASA subcontractor to build simulations of the vehicle and dynamics using funding from a US DOT grant." --your wikip link.

Subscriptions to road areas in the same way that you can buy a London metro ticket that gives you free ride within limited areas.

Lolz. Wholly owned by Transport for London (TfL), which "is the local government body..."  Another ugly statist institution. 

On the transports, why not skip to the google autonomous car mods.  The only element that could be arguably considered government are the GPS satellites, which if they were private instead could be something to reduce the cost and improve quality of satellite radio by sharing a Low Orbit platform.  They would be on sale today if not for government regulation.

[crumbs]

So you imagine the future with a radically different sociopolitical structure, but you imagine everything in it will be the same as things are now? Why not:
- Public transportation replaced with suspended rails going through the city and country, with pods, that you can rent, automatically traveling under them to preset destinations (patented idea, replaces road maintenance with something much cheaper).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkyTran

Lolz.  Another freeloader project sucking misguided government grants "Unimodal hired a NASA subcontractor to build simulations of the vehicle and dynamics using funding from a US DOT grant." --your wikip link.

Subscriptions to road areas in the same way that you can buy a London metro ticket that gives you free ride within limited areas.

Lolz. Wholly owned by Transport for London (TfL), which "is the local government body..."  Another ugly statist institution. 

On the transports, why not skip to the google autonomous car mods.  The only element that could be arguably considered government are the GPS satellites, which if they were private instead could be something to reduce the cost and improve quality of satellite radio by sharing a Low Orbit platform.  They would be on sale today if not for government regulation.

Not sure which part of my post you're addressing.

[NewLiberty]

There are technical advances that reduce the burden of government.  Google's car tech is one.  Fewer police, less worry about drunk drivers, insurance issues, etc.

Bitcoin is another such.  There isn't much need for a government to protect my Bitcoin stash, I think I have that handled.
It is shared with those whom I trust, whether they are consanguineous or not.

[Zarathustra]

So you imagine the future with a radically different sociopolitical structure, but you imagine everything in it will be the same as things are now? Why not:
- Public transportation replaced with suspended rails going through the city and country, with pods, that you can rent, automatically traveling under them to preset destinations (patented idea, replaces road maintenance with something much cheaper).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkyTran

Lolz.  Another freeloader project sucking misguided government grants "Unimodal hired a NASA subcontractor to build simulations of the vehicle and dynamics using funding from a US DOT grant." --your wikip link.

Subscriptions to road areas in the same way that you can buy a London metro ticket that gives you free ride within limited areas.

Lolz. Wholly owned by Transport for London (TfL), which "is the local government body..."  Another ugly statist institution.  

http://www.septa.org/fares/pass/independence.html

Lolz. Another statist conglomerate "Originally SEPTA's function was to coordinate government subsidies to the railroads and transit companies, absorbing PSIC and SEPACT in 1965, and by 1966 all commuter lines were operated by the PRR and RDG under contract with SEPTA. Inevitably negotiations led to the purchase of the assets..."

BTW, roads were never public land or publicly maintained before the foundation of the USPS, which provided funds and legal status for the public development of "postal roads".  Today, all roads are postal roads.  Makes one wonder how we ever had roads before the USPS.

 Thank goodness for USPS, another statist institution?  

[...more stuff]

My point is this, we can and often do these very public things privately today.

Yes, we can, some things, and certainly not often.

Whether or not these privately owned public spaces accept public funds today or not, they aren't dependent on the support, or likley even the existance, of the state.

An absurd & unfounded assumption.  If non-statist societies are as successful as you believe them to be, they should be commonplace.  Sadly, they're nonexistent.  Remember, you're not trying to simply show these (thus far undefined by their proponents -- tighten up, guys!) stateless societies are metaphysically possible to create, you must show them to thrive, defend themselves against & encroach on existent states.¹

1. Unless you plan to start your stateless society in outer space, unclaimed & of no interest to modern states, it will have to encroach on existent states.

The problem which the Anarchocapitalists is that they want two systems which mutually exclude each other: Anarchy and a progressively increasing economy. They deny that stateless communities beyond the state (rain forest) don't increase production. They produce the same amount as they did thousands of years ago, because they are not enforced to produce ever increasing surpluses. That's enforced and needed in collectivist societies exclusively.

[MoonShadow]

The problem which the Anarchocapitalists is that they want two systems which mutually exclude each other: Anarchy and a progressively increasing economy.

