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No, a free market is where everything is FREEEEEE!

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, July 30, 2007 - 06:22 pm: Edit

Loren Knight Said on Saturday, July 28, 2007: SPP: Would you say that security companies never contract with Freighters to move personnel in exchange for security services?

If Knight Securities lands a contract to provide a platoon (3-4 boarding parties) of security personnel to a mine on Tanstaafl IV, I would not consider it unusual for the company to see if there is a freighter going from whereever Knight Securities is located to that planet and seeing if they company could arrange moving the men at a discount.

Knight Securities might have the platoon located on the colony of "Whattheheck" where it has just finished a previous contract and note that if would help the company's bottom line if that platoon were moved to the new job site and maybe there is a freighter that will go from Whattheheck to Tanstaafl IV, or at least pass close enough that it might be willing to make a detour.

But notice that Knight Securities is a business that has administrators that are trying to figure all this out.

And maybe that platoon on Whattheheck would be a good fit for the job, but a third of the men are at the end of their contracts and do not want to go to Tanstaafl, so Knight securities has to figure out how to get an extra squad to Tansataafl.

So, sure, some freighters might be moving boarding parties that belong to security companies on a basis of "our guys will provide you security on this run if you just feed them and shelter them", but the deal will probably be more of a 'if you will discount the costs' if the freighter captain did not really think he needed the extra security.

On the other hand, the freighter captain might be willing to do it on the basis of Knight Securities giving him a promisory note of a reduced cost for hiring a security team on some future date.

Anything is possible.

What is not possible is random teams of gunsels walking up to freighters and offering their services outside of really desperate captains who really should not be hiring such unsavory characters (and that is how role players get the captain to take them where they need to go without belonging to some security company).

You are not going to make a living by "selling your sword" to freighter captains because you are an unknown that represents an increased risk of the freighter crew winding up spaced.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, July 30, 2007 - 06:36 pm: Edit

SPP: Then I am in full agreement and understanding of the situation. I totally agree with the last part. I admit (actually I did so earlier) that I had not thought about it from you point of view but I totally agree.

Thanks for that answer. It's also interesting that you point out that a freighter Master might take a sort of rain check or coupon for future needs. I like that idea a lot.

I suggest that there be some article in PD Feds or Captains Log defining this point. Your above post couldn't be more clear.

By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Tuesday, July 31, 2007 - 09:33 am: Edit

SPP wrote "Tanstaafl IV" I see you have been re-reading your Heinlien.

Personally, I re-read H Beam Piper's "Uller Uprising" last night. Man could that guy write!

Late last week I read the second installment of "the Traveller" by Mr Twelve Hawks and it was good. Not QUITE as excellent as the first installment, but still worth reading.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Tuesday, July 31, 2007 - 10:50 am: Edit

For those who haven't read Heinlein, 'Tanstaafl' is an acronym for "there aint no such thing as a free lunch."

I believe it was in the novel "The Moon is a Harsh mistress", and is a story about revolution, that incidently covers a number of other subjects as well, including Economics.

By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Tuesday, July 31, 2007 - 11:35 am: Edit

AND:

Artificial Intelligence
Cellular structure of revolutionary groups
Communications
Family dynamics (ie alternate family structures)
Revolutionary dynamics

EXCELLENT book. One of the classics

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Tuesday, July 31, 2007 - 01:10 pm: Edit

While "tanstaafl" is something I am certain I picked up from Heinlein, I could not swear that I got it from "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress". I tend, in my mind, to associate it more with Heinlein's immortal "Lazarus Long".

You have to bear in mind, however, that Heinlein was rather . . . erratic, and his grasp of things history, at least as stated by some of his characters, was not always accurate.

An example is an excerpt from "The Notebooks of Lazarus Long".

"No nation has a right to survive through the use of conscript troops. In ancient times Roman Matrons sent their sons off to war with the words 'With your shield or on it' denoting their status as volunteers. In time, this custom declined. So did Rome."

Rationally, no nation can survive total war without the use of conscription. While much is made about the inferiority of conscript versus volunteer soldiers, the U.S. would have lost World War II to the Conscript armies of Germany and Japan without the draft.

The Roman State itself was founded on a draft system. It was the obligation of every citizen to defend the state, and the means of determining who would was by lottery. THAT CUSTOM declined, being replaced first with Armies raised by the wealthy to serve the state, and then with long service regulars. So much so that Rome became incapable of defending itself.

Further, Roman Matrons never said "With your shield or on it", the quote is attributed to SPARTAN Matrons, and Sparta was the ULTIMATE example of conscription (congratulations, you have been born a Spartan, you're drafted).

While conscript soldiers are frequently not as good as volunteers and professionals, some of that is determined simply by whether or not the conscript believes:

a.) The conscription system is fair and

b.) The cause is worth fighting for

Given A and B, conscripts can be (and historically have been) effective soldiers.

When the citizens no longer consider the state to be worth fighting for, or accept as an obligation the duty to defend the state as part of citizenship, the state is ultimately doomed. You wind up with large masses of fleeing civilians decrying why the state has failed to defend them from the barbarians.

And, yes, that may be us one day, history does repeat.