I wonder if economists might actually score surprisingly high on this, possibly even 40/40 like I did.

I came across this informal self-assessment for inferring motives from outcomes. It's not a validated psychological test, but I found the idea interesting:

Rate each from 0 (almost never) to 4 (almost always):

1. When a policy benefits one group and harms another, I assume the beneficiaries probably wanted that outcome.
2. If someone repeatedly makes decisions that hurt my side, I suspect they're doing it deliberately, even without direct evidence.
3. When an institution produces an outcome I consider harmful, I interpret it as evidence of an underlying agenda.
4. If someone gives a benevolent justification for an action that benefits their own group, I suspect the stated reason may be a cover for their real motive.
5. When someone benefits from an outcome, I find it difficult to believe their support is genuinely principled.
6. I sometimes treat patterns of outcomes as stronger evidence of intent than explicit statements about intent.
7. When two groups repeatedly conflict, I tend to see the other group as more malicious than merely mistaken or self-interested.
8. When an explanation involves unintended consequences or institutional inertia, I find a deliberate-strategy explanation more convincing.
9. When evidence contradicts my interpretation of someone's motives, I look for reasons why it doesn't reveal their true intentions.
10. I sometimes reason backward from “Who benefited?” to “Who must have wanted this?”

Scoring:

• 0–10: Low
• 11–20: Mild
• 21–30: Moderate
• 31–40: Strong tendency

I got 40/40.

But here's what made me think of economists: economists are trained to think in terms of incentives, revealed preferences, and unintended consequences. So I wonder whether economists might score unusually high—not necessarily because they're more tribalistic or paranoid, but because they're accustomed to treating observed behavior and outcomes as information about underlying incentives.

The interesting question is whether that habit can sometimes lead to over-inferring intentionality: going from “A benefits from X” → “A has an incentive to support X” → “A therefore wanted X”.

Would economists actually score higher on something like this, or would economic training make them better at distinguishing incentives from intent?

What is your score?

I think Jewish people’s desire for some territorial real estate in Palestine is like Elon wanting to have 10,000 children.

There should be simple, legal, mutually beneficial win win, ways through Coasean bargaining.

A bit like Ahab buying land from Nabot. It should have been a happy ending if not because someone make a stupid law increasing transactional complexity.

The same ways many laws make trading difficult. Money buys almost everything. For the rest, we kill each other. And somehow people think trade should be restricted because certain things are "sacred" absurdly.

Simple ways for Elon to have 1000 kids do not exist yet. A pimp shall rise among us—like Uber or eBay—and create systems where such things can happen naturally through trades.

And I am proposing a design of community that will solve most conflicts in the world, reduce corruption, better align incentives, and reduce government inefficiency.

Will this guarantee peace? No.

But it will greatly reduce the incentives to punch or kill someone and greatly increase the incentive to make money productively.

Oh yes, my main wish is that it is not just about bringing peace to the Middle East. I think it should bring heaven on earth to any regions willing to implement it. Hopefully we get some in Indonesia.

In fact, historically, joint-stock republics were the first republics in Southeast Asia. It is a gold mine—literally.

The owner of the gold mine can simply declare himself king. But being a king means painting a target on his back. Instead, he shares a piece of the gold mine with his employees, like every great capitalist. The employees can vote for leaders.

Eventually the Qing dynasty collapsed, the Dutch made peace with the English, and they captured the Kongsi republics. The remnants then went to Singapore, which is a spiritual successor of them.

It is, in my opinion, true “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” In fact, mainland China copies Singapore, which is a spiritual successor of those Kongsi republics. I am just simplifying some of the mechanisms. For example, in Singapore, citizens can be drafted and the state provides an apartment. A simpler version is that the state itself is a corporation, and citizens/members/shareholders own shares.

Singapore is the only country in the world that gained independence against its will. Kongsi republics were de facto sovereign but actually preferred protectors or a board of peace as referee.

A joint-stock republic is like the ultimate form of both socialism and capitalism. It is socialism because the people get a profit share. It is capitalism because everyone has an incentive to make more money in ways that do not get in the way of others.

It is a joint-stock corporation (Kongsi is the Hokkien word for cooperative/cooperation) like Tesla, but democratic.

It is like democracy, but the decision-makers are accountable to reality. For example, if with lower taxes the streets are clean and safe, they will attract taxpayers. The difference goes to profit. Shareholders who are not happy can simply sell their shares and move to another Kongsi. Competition among Kongsis keeps tax rates reasonable.

It is like Georgism but without the distortion where people who have many children own more shares. Parents have to buy more shares for their children. Those who do not can sell their shares and move to cheaper Kongsis.

It is like joint-stock kibbutzim but more autonomous and with enough power to, say, lower taxes, legalize drugs, and mass-produce porn.

Let’s look at Elon.

Say Elon wants to have 10,000 children. Can he? Simply? In short, no.
To have 10,000 children, Elon needs many wives. Okay, we have anti-polygamy laws. But who cares? I am not a Muslim. Who still gets married in the 21st century anyway? Only idiots. It happens to the best of us.

Just have sugar babies. Hire women to join his harem. “Oh… that’s exploitation, comrades.” Ugh, what? Yeah, I mean those supermodels with huge career alternatives would starve if they don’t join Elon’s harem, and hence the deal is not truly consensual—it’s exploitation and hence rape, and therefore should be illegal.

Remember that Jews and Chinese are often accused of being both communists and capitalists? Yeah. It’s one of those things. Blood libel.

Okay. Elon just pays women to give him many children. Lawyers agree. The women say “I do,” sign the contract, and get paid. The court says such a deal is void.

What about the kids? The kids don’t consent. So the kids who will be heirs to $10–100 million are both “victims” and “privileged.”

Lots of money will be wasted on lawyers and on the child’s mother through exorbitant child support.

You see what I’m saying. There is no easy way. The last time I knew, the Tao of having children and passing money to them involved heavy trust structures. Another way is to just be dirt poor, and the government will simply pay for it. The kids will be future looters, muggers, and murderers—and yet it is legal and subsidized to produce children while poor.

What Elon actually did is use lots of complex legal ways, and he got about 14 children. That’s a rookie number.

So what’s going on? Envy. They don’t say it out loud. But somewhere deep on the web, people say that if one dude has so many women, the rest don’t get any. It’s never about protecting women and children. That’s the pretext. The real cause is getting rid of superior men from the gene pool. And the main culprit is rarely someone from another country, but fellow citizens.

In any society, superior, more capable, higher-IQ people are needed to make the pie bigger. But once that’s done, they are also rivals.

What do DEI, the Holocaust, income tax, welfare, exorbitant child-support laws, standardized education, public schools, and universal healthcare have in common?

They are all IQ-shredding.

Moreover, all of them happen more under democracy. Outside democracy, things like this happen too, but they manifest differently. Qin Shi Huang’s family and Li Si’s family killed each other. Ottoman princes killed each other. Hadrian executed Rome’s finest generals. Liu Bang killed Han Xin. I could talk a lot about this.

Humans instinctively want to get rid of more competent rivals. It’s how we evolved. We’re not just selfish and hypocritical. We are bigots with crab mentality.

And most people say that the solution is more morality, more compassion, more benevolence. It’s like saying that the solution for tall buildings is flying bricks. Perhaps realizing that bricks don’t fly and using gravity-affected bricks to build buildings is the way to go.

If we look at conflicts in Korea, Ukraine, and Israel, one thing is obvious: one side is way, way richer than the other. Okay, Ukraine doesn’t count—Putin is an idiot. If you are rich, do you want to be drafted to fight for more territories, or just buy territories? It’s obvious. Why would anyone bother?

If I want to expand my house to my next-door neighbor’s and my neighbor is much poorer, I’ll probably pay more than market price. It’s just unthinkable to seize property and resources from people much poorer than us. If anything, we tend to help.

So what can Jews do to get more clay? This is the same question many capitalists have also asked: what can we do to get more territories—or any territories?

Think about it.

There is a democratic country, a Christian country, a Muslim country, and recently—tada—a Jewish country. Where is the capitalist country?

