Тег: Marketplace

Taking money away from people may not be good, but on the other hand, society wins from it

Yes, the middle class and the wealthy have more expenses, but in return, the poor get the opportunity, for example, to receive an affordable education. For instance, in the US, both education in good colleges and universities, as well as medicine, are very expensive. I see no reason why one cannot help a person now, and then they will help others through their own taxes. Yes, involuntarily. Yes, they will grumble about robbery. But life now is much better than it would be if there were no taxes.

My friend

Alas, it is impossible to reliably learn the opinion of speculative subjects about what constitutes their gain, since speculative subjects exist only in a specific human mind. One will say that society gains from taxes, another that God gains from the ban on abortions, a third that his imaginary friend will gain from a school shooting, and these will be equally reliable statements.

Therefore, it is better to proceed from what benefits, say, a specific child from a poor family will receive from the fact that education is funded by taxes, compared to a situation where education is funded voluntarily.

Since money for education is spent centrally, the curriculum is also determined centrally. Thus, the child studies according to a program prescribed from above, receives a diploma upon graduation, and after that, it depends on luck. Either the knowledge acquired is in demand by business, or it is not. If not, he has quite justified grievances against the state: you ordered me to study things for which no one is willing to pay, so go ahead and pay for it yourself. And the obedient state provides the person with a budgeted job, paying them a salary from money that is, again, collected from private business in the form of taxes.

If the state proves to be a successful entrepreneur and successfully guesses what knowledge in what volume will be in demand by business in the future, then centralized education indeed helps cover the needs of business for a qualified workforce. If the state does not guess correctly, then the money is spent in vain, the workforce remains low-skilled despite the expenditures, but at the same time, having an education, these people are no longer willing to take low-skilled jobs and instead claim high-paying work, even if it is useless, for example, funded by taxes.

The more static a society is, the more justified tax-funded education is within it. The faster a society changes, the less justified it is. If socialism were implemented worldwide, progress would slow down, and such education would become relatively effective, but is this what socialists mean when they say that society will benefit from public education? They seem to call themselves progressives rather than conservatives.

Now let education be private, and a child from a poor family chooses for themselves what they can afford. They can take a loan, receive an expensive education, and then, after landing a high-skilled job, pay back that loan in a few years. They can immediately get a low-skilled job and, in their spare time, get an education based on free courses, which are plentiful on the internet. They may not receive an education at all, but simply increase their qualifications directly in the workplace, which will lead to career growth. And finally, they can demonstrate their great talent in one competition or another and receive a private educational grant. After some time, having achieved success, they themselves will gladly invest in the endowment fund of the university that gave them such a wonderful opportunity.

As a result, we will have a system where every member of society arranges their life exactly as they themselves find most convenient. Wouldn’t it be logical to conclude that society as a whole benefits from such an approach, since each of its members benefits?

Work with your hands by day, and in the evening on Coursera—mastering corporate management

As is known, there are no monopolies in a free market

But how then should we view Google, Facebook, and YouTube, which are monopolists in their respective spheres: search engines, social networks, and video platforms? Yes, there are Russian analogues like VK or Yandex, but that is all local, and overall, the world still uses these three monopolists, and their imminent decline is not yet expected.

Howard Roark

Indeed, there are tools that have a massive network effect; in other words, the more people who use them, the more beneficial it is for them to use them. This applies to money, language, as well as other communication tools such as social networks.

Many entrepreneurs try to guess exactly which offer will be so in demand by users that they will be willing to pay for it. Some guess better than others. The creators of Facebook guessed that some people are willing to pay to show their own content to a crowd, while others will gladly pay for information on user preferences. The creators of YouTube guessed that some people are willing to pay to show commercials in other people’s videos, and others — to watch videos without ads. The creators of Google guessed that people would more readily buy targeted advertising rather than the kind that blasts areas indiscriminately.

