Do you believe that those in power in a democracy have your best interests in mind and are not in such a position to increase their own personal power/wealth? Do you believe that they will always make decisions based on the desires of the people rather than their own personal desires? In short, do you believe that all polititions are altruists?
It sounds like we agree that, given 100% open borders and free trade, that it is advantageous for each state to be able to set their own drug policies. What about involuntary manslaughter? Is there an advantage to having a shared national law regarding things such as involuntary manslaughter (i.e.: hitting someone with your car) with national penalties compared to each state being able to set their own manslaughter laws along with their own set of penalties? Let’s say NY doesn’t consider it a crime unless I had the intent of killing someone but Pennsylvania considers it a severe crime and equal to 1st degree murder. As long as I can choose to live in the state with the laws that I find most in line with my views, is there a problem with each state having it’s own set of laws?
For drugs I prefer to use the same national policy that has been adopted for vegetables. In other words, the absence there of.
So cocaine is required (by the FDA) to be labeled organic or inorganic and it has to be packaged with labels that show ingretients, dietary tables and allergy warning?
No. They will only have your best interests in mind to the extent that they are accountable for their actions (which depends on the type of constitution, really).
I have a sneaking suspicion you are slowly trying to lure me into defending a system that is solely propertarian and one which is contract based by having me first agree with the idea of a ‘competing states scenario’, the logical continuation of which would be pure anarcho-capitalism (i.e. law of the landowner). Nonetheless, I do not consider it ethical for a competing states system to implement laws which could, potentially go against non-agression axiom. We already have this system in many ways, when you think about it; people ‘choose where they live’. But there is not necessarily open borders. Are you trying to say open borders would eventually result in anarchy?
I would describe this minarchist democracy republic as being the ‘lesser evil’, so to speak. I could, theoretically turn your argument back against AnCap but that would take a lot of energy I don’t have at the mo.
They will only have your best interests in mind to the extent that they are accountable for their actions (which depends on the type of constitution, really).
Who/what enforces holding them accountable for their actions? The current democratic system in the US has a constitution that is openly violated without public approval, so clearly just writing on a piece of paper can’t enforce accountability and public opinion can’t do it either.
I have a sneaking suspicion you are slowly trying to lure me into defending a system that is solely propertarian and one which is contract based by having me first agree with the idea of a ‘competing states scenario’, the logical continuation of which would be pure anarcho-capitalism
You are exactly right.
Yes, I do believe that given 100% open borders and countries not forcing their beliefs on other countries would eventually lead to some form of global capitalism (very long way off though). Unfortunately the hard part is exactly that, the big countries are against open borders and they are against allowing other countries to self-govern.
Nonetheless, I do not consider it ethical for a competing states system to implement laws which could, potentially go against non-agression axiom.
Based on your use of the word ‘ethical’ I assume that you believe in a metaphysical and unprovable universal moral code? Some set of rules that transcends beyond the physical world (i.e.: nothing defined/constrained by the laws of physics)?
It cannot, since the child is not entitled to an education without violating the non-aggression principle. Positive rights demand either a Utopian collectivist society or a property rights conflict. I don’t think you understand what methodological individualism means. I also do not think you understand the non-aggression principle.
How did you get police in a society structured on non-aggression? How did an arbitrary adult allow himself more control over the child than the parents, without the consent of the child? What is the definition of a child and what is the definition of an adult?
There is no state in a libertarian society.
If you study praxeology, all values are utilitarian. The greatest good for the greatest number is an arbitrary value favored by selfish individuals at the expense of anyone else. There is no definition of the “greatest good” which can coherently be made, particularly in the same post you invoke “methodological individualism”. Majoritarianism has nothing to do with liberty, indeed its likely social demonstration will be in the form of mob rule.
It’s very interesting that you define the suffering of others by your value scale and not theirs. Shame you don’t respect individuality and the free will of individuals, particularly children.
Obligatory education is slavery. What a ridiculous concept.
Were education to be made non-mandatory tommorow, what would happen? Nobody knows. It’s futile to make predictions.
But would it black out many children and leave them in a world of ignorance? Not in this world of rapid and widespread information access. Would it make children emotionally less mature? Thomas Sowell has argued the opposite.
I think the constitution should behave less like a government and more like a business with a flat tax rate of, say 25% (?) and with as little democracy as possible. I have not thought this out very hard so you will have to excuse me for this but I do not rely on purely democracy to make the state politicians accountable for. I support this, not out of any great love for the state (you will note that I was, at one point an Anarcho-Communist) but, largely speaking for practical reasons. You can provide the theoretical argument for anarchism. But theory is where our case ends. Apart from Somalia (which only proves, in my opinion, that government is not universally preferable to anarchy, not that anarchy is necessarily preferable to government) there has not been any real large scale attempt at anarchy in the modern day. Thus there is a huge risk factor. Why should I take such a risk? Would I have to risk living under a society that could (potentially) be lawless and chaotic? Would you justify mass starvation and violence for the sake of taking Isaiah Berlin’s concept of negative liberty to an extreme further than he himself would have? A society that would, be more ethical purely because there is no government exerting violence and coercion over a geographical area to mainain its authority?
