Thread: Ethics vs Tactics (IE Why We Need Government)

If an institution is not willing to embrace tactics that will make them more successful (no matter what that is) they are going to lose to the institution that does.

There once was a man named Pablo Escobar. If you wanted in on US drug trade south of the border, you went to him and you played by his rules. If you didn't go to him, get his permission and give him his cut, you were dead.

Before him, there was a man named Al Capone. His reach extended through the city of Chicago and surrounding area and while he had a monopoly like Pablo did, it was a local monopoly. If you were in Chicago and wanted to do something clandestine, you went through Capone. He set the rules. His rules were simple: No women, no children, no drugs and no squealing.

When these evil men finally got caught, they left a power vacuum. The market was still there, the employees were still there and even the distribution lines were still there but all the rules were gone. As far as I know Pablo Escobar never used Drop Houses. If you don't know, a Drop House is something Coyotes would house illegal immigrants in while awaiting their payment but the Cartels do things differently now. They extort the families of the immigrants out of every dime they have before finally offing the victim. And they don't just go after immigrants, they've been known to drive around Southern California, kidnapping anyone traveling alone who may have a family to extort. This would have been against Pablo's Rules and the perpetrators would have been offed by his orders.

But since the heroic CIA caught Pablo we've seen the most malicious tactics emerge in the history of organized crime. Since Al Capone was removed, drugs (which he despised) flooded the streets of Chicago and families became acceptable collateral in the Clandestine World.

As far as pure powerful tactics are concerned, monopoly is a bad thing. The old criminals under the Kingpins were a bunch of softies compared to Los Zetas and Al Capone didn't make a percent of the income being raked in by the Gangs that replaced him. You want evolution, remove the rules and let the free play begin. But if you preferred a world where criminals had some sort of code of conduct, you want a Kingpin. I'm not advocating any sort of "Benevolent Dictator," that's simply the only functional government in an illegal market and I was using an illegal market to explain the flaws of a purely libertarian society.

An ideal Government's job should be to enable the free market to be as tactical as possible without exploitation or unsustainable behavior. Institutions within the government should be prevented from achieving short term success when they are acting against long term prosperity.

When Shrimpers came together and collectively decided to limit how much they can shrimp, this was an act of an ideal government, the government being the Shrimping Union. When other workers collectively come together and tell the institutions they work for how much they should get paid, it's socialism >.>