It is a common argument that the police cannot be removed; after all, it is common knowledge that people who are no longer policed will perform activities that are antisocial and dangerous in general. Examples often involve riots, where criminal activities are part of the landscape.
On its face, this is essentially a correct assumption... provided the police are removed in an instant. In many situations where an addiction has occurred, the immediate removal of the substance of addication result in withdrawal symptoms. Such symptoms where police are concerned are vandalism, looting, murder, and general unrest.
The public takes the existence of police as a granted, and as a result, they only assume that what is illegal is wrong, even if they don't always believe the law is right. People are not used to having the personal responsibility to rule themselves; they have become completely dependent on having a central government telling them what is right and wrong, and many will follow the "ad populum" fallacy that if enough people (enough to win a vote) believe something is right, then it must be right. They no longer need to decide for themselves, and they lose the ability to police themselves. Once this valuable ability is lost, you end up with a population with no self-control; if the police were to go away immediately, there would be nothing to replace them.
Because of this, we need to see about bringing back the self-control in people through alternative means *before police can go away*; this will involve an alternative system that can coexist alongside the police system, allowing for a stronger market force to suppliment and, if required, replace police with a more robust and fair system than we have today without causing the chaos that removing police alone can cause.
To this end, I propose the creation of a system consisting of two forms of insurance.
The first, protection insurance, is a system that consists of multiple pieces. These include the brokers, insurers, private security firms, private investigators, as well as the second form of insurance, which I will address shortly.
Anyone can purchase protection insurance. Their premiums will depend on how often the client's line of work or personal life will require the use of protection, because claims will require the services of the above pieces. The more claims made against the insurers, the more expensive the person's insurance premiums will become. This would encourage the insured individuals to practice caution when dealing with questionable elements of society.
The claim process is simple: a person can install a security system with a call switch, or maintain camera security, or even keep some security guards present. These would either be part of the insurance company's service, or come at an extra charge, depending on the insurer, and how much the insured wants to spend. If there is a break-in, an attempted theft, or an attack, the security systems in place can make the immediate claim to the insurer, who will immediately dispatch security personnel to the client. If the damage, theft, or attack was successful, the provider can further contact the private investigation services in order to retrieve the property in question, or determine the perpetrator in question. Once the perpetrator is determined, the insurer can prosecute the perpetrator in arbitration.
The second form of insurance here is the keystone to behaviour. This is Reputation Insurance. Reputation insurance is simply a form of insurance that takes claims against their client, and, if the claims are sound, they will pay the damages on their client's behalf, increasing the premiums their client will need to pay as a result. In addition, it is the reputation insurer who will be responsible for representing their client in arbitration.
Arbitration is the process in which a protection and opposing reputation provider will select a shared arbiter in which to make their claims and present their evidence. The costs of arbitration are deferred until the verdict and penalty are announced, in which case, it will be the loser who pays the costs of the proceedings, and if the prosecution is successful, the defense's reputation insurer will pay all damages to the victim in question.
The above two systems both have access to private investigators who will perform all necessary research, and also serve as advocates on behalf of their respective clients.
The reasons that this is more effective than the police and court systems are 1: it by necessity limits bad behavior to victim-based crime, preventing any form of prohibition from becoming the dangerous policy that it is today, and 2: ensures that if a person is not properly represented by their insurer or advocate, they can move on to a different insurer out of protest without fear of reprisal.
First, police are not protection, they for the most part investigate the crime after it occurs (traffic violations being of a different nature).
Second, the present protection services that use a call box... simply dial the local PD. Nice convienence, but hardly necessary.
The reputation insurance is ineffective as a stand alone... the reason, one would need to be caught to get a reputation. Could you pick a mass murder, thief, rapist, or child molester out of a crowd? If they have never been tagged by LE to be such?
What of the person who's reputation is damaged through slander or libel?
Its quite a complex issue... but I believe that policing can and should be minimized.
Quote from: John Edward Mercier on December 13, 2007, 06:28 AM NHFT
First, police are not protection, they for the most part investigate the crime after it occurs (traffic violations being of a different nature).
Second, the present protection services that use a call box... simply dial the local PD. Nice convienence, but hardly necessary.
To respond to the first, they are a deterrent among those who obey the law out of fear, rather than behave according to principle.
I don't really understand your second point, though, could you please clarify?
Quote from: John Edward Mercier on December 13, 2007, 06:28 AM NHFT
The reputation insurance is ineffective as a stand alone...
You're right; alone, the reputation insurance would be useless. It is when reputation insurance is rated by protection insurers according to risk that it becomes valuable. If a person wants to get the lowest-cost protection, they will deal only with people who are insured by low-risk (high-reputation) insured people. The net result is a form of market shunning of those people who have policies with reputation insurers who are considered high-risk by the protection companies; it becomes more difficult and expensive to deal in a market where you are considered a higher risk.
Quote from: John Edward Mercier on December 13, 2007, 06:28 AM NHFT
the reason, one would need to be caught to get a reputation. Could you pick a mass murder, thief, rapist, or child molester out of a crowd? If they have never been tagged by LE to be such?
There is only one way that this differs from the current system of police: The police have no competition, and so have less incentive to constantly improve. The security services and private investigators in the above system would be competing with one another, and as such, would constantly seek to improve their technology and methods to protect and seek out aggressors in order to gain the advantage against their competition.
Quote from: John Edward Mercier on December 13, 2007, 06:28 AM NHFT
What of the person who's reputation is damaged through slander or libel?
