Utopia is the idea that you can give guns and decision-making authority to profligates, degenerates, and stumblebums while expecting restraint, probity, and prudence.
There is no “correct” size of government. Government is simply other people so the only pertinent question is in regard to interpersonal conduct.
Somalia improved without a state. That tells you how bad states can be.
Why would you think that the civilized west would become like tribal Somalia? Do you really think the state is all that keeps people from that situation?
Statelessness can only occur when people stop recognizing thugs as authority. There is no faith involved in that, we all understand that Utopia is not possible, if you thought it would be, that means you were not approaching ancap from a position of reason.
This is a strawman. Anarchists don’t have a particular size for government. They know it is fundamentally irrational, immoral and dangerous. They know this the same way we know that cyanide is a poison. There is no conceit in recognizing the danger in a snake’s venom or false promises of democracy.
This is a non sequitur. You’re comparing two different kinds of knowledge.
You do realize that financial markets predated the state, right?
You haven’t made one substantive point Eric.
That’s a very good question. Pentahedron should answer.
Obviously it is not, because some of the brighter people on this forum aren’t able to deduce the answer.
Why not answer those two simple questions? Why continue to avoid them? Aren’t you confident and resolute in your belief system?
DD5, you have an admirable enthusiasm for understanding the market process. Why do you, as a libertarian, regard that understanding as so important?
Somalia improved without a state. That tells you how bad states can be.
Why would you think that the civilized west would become like tribal Somalia? Do you really think the state is all that keeps people from that situation?
Statelessness can only occur when people stop recognizing thugs as authority. There is no faith involved in that, we all understand that Utopia is not possible, if you thought it would be, that means you were not approaching ancap from a position of reason.
However, the safest and most stable part of Somalia is Somaliland, which is the portion where there is the closest thing to a functioning government. Also, if the North Korean government collapsed and anarchy ensued, I would certainly expect an improvement. However, I would not take that as a very good case for anarchy. The situation is very similar with regards to somalia.
I wouldn’t expect the west to look Identical to Somalia, as we do not share their same tribal system. I would however expect gangs/warfare and a failure to protect property rights.
The idea that PDAs would arise and properly enforce property rights, that the there would not be a financial panic, and that there would not be a massive influx of fear and rebellion is a leap of faith.
This is a strawman. Anarchists don’t have a particular size for government. They know it is fundamentally irrational, immoral and dangerous. They know this the same way we know that cyanide is a poison. There is no conceit in recognizing the danger in a snake’s venom or democracy.
I admit it may be a strawman with respect to some anarcho-capitalists. But certainly not Rothbardians and many other groups. Anarchists generally attempt to reason, generally through the use of Austrian economics, what society would look like without a state. They then conclude that this is a preferable state of affairs, and thus become anarchists.
You do realize that financial markets predated the state, right?
You haven’t made one substantive point Eric.
You do realize that financial markets are a little more complex now than they were thousands of years ago, right?
Why not answer those two simple questions?
Social welfare
You can use a combination of a prior reasoning, empiricism and economic historical analysis to best make predictions about pareto efficiency. When it comes economics, the results largely favor deregulation and freer markets.
Who is social welfare? I am a methodological individualist. I need to know WHO is defining what constitutes social welfare, because society cannot decide this absent individuals deciding it. Society is just an abstraction for understanding behavior within a group, society is not a thinking acting entity itself.
This is somewhat circular. I asked you what a Consequentialist values. You claimed efficiency. I asked how you determined efficiency without markets, you now reply back that it is Pareto efficiency you are interested in. Which is back to claiming there is a group value as above. But who determines what is pareto efficient?
Not how we get there, but what is “the social good”? Who decides this? Every individual has a different value scale. Which ones are making the final determination of what is good for the entire human race?
It seems to me you support freedom, as long as it is YOUR kind of freedom.
Why do you think that it takes an expropriating property protector (a contradiction in terms) in order to protect property rights?
So your fear of the unknown is why you support the state? Everything is a leap of faith. There are no guarantees in life. People have childern and some die at birth. People take medicine with side effects, because they are anxious for relief. People invest in the stock market, with almost ZERO understanding of finance. Humans know very very little. And yet, we function every day in this world we are largely ignorant of.
