Re: Black markets vs. cryptoanarchy

["Timothy C. May" <tcmay@got.net>]

At 11:12 AM -0500 11/12/96, Ted Anderson wrote:

>This concluding paragraph got me to thinking of something I read
>recently in "Bionomics" [1] about the public education problem.  The
>point being made there is that injecting even a little real competition
>into a monopoly situation improves things tremendously.  It is the
>counter argument to the objection that allowing students choice of
>schools will destroy the majority, as the "good" kids flee.  What will
>happen instead is that most schools, seeing imminient flight, will take
>measures to avoid losing students (and taking their tuition with them).
>A few, that really can't adapt in time, fail and their students are
>forced to seek other schools.  The result is that all schools, even
>"public" schools improve dramatically.


Many years ago, circa 1989 or so, I wrote a satirical essay which I called
"Access to Food Must be Equal!" I can't seem to find it right now, so I may
have moved it off my hard disks in one of my periodic housecleanings...I'll
try to dig it up.

The gist was that of an alternate reality in which supermarkets were not
private, but were run the way the public schools were run. That is, each
neighborhood was in some Food Distribution District, at which a household
bought its food or even got it for free (I didn't flesh this point out, but
the parallel with public schools is that the landowners would pay property
taxes, but everyone would be able to get food for free, according to some
ration or coupon system).

(And if you think about it, food is pretty important, and supermarkets are
roughly distributed the same way and in the same numbers as elementary
schools, junior high schools, high schools, etc. So it's not completely
far-fetched to imagine America having taken a different turn a century ago,
and including food distribution centers in the same system.)

I even included mention of the important role the PGA (Parent-Grocer
Association) played in ensuring the nutritive requirements of young bodies
are met. And the need for "nutritional standards" to keep junk food off the
shelves, and only bran muffins and similar digestives be in every meal.

My piece was written as a rant about the dangers of the proposed talk of
"privatizing food distribution points," about how this would result in a
system where only the rich could get access to nutritional food, and how
the poor would be made to suffer. And how this "caloric anarchy" would
result in vicious monopolies, price wars, and deviation from Recommended
Governmental Caloric Intake Rules.


Think about this kind of parallel when privatization of schools is talked
about.

P.S. The "bionomics" stuff is just reworked ideas from a bunch of other
fields, given new names, and packaged with seminars, training classes, and
other multi-level marketing nonsense. I'm not impressed.

--Tim May


"The government announcement is disastrous," said Jim Bidzos,.."We warned IBM
that the National Security Agency would try to twist their technology."
[NYT, 1996-10-02]
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^1,257,787-1 | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."