Its quite a complex issue... but I believe that policing can and should be minimized.
This is the reason why reputation insurers would also keep access to private investigators; they would research their clients' opposition to such slander. If a slander claim has merit, a counterclaim can be made against the slanderer's reputation provider. This would result in the mark being removed from the victim's reputation and placed in the original slanderer's reputation.
I hope this clarifies a few things.
My second point dealt with services like First Alert.
And still no clarity...
Is it my understanding that your simply suggesting a privatization of investigative duties?
In my experience, prosecutors are highly competitive...
Quote from: John Edward Mercier on December 13, 2007, 08:08 AM NHFT
My second point dealt with services like First Alert.
Ah. Not exactly a refutation of my point, though; the call-box does not need to call the police, but the protection service in question, which is the point I was making.
Quote from: John Edward Mercier on December 13, 2007, 08:08 AM NHFT
And still no clarity...
Is it my understanding that your simply suggesting a privatization of investigative duties?
In my experience, prosecutors are highly competitive...
What I am suggesting is a marketization of:
* Investigation (Private investigators)
* Conflict resolution (Private arbitrators and advocates selected by the respective insurers)
* Damage reconciliation (Reputation insurance)
* Protection (Protection insurance)
* Punishment of aggressive behavior (More expensive reputation policy, potential discontinuation of policy, and market-based shunning of those with high-risk or no reputation insurance)
Prosecutors may be highly-aggressive, but just try to find one when going up against the IRS, for example. The current system is unbalanced, explicitly because of the monopoly power of certain services. How do you legally charge a system that can create a law to circumvent you?
Cool, how do we sign up for your insurance?
Quote from: Kat Kanning on December 13, 2007, 09:02 AM NHFT
Cool, how do we sign up for your insurance?
I wish I could answer that one; unfortunately, coming up with an idea is one thing, bringing it to life is another. It would require financial backing to bring such a dual-system into being.
I would probably begin the work with protection insurance first; the necessary components already exist to create such a system with the right relationships. Once a protection insurance system can be used for personal protection, then the reputation insurance system can be created for the purpose of encouraging the discount/surcharge model to work the market toward a non-centralized model for dealing with aggressive tendencies.
Once the system is in place, signing up is as simple as visiting your friendly insurance broker. ;)
Oh.
Prosecutors don't go after the IRS, the would be the job of a tax attorney.
No matter what you do, or what you advocate for, simplify, simplify, simplify. I frequently come up with what I like to call 'good ideas' that will in reality never be accepted because they are too complicated. Complications breed distrust and suspicion. Particularly of anything new.
My suggestion would be to compare this, to anything existing that might demonstrate that it can work or not. Look for examples in places such as inner cities, where the hostility to police is so high, that even the swat doesn't want to go there, or places like Somalia, or the middle east, where there is either no effective gov't or a highly corrupt one. People tend to do things over and over again, usually because they think it will work. :)
Much like the private defense companies some propose to replace police, this sounds like yet another scheme that would simply result in the replacement of one State with a another—one that eventually evolved out of these insurance companies.
Right now, the parts of our lives that are not controlled by the State are very often controlled by insurance companies.
Many of those onerous safety regulations businesses have to follow nowadays are a result of legislation. But many of them are a result of their liability insurance carrier's rules. No smoking on the premises—because the fire insurance would've cost more. No customer restrooms—because the restrooms are in the back and the liability insurance doesn't cover that part of the building. Ridiculously paranoid policies about "sexual harassment" and other "inappropriate" workplace behavior—because in the event of a lawsuit, it's the insurer who shells out for it.
How about car insurance? Violate a traffic law, and not only does the State fine us, but now the insurance company will raise our rates. Not only is the state trying to force us to follow their rules, but so are the insurance companies! Health insurance? No smoking—or our premiums will go up. No eating unhealthy foods—or our premiums will go up. No risky lifestyle—or our premiums will go up. Our doctors' recommendations on diet and exercise become orders—or our premiums will go up.
It's their money, so it's only reasonable they get to make rules for us to follow, right? And of course, it's voluntary—we weren't forced to buy insurance. Oh, but... "you have to have it." Just in case. Because the potential costs for not having it when we need it are so high.* And so on.
And don't think the insurance companies aren't gleefully gaming the system in order to ensure those costs are so high.
In your scenario, these "reputation insurance" providers (RIPs?), through the usual tricks of marketing and propaganda most corporations employ, would quickly engineer the beliefs of the people among whom they exist such that they are under the impression that one must buy reputation insurance; anyone who doesn't would have "no reputation"—and thus ought to be automatically considered untrustworthy. The RIPs would create a "reputation rating" system, rate each of their customers accordingly, and convince us all to believe that a person with "no reputation" is as untrustworthy as a person with a bad "reputation score."
So, of course, we would all sign up with an RIP, simply in order to get one of their damned numbers so people will trust us. And as a customer, there'd be all sorts of rules we'd have to follow: Perhaps they'd tell us we can't do business with no-rep or bad-rep people, period, preventing us from using our own judgment. Perhaps they'd prohibit us all from drinking alcohol, because we're more likely to engage in reckless or criminal behavior while drunk. Perhaps they'd even tell us what we can't say, or can't write about, in order to limit their risk of paying out for a defamation lawsuit.
And if we don't follow these rules, our RIPs will rip us a new one either by raising our rates or lowering our rep score.
R.I.P., our freedom.
