On 2008-06-13, *Anarcissie* <anarcissie@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> The Hanseatic League had certain things in
> common with peddlers and flea markets in that
> property was pretty much defined by physical
> possession and trade was carried on by means
> of barter or money made of precious metals.
> Printed money, officially sanctioned credit, and
> so forth, which are artifacts of states, were not
> used much (to my knowledge).
Printed "money" in the form of various types
of commercial paper existing as a monetary value
that can serve as payment in trading and exchange
activities existed with states to back them.
I believe the practice of using paper claims
against real good (which is all fiat money
issued by the state really is) existed during
the peak of the league -- it's been a long while
since I was researching them.
To equate a nearly global trading arrangement
with "peddlers and flea markets" is silly.
> In any case, if the accounts givein in Wikipedia
> and Britannica are to be trusted, the League
> was itself composed of "cities" -- political
> entities -- and dealt on a political level with
> cities and other political entities of its time.
> Its leaders were not so enamored of markets
> as to fail to establish monopolies in the
> Baltic for themselves.
The cities were allowed join the league
based on a number of condition largely
relating to economic relation****ps and
trade both internally in the league
and externally.
While the League cities were able to defend
themselves to some extant they did rely on
the purchase of protective services from
the non-league prinicpalities and kingdoms.
They did not maintain any army. I'm not aware
of any cases where they relied on force to
open up trading with other enties.
Certainly it's impossilbe to eliminate any
politics from social interactions and societies.
However, it's clear that the form of that
politics was distinctly different than
what we see with states. Where a state
will apply force to coerce compliance with
the state's position the cities of the league
were largely limited to explusion of a
misbehaving member.
Again, we see the market approach that
focuses more on willing association by
the parties rather than a primarily
force based association when you cut out
all the superficial trappings.
> The United States from its inception was
> never anything but a state. Its ruling class
> fought a war with the ruling class of Great
> Britain to determine who would be in
> charge of that state. Groups who did not
> want to go along with this state were
> suppressed by force. The government
> issued money, set up laws for banking and
> other businesses, provided courts of law,
> etc. etc. etc. It is true of course that this
> state lay much more lightly upon the people
> than a modern state, which by 18th-century
> standards is totalitarian.
The dispute was not really about who was
going to rule the state. The stronger driving
force was the question of who was to control
the economic activities and who then enjoyed
the benefits of those activities.
The rebelion was both about representation,
taxes and economic development -- with the
british subjects living the colonies wanting
to be able to more fully develop their economies
and not merely be a raw material input for
British production. They were looking to
vertically integrate their efforts.
Since the goals were about economic (and
religious earlier on) freedom of action
the need for a larger state was not needed.
The US really didn't want to put a bunch of
zoning laws in place to define where a
log cabin could be built or how many chimneies
it could have or how far away the outhouse
needed to be. In the towns there would be
more limitation which would make some sense
but similarly not nearly the same level
of regulation in terms of what activities
one could conduct from their homes -- be
that cobbler, taylor, silversmith, tavern,
lawyer....
I argue that the size of the state implemented
was directly due to the underlying intent to
sup****t a free society that allowed it's
citizens and their interactions be governed
more via the market than politics.
>> I do want to remind you that I did put
>> a qualifying comment after the term
>> "capitalism" to make sure you understood
>> I was talking about market-based social
>> interaction and a market-based decision-
>> making process of generating social rules.
>>
>> The juxtapostion between the a-c approach
>> and other approaches is that it's suggesting
>> an institutional framework that is not
>> politically based but could sup****t
>> a larger social setting than a communal
>> approach.
>
> In theory. Why don't we see this anywhere?
I suspect in part because humans simply
have the capacity for violence and some
find that an effective way of getting what
they want. Some I suspect is simply the result
of social choice problems like agenda setting
and the vacuum of inaction from voting-cycle
behaviors when group try to make collective
decision.
Let's again keep in mind, are was talking about
anything the does exist? No. I was talking
about the relative merit of various appoaches
from a theoretical perspective given that
none appear viable today.
The question is which approach seems to have
the lowest hurdle to overcome? My suggestion
was that the market-based one's seem to have
a lower need to seek political activities
and so may have more isolation from the
political state.
> Anarcho-communist types can at least point
> to existing communes, some of which have
> at times comprised hundreds of people (or
> thousands if you count religious tribes like
> the Dukhobors or the Molokans).
>
>> > As for people trying to implement anarchy,
>> > in the sense of impose it on other people,
>> > that seems like an oxymoron to me. In any
>> > case I was dealing only with the proposition
>> > that anarcho-capitalism was viable and was
>> > not considering other forms of society.
>>
>> I agree that implementing anarch for
>> all or others is oxymoronic.
>>
>> If that's what you were dealing with then
>> you were ignoring my comment which was
>> specifically about the relative potential
>> of the various approaches.
>
> The problem I see with markets, other than the
> most simple, is that everyone has to agree to
> a common theory of property. This seems to be
Certain the charge leveled at Friedman. I think
he conceeded that point but may have changed
his thinking by now.
I'm not completely sure that's true. What is
needed are structures that help minimize the
potential conflicts arising from differing
views and some way of separating the incompatible.
Knowledge is something that will go a long
way here so information and spreading that
information widely is a good start.
Traders used to help resolve these issues --
as well as serve as the distribution network.
It's not clear to me that they did a worse job
of this than do state's trade agreements with
one another.
> difficult or impossible to achieve without the use
> of state force. Human beings seem to have
> contradictory intuitions about the justness of
> different kinds of possession..
I agree but I think the formalization of the
solutions within a fairly redgid and inherently
violent instution such as a state can only
amplify the tendancies and problems.
jmh
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