Nonetheless, I would have no objection to this. I would have objection to a small country operating like a fascist dictatorship however, as a paleoist, I would stay opposed to a ‘big’ country like the US exerting its western dominance. As a side track, do you fear that China could easily take the stage as the next global ‘big force’? This is a concern that deeply worries me given their complete disregard for human rights. Under such a circumstance, would you ethically condone the western violence using force or violence (which would inevitably probably mean World War III) in order to prevent China aggressively exerting its own dominance against other countries? Whether it would necessarily lead to anarchy is open for discussion, however.
An economy where most children do not necessarily have the right to education is an economy that could quite possibly fail. There is no way of knowing what an anarchist economy would be like, so why should I risk it? This is why it can be rather amusing, anarchists telling me that I am trying to impose my values on them when in fact they are attempting to cajole me (and everyone else) plunge head first into the water without knowing how deep it goes.
The child is unable to act himself due to his physical and mental vulnerability, hence the adult is doing what he believes the child should like him to do. The court can employ psychologists to talk with the child and try to make an objective decision as to what the child would really like under such circumstances and make sure it is not the case that the child is simply being manipulated (or intimidated) by his/her parents. This is the problem with complete autonomy for the family unit; no-one has a clue what is going on. Of course, I absolutely object the way these do-gooders behave since on some occasions they do more harm than good. On others though, they really could have done something earlier.
Heard of the story about Baby P? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Baby_P What was he supposed to have done? Run away from home? Unfortunately he died, and it was because the officials did not pay nearly enough attention to the case. How would a PPA handle the case? Filc suggested ostracisation in which the water and gas companies ‘stop co-operating’ and ‘cut of heating and electricity’.
I, personally, would be more than happy to reintroduce the death penalty in such cases. Or would it be preferable that the murderers, rapists and child molesters are allowed to walk free and society just ‘stops co-operating’ with them?
Minarchists would disagree with you rather adamantly.
Majoritarianism gives the people the power to act under extreme case scenarios like Baby P. I don’t think this is a case of selfish individuals benefiting at the expense of the majority (unless it would have been selfish of baby P to expect the tax payer to have to fund social security for such cases). I’m not talking about welfare redistribution here, I’m talking about law and order. You will note, and take rather careful note, that I do not actually support democracy in its purest form. But there must be elements of it.
You will also note that, despite my username, I have come to reject socialism and now support a far more market based system. But my brain simply refuses to go to the romanticised extremes you AnCaps fantasise about. There is no button you can simply press which will result in the perfect society, sorry.
I think its you that does not respect their individuality and free will in this circumstance, actually. I support the system of education where the child is able to study whatever he pleases and have control over his own curriculum. Hardly slavery. I just don’t see why any child should be deprived of that education because of their family backgrounds
I even think children should be able to work from an earlier age. But clearly there is a need to draw a line somewhere… unless you want Victorian style Oliver Twist style workhouses again rolls eyes.
I understood all that, but I had no idea why any of it was relevant. Voluntaryists are for non-aggression. Nothing more, nothing less. Necessarily all exceptions are irrelevant.
He did in the end. People have to want to reason. When they are emotional, WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN, it is not possible to reach positions of reason except by accident.
My personal position is irrelevant. There is no position on coercion. The OP conflated it with aggression. It was a simple error, when clarified, made his issue less of a problem.
Let’s stop using the word coercion. Now everything makes sense with what I have already posted.
The answer is already in the questions people ask if they stop to think about what they are asking. You and the OP know the answers to these questions, the seed of knowledge is planted in the inquiry.
