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The Price of Anarchy

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Re: The Price of Anarchy

#41

Post by ue_ »

justinmk wrote: post #34
ue_ wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You can't run business if you don't serve your customers well. Serving your customers well is entirely out of self interest, especially in large corporations; in fact, this is the easiest example of "every man for himself". You serve your customers well because ultimately it brings you more profit. Sure, it's not as sure sighted as screwing over every customer, but people who are selfish aren't necessarily stupid. I…

> Serving your customers well is entirely out of self interest, Right, just like "altruism" is also rooted in self-interest. It turns out that people are motivated by all kinds of things. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praxeology

I don't mean to say that everyone acts entirely for themselves, with no action motivated by kindness. I mean to say that in a sytem with multiple people trying to do the same thing you are doing (selling for a profit), you'll have to compete with people with various moral standards and ways of getting their profit. This kind of system, I believe, eventually forces out those who are not "aggressive" enough with their methods, and if not eventually, it will happen over time due to the fact that capitalism requires ever higher and higher returns.

While admirable in itself to act kindly in a capitalist system, it is ultimately detrimental to the success (and thus survival) of the company. There are of course examples of ethical practices (free range eggs for example), but they only continue once they become sufficiently practical.

Re: The Price of Anarchy

#42

Post by nerdponx »

CaptainSwing wrote: post #9

I think that this is a really interesting concept, but dislike the name. All social anarchists (anarchist-communists, anarchist-syndicalists, even mutualists etc) would see anarchy as a social process rather than a purely individualised "every man for himself" system. It disregards the possibility for non-coercive collective forms of decision making. but, saying this, a concept that discovers the loss in a system whe…

Economists tend to go for whimsical names for their high concepts, cf. "Tragedy of the Commons"

Re: The Price of Anarchy

#43

Post by ue_ »

boona wrote: post #40
antocv wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesnt that seem like an oxymoron, anarcho-capitalist? Like up-down?

As far as I can tell it's the only consistent form of anarchy. For instance in discussions with anarchy-communists, if I were to develop a machine that manufactures widgets in my spare time at home, that machine would have to be seized since communism is the public ownership of the means of production. The communists I've talked to believe that there would be some public police force. When asked how any decision woul…

> if I were to develop a machine that manufactures widgets in my spare time at home, that machine would have to be seized since communism is the public ownership of the means of product

No. That's personal (not private) property. The MoP are manned by labour supplied by the proletariat. If you are having people working with that widget maker (aside from yourself), and you are paying them wages (or slavery), then it qualifies as MoP and the workers would seize it.

In the same way, a programmer's computer, provided the owner is not using it as MoP for wage-labour, belongs to the programmer.

>When asked how any decision would be made by the collective, since it is a system run by "society" not by any individuals, the answer often hear is through democratic means

Our experiences differ; usually the response is that people can organise themselves freely into collectives or communes. There is no police force to force you to join a commune or obey their rules.

Re: The Price of Anarchy

#44

Post by antocv »

boona wrote: post #40
antocv wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesnt that seem like an oxymoron, anarcho-capitalist? Like up-down?

As far as I can tell it's the only consistent form of anarchy. For instance in discussions with anarchy-communists, if I were to develop a machine that manufactures widgets in my spare time at home, that machine would have to be seized since communism is the public ownership of the means of production. The communists I've talked to believe that there would be some public police force. When asked how any decision woul…

Is your magical widget machine shitting bricks out of thin air?

If it needs input, energy, resources, suppliers, other people for developing ideas around it, then its not "your own making", it is already a community project, you can keep it at your home, its produce will have to be spread to other people like they are spreading energy and resources to you, a community of sharing and caring, and not this braindead capitalist ayn-rand bullshit "my own shit is shinier than yours".

The communists are a bunch of their own, why not just ask with anarchists?

Re: The Price of Anarchy

#45

Post by snrplfth »

ue_ wrote: post #43
boona wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I can tell it's the only consistent form of anarchy. For instance in discussions with anarchy-communists, if I were to develop a machine that manufactures widgets in my spare time at home, that machine would have to be seized since communism is the public ownership of the means of production. The communists I've talked to believe that there would be some public police force. When asked how any decision woul…

> if I were to develop a machine that manufactures widgets in my spare time at home, that machine would have to be seized since communism is the public ownership of the means of product No. That's personal (not private) property. The MoP are manned by labour supplied by the proletariat. If you are having people working with that widget maker (aside from yourself), and you are paying them wages (or slavery), then it q…

But if people can freely organize themselves into collectives or communes, then some of those collectives will be more successful than others, and without mandatory redistribution, you'll have inequality again. Also, if people can leave collectives, then inevitably there are going to be collectives with few or only one single member left, and you're back to individual ownership.

