Mises was a minarchist.
Mises even served as an economic advisor to the Austrian government!
Minarchists are statists too. Surely a small government advocate cannot say he is not for government.
So you’re calling Ludwig von Mises a statist.
And you’re saying he wasn’t?
A small government advocate is still a statist. If a small government is justified, so is a big government.
Yes.
I see nothing wrong with a government that just protects property rights.
Why? What is your definition of statist that somehow allows a small state?
How can the government protect property rights? The government by its very existance tramples on property rights.
How can you say that, then say no to national defense? Or feeding the poor? What an intellectually compromised position.
Minarchism was tried and it failed. It’s called the US gov’t.
Statism is the state intervening in voluntary interaction. If a government protected property rights and that was it then there is nothing you can complain about.
I can say no to all those things easily because they involve theft and murder.
But someone who wishes to live under the authority of a government (read: voluntarily) that just protects property rights has nothing to do with statism.
Well, contractually speaking, a vote is not consent to the states power. From the view of contract law, contracts cannot be entered anonymously. As a vote is an anonymous thing, no one can take the list of those who voted and say “Here, these are the people who consented to the rule of government.”
Interestingly, Spooner pointed out that neither paying taxes or voting are consent, but defense. And neither make the Constitution legally binding on any of us.
You are actually just trying to excercise the privledge given to you by the statists in having even the smallest say as to what is done with your property after it is stolen from you. This is a purely defensive act. Just as a conscripted soldier is forced to shoot at those he wouldn’t voluntarily shoot, we are forced into the legislation process against others who would not like their stolen goods used in such a way.
If you choose not to vote, how can you complain about anything that the government that rules over you does?
I did not say it was a contract. But surely a vote is not anyoymous when it requires photo ID.
By cooperating with the state in doing something entirely voluntary that endorses the state, you vote for more theft. And more statism.
I did not vote, so I did not endorse the winner. By voting, you have said majority rules is the right way to determine the winner. So you’re the one who cannot complain.
John Locke advocated a minimalist state to enforce Natural Law, which is directly related to Natural Rights. Essentially, we have a right under Natural to defend ourselves and others from force used against us, and the purpose of government for Locke was that this was the only right we could give to another entity. In fact, it was preferrable to have an objective third party to help in the securing of property without overreaction.
Now I fully understand that this is not the case in practice, but this seems to be because the people do not hold the government accountable, and honestly have no proper means to do so. This is one place I would like to see the Constitution Amended, though in honesty I would love to bring back the Articles.
If I have a right to defend myself, I don’t need a monopoly on the use of force (the state) in order to do so. In fact, such a monopoly necessarily violates my right to defend myself, because only the state is allowed to use force.
I’d love to see the US break up into the disunited states, but that’s not going to happen. I’d love to see Ron Paul win, but he ain’t going to, and if he does he probably will be assinated. Lincoln and JFK were assinated for planning/attempting to remove power from the central banks.
What I’d love most is if there was an election, and nobody voted. If nobody believed in government, even using government to kill government.
In a private organization it often makes sense to vote. If I purchasing shares in a corporation, I am also (usually) purchasing the right to vote on matters determined by the board, in addition to my ownership of the capital. Likewise, my vote counts in proportion to the number of shares (property) I own. There is nothing immoral about that. Now, if my local town were arranged as a corporation and not some “public” entity, I could see purchasing a share of the the town, under some contractual obligation to pay the town money for shared services (in lieu of taxes) I could then exercise a vote to elect a board to represent my interests. There is nothing inherently immoral about that. Now blow that up into an entire country or world (UN) to vote or elect somebody to represent me is not really immoral, but absurd.
We’ve basically got two ways to replace the current governmet in the USA or one of its states:
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Peaceful means, which in a democracy is voting.
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A violent revolution.
I know which one I’d rather have. The first method gets a government the majority wants, while the second gets a government based on who is left standing at the end of some sort of conflict. Even if the US goes completely broke tomarrow and its government disolves, it is likely that voting will still be used to establish a successor. Democracy is far from perfect, but it beats selecting leaders via violence. It allows people to peacefully remove some from power and replace them, something that, prior to democracy, was unheard of.
Also, I think its incorrect to call Mises a ‘statist’. He was a minarchist yes, but he also believe in the allowance secession, which means that taxation is effectively no longer compulsory.
if everything around me is a compulsory state, then i cannot secede as a person, even if i had the ‘right to secession’.
how much is a vote worth? not much. but campaigning - that’s another question. Hell, if it’s rational to kill the tyrant, why not try to vote him away?
I would prefer if peace were not defined as the lack of physical violence, but rather it be defined as the lack of coercion. Simple math tells us that government=coercion, so to give the politicians the claim that you support them by touting your vote around would be folly. Recently my county voted on whether to allow the local horse racing track and casino to host table games. I refused to vote because a “yes” or a “no” would imply that I have a right to tell them how to run their business in the first place. I of course do not believe this, so I did not vote.
In regards to Ron Paul, his victory would be one of the best things possible for the country short of an anarcho-capitalist revolution. However, every vote for a politician is a vote in favor of goverment. I am constantly encouraging those people who “vote for voting’s sake” to vote for Ron Paul though I will not do so myself, nor will I donate money or time for his campaign.
I certainly think that a voter turn-out of 10% or less would indicate the impossibility of our government remaining intact. It would mean that people are tired of the oppression enough to begin resisting and trying out a new way.
I would most like to see the Libertarian party convert to anarcho-capitalism and open more institutions like the Mises Institute, which has a much greater effect on the populace than the Libertarian Party…after all, no one in politics seems to be adopting their ideas, which is usually what we see happen with significant third parties.
In short, Ron Paul is the best would-be oppressor, but as an agent of government and an enforcer of coercion, he would be an oppressor nonetheless, and so he’ll get no support from me.
Thats broken logic. There will be a president whether you vote or not.
You voting does not increase the chance of there being a next Hitler, it can do nothing but decrease it(if only slightly).
Are the people who say that democracy is legitmate because people vote correct? Of course not.
If anything, voting against the establishment reduces their ability to claim a “mandate.”
Revolutions are messy things, and certainly not lacking in coercion. Most people who support bad governments do so out of good motives, and do not deserve the indiscriminate violence of a revolution.
Voting is an action, not an implication. Not voting is also an action. You may think voting or not implies something, but thats irrelevant to the actual effects of voting. The fact of the matter is that, through voting, you can decrease the injustice done by government. If a ballot option was to break the government up into your ideal state of anarchy, would you not vote for that? Of course, no vote is perfect, and no candidate is either. You will never have an option to vote for or work towards something you consider totally just. All options have drawbacks.
It is (unless the ballot includes an anarchy option, which is unlikely), but not voting is an action in favor of more government, since Dr. Paul is clearly the smallest government person who is running. Not voting gives a boost to the candidates you would not have voted for.
Then by what means would they try this “new way”? Would they just stop paying taxes? That would be nice, but there are other ways of going about it too. Violence of any sort would be my last choice.
If enough people embraced anarcho-capitalism in a small area, they could secede by refusing to obey the US government any longer and declaring independence. I seriously doubt that if something like the Free State Project for anarcho-capitalists was successful in this regard, the US would roll in the tanks. However, we’ve seen it before.