LS, you are giving either me or yourself too much credit. I will try to outline why I think so, and then you can tell me which one it is. If voluntarists are simply “for non-aggression”, I wonder who isn’t a voluntarist. I see no evidence of my having conflated aggression with coercion. Nor was there any “ta da!” To say that I understood your position was an unwarranted assumption. I merely tried to recapitulate what seemed to me an illogical and contradictory position in order to clarify your meaning, which you failed to do. That you took my attempt at recapitulation for acceptance and, on that basis, declared some sort of victory was premature. No longer being a true believer, I feel rather uncomfortable trying to straighten you out on your own principles, but since I am not a true believer, what is there to stop me? The question is certainly of coercion rather than aggression. What draws me (and I suspect many others) to voluntarism in the first place is that I do not want anybody to coerce me, to force me, to do anything to me, no matter what their motives are. No big brother, no nanny state, no patronizing, and no tough love. The very word, “voluntarism”, means “free will”, not non-aggression, or “not attacking”. On the other hand, I coerce children, either directly (by threatening to punish them myself), indirectly (having the administration or their parents punish them), or through manipulation (stroking their egos, deflating their confidence, humiliating them, threatening them, deceiving them, even outright lying!) Even though I do not toe the voluntarist line any more (voluntarists have no doctrine you say?!–“Voluntaryists are for non-aggression. Nothing more, nothing less.”), this fact still troubles me, and I try to check the amount of coercion I use by reminding myself that the ultimate justification for doing what I do is not a paycheck but is for their ultimate good. Now, you may be so kind as to assume that there is no aggression therein, and let me off of the illogical hook that I have emotionally placed myself on, but why stop there? I can convince myself that I do what I do from the purest of motives; I have that luxury. The student, however, may have a very different opinion of what I am doing, and even if he/she believed I was acting from unselfish motives, would still regard what I was doing as coercive and unjustified. So, on the one hand, I have a strong aversion to coercion of any kind (aggressive or not) and yet, I also believe that it is necessary to coerce (and perhaps even wrong to not do so). This conflict has been drawn out by my profession, not a “WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN?” emotionalism, as you have kindly diagnosed. I would be happy if someone could tell me if there is some way to square the circle. The conclusion I came to years ago and have not been able to alter is that coercion, like everything else in life, has its time and place, and therefore, the voluntarism that I used to adhere to was simply a kind of pseudo-rational fundamentalism. Nevertheless, I am still troubled by it–by my emotions, even! Voluntarists and libertarians give themselves immense credit for having achieved the heights of rationality. Even more than “liberals”, and twice as much as “conservatives”. That would worry me, if I were you, and on more than one level. Finally, for those who are arguing for the existence of non-coercive forms of education, I suppose I will never be able to disprove the existence of such a thing, because it is only an abstract principle. So far, I can see no evidence of it having been practiced, only approximations, which nevertheless violate the fundamental principle of voluntarism: no coercion (LS’s alternative definition notwithstanding). At the end of the day, when it comes to actually dealing with children, we engage in coercion, and write it off as a “necessary good”, but that is what most of the dastardly “statists” do, too. Maybe the only difference between statists and voluntarists at the end of the day is the amount of enthusiasm they have in perpetuating the statist order, but no quantifiable or qualifiable differences beyond that.
And an economy where all children presumably have a right to education is an economy that could quite possibly fail… I’m not sure I see the point here…
Ok, I’m not going to go beyond this. What I am reading here is that you refuse to even entertain the idea of something that’s never been tried before simply because it’s never been tried before. Have I misunderstood you somehow?
Not exactly. I am actually quite attracted by the idea of anarcho-capitalism and am sort of playing the Devil’s Advocate a little but I think there is a tendency on this site to romanticise it and that puts me off the idea. Some would say AnCap is the ‘Marxism of the Right’.
Also what I’m saying is not ‘it won’t work’ but ‘why should people risk a society that might not work and could be far worse than the present day system’. How do you know anarchy won’t result in tyranny? Mob law? Paedophilia? Nuclear explosions? etc. I would say the same thing about communism or any other ridiculous political extreme.
Why should I risk playing along with your utopian lala land fantasies? I want to know that I will have some security in my life, that I won’t end up having to sell my soul and body to businesses because of poverty and that there will be national security to protect my body and property from criminals who would happily coerce me.
‘Statism is more chaotic than anarchy’ is not an answer since you can’t know that for sure.
The difference is in skills. Children develop important skills in school that will one day be invaluable for the economy. If they don’t develop those skills, the economy will suffer. Would you prefer an economy where every child gets an education or one where no child gets an education? Ok, I know you think that most people would get an education under anarchy but you cannot guarantee that.
Micah, per your devil’s advocate query about child prostitution, I think that does a much better job of getting to the heart of the question than my original post did. I salute you!
Am I wrong in thinking that that would be the pure voluntarist position? I would be interested in seeing if someone could either defend it or explain why it is not so.
And these skills never existed before public/compulsory education?
And even if they do, there’s no guarantee they are going to bring about less economic suffering…
Depends on what you think “education” actually entails… but me, I’d rather see people who want to get an education, get an education, and those who don’t not be forced to at the expense of others. If that results in fewer people “going to school” or “graudating,” so be it. I opt for freedom over compuslion here.
And you can’t tell me that every single person gets an education today under the state… so there’s no guarantee either way.
You haven’t provided for me any of the guarantees you’re demanding I give you about the future of an AnCap society for a Statist society. The reality of the situations is there are no guarantees of anything in the future. We can try to maximize probability, but that’s simply not a “guarantee” that anything will happen tomorrow, whatever politics we live in.
I think this is a situation where the burden of proof lies on you really. We have had centuries of the state and nowadays life is not too bad - that is proof enough as far as I’m concerned. I’m not promising you a perfect society and I’m not saying that we should necessarily be thinking about making radical changes either. You are doing both.
Quite simply put, why risk anarchy?
A hundred years ago or so, a couple of Marxists called the Bolsheviks argued that it was worth the risk trying to implement communism. Look how well it went rolls eyes.
When starting from scratch perhaps. But we are not starting from scratch any more; we need trained doctors, builders, psychotherapists, etc. not cavemen and huntergatherers.
Some people are making the false assumption that I think without state coercion no-one would want to pursue education. This is not true. I am saying that without state coercion a lot of people wouldn’t be able to pursue education.
