When I move in next door, you’re consenting to wearing a funny hat if you don’t leave. I’ll also help myself to your fridge. Don’t like it? Tough luck. You will have to move out of neighborhood to revoke your tacit consent.
More legal positivism. Yuck!
To once again use my rape analogy, what you are saying is that a little bit of rape is more desirable to no rape because no rape will eventually lead to rape.
Since you probably won’t understand my argumentum ad rapum, allow me to try this:
What you are saying is that a little bit of state is more desirable to no state because no state will eventually lead to state. However, if that is the case, then why support a little bit of state when it will eventually become big state? Case in point being the USA government.
Read “Has Government Any Role in Money?” By the late seventies and eighties he was rethinking the entire idea of central banking. “Our [Friedman and Schwartz] own conclusion… is that leaving monetary arrangements to the market would have produced a more satisfactory outcome than was actually achieved through government involvement.”
Further, he advocated the k-percent rule because he saw it as necessary to counteract deflationary and inflationary forces in the economy (such as the state).“…monetary policy can contribute to offsetting major disturbances in the economic system arising from other sources.”
Pragmatic and not a strong advocate of central banking seems like an apt description.
One view is obviously false as people have, in fact, traded without a state.
Obviously free trade produces losers then. [8-)]
First off, note that the k-percent rule absolutely requires a government agency of some kind, so there is no doubt that Friedman was for some kind of central bank, monetary authority, or whatever you want to call it.
Without having read the recommended article, I want to say that the statement “our own conclusion… is that leaving monetary arrangements to the market would have produced a more satisfactory outcome than was actually achieved through government involvement” refers to banks controlling money substitutes, which doesn’t push a central bank (or a monetary authority) out of the picture. Greenspan (a well-known Friedmanite and “libertarian” monetarist) holds a similar view.
Basically, from what I understand, Friedman came to advocate steady growth in M0 (which the Fed/a central bank/a monetary authority does control) while allowing the banks to control M1, M2, and M3 through fractional reserve banking.
Certainly, but its quite obvious that his views on central banking still changed over time. And the article makes it clear that he believed that (at least in principle) the government need not play any role.
“The apparently great value to the economy of having a single unit of account linked with an (ultimate) medium of exchange does not mean that government must play any role, or that there need be a single producer of the medium of exchange.”
Perhaps you should read the article. The conclusion is to 4 points pertaining to the nature of money.
His views changed considerably over time and by the late 70’s he was rethinking his earlier ideas. By the time of his death (I believe) he thought that central bank should only focus on particular inflationary areas in the economy. He was an uneasy advocate of central banking, not strong, and clearly pragmatic.
It should be fairly obvious that your common democrat is not a socialist. Just because a person advocates more government involvement in the economy, that doesn’t make them a socialist.
Not really. How does one stop the government from committing extortion and slavery, once it is legal for the government to commit extortion and slavery? Since you can’t, that means government will always get bigger, no matter what your dream of what just the right size of government should be. And everyone will have a different opinion of what just the right amount of government should be as well.
I just do not understand the small government thinking. If smaller government is always better, then why would none not be the best? Really, the only thing the government can do is violate your freedoms. That’s it. That is all the power it has. It cannot make you more productive. It cannot make you safer. It cannot improve your standard of living. It can only lower your standard of living by taking away your freedoms.
And a “little bit” is completely arbitrary and up for interpretation. To one person, a little bit could be a few seconds. For someone else, it could be for a few minutes. For someone else, it could be for 30 minutes. Which is why government will keep on getting bigger and bigger, since no one knows what just the right amount of extortion and slavery is. Well except for anarchists, that know that the only acceptable amount of mass extortion and slavery is none.
This is it in a nutshell.
I just do not understand the no government thinking. To me it’s naive. It imagines morality as having some significant bearing on reality. It imagines humans as logical and reasonable and rational. It imagines that humans do not act out of narrow self interest but instead out of some grand enlightened self interest.
Anarchists require explanations for war, explanations for the use of force. Minarchists, or at least I, require explanations for peace and explanations for why force shouldn’t be used.
It imagines that government cannot be useful at all and that all it can do is impede human action in a negative way. It imagines that logic and reason can rule supreme in a land inhabited by man.
It seeks logical consistency in a chaotic, irrational, illogical world.
Anarchists take a premise and then extrapolate it to its extreme end and only accept the premise if the end is as desirable and acceptable as the premise. I don’t engage in those kinds of activities.
I don’t seek 100 percent consistency. I was trained in Jiu Jitsu, I see life as a chaotic battle.
Your vision is simply incompatible with mine. I’m not condemning your vision. It’s a fine vision. But one I don’t think I could ever possibly share. But I’ve been wrong before, we’ll see.
O sure. But not in economies of scale.
I fear this statement is horribly unclear.
What I’m trying to say here is that in economies of scale, the social forces that would incentivize honest and fair play dissipate because of the possibility of anonymity. So there has to be a larger social force encouraging honesty and fair play, and that force, as of now, is the institution of government.
Because I don’t see a better alternative.
I’m reading Machinery of Freedom right now though, and if I see something I like, perhaps it will change my mind.
Wow. “He’s a better question mr. anti-war, why aren’t you being carpet-bombed right now?”
Luckily, most minarchists don’t feel this way.
I can’t speak for all minarchists, I can only speak for myself.
Although I think I should’ve worded it “explanations for why force isn’t used more often than it is.” That would’ve been better.
What do you mean?
No, that would be a fact. Humans are logical, reasonable, and rational.
Then I would say you do not understand Austrian economics.
In anarchy, there will be no war, because there will be no state. Since I conjecture that once one group of people frees themselves from government, it will only be a matter of a few years for the rest of the planet to free themselves.
So you think there is no truth?
De La Boetie.
Strawman. Two actually.
Incorrect.
Not imagines. It is logically provable.
Another strawman.
Failure to understand human action, leading to another strawman.
You mean you do not employ logic.
Let’s hope, because you really do seem like a bright fellow, and I would really like to figure out why people like you and Poptech appeal to ideas and reason, and then turn around and say that ideas and reason don’t matter when you’re shown to be inconsistent. I can understand being obstinate, but you at least are clever enough to admit that you have more to learn (we all do) and that you could be in error.
I’m surprised you don’t see the error, when you claim something, then turn around and claim to not be logical. What you’re saying is, “This is my argument, but it doesn’t count because it is arbitrary.”
I think there will always be war. It’s part of human nature. Not a product of human institutions.
No absolute truth, no. Because I don’t believe in God.
Truth is relative to the observer.
Even science doesn’t pretend to hold truths. Just proofs. Theories that best explain things. That is, until a better theory comes along that more closely reflects empirical data.
My argument only counts for me. If other people find something they like about it, they’ll follow it. But then it will be their argument and not mine.