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Agree 100% on Uber's anti-competitive practices and pricing structure. Amazon does the same thing - it's retail business which is what Amazon is famous for pro

Agree 100% on Uber's anti-competitive practices and pricing structure. Amazon does the same thing - it's retail business which is what Amazon is famous for produces a substantial loss every quarter (and it's increasing). They have been subsidizing their losses with the profits from the high margin cloud business. This is supposedly a very serious felony when you have pricing/market power (and obviously Amazon does have that), yet Jeff Bezos and his executive team remain handcuff-free. I haven't read that book, but your statement about markets only existing with the state strikes me as very odd. Conceptually, no government is required for a simple barter system - you and I can simply agree to trade X for Y. Perhaps that is key point - if you want to use "money", then the state is required. Although even then you can theoretically just use gold/silver coins.

djsumdog 9y ago
> no government is required for a simple barter system Ah but we never started with barter. That's the myth the book goes into. The very earliest systems of money were all credit based. Money came about through war (you conquer an area, leave a garrison, force people who have never used coins to pay taxes, coins they only get from soldiers) and barter only appeared when a state failed. Barter only exists in the void left by states. There is no evidence trading oxen for grain every existed. It's too small scale. Early pre-historical civilizations were more likely to be communistic where everyone helped everyone else (native american tibes were like this .. more like ant colonies). Even when a barter market emerged, it semi-state like thing had to rise with it. It's a really good book; highly recommended.