While even the dimmest observer could see the violence that broke out among the crowds of people who waited hours or even days for the Playstation 3 to launch, a deceptively mundane, yet highly complex, phenomena was at work outside a Chicago Best Buy that would make Hans-Hermann proud.
In “Playstation 3 release: Chicago gamers create utopia on a Best Buy sidewalkâ€, The Methods Reporter accounts of how two men, one a railroad engineer, the other an investment banker, rose to the top as natural aristocrats that facilitated the smooth functioning of a society of people gathered for days to wait for the release of the Playstation 3.
There was friendship and entertainment. Absent any powers of compulsion, engineer Angel Colon and banker Peter Cahill helped people stay warm in the cold, arranged orderly methods of leaving the line, providing food, and the taking of restroom breaks. They arbitrated problems with Best Buy’s management, and in general, “For every problem that arose, we had a quick solution.â€
Despite the article title’s claim that such a society was a “utopiaâ€, it was a perfectly realizable one. Given the reaches of democracy and government today, perhaps instances like this seem to be aberrations. But those who appreciate markets understand, as Angel Colon notes, “Once we had a little bit of unity and a little bit of rules everybody realized this was the best way to do things.â€
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Hardly Hoppeian, I’d say. More like everyone-who-happened-to-be-there-ian.
Angelo Mike is right on the money when he says Hoppeian since Professor Hoppe talks about how elites by merit would be natural aristocrats that lead an anarchist society.
Short Sony for this fiasco… this is stupid business – raise the price, or supply more. Unless this was a publicity stunt hoping to make the psx3 into a tickle-me-elmo and elicit group-think demand (in which case it is very desperate, a sign that they know where the psx3 is headed, and the stunt will likely fail anyway).
“The Bossman invited Cahill to join him at the front of the line.”
HA! The corruption begins already! You don’t think that the ‘government’ that we all know and ‘love’ didn’t begin exactly like this?
And what if someone didn’t want to abide by the rules set by Colon? Does that mean that they lose their ‘right’ to their place in line if they left? Could people make individual line agreements without Colons permission, and what would he do in such a circumstance?
Sounds as though Colon assumed monopoly control of rule setting. And then, as “The Corruptor” says, dished out benefits for his favoured.
Sure it was all voluntary and he was just the ‘facilitator’ but then that’s what statists tell me about society and govt.
Perhaps this article suggests the opposite of the Mises.org author’s intent – that while socities need rules of engagement the natural tendency will be towards a monopolisation of the creation and control of those rules in a small power-elite that will eventually form a state/govt.
Colon and Cahill didn’t have any coercive powers over the people in line.
“No police power, guys. Colon and Cahill didn’t have any coercive powers over the people in line.”
Obviously they didn’t and that’s not what I’m talking about (and one might argue that’s only because those powers are already comandeered by the state anyway).
I’m thinking how much pressure would be brought to bear by Colon if anyone tried to ignore his ‘rules’ or set up an alternative ‘rule making’ enterprise? In other words I’m sure it was a ‘utopia’ if you agreed with his rules. But if you don’t, well then what? Free to find another store to queue up outside….?
Why would anyone have had to leave the line? Prove that Colon and Cahill could have forcibly kicked them out and you will have made your case. We have no reason to believe that other, better providers of order or that arrangements without any specified authorities could not have arisen if anyone in the crowd wanted alternatives.
The two men simply had a similar authority to that of an employer or landlord, and even at that, they made no contracts and had no enforcement power. They just relied on the good will of the other gamers.
I don’t think it was quite utopian, Hoppeian nor kosher for Colon to give Cahill the 2nd spot in line for an extra $150 when he had justly secured the 23rd spot. I wonder what would have happened if others in the line protested. Monopoly control of rule setting sounds about right in this case.
“Why would anyone have had to leave the line? Prove that Colon and Cahill could have forcibly kicked them out and you will have made your case.”
They wouldn’t have had to leave, and of course Colon and Cahill would have no authority to make them do so. We also don’t know of any better arrangement since nobody offered one. This could have meant everybody agreed with the rules and so we have the ideal, or perhaps nobody wanted to challenge the rules. In any case we simply know it didn’t occur.
I am not disputing that this is not an example of voluntary agreement and reliance upon goodwill etc. That much is clear. But this is not the interesting case to me as I already agree that such an arrangement where everyone agrees to agree has no reason not to work. What I would like to see is how the situation would be dealt with if (say) most people agreed with Colons rules but some didn’t and didn’t intend to abide by them either.
