If I’m not mistaken, you are asking how can the market help the people in Darfur?
If so the answer to that question is very easy.
Yes, I mean specifically how can the market protect people from tyranny/war/conflict et cetera abroad and why can it do so better than the state?
Sorry, I 'd like to see if I still got it right. I should have been more clear. So I’ll address two questions, just in case. I only have the answer for one.
1.Are you asking how can, let’s say, a stateless USA with a free market help the people in Darfur?
2.Or how can the idea of free market help the people in Darfur if they implemented it?
- If the USA disbanded the government, we would have charities that will certainly volunteer to help. We’ll probably be bombarded with commercials that will do their best to persuade people to offer help . The free market solution all sums up to “if you want to help, you are free to do so”. If you’re pessimistic, you will probably think nothing can be done.
I know many people don’t care about the war in Darfur(or any other war for that matter), but they can be convinced to, through peacefull ways, btw. And, I’ve learned that just because there’s a huge hand of terrible people out there, that doesn’t necesarily mean there aren’t any decent folks who are willing to help. The Christian organizations have been sending missionaries all around the world(although not sure exactly what their true intentions were) and they’ve been doing a pretty decent job.
That’s all I can tell you. If you think the government can do a better job by using your tax money, in order to end a war that you may or may not care of, then you have to try and prove how that can be possible. I won’t bother to point out that you are paying for something you don’t want to and is probably of no use to you. Every war the USA was involved in, ended up in a total disaster.
- Darfur cannot establish a free market at this time. I’m positive that they are going through a religious conflict(please correct me on this one). There are some things that the market can’t solve and neither can a government.
Concerning this question:
I’m not really that knowledgeable in economics yet, so I can’t really answer that question. I’m still having a hard time with “Man, Economy and the State”.
The honest answer is that we don’t know. How is irrelevant. If we knew, we could plan an economy, and it is an important Austrian insight that we cannot plan an economy.
The fact of the matter is that to use the state to fight abroad, you must violate rights at home and abroad. The market responds to demand, if people want to assist people who need defense, then entrepreneurs and specialists will offer services and goods to facilitate such a thing. The Red Cross is a good example of a NGO that acts in a similar capacity.
If your support for markets is dependent on outcome, then you will never be consistently happy with the market. I support the market because it is moral and consistent with my ends, not because it produces the most expedient results.
So, you think hanging gay people in Iran is equal to supressing free speech in the UK?
Have you ever been to the Middle East and seen women “rights” there, and compared them to the UK? I don’t understand how anybody can say this nonsense?
Why do you think immigrants and political-refugees flock to the West? Because thinks are so much worse here than in Iran, for instance! Come on?!
That is exactly what I meant earlier when I said this sounds wonderful but has nothing to do with reality around us - here-and-now? I’m reminded of Chomsky. He has never spent a day in his life with a job outside of academia. So, obviiioously, businesses are exploiting everything and everyone. Durh!
Where are the private humanitarian intervention groups that will remove tyrants? People keep on bleating about this on internet forums and haven’t looked out of the window and realised that no such exists.
I think it is important to pick the better of two options in life (even if it includes the state), whilst advocating for anarchy in the meantime.
You’re objectively and passively pro-fascism – at least not in your neighbourhood.
Dictatorships and fascism is a product of the socialist mindset which is dependent on authoritarianism and aggression. We probably agree on this. But you seem to think that having a dictator next door is fine for you? If anything, 20th century history shows it is the opposite. Kuwaiti citizens would probably having a thing-or-two tell you!
So, I believe in a strong foreign policy that is based on unilateral preemption (in the 21st century) to destroy those who wish impose a caliphate or kill US citizens. I don’t really buy into an argument of intervention on purely humanitarian grounds. I started this discussion to see if anyone had any reasonable suggestions on how to deal with problems – like those in Libya. Alas, I am being told that the human rights abuses in the UK are worse than that in Egypt or Iran. Sigh. Or that these mysterious and enigmatic humanitarian charities would solve the problem!
In conclusion, libertarianism has nothing to offer to those being massacred by a dictator in a foreign country. If anything, libertarianism provides a source of people like you, who’ll defend those tyrants (as you said above)!
We’re clearly not going to have a serious conversation then, if you’re peddling the inane “US is an imperial force” conspiracy? I have ordered a Chomsky book on amazon to see how far these myths go …
I wrote an article here on why the US should intervene to remove Gadhafi.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/03/in_defense_of_obama_over_libya.html
So, let me get this right. You disagree with intervention entirely 100%. In other words, there is never any justification for intervention? That would explain the fatuousness of what you’ve just said.
