libertarianism is self-refuting

[JohnFKennedy]

look at it this way, they claim to be all about being against initiating force against other people but yet favor things which allow corporations/other non-governmental groups to be able to initiate as much force as they want against the population without any restrictions.   

What are some ways companies use force against the population?

The State does it:

If this is the best answer I get I won't be surprised.

I can't speak for the original posters but for me it depends on what one means by 'force'. If we're talking about hard power then I would say that companies rarely exercise that - on occasions but these are rare - but if it is a question of soft power then undoubtedly companies can exercise a great degree of force.

[JohnFKennedy]

Apologies, by hard and soft power I did not mean them in the way Joseph Nye did when he originally coined the term 'soft power'. What I meant was, companies rarely use physical or military force against the population but they will often use their economic clout. So for instance take a natural monopoly such as the provision of an electricity grid or water grid. Given their statuses as natural monopolies, it is easy for a company to assert its economic might by raising prices and the population has no choice but to acquiesce to the price rises because most would have difficulty functioning without running water or electricity. They have a choice in the matter still, but it is one that is limited by the economic power of the company.

Of course, one could also talk about banks foreclosing on people which would technically involve the application of force but is brought about as a result of breaching contract.

[JohnFKennedy]

Right, the only time companies have any power over the population is when the state allows it (or forces it).  As normal, the free'r the market, the better.

I wouldn't say that. I don't believe that natural monopolies are necessarily government created. Certainly in many cases they have been, but I don't think the two go hand in hand automatically.

Of course I could argue that the application of what Nye meant by soft power - the ability to attract and persuade - allowed companies also to assert some degree of force by helping to define fashionability through advertising and branding, but that would be a far more complex issue and would involve a different form of force.

Of course, companies always have some degree of power over those who work for them.

[JohnFKennedy]

Here is a good place to look. Corporate abuses wold be rare in a true free-market economy, as any corparate wrongdoing would lose customers. Monopolies would be near non-existant in a free-market economy as well, since people would be free to open competing businesses. Only the iron fist of government coercion can keep a monopoly existant. Price-rigging couldn't happen either, since any natural monopoly overcharging would face competition.

Corporate abuses would be rare in a perfect free-market economy but perfect competition is a complete pipe-dream; it requires perfect knowledge on the part of both producer and consumer which is simply impossible to achieve. Given this problem, it is entirely sensible that government should exist to regulate the market and ensure that corporations do not abuse their power.

It's also naive to suggest that monopolies wouldn't exist in a perfect free market because people could open rivals because your point completely ignores prohibitive entry costs into certain industries. As I have frequently pointed out, things like road networks and water piping are natural monopolies because the entry-barriers to competition are prohibitively high. The fact that there would eventually be a price ceiling hardly prevents price rigging as that ceiling would be almost astronomical.

[JohnFKennedy]

Because of the lack of perfect knowledge on the part of producer and consumer, consumer reporters would act as middle-men to help give consumers the facts they need. Also, it would be completely hypocritical for a coercive monopoly to be regulating to make sure monopolies don't form.

Firstly, it would be impossible for these consumer reporters to give consumers all the facts they need because it is impossible for them to attain perfect knowledge. Secondly, where do these consumer reporters come from? Seems to me that this system is one that is easy to corrupt; how do you decide between competing consumer reporters? Government should regulate because it is the representative of society whereas businesses are the representatives of their shareholders.

Because of those entry costs, natural monopolies aren't going to charge any more than the entry cost for a new business would be. For example, if the bottled water company is a natural monopoly (we'll call it Company A), and bottling water costs $1/bottle, but entry costs are $5, the prices for bottled water will not reach $6, because at that point, it would become profitable for a competitor to enter the bottled water business. Even then, it would be profitable for a competitor if they were to look into the long-term. If Company A currently charges $4/bottle, then even though it will cost a competitor $6 to enter initially, , he would gain enough customers to ofset that by selling bottled water at $3.50/bottle. Thus, natural monopolies cannot be exploitive for purely economic reasons.

You're assuming incredibly low entry costs there. I am talking more about things like utilities where the entry costs are astronomical; how expensive would it be to lay a completely alternative pipe grid to provide water to everyone?

Equally, you have to consider problems such as space; not only is an entirely alternative road network prohibitively expensive, there's also no space to build one. If I own a city's roads I can charge whatever I want for using them because there won't be an alternative system going up. Firstly there wouldn't be space and secondly they would have to cross my roads at one point and I could simply refuse the company the right to do that.