“he two men simply had a similar authority to that of an employer or landlord”
He only has authority for those who choose to abide. In this case it appears to have been for everyone which is simple.
Frankly, this whole PS3 thing demonstrated a complete lack of rationality for everyone involved. Sony, for not making enough of the damn things. Retailers, for going along with this asinine release date thing, knowing there weren’t enough damn things coming. Consumers for being total morons and not voluntarily postponing their consumption until a time when more of the things would be available.
I personally will do my Christmas shopping on December 26th.
“Colon and Cahill didn’t have any coercive powers over the people in line.”
Are you sure about that? This sentence from the article would seem to conradict that (unless I am misconstruing its meaning):
“…No one joined the line without Angel’s permission. He personally confronted everyone who mysteriously ‘turned up’ in line.”
Wow, that’s great. Anarchism works. What about the places where people kicked each others butt to get into the stores and got hurt?
Hi there, everyone.
I wrote this story and am glad to see some actual smart discussion of the things that drew me to it in the beginning. Most of the discussion of the story so far on other sites has centered around “Playstion sux!” “no nerds suck!” etc etc
Anyway, Angel didn’t have coercive police powers per se, but he controlled “the list,” Best Buy had appointed him official keeper of the list.
The list said who was going to get a playstation and who wasn’t. It had everyone’s name on it along with their spot in line, how many 1 hour breaks they’d taken and when and where they went. It was a pretty impressive document actually. I wanted to take a picture of it to include in the story but realized I’d have to blank out a lot of the names which would make it a lame visual.
So Angel definitely had some authority and power, if someone ticked him off he could simply write you off.
THe thing was though. I don’t think the other people in line would have stood for it. He wasn’t THAT completely in control.
Peter, the I-banker was the interesting one. He saw an angle and worked it, teaming up with the guy at the head of the line, buying his partnership with fast food, $200 and “coolness points.”
The other people in line all knew that Angel had some sort of mysterious, rich backer who drove an Audi, it gave Angel a bit more “street cred.”
When we first arrived at the store and were trying to learn what we could about Angel, he and everyone else was talking about Peter in pretty hyperbolic terms (trying to impress us). We learned he was “probably in the mafia,” “easily a millionaire” and all sorts of other things. The truth was a bit more down to earth (we lucked out when he showed up around 2am in his audi with food for Angel’s family), but still interesting.
I’m glad you’ve enjoyed the article. I’d love to see some more posts of this caliber over on the actual Methods Reporter comment page for the story. feel free to post your thoughts over there.
Also, I’ve written to the blogger who posted this and asked him to change the link to the story in his post. I-am-bored.com is a neat site, but the story is actually on The Methods Reporter, not I am bored. They frame the sites they link to, which I think is a very subtle, insidious form of theft. When google looks at their site and sees my content on it, they might start sending people to my story on their site, as opposed to sending them to my site, where the story actually is. This costs me money (i pay for the traffic while I-am-bored.com gets the visitors).
Anyway, thanks again and I’ll be checking in to see that that link gets swapped out.
This looks like an awesome blog. really sharp stuff in here. A refreshing change from the usual response!
Feel free to contact me using the contact page on the methods reporter site. I’d love to talk more about this.
http://www.methodsreporter.com/contact-the-methods-reporter/
Brad Flora
Graduate Journalism Student
Medill School of Journalism
Marty, to point out that people were violent in other lines is not an indictment of anarchy. To show that, given those same people, a government would have made them better (they live under a government now that failed to provide protection there) would be an indictment of it.
As it is, the people who were victims of violence may not be able to legally get compensation, since the police would be hard pressed to find out who exactly the perpetrators were, and since the government doesn’t actually make violent criminals give restitution unless you’ve incurred medical bills.
So, if all that happened is you got bruised after being punched or kicked, if you can manage to get a confession out of the aggressor to a police officer, then you can go to court (in about a month), yours and everyone else’s taxes will go towards paying the court costs, and the guilty person may be sentenced to anger management and probation so he becomes a better citizen, but not so he makes any restitution towards you.
The store is private property.The walk outside is public property.It is not too surprising that people behave like animals on public property.
On someones private property you have to behave or they can make you leave.Make all property private,solve a lot of the worlds problems(anarcho-capitalism in a nutshell.)
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