I don't want a progressively increasing economy.  I want the right economy.  The best way to have that is to take a 'hands off' approach, because politicos really don't know as much as they think they do.

They deny that stateless communities beyond the state (rain forest) don't increase production. They produce the same amount as they did thousands of years ago, because they are not enforced to produce ever increasing surpluses. That's enforced and needed in collectivist societies exclusively.

I don't deny this either.  I don't know anyone who has besides your claims that someone has.  I just don't find such a society to be ideal.  If you do, why are you still here?  There certainly are groups within the US and elsewhere that prefer the kind of "natural" lifestyle you think is appropriate, and some of them will even accept you.  You just have to find them.  Or create your own.

The obvious answer is that you really don't believe that you would be better off without modern industry and/or the Internet, or you would be doing so.  You certainly are still free enough to do so, despite you claims to the contrary.  It costs you almost nothing to go hiking into the wilderness, and 'camp' in public parks.  There have literally been cases of people that have been found camping in national parks that have been there for years.  Camping isn't illegal, yet.  People have done it in city parks, although that is certainly illegal.  I've even seen a tent that is shaped to resemble a car, put up in a city parking spot.  I've seen people camp in freeway medians; which if you have ever driven though Kentucky, you would realize is not very difficult to do undetected.  Learn to set up trappin snares, there are such books in the public library, and you would never even have to 'hunt' for your food.  There are tribes in Africa that get most of their food from simple snares, because they still use an atlatl (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spear-thrower) instead of the more effective bow and arrow for hunting.

[crumbs]

There are technical advances that reduce the burden of government.  Google's car tech is one.  Fewer police, less worry about drunk drivers, insurance issues, etc.

Bitcoin is another such.  There isn't much need for a government to protect my Bitcoin stash, I think I have that handled.
It is shared with those whom I trust, whether they are consanguineous or not.

Hard to decide if uncomfortable facts are intentionally ignored, or if i'm not being direct enough.  Phrases like "reduce the burden [on] government" and "worry about drunk drivers" only add to my confusion, so i'll highlight some points, betting on the off-chance i was misunderstood:

There are no "burdens" for governments.  At least not in the sense of "something which must be done, but they'd rather do without."  Those "burdens" are governments' lifeblood & raison d'etre.  That's what governments *do,* they live & breathe the stuff.  Lightening one set of "burdens" will just drive governments to create new ones.  One war fizzles out?  Start a new one: on drugs, on another country, on terror.  Most grownups know that most wars aren't started to be won.  They are nurtured and lovingly tended to by intelligent men so that they may continue to be integral workings of our modern economy.  

Knowing this is enough neither to stop wars nor makes them unnecessary. Just like knowing governments are motivated by their own, and not your, self-interest is enough to make governments disappear.  

*Take this as a margin note, meant to put my other posts in perspective.  It is not intended to be factual, falsifiable, or an attempt at logical derivation.  Simply to shed some light.  I hope this disclaimer is enough to avoid another pointless tangent.

[NewLiberty]

The problem which the Anarchocapitalists is that they want two systems which mutually exclude each other: Anarchy and a progressively increasing economy.

I don't want a progressively increasing economy.  I want the right economy.  The best way to have that is to take a 'hands off' approach, because politicos really don't know as much as they think they do.

This makes some sense.  If trade is mutually beneficial, the economy ought to increase.  When it isn't it decreases.  Over time this also includes the non-trading third party that share the environment, which if harmed decreases the economy too, yes?  It doesn't seem to necessitate an unsustainable growth or even any growth, and the growth is just a measure of the participant's good faith dealing.

Perhaps the political class needs it to increase to win elections and so may sacrifice long term for the term of the next election important to them.

[NewLiberty]

There are technical advances that reduce the burden of government.  Google's car tech is one.  Fewer police, less worry about drunk drivers, insurance issues, etc.

Bitcoin is another such.  There isn't much need for a government to protect my Bitcoin stash, I think I have that handled.
It is shared with those whom I trust, whether they are consanguineous or not.

Hard to decide if uncomfortable facts are intentionally ignored, or if i'm not being direct enough.  Phrases like "reduce the burden [on] government" and "worry about drunk drivers" only add to my confusion, so i'll highlight some points, betting on the off-chance i was misunderstood:

There are no "burdens" for governments.  At least not in the sense of "something which must be done, but they'd rather do without."  Those "burdens" are governments' lifeblood & raison d'etre.  That's what governments *do,* they live & breathe the stuff.  Lightening one set of "burdens" will just drive governments to create new ones.  One war fizzles out?  Start a new one: on drugs, on another country, on terror.  Most grownups know that most wars aren't started to be won.  They are nurtured and lovingly tended to by intelligent men so that they may continue to be integral workings of our modern economy.  