First of all, nobody with a gun is going to become a slave. Second, if the "Civil" War proved anything, its that slavery is no institution to base your economy on. you will get much better quality labor if it is voluntary. Third, slavery would not be permitted in a libertarian society, so your point is moot and a straw man. Next time you criticize my arguments, make sure the claim is valid.

Slavery would not be permitted? Hang on a second, in the other thread you just said that if you breach someone else's natural rights you forfeit yours to them. Now that sounds an awful lot like slavery to me, particularly given that you believe if you kill someone then your life becomes the property of their relatives. That sounds an awful lot like slavery to me.

[JohnFKennedy]

John Stossel's book Give Me a Break devotes an entire chapter on consumer reporting, and shows that while private consumer reporting has been successful, public consumer reporting has been a failure. In a nutshell, he states that while private consumer reporting has been accurate in an attempt to attract viewers, public consumer reporting has been a failure been the public broadcasting has been too afraid of offending anybody to provide accurate consumer reporting. One chooses a consumer reporter based upon his/her past accuracy. If they have been accurate in the past, they will attract viewers, if they have been blatantly biased towards their advertisers, fre people will watch them.

Having looked Stossel up, it is shocking that a private consumer reporter would write a book explaining why private consumer reporters were good. So which watchdog will measure their past accuracy? Are there consumer reporters for consumer reporters?

Because of those
Believing in homestead principle, I believe that unowned resources should be transfered to the first user. Thus, city roads would still be, in a sense, 'publicly' owned, since they would be jointly owned by the residents, similar to a community association. On the other hand, more rural areas' roads would be more likely to be privately owned, since fewer people live in those areas. With regards to crossing roads, both road companies would gian the others' customers if they crossed roads, thus both would make a profit.

Sounds like a distortion of the free market to me. On crossing roads, if I owned a monopoly on roads and someone was attempting to introduce a separate system, why would it be in my interest to let theirs cross mine? If I control the entire grid and someone is trying to introduce an alternative then I could just say no and maintain my monopoly. Alternatively, if there already are two road systems then we can band together as a cartel and collectively raise prices and there is nothing the public can do about it. That's a fact that is true of all industries that are dominated by a select few firms with an immense degree of market power.

No, I said that if you breach someone else's natural rights and are not able to provide sufficient restitution to them, you forfeit yours to them. Murderers cannot bring their victims back to life, so the only just punishment would be to let the family members decide what to do with the murderer.

That is simply slavery by another name.

[JohnFKennedy]

If you has competition for a job you have, and your competitor gives false information on television, would you even hesitate to expose him if it were false information?

Again, how do I determine which consumer reporter has the best record? Do we have consumer reporters for that? The fact is that these consumer reporters can't combat the interminable problem of perfect knowledge in the free market because they won't have it about the industries they cover themselves and their customers will not have perfect knowledge about which consumer reporter to choose.

Having not read the Stossel book I cannot comment on exactly what he says but I would assume that it is patently obvious that he would not criticise consumer reporters as a whole because he is one, although he may choose to single some out and attack them. If I cited government-produced material which argued that actually the government was a better arbiter in this matter then you would scream and cry that it was obvious the government would be saying this because it makes them look good. The tool works both ways.

Because of those
Like I said, most roads today would be owned by 'road associations'. Only the roads in places nobody lived would be owned by private companies. Given that fact, if a road owner tried to raise costs, people could either cut back on their driving or start a competitor road. Either way, the road owner would lose money by overcharging his customers.

What about the pavements? Are those not included in the road system; it's impossible that people cut back on using both because they have to get to work or to the shops to buy food and the such. It's also not just a question of money, it's also a question of space; there is hardly the space to introduce two parallel road systems.

Equally, how are these 'road associations' run? While I'm sure the wealthy could afford the upkeep of their roads or to implement a system of charging, that is hardly going to be the case in poorer areas.

And, as I said in the other thread, how would you punish murderers?

As I've said there, I do not believe that punishment should solely be about retribution which is largely what it would end up as under your system because the decision of the family would hardly be made in a moment of calm. I think it is far better that we have a system that is at least to some extent impartial in the matter and also that there exists a prison system that serves simultaneously to protect the public, to institute a form of punishment for a crime but also to attempt to rehabilitate a criminal. On that note, how exactly would the prison system work under your system? Who pays for that exactly? Who runs that? Or would you just leave the criminals to those whose rights they transgressed?