The Republic of Minerva was invaded. Prospera didn’t have its license prolonged. It’s hard to get rich if we piss too many people off. But if we are pissing people off not because we step on their toes, not because we don’t share profit, but because they’re bigots who simply don’t want us to succeed, it’s a no-brainer. Peaceful success is impossible.

So what happens is that many people resort to horrible ways to be successful. In Indonesia, most government officials are corrupt. Many rich people make money by bribing people.

Hey, crony capitalism is still capitalism. Lots of Jews during the Holocaust and Chinese during the Batavia massacre survived by bribing. Many drug users avoid jail by bribing. When governments are evil, people should be able to shop for better governments. And in most cases, that simply means bribing more officials.

So why not just bribe the people straight?
Turn people into shareholders. Run government for profit. Pay dividends. If we can keep our land value up, we make money. We all make money. If we do it wrong, we all lose.

How does this bring peace?

1. Kongsi republics can gain territory and be “conquered” peacefully. To gain territory, just govern well, and another copycat shows up. Tada. What’s the point of having larger countries? So you can move to other places, right? Want to move to another Kongsi republic? Just buy shares of that republic. If people from California wants to move to Texas he just have to buy a Texas house. Similar principle. Renting? Possibility too, but if we want democracy, might as well ensure everyone lives there are shareholders. A large number of far richer, more powerful people want to conquer the Kongsi? They just buy shares. During feudalism era, many Zionists buy land from landlord. The issue is what happened to people living there? So instead of buying the land, buy the share of corporation that own the land and move there. Tada.... Shareholders are people actually living there.
2. Kongsi republics are accountable to reality. It’s the same reason why original kibbutzim evolved into joint-stock kibbutzim. In normal democracy, rulers are not accountable to reality. Hamas can lose a war and claim victory. Netanyahu can flatten civilians and claim it’s for security. That dude used to support Hamas too. People can ban MDMA and say legalizing drugs causes a fentanyl epidemic. Most people don’t know the truth. Nobody can tell what’s right or wrong. In fact, most political entities used to claim God chose their king. I still remember the Book of Kings where the prophet Elijah comes to King Joram and says, “Hi, you’re on the bench—Hashem wants Jehu to replace you.” And Joram is like, “Sure, we’ll just transition power peacefully again like usual according to Hashem’s directive.” See… Nobody cares about reality. What matters is what someone can convince others reality is. Certain demographics can have high crime rates and someone just says it’s structural racism issues.
3. Kongsi republics provide incentives that can far exceed bigotry. Tesla shareholders overwhelmingly voted to give Elon the bonus they agreed to, against the Delaware court. Why? Because Elon has built Tesla well? Han Xin helped build the Han dynasty and had his whole family killed. Humans are ungrateful. So why did Tesla shareholders vote to give Elon his bonus? Because of greed. Properly aligned greed trumps bigotry. More greed, properly aligned, is good. Greedy capitalists put bread, computers, and porn in the hands of all humans—the capitalists as well as the commies. The most moral armies in the world flatten cities. I’d rather capitalists run the show. We’re not more moral, but at least our greed makes us do the right thing.
4. Kongsi republics concentrate profit in whatever makes the pie bigger. Corruption happens because nobody knows what’s good or bad for the country. What is good for a country? More welfare? Less welfare? For whom? For the citizens? Which citizens? The hardworking taxpayers or the welfare queens? In normal democracy, citizens vote to get in the way of each other. In Kongsi republics, everyone has a significant incentive to make their country rich and the land value go up so that land-value tax minus costs is maximized.
5. What happened to Jews already living in the West Bank? Simple. Make their own Kongsi republics, get richer, do it even better, and be a good example for the rest. Perhaps buy each other’s shares—say 5%—to signal that we wish our neighbors were rich as fuck too.
6. What about if the Kongsi republics are “racist” and don’t allow certain races/religions to join? Well, it depends on history. If you have histories of killing each other, there will be speed bumps. But in general, racism is often inconsistent with profit. A Jew bringing jobs and diligent Palestinian workers improve the economy, and there is a clear profit-share arrangement with shareholders. Not allowing them means less money. This is more moderate than going all the way and saying racism is wrong or practicing state-sponsored racism. Just make racism, like everything else, accountable to profit. There will be quarters for dudes who like pork and worship the God of money, I guess. But even if not, there will be other cities.
7. Kongsi republics would allow Elon, Weinstein, and Zuckerberg to have 10,000 children. Elon will have to buy more and more shares, but that’s small money for him. Also, that will improve the shares’ market value. Think about it. Anything else is bigotry against more capable people. If you are a cow farmer, you would breed the cows that produce the most milk. Even without morality, out of sheer greed, humans know that productivity is partially genetic, and pampering the most productive subjects is good for business. Humans seem to be the only ones where productivity is treated as a purely socioeconomic factor curable by public school and free lunches. Just kidding. Of course not.
8. Even those who are not happy with their Kongsi can simply move to another Kongsi. Don’t like that drugs are legal? Move to another private city or Kongsi republic that doesn’t legalize them.
9. This would have prevented October 7 and the mass destruction that followed. Hamas knew Israel would overreact. In a Kongsi republic, the CEO is accountable for keeping land value high. Any plan that involves getting demolished will be rejected.
10. This would prevent the dilemma of killing innocent civilians. Turning civilians into human shields lowers citizenship valuation. Any such plans will lower citizenship valuation and be rejected. Again, each civilian can move to a more sensible Kongsi republic.
11. If Netanyahu says no Palestinian states as long as he lives, fine. As long as we all get way richer, keep status quo, expand to cheap land in Africa, keep Netanyahu on life support for 1000 years.
12. What about if Israel decides to invade anyway than buying shares. Okay. What about if we have boxing match and one boxer shoot another? The short answer is it shouldn't be part of the game. Other long answer is it's part of the game we just need to agree on terms where such things are just not going to happen.

Can this still fail?
Can I use eBay and Tokopedia and still get scammed? Yes, I can. But it’s much more difficult. Also, the exceptions are fewer, can be analyzed, and anticipated or prevented.

For example, on Tokopedia, a seller can choose not to answer until near the deadline and then quickly answer and demand a return, and the buyers who have other things to do will miss the deadline. It’s a trick. A seller can sell an empty package, but how many times can they do so before Tokopedia bans them?

Is it possible that a Kongsi republic gets overwhelmed by superior military force? Could be. That’s something a billionaire investor can negotiate before investing. Ask experienced joint-stock kibbutzim members how to solve this.

Elements of Georgism can help.

Real estate actually comes from “royal estate.” Owning land used to mean ruling the land. A hereditary title used to mean simply a landowner passing land to an heir. Democracy added the complexity where immigrants and cradle-to-grave welfare recipients can “rule” the land without owning it. And most rich democracies have this issue of cradle-to-grave welfare recipients. Democracy solves one problem of land ownership: now large amounts of land or territories are no longer ruled and owned by one family. It introduces another: those who own the land are different from those who rule the land, and there is a severe misalignment of incentives between land values and who rules the land.

Most voters, for example, don’t own land and prefer land values and rent prices to drop. Most democracies in the US have violent crime and terrorism. And most voters don’t care. Violent crime and terrorism lower land value, and the mob rules. Georgism and Georgist joint-stock republics solve this problem. Okay, it’s democracy. Voters rule the land. You know what? You can sell your share and go somewhere else. That means we all benefit if land value goes up.

Under Georgism, however, a group of people that has more children tends to get more share of the land. One complaint from my Jewish friend is that Palestinians have too many children.

The joint-stock structure fixes this. Anyone with many children has to buy more shares.

To keep things democratic, we can arrange that most shares are owned by people living there.

Regular democracy is like adverse possession and squatters’ rights. Of course that leads to more conflicts. Everyone wants to squat on land that’s already developed. Here, if voters benefit from higher land value, they then allow people who pay for shares to get in. So those who build are those who benefit from the increased land value. Newcomers have to buy their way in.