Knowing this is enough neither to stop wars nor makes them unnecessary. Just like knowing governments are motivated by their own, and not your, self-interest is enough to make governments disappear.  

*Take this as a margin note, meant to put my other posts in perspective.  It is not intended to be factual, falsifiable, or an attempt at logical derivation.  Simply to shed some light.  I hope this disclaimer is enough to avoid another pointless tangent.

OK, substitute raison d'etre for burden.
Those to whom you go to for help, you also empower. 
The less we need it, the less power it has.

[MoonShadow]

The problem which the Anarchocapitalists is that they want two systems which mutually exclude each other: Anarchy and a progressively increasing economy.

I don't want a progressively increasing economy.  I want the right economy.  The best way to have that is to take a 'hands off' approach, because politicos really don't know as much as they think they do.

This makes some sense.  If trade is mutually beneficial, the economy ought to increase.  When it isn't it decreases.  Over time this also includes the non-trading third party that share the environment, which if harmed decreases the economy too, yes?

If by that, you mean real ecological damage, than yes.  In such a case, such 'externalities' do, indeed, negatively effect an economy of any nature or size.  The cavet here is that not all claims of environmental harm are, in fact, harmful.  Burning firewood, for example, isn't actually net harmful, even if human beings in the near environmental space may find it uncomfortable, or even personally harmful.  Inasmuch as fossil fuels are burned for energy, they are not necesarily harmful either.  Burned 'clean' such actions only produce CO2, which itself shouldn't rationally be considered a pollutant.  It's a greenhouse gas, yes, but it's also so difuse in the atmostsphere that it's actuall net contribution to global climate changes is highly debatable on scientific grounds.  But that is a huge tangent.

 It doesn't seem to necessitate an unsustainable growth or even any growth, and the growth is just a measure of the participant's good faith dealing.

Perhaps the political class needs it to increase to win elections and so may sacrifice long term for the term of the next election important to them.

He can be taught!

"War is the health of the state."

[NewLiberty]

The problem which the Anarchocapitalists is that they want two systems which mutually exclude each other: Anarchy and a progressively increasing economy.

I don't want a progressively increasing economy.  I want the right economy.

OK, let's have a quick look at what that might entail. Say you want a 'stable' economy, it would probably need:
population headcount change = 0
people's changing 'needs' = 0
land or industry encroachment on other economies = 0
net non-renewable resource depletion = 0
net inflation = 0

Therefore, (unless I've missed some other factors for stability) any profit is probably either inaccurate accounting or a transfer of wealth from the loser to the winner. One example of a profitable activity might be to innovate a new machine that produces widgets more efficiently than the machines all the other widget-makers use. Despite rejecting "intellectual property" (I guess that's off-topic and maybe a good candidate for another thread) you guys seem strongly in favour of doing these innovations for the sake of competition (no arguments there).

However, the reward for innovation seems to be the same as the reward for resource depletion, inflation, banning contraceptives, and all that other stuff. I.e.: because profit. With all those other opportunities, why choose innovation?

Without intelligent oversight, to me it seems you'll eventually get your stable economy, but only after numerous resources have been depleted, and various bubbles (including population bubbles) have burst. It's a doomsday scenario.

Secondly, even if things manage to stabilise, there's still a big question mark over how the current (or a future) level of technology would be sustained without all that extra energy being pumped in. The whole world's basically running on oil, gas, coal, nuclear fission, and cheap labour.

This doesn't appear to be an accurate characterization of Moonshadow, or at least not how I read it.

There can be profit for all parties in a transaction.  I have more than I need of A, you have more than you need of B, we swap.  When that happens the "economy" grows.  This is irrespective of any change, growth or depletion of population or anything else. 
By "right economy" it seemed to mean "undistorted" rather than "unchanging".
But then, I may not have understood Moonshadow's intent.

[MoonShadow]

The problem which the Anarchocapitalists is that they want two systems which mutually exclude each other: Anarchy and a progressively increasing economy.

I don't want a progressively increasing economy.  I want the right economy.

OK, let's have a quick look at what that might entail. Say you want a 'stable' economy,

You've already failed the test.