Once the State is gone, any private entity that tries to engineer dependence, or place itself in a position where people believe that they "have to have it" needs to be resisted. Dependency is evil. Insurance is evil. Relying on someone else to provide us with defense, or "cover our ass" when we need it, is short-sighted, foolish, and a recipe for our own enslavement. Now, purveyors of such product certainly have a right to exist in a free market, but they ought be treated with the same suspicion and contempt that a loan shark or drug dealer receives. They should not be encouraged.
Because, once everyone is dependent on them... it's only a very short journey until they become the new State and us their new subjects.
* The rent-seeking behavior of many insurance companies—getting states to pass laws mandating certain forms of insurance under certain circumstances (drivers required to have car insurance, college students and Massachusetts subjects required to have health insurance, businesses required to have liability insurance, &c.)—certainly plays a major part of the clout insurance companies have over people, but it's not necessary. Even when insurance is 100% voluntary they still engage in these controlling behaviors.
QuoteNow, purveyors of such product certainly have a right to exist in a free market, but they ought be treated with the same suspicion and contempt that a loan shark or drug dealer receives.
Why should I have contempt for the guy that provides a product I want?
Quote from: Tom Sawyer on December 13, 2007, 04:26 PM NHFT
QuoteNow, purveyors of such product certainly have a right to exist in a free market, but they ought be treated with the same suspicion and contempt that a loan shark or drug dealer receives.
Why should I have contempt for the guy that provides a product I want?
The examples I used were of people engaging in businesses that are generally seedy and borderline fraudulent. Drug dealing would probably be a lot cleaner in a free society—most of the violence and other shadiness associated with it now is solely because it's marginalized by being outlawed—but I suspect usury and insurance will remain the same scams they are now.
You mentioned DROs. To my knowledge such an organization has almost never been in existence. Similar things have, though. For example... in Iraq, and Palestine, the militias are the largest providers of charity. To those who doubt the effectiveness of private militias, pay attention to the general effectiveness of the militias in Iraq as they frustrate the united states army. While it is true that in the 'democratic' setup that is in place in both regions has resulted in the militia leaders being involved in gov't, if they were not propped up by outside aid the gov't would fall very quickly. this has happened for 14 years in Somalia, where the clans would never let another rule over it. The united nations has spent over 2 billion dollars trying to establish a gov't there.
Quote from: David on December 13, 2007, 04:59 PM NHFT
You mentioned DROs. To my knowledge such an organization has almost never been in existence. Similar things have, though. For example... in Iraq, and Palestine, the militias are the largest providers of charity. To those who doubt the effectiveness of private militias, pay attention to the general effectiveness of the militias in Iraq as they frustrate the united states army.
How does their effectiveness at resisting the U.S. and Israeli occupations say anything about their future goals?
The two main players in Palestine at the moment—the corrupt remnants of the PLO, and the HAMAS—are vying for control of the territory and the people living there. They're certainly both intent on becoming the State as soon as they can.
The same is true for most of the factions in Iraq: The Sunni are fighting because they lost power when the U.S. invaded, and they want it back. The Shi`a factions that follow as-Sistani and as-Sadr, initially fighting against the U.S., have temporarily laid down their arms in order to participate in the political system the U.S. installed—they're certainly intent on becoming the State. And the small group of
al-Qa`idah fighters in the country are religious fanatics who want to restore the Caliphate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caliphate).
It's interesting that you bring up Arab politics in
defense of the DROs, because this bit of PLO history (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_September_in_Jordan#Seven-point_agreement) is something I often use to demonstrate how quickly private resistance groups start trying to become the State.
Quote from: David on December 13, 2007, 04:59 PM NHFT
While it is true that in the 'democratic' setup that is in place in both regions has resulted in the militia leaders being involved in gov't, if they were not propped up by outside aid the gov't would fall very quickly.
Right—and what I was trying to say is these militia groups would become the next government.
Quote from: David on December 13, 2007, 04:59 PM NHFT
this has happened for 14 years in Somalia, where the clans would never let another rule over it. The united nations has spent over 2 billion dollars trying to establish a gov't there.
The clan is the State. The leaders of these clans rule over their members through force, don't they?
Quote from: David on December 13, 2007, 04:59 PM NHFT
You mentioned DROs. To my knowledge such an organization has almost never been in existence. Similar things have, though. For example... in Iraq, and Palestine, the militias are the largest providers of charity. To those who doubt the effectiveness of private militias, pay attention to the general effectiveness of the militias in Iraq as they frustrate the united states army. While it is true that in the 'democratic' setup that is in place in both regions has resulted in the militia leaders being involved in gov't, if they were not propped up by outside aid the gov't would fall very quickly. this has happened for 14 years in Somalia, where the clans would never let another rule over it. The united nations has spent over 2 billion dollars trying to establish a gov't there.
Where did the charitable donations come from?
Guerrila warfare will always frustrate a standing army.
Can I make a bold inference?
If there were less laws, and thus less crime,... wouldn't that equate to less policing?
To clarify, the largest charity in Iraq is Shia, it is run by the largest militia in Iraq, the Mahdi Army. I assume most of those are donations. I have some trouble believing that even most of the money they have, is the product of extortion. I believe this also of Hamas as well. One of the reasons they were popular in the last election is that they were believed to be the less corrupt. The basis of my belief that the militias are relatively non coercive, is because there would be some resistance to the coercion if they weren't. Having said that, these are violent areas of the world to begin with, and it is difficult for any to change their way of life. But I believe few humans enjoy living for the sake of others, and would violently resist attempts in many cases to force them too.