References:

1. Shopping around for countries / jurisdictions (“vote with your feet”)

• Charles Tiebout – “A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures” (1956) The classic paper. People reveal preferences for tax/service packages by moving between competing local governments. Journal of Political Economy: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/257839 (Often available as PDF via academic libraries or Semantic Scholar.)
• Related modern discussion of “foot voting”: Ilya Somin’s work on federalism and mobility (e.g., interviews and writings summarizing the Tiebout logic).

2. Competition among governments / private law society (Hoppe & Friedman)

• Hans-Hermann Hoppe – Private-law society, competition in the production of law and security, secession, and critique of monopoly government. Key pieces:
  • “The Idea of a Private Law Society” and related essays: https://hanshoppe.com/
  • Archive of “State or Private Law Society”: https://web.archive.org/web/20181104001221/https://mises.org/library/state-or-private-law-society
  • Democracy: The God That Failed (book) develops the case that democracy systematically misaligns incentives compared with more proprietary or competitive forms of governance.
• David Friedman (The Machinery of Freedom) – Explicit anarcho-capitalist treatment of competing private protection agencies and legal systems. Strongly supports the idea that people (and capital) can “shop” for governance providers. Book and related talks are widely available; search for David Friedman + Machinery of Freedom.
• Milton Friedman – Strong advocate of competition and choice in education, money, and many public services (school vouchers, etc.). He praised high-freedom jurisdictions (Hong Kong, Singapore) and supported mechanisms that let people escape poorly performing governments. His broader public-choice and market-oriented writings are consistent with jurisdictional competition, though he was not as radical as Hoppe or David Friedman on fully private law.

3. Fertility, high-capability people having many children, and economic incentives (Becker & Barro)

• Gary S. Becker – Foundational economic analysis of fertility, quantity–quality tradeoff, and children as economic goods/investments.
  • “An Economic Analysis of Fertility” (1960): https://www.nber.org/system/files/chapters/c2387/c2387.pdf (or via NBER/CEHD)
  • Later work formalizing the quantity–quality tradeoff (with H. Gregg Lewis, etc.).
• Gary Becker & Robert J. Barro – “A Reformulation of the Economic Theory of Fertility” (1988), Quarterly Journal of Economics. Dynastic utility, altruism toward children, and how interest rates, growth, and costs affect fertility decisions. JSTOR: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1882640

These frameworks treat having (and investing in) many children as a rational economic choice rather than pure sentiment or “privilege,” which maps onto your Elon / high-capability fertility point.

4. Joint-stock / privatized kibbutzim

Israeli kibbutzim largely moved away from pure collectivism toward differential wages, private ownership of housing, corporate structures for industrial assets, and (in many cases) share-like or profit-sharing arrangements for members. Some industrial plants issued shares or brought in outside investors.

• Overview articles on privatization trend:
  • Degania (oldest kibbutz) votes for privatization: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/feb/20/israel1
  • Ein Harod and broader movement: Haaretz pieces (search “kibbutz privatization” on Haaretz).
  • Kibbutz industries on the stock market / private equity exits: https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-why-prosperous-kibbutz-companies-shun-the-stock-market-1001481743

Many “renewing” or “privatized” kibbutzim now operate with member shares or equity-like claims on productive assets while retaining some mutual-guarantee elements. This is the closest real-world evolution toward “joint-stock kibbutz.”

5. Historical joint-stock Kongsi republics (Borneo / West Kalimantan)

• Lanfang Republic (Lanfang Kongsi / 蘭芳公司), 1777–1884 – The best-documented example. A Chinese (mainly Hakka) mining federation organized as a kongsi (company/cooperative) that functioned as a de-facto republic with elected presidents, democratic elements among members, and profit-oriented governance of gold mines. It preferred tributary/protector relationships over pure sovereignty. Wikipedia overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanfang_Republic Broader “Kongsi republics”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kongsi_republics

Scholarly treatment (often cited): Yuan Bingling, Chinese Democracies: A Study of the Kongsis of West Borneo (1776–1884). Dutch colonial records and Chinese annals describe the share-like membership, elected leadership, and commercial character.

Singapore is frequently described by historians and some Singaporean commentators as a spiritual or institutional successor in the sense of a commercially oriented, high-capacity Chinese-majority polity that prioritizes land value, order, and economic performance.

Lots of jews during holocaust, and chinese during batavia massacre survive by bribing government officials.

Lots of drug users and dealers avoid jail by bribing government officials.

If government is being unreasonable, then you shop around for powerful people that make reasonable ruling for you.

That's capitalism. You shop around to get what you want.

Here, the problem is not the bribing itself. It's the bigotry that prohibit victimless acts.

The same with state capitalism.

It's effectively bribing the voters straight.

Moldbug argues that if someone has power, let's just formalize that and let them "own a share". Voters have power. If we formalize that and turn voters into shareholders, we bribe voters to vote for whatever policies bring more prosperity and attract tax payers.

Many successful rich countries, like Singapore and Dubai gives generous welfare to their citizens and hence keep society stable while being very capitalistic.

In fact, I would mention US except that US is too generous to welfare parasites. But 0 welfare is something not going to win election.

Oh here is another reason why I think briber and state capitalism isn't bad.

Without bribery and state capitalism libertarians don't have hard bargaining position to make government "sensible".

If libertarian or republican party say we support 0 welfare, then voters will vote for communist party like democrats.

But imagine if we say, look, there's plenty for everyone. If we can do whatever to attract happy tax payers to our state/cities/profit, all of you get a share of profit.

That's hard bargaining position to vote capitalism nearly all the way, except for the profit share. But state capitalism is capitalism too. Tax payers shop for states with the safest roads and the lowest tax.

So what do libertarians think on this?

This is what other prominent thinker that may align with my thinking according to AI. As usual so you know I am not totally retarded.

>Yes. There are prominent libertarian thinkers who come surprisingly close to the framework you're describing, especially Murray Rothbard. But there are really three separate claims in your argument, and different libertarians support different pieces.

>

>1. Rothbard is the strongest match for the “bribery is a market response to bad laws” argument

>

>This is almost exactly something Rothbard explicitly argued.

>

>In Power and Market, Rothbard has a section literally titled “Bribery of Government Officials.” His argument is that a bribe can economically function as an informal license: the official is selling permission not to enforce a government restriction against you. He says there is no economic difference between purchasing permission through an official license and purchasing it informally through a payment to an official.

>

>Even more directly, in The Ethics of Liberty, Rothbard argues that “defensive bribery” can help people evade destructive regulations, and specifically discusses police corruption arising where governments prohibit voluntary activities. His conclusion is that eliminating the underlying prohibition would eliminate the corruption.

>

>So your model:

>

>Government prohibits an otherwise voluntary transaction → people still want the transaction → they pay officials to permit/ignore it → corruption emerges.

>

>is very much a Rothbardian analysis.

>

>There is also a modern academic discussion explicitly called “The Rothbard-Block Theory of Bribery.” It describes Rothbard's position as essentially: the person paying a government bribe has not necessarily done anything wrong; the relevant libertarian question is whether someone's rights have been violated.

>

>2. Walter Block pushes the same idea, with an important qualification

>

>Walter Block is probably the other major name you want.

>

>Block and Rothbard don't quite agree on everything about bribery, but both analyze it through property rights and rights violations rather than the conventional idea that “bribery is inherently immoral.”

>

>That's quite close to your statement:

>

>“The problem isn't the payment itself; the problem is the coercive law that makes the payment necessary.”

>

>The qualification is important: Rothbard/Block aren't saying every bribe is legitimate. If the official uses coercive government power to violate someone else's rights, that creates a different problem.

>

>3. Your “shop around for powerful people” idea resembles anarcho-capitalist polycentric law

>

>This is where I'd modify your analogy.

>

>A classical libertarian wouldn't normally say:

>

>“If the government gives you an unreasonable ruling, shop around for another government official.”

>

>They would say something more radical:

>

>Why have a territorial monopoly on courts and law enforcement in the first place?

>

>David D. Friedman is particularly relevant here. His anarcho-capitalist model imagines competing private protection/law-enforcement organizations rather than one government monopoly.

>

>Friedman also gives an interesting economic analysis of bribery: under private enforcement, an agency that routinely lets criminals off for bribes damages its own reputation and loses customers. Under a government monopoly, taxpayers don't have the same ability to switch providers.

