Assassination. The banks and medical industry are too big.
I think a lot of cool things would happen if he were elected. He’s said he supports secession, which opens up infinitely many doors.
It was actually more of a question than a statement.
But say the Brits allowed Singapore to leave the Empire due to a democratic vote, does that not at least mathmaticaly decrease the size of the UK govt? Also, in the end, where any of the decolonized state’s govt powers smaller than the UK’s (as Singapores may be)?
Always thought of Monarchy governments as being much smaller in nature and democratic states being much larger. This is coming entirely out of my rear though. I have not done any research to come to this conclusion, just assumed. Thanks for the input, it may be worth looking into if what you say is true.
Seems likely. JFK 2.0? Still though, it’d be refreshing to have someone of his background and ideologies in the White House. He may not be perfect, but he’d certainly be a substantial improvement over what we’re currently used to, and definitely a step in the right direction. More importantly, I imagine having someone such as RP in the White House would be quite beneficial to libertarianism and free-market capitalism in terms of public opinion and knowledge, assuming he’d not drop the proverbial ball, that is.
Lets make a new assumption and scenarioize this. I want to see if it’s theoretically possible for a government to democratically decrease in size.
The scenario assumes knowledge of public choice theories, rational ignorance, ect…
The scenario is as follows. Lets say you already have a very large government. Government spending is 60% of GDP and lets just assume that in general the government literally is 60% of the economy. In this scenario would it be theoretically possible for people to magically change their previous voting patterns and begin voting to decrease government size?
In such a scenario is it feasible for a government to decrease significantly in size and for an extensive period of time simply from the democratic input of the people?
I really had hoped to hear more feedback from minarchists on this topic.
Stephen Harper has a similar background to Ron Paul and he is Prime Minister. Hasn’t gotten us anywhere except bigger government.
Well, it was democracy for the nobles, they had their own parliament, but they weren’t vored into it.
And like Marko said, it’s really not that good an example anyway, it’s sort of like if Congress stripped the president of his powers, and transfered them onto itself.
By the way it’s sort of funny how this whole episode is handled in the Polish texbooks. School children are hammered every day with how bad this aristocratic democarcy was, because all the nobled voted for all sorts of priviledges for themselves, yet no one EVER makes the connection to the current democracy, and how unions, corporations and other interest groups push for priviledges for themselves.
Yes, but did the Brits allow Singapore to leave because of democratic input of the parties within the UK? Was there a party that people in England voted for, because its platform was to let Singapore go free?
What happened was monarchs built professional buerocracies to allow them to marginalise the aristocracy, the clergy and the towns. Up until the buerocracy grew so large that the monarch became its captive and was marginalised himself. Until he was in most places just knocked off or in others made into a powerless figurehead. So it is generally true, if only because a monarchy tends to be characteristic of places that have not jet developed a strong professional buerocracy.
Around 1830 where Englabd repealed the corn laws and became a nearly free market. The entire classical liberal movment
Sweden and Iceland both successfully shrunk their government in the early 90s. Not all the way down to a minarchist position, but there’s no doubt that at least here in Iceland there has been a lot more room for private enterprise in the last 15 years than at any time before that, going all the way back to the establishment of the republic in 1945. For most of that era we had strict price controls, import/export controls, government bureaus that allocated investment etc…we were probably the most centrally controlled of any of the NATO countries with the possible exception of Turkey.
Ironically, a lot of those government restrictions and bureaus had to be relaxed or abolished so we could comply with the requirements for entry into the Eurozone. The EU may be on the verge of going federal right now, with all the negative connotations that brings, but IMO the EU process has done more for economic freedom in Europe than any other entity.
This thread was about political parties being voted in to shrink government. Not for the government’s own interests to shrink to be included in a MUCH larger government. That’s not a shrink. That’s a get the secret password to enter into the even bigger government than ever before.
Define liberty.
Define free market.
Aaahhh no!!
We have the left wing parties who raise taxes, and the right wing parties who raise taxes and support war. Right wing guys lowered income tax a bit during boom but now after bust the total taxation level is at its highest ever, with the right-wing government slapping on new taxes day and night.
The fundamental question to me is were such measures passed because the right people were voted in. Or were they passed to appease the grumbling populace and would have therefore been introduced regardless of who actually held power.
I`ll remind you that Bismarck created the German welfare state and it was not because he was a social democrat.
Is this a challenge to those who believe in minarchy or those who believe in democracy? In the past, I think those who believed in government as a neccessary evil did not delude themselves in thinking that voting and democracy would stop the growth or shrink government. It seems many believed that armed conflict was neccessary from time to time to keep 'em honest. I believe that, in fact, those minarchists feared democracy and attempted to create a government where popular vote was counter balanced by other mechanisms. The weakest position that a minarchist who believes in democracy has taken may not be minarchy. It might be his faith in mob rule.
Oh how I wish democracy as we know it were mob rule. Im afraid its far worse.
Very true.
Perhaps both, sorry to be vague. I really think this could end up being a very good argument to both minarchists and democratic worshipers alike. One thing though is I don’t want to be called a hipocrit from a classic argument I use to statists, arguing from ignorance. They may argue back that just because it’s never transpired doesn’t mean it’s not possible. I use this argument as well as an a defense for anarchy. Many people argue that the state has just always been, and therefore it’s enough proof to believe that the state always must be.
Still I think historically speaking minarchists have had FAR more chances for their system to shrink government over our method of individual secession. As it stands we are not freely allowed to individiualy secede. Every single election which increases the size of government is further evidence that democracy is incapable of shrinking the size of government. It may be technically possible but it seems to be highly unlikely.
I want to explore the topics on this thread as I think it could be a very serious thorn for both minarchists and democracy worshipers alike.
That is a humorous observation. [:)]
Well from now on any minarchist who asks me to cite an example of a market anarchy beyond the one we already have I’ll ask them to cite me an example of a large democracy voting in minarchy.
It looks like this is the closest thing to an answer. A little sad.