Anarchy

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If he was the same person as TM why would he quote his own posts and argue and dissagree with himself? Unless hes a professional troll that would take a lot of work though.

(1)I am glad you admit that most of your arguments are BS.
Capitalism is not rational choice.
Democracy is not rational choice.
What is the fallacy called when one thinks everyone is a Scotsman?

(2) We are back to anarchy. CPR's are regulated in hunter-gatherer groups in a more stable fashion (historically and empirically) than market systems.

This puts a strange light on the CPR and Rational Choice. The tragedy of the commons is more likely occurs when folks act "rationally". CPR's are less robust in market systems and require extra market action. In non-market ("irrational" property-less) systems the tragedy is less likely to happen.

So an assumption or prescription of rational maximizers causes the collapse of commons.

Funny eh?, and a great argument for a gift-based economy.

tldr; The market and market thinking cause the tragedy of the commons. It is largely absent in non-market systems. (at least after they stabilize.)

I see that your affinity for selectively quoting other people's posts is intact. You didn't even bother considering the arguments in the articles... Oh, wait. You never do.

Oh (Although I know it is fruitless to use logic in this little debate... you seem quite impervious to it) the motivation for making a statement (for the lulz, in this case ) does not in itself provide a basis for concluding that the statement is invalid (I am glad you admit that most of your arguments are BS, in this case). Hmm... why isn't there a specific fallacy to describe this kind of faulty reasoning?

(Silly me, of course there is)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_fallacy



See the part of your post in bold. I didn't assume that non-market systems possessed some sort of intrinsic irrationality. And Ostrom didn't either (Ostrom, 1990: 180 - Table 5.2). I predicted - on the basis of the assumptions of Rational Choice Theory - that unregulated CPRs would fall victim to The Tragedy of the Commons. And Ostrom reached this very conclusion. She also demonstrated that it didn't take just a *little* regulation. For CPRs to be "robust" (in her terms) the self-organizing systems would have to provide several mechanisms for managing the self-interest of individuals, like clear boundaries & memberships, monitoring and graduated sanctions. And several of these failed as well, because they did not provide such mechanisms (ibid). In other words, I still win.

And I find it peculiar that you make a connection between anarchy and hunter-gatherer groups. Are you assuming that these groups (where the definition itself suggests a division of labour - and thus, a social order) are anarchic?

And furthermore, let's assume that hunter-gatherer groups *were* in fact anarchic and stable. Is this a good argument? Should we substitute our current existence with a life living at the subsistence level just for the sake of anarchy?



I would like to recommend a book for you which reaches different conclusions. It is called "Governing the Commons - The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action". You might have heard of it.

And what does "tldr" mean?

Capitalism or the mixed economy version of it is the popular irrational choice. As models for economy go, the mixed model with a substantial free market component (i.e. a component where prices are set by supply and demand) is the dominant economic model in the industrialized technology base world.

ruveyn

Anarchy is boring, human minds and emotions naturally long for anger and war, in anarchy people would either all become heavily depressive or aggressive...
It's like human hormones allways work, if the brain receptors are stimulated too much like through drug abuse they become insensitive, if they are hardly stimulated like through boredom they become oversensitive. The reasons would be far less noteable, the following aggressions would be the same or even worse.
For a species of the earth evolution from the data 2012BC peace can never be the final solving of all problems, only if you set them under drug influence or manipulate their dna. Though in such a situation of deflation and degeneration I could really see no more hypothetic reason for any of us to live.
This would be so sad! Much more it would be boring as hell!

I disagree with your reading of Ostrom mostly based on my conversations with her on the topic.

You got no data you got no point.
Pop up a regression, some experimental work, anything.
show me some data.
Please don't be a creationist about it as spray me with dozens of misleading papers like you did, like pseudo-scientists like to.
One with data will be fine.
one with a link would be even better.

I know you won't because there is none.

The statistical articles you posted were both about growth economics not rational choice.
Do you have an explanation for this? Laziness? intellectual dishonesty? an Irrational need to "win" a discussion?

tldr = too long did no read. = a synopsis for folk that have a habit of misreading.

tldr; show me one paper that is experimental or statistical covers more than developed economies that even implies rational choice I will admit you are not a moron.
until then

I really don't care what your conversations were. I look at her actual work. Have you suddenly become a post-modernist?



Since you did not bother to actually spend 1 minute on Google, here is one with both data and a link:
http://relooney.fatcow.com/BarroDemocracy.pdf

And once again, I am not impressed by "experiments" in the social sciences...



Oh my... I can't believe you actually fell for that...

To quote the great philosopher Ariehaj: I remember well, but I wanted you to say it, and I wanted others to hear.

In other words, you just admitted that you are not actually paying attention to my posts...



See the Barro link above.


And once again (again), I am not impressed by "experiments" in the social sciences...

... what? Is that an argument? Anarchism is wrong because it would work too well?

By the way, there is a process called "socialisation" by which human beings become something else than crazed berserkers. There is also "education", which does similar things.

You will also notice that there is a difference between "anger" (or even "conflict") on the one hand, and "war" on the other. I don't think a society can be bad because it has too little war.

Last edited by enrico_dandolo on 28 Sep 2012, 8:56 am, edited 1 time in total.

Everyone can outlet their agressive territorial behavior through videogames.

