At 8:24 PM -0400 4/12/01, Declan McCullagh wrote:

On Thu, Apr 12, 2001 at 07:25:33PM -0400, brainteaser wrote:

...

Thats one thing I don't get about what (many) people post on this list. There is a lot of shit about the government did this and federal agents are doing that, but very little about what corporations do. Partly this is probably because of some sort of a "the market must be right" mentality, even though as I see it we are a long way from any sort of

This is naive. Nobody here of any substance has argued "the market is always right" or anything of the sort. Anyone remember the Edsel? The dot com crash? It is, however, more likely to produce desirable effects than state-provided goods and services are.

The reason cypherpunkish types are more concerned about government abuses than perceived corporate abuses is that one can switch grocery stores if you don't like their privacy policy, but you don't have that choice when dealing with the U.S. government.

I like to think of the issue in terms of "coercement." Though some folks claim they are in some sense "coerced" to buy certain products, or shop at certain stores, or pay "high rents," this sense of coercion is not at all the same as having someone say "Do this or we shoot you." (The gifted writer P.J. O'Rourke has cast this in the form of "Would you have your grandmother shot for this?") I know of two general classes of agents who do this: -- the Mafia -- the government "Pay us 20% or have your store burned down." "Pay us 40% or face seizure of your store and 30 years at Terminal Island." "If you read this book, we will toss you in prison and throw away the key." "You are not allowed to eat that type of plant. It is forbidden. Do it and we'll seize your house, fine you a quarter of a million dollars, and send you to prison for 20 years." "Move along." "The President is passing through. We'll need to look inside your bag. No, smart ass, the Fourth Amendment does not apply in this case." "COINTELPRO has identified 50 political agents we will deal with. We have some guys from MAC-SOG trained to deal with traitors." "The Company is flying in 20 tons. Pickup at Travis. Make sure the local cops are clued-in. After eliminating the French Connection, Khun Sa will be supplying all of our needs." "It is illegal to speak out against the draft, Mr. Debs. No, smart ass, the First Amendment does not apply." "Mr. Suzuki, you and your family are being ordered to a concentration camp in Nevada. No, Mr. Suzuki, neither the Fourth, Fifth, or Sixth Amendments apply." "You are not allowed to make that transaction without approval from the appropriate agency." And so on. Government quickly evolves in nearly all cultures to a thugocracy. Sometimes the mailed glove is covered with a fine glove, sometimes it is more obvious. The move away from "coerced transactions" is what characterizes a free society. A classically liberal society. We are, of course, moving ever more quickly to a society in which permission must be sought for many classes of actions and transactions. Saying corporations are the main problem is, as Declan says, naive. Neither Intel or Microsoft can imprison people for not buying their products. Neither can threaten to kill those who use Macs. Neither can force tax slaves to pay for their new factories. (There are complications, via tax rebates. But these are generally deals whereby the local government promises to give a "tax holiday," that is, to agree not to steal from the company, for some number of years. Purists like me don't like such deals, but these deals are still a far cry from governmnt threatening to enter homes with black-clad Ninja assassins.) --Tim May -- Timothy C. May tcmay@got.net Corralitos, California Political: Co-founder Cypherpunks/crypto anarchy/Cyphernomicon Technical: physics/soft errors/Smalltalk/Squeak/agents/games/Go Personal: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns

On Fri, 13 Apr 2001, James A. Donald wrote:

It is totally unfair to compare mafia type organizations to the government.

Governments are just what happens when a mafia gains monopoly status in a given territory. The bureaucracy, inefficiency, incompetence, etc, is just a normal result of not having any competition. Happens to every business that gets to be a monopoly sooner or later. Bear

On Fri, 13 Apr 2001, V. Alex Brennen wrote: | On Fri, 13 Apr 2001, Ray Dillinger wrote: | | > On Fri, 13 Apr 2001, James A. Donald wrote: | > | > >It is totally unfair to compare mafia type organizations to the government. | > | > Governments are just what happens when a mafia gains monopoly | > status in a given territory. | | There's a definition of government that one of my friends | routinely quotes to me. I don't recall the original source, | but the quote goes something like this: | | "A government is a group which holds a monopoly on violence, | particularly violence which results in fatality, over a | given geographic area." | | It's terribly simplistic, but these days, accurate and | appropriate none the less. It actually goes a little more like this A state is an entity that holds a monopoly on the use of violence within a specified territory (i.e. it's borders). They thus control all resources in the territory through the threat of violence. Government does not work without the threat of terminal physical violence. I think I first read this in a Federation of American Scientists document. There's one minor difference that can be classified as spin. States (governments) present themselves up to be legitimate power strutures of the people, whereas 'mafia' organizations are unconcerned with advocating their legitimacy. When one disregards the emotional loading of the terms, one can see there is no difference between a government charging a person taxes and a 'mafia' charging a person "protection money." These entities offer physical protection from other competing entities of the same type. The reason why governments and 'mafia' are/have been so abusive of individuals right in their territies is the lack of sufficient competition brought about by major barriers to entry in this market. These barriers have gotten worse throughout history. In the 18th Century one could challenge a "protection provider" through direct action with muskets and little else. Today one needs significantly more resources (advanced weaponry -- RPGs, SAMs, etc) to effectively challenge a 'protection provider' through direct action. Ideally, governments need to be decoupled from geographical territories, so that an individual has a freedom to exercise their right to choose the best government no matter where she is located. -John

On Mon, Apr 16, 2001 at 12:23:15AM -0500, Jim Choate wrote:

if it's not a sports team it's emotional coercion via a SO. If it's not that then it's self-imposed psychological 'benchmarks' we all pick up and try to measure ourselves against. If it's not one thing, it's another.

This badly misrepresents, or misunderstands, what "coercion" is when most of the rest of us talk about it. Hint: It has to do with the initiation of force, often through the application of government power, not with your mother saying "you'd better look nice for dinner tonight with Great-Aunt Suzie." -Declan

On Thu, 12 Apr 2001, Declan McCullagh wrote:

This is naive. Nobody here of any substance has argued "the market is always right" or anything of the sort. Anyone remember the Edsel? The dot com crash? It is, however, more likely to produce desirable effects than state-provided goods and services are.

Who's desirable effects? The 'market' is a statistical beast, it breaths and lives on groups of individuals doing basically the same thing, only with different colors or shapes. Why? Because people share many, many, common needs and drives. The 'guiding hand' is human group psychology. People are strange, and there are a lot of them. It is better that they each be allowed to find their own way, than to make them all use one way. At least then each has a hope of better times. The alternative is a 3 hour symphony in G above Middle C for about 75 years.

The reason cypherpunkish types are more concerned about government abuses than perceived corporate abuses is that one can switch grocery stores if you don't like their privacy policy, but you don't have that choice when dealing with the U.S. government.

You can until they create a strategy that is hyperbolic with respect to competitors. Then the market monopolizes. The reality is that a market of two choices is only marginaly better than a market of one choice. It does not have the ecological variety that a more diverse atmosphere would create. ____________________________________________________________________ The ultimate authority...resides in the people alone. James Madison The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------