The Economy

[Jester]

So here is the weird part of me the Libertarian... I believe in high levels of social cooperation, just not anything where any level of government is involved (which I equate with "force"). More local and private, than State, and more State, than Federal. I guess you might call that voluntary socialism, or libertarian socialism, although unlike Chomsky, I'm not an advocate of anarchy. Although I would favor anarchy over Fascism. I do believe in the limited federal government envisioned by the framers of the US Constitution. One reason that I fear China economically is that they have a societal understanding of the multiplying power of cooperation.

I'm afraid that sounds rather utopian, even to my relatively radical ears.

Cooperative structures must be created, developed, and enforced. Unless we come to live in a much rosier world than the one we have traditionally lived in, the gains from defection in social games are simply too high. The free rider problem crushes large-scale voluntary socialism to death, and usually small-scale as well, given enough time. Either there needs to be some enforcible power given to groups, which conflicts with radical individualism, or you need to accept strong competition as inevitable. People will only get together when they see the gain outweighs the alternatives, and will defect when they no longer do.

Not that this should be news to anyone who lists Hayek in the pantheon of their intellectual heroes, but capitalistic self-organization (Catallaxy is such an ugly word) is about as good as it's going to get, from an individualist standpoint. :)

-Jester