(1) I know, because they contradict you a priori magical thinking?
(2) Political freedom does not equal rational choice.
Democracy does not equal rational choice. (in fact it may be the opposite.)
rule of law, free markets,small government consumption, High human capital are the correlates to growth suggested by this paper.
Again with the every one is a scotsman?

The fact I already addressed this paper and you still bring it up makes me doubt you are even trying.

(3) Oy Vey The very fact you think a book that describes CPR solutions that are not property or government driven , when the prediction of rational choice is that they can not be, implies you have no understanding of the book or rational choice. (or possibly your intellectual dishonesty.)

Btw: Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action by Elinor Ostrom is a great book for Anarchists to read as it outlines non-market non-government means for maintaining common resources. (which is the core of anarchism.)

Great that you believe in the theory, that humans can brainwash their drives away. And wonderful, that you believe, that everybody is just the same so everybody would be a mild pacifist like you who only wants to comfortably lie in a field of flowers, drink the sweetest juices and eat the juiciest fruits for his or her lifetime.
But even your answer proves, that you long for conflicts. Once you wouldn't have this "opinion": anarchism or peace to quarrel and fight for anymore you would definitely find some new reasons to use as argument for a new conflict.
I don't say that people would automatically start a war in anarchy, this wouldn't even be possible so easily without anybody to manage it from above. But they would definitely become depressive, aggressive and highly xenophobic.

No, because of the Hawthorne Effect and the Experimenter effect, as previously stated.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimenter_effect

The Experimenter Effect is not unique to the social sciences, but because of the subject matter, researchers might be more likely to be affected by it.

The Hawthorne Effect (although the Hawthorne studies themselves may, in fact, not display this effect) is much more difficult to manage. Essentially, if the behaviour observed within the experiment is caused by or influenced by the experiment itself, then it will be very difficult to make claims about how people act *outside* the experiment.

It is not possible, within the confines of the social experiment itself, to estimate the size and scope of the Hawthorne effect. You will need to compare it with real world behaviour.

And if you have to study real world behaviour anyway, then why run the experiment in the first place? I recognize the value of social experiments as heuristic tools, but once the researcher moves into the context of justification, studies of social behaviour in the real world needs to be carried out in... the real world.

Bottom line, I don't believe that experiments in the social sciences are "real" experiments, at least not when compared to the natural sciences. Natural science avoids the Hawthorne effect (Although one might draw an analogy to the uncertainty principle in quantum mechanics, but this is definitely not my area of expertise) because physical quantities generally do not "care" or "know" that they are in an experiment.



Actually, that was my entire point: If you design your economic institutions on the assumption that people act in their rational self-interest, these institutions will be successful (With Barro, at providing economic growth, and with Ostrom, at managing Common Pool Resources).

I made no claim that political freedom or democracy was somehow correlated with rational choice. In general - since I prefer an evolutionary perspective on humanity - I am quite sceptical of social institutions being able to influence human motivation... But this is more of a nature-nurture debate...





As you can see, I made that very point a week ago in this very thread... And I have provided extensive proof that Governing the Commons is in fact a work based on rational choice. Might I again suggest chapter 5 in the book? Oh, and - once again - page 33 where she herself describes her rational choice approach.

But if you feel a desire to incorporate the self-organizing systems described by Ostrom into the general concept of "anarchy", then by all means, do so (earth plus plastic). It matters little in the face of the fact that these anarchies also had to provide mechanisms for regulating rational self interest. So my original point is still valid.



Anyway (in an attempt to re-rail this thread and make it interesting for someone else than just you and I), I am still very unconvinced that any sort of anarchy could provide the economic affluence so widespread in modern nation-states. Why is an anarchic society even desirable?

You apparently did not read the end of my post. Conflict is to war what a slight nudge on the shoulder is to a sledgehammer in the face. I am certain there would be conflict. There are conflicts everywhere. The point is to make them non-destructive conflicts.

By the way, socialization and education are not so much brainwashing as a normal developmental process. It happens whether you want it or not. You will notice that I did not recently stab my neighbour, at least not in the past month or so, and that I generally pay for products instead of just taking them, even when I am confident that I run faster than the convenience store clerk.

Although I personnally dislike fields of flower (grass is more comfortable), I don't see what is the problem with drinking the sweetest juices and eat the juiciest fruits for my lifetime instead of being forced to leave my home because it has been bombed. Obviously, I live somewhere in the middle: my house is fine, but I only have frozen juice to drink. I'm fine with that. What I don't like is being lorded over by people whom I never saw, who don't know my life (well, maybe mine; but not that of people who are less lucky than I), for whom I have absolutely no confidence and over whom I have no control at all.

Xenophobic? That is indeed a risk. Definition of what is inside and outside the community, and the relationship between both, is a problem with anarchism (or with any form of small community, in fact). But why would they be depressive or aggressive?

I don't know what you are trying to achieved by your posts, sincerely.

Anarchists are the hard-nosed realists. People who have this fixation on some ideal government (which has never existed) which isn't fundamentally just a criminal gang with flags are the starry-eyed dreamers without a firm grasp on reality.

Robert Nozick proved in his book -Anarchy, State and Utopia- that anarchy would morph into minimal government sooner or later because society requires a degree of stability in order to function.

See http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_ ... ooks%2C440

If this does not work, just connect to www.amazon.com and look for Robert Nozick under Books

ruveyn

Most anarchists are communists they just dont know it yet. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRT3Sj5EUmY[/youtube][youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlELC-Aqtt4&feature=related[/youtube][youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jSX741GVlk&feature=related[/youtube]