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I don't think ancaps are all like that. You can't run business if you don't serve your customers well. Does that translate into pathological selfishness and oth

• ghgfhgfhn 10y ago
  I was bracing myself for comments that either missed the point entirely or low brow attempts to dismantle the piece. I am surprised and happy to find an intelligent discussion! It's becoming rarer on hn.
• ue_ 10y ago
  >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 would argue that the very act of running a business in such a society is not only wrong due to the exploitation of workers, but also 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. Of course that doesn't happen in real life. People have moral standards. I think I'm just a cynical ancom with regard to how people would really behave in the absence of all regulation. Let's not forget what large companies can still get away with today, and imagine what it would be like with anti-competitive monopolies, oligarchies, and two or three organisations controlling mainstream information sources. So sure, your business doesn't last long because you were too obviously selfish. Your next plan of action is to pay a news outlet (or better yet, already be in control of one) to cover you. Or if you can't do that, there's still hope - you can band together with like minded people and start another business. Not without worker exploitation, of course. You need all the surplus value you can get. I simply do not have the hope that "serving your customers well" is enough to prevent what actors in a capitalist system are truly capable of doing. Let's not forget the sheer paradoxical nature of "anarcho-capitalism" (the inherent class system set up of the bourgeoisie and proletariat is the exact opposite of non-hierarchical relations). I'm not really a proponent of central planning myself, so I agree with you on that.
  • justinmk 10y ago
    > 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praxeology
    • ue_ 10y ago
      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.
      • greggyb 10y ago
        > ...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.
        • danharaj 10y ago
          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 workers. Owners derive their profit from the labor of their workers. Workers want to work less for higher wages, owners want the opposite. This becomes the locus of class struggle. Because all society now responds to the needs of capital, the superstructure and the state come to serve primarily bourgeois(owners) class interests. Considering how many wars and coups have been fought to forcibly introduce capitalism into other countries and forcibly extract their resources and labor, to say that private ownership results in higher returns is almost offensive in how it elides the emergent dynamics of capitalism.
• coldtea 10y ago
  >I don't think ancaps are all like that. You can't run business if you don't serve your customers well. Does that translate into pathological selfishness and other extreme behavior that goes in customers' nerves? I don't think so, because such business wouldn't last long. It can last long enough to make you rich. Or it can last for several lifetimes as long as you have the clout to make it the only deal around (or historical and regional accidents made it so). In fact, there's also the old saying "there's a sucker born every minute": you just get new customers.