The Probability Broach, chapter 19
Win, Lucy and their allies at the Continental Congress have outmaneuvered the Hamiltonians by getting the delegates to vote for unlimited debate. That gives them all the time they need to present their evidence that jackbooted government thugs from Win’s world are planning an invasion, and that the Hamiltonians are in league with them.
Deejay and Oolorie, the scientists who built the Probability Broach, are demonstrating its capabilities by showing videos of Win’s world:
Resuming the Chair, Jenny called on Deejay Thorens, via Telecom, to describe the Probability Broach. A second circuit, to Emperor Norton University, allowed Ooloorie to chip in by split-screen. It was the first I’d seen of Deejay’s recordings of my world. They were depressing. The United States now looked dingy and threadbare to me. I’d forgotten already what grime, noxious fumes, and poverty in the soul of a society can do to the people who have to live there.
Even though he grew up in that dystopian place, Win has internalized the philosophy of the North American Confederacy to the point that he now finds poverty an unfamiliar and disturbing spectacle.
This highlights something I’ve noted before, which is how weirdly, implausibly egalitarian this anarcho-capitalist society is. Everything is cheap and everyone is wealthy; even an average working joe like Ed Bear can own a mansion, multiple cars, and all the drugs, guns and consumer goods he wants.
How can this be the case in a society built on law-of-the-jungle capitalism? Is there no indentured servitude in the North American Confederacy? Are there no private estates with workers locked into serfdom contract? Are there no homeless people, no shantytowns, no workhouses? Isn’t extreme inequality the point of capitalism, because it motivates people to strive?
Other libertarians, such as Ayn Rand, take the stance that in their ideal world, a tiny number of the ultra-rich would live like god-kings, while the rest of humanity would be peons. As evil as this is, at least it’s a realistic outcome of their premises.
But Smith declares himself an anarchist who loves freedom, so it makes sense that he wouldn’t want to depict corporate feudalism or aristocratic hierarchies. What doesn’t make sense is why those things don’t exist in a world of unbridled capitalism. He has no explanation for why they’re not there.
Suddenly, a delegate rises and demands to be heard. It’s Freeman K. Bertram, the head of the Paratronics corporation, under whose auspices the Probability Broach was built (and, as we found out, he’s also on the side of the bad guys):
“The Chair recognizes Mr. F. K. Bertram.”
“Madame President, we demand this demonstration cease! Those recordings are private property, which these two individuals”—he pointed to the inset images of Deejay and Ooloorie—”are using without authorization!”
… “Is this true, Dr. Thorens?” asked Jenny, knowing perfectly well it was.
“I’m afraid so,” Deejay admitted ruefully.
Bertram shook his fist at the ‘com. “Thorens, you and your, your—specimen, are discharged! Turn those recordings over this very minute!”
This raises a couple of questions.
First of all: Bertram acts as if he can give commands to Deejay and Oolorie, or fire them at will. Can he?
This is the exact reason why academic tenure exists: so scientists and academics can challenge conventional wisdom, advocate for unpopular positions, and otherwise express their views without worrying about displeasing their bosses. At the very least, they can’t just be summarily fired; there’s a process the university has to go through. Is there any such thing as tenure in the NAC?
Second, on the same note: what about faculty unions? Once again, this is a major reason why unions exist: so workers have collective power to push back against unfair, unreasonable, or unethical demands. Does anyone in the NAC belong to a union that gives them this kind of protection? Does that even exist?
Third: are there whistleblower laws? Yet again, this is the reason why such laws exist in the real world: so people can report malfeasance committed by their employer without being punished or retaliated against. Exposing your boss’ secret villainous plot for world domination would certainly seem to fall under that heading.
Obviously, an anarchy like the NAC has no laws, period, so there wouldn’t be whistleblower laws. It apparently also doesn’t have unions, tenure or other worker protections, since no one raises those as obstacles to Bertram trying to shut down the scientists. The only reasonable conclusion is that all employment in the NAC is “at will”—the legal term for an arrangement where employees have no rights and employers can fire them at any time for any reason. But that makes it even less believable that this society is so free and so equal, when not starving depends on staying in your boss’ good graces.
“Wait a minute!” It was Olongo, out of order and towering above the rostrum. “What do you mean, private property? I’m one of your stockholders, and I want to see those recordings!”
“Mr. Vice President, with due respect, we are obligated to make decisions in the best interests of the company as a whole.”
This gives Win an idea, for once. Since nine-tenths of the NAC is represented at this meeting, that must include other Paratronics shareholders. What if they call an impromptu shareholders’ meeting to vote on releasing these records?
Ironically, this scene furnishes a neat demonstration of why private-property rights untempered by any other consideration are a bad idea when it comes to stopping unethical behavior. If Paratronics had been a privately held company, or if a majority of its stock was held by Hamiltonian conspirators, the good guys would have been screwed.
Lucy thinks this is a good idea, and tells Win to bring it to Jenny:
I crossed the great floor self-consciously, but I needn’t have worried: as the wrangling continued down front, I noticed delegates napping, several reading books or their electronic counterparts, and at least two poker games along my route to the rostrum. Someone was working a complicated 3-D crossword in his display, others were walking around, chatting, eating dinner.
As a reminder, Jenny just informed the Continental Congress that they were facing nuclear annihilation and conquest. But even with those stakes clearly laid out, some delegates couldn’t care less and aren’t paying the slightest attention to the proceedings.
