That’s interesting. I think it is obvious that my ‘ideological inclination’ is justice and laissez-faire, but I do wonder, what is your ideology ? Are you a monarchist ? Or just an statist trying to prove that state granted privileges(private monopoly) are economically superior to state granted privileges (democracy) ?
[:(] Apparently you completely missed the point. Bush’s time preference carried the day. The existence of millions of drones with longer time preference, whose time preference doesn’t actually affect policy decisions, is completely irrelevant.
–Len
My ideology is the search of and love for knowledge.
I’m a market anarchist, but I do not let it interfere with economic questions.
-Jon
Spare me the appeals to authority. I already responded to this.
-Jon
Ok I seem to understand now, I think I’ll be reading Hoppe’s books then. Which book in particular are you guys referring to?
Also another question, if rather than what things currently appear to be (a cycle of new elected rulers) we actually just have a bunch of organisations such as the CFR, bohemian grove, etc. making sure each election is won by the people they choose, and that this is all just an unbroken chain of puppets, does this change anything? Doesn’t this make the current democracies more like monarchies (the organisations in general are interested in the preservation of the country’s wealth)?
In theory, this is not necessarily true, though in practice it is in almost every case. There was a thread a while regarding the Vatican which dealt with this concept somewhat. As a country, Vatican City has a monarch - the pope. As a land mass, Vatican City is private property, owned by the Catholic Church, headed by the pope.
It really comes down to how the state was aquired. If an area of land was homesteaded or legitimately purchased by a family, and then others came to live there, paying rent, etc., would not the owning family have the right to set rules of behaviour within their property? This would in effect make such a family royalty.
Sorry, it’s not an appeal to authority. I’m suggesting that you actually read some history books instead of parroting what Hoppe says.
You’re an awfully presumptuous fellow, aren’t you? Yet I do not think you’ve even read Hoppe. Again, as I said, none of what you mentioned refutes his thesis, because it is comparative in nature and it does not deny that under monarchy exploitation was present too.
-Jon
Fred, his arguments are advanced in Democracy - the God that Failed. Regarding that example, it essentially depends on two things, as I noted - a) that the ruler owns the capitalized value of the country in question and is the recipient of all future income streams (as opposed to current income streams and possessing mere custodial title), and can furthermore pass down title to this and b) that there is a clear class distinction. Hoppe basically notes that a republic might, for instance, come closer to a monarchy and a monarchy closer to a democracy, depending on its particular institutional arrangements (hence, modern European monarchies scarcely differ from democracies.)
-Jon
I’ve lost track of what point you are talking about. Let me recap :
I’d like an answer to that without using ‘examples’ like the war in Iraq, please ?
(By the way, you’ve previously said that the difference between a ‘private’ monopoly and a public one is the same difference between being hanged and shot. Now you’ve changed your mind ?)
And the reverse is also true. That taxes were low during monarchy is [b]not necessarily[b] a result of monarchy.
So, if we are speaking of theories, I stick to libertarian theory, while your ‘theory’ is just a half-baked economic principle which you don’t know how to apply consistently.
Now, I thought you were ignoring my posts but since you are not, please explain why miniarchism is socialism but monarchy is not. Thank you.
If you’re too dense to understand what I plainly stated already: the millions of drones in government are irrelevant, because important decisions are not made based on their time preference.
You constantly confuse rational discussion for advocacy. Incentives differ between various state structures; one can acknowledge that, and even characterize some as “better” and some as “worse” in some metric, without advocating any of them. You seem to harbor a superstitious notion that King George III will rise from the dead and take over if anyone points out that we were worlds better off under his rule than we are under GWB’s. The observation won’t pull him out of the grave, nor does it imply that anyone is pining to get him back.
–Len
Homesteading theory does not describe the rise of monarchies, or any state for that matter. If this were the case, we must concede to the points of the socialists that private property inevitably leads to the state. This is why I think that this analysis of monarchy actually harms the case for libertarianism.
True. That has nothing to do with Hoppe, though: he’s arguing what follows praxeologically from the ruler’s belief that he is an owner.
–Len
From the perspective of the average reader, whether they are right or wrong, he is legitimizing monarchy and consequentially they will be turned off by libertarianism. I happen to think that even if his intent is not to legitimize monarchy, that’s precisely what he’s doing nonetheless.
Well if they read the other half of the book, they’ll realize he’s doing no such thing and legitimizing anarcho-capitalism instead.
-Jon
It can easily be interpreted to imply that he’s pushing the notion that fuedal monarchy pretty much is anarcho-capitalism, or that anarcho-capitalism is merely a modernized version of the same thing. It appears that he’s using the comparative analysis of monarchy and democracy to make a case for anarcho-capitalism, but then all of the ugly implications of monarchy that people hold will then be superimposed onto anarcho-capitalism.
That becomes an argument of semantics. What makes a state? Is Vatican City a state? It is recognized as such by other rulers. It is quite clearly private property. Is the pope, as head of the organization that owns the propery, the head state or merely a landlord? For that matter, in a libertarian sense, what is the difference between a landlord and a monarch?