Discussion of Anarcho-Capitalism.

[ThinkAnarchy]

Especially in regards to education - were you not just arguing that in your society children would be allowed to work if they wanted to or needed to to provide for their families?  I would think that for the poor, at aleast, you would likely see a large rise in illiteracy again.  If you are barely scraping by, and you have the choice to either pay for your child to be educated, or to send your child to work, which are you more likely to feel like you have to do?  

I touched on it in an above post how more educated people is not always a good thing. But people are qualified for certain positions and there are only so many positions to go around. To many people without enough jobs means overqualified people doing menial jobs, and more menial laborer's out of work.

Here is a video of John Stossel giving, what I think, is a great example of government harming poor people. It also illustrates why I think the Free Market is the best tool to lift people out of poverty.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1Ey_g4wOnw

As to illiteracy. I doubt society would ever return to that unless there were a great catastrophe. I imagine there will always be a very small percentage who can't read, but that won't be the fault of schools. There is currently a small percentage who still can't read in the U.S. The point is that illiteracy and other basic knowledge skills would be most likely be passed on naturally during the child's development process.

Many parent's already start the learning process themselves, before the child is even old enough for kindergarden. Important common knowledge, at this point in our history, should easily be able to be taught without ever needing formal school.

And sorry, but the idea that people "would likely set up charities" to help the poor get medical care just really isn't enough of an inducement for me to believe that the poor wouldn't also see a drop in health care and thus a drop in life expectancy.  Maybe you're just more optimistic than I am when it comes to your view of human nature.  I picture the rich happily buying another jet or whatever and stepping over the poor people dying in the streets.

It isn't just optimism though. Charities already fill in areas where government is failing. It seems illogical that the charitable in my society would not behave similar to the ones I'm currently living in. Granted, in the U.S. there are tax incentives for charitable donations, but I think even without them, charity would continue. Nearly everyone I talk to is altruistic in some way or another.

ETA:  I don't actually have a problem with a bunch of (presumably well off) anrchists going to live off in their own little anarchist haven if that is what they wanted.  I think that the poor would live horrible lives and die early deaths in your system, but as long as you could all voluntarily live there and leave there when you wanted, I don't see a huge problem with you and your like minded frends giving it a try.  I just wouoldn't want to live there myself, or want people to be trapped in that system.

The only thing that would stop someone from leaving is the territory being conquered by others or not enough money to leave. Chances are it would be best to pay for the family to fly back to their home country, in the form of charity. Unhappy people aren't nice to be around. There would be nothing to make anyone help them get out, but I imagine someone or several would. People already get stuck in places they don't want to live anymore. I'm certain their wouldn't be a great occurrence, and it might happen less frequently.

Also, I would hope the person's home country would help them get out. Preferably by private jet and not military.

[DeterminedJuliet]

I just came across this and thought of this thread.



How would you figure women having to pay 100% more for health insurance than men being a good thing?

[ThinkAnarchy]

How would you figure women having to pay 100% more for health insurance than men being a good thing?

It depends on the reasons why women pay more for health insurance. It could be due to them costing the insurance company more money than men due to pregnancy. Over half the country is already yellow or orange, and some is blue. I have no clue what the reason's are for the discrepancy though.

[DeterminedJuliet]

How would you figure women having to pay 100% more for health insurance than men being a good thing?

It depends on the reasons why women pay more for health insurance. It could be due to them costing the insurance company more money than men due to pregnancy. Over half the country is already yellow or orange, and some is blue. I have no clue what the reason's are for the discrepancy though.

I'm sure that's the pretense, but my point is that true "market forces" are unlikely the reason for the discrepancy. What seems more likely: a pregnancy actually truly costs 100% more in a red state vs. a blue state, or the people in the red states were taken advantage of because the insurance companies could get away with it? Unless those red states have some kind of magical-super expensive pregnancy technology that's not available in other parts of the country(extremely unlikely), they were simply gouging people.

And why wouldn't they, if they could get away with it? That is their job! To make money! Insurance, and many other, companies really don't give a rat's ass about "fair".

[ThinkAnarchy]

How would you figure women having to pay 100% more for health insurance than men being a good thing?

It depends on the reasons why women pay more for health insurance. It could be due to them costing the insurance company more money than men due to pregnancy. Over half the country is already yellow or orange, and some is blue. I have no clue what the reason's are for the discrepancy though.

I'm sure that's the pretense, but my point is that true "market forces" are unlikely the reason for the discrepancy. What seems more likely: a pregnancy actually truly costs 100% more in a red state vs. a blue state, or the people in the red states were taken advantage of because the insurance companies could get away with it? Unless those red states have some kind of magical-super expensive pregnancy technology that's not available in other parts of the country(extremely unlikely), they were simply gouging people.

And why wouldn't they, if they could get away with it? That is their job! To make money! Insurance, and many other, companies really don't give a rat's ass about "fair".

It is not a result of the Free Market though. The U.S. government has been involved in the medical industry for about a 100 years now. I'm not sure off the top of my head, what all the regulations have been, or even what they currently are. But greed is not the reason for high medical prices. It's regulation that drives up costs, which is then passed on to the consumer.

