[SolarCross]

In the world we live in the substantial cost of Research and Development is largely and often wholly subsidised by state finances. What little R&D that is done by commercial concerns is guarded jealously by intellectual property regulations arbitrated and enforced by the state. The countries that produce the most scientific and technological research invariably are the ones with big and active state involvement in research and development. The states that don't subsidise R & D even though they may have an active commercial sector don't produce much if any new science or technology.

In the absence of a state that promotes the common good of R & D why would a market anarchism ever produce new science or technology. Competing commercial entities chasing short term profits would never risk the big costs of R & D that may not result in a commercially viable product for a long, long time if at all. Even then any commercially viable product that did emerge from the research in the absence of state provided IP protection there would be nothing to stop competitors simply stealing the fruits of the costly research at virtually no cost to themselves. So why would it ever happen?

[Daktoria]

I'm not sure R+D would happen in anarchy in general.

The best argument I can see is you have weak people in society who need to research and develop stuff because if they don't, they perish.

"Necessity is the mother of invention."

It's a BS culture because it exploits the imaginative for the dull-witted, but most people are simple-minded, so they just don't care.

[SolarCross]

I think an anarcho-communist gift economy would do R&D. There are always inventive people, an anarcho-communist gift economy would allow the inventive people the time and resources they need to do real research and experiment.

The issue is not resources, human or otherwise, it is whether the human and material resources would be applied to R & D in a pure market anarchism where competing entities are chasing immediate profits without the protection of IP regulation or subsidy from communal or state resources. I think the inventive people would find themselves obliged to work as a bean counter or starve.

[Eran]

The answer to this question is largely the same as the answer to any question of the form "How would X be funded under market anarchism" with X not offering profit potential.

X could be R&D, or welfare, education, etc.

The answer proceeds through the following logical steps:
1. In a democracy, government policies (at best) reflect public sentiment
2. All democracies have welfare, publicly supported R&D, etc.
3. From 1+2 -> In democratic societies, public sentiment supports welfare, R&D, etc.
4. In a market anarchy, people would have more available income (as there would be no taxes)
5. From 3+4 -> In a market anarchy, people would have both the motivation (3) and means (4) to donate money towards goals they believe in, such as welfare, R&D, etc.


Many companies (e.g. IBM) back fairly long-term research, the results of which are made publicly available. In addition, some universities will be able to fund some research from tuition fees. And people will donate money towards areas of research that interest them, from medical to space.

[Daktoria]

I think an anarcho-communist gift economy would do R&D. There are always inventive people, an anarcho-communist gift economy would allow the inventive people the time and resources they need to do real research and experiment.

The issue is not resources, human or otherwise, it is whether the human and material resources would be applied to R & D in a pure market anarchism where competing entities are chasing immediate profits without the protection of IP regulation or subsidy from communal or state resources. I think the inventive people would find themselves obliged to work as a bean counter or starve.

In anarcho-communism, people would exploit inventors for being too giddy for their own good. They'd prefer to live a simple life, and would look at inventors as making things complicated - the advent of capitalism.

On the flip side, if an inventor doesn't invent stuff, the inventor is looked upon as selfish, and becomes a social outcast.

Even in the case of gifts, gifts could be unsatisfying, and if the inventor doesn't rejuvenate, selfishness is again accused.

The issue is not resources, human or otherwise, it is whether the human and material resources would be applied to R & D in a pure market anarchism where competing entities are chasing immediate profits without the protection of IP regulation or subsidy from communal or state resources. I think the inventive people would find themselves obliged to work as a bean counter or starve.

I agree. Libertarians don't care about IP. I've actually discussed this exact issue on Freesteader, and they just don't care.

Unfortunately for you, I've also discussed this issue on Revleft as well, and their response is also, "No inventions, no food."

[SolarCross]

The answer to this question is largely the same as the answer to any question of the form "How would X be funded under market anarchism" with X not offering profit potential.

X could be R&D, or welfare, education, etc.

The answer proceeds through the following logical steps:
1. In a democracy, government policies (at best) reflect public sentiment
2. All democracies have welfare, publicly supported R&D, etc.
3. From 1+2 -> In democratic societies, public sentiment supports welfare, R&D, etc.
4. In a market anarchy, people would have more available income (as there would be no taxes)
5. From 3+4 -> In a market anarchy, people would have both the motivation (3) and means (4) to donate money towards goals they believe in, such as welfare, R&D, etc.