We do not know which consumer needs people will be willing to pay for tomorrow. Neither do the owners of the internet giants. Today, the YouTube administration assumes that blocking accounts with information unpleasant to advertisers is a good idea, but tomorrow it may turn out that people are more willing to pay for freedom of expression. Today, Facebook is developing the trade of big data, and tomorrow it will find that people pay more for privacy. Today, Google is satisfied with its ad targeting algorithms, and tomorrow it will turn out that an outsider has come up with something better, and for some reason, this startup does not wish to be bought out.

In a free market, there can be the dominance of certain standards, and for us consumers, this is very convenient. And when it starts to feel restrictive, some Durov inevitably appears and whispers: why do you need these social networks, switch from the needle of publicity to an anonymous messenger. Come on, you answer Durov, how can one live without VK? And a year later, it turns out that you even brush your teeth via Telegram. That is how it works; this is creative destruction.

User preferences

Who will own the street under ancap, and why won’t we get a situation similar to feudalism, where in order to get from point A to B, one must cross streets, the owner of each of which has set some incredible toll?

JediKnight

Here I will once again refer to Evgeny Kvasov and his post about roads. In short: the most natural owner for a street is the owner of the real estate that the street passes by, because the value of the real estate directly depends on the quality of the communications.

If there are many real estate owners, they have many reasons to agree on how to maintain the road, and not a single reason to create obstacles to passage — this sharply drops the value of their assets. A situation in which the houses along the street belong to some people, and the street itself to others who have no relation to these houses, is possible, but in that case, the company managing the street must have clearly fixed obligations regarding the operating mode of the street.

Houses always come first, and the street arises later, specifically so that one can move from the house to some other location. Residents may tolerate a temporary closure of the street for some alternative use if this closure is coordinated with them and they are paid for the inconvenience. But normally, they will always demand free passage and access, and strongly oppose any arbitrary action that hinders this very passage and access. Any checkpoint will be a negative externality for them, and that is already grounds for a lawsuit. Maintaining checkpoints will be quite expensive. They won’t pay off.

Now, under a state — that’s a different matter. Here, houses may belong to people, the street to the municipality, and traffic on it be regulated by the central authority. With such an approach, collisions are inevitable, where the interests of the residents are not taken into account.

A private street in Sydney

How will things stand with the environment under ancap?

Environmentalists love to blame capitalism and businessmen for polluting the environment and advocate for market regulation. But are there any normal pro-market environmentalists? What about the implementation of the sustainable development concept under ancap?

анонимный вопрос

I let this question simmer for quite a while, but then by complete chance I had the opportunity to provide an interesting example of a pro-market approach to ecology. Vladimir Zolotoryov, a well-known Kyiv ancap, published a translation of an article by Joaquin Bukay regarding a market-based approach to reducing risks from climate change.

To generalize, the approach looks roughly like this. There are certain risks that depend on some external factors. If these are systemic risks, then information about the risks can be aggregated, and then the possibility to insure them arises. The wider the insurance market for this type of risk becomes, the more money is invested in ways to reduce them, because any insurance company is interested in paying out less on insurance claims.

And, in general, it doesn’t matter at all whether we are talking about the risk of becoming disabled in old age, or the risk of suffering from a hurricane caused by climate change due to carbon dioxide emissions. If the risk is real, people will pay for insurance. If it is contrived, the insurance will sell poorly. Many people are willing to buy insurance against a poverty-stricken old age (many states in the 19th-20th centuries realized this and monopolized the pension industry). Those who fear unsustainable development, climate change, and the eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano also have a fairly large community.

Imagine the profit: a bunch of people insured themselves against disasters caused by climate change, and then climatologists go and prove that it was a false theory and there are no risks from carbon emissions—that’s it, the collected money doesn’t have to be paid out, beauty! You can invent a new scary story to sell. But the main thing is that everything is completely voluntary, no taxes. That’s how the magic of ancap works.

See those people? Each and every one of them could be insured against Yellowstone starting to erupt right during their tour!

