The result I’m looking for is benefit to me. That’s good to me. Good to others is not really undesirable but it’s not as desirable as good to me. Whatever I think will benefit me the most is what I’ll support.
No, just in general - what “schools of thought” or what subjects or maybe the authors you enjoy especially. I guess it doesn’t matter. It just seems strange that you enjoy these forums when you haven’t read the works of Austrians. On the other hand, here you can get a sense of what Austrians and libertarians think about certain issues, which is like reading their books. Anyway, glad you enjoy the forums.
I don’t really have a school of thought I identify with anymore tbh. If I had to pick one book to keep with me at all times, I’d have Machiavelli’s Prince.
This is what I said when you asked “Good to Whom?”: “The Actor”.
Just fyi, you’re winding your way out of our challenges. Maybe you recognize that they’re losing battles, because this last post doesn’t rebut or address anything. Its a restatement of what I said in my last post.
Renumerating:
Banking: What use for a central bank?
Morals: Practicality is not enough to inform action. Morals are needed to inform actors about the desirability of certain actions. This view is in conflict with yours, when you state "I try not to make decisions based on morals. "
So basically, the moral thing is a semantics issue. Of course I have values but I try not to worry about whether something is “moral” or not but instead whether or not I can do what I want to do and whether it’s legal or not. I suppose that’s a moral calculus in and of itself though.
If there were no central bank, the government couldn’t print money to pay for things like wars and general defense and I don’t like that idea.
So it comes down to taxation for you. Why would you want to tax through currency? All it does is harm people who hold assets in dollars, i.e. mainly poor people. Rich people don’t pay the inflation tax. It should be obvious why our elites prefer this, but says nothing about the general welfare.
This is all ignoring a plethora of political philosophy, game theory, and economics, on the folly of state defense.
It may hurt poor people and people holding dollars but it also allows us to have a big military and that’s worth it to me. It’s just moral calculus. To me, having a large military force is worth almost any price. To some it’s not.
There’s more than one way to skin a cat though. From a collective standpoint, the inflation tax isn’t the way to raise revenue. Although I suppose you wanting to have a large military has nothing to do with the common good.
Also consider that, while most libertarians will claim that the state spends too much on the military, that free market defense would probably be a lot more advanced and powerful. We don’t waste money, there’s more innovation, and there’s actual institutional incentive to protect your consumers.
You’re also not being looted by a state. It seems a little counterproductive to be enslaved domestically just so you might not be enslaved by a foreign power.
But I like this government. I’m willing to be their tax slave if they’ll protect me from other governments.
Perhaps there would be more efficiency and innovation in a free market defense system but that would mean we’d have to get rid of the government and that’s not worth it to me. I also feel very well protected by my government provided defense. Maybe the free market could do it better but I have no way to know. So I would rather stick with what I’ve got than make some dramatic change. Plus, I tend to think it’s easier to build a really big military when people don’t have to choice the not pay for it.
So you don’t want to get rid of the government, even if you knew the market would be more efficient, cheaper, etc?
Economics and political philosophy should inform your decision.
So you don’t want a military just large enough to protect its constituents, you want a large military?
You keep coming up with these oxymorons. Willingness /= slavery. What about other governments are you afraid of anyway? All they’ll do is tax you.
No, because I like the government. Just because the market might be able to provide better and cheaper defense doesn’t mean that I want to get rid of government. Government is a very powerful tool. It may not be cheap or efficient but it’s very powerful.
Anyways, I don’t pay most of the taxes that pay for the military so it’s not on me. We have a progressive tax system so I pay much less taxes than someone making much more money than me. I think something like 86 percent of federal income taxes are paid by the people in the top marginal tax bracket. I’m not in that bracket. So I get a big military mostly free of charge. Can the market give me that?
I guess I should have said I’m willing to pay for the government and force anyone who doesn’t to be their slave because I like this government.
Also, they do much more than tax. Every government has its own set of laws and rules. I like our rules for the most part. I like this system.
Maybe we’ll get lucky and a monarchy will take us over. Then more of the common interest will dovetail with the state’s and we can have lower tax rates. People like bloom will be upset at first, but once things settle out they’ll learn to love the new government just as much as the old.
@Snowflake, unlikely, titles of nobility are expressly forbidden in the Constitution so it would have to be an outside invader and I don’t think anyone has the balls to try that. At least not for now.
Efficiency = getting what you want. If the market provides progressively more efficient means to an ever expanding possibility of ends, it is more powerful than any state.
And you pay the inflation tax out the nose. You pay the sales tax. On the other hand, the rich people, like doctors and lawyers, CEOs and superinvestors, maybe they pay high taxes, but they also benefit enormously from state intervention. Its not a net loss for them to have a state around. On the free market, they’d be so much poorer.
Well, the market won’t let you steal other people’s money, but the whole beauty of the market is that you don’t need to. Goods and services are provided ever more cheaply and universally to society. Gone are the days when starving people must steal bread. They can go work for an hour at mcdonald’s and eat a day’s worth of food. The market makes stealing outdated.
You won’t need to attack other people for their money if defense can be provided at next to nothing cost.
I’m supposed to believe that you are “willing” to pay when you always pay only the minimum amount that you can get away with? That’s like saying that you are “willing” to keep your feet on the ground and not float away. Your will is irrelevant to whether you keep your feet on the ground and pay tax.
To be totally honest, I benefit from programs like Medicare because my father is likely to have more to leave me in inheritance when he dies than he otherwise would have because he won’t have to pay as much money for late in life medical care. So even the social programs benefit me to some degree.
What about the people that are paying for your father’s Medicare? Do you think they like paying for it?
You can love government all you want, but what about the rest of us?
@Snowflake, that depends on how you measure power. I think we’re pretty damn powerful. We’ve got lots of bombs, tanks, jets, helicopters, guns and bullets.
I think you’ve got it backwards, the more dollars you hold, the more you lose through the inflation tax. I lose a little but I’m fairly well invested so I tend to make money as the dollar loses value.
But why make the change when I get what I want right now? I’m perfectly satisfied with the way things work. Maybe you could do it better in a free market but I don’t understand why we need to do it any better. It’s pretty good as is imo.