As imperfect as they are, the militias are a partial answer to a problem. That is the problem of a horribly repressive gov't or police state.
Btw, the runaway, and sometimes impossible to control violence is THE reason I do not in general support the gun cleaners in their threats against the gov't. In our own history, the militias led to a federal gov't.
Quote from: David on December 14, 2007, 07:46 AM NHFT
To clarify, the largest charity in Iraq is Shia, it is run by the largest militia in Iraq, the Mahdi Army. I assume most of those are donations. I have some trouble believing that even most of the money they have, is the product of extortion. I believe this also of Hamas as well. One of the reasons they were popular in the last election is that they were believed to be the less corrupt. The basis of my belief that the militias are relatively non coercive, is because there would be some resistance to the coercion if they weren't. Having said that, these are violent areas of the world to begin with, and it is difficult for any to change their way of life. But I believe few humans enjoy living for the sake of others, and would violently resist attempts in many cases to force them too.
As imperfect as they are, the militias are a partial answer to a problem. That is the problem of a horribly repressive gov't or police state.
Btw, the runaway, and sometimes impossible to control violence is THE reason I do not in general support the gun cleaners in their threats against the gov't. In our own history, the militias led to a federal gov't.
Did I say or imply these charities were collecting through coercive means? I was talking about what private entities will eventually
become in the midst of a power vacuum, which is not the current situation in any of these places.
Quote from: John Edward Mercier on December 14, 2007, 06:17 AM NHFT
Can I make a bold inference?
If there were less laws, and thus less crime,... wouldn't that equate to less policing?
Nice and simple :)
Quote from: J'raxis 270145 on December 13, 2007, 04:18 PM NHFT
Much like the private defense companies some propose to replace police, this sounds like yet another scheme that would simply result in the replacement of one State with a another—one that eventually evolved out of these insurance companies.
If there is going to be a state, it would be best handled by the market.
Quote from: J'raxis 270145 on December 13, 2007, 04:18 PM NHFT
Many of those onerous safety regulations businesses have to follow nowadays are a result of legislation. . . . Ridiculously paranoid policies about "sexual harassment" and other "inappropriate" workplace behavior—because in the event of a lawsuit, it's the insurer who shells out for it.
Okay, we at least agree on this.
Quote from: J'raxis 270145 on December 13, 2007, 04:18 PM NHFT
Right now, the parts of our lives that are not controlled by the State are very often controlled by insurance companies. . . . many of them [onerous safety regulations] are a result of their liability insurance carrier's rules. No smoking on the premises—because the fire insurance would've cost more. No customer restrooms—because the restrooms are in the back and the liability insurance doesn't cover that part of the building.
So what? The business is owned by the business owner, and if the owner wants to save money on insurance, then they can do this. If they want the increased revenue from people who protest such policies, then they can spend more on insurance.
Quote from: J'raxis 270145 on December 13, 2007, 04:18 PM NHFT
How about car insurance? Violate a traffic law, and not only does the State fine us, but now the insurance company will raise our rates. Not only is the state trying to force us to follow their rules, but so are the insurance companies!
There's that ugly "L" word again.
Quote from: J'raxis 270145 on December 13, 2007, 04:18 PM NHFT
Health insurance? No smoking—or our premiums will go up. No eating unhealthy foods—or our premiums will go up. No risky lifestyle—or our premiums will go up. Our doctors' recommendations on diet and exercise become orders—or our premiums will go up.
So... if you practice more risky behavior, you run the risk of spending more on healthcare. This applies even if you are paying in cash. I don't see the problem.
Quote from: J'raxis 270145 on December 13, 2007, 04:18 PM NHFT
It's their money, so it's only reasonable they get to make rules for us to follow, right? And of course, it's voluntary—we weren't forced to buy insurance. Oh, but... "you have to have it." Just in case. Because the potential costs for not having it when we need it are so high.* And so on.
As opposed to a government where you have to have it because you are forced to pay, whether or not you use it. Seems reasonable to me.
In addition, the interest of insurance providers are to provide the best services without losing money. They have their profits to consider, as well as the competition. More expensive policies send customers to competition. Poorer-quality healthcare send customers to competition. Consumer advocate groups can and will form to track the performance of such providers.
Quote from: J'raxis 270145 on December 13, 2007, 04:18 PM NHFT
And don't think the insurance companies aren't gleefully gaming the system in order to ensure those costs are so high.
They're gleefully gaming the system now. It's called
lobbying. And the difference is that lobbying can prevent competition from forming to take their business away.
Quote from: J'raxis 270145 on December 13, 2007, 04:18 PM NHFT
In your scenario, these "reputation insurance" providers (RIPs?), through the usual tricks of marketing and propaganda most corporations employ, would quickly engineer the beliefs of the people among whom they exist such that they are under the impression that one must buy reputation insurance; anyone who doesn't would have "no reputation"—and thus ought to be automatically considered untrustworthy. The RIPs would create a "reputation rating" system, rate each of their customers accordingly, and convince us all to believe that a person with "no reputation" is as untrustworthy as a person with a bad "reputation score."
So, of course, we would all sign up with an RIP, simply in order to get one of their damned numbers so people will trust us. And as a customer, there'd be all sorts of rules we'd have to follow: Perhaps they'd tell us we can't do business with no-rep or bad-rep people, period, preventing us from using our own judgment. Perhaps they'd prohibit us all from drinking alcohol, because we're more likely to engage in reckless or criminal behavior while drunk. Perhaps they'd even tell us what we can't say, or can't write about, in order to limit their risk of paying out for a defamation lawsuit.
