One of the assertions that distinguishes my political viewpoint from most others is my claim that scarcity is equal to power.
If Eddie Engineer is the only engineer willing to come to your town and work make your machines work...Eddie has as much power as he wants to use. If Vernon Villain comes to town with his gun, he may seem to have more power than Eddie. However, that's only true if Vernon is the only guy in town with a gun. If there are more guns than just Vernon's, then the others will protect Eddie as being important for their self-interest.
How much power a given entity has (Water company, Bank, Military) is roughly exclusively determined by how scarce their abilities are. If there's only one water source in town, whoever controls it has a lot of power...and control is frequently trumped by violence, thus making it appear that violence is the key. However, if there are 3, 4, or 20 water sources in town...it becomes awful hard even for violence to make a difference in water control. Without real scarcity, violence doesn't win. Similarly...if there are 20 different armed militias in town... only the insane ones are shooting anyone...and they're likely to be eliminated. Rather, no single group has any real power, because there's no scarcity.
In real life, through the study of recent economic history, most scarcity is not scarcity of physical resources, but rather scarcity of mental resources. Can you find someone who can solve the problem you have? How many folks can (in my case) effectively teach your team of programmers how to use web services in Java (Practice: easy, Theory: less so). How many folks can effectively lead a team of programmers to create something useful in a reasonable period of time. (Not enough). What other choices do you have than finding such a person? (Not too many.)
The scarcity angle, though, brings up a real issue for political analysis. The issue is: where is the scarcity.
Claim #1: Generating Scarcity is the political goal of all businesses. If you can generate scarcity, you win...and if you can't you lose...and almost the only way to generate long term scarcity is through government intervention. Alternatively, you can monoplolize scarce resources (brains) but it's a leaky job, and it ends up sending all of your profits to the scarce resources.
Claim #2: Political power is itself allocated itself according to scarcity. Hence, in the modern wealthy world of general lack of scarcity...the idea of concentrating political power is between kinda tricky and impossible. Monarchism wishes are silly.
Claim #3: Given how much scarcity is generated in the political world, one has to assume that power is FAR more concentrated than we currently want to believe. Power is exercised to generate large scarcity.
Claim #4: Larger polities (USA vs. Denmark or Swiss Canton) are currently only fictionally democratic. Scarcity of Access. The ability to influence policy is not meaningfully democratic in any sense, nor can it be, given widely varying opinions.
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Concatenate this with the claim that wants are infinite, and scarcity is built into any system. I'm not sure you can categorically claim that leaders/rulers plan for scarcity.
My kids want a one hundred gallon refrigerated container of soda pop on the roof with free hanging hoses scattered about the house. Dad said "no", and now they wauler about claiming dad is a scarcity mongering fascist who needs to read Aretae and realize there need not be scarcity of resources.
Similarly...if there are 20 different armed militias in town... only the insane ones are shooting anyone...and they're likely to be eliminated
That's exactly why Europe - a smallish continent (comparatively) with a couple dozen or so states never had war! Oh wait...
Apologies for the sarcasm, but empirical evidence trumps theory every single time.
Contemplationist,
So...as soon as you had dozens of smaller militias in a capitalist (rather than, say, autocratic) greater system, where everyone was trading with one another...what happened again? You haven't seen a war since? I agree...evidence trumps theory every time.
The 19th century was arguably more capitalist than today. And why should ideology of the actor matter? I feel like that's a copout. If you are trying to prove some sort of game theoretic equilibrium why should the intentions/ideology of the actors matter? If it does, well then whats left of the theory?
As for contemporary times, will you neglect the monster behemoth called the USA with gigantic military trawling the oceans, meddling in all sorts of smallish states to enforce a global regime? Medieval to 19th century Europe is arguably more capitalist and better for your theory (still really bad) compared to today. Also, we have nuclear weapons - universally acknowledged to reduce large-scale army-to-army combat.
Taking it from the bottom-up, think of the evolution of these groups or tribes. After all thats how political entities were arranged earlier - ethnically close-knit groups controlling certain tracts of land. And yet there were skirmishes, wars and conflicts. How is that to be explained? There is always irrational lust for power and loot. No equilibrium is permanent or static. Do hunter-gatherer tribes also not have skirmishes? Let's use some more data and see how this utopian anarcho-capitalistopia holds up.
To be clear I'm not at all opining AGAINST it being tried. I'm all in favor of decentralization unto death. But to me seasteading will lead to a more rational/stable equilibrium that anarcho-capitalists promise than simply abolishing the state.
RSF,
There are several things going on here.
1. Economic Scarcity. The economic concept of scarcity is uber-broad. Clean Air is a scarce resource...it costs something.
2. English scarcity. Most folks don't think of clean air or water or decent reading material as a scarce resource. There is simply SO much of it that even though it takes some effort to get some, it's not worth talking about.
3. Artificial scarcity. Microsoft has billions because governmental action punishes software copying. Government action creates the scarcity, and permits Microsoft's business model.
4. Unlimited Natural resources. The simplest version of this is that people switch to substitute goods (resources) FAR before anything runs out, due to price considerations. The more complex version is that resources are not about what's there, but about what's usable...and that's a technology problem, not a quantity problem.
Contemplationist,
The key word that the left-libertarians use to differentiate themselves is:
The Freed Market. The claim is that non-governmental capitalism has barely ever been tried. Certainly not in the 19th century, what with the government being entirely responsible for the railroad industry, and such.
