19
| Wednesday, August 9, 2000
- Survivor! (or, notes on the Moral Island) I've been watching the TV show Survivor on CBS (and also enjoying the web site http://www.survivorsucks.com). Guy Johnson, who, in case I haven't said it yet, is the world's best project manager (better even than me!), got me hooked on it. I've found it very entertaining. That the producers so obviously rig it makes it even more entertaining for me. For those that don't know the show, here is a summary of how it works: (I have lifted the following text from the Survivor Site.)
I am constantly reminded of this show as I learn more and more about the history of Andrew J. Galambos and the Free Enterprise Institute. Galambos believes (and I mostly agree) that the world would be a better place if the following services were offered non-coercively by profit-seeking enterprises:
Perhaps most important to the success of the whole venture are the credit bureaus. (I must admit I am extrapolating from the somewhat sketchy information in SIAA volume one.) In order to eliminate the statist component of government as we know it today, it is critical that individuals and corporations be continuously rated by their customers along any dimensions that their customers desire to rate them. As a person or business develops their credit with customers, their brand recognition grows. This is exactly what happens today, except there would be no statist government backup for when you get screwed by a vendor. If you get screwed in a transaction, you would:
In either case, if the vendor fails to give you satisfaction, either because you ask for it or your insurance company demands it on your behalf, then either you or your insurance company will submit a low credit rating for that vendor. That vendor loses credit, or put another way, credibility in the marketplace. Bad vendors either reform or lose customers and presumably disappear; vendors with happy customers prosper and can probably even charge a little more because of the reliability of their products and/or services. In modern times, this is what happens on eBay, where one can rate both the buyer and seller of an auction transaction. Sadly, there are ways to cheat the eBay system, but the original concept is good. For this system to really work, slander and libel laws must disappear (at least statist-sponsered slander and libel laws), so that one can slam a vendor (a corporation or an individual) without fear or reprisal. The idea is that in the long run, even if a few disgruntled persons complain about your service and try to lower your credit, the majority of your happy customers will maintain your credit rating for you. This is easy to apply in every day life and I know some business people that do so - once they find someone they like and trust, they tend to do business with them, and as long as the service is good, they continue. It takes a fairly radical event to shake their confidence. A steady rise in prices is not enough if the service is good enough. I did this in my contracting business and people I contracted for did the same with me. Once they trusted me, they would send more business my way, even if I raised my rates! (Of course, on the flip side of the coin, I like my clients that paid on time and treated me well, so I didn't raise my rates arbitrarily for good clients, because I wanted to stay in their good graces.) Galambos came up with the concept of the "Moral Island" where, in the early days of this system, before it becomes widespread, a small group of people would band together who had good credit with each other, and tend to trade with one another. Anyone could join the Moral Island simply by being trustworthy and credit-worthy. In principle, as time went on, the size of the Moral Island would grow to encompass the vast majority of commerce, as people saw the benefits of trading together non-coercively and without reliance on statist-government regulation and punishment. A lowered credit rating in this environment would be punishment enough, because one's entire livelyhood could dry up and one would be forced off the Moral Island and into some kind of black market. The Moral Island was originally quite small - one person, I guess, Andrew J. Galambos - it grew as he grew his "market" (his term for his client base). Presumably (I don't have exact figures) but at one time the Moral Island encompassed, perhaps, in a narrowly defined way, as many as 5,000 people. I think as many as 30,000 people passed onto and then off of the Moral Island before sinking back into the sea. (Galambos has another term for the two types of people: people on the Moral Island are "spacelanders" and people off the Moral Island are "flatlanders" from the story "Flatland: A Romance in Many Dimensions," which you can read online here.) [In fact, there are many "Moral Islands", not just the trading group created by Galambos. Any time a group of people bands together for mutual profit a new Moral Island is created. But here I'm talking specifically about Galambos' Moral Island.] Over time, the number of people on the Moral Island has been shrinking dramatically. The reason for this is very simple: everyone who took courses from Galambos signed a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) which prohibited them from talking about the contents of the courses with flatlanders such as myself. It is only with the publication of SIAA volume one that there is anything public to talk about. A student's only choice was to discuss it with other spacelanders. The trouble was, Galambos liked to talk but didn't like to listen, and he eventually drove away almost all of his supporters. And if you were honest about the NDA, you couldn't really do much to apply any of his concepts in everyday life (at least commercially); and if you were dishonest about the NDA, and "disclosed," you were called a "Primary Thief" and kicked off the Moral Island. (A "Primary Thief" claims someone else's intellectual or "primary" property as their own or otherwise violates an intellectual property agreement.) So, over time, the vast majority of students simply left the Moral Island (because there wasn't anyone to trade with) or were kicked off by Andrew J. Galambos. To be sure, the vast majority of students loved the ideas presented but were just stuck with nothing to do. Small groups of students would band together to discuss the ideas but that was about the limit of what was allowable. These days, everyone eventually gets labeled a "Primary Thief" by someone else. There is a relatively new eGroups list called AndrewJGalambos which is rife with claims of this-or-that person being a Primary Thief. (I hesitate to mention because I don't want to appear to be endorsing it.) Pete Caneer, who moderates the list, seems to take personal responsibility for booting people off the Moral Island. I have an account on his list called "just_lurking" where I enjoy reading the various posts. Reading Mr. Caneer's eGroups list is a "guilty pleasure" - I feel that I shouldn't be looking at it (rather like looking at a car crash as one drives by), but it's difficult to resist. Every week, it seems, Mr. Caneer boots another person off the Moral Island. His main targets are those people specifically placed