A question about stock exchanges

Investments and exchanges are the foundation of the entire market economy today. Essentially, in the absence of a regulator in the form of the state, traders would be able to gain virtually unlimited power: they could inflate prices or, conversely, crash them to zero, destroy some companies and promote others. So the question is: how will exchanges work in ancap? What alternative will be offered to investors instead of the stock exchange in the event of its liquidation? How can the dominance of traders over the market be prevented?

Muller

The order book is, in fact, the quintessence of the free market. Pure supply and demand, stripped of any rhetorical fluff. It is not for nothing that the foundations of Austrian economic theory were laid by a stock market observer. So, of course, in a free market economy, the role of exchanges will only strengthen.

What are the main dangers facing an investor on the exchange?

First, these are possible exchange manipulations.

In the world of stock exchanges, blatant manipulations have become a great rarity because they care about their reputation. If we encounter any restrictions from trading platforms, these are usually requirements of external regulators—for example, regarding the suspension of trading in a situation of market panic. I do not know which exchanges companies will prefer for listing their shares—those that provide for an automatic stop of trading during price spikes, or those that guarantee continuity. Let the consumer choose.

In the world of cryptocurrency exchanges, attempts to protect against exchange manipulations led to the emergence of demand for decentralized platforms, where you cannot fake volumes. I would not be surprised if over time stock exchanges are also pushed aside when crypto-tokens begin to take the place of company shares.

Secondly, possible insider manipulations.

This is, in fact, a problem not of the exchanges, but of the companies that are traded on them. Even now, private companies are taking measures to prevent such machinations—through non-disclosure agreements for insider information that provide for serious payments for their violation, as well as through moratoriums on trading company shares for its employees in periods shortly before the publication of regular reports. The absence of such measures will simply be taken into account in the share price of specific companies as an additional risk factor.

Thirdly, market maker manipulations—traders who have access to very large capitals. This is the factor you are writing about.

Here, one can only say one thing: if you want to be indifferent to such manipulations—simply do not take loans secured by shares. Then you will not have to dump shares due to a margin call if someone temporarily crashes the price. No market maker is capable of completely zeroing out the shares of a prosperous company: no matter what panic rumors he spreads, no matter what volumes of shares he dumps onto the market, if you simply forget about your stake for a month or two, you will lose nothing; the price will return over time, it’s just that some will sell securities during this time and some will buy. It’s not even a fact that the trader who started all this will necessarily profit. He is not the only one—a large movement will attract others, and they will play it their own way.

So, there is no question of trader dominance in a developed market. This is simply their habitat. The more of them there are, the better the life of the companies traded in this market, and the harder it is for traders to manipulate the price of assets.

In general, exchanges are simply a tool through which it is convenient for a seller and a buyer to find each other. This is not some self-sufficient entity. If the tool works correctly, it will not cause damage to real companies in itself.

Consultations were used in the response from Srpski, as a gesture of gratitude he asked to reference his channel “Serbian Divergent”.

Is it permissible to cover others’ treasures?

Look, check this out. I have a friend who works as an admin (sort of) in a restaurant. She’s a seasoned user herself. People are constantly leaving “stashes” there, and being experienced, she naturally spots them and takes them for herself. Then the guys show up and get disappointed.

goldstein

“Zakladki” (dead drops) are a genius technology for creating a logical break in trade and logistics chains when acquiring prohibited goods. Anya packages Boris’s goods and hides them wherever she deems appropriate, receiving a reward from Boris for every hidden stash. Vera transfers bitcoins to Hydra and receives an algorithm for finding the stash. After confirming that the stash has been found, she instructs Hydra to transfer the previously deposited bitcoins to Boris. All of this is further reinforced by dispute mechanisms, reviews, penalties for Anya from Boris for poor stashes, and other ingenious mechanics.

At every stage, all participants face risks. Anya can be caught with the goods. Vera can be caught with the goods. Vera might not find the stash. An unfound stash might be relocated, or a refund might be denied, which means costs for either Boris or Vera. Finally, Boris might be an undercover officer, and his reputation will depend on how quickly Hydra bans his shop.

