Quote from: BlueNote on March 01, 2014, 02:58:57 AM

Quote from: Razick on February 28, 2014, 02:38:25 PM

What this teaches us is, first, trust no one. Second of all, even as Bitcoin upholds the Libertarian ideals of minimal government and regulation, it disproves entirely the anarchist notion that there should be none. MtGox has probably violated numerous regulations, but at it's core this is a violation of contract law, plain and simple.

Sorry, but that doesn't even make any sense. If MtGox "probably violated numerous [state] regulations" then how does that "disprove entirely the anarchist notion that there should be none [state regulations]" Huh

? When did Japan step in to stop Gox from violating regulations, running their company into the ground, and causing huge customer losses? People can and do violate any regulations they want just like they can and do violate any law they want. They can also be wildly incompetent and/or negligent if they want. State regulation isn't magic, state law isn't magic, and state prosecution isn't magic. And what kind of compensation to victims would it be if the state goes the whole nine yards and eventually ends up putting Karpeles in a cage for a few years? What's so great about that if all your money is still gone?

Now that Gox has filed for bankruptcy, the laws of Japan will most likely act to protect Karpeles from any personal liability for losses. They'd have to make a criminal case against him. So what? If the money's gone then the money's gone whether or not there were regulations and whether or not they prosecute and whether or not Karpeles ever has to go to jail or pay a fine.

Anarchists are not against regulation, only monopolistic state regulation which violates the non-aggression principle. This is very easy to understand if you pay attention to the argument. It's first of all a question of ethics. No one has the right to initiate force against an innocent person. In the case of state regulation, you have a monopoly of force attempting to criminalize certain aspects of trade based on the entirely delusional notion that the state is our protector and that it is able to magically anticipate and stop crimes before they happen by punishing innocent people who have in fact not committed any crime. It's so completely ridiculous that it's self-refuting.

The problem is that state regulation, apart from all the actual harm it does to business, also harms people psychologically. It produces a delusional mindset of dependency and complacency. It prevents people from acting in their own best interests and creating the kind of society everybody says they want. Instead of actually taking steps to build that society, all they do is whine and complain and then beg for state intervention to make them feel better about their whining and complaining. "Something must be done!" And that always means a new tax, a new fee, a new restriction on business, a few new hundred pages thrown onto the law books for lawyers and bureaucrats to get excited about.

When we are dependent on the state like this, we never get to grow up. We never get to see what the market can produce. The solution to shady, poorly run exchanges is to get rid of all the current stack of ridiculous laws and regulations which keep people from starting exchanges in the first place out of fear of random persecution and possible prosecution by "regulators." You get rid of all that strangling crap and you simply allow people to be free. Let them trade. A free market will absolutely produce the best solution because you will have wide open competition, and it won't be about who has the most money to hire the most lawyers. You shouldn't have to do business with a shady corporation in a foreign land. You should be able to have exchanges anywhere and everywhere. Let the cream rise to the top. Let the poorly run ones fail. If people need to lose some money before they figure out how to apply common sense to their own money management, then so be it.

What many people don't understand about markets is that failure acts as a stimulant. Money and market share tends to move from weak hands to strong ones. Those with a better business plan stand to gain enormously by designing their business to meet customer demands for such things as safety and transparency. But markets need some time to fully develop, and entrepreneurs need the freedom to act and come up with viable solutions without being squashed by monopolistic vultures before they even have a chance.

I just skimmed over this so I apologize if I missed something.

What you are describing sounds more like Juris Naturalism (which I tend to agree with in many ways) or Libertarianism than Anarchism (the absence of government) to me. In a common law system based on the principles of 1) Do everything you agree to do and, 2) do not encroach on others and their property, what MtGox did would be a violation of contract law and they would owe restitution (not that they could pay it) and perhaps face other penalties. In an anarchist system, MtGox could barricade the door and fight back the angry mobs that represent the only form of "justice" with guns (assuming that anarchy is possible, which it isn't, because where no government exists, someone will create one).

In the current system, which is the other extreme, even the most honest exchange is forced to comply with thousands of unreasonable and costly regulations that do more harm than good and don't actually protect customers. The average cost per capita of regulations is something around $10,000+ per year in the US.