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The Price of Anarchy

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Re: The Price of Anarchy

#101

Post by throwaway729 »

nickik wrote: post #76
throwaway729 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...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 se…

I don't think its all that Utopian. An-Caps take a lot of care to make there institution prove against human weakness. There is also a lot of study into historical examples that explain part of how a An-Cap society would work. I don't one can expect more from any group. An-Capism is as un-utipian as you can get while still having some vauge definition of an ideal system. Most AnCaps happily admit that the assumed soc…

> An-Capism is as un-utipian as you can get while still having some vauge definition of an ideal system... Most AnCaps happily admit that the assumed society would not be near perfect.

Perhaps. That doesn't make it any less Utopian in my book.

> I don't think the axioms are that special, its basic rational choice political science/economics that is applied in most AnCap arguments.

Depends on the writer. There certainly are writers for whom this is true. IMO it's not true of Molyneux, to name one.

Of course, rational choice is not special, but it is an enormous assumption that we're pretty sure is not a realistic description of how people actually behave...

Re: The Price of Anarchy

#102

Post by stale2002 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #20
automatwon wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest" - Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith I tend to think of self-interest being equivalent to selfishness. Your point makes me wonder if self-interest is not equivalent to selfishness, at least to Economists.

Well, what you quote is true, but I think a lot of discussion stems from focusing on the wrong question, namely "does selfishness lead to better outcomes" as opposed to when it does, and when it does not. Too many people seem to approach economy as an ideology rather than a complex system in which a given approach produces good results here and bad results there, and everything should be subject to optimization and c…

Nobody thinks that selfish leads to "better" outcome.

They believe that if everyone acts selfishly, the outcome is still pretty darn good (but of course could be improved if nobody committed crimes or something)

Re: The Price of Anarchy

#103

Post by alimw »

tehabe wrote: post #75

Incomplete models are incomplete. It completely ignores the ways on which the mentioned transport should take place. It ignores that you usually don't have one place from which everybody starts but multiple places to other multiple places. And if you think about it, individual car mobility is this in practice. The ways are build by someone else but you can decide how and where to drive. And it kinda failed in many ar…

It's not clear what you are referring to. The section on Selfish Routing begins with Braess's Paradox but swiftly moves on to a Generalized Routing Problem which appears to address your concerns.

Re: The Price of Anarchy

#104

Post by johngalt »

Think of it as structured vs unstructured if you can't avoid gettng hung up on the name.

Basically this is talking about the net difference between what is locally optimal and globally optimal in a multi agent system.

Re: The Price of Anarchy

#105

Post by vidarh »

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...

But modern welfare systems were largely a result of the moral issues caused by the millions who were not covered by such solutions.

E.g. accepting the 9m number for ~1910 in the UK, that left ~75% of the population uncovered.

Re: The Price of Anarchy

#106

Post by hyperbovine »

johngalt wrote: post #104

Think of it as structured vs unstructured if you can't avoid gettng hung up on the name. Basically this is talking about the net difference between what is locally optimal and globally optimal in a multi agent system.

an ("without") + arkhos ("ruler"). Seems like a fine name to me.

Re: The Price of Anarchy

#107

Post by ue_ »

pdonis wrote: post #78
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…

> the motivation underlying (almost) every transaction in which your goal is to sell things in such a way as to get yourself the largest profit And the goal of the buyer is to buy things in such a way as to get himself the largest surplus, i.e., the most value for a given cost. So by your reasoning, all buyers are selfish just as much as all sellers are selfish. > People have moral standards. I think I'm just a cynic…

>So by your reasoning, all buyers are selfish just as much as all sellers are selfish.

I don't disagree with this. But I think that there is more harm that comes from the corporation to the consumer than there is from the consumer to the corporation, or at least more potential harm. And I think that arises out of selfishness that is unfortunately built into the system.

>Moral standards existed long before any regulation.

I'm sorry; I wasn't trying to make the point that moral standards have anything to do with regulation, but rather that regulation creates a "bare minimum" for the kind of behaviour expected of the participants, regardless of moral views that very much differ from person to person (and of course from sociey to society).

I think that a relationship can be cooperative, but with one side being favoured much more than the other - the capitalist who exploits a workforce. Of couse both need to cooperate - but it does not mean that such cooperation is fair. It is often accepted because there aren't fairer alternatives.

I wish for a different kind of cooperative relationship, one which I view as more equal and participatory. At the moment, I view it sort of like an EULA.

Re: The Price of Anarchy

#108

Post by ue_ »

stale2002 wrote: post #95
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…

I don't think you understand. Yes, they are serving their customers, and they are doing it because it is the selfish, self-optimizing solution. That's the whole point! You have this awesome outcome, where purely selfish people are still doing the "right" thing. You don't need nice people in order for people to do nice things.

> You have this awesome outcome, where purely selfish people are still doing the "right" thing.

I don't think it's awesome. Sure, it may not be bad just because of the fact that it is selfish, but I do not think that capitalism produces "awesome", at least compared to theorised alternatives, solutions. In contrast to feudalism, I would agree.

I think that motivation not only sets the tone for the current transaction, but it also influences the sort of relationship that builds over time. While not immediately apparent, it has a great effect on the power dynamic of the relationship. This is readily visible in human to human relationships, and I thnk it can be carried over to the relationship between bosses and employees, the bourgeois and proletariat, etc.

Re: The Price of Anarchy

#109

Post by ue_ »

vidarh wrote: post #88
ue_ wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Capitalism does not require ever higher returns. It requires ever higher efficiency in extracting surplus. Barring monopolies etc., this should be expected to continue dropping as competition gets more fierce. Other than that, your argument above is basically Marx thesis for the cause of the eventual collapse of capitalism: He praised capitalism for providing that efficiency necessary to provide sufficient wealth to…

Thank you for the insight. I'm reading Marx at the moment.

Re: The Price of Anarchy

#110

Post by logfromblammo »

danharaj wrote: post #57
greggyb wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...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.

I guess all those colonial wars and government interventions to build and prop up industries never resulted in higher returns. Capitalism is most certainly not just private ownership of the means of production. That is too reductionist. That is like saying biology is chemistry. Technically true, but misses the point. Because the means of production are held privately there is a class distinction between owners and wo…

Capitalism and nationalist mercantilism are historically related, but one does not necessarily follow from the other.

Anarcho-capitalists usually define "capitalism" as "societal convention allows an individual to own property for that person's sole benefit". In that school of thought, your ability to own things is limited by your ability to defend what you have claimed. You can't just take your money, use it to buy state power, and then use that to get more money.

The an-cap factory owner does not fear that the workers will seize ownership of the factory. They fear that and that one of the employees will quit and become a leaner, faster competitor. A state-capitalist owner can generally prevent that with zoning and regulation, but the an-cap owner has to create an entirely different worker dynamic.

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