on the Moral Island by Andrew J. Galambos himself (the trustee of his estate and various helpers). Now, to be sure, Mr. Caneer can't really kick people off the Moral Island - he can only pretend to do so. But, like the TV show, there is great entertainment value in watching to see who will get booted off next. Another curious fact is that some people labeled and accepted as "Primary Thieves" (I'm thinking specifically of Harry Browne of Libertarian Party fame) are not because these people participated in the early formation of the Free Enterprise Institute or its predecessor, and were never bound by the NDA agreement that came later. To be sure, there were contractual relationships, but many of these contracts were signficantly different from the standard agreement that came later. Unfortunately, there is no chart showing the contributions of these early individuals. Hopefully, someday in th emounds of unfiled papers, Galambos' own list of inputs to his work will be discovered which would presumably give credit to this early band of innovators. One of the principles of Galambos' work is that the creator of a work (however that ends up being defined - that's the subject of another column) gets 100% control of his creation. In this case, Andrew J. Galambos appointed a specific individual to handle his estate. That means this person, Mr. Wayne Joyner, has 100% control of the estate, acting in Galambos' place. Remember that number: 100%. The funny thing about it all is that Galambos really hated political action - by that he meant people bitching and moaning about how someone isn't doing the right thing with their own property, and that someone else - generally the state - should step in and force that person to behave in accordance with another person's wishes. That was called coercion. For instance, Microsoft and Windows: through political action, rather than marketplace action, various commercial foes of Microsoft seek to limit Microsoft's success by controlling how Microsoft deals with its own property, the Windows operating system. But Mr. Caneer's activities consist solely of political action! To be sure, he hasn't sued the estate to force them to treat the property under its control differently (but a friend of his, Mr. William Martin, has, twice); but he does whine and complain and second guess and act morally outraged about everything the trustee does. The way I see it, if one really subscribes to Galambos' thesis, then if you're not happy with the service or product you're getting from someone, then you just go somewhere else. Instead, Mr. Caneer wants to tell the trustee "how to do it right." He uses the classic statist-swine excuse: the estate is "too important" to be left to the trustee. (You know, kids are "too important" to be raised by their parents, movies are "too important" to allow complete freedom of expression, etc.) It's a [relatively] free country, so Mr. Caneer can complain as much as he wants, and in doing so supply a fair amount of entertainment value to me. But I think if he really understood the principles of Galambos, he would know that Galambos' property is simply not his to control. It's under the control of someone else. It's really that simple. Here's a counter-example. I also moderate an eGroups list. Mine is volitional_science. (Actually, it's my wife's, since it was her idea, but I administer it, as she has delegated that role to me.) While I don't consider participants on my list to be either on or off the Moral Island, I do try to maintain the quality of the list, in order to attract higher-quality people to the discussion. This is intellectually profitable for me. From time-to-time, someone will appear on the list whose only purpose is to bitch about the quality of the work the trustee of the Galambos' estate (or his helpers) is doing. I have banned three of these people as of this writing. And do you know why? Because in Galambosian terms, I "own" the list, and I am granted (subject to the eGroups service agreement) total control over the list. Anyone who gets low credit with me gets banned. That's what total control means. (I don't really have total control, because there are contractual and legal limits - but I can ban anyone I want!) Maintaining the quality of the list - and this is a 100% subjective determination by me - is my role as list moderator. Other people who have low credit but not low enough to get banned are moderated. People with high credit are unmoderated. It's a very simple application of some very simple principles of Galambos. I consider it a "social experiment", if you will, where I can test if this proprietary "100% control" kind of thing can work. (So far, so good!) If people don't like my "government" of the list, they can go elsewhere. It's very simple. Plus, this is the US of A, and so anyone I ban can create a new list or post at, say, the eGroups/AndrewJGalambos list, where they are free, apparently, to rant and rave as they see fit (but not listen - see below). And since this list is "owned" by Mr. Caneer, he can run it in that fashion. (I myself get called lots of names by posters to the AndrewJGalambos list; I would quote a few of the more amusing ones but the posts to the eGroups lists are copyrighted, and I don't care to interact with the individuals who call me names.) So what's the point? The point is this: Galambos' thesis is that individuals should have 100% control over their property. And right now a simple social experiment is underway, testing whether that premise works, or, perhaps more importantly, if his students really understand and subscribe to that position. This business of 100% control or 0% coercion is pretty much the main point of the whole body of work. That means Mr. Joyner has 100% control (subject to any contractual obligations) and if you don't like it, you go elsewhere. And if your interpretation of what "Galambos would have done" is different, then tough! I'll be the first to admit that maybe it's a standard that doesn't make sense for humanity right now or perhaps ever; maybe people just don't work this way (but maybe they do if given a chance). Regardless, I still enjoy asking myself, "what can we do to move toward this high standard of conduct?" And I'm enjoying watching this social experiment - and watching to see who gets booted off the Moral Island next. Amusing addendum: It's taken me three days to write and edit this (and Kayler made a pass at the editing too). Yesterday, amazingly and I hope coincidentally, Mr. Caneer unsubscribed me from his list. (It's kind of like being "disavowed" in Mission Impossible.) I had never once posted to his list and Mr. Caneer probably didn't know that it was me, because he's not very computer literate (by his own admission). I didn't try to hide - I signed up as "just_lurking@atgp.com" which pretty well gives it away. But he didn't know about my "just_lurking" account until I announced it in my own list which he apparently reads on a consistent basis. Well, since Mr. Caneer is computer illiterate I had no trouble resubscribing and making one final post, which I will repeat here:
So there you go. I think that Moral Island is going to get pretty lonely pretty soon. |
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