But it isn’t, because no one has made that claim. No one is claiming utopia, which makes bullshit arguments such as Giles’ argument, all the more silly when he claims that the state has protected all individual rights, then equivocates when challenged on it.
If you’re going to pile on, at least pile on to a correct argument.
Your point about a billionaire being able to take over small states has nothing to do with what I’m saying, which is that billionaires have more power if they control the state than if they don’t. It goes like this
Billionaire has 10^9 dollars. Billionaire through the state has 10^9 + whatever it confiscates dollars. If the state can confiscate positive amounts of capital, the billionaire is more powerful with the state than without it.
When the state confiscates wealth it violates everyone’s security. If the state took all our labor and then put 1 guard / sq mile that would be the ultimate defense against idk wild boars mauling me. It would also be the ultimate assault on my self ownership.
This also avoids the point I’m making, which is that if a private citizen waged a war he would be limited to his own estates for funding. If a government wages a war it typically confiscates as much as it needs (will even conscript) in order to get what it wants.
So your argument is a strawman?
You cannot have it both ways, his response is a direct challenge to yours.
He made no such claim now you are lying.
The word all appears no where in his statement.
LS student was advancing the protection of >all< citizen’s rights as a criterion for legitimacy. Its a burden being thrown onto Giles, not something LS thought Giles said.
Illogical, a Billionaire has to pay taxes to the state and thus has less wealth with the state than without. I have no idea what you mean by “confiscates dollars”.
Again which makes the argument for the superiority of the state to provide security.
This is just not true. Clearly any political actor will have to interact with other political actors, who will presumably have their own interests in mind. There will be incompatible plans and trade-offs between actors in the political realm just as there is in the economic arena.
This is true, by the way, even in a dictatorship.
I agree with your definitions, but your conclusions just don’t follow. I don’t even know why you bothered speaking about incentives when you disregared the possibility of alignment of interests between political and economic actors from the go.
And I would say the same about most here, and to a lesser extent myself.
LibertyStudent, there’s nothing to retract. States have protected the rights of individuals throughout history, a brief look around you will confirm this.
There isn’t a simple yes-or-no answer, and I’m not in a position to give a full answer. However, for the most part I believe markets are superior to monopolies. Is this true for the provision of security? Perhaps it may be in particular cases, it certainly is not a priori true and it is most likely to be untrue in particular instances (if, for example, we assume the best possible government and worst possible result of the market).
(God, I hate quote bombs)
Giles already responded to this.
I don’t think you know what a strawman is.
I don’t see that it is.
Unqualified means all. Learn it.
And it’s time for you to shape up. Right now.
Only in Bizarro-world where freedom is slavery, war is peace, and we’ve always been at war with mid-east-asia.
Logical argumentation just isn’t your thing.
So when I say, I just ate a tuna and cheese sandwich, am I really saying “I ate all the tuna and cheeses sammiches”?
Fine. Billionaire has to pay taxes so 10^9 dollars → 9x10^8 dollars under the state. 10^9 << 9 x10^8 + confiscated capital if you can confiscate enough wealth. There are also privileges of the state which money usually can’t buy, like perceived legitimacy.
You have a very perverse definition of security. Confiscation of wealth and liberty is a direct breach of security.
Nope. A brief look shows states have always violated the rights of those they are supposedly protecting. I know of no state which did not tax in any manner. That alone disqualifies any state as protecting the rights of individuals. You cannot protect the rights of individuals with institutionalized violation of rights.
Of course you can. I never made any claims about the violation of property rights, my only claim was a simple empirical one, states have protected property rights at some time during their existence.
You qualified it with the article “a”.
Is English not your first language, Giles?
Prove it. Now.
So you are illogical?
Not in the context he wrote it in which was a generality not definitive.
You need to clarify this, what exactly are you referring to?
This doesn’t seem to happen in real life. There are theoretical arguments why this is will not be the case, namely that politicians have more to gain by coalescing around the state and fighting off minority political groups.
But a dictatorship only has one true political actor…
How can you agree with my definitions if my conclusions come directly out of them? You don’t even say why my conclusions dont follow you just kind of state it.
Because understanding incentive structures allows you to predict what will happen? The alignment of interests between political and economic actors is exactly what we want to avoid, since economic actors will use the power of the state to advantage themselves in the market. See corporatism in America.
What I think you mean to say is that I disregard the possibility that politicals will be friendly to free markets. If they were friendly to free markets they wouldn’t tax them. If they don’t tax them they are no longer a government. Again, this line of thought follows from the definitions of what we’re talking about.
I get what you’re saying. I was there once too. The best possible gov vs the worst possible market is a comparison between two different worlds. Like modern government/lifestyle is waay better than prehistoric conditions, but this is because of other factors such as technology and culture.
The question you really mean to raise is this: If you take a society, will it be better off running itself or should we set up a monopoly to take care of certain industries. Setting up the monopoly does bring with it improved technology, and can only create a position of abuse within the marketplace.
Not sure which part needs clarification. I’ll do all of it.
I’m saying that paying taxes just means the billionaire has slightly less money. This pales in comparison to the amount of power he can extract by being the state.
And obviously the state does have things money can’t buy. The perceived legitimacy is very very potent. I mean America can go to war in the middle east for completely malignant purposes and get away with it because its perceived as a government as opposed to an agglomeration of corporate interests. No one would tolerate it if Haliburton waged war on poor brown people just to service their wells.
No, your re-framing of my argument is a strawman.
Indeed I can. I never claimed the opposite of what he proposed. He made a positive claim, and cannot substantiate it.
For example, Giles, “Oranges taste good”, Me “Prove they taste good”, Poptart “You can’t have it both ways, you are saying oranges taste bad”
Sure he did.
But he implies it when he says individual rights are protected. We all know that the state only protects individual rights, by attacking individual rights. There is no absolute property rights with a state, and so the state cannot protect ANY rights.
Which makes Giles claim, that the state protects rights, false.
Thanks for playing.