Naturally, because possession of a stash entails state sanctions, it is legally ownerless. Anya, Vera, and Boris will all fiercely deny any connection between themselves and a piece of substance attached with a magnet under a table, and will disclaim any ownership rights to it—if asked by the state, which is formally the guarantor of private property rights on its territory. Dasha, who finds someone else’s stash, will deny her ownership rights to it no less fiercely. She was simply cleaning her assigned area, found some junk, has no idea what it is, mechanically put it in her pocket, and forgot to throw it in the trash.

Nevertheless, Anya, Boris, Vera, and Hydra sincerely and with full justification hate Dasha, and all the more so the more systematic her activity is: she increases costs across the entire chain, thereby contributing to higher prices for an already expensive product. If Vera or Anya catches Dasha, they will not doubt for a moment their right to use violence against her.

Such, in short, are the customs of this very peculiar market, where everyone proudly bears their own risks, yet everyone, guided by their own selfish interests, does everything to ensure the market continues its uninterrupted operation, multiplying the wealth of all its participants. Even Dasha.

After all, Dasha also has her boss, Fyodor Ovchinnikov. He is not involved at all; he sells people delicious pizza. And by clearing the pizzeria’s territory of dangerous stashes, Dasha helps reduce his risks. If Dasha reported this to him, he would say thank you. But in this system, all chains of cause and effect are broken, so Fyodor will never know what he owes to his brave admin.

P.S. Usually, I use an English sequence of character names to describe such mechanisms, but “zakladki” is a purely Russian technology, so today I have every reason to show some patriotism.

Help Dasha find the stash

How will a country without a state represent itself to other states?

Choosing a private representative? An armed population is great, but tanks, planes, and missiles—who sells them, who buys them, and consequently, who stores them? And obviously, how does a private individual profit from this? Donations? Or will they offer to protect a certain part of the population? Quite strange. Military personnel will go, for example, into various PMCs and become mercenaries, but what about deterrent weapons? A private individual will be paid from the outside, and that’s it. Kaput. Cosmopolitanism is cool, but this scenario is quite real. Again, terrorist attacks carried out for the purpose of intimidation, or due to disagreement with the population based on certain criteria. Who will investigate them? Private security organizations that engage in security activities? People who are interested in what happened? Quite likely. What about firefighters, who are supposed to arrive after the fact? They arrive, but the homeowner is gone, or simply doesn’t exist because the plot of land is a wasteland. Let it burn? Will the city saved from the fire pay them via donations? “Donations” is a crude word, but essentially, if people aren’t obligated to pay for it, they will more likely pay into insurance, and the insurance companies will handle it? Consequently, each insurance company will have its own ties with firefighters, etc. Okay, I answered that myself. But as for weapons of mass destruction and heavy military equipment, it’s still unclear.

Royal hacker

It is quite difficult to answer such broad questions, so I will focus on the very first part.

Indeed, there is a rather peculiar service that seemingly only a state can provide to a person: the service of representation before another state. States do not consider citizens of other states to be subjects of treaties. They negotiate with other states, while citizens and companies act as objects of agreements. This applies to trade tariffs and regulations, visa regimes, and the extradition of criminals. How can the market respond to such rudeness?

Fortunately, states can make decisions regarding foreigners not only in a bilateral but also in an autistic mode. For example, issuing an order that products receiving certain certificates are not subject to customs duties. This means nothing prevents the company issuing the certificates from working with influence groups in those countries that are of interest as a sales market. Similarly, some consortium of travel agencies could work with lobbyists regarding a visa-free regime for buyers of certain tour packages. In general, the task looks difficult but solvable, although it seems more likely to me to obtain visas by purchasing some convenient citizenship (and the more wealthy apatrides wanting to travel there are in the market, the more various small island states will compete for them, and due to the volume, the price of the matter will quite quickly drop to a quite acceptable level).

