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drethelin comments on Stupid Questions September 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Why would they feel bound by the rules of capitalism but not by rules of other types of societies?
Because choosing to bind yourself by the rules of capitalism is profitable to them. Just like a psychopath can decide to cooperate in an iterated prisoner's dilemma purely out of self-interest, they can decide to lawfully run a business.
So why can't they decide to lawfully run a barony under feudalism? Or be a lawful satrap/pasha/governor/whatever?
Because you don't generally get to DECIDE to be a baron? You can inherit one, in which case a psychopath can to a large extent do what he wants with it without suffering repercussions, you can be granted one by the king (which is at least SOME sort of incentive system), or you can get a bunch of random guys together, start and army, and take one. At which point you can usually do whatever you want with it.
Of course rich guys can do a lot with the power they have once they have it, but the path to getting it is far more likely to involve helping a lot of people if it needs you to convince a bunch of different people to give you money for your services.
The original question was why would sociopaths bind themselves by the rules of capitalism, but not by rules of other socioeconomic systems. That's a different question than whether sociopaths' climb to the top can be made useful for others.
Because capitalism rewards such compliance, whereas other socioeconomic systems at the least incentivize breaking the rules, and at the worst punish compliance.
You don't rise to barony by following the rules in feudalism.
I don't think so. What you would actually prefer to do is to blow up your competitors and establish a monopoly -- not much different from, say, poisoning your political enemies and acquiring the loyalty of some capable troops in pre-capitalist societies.
In all systems you can ploddingly follow the rules and expect some modest success; or you can break the rules and go for a lot of power/wealth -- at the risk of death/disgrace.
And yet people don't go around blowing up their competitors - except perhaps in the black market, where such behavior, while not exactly routine, also isn't entirely unheard of. There's an incentive structure to deal with that, too, you see, and the risk/reward payoff strongly favors following the rules. Especially if you're the sort of person who -could- take over an entire country in the first place.
It's a bit like democracy and civil war; if you can win the civil war, you'd be better off just winning the election.
I don't know -- do you think the rate of blowing up your competitors in, say, XIX century USA was much different from the rate of poisoning your enemies in e.g. XVII century Persia?
Yep, and there were incentive structures to deal with that in the pre-capitalist societies as well. Polities where everyone is free to poison anyone don't last long...
Without restricting the method of murder to poisoning, yes, quite significantly.
Polities where everyone is at least plotting to murder everyone else (in the aristocracy) were largely the norm throughout most of history.
Indeed. If you can become Tony Soprano and intimidate potential competition into not going into business against you, then you make more money than you would otherwise...