Extensive inter-group trade is the key factor that seems to prevent war. The more inter-unit trade, the less likely war is to happen...hence the (until 2000) McDonalds theory of peace -- no 2 countries containing a McDonalds had ever gone to war.
On the other hand, your seasteading line I agree with...mostly, though, from the pro-Kling side of things:
States will violently suppress devolution of power.
Unlimited Natural resources...substitute goods...what's usable
You are far too glib here. In any biological system there is a limiting factor, a scarcity that limits the enterprise. To preach that markets can always break through to a new level of plenty seems a bit theological--a priesthood forever calling for more piety, more belief, more tapping into the infinite, while this year our major phosphorus mines in Florida are going offline.
RSF,
Fair enough. Let me de-glib then.
Historically, since the 1600s, we've had hundreds/thousands/more of scares of running out...where somewhere between lots of folks and everyone were worried about running out of some important natural resource.
In those 400+ years, the number of non-renewable resources that we've run out of is ZERO. This suggests a failure in method of analysis leading to predictions of running out. Given that folks have been saying the same thing for 400 years, and have been wrong EVERY SINGLE TIME....I'm willing to bet quite a lot that they're wrong this time too...without knowing ANY facts about the particulars.
Exception...I think government interference CAN screw things up, but can and will are different, especially if theres large $ to be made.
Likewise predictions of abundance haven't been so accurate.
When natural gas was discovered, it was declared that it would be "too cheap to meter".
In many respects we are trading nature for urban. We have a ways to go, but that does not mean "no limit". Past predictive results are no indication of future performance.
Government may impose limits, but that does not mean nature will not impose limits.
RSF,
I've lost the train of our argument.
1. Scarcity will be there.
2. And we won't run out.
"Past predictive results are no indication of future performance."
By any reasonable standards of epistemology, they are the way to bet, though. I can't promise you that reality hasn't changed overnight....but if I'm betting...I'm betting large and hard against the prediction that's been wrong for 400 years EVERY TIME.
Your conjecture was that scarcity=power. I say that scarcity is inherent in the system whether politicians create it or not. You can't keep your promise of unlimited natural resources under Libertarianism. It is too convenient to blame shortages on central authorities.
I've seen many resources go up in smoke, never to return. Much topsoil has eroded away, and we've seen some ag regions abandoned or constrained. Aquifers have been depleted. Hunting and fishing access, especially on private land, is in a steady decline. I'm not as sanguine about all this as you are.
Thanks.
My claim #1: scarcity=power... whether or not the politicians create the scarcity or not.
My claim #2: tech progress tends strongly to prevent scarce stuff from staying scarce. Either we tech our way into finding more, or we tech our way into finding substitutes.
My claim #3: Most interesting scarcity is scarcity of skill, not scarcity of stuff.
My claim #4: Elites (Corporations, especially) know that scarcity = power, and do everything in their power to ensure scarcity. Licensing is scarcity creation. 95% of all regulation is scarcity creating... most of it intentional on the part of whoever bought the law.
Which of these (any/all) do you find suspicious? FWIW, your examples all fall under #2 substitutes.
claim #1: scarcity=power---I'll largely agree, but I don't cotton completely to your spin. I think patent laws has allowed overall greater tech growth than if we just let everyone copy and convert: One reason China didn't have much innovation.
claim #2: tech progress...prevent[s] scarce stuff---I'll agree that tech can shift the supply curve, but it can't shift it forever. The ancient Greeks were able to start forest fires and gather the rivulets of silver that ensued. Now we dig deep in the earth for silver. There is a bottom there somewhere for it and its substitutes.
claim #3: Most interesting scarcity is scarcity of skill, not scarcity of stuff.---I'll have to think about this. A carpenter, no matter how skilled, is of no use without a hammer and wood.
claim #4: Elites (Corporations, especially) know that scarcity = power---mostly agree, but I think licensing and regulation can serve a larger good, such as safety and encouraging creativity.
RSF,
1. Patents is a hard topic. I thought hard about it off and on for 15 years before converting. For those 15 years, I was moderately pro-patent. in the last 4 years, I shifted hard...but I think before my left-libertarian shift. I'll grant that there's empirical evidence that matters here...but I keep hearing snippets of hard empirical evidence that support the anti-patent folks.
Fundamentally, what's required to reach the anti-patent position is Ridley's quip: "Innovation is Ideas having sex." If they've got protection, you don't get baby ideas. I got there through incremental improvement and process engineering.
2. I agree that tech progress can't shift it forever. Hell, the earth contains only 6 * 10^24 kg of matter...much of it mixed metals in the mantle and core. At current rates of population growth, we should run out of that sometime in the next billion years (assuming no recycling)...and then we're screwed unless we get off planet.
3. A carpenter is useless without wood and hammer...but wood and a hammer are just as useless without a carpenter. In the modern world (since...Plato? maybe. Newton for sure), we have been able to find wood easier than we can find carpenters, averaged across resources. And we are especially short on Marie Curies to discover new valuable things.
4. I don't disagree that licensing could theoretically serve a larger good. I just argue that in the real world where we live, it doesn't. It's 95% scarcity-generation, and 5% other...with some of the other being "good", though most of even the "good" is just economically illiterate. In such an environment, with the expectation that this will continue, categorical opposition is a reasonable position.
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