Smith probably meant this as an illustration of his principle that everyone should have a right to ignore the government if they so choose. Under the circumstances, it just makes the people of his ancap utopia look stupid. A sword of Damocles is hanging over their heads, and they’re so lazy and incurious that they’re napping or playing games rather than doing anything about it. That may be a more realistic depiction of libertarianism than the author intended.
Image credit: Zephyris via Wikimedia Commons; released under CC BY-SA 3.0 license
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Other posts in this series:
A few rich people deciding that person X is not to be hired by any company they control or influence is FREEDOM. A union of a large proportion of researchers or teachers, or some other group, deciding that they will not sell their labor without certain conditions is the darkest oppression
In a world where nobody needs to work, but the majority still want to do so for non-survival reasons, then anyone is free to set whatever conditions they want as an employer or employee. It’s not guaranteed that you will find anyone who will accept those conditions, especially if they’re stupid ones, but it’s the closest thing to a free and fair “marketplace” of employment. But so long as survival is in the picture (and it has always been there), then it becomes unfree and unfair for a large portion of the public (and for most smaller companies). Appropriate regulation (including labor laws) can mitigate that unfairness, but not eliminate it entirely. And of course Ancaps want to get rid of regulation, because… um… magic.
Emperor Norton University?
A rather strange name, although AI says it is sometimes used in sf and games.
Joshua Norton had been a successful businessman but then lost his fortune. He would probably have become homeless but for the generosity of others. He declared himself to be “Emperor of the United States and defender of Mexico”. An estimated 10,000 to 30,000 people attended his funeral. It is unclear why the North American Confederacy would have a University named after him.
I find the reference to Emperor Norton to be one of the nicer bits of the book – Norton was a harmless eccentric who charmed his fellow San Franciscans into playing along with his contention that he was the Emperor. In the NAC, they probably like the idea that government should be nothing more than an amusing conceit, and consider Norton to be a role model for their Presidents.
As I brought up in another post, how do corporations work in the NAC? Here they exist as a separate legal person from the owners so stockholders can’t be sued for what the corporation does. That separate identity only exists because government creates it.
In the NAC’s anarchy that artificial structure can’t exist. There’s no government to create it nor to regulate it (e.g., a partnership incorporates but runs exactly the same, just without legal liability for the partners). If someone sues Olongo and the other shareholders because the corporation did something, a judge will presumably not throw the lawsuit out of court.
I imagine Smith didn’t really think about corporations as anything but a natural feature of the business world. Just as the NAC has huge corporations yet business owners typically have business meetings in their living room and settles things quickly with a handshake.
You’re right of course. Corporations are a creation of governments which prevent me from taking the X dollars that the corporation owe me out of the bank accounts of the investors who each invested only X/100 dollars in the firm (while they have 10X dollars in their bank accounts)
“What if they call an impromptu shareholders’ meeting to vote on releasing these records?”
In our world, that won’t work. Shareholder meetings are formal, with advance notification — that way a group of stockholders can’t get together, call a meeting and cut the others out of the decision-making. Of course, we’re in a world where there are no laws dictating how corporations operate — but like I said above, that means they shouldn’t exist at all.
@4 Fraser: Shareholding companies with lots of investors should be impossible. The legal structure they depend on is a large government construct. It dictates how the company must be structured and run, how it pays shareholders, who can own shares, how the company makes and gets rid of shares, how investors are protected from liability, verification of shares, tracking who owns how much and so on.
As Lee has noted several times now, Smith’s anarchy is a magical place. Normally everything just works without a government but when they need the elements of a large organized government they just exist and work without question. Legal system, utilities, environmental management and large corporations exist like the government support is there even when Smith has pointed out that those things don’t exist in the NAC.
Even though he grew up in that dystopian place, Win has internalized the philosophy of the North American Confederacy to the point that he now finds poverty an unfamiliar and disturbing spectacle.
First, note that the quote above this didn’t mention economic/material poverty, it referenced “poverty in the soul of a society.” Whatever the f00k that means — I guess Smith was trying to say people under any sort of real government are always impoverished in their souls — which sounds like what self-righteous loony Christians say about people living in secular societies and trying to be “good without God.”
And second, non-poor people in our reality can very easily blind themselves or be blinded to material poverty and poor people. We’ve always structured our societies and living spaces so that poor people and poverty are easy to ignore. And I’m pretty sure an ancap society like Smith’s NAC would do much the same things.
I noticed delegates napping, several reading books or their electronic counterparts, and at least two poker games along my route to the rostrum. Someone was working a complicated 3-D crossword in his display, others were walking around, chatting, eating dinner.
Except for the electronica, this reminds me of the Reconstruction state legislature scene from Birth of a Nation. Though legislatures around the world have richly earned their share of parodies, Smith has failed to advance the genre.
A thought about corporations… corporations obviously predate the United States (the Hudson’s Bay Company, the oldest corporation in North America, was founded in 1670; the oldest commercial corporation is sometimes cited as Stora Kopparberg from Sweden in 1347. The concept of a corporation as a separate legal entity goes back to Roman times, though it was more often used for things like churches or cities.
They have always required explicit recognition by the state and more importantly the legal system; they’re a useful legal fiction, a way for an organization to conduct business and agree to contracts as an organization rather than as individuals, so that contracts and business can outlast any particular individual who may have been involved. And that’s even before the whole ‘limited liability’ concept comes up (as that was a rather more recent addition to the idea of incorporation).
Experience, of course, shows that without some other form of state capable of at least the same level of power, a local corporation will often effectively become the state. See also, company towns, where people are paid in scrip that is only usable at the company store, and thus have no money that’s usable anywhere else, effectively trapping them in the system…