>

>So your intuition about “shopping around” is actually very close to the anarcho-capitalist argument:

>

>Government monopoly

>

>One legal provider → bad decision → you can't switch provider.

>

>Market/polycentric system

>

>Provider A makes bad decisions → customers move to provider B → providers have incentives to satisfy customers.

>

>That's much closer to Friedman than to ordinary minarchist libertarianism.

>

>4. Your Moldbug/shareholder idea is closest to Curtis Yarvin + Hoppe

>

>This is where your argument gets much more unusual.

>

>Curtis Yarvin explicitly conceptualizes government as something resembling a corporation. His proposed “neo-cameralist” system replaces democratic government with sovereign joint-stock corporations, with an executive resembling a CEO and shareholders exercising ultimate control.

>

>That's remarkably close to your:

>

>“If someone has power, formalize that power as ownership.”

>

>But I wouldn't call Yarvin a conventional libertarian. He's generally classified as neoreactionary rather than libertarian, despite having substantial overlap with some anarcho-capitalist ideas.

>

>Hans-Hermann Hoppe is a much more conventionally libertarian figure who makes a related ownership-incentive argument.

>

>Hoppe's famous distinction is between publicly owned government and privately owned government. His argument is that a monarch has a longer-term incentive to preserve the capital value of the territory because he effectively owns it and can pass it to his heirs, whereas democratic politicians are temporary caretakers.

>

>That's conceptually very close to what you're getting at:

>

>Change political power from a commons into something with an identifiable owner who has a residual claim on the consequences.

>

>Hoppe's conclusion is monarchy/private government rather than shareholder democracy, though.

That is not standard libertarianism, but it has several libertarian relatives:

The libertarian thinkers closest to this idea

I've been trying to map this argument onto existing libertarian thought. The closest matches I found are:

• Rothbard → Bribery can be a market response to unjust government prohibitions. The important question is whether someone's rights are violated, not whether money was paid to an official.
• Walter Block → Similar Rothbardian approach: bribery isn't inherently immoral; the relevant issue is whether the underlying action violates property rights.
• David Friedman → Competitive/private provision of law enforcement can create a "shopping around" mechanism: bad providers lose customers to better ones.
• Hans-Hermann Hoppe → Political institutions can be analyzed in terms of ownership and incentives. His monarchy-vs-democracy argument emphasizes how different ownership structures affect time horizons and incentives.
• Curtis Yarvin → Goes further and explicitly conceptualizes government as a corporation, with sovereignty resembling ownership and political institutions being designed around shareholder incentives.

So I'd describe the intellectual lineage as:

Rothbardian on victimless prohibitions + Friedmanian on competition/exit + Hoppean/Yarvinian on ownership incentives.

I don't think any one of them endorses the entire argument exactly as stated, but there seems to be a surprisingly strong overlap.

What do you think? I bolded what I think is important.

I think it is always fair to discriminate people as long as the discrimination is privatized. If you are a chef, you provide food based on whether you got paid or not. You discriminate based on paying. And that's okay. It is what's fair.

Say I have a girlfriend that I knocked up and regularly fuck.

She wants me to support her business.

I agree.

Is that rape?

People would think that's ridiculous. Of course not. Or is it?

But think about it. It's my money. It's my business skill. I pretty much discriminate on who I do business with, depending on whether I fuck her.

Of course. Why would I invest on some random people if I can invest on and work with someone I know is cooperative with me.

Every trade is pretty much discrimination based on what you are offering me. Most consensual acts are a trade. Think about it. Either a trade or a tit for tat, which is a primitive trade.

And that's pretty much what Weinstein did.

And Weinstein is charged with rape and got convicted.

Many of you may think I am crazy. So I am going to ask for sample of libertarians proponent that agree with me. And there is one and I am surprised he is not mainstream or famous.

ChatGPT told about Walter Block. And I think I am very surprised that he is in the minority.

I think EEOC logic is pretty much splitting hair and jailing Weinstein for years over splitting hair is absolute garbage.

What next?

I buy candy and hence discriminate based on people giving me candy and get charged with robbery?

This is what chatGPT says:

Walter Block is probably the closest match

Block's libertarian framework puts enormous weight on voluntary exchange and property rights. He has explicitly argued that employers generally have very broad rights to decide who they employ and on what terms. In his work on blackmail, for example, he gives the example of an employer firing someone who refuses to sleep with the boss and argues that, under his framework, the employer's right to terminate the employment relationship matters.

More importantly, Block and Roy Whitehead wrote an entire chapter called “Sexual Harassment in the Workplace” in Philosophy of Law, explicitly developing a libertarian/property-rights approach to sexual harassment.

Block also co-authored a paper on prostitution arguing that the libertarian position treats consensual sexual transactions as legitimate because they are voluntary exchanges, while rape is different because it involves coercion/force.

So his framework is roughly:

>Economic benefit + sexual relationship ≠ automatically coercion.

The crucial question is whether there was force/coercion that invalidated the person's voluntary choice.

But there's an important problem with your analogy

Your girlfriend example is:

>“I choose to invest in my girlfriend partly because I have sex with her.”

That is basically sexual favoritism.

A much stronger Weinstein analogy would be:

>“I will invest in your business only if you have sex with me, and if you refuse, I will withdraw the investment.”

That's a quid-pro-quo arrangement.

And there's an interesting libertarian debate here. Some libertarian theorists have argued that even employment conditions can involve coercion in a descriptive sense, while others argue that voluntary contractual relationships can legitimately contain conditions that outsiders consider objectionable.

The EEOC, incidentally, makes exactly the distinction that matters legally: sexual favoritism based on an existing consensual relationship isn't automatically harassment, whereas making sexual submission a condition for receiving a professional benefit can constitute quid-pro-quo harassment.

So if your actual thesis is stronger

If you're arguing:

>“If it is legitimate for me to condition an economic relationship on sexual cooperation, then why isn't Weinstein's conditioning of professional opportunities on sexual cooperation also legitimate?”

then yes, that is a genuine philosophical argument, and some radical libertarians have arguments that can push in that direction.

But if you're asking:

>“Can I find a famous libertarian who explicitly says Harvey Weinstein's conduct was morally equivalent to a boyfriend investing in his sexually active girlfriend?”

I haven't found one. The libertarian literature I found instead draws the line at coercion/force, and Block in particular is unusually permissive about voluntary sexual-economic exchanges.

So your argument is more interesting than “libertarians think Weinstein was okay”: it's really a challenge about whether the distinction between voluntary sexual favoritism and sexual quid-pro-quo coercion is philosophically coherent.

I am not blaming uniswap. But I think there are things uniswap could have done.

The only reason why I use uniswap wallet is because I am using uniswap.

Many phisher use google sponsored link to promote drainer.

Most of the time I figured that out. Sometimes I miss.

Now. The wallet ask for unlimited approval.

However, it's from unknown source.

It seems that uniswap, by default, HIDE the notification of from unknown source.

Also the smart contract interacted is NOT from uniswap.

Otherwise no warning.

I should have seen the domain names.

Since then I use ublock lite to remove google sponsor link. Use book mark. Also most phishing sites don't bother using similar domains. So checking domain in gemini is a good way to see if a site is phising.

Basically like cities and states in US. But instead of open border they have "membership". If you want to live here, you got to buy membership. People that aren't happy can sell membership first.

Say there are 2 cities

A and B

city A lower tax and legalize drugs

city B raise tax and criminalize drugs.

Now, if the cities have owners, or effective owners, then city A will be rich. They will attract smart programmers that make more money. More people will want to go to city A.

city B will be communism hell.

if a lot of people want to go to city A but not enough people want to sell, valuation of city A membership will go up till supply meet demand.

Everyone see ah city A is doing well.

They tend to mimic city A.

Whatever policies work, whatever make people happy, make people want to come, will be chosen. Either it will be more libertarian, or some cities will be more libertarian and libertarians can just go there.

Now say A and B is open border. Anyone can get in without buying membership

city B choose communism and become poor. Then they just go to city A vote communism again. Everyone becomes a commies.