And if we don't follow these rules, our RIPs will rip us a new one either by raising our rates or lowering our rep score.
R.I.P., our freedom.
In your scenario, this government, through the usual tricks of propaganda and police most governments employ, would quickly engineer the beliefs of the people among whom they exist such that they are under the impression that one obey the law; anyone who doesn't would be imprisoned or killed. The government would create a legal system, rate each of their citizens accordingly, and convince us all to believe that a person wiho is illegal must be turned into the police.
Of course, we are signed up with a government at birth, since we have no choice. And as a citizen, there'd be all sorts of rules we'd have to follow: Perhaps they'd tell us we can't do business with criminals or illegal people, period, preventing us from using our own judgment. They tried to prohibit us all from drinking alcohol, because we're more likely to engage in reckless or criminal behavior while drunk. Theyn even tell us what we can't say, or can't write about, in order to keep the busybodies happy.
And if we don't follow these rules, our government will either imprison or kill us.
R.I.P. Freedom.In addition, who said anything about a score? I actually oppose the use of an external score; the system I'm designing would not include any way of sending internal scoring information to third parties, this would be a privacy issue, and would quickly encourage clients to move to other providers. The insurance agency would pay damages, and adjust the premiums accordingly.
Quote from: J'raxis 270145 on December 13, 2007, 04:18 PM NHFT
Once the State is gone, any private entity that tries to engineer dependence, or place itself in a position where people believe that they "have to have it" needs to be resisted. Dependency is evil. Insurance is evil. Relying on someone else to provide us with defense, or "cover our ass" when we need it, is short-sighted, foolish, and a recipe for our own enslavement. Now, purveyors of such product certainly have a right to exist in a free market, but they ought be treated with the same suspicion and contempt that a loan shark or drug dealer receives. They should not be encouraged.
Emphasis mine.
This is one idea. This is not the only one. I am providing an alternative to government, which, by the way, is the very name of this forum. This is not the only one, and I'm sure others can come up with better ones.
Quote from: J'raxis 270145 on December 13, 2007, 04:18 PM NHFT
Because, once everyone is dependent on them... it's only a very short journey until they become the new State and us their new subjects.
And the odds of everyone becoming dependent on one of a possible number of different systems?
Quote from: J'raxis 270145 on December 13, 2007, 04:18 PM NHFT
The rent-seeking behavior of many insurance companies—getting states to pass laws mandating certain forms of insurance under certain circumstances (drivers required to have car insurance, college students and Massachusetts subjects required to have health insurance, businesses required to have liability insurance, &c.)—certainly plays a major part of the clout insurance companies have over people, but it's not necessary. Even when insurance is 100% voluntary they still engage in these controlling behaviors.
The laws are what allows insurance companies to have that kind of stranglehold. As I am fond of saying: competition is the natural enemy of greed. Laws tend to hinder the competition.
I am a fan of looking at how things were handled in the past, and today, because it gives me an example of what people might be comfortable with today.
People in the near past seem to like ebays customer ratings system. Business today hire private security, (a booming growth industry in fact) but they usually are only to insure safety of its property, and to prevent lawsuits and gov't shutdowns, (as such they do enforce drug laws etc). Homeowners buy guns, dogs, burgler bars, security monitoring etc. to provide security. In a utopia with no police, the security monitoring would have no choice but to contract with someone to do a security type job to respond to alarms.
The desire to protect ones self is fundamental.
Economics is fundamental.
If the cost of services related to your new system exceeds the current cost of services... then your system is inefficient and will seek efficiencies. This is what corporations currently do, and the major complaint of those people that have anti-corporate tendencies.
Indeed, and since the government is there to "reduce inefficiencies," coprorations lobby to do just that. Whether it is to raise the bar against startups, or to strangle the small businesses, it is the use of government force that achieves just about every single evil that corporations are known for.
I need a clarification on 'government is there to reduce inefficiencies'.
Quote from: John Edward Mercier on December 15, 2007, 06:29 AM NHFT
I need a clarification on 'government is there to reduce inefficiencies'.
That was actually meant as sarcasm; by "Reduce inefficiencies," I refer to methods of reducing competition, such as patents, copyright, regulation, licensing, monopoly privelege, subsidies, and securing exceptions to all of the above.
Patent and copyright is a type of property protection.
Regulation is weird in the fact that many times it works against itself.
Quote from: John Edward Mercier on December 16, 2007, 12:21 PM NHFT
Patent and copyright is a type of property protection.
This is, of course, VERY highly debatable.
Quote from: John Edward Mercier on December 16, 2007, 12:21 PM NHFT
Regulation is weird in the fact that many times it works against itself.
...And against the customer.
Quote from: John Edward Mercier on December 16, 2007, 12:21 PM NHFT
Patent and copyright is a type of property protection.
Except it's not property (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.xhtml) to begin with.
Quote from: J'raxis 270145 on December 16, 2007, 08:33 PM NHFT
Quote from: John Edward Mercier on December 16, 2007, 12:21 PM NHFT
Patent and copyright is a type of property protection.
Except it's not property (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.xhtml) to begin with.
Maybe not real property, but it is property.
Quote from: John Edward Mercier on December 17, 2007, 03:06 AM NHFT
Quote from: J'raxis 270145 on December 16, 2007, 08:33 PM NHFT
Quote from: John Edward Mercier on December 16, 2007, 12:21 PM NHFT
Patent and copyright is a type of property protection.