How about dealing with reality outside our windows today and where libertarianism fits in with that …
I already know what libertarianism has to offer those being slaughtered around the world today, besides a shoulder-shrug.
…they are merely trying to feed themselves. Why not help them? Would charity be enough to provide the services required to help them? Taxation to fund food requires aggression against people in the home country but, (assuming all goes ‘well’), the hunger of the people abroad is reduced.
How do you know who needs what in this world (home or abroad) and whether or not the goals of one set of people (the ones apparently needing something) are more valuable than the goals of another set of people (the ones being coerced into helping them)? How is it possible and how is it any of your business to make judgments and comparisons of other people’s subjective valuations (preferences)?
You’re knee-deep in busybody interventionism.
I am not entirely sure what you’re arguing and I can’t say I advocate humanitarian intervention, but you can shoot down that argument easily.
(1) government intervention in the provision of food is always more inefficient and wasteful than necessary at the expense of the poorest. That is fine. But you argue that if they ask for the removal of a dictator, then they’ll be aksing for food. One is an economic scarce good, and the other isn’t.
(2) we have various government bodies that send out food to foriegn countries. Despite what you might think, it exists. We also have voluntary charities in the UK - and elsewhere - that feed the poor home and abroad. But where is the “dictatorship removal team”?
What’s the other one?
People donating to food charities value “hunger removal”. Who values (demands) “dictatorship removal”?
Some economists believe that the higher the tax rate the lower the charity. It seems that there is a certain psychological effect of taxation that basically results in people believing they are already giving to charity so they don’t need to give more. That is, if people are paying taxes that are then redistributed to those “in need” they are less likely to donate to a charity that does the same thing, even though the taxes aren’t used nearly as efficiently.
Right now the US is all over the world “promoting democracy” and “taking down dictators”. They are doing a terrible job but people in the US subconciously believe they are paying toward charities for “promoting democracy” and “taking down dictators” already so they aren’t going to go donate to another charity that does the same thing. This is, theoretically, why you don’t see “promoting democracy” and “taking down dictators” charities in the current world.
This is all hypothetical of course (though there is correlational data that suggests it is accurate) so we can’t say for certain what would happen in a tax-free country.
The other major factor here is that interventionalism requires objective morality to be reasonable. You have to believe that there is an absolute “right” way for someone to lead their life in order for you to be justified in enforcing that belief on other people. For example, if people are committing suicide are you justified in stopping them (it’s a voluntary act)? If people are voluntarily subjecting themselves to corporal punishment are you justified in stopping them (voluntary participation in a society)? If people are voluntarily living under the rule of a dictator are you justified in removing that dictator?
The one exception is if the people say they want out. If someone says they want out then all you have to do is help them get out. It’s not your place to kill the dictator but it is your place to help them get out of the country. A country with a dictator and no people results in the dictator dying of starvation since he has no one to give him food.
In short, the easiest solution to foreign dictators is 100% open borders and charities that help people “escape” their country should they desire. What’s the worst that can happen? Our libertarian country has all of the workers living in it while dictatorships have no people? Eventually the dictators will leave and our country can annex the now vacant land and put more people in it.
The underground railroad was a perfect example of a private organization that helped people escape a situation they did not want to be in. With todays technology something like the underground railroad would be far more efficient and capable of getting just about anyone that wanted out. In a free market the underground railroad could even charge for it’s services. People who can’t afford to pay up front can instead agree to work off their debt after they are free.
How do you figure that?
Why don’t you start one?
@ LibertyStudent - you are right, I do not support a free market unless I deem it to be both morally consistent and efficient at solving problems. But I also see the two as being intertwined, since after all it is completely moral to solve issues of child abuse, foreign dictators, mass starvation and so forth. My point is that the free market wouldn’t be morally consistent (for I, the Ego) if it couldn’t solve these issues as well as (or preferably better than) government. As a very basis, I demand it solves these issues as well as. Then it will be morally consistent (again, by my own subjective moral preferences).