Many companies (e.g. IBM) back fairly long-term research, the results of which are made publicly available. In addition, some universities will be able to fund some research from tuition fees. And people will donate money towards areas of research that interest them, from medical to space.

All very logical. Point 3 is plausible if not probable. Point 4 is indisputable I think. However what your argument amounts to is the admission that bean-counting profiteers would not do R & D (or other X) but a gift economy would. In short where profiteers fear to tread the gifters would rush in. I could hardly disagree with that since I made the same assertion myself.

A few quibbles - IBM does long term research because the US government pays them to.

Universities might well fund research using profits made selling education but they would in effect be gifting that surplus to research since they don't get a financial benefit from it.

[KlassWar]

I'm not sure R+D would happen in anarchy in general.

Open source, dudes.

Everyone with a stake on particular tech getting developed could commission experts to work on that tech. Without patents or copyrights, any tech that has ever been developed becomes free for anyone to use.

Nobody ever gets exclusive technology to exploit, but everyone can use all tech available at all times.

[mikema63]

Even a lot of biotech research is becoming open source and doable at home, don't underestimate backyard tinkerers.

The profit motive can still provide of course, having something get to market first is valuable, and if you have the R&D power to keep your product constantly ahead of competitors you will win out.

Most scientific research has never really been done for profit anyway, and application can be done by anybody who is interested, not that anarchy totally rules out private R&D for profit but you don't necessarily need the profit motive if other motives exist and the knowledge itself once created isn't a scarce resource.

[SecretSquirrel]

Who cares? It's not a question relevant to the goals and grievances of anarchism

[SolarCross]

Who cares? It's not a question relevant to the goals and grievances of anarchism

Obviously I, for one, care or I wouldn't have asked the question. It may not be a question relevant to your perception of the goals and greivances of anarchism, but then who but you could possibly care about that.

For myself I think it is an interesting excercise to apply a bit of speculative logic to try see how anarchy might tackle the particular requirements of humanity.

[Eran]

Universities might well fund research using profits made selling education but they would in effect be gifting that surplus to research since they don't get a financial benefit from it.

Yes and no. People (and organisations) do things for complex reasons. A common feature in history is of wealthy people gifting property to charitable or religious causes. They do that in part to do good, and in part to build their reputation for doing good.

A university which a well-know and well-funded research program is likely to attract the best scientists to its faculty. Those, in turn, would attract students, and thus benefit the university.

At the same time, universities today receive a lot of donations. In a market anarchy, they are likely to receive even more, and serve as the focus of gifts by those interested (for whatever reason) in funding research.


More generally, I think a market anarchy will see a mixed economy with both a for-profit (though not necessarily capitalist) sector, and a not-for-profit sector (what you call "gift economy").

No need to be either one or the other.

[SolarCross]

@eran

Sorry another quibble; it is not only the wealthy that donate to good causes, in fact as a proportion of income the working poor are typically more generous. It is a sad fact that many rich people have ulterior motives in their charity, such as tax-avoidance and even scamming money from the working poor.

I agree that an emerging anarchy will probably be a highly mixed economy, probably with a high diversity of currencies. People and organisations will be bartering, instituting community based fiat currencies like the LETS and commodity based currencies will probably be used to. I expect many companies will issue their own currencies based on the product they sell for example timber merchants might spend reciepts for a given quantity of wood in a way not unlike how banks used to issue notes for the quantities of gold they hold. And of course gifting networks will emerge between trusting parties.

In the end I think the gift economy will win out, because it is the simplest, most efficient, most egalitarian, and because it can facilitate every aspect of human economy even those that in some short-term selfish sense are deemed 'unprofitable'.

[Eran]

I totally agree on charity. I was mainly thinking about the more visible donations of wealthy people in the past. But even in the past, less visible charitable activities by the working population was equally important.

As for currencies, I think there are network effects that push towards consolidation and reduction in the number of currencies. There is no need for any imposition - it is simply more efficient. Many market anarchists expect gold standard to re-emerge (based on historic experience), but none of us are bothered.

I don't see gift economy as being viable as a mainstream component of a global market though. Gifts work well in small communities, but quickly lose their effectiveness when dealing with strangers.