Libertarianism is not just another philosophy of right and wrong. It has a very strong scientific basis. Practice it and we all got richer.

Open border democracy is like squatter right. You come to my city and tada you can decide how to run it. Doesn't work in houses, doesn't work in cities too.

I ask ai for more prominent libertarian "support" that's partly agree with me

There isn't a major libertarian thinker who advocates exactly your proposal, but several prominent figures have argued for ideas that are quite close. Your model combines several existing strands of libertarian thought.

1. Hans-Hermann Hoppe (Probably the closest)

Hoppe argues that societies should be organized more like private property than public democracy.

He has written that privately owned communities would:

• choose their own rules,
• decide who can enter,
• compete with other communities,
• generally outperform democratic governments.

His book Democracy: The God That Failed argues that private ownership creates better incentives than political control.

However, Hoppe is more restrictive than your proposal. He generally favors owners having broad discretion over admission rather than tradable memberships.

2. David D. Friedman

Friedman is an anarcho-capitalist who argues that legal systems and governments could compete in markets.

His vision is that:

• people choose among competing legal providers,
• governments become service providers,
• competition improves governance.

Your model of jurisdictions competing for residents fits well with his broader philosophy, although he doesn't specifically propose shareholder-owned cities.

3. Bryan Caplan

Caplan strongly supports:

• free migration,
• competition between jurisdictions,
• "voting with your feet."

He likely would disagree with your membership requirement because he favors much more open migration, but he shares the idea that competition between governments disciplines bad policies.

4. Patri Friedman

Patri Friedman founded the seasteading movement.

His central idea is:

>

He has often argued that people should be able to "upgrade" governments the way they change companies or phones.

This is philosophically very close to your emphasis on jurisdictional competition.

5. Charles Tiebout (not a libertarian, but highly relevant)

Tiebout proposed what's now called the Tiebout model.

His idea is that people "vote with their feet":

• Different towns offer different tax-and-service packages.
• People move to the one they prefer.
• Competition improves local government.

Your proposal is almost like a market version of Tiebout:

• Instead of free movement alone, people buy and sell membership rights.
• Membership prices become market signals about how desirable a jurisdiction is.

Is your idea novel?

I think the most distinctive feature is tradable memberships.

Many libertarians have proposed:

• private cities,
• charter cities,
• competing governments,
• contractual communities.

But I don't know of a prominent thinker who has fully developed the idea that:

• every resident owns a transferable membership,
• memberships are bought and sold in a market,
• membership prices signal governance quality,
• existing members benefit financially when governance improves.

That combination resembles a cross between:

• a homeowners' association,
• a corporation,
• and a city.

So your idea isn't completely unprecedented—it builds on established libertarian themes—but the specific mechanism of share-like, tradable city memberships is not one I associate with a major canonical libertarian theory. If you developed it further, one of the first questions you'd need to address is how the initial memberships are allocated and how future population growth is handled without creating artificial scarcity. Those design choices would have major implications for fairness, affordability, and incentives.

Tips for living peaceful prosperous life

1. Small things don't have to be transactional. Tits for tats is enough.
2. When money is significant transactional is appropriate.
3. When things are transactional terms should be clear.
4. Split large transactions into smaller pieces
5. Have private market places as pimps or deal makers. The pimps must have their interests aligned with mutual peace and prosperity for all
6. Avoid concentrated power and misalignment of interests.
7. Avoid transactional complexity.
8. Avoid unnecessarily life time relationship like owning something people fight for. So things like land or other people. Own stocks or bitcoin though.
9. Consider long term contract or usul fructus rights instead of ownership when one party can change valuation of another.
10. Avoid justifying your position using statements that is hard to verify. People should have strong incentive to cooperate and THEY MUST KNOW IT and can verify it.
11. For large organization/corporation/government joint stock structure with elements of georgism and democracy can both be conflict free, stable, and max out kardol hicks efficiency

 

How do I explain?

Elon and Jensen are buddies. They share restaurant bills and stuffs without caring whose turn is it for paying. One day Elon says, I need lots of GPU. Jensen says, wow I happen to have GPU factories. Don't worry buddy. From each according to ability to each according to need. You need GPU. Here you go 10k GPU. Elon is happy and never meet Jensen again. They are now bitter to each other.

Of course, that's not true. When amount of money is small, people are just nice to each other. When amount of money is significant they make clear contract with lawyers with pound of flesh terms to ensure they got paid.

Similar things can be done with relationship. Relationship with clear contract like sugar relationship tend to do well. Some says relationship shouldn't be transactional. Then they get married out of love. Statistics show that 50% of marriage in US end up in divorce. Does that look like peaceful mutually prosperous life to you?

Splitting deals into smaller pieces also make mutually beneficial relationship stable. This have some variations.

Should you buy slaves or hire employee? Hire employee. Why? Well you don't pay a chunk in front and expect a life time work. You split deals into smaller pieces. The employee is more motivated to work for you. If he stops working you stop paying. No need for war or vengeance or court battles.

You can get anything from employees that you can get from slaves. The cost are just distributed.

Should you rent land from government or buy it?

In Zimbabwe government seize land from white farmers. Imagine if white farmers rent land instead of just own it. Owning land means the state has obligation to honor your land property but no incentive to keep their obligation. If you think Zimbabwe government is idiot, just look at squatter's right in Europe or US. Same thing. The state honor squatter's right because they got more votes.

Mistresses or wives? Same thing. Pay as you go mistresses is less conflict prone than wives. You can't even have more than one wife.

Have private market place is also clear. Render to the pimps what's the pimps. I buy stuffs from private market places like Tokopedia and Shopee. Americans should just use uber instead of negotiating directly with the driver. When things go wrong? Do you sue? Sue where? In my corrupt government court? No. When things go wrong we contact Uber or eBay customer service. Solve problems much better.

I think Halaca court and Syariah court is better than civil marriage family court. Because the courts want people to use the court. More diverse private courts should be available. One day marriage terms should be commercialized with apps like uber.

Avoid concentrated power. Avoid being an employee. Avoid sending money where people can just block you and walk away with money.

The reason why US is richer than China is many things. But in China power seems to be too concentrated. Bitcoin on the other hand is awesome because power is decentralized. Fiat currency is dangerous. Avoid central bank issued currencies.

Joint stock corporation is a sample of aligning incentives. Shareholders have similar instead of opposite incentives. They all want maximize return of investments.

During geger pacinan where 90% of Chinese in Batavia is killed, VOC reverse course and grant amnesty toward Chinese. Why? Because their share prices drop due to losing huge portion of their tax payers.

Many democratic countries can't evaluation whether their action is good or bad because those countries have no clear citizenship valuation. So corruption in most countries, war in Ukraine and Middle east happened because nobody really own the country and can monetize it. Ironically, kingdoms like UAE and Saudi Arabia is rich.

Another joint stock structure besides VOC is Lafang Kongsi. It's not only joint stock but also democratic. So they avoid war even more because the shareholders don't only risk their money but also their life when things go wrong. Lafang Kongsi is basically a corporation that give their employees shares so they are motivated to work. Many corporations do that.

Another form of democratic joint stock privatized society is joint stock kibbutzim.

Anyone wants to add or deduct?

Anyone think that this shouldn't apply to all things?

Avoid transactional complexity. Ideally a deal is a deal where it is toward the best interest of everyone's involved to do it. More ideally, a good deal is a deal where you can expect correctly that people will do the deal or walk away. The simpler the transaction, the less likely there will be scam or misunderstanding. The more people know what they are agreeing to and there will less likely be more problems in the future.

Most businessmen rent places instead of buying a place. If his core business is restaurants he shouldn't worry too much about the place he rent go up or down. When his main business fail, he can just stop renting.

When one party can unilaterally change market value of another party, then ownership maybe appropriate. However, long term contracts and usul fructus can do the same thing and more stable.

When a movie director hire an actress, the movie director increase the actress market value. Here instead of just hiring the actress, which can simply work for other movie director afterward. Buying the actress as slave will also cause lots of problem.

A movie director can simply make the actress sign up long term contract. So when the actress become famous, the movie director can just capture value of the actress increased popularity.