Except it's not property (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.xhtml) to begin with.
Maybe not real property, but it is property.
No, it's not property at all. This was a concept invented in the 1960s by people who would benefit from such a conflation. All three of the "intellectual property" items—copyright, patent, and trademark—are just legal fictions created by the government. The first two are examples of social engineering schemes: Grant an author/inventor a time-limited, government-protected monopoly on his work, in turn for his releasing the work to the public. The third is a sort of consumer-protection law.
1960s?
From the US Constitution Article One Section Eight...
'To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;'
http://www.archives.gov/national-archives-experience/charters/constitution_transcript.html
(Edit to add link)
Twin jeremies agreeing with each other :o
Imagine if they took opposing points of view...
Constitutional or otherwise, since it consists of nothing but concepts and ideas, "Intellectual Property" is not real; it is the belief that one can own an idea, regardless of the head containing it, or the hands enacting its purpose... in essence, you own a specific thought and action in every person's head and hands. If you cannot see the absurdity in this concept, then there is little I can do to disabuse you of this illusion.
Biogenetic companies have patented genes. Better hope you don't have those genes in your strand of DNA.
As a legal concept, copy writes are a few hundred years old, in this country due to the constitution, but even older in europe. they were used in europe as a means to control printing houses. copy writes are profitable for priters, so a loss of it became a weapon for the monarchy.
Neither copyrights, patents, nor trademarks were ever considered "property" until the people who hold such items, and would benefit from such a definition, began to push it into the public consciousness. Their only similarities are that both C/P/T rights and true property rights confer upon the holder an exclusive privilege of use. I can keep you from using my back yard as your own; I can keep you from using my book/invention/logo as your own. And it's argument from this similarity that has allowed "IP" holders to conflate C/P/T with real property.
To elaborate on what I said earlier:—
Copyright is a form of social engineering. The idea was that publishers wouldn't publish without a guarantee that someone else wouldn't snap up their work and publish it cheaper, so the government invented this legal fiction that restricts copy rights to the original publisher. It's more of an entitlement than a right, and if one wants to call it a "right," it's a positive right alongside other such government-granted rights as the "right to education" or the "right to health care," since it cannot exist without proactive government intervention.
Patents are the same sort of social engineering, but for inventions: Without it, inventors used to rely on secrecy to protect their inventions from being copied by competitors. This presents a problem, since if the inventor dies, or his business collapses, the invention may very well be lost. So, the government came up with a scheme to grant a time-limited monopoly to inventors in order to promote the public disclosure of their inventions. It's also a legal fiction, an entitlement, and a positive right that cannot exist without proactive government intervention.
Trademark is a form of consumer-protection law: It was created to prevent shady companies from trying to sell poor-quality products by imitating the appearance of their more reputable competitors (and tarnishing the reputation of their competitors in the process). It's also a legal fiction, an entitlement, and a positive right that cannot exist without proactive government intervention.
Actually government didn't construct anything. Individuals and masses of individuals develop constructs.
The 'idea' of private real property is a social construct. It does not exist everywhere, nor is it inherent to nature.
Quote from: John Edward Mercier on December 17, 2007, 07:55 PM NHFTActually government didn't construct anything. Individuals and masses of individuals develop constructs.
The 'idea' of private real property is a social construct. It does not exist everywhere, nor is it inherent to nature.
Okay, Prodhoun...::)
There is no such thing as intellectual property. Can anyone steal an idea? Someone can steal your lawn chair, thereby depriving you of the use of it. That deprivation of use is the definition of theft.
If, on the other hand, you come up with an idea (let's say, a method of irrigation), no one can steal that from you, short of erasing your memory. Even if someone else uses the same idea, you still have it. You can still irrigate your fields by that method, if you like. The fact that someone else may also do so, does not deprive you of the use of your idea.
Joe
Quote from: MaineShark on December 23, 2007, 09:00 AM NHFT
Quote from: John Edward Mercier on December 17, 2007, 07:55 PM NHFTActually government didn't construct anything. Individuals and masses of individuals develop constructs.
The 'idea' of private real property is a social construct. It does not exist everywhere, nor is it inherent to nature.
Okay, Prodhoun...::)
I think Mercier was trying to set up a bit of a straw man there.
It is actually true that there've been a lot of societies in which there was no concept of
private real property. Sedentary/agrarian societies usually developed such concepts, whereas nomadic societies didn't. But that says nothing about whether or not concepts such as
possession,
ownership, and
theft, are universal: I would think that even in nomadic societies, even where there are no fixed pieces of land for anyone to claim, the concept of possession—of personal items, such as one's clothing, tent, cooking wares, &c.—still exist, and that if one person were to forcibly take another's kettle from him, it would be interpreted as an act of aggression.
And to answer the next possible counterpoint—that there've even been societies in which movable property has been held in common—there is still the concept of ownership and theft: If an outside actor were to come along and take those held-in-common items from their owners, would those owners not still interpret that as an act of aggression? If a single member of such a society were to try to take all for himself some of the commonly-owned items, would everyone else not still interpret that as an act of aggression? Thus, concepts of ownership and theft can still exist in communal societies.
Quote from: MaineShark on December 23, 2007, 09:00 AM NHFT
There is no such thing as intellectual property. Can anyone steal an idea? Someone can steal your lawn chair, thereby depriving you of the use of it. That deprivation of use is the definition of theft.
But this is what's important: In the case of physical property, the act of theft is a genuine deprivation, whereas in the cause of so-called intellectual property, no deprivation actually took place. No nonconsensual transfer of possession, and thus no theft.