Re: The Price of Anarchy

#46

Post by throwaway729 »

bo1024 wrote: post #38

I just want to mention that many commenters here are reading much more into the name politically than do the game theorists/computer scientists who actually do research on it. The research is focused on the game theory and not meant to make any sort of political points or value judgement. The main question asked is how to design systems so that even in a game-theoretic equilibrium, the total "welfare" is close to the…

What you are saying is true and crucial to understand. The same observation applies to a lot of named concepts in academia (in voting/game theory and economics especially).

However, I also think that results in these fields can be useful in political discussions, as long as they're used as thinking devices rather than arguments in and of themselves.

The map is not the territory, but "price of anarchy" is a suggestive name. The name suggests, purposefully or not, that this set of mathematical results about an abstract game theoretic model might be useful to hold in mind while thinking about political systems. And I don't think that's necessarily a bad suggestion.

Re: The Price of Anarchy

#47

Post by pyrale »

ue_ wrote: post #14
CaptainSwing wrote: post #9

I think that this is a really interesting concept, but dislike the name. All social anarchists (anarchist-communists, anarchist-syndicalists, even mutualists etc) would see anarchy as a social process rather than a purely individualised "every man for himself" system. It disregards the possibility for non-coercive collective forms of decision making. but, saying this, a concept that discovers the loss in a system whe…

I talk with a lot of anarchists and perhaps the only ones of them who are truly in the spirit of "every man for himself" are an-caps and Stirnerists.

Anar-caps have always been separated from anarchists. I don't know why they took this name -they were in quite an identity crisis about it [1]-. A better name could be stateless capitalists.

[1] Murray Rothbard, "Are libertarian anarchists" : https://mises.org/library/are-libertarians-anarchists

Re: The Price of Anarchy

#48

Post by throwaway729 »

dunslandsboo wrote: post #24
ue_ wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I talk with a lot of anarchists and perhaps the only ones of them who are truly in the spirit of "every man for himself" are an-caps and Stirnerists.

Most anarcho-capitalists that I know and from who I learn are absolutely not about "every man for himself" at all. Charity and voluntary cooperation are major parts of the society as they would like it to become. See https://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Friendly_society and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispute_resolution_organizatio...

> ...as they would like it to become... Friendly society... DRO...

I think this has always been my primary gripe with ancap -- it's Utopian. And all Utopian thinking has the same problem -- it's either irrational, or very rational but starting from very strong axioms. Ancap writers, to their credit, tend to care a lot about crafting strong, rational arguments.

When I think about ancap (or any political theory that sets off my Utopia alarms), I reason through the entirety of society. I raise a lot of objections to myself, and make a note each time I come to the conclusion that I need some assumption about how people will behave.

Then I take those assumptions, and apply them to various state-based systems. Usually I end up with an equally Utopian world, or only require a small delta in the axioms to end up at a Utopian world. To me, that suggests that it's the axioms that are doing all the heavy lifting. If you can make enough assumptions, the state is much more than unnecessary -- it's also irrelevant! You get a Utopia either way! The enemy isn't the state, it's human behavior.

FWIW the same exercise can be used to derive ancap out of a thorough analysis of communist literature. And it also applies to more centrist policy proposals that posit Utopian-level returns.

At least, that's my experience with struggling through ancap literature. YMMV.

Re: The Price of Anarchy

#49

Post by em3rgent0rdr »

pyrale wrote: post #47
ue_ wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I talk with a lot of anarchists and perhaps the only ones of them who are truly in the spirit of "every man for himself" are an-caps and Stirnerists.

Anar-caps have always been separated from anarchists. I don't know why they took this name -they were in quite an identity crisis about it [1]-. A better name could be stateless capitalists. [1] Murray Rothbard, "Are libertarian anarchists" : https://mises.org/library/are-libertarians-anarchists

Actually anarcho-capitalism permits anarcho-communist, anarcho-syndicalist, and mutualist enclaves (in addition to any voluntary organization) within of a polycentric legal order. It is the most inclusive variety of anarchism.

Re: The Price of Anarchy

#50

Post by greggyb »

ue_ wrote: post #41
justinmk wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Serving your customers well is entirely out of self interest, Right, just like "altruism" is also rooted in self-interest. It turns out that people are motivated by all kinds of things. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praxeology

I don't mean to say that everyone acts entirely for themselves, with no action motivated by kindness. I mean to say that in a sytem with multiple people trying to do the same thing you are doing (selling for a profit), you'll have to compete with people with various moral standards and ways of getting their profit. This kind of system, I believe, eventually forces out those who are not "aggressive" enough with their…

> ...the fact that capitalism requires ever higher and higher returns.

Capitalism requires private ownership of the means of production.

Ever higher and higher returns are a result, so far, of capitalism.

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