The same way, government can rent land instead of just selling it. Once the government increase the land value due to save street and good infrastructure, the government can capture value from increased land value tax or rent.

A sugar daddy that knock up a sugar baby greatly lower the sugar baby's market value. Here, signing a contract that he will pay the sugar baby a lot of money for producing heirs can allow the sugar baby to capture lost market value.

For everything else renting is better than buying.

For example, many westerners think that sexual relationship and having children shouldn't be explicitly transactional. However, divorce rate and child support lawsuits are often financially devastating. I wonder if more simple and explicitly agreed transactions can reduce that?

About not counting on things that's hard to verify. The truth is the opposite is very lucrative for fraudster. But this tips is for mutual prosperity. Also sometimes to counter bullshit you need another bullshit.

However, in practice this just lead to more fights. Like Chinese believe in mandate of heaven. Well. There isn't really heaven giving mandate to anyone. People kill each other. Another reason why renting land is better than buying land is nobody has to verify who owns the land. The one using it is the one paying. And the one that can use the land most simply outbid the rest.

The same with employee vs slavery. Nobody need to keep track is Jane owned by Bob or whatever. Jane is always owned by Jane. Very simple.

So I think I am pretty correct that unless these principles conflict with one another, these principles should be practiced on all human relationship. It works in business, forming families, or arranging politics.

I actually buy my home. That's because the principle of avoiding transactional complexity class with the principle of avoiding ownership. Here dealing with government that don't micro manage how I run my house is better than dealing with owners that may be able to kick me out latter.

Joint stock democracy is a hybrid of democracy and joint stock corporation. The samples of those are Kongsi republics or joint stock kibbutzim and various cooperative communities.

Kongsi republics are effectively a near effectively sovereign democratic state that is also a business and a joint stock corporation.

Like VOC but democracy.

Like democracy, but a business.

Like joint stock kibbutzim or residence owned REIT or private cooperative but they are far more autonomous.

Basically all democracies have this problem. Who should be citizens. Some use place of birth. Another use race.

In joint stock democracy Why not just buy and sell citizenship like shares? Want to join us? Buy shares. Like all shares, the shares pay dividend too.

In addition I would recommend some powerful referee to mediate conflict between those states.

When states don't fear being attacked, they may choose to split up so there can be many niche states for each arrangements. Those states then compete for tax payers that can shop around voting with their feet to see which place they like most.

And voila, no more aggressions and we all got rich.

The original kongsi republics are usually literal gold mine. The owner of the gold mine choose to set up a kongsi or a business instead of declaring himself King.

While it's a sovereign state, in a sense that they manage everything and don't call up higher power when they have problems, they actually prefer to have bigger state as protectors and referees. They tried to be vasal of Qing dynasty but got rejected.

Spiritual successor of kongsi republic is Singapore. Singapore is the ONLY country in the world that gain independence against their will. Singapore got kicked out of Malaysia because they refuse racism.

Why do I think this is a move to a more Kaldor hicks efficient outcome?

As long as we don't aggress against one another capitalism will max out kaldor hicks efficiency while democracy will keep things stable. If large number of people have a "stake" at the state, then they tend not to rebel.

There are 2 types of aggressions. State aggressions. Non state aggressions. The state aggressions are usually 3 types. State aggressions inward toward it's own citizens/population and state aggressions against other states, outward. State aggressions can also be profitable and not profitable.

Now look at VOC

VOC is like kongsi republic but not democracy.

VOC causes the death of 90% of chinese in Batavia. However, they quickly repent. The governor general is in jail till his death and the ex governor general become the new governor general was more conciliatory toward Chinese.

How do VOC knows that killing Chinese is "wrong". Sunday school? No. VOC share prices tank.

The chinese that are there are tax collectors and businessmen. Without them, VOC share dropped. Not to mention chinese rebellion cost VOC lots of money and almost kick VOC out of Java.

See. Profit incentive alone is actually a good safeguard against genocide.

If we look at armenian genocide, holocaust, DEI, exorbitant child support, gaza flattening, killing of Christians in nigeria, and so on, there is no profit incentive to stop. People keep killing innocents even when it's no longer profitable to do so.

Look at prohibition of drug. There is no clear profit incentive to stop criminalizing safe drugs like MDMA. People just do blood libel saying that drug users are parasites that will destroy their life. The truth is it's not true. Many MDMA and DMT users are economically productive people.

Heavy taxation drive billionaires away reducing prosperity for everyone.

Unprofitable aggressions is in a sense really doesn't have to happen. Like what for? The aggressor are losing money anyway. But they keep doing it out of bigotry, and lies.

Most of the time the profitability of oppressing others aren't clear. Like do Israel become saver by flattening Gaza? Who knows?

So here profit incentive of government at least prevent all unprofitable state aggression. A big thing.

However, profit incentive of government do not stop profitable state aggression. VOC also invade Banda and got nutmeg monopoly. Countries attack each other for territories and they may get territories. Notice quite often, buying territories is a lot cheaper than war. Like in case of Ukraine war, Korean war, and Ukraine war, the land price in dispute is a lot cheaper than the war cost.

South Korea with far bigger economies can easily buy North Korea land and Kim Jong Un can rest and retire rich. Israel can just buy Gaza and Westbank.

Kongsi economies "reduce" the transactional complexity in buying territories. Because citizenship is tradeable, anyone that want to live in the territory can just buy citizenship. From who? From those who want to sell. There is always somebody that don't like to live in a place. The one that hate his place of leaving the most can sell citizenship to those who want to live in that place the most. There will be a market price.

To further reduce conflicts, some pimps/peace makers can settle disputes between states.

VOC also force javanese to work as forced labor. That causes starvation. Notice it is actually not a very profitable thing to do. Oppress people and they rebel. So VOC end up spending huge money on war. Less profit. Again democratic nature of kongsi republic can fix this major conflicts. The main benefit of democracy is we don't settle this sort of thing through violence but through votes. Obviously majority of people will simply vote to not allow slavery and in 21st century it's no longer a big issue anyway.

Notice in all 3 cases, killing of chinese in Batavia, forcing Javanese to work, and attacking Banda, we don't really know whether VOC is truly evil or not. The killing of chinese happened by thugs that want to kill Chinese and loot their gold and not VOC directly. VOC simply ordered chinese to disarm and latter offer rewards for heads of "Chinese rebels".

There's a case where VOC claimed that they actually pay the javanese work and hence don't expect that they will starve. However, the money is corrupted by middlemen. I've heard Banda massacre happened because VOC delegation was mass murdered.

To be honest. I don't know and I don't care if some atrocities are done deliberately or not. If we are a potential victim, 99% of our interests should be preventing atrocities. If innocents suffer then we probably need to arrange that they don't suffer for otherwise the precedents can lead all the way to us.

Here ensuring most people have strong incentive to cooperate is far more effective than moral theater.

Obviously I didn't choose to be scammed. Yet it happened. Many leftists do not expect that their country will end up poor by they voting communism, yet it happened.

Again, joint stock nature of joint stock democracy would give incentive to most people to not choosing communism.

After all, the state itself is run for profit and the profit is shared as dividend to citizens. Why would you want to destroy your own business that pay you.

That's pretty much as socialist as can be. Most shareholders will max out dividend when they support their state and vote for CEO that max out shareholders value. Those who don't like it can sell.

What about heavy taxation? Tax will be much simpler because the state want to reduce enforcement costs. My guess is most tax will either be sin tax or land value tax.

Competition among joint stock democracies/kongsi republics will keep tax low.

What about non state actors?

Terrorists, thieves, burglars, and robbers?

Joint stock democracies will handle that better than liberal democracies.

See Israel bombing Gaza? Is it really to kill terrorists or to just drive Palestinians out?

We never know.

Netanyahu run on platform of security. If Israel is secure, his party may lost votes.

The same way leftist platforms run on platform of welfare and helping the poor. When poor people got rich, they lost votes. That is why many leftist political party in liberal democracy actually want to max out number of poor people. They invite poor immigrants, they encourage poor people to breed with more welfare for single mothers, etc.

