Re: Profit-Motive and the Money-Mentality >Government may be the first in, but then they bury the fruits under the banner of "national security.<
No they don’t. Alan Turing’s work which lead to the computer was funded by the government in an ultra-top secret plan to crack the Nazi’s encrypted messages, but that didn’t stop computers far surpassing the ones they built at Bletchley Park becoming available for mass consumption. There are plenty of other examples of widely available tech based on government-funded research.
Re: Profit-Motive and the Money-Mentality It is not a matter of faith, it is a matter of being practical. I am persuaded by the anthropologists who say that there has never been a market that operated absent of any government. Their argument that markets cannot come into existence until rules and laws to do with quantifying obligations, distinguishing a person’s time from their bodies and their labour and private property are established, and that it is invariably the ruling minority that make these rules. It just makes much more sense than that free market creation myth where people were doing business without money, adopted money cuz it solved problems inherent to a barter system, and then the government stepped into this free market like the troll lurking under a bridge rent from all who pass over.
I agree that there are many legitimate complaints one can level at government and it is not good if it grows too large. But I also think that if government is too small that is also not good. Better governments are the practical solution to whatever incompetence or malpractice might be occurring today. The dream of a market that runs all by itself to the benefit of all with no government to referee it, seems as much a fantasy as the dream of top-down command of the economy resulting in a system that is of benefit to all.
Having said that total laissez-faire has never been tried so you could argue that I cannot really say it does not work. We just don’t know.
Re: Profit-Motive and the Money-Mentality James
Why don’t James Cameron, Ridley Scott, Steven Spielberg, Stanley Kubrick, Rich Linklater, and the Marvel and DC directors make your list. They have produced some utterly amazing films. Why so tight with your praise?
Re: Profit-Motive and the Money-Mentality Extropia I don't fundamentally disagree with anything you wrote.
Remember, I am a "limited government" kind of guy not a NO government kind of guy. YOu may be perfectly right, the state has to step in and make and/or referee the ground rules. But then again, as you point out, has the total elaissez-faire experiment ever been done. Why can't WE THE PEOPLE do an experiment: define a large area or a state and remove all government from that area and see what happens. Just see. Maye everyone sign releases that if they stay they are on their own for what ever good or bad happens. Then we just STUDY what happens. If HomoSap can't muster the balls to do this in physical reality, let him do it in virtual reality. Does not no one want the answers.
Re: Profit-Motive and the Money-Mentality I have heard that some entrepreneurs would like to build artificial islands out to sea where they would be able to govern themselves. Maybe that would do for your experiment?
Re: Profit-Motive and the Money-Mentality Island building? Given ever advancing tech and rising numbers of multi-billionaires - that may top "mega-yacht" as a "next big status purchase" for some.
Others who got some, just not that much, look to SeaSteading and other efforts to escape what many see as confiscatory-obsessed Governments.
Brits can go to several former Brit colonies to find "relief." Many US "tax refugees" bring their pile to one such near us, the Cayman Islands. Mitt Romney himself is one, as came out in his clumsy loss to Ex President Obama.
We have US expats in enclaves in poorer countries to our south. One such is Rosarita in Mexico. That one is famous. This one I had never heard of, but it looks very competitive for a cheapskate like me:
Others I have looked into are in Costa Rica. Several countries see the benefit of some low tax rates for these folks, in trade for some degree of ongoing employment and other econ boost due to shopping and other local spending.
Re: Profit-Motive and the Money-Mentality >I have heard that some entrepreneurs would like to build artificial islands out to sea where they would be able to govern themselves. Maybe that would do for your experiment?
Sure.
Whatever area is used it would have to be isolated from the rest of the world so the experiment is not contaminated. The area would also have to be capable of sustaining itself -- i.e. it can't just be some volcanic rock sticking out of the sea with 1 tree.