Here is some information on their profit margins, if it is greed that is keeping prices high, why are insurance companies and medical facilities not at the top of the list? There profit margins do not seem to support the idea prices are high due to greed.

http://larrycheng.com/2010/03/08/just-how-profitable-are-healthcare-insurers/

[DeterminedJuliet]

And yet, in Canada, where there is far more "intervention" by the state, the prices for most medical procedures is much lower (not that we pay for them out of pocket, but if you came here to buy drugs or pay for a procedure, it'd be far less less).

Average in-hospital treatment costs are nearly twice as much in the U.S. ($20,673 U.S. vs. $10,373)
In-hospital cost of coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG) in the U.S. is 82.5 % higher in the U.S. than in Canada.

"Medical Tourism" of Americans into Canada happens for just this reason.
http://www.understanding-medicaltourism.com/medical-tourism-canada.php][url]http://www.understanding-medicaltourism.com/medical-tourism-canada.php[/url]

How do you account for that?

[DeterminedJuliet]

Also, comparing health insurance companies to tech companies is apples to oranges in my mind. Tech companies have constant advances which drive investment and profits. Insurance is the same ol' racket that it's ever been. So no, they won't have explosive growth, but that doesn't mean that they aren't profit-driven.

[Asmodean]

Uh... Why would a regular pregnancy be covered by insurance? Complications due to pregnancy, I get, and it should be separate insurane you should be able to get once pregnant, but as long as there are none..?

[DeterminedJuliet]

Uh... Why would a regular pregnancy be covered by insurance? Complications due to pregnancy, I get, and it should be separate insurane you should be able to get once pregnant, but as long as there are none..?

Pregnancy itself wouldn't necessarily cost money, but pre-natal check-ups, the birth, post-natal check-ups would. Anytime you see a doctor, you'd have to pay for that or have insurance cover it. When I was pregnant I had: three ultrasounds, 5 rounds of bloodwork, 2 emergency room visits, 10+ scheduled doctor's appointments, frequent urine testing, gestational diabetes testing, delivery in a private suite, pain medication, two nights stay at the hospital, and a visit from a registered nurse a week after I brought my son home. (the emergency room visits were out of the ordinary, but everything else listed is standard care)

I'm pretty sure an ultrasound alone costs several hundred dollars. Fortunately, the fact that my husband was a graduate student at the time, and we weren't bringing in a ton of money, didn't limit our care options. Thanks to our "interventionist" state. I find it pretty impossible to believe that a hospital or private charity would have "donated" everything that I had done out of some altruistic desire. With so many babies being born every year? And far more serious issues for charities to -rightly- focus on? Forget about it.

[Anne D.]

ThinkAnarchy, I'm not clear on who or what constitutes the government in the type of society you're describing. What entity is 1) drawing up the rules and laws that the society operates under, 2) enforcing those rules and laws, and 3) interpreting them?

For instance, take the following scenario from early in the thread.

Excerpt from quote from ThinkAnarchy from page 1 of the discussion (bolding is mine):

Private courts would be left to determine if the accused is guilty of the initiation of violence and what the judgement and/or punishment should be. However, because they are private, they should also be held liable for mistakes in their rulings, which would help ensure just rulings. If it is discovered they convicted an innocent individual, they should than be found to have violated this basic principle themselves, and pay reparations or some other punishment for their act of unwarranted aggression.

-What entity is holding the private court liable?
-What entity would discover that a convicted individual was innocent?
-What entity would find that the court had violated "this basic principle"? And if it's just a principle and not codified in law, what bases is the private court using to make decisions in the first place?
-What entity would force the court to pay reparations?

And reedited because I'm writing completely ungrammatically b/c of the late hour.

[Asmodean]

I find it pretty impossible to believe that a hospital or private charity would have "donated" everything that I had done out of some altruistic desire.

No, of course not. But can you really expect the insurance companies to give anything away? I think that if pregnancy is what drives insurance prices for women up in certain states, the women should be able to opt for cheaper insurance and go on the pill, or be prepared to cover the cost of pregnancy-associated health care themselves as long as there are no complications.

[DeterminedJuliet]

I find it pretty impossible to believe that a hospital or private charity would have "donated" everything that I had done out of some altruistic desire.

No, of course not. But can you really expect the insurance companies to give anything away? I think that if pregnancy is what drives insurance prices for women up in certain states, the women should be able to opt for cheaper insurance and go on the pill, or be prepared to cover the cost of pregnancy-associated health care themselves as long as there are no complications.

I think that makes sense (in a privatized healthcare system), but my point was: why would it cost twice as much to have a baby in one state vs. another state? It really shouldn't. I don't think the respective insurance rates were reflecting the reality of the medical costs of having a baby so much as other factors behind insurance pricing.

With insurance, it's pretty standard that if one "group" of people disproportionally inflates the likelihood that the insurance company will have to pay out to them, then they get charged a higher rate. I think that's acceptable. If women had to pay %25 more across the board (or something like that). It would make sense. But no higher rates for women at all in some areas vs. rates twice as high as men in others just makes no sense from a market perspective.

If it's pregnancy that's driving up the prices at all. We don't really know that either.

[Asmodean]

We are in agreement.

[DeterminedJuliet]

We are in agreement.

*shakes hand briskly*

[DeterminedJuliet]

P.S. speaking of monopolies, I've been monopolising this conversation, so I'm going to cool it for a little bit. Let some other people add their two cents.