But we sort of know what corporations will do. Do whatever it takes to raise return of shareholders.

Elon run as CEO on platform of making Tesla more valuable. What happened when Tesla reach all those revenue target? Elon got paid a lot of money. Elon no longer need to keep being needed. If he accomplished his goal and after that is no longer needed, he's still rich.

So in joint stock moldbugian states, the leaders at least have strong incentive to solve problem.

Violence on the street will be less. Such violence lower land value tax and lower revenue. CEOs will fix that.

So yea. I wouldn't say it's a mathematically perfect solution. But it should be "better" than what we have.

Libertarians will see lower tax and freedom to shop around for states they like

Capitalists will see less corruption, terrorism, war, an save tax haven to shop around

Any economically productive people will be able to shop around for states by simply buying shares.

Even moderate socialists, the kind that just want money instead of preventing others from being rich, will be better off, because they too want bigger dividend and the best way to make that dividend bigger is not by becoming poor, like in liberal democracy, but by voting for competent CEO that improve economy.

And those who aren't happy can just sell their share and buy another share on another kongsi republic

It's win win.

Let's think about it.

This is a continuation of my post here

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskLibertarians/comments/1vgb4h7/are_there_any_consequential_libertarian_reason/

Dubai, Liechestein, Monaco, Singapore, are all run like a business.

Prospera is run like a business and is prosperous.

I've heard Shanghai was a fishing village run like a business and now is rich as fuck.

None of those are perfectly libertarian. Drugs are illegal in Singapore.

But they are more libertarian than their surrounding democracy.

Even VOC, for example, is more libertarian than Javanese kingdoms around it. I am not sure. Well before they have monopoly of power in too many area I think.

Most anti libertarian measure are due to misunderstanding or bigotry.

Take a look at anti drug laws.

Nobody knows if anti drug laws are bad or good for economy. Why? Because states aren't run for profit. We don't know if legalizing drugs would say attract tax payers or more criminals.

As most libertarians agree, legalizing drugs will attract tax payers and actually reduce crime. So give it a try. Let some city run for profit try legalize drugs and see if their share price go up or down.

What about prostitution? What about polygamy? What about hypergamy? What about Elon paying 1000 women to produce 10k kids?

If a country or city is run for profit, it'll be like business we know if it's profitable or not. Citizens and shareholders simply pick smartest CEO. Shareholders, citizens got dividend.

Some that would agree with me.

Herman Hoppe

Moldbug

Henry George

Now such state will still commit atrocities.

VOC for example, massacre Bandanese to get monopoly of nutmeg. But a federal government or board of peace as "referee" preventing one city from attacking another would work. Not like Microsoft send troops to attack Google.

VOC also force Indonesians to work and cause starvation. In theory, VOC actually pays those indonesians but the money is seized by corrupt middlemen and VOC is like, oh plants are planted and I pay and I got stuffs.

Again, element of democracy can prevent such abuse.

But most of the time, state maximizing profit within a certain agreed rules should move things toward libertarianism.

Like phone or noodle factories, different cities can try different policies. Some give free bacon. Another prohibit bacon. Some legalize drugs. Another give free drugs. And let's see which one get rich.

We too will be more free. We shop around for policies we like rather than endlessly arguing about who is right or wrong.

Libertarianism is not just a moral system. When practiced properly it leads to prosperity. Capitalism kick as in economy.

So if the state is run for profit and have to attract tax payers, the outcome will most likely be more libertarian.

The way things normally work is

1. All factories are run for profit. So is all shops, all malls, and so on.

2. Customers choose which phones they like. They mostly don't know how the phone is manufactured.

And this lead to kardol hicks efficiency.

So why shouldn't countries behave the same way?

US is actually a pretty successful country. A state within a state in US is feature. Not a bug.

But US is not explicitly run for profit.

You vote your "conscience" instead of dividend or share valuation. And when people vote conscience, they vote communism. Well, not us. But most people. Not like our conscience know calculus, economic theory, and access to good ledger who are productive and parasites.

I was considering something like joint stock democratic republic.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskLibertarians/comments/1vejed4/i_think_something_like_lanfang_kongsi_is/

Democratic join stock republics are explicitly run for profit.

Many small kingdoms like UAE, monaco, liechestein, are run for profit.

They're doing fine and rich and have lower tax. Sure Singapore is not very libertarian because they ban drug. If we have 1000 singapores, or 1000 liechestein we can shop around for something like that that legalize MDMA, for example.

And in many way, Singapore is libertarian. Low crime rate. That's libertarian. People have right not to be killed you know.

Most of the time anti libertarian laws, like heavy tax is not motivated by profit but envy. A state run for profit like Prospera, will tend to be more libertarian than a state not run for profit.

When shareholders, which in joint stock democracy wants profit, they tend to have lower corruption.

The only downside is cruelty.

VOC caused death of 90% of chinese in Batavia, massacre bandanese, and demand forced labor that cause starvation. But that's in the pass. Combine with democracy, and arrangements that states can't kill each other, then not much can go wrong I think.

Besides, states, are run for profit anyway. Often not explicitly and the profit are often misaligned. Explicitly running the state for profit like joint stock company seems like a move toward the right direction.

My guess is Dubai. The king is smart. The citizens don't even have high IQ but they just import tons of migrants doing the work. Lack of democracy means Dubai doesn't have to worry that wage inequality is huge. So attract people efficiently. Low birth rate though. So I wonder.

I would say kongsi republics or joint stock kibbutzim should be quite efficient too. But they don't just import tons of cheap non citizens and the members got to be smart too.

Small country like Liechesten, Monaco, Macau, Singapore seems to be doing well. It's easy to see they're kardol hicks efficient. They're rich AF.

Democracy? I feel that much votes in democracy is motivated by one voter sabotaging other voters. Like voters actually hate each other and they don't get clear profit share, so less efficient laws are made. For example, land taxes seems to be more efficient than income taxes, but voters just don't like other make a lot of money so punish productivity.

Monarchy? too much killing each other over who should be king.

Okay, all those are speculation.

Obviously the one making the pie bigger tend to have higher per capita income. However, there's something that may works the opposite direction.

Nations with high percapita income often have low birth rate. I don't think that's kardol hicks efficient.

If a billionaire is willing to bequeath $1 billion to a child that means a child, an extra child, should worth more than $1 billion to him. Not kardol hicks efficient if he doesn't make that extra 100 child. Am I even right, wrong, insane here? I suppose if we use becker barro model we should be able to compute how much extra child worth to a very rich guy as a function of his wealth.

But can this be I don't know, mathematically reasoned?

I mean, like that's like welfare economics right? How to make the pie bigger.

Point me to some direction.

Anyway I love math models. I just like to see everything as math objects or at least as intuitively mathematical objects.

My guess is Dubai. The king is smart. The citizens don't even have high IQ but they just import tons of migrants doing the work. Lack of democracy means Dubai doesn't have to worry that wage inequality is huge. So attract people efficiently. Low birth rate though. So I wonder.

I would say kongsi republics or joint stock kibbutzim should be quite efficient too. But they don't just import tons of cheap non citizens and the members got to be smart too.

Small country like Liechesten, Monaco, Macau, Singapore seems to be doing well. It's easy to see they're kardol hicks efficient. They're rich AF.

Democracy? I feel that much votes in democracy is motivated by one voter sabotaging other voters. Like voters actually hate each other and they don't get clear profit share, so less efficient laws are made. For example, land taxes seems to be more efficient than income taxes, but voters just don't like other make a lot of money so punish productivity.

Monarchy? too much killing each other over who should be king.

Okay, all those are speculation.

Obviously the one making the pie bigger tend to have higher per capita income. However, there's something that may works the opposite direction.

Nations with high percapita income often have low birth rate. I don't think that's kardol hicks efficient.

If a billionaire is willing to bequeath $1 billion to a child that means a child, an extra child, should worth more than $1 billion to him. Not kardol hicks efficient if he doesn't make that extra 100 child. Am I even right, wrong, insane here? I suppose if we use becker barro model we should be able to compute how much extra child worth to a very rich guy as a function of his wealth.