You ask me about my interventionism from time to time and my response is simple; I am a classical liberal and like Adam Smith I support government intervention when I feel the pros outweigh the cons. But if I were to feel that the pros never outweighed the cons, or rarely outweighed them I would be more than happy to completely reject government. So you can say that I am a classical liberal who is open to the theme of voluntaryism. But I need to know more about political ideology; I need to find a philosophical basis on which to support my ideology and I need to learn more about economics as well. But in the mean time, I would be interested to know what the completely pure, free market solutions are to issues such as child abuse, overseas dictators, the issue of someone who is genuinely unable to work. I oppose the theme of charity because whilst it is plausible that once everybody is being taxed less and making more money in a free society they are more likely to donate their money to charity, it also seems that Libertarians are making a similar mistake to Marxists and anarcho-communists in suggesting that human nature will just sort of change, and kind of ‘fit in’ more conveniently with the ideological system they promote. I.e. because we live in a Libertarian society, everyone will suddenly become all lovely and nice and start donating more to charity. We have to assume ceteris paribus (with all other things staying the same when you change factor X).
I would be happy to go along with the above.
But don’t you see, that was my whole point; that foreign intervention is different to providing them with food. I say this purely because lack of food does not constitute aggression against a person (unless you are a socialist and argue in terms of ‘economic coercion’) and hence is consistent with the non-aggression axiom. But an overseas tyrant does initiate aggression against his people. If you want to look at this in a more objective manner, we can say that a middle Eastern dictator initiates more aggression against his people, stoning people to death for adultery and forcing women to cover their faces in public, than a UK government which initiates aggression in a soft-core liberal sense, monopolising the media and telling people they really ought to be more concerned about the environment.
I know, I am interested in what people do with their sheep. (Private joke between me & Z).
If you observe that person A performs (what you perceive to be) aggression on person B, you would advocate coercing (at the point of a gun) person C into “helping” person B by aggressing person A. Does this sum your stance about right?
Must be hard to resist, but perfectly understandable. Humans are socio-biologically programmed against simply minding their own business. I’d propose that all of humanity’s problems could be reduced to busybodies shoving “help” down other people’s throats. I bet Hitler, too, thought he was helping humanity (civilization) by gassing “aggressors”.
Maybe you should put a little less effort into speculating about what I think, what I know, who I remind you of, whether I am pro-fascist or not and whether I am supportive of tyrants or not, and engage my actual arguments instead.
Actually turning on your brain to comprehend what I wrote eg here: "Britain violates human rights to a greater extent than most overseas tyrants do, except it does so abroad and to foreigners, rather than at home." would be a good start.
I’d say my stance is more that it is justified is the coercion used against C is less than the coercion that would have been used against person B. If that makes sense. Forcing people in the UK to pay taxes to fund a war does not amount to the rape, murder and torture that some people living under authoritarian regimes must put up with. Those are just my thoughts.
I hear the claim being used from time to time against Libertarians that they do not account for the fact that it is in people’s ‘nature’ to monitor, intervene in and regulate interactions between other people. This is not necessarily a stance I agree with but a stance that makes me wonder what if… they are right.
Yeah it was this one (although I didn’t mean to restrict my question to Darfur since this kind of thing is going on all over the world). I am happy with your reply but I am just a bit pessimistic about charity, I guess. Thanks, though, and it was a good answer.
It doesn’t. Remember, values are subjective. You cannot impose your subjective valuations onto person C. Only if person C himself subjectively valued action X (him “helping” B) more than action Y (him minding his own business, eating cake, or using the $ you would coerce out of him for his daughter’s cancer surgery), would action X be performed by C – not because you made that value comparison in his stead. Quit being a busybody and making decisions in other people’s stead.
And they are wrong, as explained above.
I agree. The above claim about humanity is, unfortunately, true. In case you missed my recent posts in another thread:
https://forum.freecapitalists.org/t/minarchists-or-anarchists/18569/234
https://forum.freecapitalists.org/t/minarchists-or-anarchists/18569/240
That doesn’t make it logically consistent or right. Just unfortunate.
But as stated before, some values are subjective. They can also be objectively determined though; a country’s economic output can be measured by its total Gross Domestic Product. The brutality of a fascist regime can be measured by the number of lives lost. The aggression required to dip your hands into the pocket of Person C is arguably less than the aggression that is being committed against that fellow being tortured every day of his life. But you have a point, and it sticks with me.
My point is that it is hard to base an entire economic theorem based on a normative premise that is wrong. Now, I am the first to admit that I don’t know much about Libertarian ethics, epistemology, metaphysics and so forth, but I do know that an economic theory is likely to be wrong if it is based on the pure assumption of voluntary exchanges and it does not account for other ‘variables’, so to speak. If the state were to be abolished today, would it be worth the violence if the state was re-established tommorow? I cannot prove the state would be re-established but it is a concern of mine. I just read your posts and it would appear that you share that concern.