Right, and you conclude that the state is a preferable state of affairs. I wouldn’t call that a fatal conceit. I don’t think you can articulate a decent argument for the state, but if you want to try, I am happy to listen. Ancaps don’t look at the state through economics and try to imagine statelessness. Maybe the Cato wonks do, but Rothbardians generally look at the state for what it is, and have to reject it, regardless of what the alternative looks like, because it is fundamentally unjust, immoral and irrational. It isn’t the lesser of two evils, because it is fundamentally evil, and statelessness has the possibility of being not evil. Again, an expropriating property protector is a contradiction in terms.
Because of the state. That doesn’t mean we can’t have complex systems outside the state. Look at the internet for example. Surely a species that can cook up the internet can come up witha viable commercial system. After all, the state co-opted the market systems and turned it inside out.
Remember, the only thing the state can do that the market cannot, is use aggressive force. That is the only difference between power and market. You’re holding on to the state because you’re scared of change, but what you’re holding on to is institutionalized theft and violence, nothing more. Everything civil and social that the state does, can be done, and probably will be done by the market.
Unless you actually believe the state or its agents have some other special power or quality besides wielding guns and clubs.
Who is social welfare?
Social welfare simply refers to society as a whole being in a position to maximize utility.
This is somewhat circular. I asked you what a Consequentialist values. You claimed efficiency. I asked how you determined efficiency without markets, you now reply back that it is Pareto efficiency you are interested in. Which is back to claiming there is a group value as above. But who determines what is pareto efficient?
Not how we get there, but what is “the social good”? Who decides this? Every individual has a different value scale. Which ones are making the final determination of what is good for the entire human race?
It seems to me you support freedom, as long as it is YOUR kind of freedom.
When I think efficiency, I normally think pareto efficient which is simply how well off individuals are without there being a loss in utility. It’s best maximized through competition, lesser regulations, and free trade and since each individual has their own preference scale they would be in the best position to determine this. That’s kind of a broad statement though, it’s probably better to look an example like airline deregulation and the positive effects it yeilded:
http://www.vatt.fi/file/vatt_publication_pdf/k149.pdf
And my kind of freedom is the same kind of freedom deontologicals support. I just simply go about coming to my conclusions in a different way
One thing to keep in mind is that, because there is no such thing as cardinal utility, there is no way to do interpersonal utility comparisons, or make scientifically meaningful statements about the extent to which utility is maximized in one hypothetical or real society compared arithmetically to another.
What we can do, is demonstrate the singular tendency of capitalism to create general prosperity in direct variation with the degree to which it is unhampered. This is because, as I’ve said, the singular tendency of capitalism is to provide for individuals the satisfaction of their wants according to the extent of their contribution to the satisfaction of the wants of others.
Then, we can show how capitalism is unhampered (whether we are talking in regard to the production of tube socks, or the production of security) in direct variation with the extent to which a certain way of delineating property rights (which happens to be the way of delineating property rights, the violation of which deontological libertarians consider self-evidently fiendish) is adopted.
Once convinced of that, it is obvious that it is overwhelmingly likely that any given person’s interests would be better served under complete (anarcho-) capitalism than under any other social order.
You gotta write a book, or, at least, more daily articles.
This is nonsense. What does “size of government” actually mean? The number, substance and complexity of laws? The amount of resources devoted to adjudicating disputes? to inducing compliance? Anarcho-capitalists do not claim to know these answers - to know just how much governance their ought to be. This argument is only coherent if we assume just what is being disputed: that only the state can create and enforce rules/provide ‘governance.’
Ok, the wording I am not sure of, but I think we can agree on this.
Again, this is a bit circular. You talk about individual utility, but what that utility is can’t be determined FIRST without a market.
I’m not sure about that. You mentioned freer markets, but Mises explained there was no third solution. It’s the state or the market. You can’t have it both ways. I cannot understand why minarchists won’t grasp this.
Perhaps my previous post was not clear enough…
How is the state not a result (or a part) of the market? How is the state (or any other human creation) not the result of humans using means to pursue their (subjectively valued) ends? Who/what apart from acting humans creates a state?
How is any provision of law and security (including uniform law and security monopoly) not a market outcome?
Z.
New thread time? This isn’t a short discussion. You and I both like to argue. Let me know if you have time to do this right, and I will participate.
LS, a new thread here.
Z.
I don’t have a good answer for this. I wish it didn’t have to be so important. But it is. What is on your mind with this question?
Well, you seem to be against utilitarian arguments for liberalism, and I don’t see how any argument informed by an understanding of the market process can be any thing other than utilitarian, so I’m wondering why you’d spend so much time and energy studying and communicating economics.
What makes you think that I am against utilitarian arguments?