Quote from: reteo on December 14, 2007, 09:06 AM NHFT
Quote from: J'raxis 270145 on December 13, 2007, 04:18 PM NHFT
Health insurance? No smoking—or our premiums will go up. No eating unhealthy foods—or our premiums will go up. No risky lifestyle—or our premiums will go up. Our doctors' recommendations on diet and exercise become orders—or our premiums will go up.
So... if you practice more risky behavior, you run the risk of spending more on healthcare. This applies even if you are paying in cash. I don't see the problem.
If you practice risky behavior, there's only a chance your "costs" will increase—if and only if such risky behavior does in fact result in negative consequences. But with the way insurance is structured, if you're purchasing insurance (required to do so or otherwise), and engaging in risky behavior, your costs will certainly increase.
But that's really not the point I was trying to make earlier. My assertion is that insurance is evil because I consider any attempts to control others to be evil, and insurance is a way of doing so—using (and often engineering) circumstances to do so, instead of the force of law or somesuch.
Quote from: reteo on December 14, 2007, 09:06 AM NHFT
Quote from: J'raxis 270145 on December 13, 2007, 04:18 PM NHFT
It's their money, so it's only reasonable they get to make rules for us to follow, right? And of course, it's voluntary—we weren't forced to buy insurance. Oh, but... "you have to have it." Just in case. Because the potential costs for not having it when we need it are so high.* And so on.
As opposed to a government where you have to have it because you are forced to pay, whether or not you use it. Seems reasonable to me.
And therein lies the contention, I believe: You see this as a good solution because it's an improvement over the status quo. I agree with that, that it's an improvement, and it might be, strategically speaking, something to aim for in the short or medium term. But it's not a good solution for a truly free society.
Quote from: reteo on December 14, 2007, 09:06 AM NHFT
In addition, the interest of insurance providers are to provide the best services without losing money.
Actually, the general philosophy of for-profit business is to provide the least amount of services for the highest cost the market will bear. This philosophy isn't intrinsically bad, but it becomes so when applied to certain fields such as medicine, or other things people need.
Quote from: reteo on December 14, 2007, 09:06 AM NHFT
Quote from: J'raxis 270145 on December 13, 2007, 04:18 PM NHFT
And don't think the insurance companies aren't gleefully gaming the system in order to ensure those costs are so high.
They're gleefully gaming the system now. It's called lobbying. And the difference is that lobbying can prevent competition from forming to take their business away.
Indeed. Again, the system you propose is an improvement over the current régime, but not ideal.
Quote from: reteo on December 14, 2007, 09:06 AM NHFT
... who said anything about a score? I actually oppose the use of an external score; the system I'm designing would not include any way of sending internal scoring information to third parties, this would be a privacy issue, and would quickly encourage clients to move to other providers. The insurance agency would pay damages, and adjust the premiums accordingly.
The "score" thing was just me projecting one way in which your system would evolve based on how the system has currently evolved.
Quote from: reteo on December 14, 2007, 09:06 AM NHFT
Quote from: J'raxis 270145 on December 13, 2007, 04:18 PM NHFT
Once the State is gone, any private entity that tries to engineer dependence, or place itself in a position where people believe that they "have to have it" needs to be resisted. Dependency is evil. Insurance is evil. Relying on someone else to provide us with defense, or "cover our ass" when we need it, is short-sighted, foolish, and a recipe for our own enslavement. Now, purveyors of such product certainly have a right to exist in a free market, but they ought be treated with the same suspicion and contempt that a loan shark or drug dealer receives. They should not be encouraged.
Emphasis mine.
This is one idea. This is not the only one. I am providing an alternative to government, which, by the way, is the very name of this forum. This is not the only one, and I'm sure others can come up with better ones.
Indeed. No need to get defensive about it. :) I was merely trying to point out its weaknesses and explain how it needs to be improved.
Quote from: reteo on December 14, 2007, 09:06 AM NHFT
Quote from: J'raxis 270145 on December 13, 2007, 04:18 PM NHFT
Because, once everyone is dependent on them... it's only a very short journey until they become the new State and us their new subjects.
And the odds of everyone becoming dependent on one of a possible number of different systems?
I would actually say pretty good. In the real world today there are actually a few alternatives to doing business with the insurance cartels, in many jurisdictions, but people aren't aware of them. Many states allow you to post a bond with the state instead of buying auto insurance. Why don't too many people employ this method? The insurance companies are big enough and powerful enough to make sure that virtually no one is aware of it.
Quote from: J'raxis 270145 on December 23, 2007, 11:00 AM NHFT
Quote from: MaineShark on December 23, 2007, 09:00 AM NHFT
Quote from: John Edward Mercier on December 17, 2007, 07:55 PM NHFTActually government didn't construct anything. Individuals and masses of individuals develop constructs.
The 'idea' of private real property is a social construct. It does not exist everywhere, nor is it inherent to nature.
Okay, Prodhoun...::)
I think Mercier was trying to set up a bit of a straw man there.
It is actually true that there've been a lot of societies in which there was no concept of private real property. Sedentary/agrarian societies usually developed such concepts, whereas nomadic societies didn't. But that says nothing about whether or not concepts such as possession, ownership, and theft, are universal: I would think that even in nomadic societies, even where there are no fixed pieces of land for anyone to claim, the concept of possession—of personal items, such as one's clothing, tent, cooking wares, &c.—still exist, and that if one person were to forcibly take another's kettle from him, it would be interpreted as an act of aggression.