It is more difficult with the pursuit of criminals. I once wrote about the functions of a prison under ancap, arguing that the criminal needs it primarily as a refuge from retribution. If a criminal has the opportunity to flee to the territory of a state, they effectively receive the same refuge, just without being locked within four walls. On the other hand, the state in terms of protection is a prison for the poor. That is, protection exists, but it is purely nominal. So, if someone hiding on the territory of a state manages to be discovered (which is a quite feasible and legal task for private detective agencies, which they can perfectly perform on the territory of a state), then one can either enter negotiations with them or deal with them in one way or another, since state structures are unlikely to be able to or want to protect them. Finally, one can threaten the criminal not with retribution, but with deportation to the state whose citizenship they acquired to cross the border, and there they can be judged by a state court. A mediocre solution, but threatening to hand one bandit over to other bandits for retribution if they don’t compensate for the damages is more or less permissible.

The rest of your long question is mainly devoted to issues of the use and sale of heavy weaponry. Nothing prevents a private company, operating on stateless territory, from producing weapons and legally supplying them to the territories of states if appropriate contracts are concluded with buyer companies (defense ministries can also act as such). Of course, national armies usually follow standards, and if a specific tank model has been adopted for armament, pushing through a procurement decision for another model is quite a hassle. But these are issues that are already being solved without state patronage, so under ancap, arms companies will handle this—they aren’t children.

As for the purchase of heavy weaponry by some hypothetical ancap PMCs, I personally do not believe in the market justification for such purchases, but I cannot provide clear arguments. Perhaps a few PMCs on stateless territory will go all out; after all, a tank biathlon is a quite monetizable show, something to keep them occupied in peacetime.

April 12

They say that in the past, in the USSR, it was a nationwide holiday, but now it has lost its drive and in many ways has acquired the mood of “Sorry, Yura, we fucked everything up.”

No. The state fucked everything up. The “market” gradually crept into space, and once the market arrives somewhere, it settles in seriously and for the long haul. At first, private companies simply held contracts for state space companies. Then they started buying satellite launches from state companies. Then they learned to launch satellites themselves. They are just about to launch the first human. They have already launched a lunar expedition, albeit unsuccessfully.

Private space exploration is happening unobtrusively. In some places, it is the whim of a billionaire, in some it is the donations of enthusiasts, and in some it is a normal profitable business—and this, of course, is the most solid basis for expansion.

All of this applies to Russia as well. So S7 Space, Dauria Aerospace, or some other Russian private space companies will certainly enter the bright market paradise. And Roscosmos will simply die.

Happy holiday!

And the romance of space isn’t going anywhere. Starman sends his regards to Yuri Gagarin.

How will accidents be resolved in ancap? For example, while defending myself from a bandit, I accidentally hit my neighbor and killed him with my automatic rifle.

анонимный вопрос

In such murky situations, it always makes sense to start by identifying the circle of interested parties: representatives of the deceased neighbor, representatives of the deceased bandits, surviving gang members, and perhaps other persons whose property was also at risk in this shootout. Then, the picture of what happened is reconstructed, making it clear whether you acted in collusion with the bandits, the extent of each gang member’s involvement, how the neighbor happened to end up in the line of fire, how you happened to hit him, and who ultimately suffered what property damage.

Next, the claims of the various parties in the proceedings against each other are outlined, the court issues verdicts on the validity of these claims, and then bargaining ensues until it is fixed who owes whom and how much. The court essentially becomes the moderator of this complex dispute, which, although it has the deciding vote, is interested in ensuring that, upon the conclusion of the dispute, no mutual claims remain if possible.

It is clear that in most such cases, the person who accidentally shot an innocent bystander will incur significant costs. It is clear that these costs can be partially offset by the attacker’s assets. It is clear that in a situation where the killed neighbor turned out to be of absolutely no interest to anyone, everyone will simply be very upset by such a fuck-up, and the matter may be reduced to ritual sacrifices like “lighting a candle for the repose of the soul every week and paying for commemorative prayers for ten years.” Feeling guilt for a misfortune that one inadvertently caused is normal for a human, and the market will certainly provide ways to make amends, as long as there is an obvious demand for such things.

A strange way for atheists to recover costs, even in the case where the subject to whom they are being paid is already gone.