But can this be I don't know, mathematically reasoned?

I mean, like that's like welfare economics right? How to make the pie bigger.

Point me to some direction.

Anyway I love math models. I just like to see everything as math objects or at least as intuitively mathematical objects.

According to leftist theory, prostitution is exploitation. Hence it should be illegal.

According to capitalists, like me, prostitution is not exploitation. Many women simply want money or financial support and making deals explicit is a healthy ways do win win deals.

I thought, well, economy should be able to answer that. See. Humans maximize profit. You don't ban something for the benefit of people whose choices got reduced.

But then I am confused again. What about if someone is thirsty and another offer water for $1k?

I noticed that leftists also call all employment "exploitation".

How would economist analyze this?

Is whether something exploitation or not answerable by science? If it's not scientific, is this just bullshit we can ignore?

Are there any empirical evidence that will show one or another?

For example, if prostitution is exploitation and only desperate women do it, I suspect no pretty women with options would be prostitute. Yet, many pretty women choose to be prostitute or sugar babies even though she can simply be a wife of a much poorer man. Weinstein's victim is "exploited" despite the fact that all of them can simply work for other directors or at McDonald.

How would economist analyze this?

Are there some Math where can see, ah ha, exploitation happens when elasticity is close to 0 when quantity is scarce?

By the way is this subreddit austrian economic theory or include leftist economic theory?

It's basically a democratic joint stock republic in western Kalimantan.

I asked gemini and it says:

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Basically, the dude Luo Fangbo is a miner. And he needs a lot of people to support his business/kingdom hybrid. How? He adopt democracy. Qualified workers are given a share called fen. So every worker has a stake on his business.

Unlike liberal democracy, the workers' fen pays dividend. In other words, the workers have incentive to vote for dude that make the country/business/corporation rich. So they don't vote for trans right, DEI, feminism, or huge child support I guess. Their votes will most likely coincide with whatever is maxing out economic efficiency.

The workers also get salary in addition to dividend.

The manager class' salary is actually pretty low. So Luo Fangbo and his successors is elected CEO/consul/president based on merit. His incentive to work is because he owns a lot of share. So he is a bit like Larry Page or Warren Buffet.

Larry Page and Warren Buffet got $1 salary I think. But they work well because they also own a lot of shares and obviously want the shares to be profitable.

Now if I look at "dynastic cycle" in China. Chinese are actually pretty good at making prosperous society. However, every 300 years we go to war over who should be emperor.

Langfang kongsi don't have dynastic cycle. The shareholders just elect better leaders like Tesla shareholders elect Elon.

Mencius says that government should make the people rich. Well, a joint stock company's sole job is to make shareholders rich. If the people are shareholders, that's like done automatically there.

So that seems like something that should be tried out again on small scale somewhere.

That's the part I like.

The part I don't necessarily like is it's an ethnostate. Only Hakka people can join. They have friendly relationship with other kingdoms.

They are hostile to their fellow chinese kongsi, namely the Dagang Kongsi that's from Hokkien. Again, if they're truly a business and can somehow replace clan trusts with corporate government they would have just merged business.

Their economy is mining gold and that's it.

They're not georgist. So they don't expand and by the time the dutch become to powerful they got eaten.

Still if we have ways to keep states from waging war with each other, then combining joint stock form and democracy would create a stable state that's still better than liberal democracy..

It's basically a democratic joint stock republic in western Kalimantan.

I asked gemini and it says:

>Where it is actually "famous"

>1. The Hakka Diaspora & Overseas Chinese History

>In West Kalimantan (Singkawang, Pontianak) and among Hakka communities across Southeast Asia, Taiwan, and Guangdong, founder Luo Fangbo (羅芳伯) is celebrated as a folk hero and pioneer. His story is taught as a masterclass in early overseas Chinese self-reliance, defense, and collective organization.

>2. Modern Political Economy & Alternative Governance Theory

>Among political scientists, institutional economists, and governance theorists, Lanfang is a major subject of fascination. It serves as one of the few historical real-world examples of a self-governing, corporate-civic federation:

>It raised its own defense forces and infrastructure funds through gold-mining shares.

>It elected its leadership (Jiuzhang / Presidents) via shareholder/member representation.

>It operated without a hereditary aristocracy or a traditional state bureaucracy.

>For researchers studying non-state order, charter cities, and decentralized political models, Lanfang is studied as a pioneering experiment in bottom-up institutional design.

>In short: if you're looking for mass pop-culture fame, it doesn't have it. But if you're looking at institutional history, competitive governance, and Southeast Asian economic history, it's considered a crucial piece of the puzzle.

Basically, the dude Luo Fangbo is a miner. And he needs a lot of people to support his business/kingdom hybrid. How? He adopt democracy. Qualified workers are given a share called fen. So every worker has a stake on his business.

Unlike liberal democracy, the workers' fen pays dividend. In other words, the workers have incentive to vote for dude that make the country/business/corporation rich. So they don't vote for trans right or huge child support I guess.

The workers also get salary in addition to dividend.

The manager class' salary is actually pretty low. So Luo Fangbo is elected CEO/consul/president based on merit. His incentive to work is because he owns a lot of share. So he is a bit like Larry Page or Warren Buffet.

Larry Page and Warren Buffet got $1 salary I think. But they work well because they also own a lot of shares and obviously want the shares to be profitable.

That's the part I like.

The part I don't necessarily like is it's an ethnostate. Only Hakka people can join. They have friendly relationship with other kingdoms. They are hostile to their fellow chinese kongsi, namely the dagang kongsi that's from Hokkien. Again, if they're truly a business and can somehow replace clan trusts with corporate government they would have just merged business.

Their economy is mining gold and that's it.

They're not georgist. So they don't expand and by the time the dutch become to powerful they got eaten.

Still if we have ways to keep states from waging war with each other, then combining joint stock form and democracy would create a stable state that's still better than liberal democracy we have.

Which one is your favorite philosopher?

Guan Zhong actually do a good job making Qi rich. His country is rich and SO IS HE. Looks like win win trade.

Mencius says the prosperity of people is the most important thing. So GDP maximizer?

Confucius? Well. His idea that a dude got mandate of heaven get us dynastic cycle after dynastic cycle. Also he is probably not the most correct. It's just emperor Wu wanting total control of the state promote his idea into state ideology.

But that's me.

Look at Milei.

He is not "pure" libertarian.

In fact, he increase cash payment to poor people bypassing middlemen.

So?

He won election.

And still pursue tons of libertarian goals.

And to be honest, I think it's wise. Mathematically I would probably say UBI is even more optimum. But the truth is we live in democracy.

The poor's vote is the cheapest. You pay rich guy $1k he's not going to switch from blue to red. You pay the poor $1k he gonna switch.

So paying poor people cash is great way to buy vote.

If Milei were "pure", he wouldn't win election. Then libertarianism will just be a theory.

Some purist libertarian would say democracy sucks. Sure. We can always try civil war. But the result will be even further away from libertarianism than what we have now.

Another sample I can think of is open border.

Pure libertarianism is OPEN border. Period. People can come with guns and you just got to let them in. That's how open border mean. People have right to enter. People have right to own gun. People have right to own hand held nuclear weapon.

What about if people coming are not capitalistic minded? Then you wait till they rape women and kill people before the no state do nothing.

Yea, pure ancapnistan is absurd.

But hoppean ancapnistan that wants to privatize the state rather than making it disappear is reasonable.

Me. I think combination of democracy, georgism, capitalism, libertarianism, and joint stock form of company, like moldbug, is a good combo. I am not a pure libertarian, or a pure georgist.

A sample of that is Lanfang Kongsi. A peaceful democratic republic that live side by side with VOC. Lanfang Kongsi is not georgist though. They're more gold mining republic.

I think someone said that we don't need anything we just want things. Like we don't need food. We want food because we want to live.

Or something like that.

How does economists differentiate need from want?

Elasticity? Luxuries have more than 1 elasticity? Necessity has less than 1? Is that it?

Other criteria?

But cheap stuffs are often elastic. Food is elastic if the price of food is small part of income I think.

I am confused.

Show me the math