[prodmerc]

He's kinda right about the capitalism thing - a small elite controlling everything is the inevitable outcome for a capitalist society without government (i.e. socialist, for the greater good of the population) oversight.

Now, that's not really what happened here, the government seems to have already been weak and corrupted, so those with money just take advantage of it.

[CWuestefeld]

without government (i.e. socialist, for the greater good of the population) oversight

But the Indonesians have a government that claims to be operating "for the greater good of the population". Clearly, they're not doing so, at least in significant cases.

Political science and economics understands many of the reasons for such failures. And it's not due to the label you put on the government. Whatever *ist you choose to call it, it's operated by people, and they're subject to the very same incentives and motivations. Putting a sainted "socialist" hat on doesn't make the politicians immune to these. Look into the field of "public choice economics" for more understanding of this.

Indeed, the worst crimes against humanity in all of history have been perpetrated by socialist governments claiming to be socialist, and working for the good of their people. Giving the government additional powers to protect you is functionally identical to giving the government additional powers to exploit you. You'll need some way to guard against that, and the good intentions of those believing in an "-ism" aren't sufficient.

[Shivetya]

Sorry, someone in government has control over this. They have a military and I am quite sure its not multinational's run amok. When people blame capitalism in many cases it simply is government run amok. These companies cannot operate where a military is without someone allowing it.

Governments have been selling out people forever, whether to other individuals or whatever business group they formed. that is not capitalism, its exploitation

[jegutman]

Their incentives are to burn the dead crops to maximize profit. There is not a system of property rights and a government willing to enforce them to prevent them from burning. I kind of doubt it's even a Coasean outcome given that it's causing quite a lot of damage to the air quality in Singapore and neighboring countries where they might be willing to pay them not to burn, but somehow that solution doesn't work (neutral enforcers of the agreement is obviously one difficult issue, and nobody is willing to go to war over it).

[ZenoArrow]

> "that is not capitalism, its exploitation"

Let's put it like this. Imagine the Indonesian government didn't exist. What would the people be able to do to stop the environmental destruction? Would you advocate vigilante justice?

[talmand]

Without a structured government, then the people are the "government", so to speak, and vigilante justice would not be so vigilante.

[ZenoArrow]

> "vigilante justice would not be so vigilante."

Explain why.

[talmand]

Because vigilante justice is usually defined as people taking legal authority for themselves because they feel the government's authority or response is lacking. If there is no government to define this by, then it is not vigilante justice and starts to delve more into natural rights. Think of a remote village with no semblance of what we would describe as a modern government, they still deal with problems in their own way. You wouldn't call them vigilantes.

[ZenoArrow]

I'm not asking for the dictionary definition, I'm asking about why vigilante justice (whether you want to call the participants vigilantes or not) would be less troublesome.

For example, imagine I've discovered Starbucks is doing terrible things, and to express my disgust I go around throwing bricks in the windows of the Starbucks in my area. What prevents/discourages this sort of vigilante behaviour?

[mikeash]

In a place where there is no government, I don't see what would be wrong with vigilante justice. If there are no authorities and no help then you have little choice but to take matters into your own hands.

[ZenoArrow]

> "In a place where there is no government, I don't see what would be wrong with vigilante justice. If there are no authorities and no help then you have little choice but to take matters into your own hands."

The problems with vigilante justice are universal, it doesn't matter if you have little choice or not. Generally speaking the problem is that vigilante justice is much more open to the whim of individual desires and views.

Why is that bad? Let's use the 'brick through the window of Starbucks' example I've used before. If you agree that Starbucks are bad, then the brick through the window may look justified, but if you do not believe Starbucks are bad then the action may appear unjustified.

Consider that the problem some people have with government is that decisions are made on your behalf and you feel powerless to change this. However, if you consider what you have without government, you still have people making decisions on your behalf, except you now have millions more of them, and there's less chance to influence what happens as a result of their actions if you disagree with what they've done. Is that better?

[mikeash]

What you outline is basically why I think it's a bad idea to live in a place with no government. There's a huge potential for problems and often there are no good choices.

The moment you say "Imagine the Indonesian government didn't exist," well, it's going to be a complete shithole. At best you'll be at the mercy of the local warlord or gang leader. Quibbling over exactly how you live your life in this lawless shithole doesn't seem very relevant to the actual situation.

[ZenoArrow]

Yes, I agree, but the argument that I responded to considered there was a distinction between capitalism and exploitation. My point is that exploitation is not the sole domain of government, if you had a capitalist society without government intervention then exploitation would still exist, but you'd have to rely on different methods in order to resist this exploitation, and those methods would not necessarily be an improvement over what we have now.