[Jay Ranger]

Isn't the main problem with R+D, at least the problems I'm having trouble considering, is that government spent a lot of money on technological and scientific research because companies know they aren't going to make a profit, and they know that if you make any breakthroughs, they're available to all their rivals.

Without the government providing this gap in innovation, I can't see the incentive for Company A to spent $x billion on discovering a new technology if Companies B, C and D can then use that technology once it has been discovered. I think bluetooth and infrared were both government-funded, as was the creation of the internet, and that is free to anyone who can get a service connection. If Microsoft say, created the internet, surely they'd make it so that Apple computers couldn't access the internet, and therefore, become a monopoly on the basis of their technological innovations?

[lucky]

The answer to this question is largely the same as the answer to any question of the form "How would X be funded under market anarchism" with X not offering profit potential.

X could be R&D, or welfare, education, etc.

The answer proceeds through the following logical steps:
1. In a democracy, government policies (at best) reflect public sentiment
2. All democracies have welfare, publicly supported R&D, etc.
3. From 1+2 -> In democratic societies, public sentiment supports welfare, R&D, etc.
4. In a market anarchy, people would have more available income (as there would be no taxes)
5. From 3+4 -> In a market anarchy, people would have both the motivation (3) and means (4) to donate money towards goals they believe in, such as welfare, R&D, etc.

Eran, you clearly still completely do not understand the economics of externalities if you think 5 follows from 3, or is in any way similar.

Example: Let there be a society of 1000 people. Consider option 3: They decide to tax everybody $100 towards X. Outcome for a participant: "I lose $100, X's funding increases by $100 per capita".

Now consider option 5. If a participant donates $100, the outcome for that participant is "I lose $100, X's funding increases by $0.10 per capita".

This is not the same calculation, or even close. And yet you think that if one likes 3, they must logically like 5, as if that's a similar calculation.

If that person personally values X, per capita, at anywhere between 1x and 1000x of money spent, they will logically support 3, but not 5.

You can be blind to this only if you are completely detached from the reality. A lot of people support spending increases on various public projects (and not only those that pay below-average taxes). Do they typically personally donate to these projects equivalent amounts, to make up the difference? Of course not.

[Eran]

lucky,
You are making an excellent point, in the fine tradition of mainstream mathematical economics.

Perhaps the worse problem with your argument is that it proves too much.

The very same argument could be used to persuasively prove that:
1. Nobody will ever vote in democratic elections (the marginal benefit to one's self of one's vote is virtually nil, not enough to justify getting out of bed in the morning
2. Nobody would ever donate money anonymously (as such donation is devoid of even the marginal benefit of social recognition)
3. Since the benefits of long-term R&D are public, they cross national boundaries. Small countries (like Israel or Holland) would never invest in R&D from the public purse.

In fact, of course, people aren't rational utility maximisers (more precisely, people's utility is too complex to be captured by mathematical formulas). Giving makes people feel good. There are mechanisms for concentrating some of the benefits of giving to R&D on the individual giver (like social recognition and pressure, the ability to direct donation towards specific areas of interest, paying through tuition for higher education or being given advanced or privileged access to well-known scientists).


Conversely, we can examine the full impact of externalities on a system based on representative democracy. All democratic decisions are almost purely external. Neither the voter nor his representative pays personally for the cost of their own decisions. That cost is borne almost entirely by the taxpayers in general. Thus incentive is created (and exploited) for making self-serving or special-interest-group-serving decisions.

Finally, your example implicitly assumes that under the wise direction of government, R&D funds will be invested in ways that actually benefit the public. That long-term or theoretical research is economically worth its cost. And that government decision-makers know both how much and where to invest public funds.

[Jay Ranger]

I've donated money anonymously, a lot of people do.

[Eran]

Why did you, given that the benefit to you of such donation is almost exactly zero?

[Jay Ranger]

I may have implied something I didn't intend to; I have donated money anonymously in the past, but not to a R+D project. But could you answer my query from my previous post because I find it difficult to see where R+D money comes from in a capitalist society without a government driving certain sectors of research through with public funds.

[SolarCross]

Companies throw away money all the time on the vague notion that doing so helps their image or brand recognition. It might work for R & D. Research groups could solicit funds from business in return for which the businesses can put their logo all over the research papers and say 'proudly sponsoring intergallactic gene manipulation since 2012' on all their promotional materials.