And to answer the next possible counterpoint—that there've even been societies in which movable property has been held in common—there is still the concept of ownership and theft: If an outside actor were to come along and take those held-in-common items from their owners, would those owners not still interpret that as an act of aggression? If a single member of such a society were to try to take all for himself some of the commonly-owned items, would everyone else not still interpret that as an act of aggression? Thus, concepts of ownership and theft can still exist in communal societies.
Quote from: MaineShark on December 23, 2007, 09:00 AM NHFT
There is no such thing as intellectual property. Can anyone steal an idea? Someone can steal your lawn chair, thereby depriving you of the use of it. That deprivation of use is the definition of theft.
But this is what's important: In the case of physical property, the act of theft is a genuine deprivation, whereas in the cause of so-called intellectual property, no deprivation actually took place. No nonconsensual transfer of possession, and thus no theft.
Again that personal property is a 'social construct'. Early hominids may not have had such a construct... in this case the strong would take what they wished. And the weak would accept that they avoided a beating or even death.
Our society developed the concept (social construct) of personal property and theft.
Take a cannibalistic society for instance. They have no 'social construct' of the right to life.
But my main point was that they did not come about in the 1960s.
Quote from: John Edward Mercier on January 02, 2008, 08:53 AM NHFT
Quote from: J'raxis 270145 on December 23, 2007, 11:00 AM NHFT
Quote from: MaineShark on December 23, 2007, 09:00 AM NHFT
Quote from: John Edward Mercier on December 17, 2007, 07:55 PM NHFTActually government didn't construct anything. Individuals and masses of individuals develop constructs.
The 'idea' of private real property is a social construct. It does not exist everywhere, nor is it inherent to nature.
Okay, Prodhoun...::)
I think Mercier was trying to set up a bit of a straw man there.
It is actually true that there've been a lot of societies in which there was no concept of private real property. Sedentary/agrarian societies usually developed such concepts, whereas nomadic societies didn't. But that says nothing about whether or not concepts such as possession, ownership, and theft, are universal: I would think that even in nomadic societies, even where there are no fixed pieces of land for anyone to claim, the concept of possession—of personal items, such as one's clothing, tent, cooking wares, &c.—still exist, and that if one person were to forcibly take another's kettle from him, it would be interpreted as an act of aggression.
And to answer the next possible counterpoint—that there've even been societies in which movable property has been held in common—there is still the concept of ownership and theft: If an outside actor were to come along and take those held-in-common items from their owners, would those owners not still interpret that as an act of aggression? If a single member of such a society were to try to take all for himself some of the commonly-owned items, would everyone else not still interpret that as an act of aggression? Thus, concepts of ownership and theft can still exist in communal societies.
Quote from: MaineShark on December 23, 2007, 09:00 AM NHFT
There is no such thing as intellectual property. Can anyone steal an idea? Someone can steal your lawn chair, thereby depriving you of the use of it. That deprivation of use is the definition of theft.
But this is what's important: In the case of physical property, the act of theft is a genuine deprivation, whereas in the cause of so-called intellectual property, no deprivation actually took place. No nonconsensual transfer of possession, and thus no theft.
Again that personal property is a 'social construct'. Early hominids may not have had such a construct... in this case the strong would take what they wished. And the weak would accept that they avoided a beating or even death.
Our society developed the concept (social construct) of personal property and theft.
Take a cannibalistic society for instance. They have no 'social construct' of the right to life.
But my main point was that they did not come about in the 1960s.
In the situations you're describing, clearly there was a concept of theft—the people having their possessions stolen didn't give them up willingly, they gave them up because they didn't want "a beating or even death." Rules against theft may not have existed, but certainly the victim of such theft would have felt victimized by it, considered it wrong to himself, and if he were powerful enough, would have resisted.
I wouldn't call that a social construct—what we're discussing is basically just dancing around the zero-aggression principle, or the "do unto others..." philosophy. And that's what I think all this boils down to. The concept of aggression is universal (protections against it certainly aren't, but the concept is).
Back to the original comment: In a society where people don't try to claim possession of the land ("
real property"), the taking or moving across such land would not be considered a theft, not be considered aggression—hence, real property is a social construct, and relative to the culture in which it "exists."
Quote from: John Edward Mercier on January 02, 2008, 08:53 AM NHFTAgain that personal property is a 'social construct'. Early hominids may not have had such a construct... in this case the strong would take what they wished. And the weak would accept that they avoided a beating or even death.
Our society developed the concept (social construct) of personal property and theft.
Take a cannibalistic society for instance. They have no 'social construct' of the right to life.
But my main point was that they did not come about in the 1960s.
What's your point? The Nazis didn't have a "social construct" of Jews having a right to life. Didn't mean the Jews didn't have that right. Just meant the Nazis were violating it.
Joe
Only because the Allies won the war. We provided the 'social construct' (the means to enforce the right).
In the hominid case, theft being wrong becomes a 'social construct' when the group accepts it as such and acts to prevent it.
Quote from: John Edward Mercier on January 02, 2008, 11:54 AM NHFTOnly because the Allies won the war. We provided the 'social construct' (the means to enforce the right).
In the hominid case, theft being wrong becomes a 'social construct' when the group accepts it as such and acts to prevent it.
So your argument is "might makes right"...
Joe
More like 'history is written by the victor'. But largely in a broader term... yes.
Even the use of persuasion is in some sense the attempt to gain 'might'.