Don’t not be so confused into thinking that because I don’t accept your theory of the cyclical nature of history or that society somehow evolves into a better world that I am somehow against anarchy. You are not anarchy and your argument is not anarchy therefore I can reject you and your argument and in doing so I do not reject anarchism.
Really? Pray tell, where have I said ‘god-given’? All I have stated is that we have a right to anarchy since it is the only environment in which we can exercise our other rights without molestation. Go to Bob Murphy’s topic about theism in libertarianism. I’m sure it is still around. In there I plainly announce that libertarianism can be achieved without theistic overtones. I am not a militant atheist or for the purging of theistic elements in libertarianism. I find myself agreeing with natural law and natural rights based on Aristotelian reason. The whole point of good sardonic statements is that you are derisive about the actual truth about what people are proposing, not strawmen and falsity.
Self-victimization is very cliche. If you are so inclined to give yourself such titles then I would point out that being all four things is prima facie contradictory.
Be it hard to believe, but I actually think we’re converging on some points.
Now we’re talking.
1- East Asia: Let’s begin with an impressive list of famines which ravaged Asia in the XIX century which continuously decimated entire populations ( and are particularly frightening). I know Mao’s experiments and the Chinese civil war also caused much suffering but still, despite their atrocity, such episodes are short lived in XX century east asia, while they where continuously perpetrated by nature in the XIX. A truly massive increase in wealth for these guys is equivalent to not starving, considering their starting point.And all due to more freedom, of course. in particular jumped back to being a superpower to-be, a status it had achieved in the late medieval age for the last time. And of course, Chinese are now freer than ever. The same goes with Indians. Cambodians, North Koreans and Vietnamese would be an exception though. As for Asiatic tigers, , , , , and I’ve covered them in my dissertation and I can assure you they’ve never been better…until up to 1998.
2- is for the first time a more or less free society. Although it started in the Meji restoration, the liberalization of was interrupted only during the fighting stage of WW2, and has resumed, under the American aegis, since. I actually hold that japan is the only “western” country (in economic terms) which’s situation has improved form the last century.
3-africa: although post-colonial Africa has been flooded with food aid which keep its population impossibly high (thus bringing about genocide, famine and the such), I would hold that the period from the late XIX century to the middle XX century has brought a massive improvement for African, such as was never witnessed before. Some countries continued to improve after de colonization, such as and, to a lesser extent, , other degenerated. Yet I believe that the XX century has, on balance, been a massive boost in wealth for Africans. And than we have of course!
4- latin America: with the exception of , and the champion, , which have improved, I agree that everyone else has drastically fallen from their high-point of liberalism in the middle XIX century. Perhaps is countering that, to early to tell.
5- didn’t even change much: czarism was just as harsh as Stalinism (teh purges were just a remake of famines), while lenin’s NEP was the only anomalously free period of the century (yet, I know its crazy). And than again, post 1990 , especially from 1990-97 has been a tiger. I say that situation has, on balance, improved slightly.
6- US and : hopeless.
7- : hopeless, with teh exception of Switzerland wich has sliglty degraded
8- Eastern Europe: much better (beside the part that was under Hapsburg rule), chezh republic worse, worse, much better and everyone else generally slightly better.
9- and : slightly worse
For the hundredth time, no it doesn’t. I just need a tiny fraction of the population able and/or willing to flee for this to happen.
If your preferences compel you, and you can do so, of course you will move. If you mean that one shouldn’t be asked to leave to change the rules he lives under, I agree, but not for some “inherent right”, just because i know this would be a winning system.
Ok, you can’t use absolute population as a rough measure of success, but you need to use per-square kilometer figures. Let me furnish an example: I believe that for those in a high enough position ’s City is an anarchic society with nothing but voluntary rules. Let’s compare the city to the whole of . On a total population figure the city clearly looses, but on a per-square kilometer basis it clearly wins. You see, populous states are so because they are large, and that makes it even harder for anyone to leave, lessening the incentive for such states to liberalize. If China hadn’t been united after WW2 we would never have seen the likes of Mao, but Deng would have ruled from day one. So, please check out the most densely populated countries on earth, not the most populated ones in toto.
Do you know where was everything used in up to the XV century invented? Like the compass, printing press, rockets and the like? That would be china. Or where did Weber’s idol, Christianity originate? That would be Indian Buddhism. As strong family (as per Confucianism) isn’t truly the libertarian ideal but it is much better than e strong state (and these two cant coexist), so Confucius wins hands down. Chinese where also much less theistic than westerns on average.
The same goes in , castes aren’t the libertarian ideal, but still better than an overlord state (every caste is, in fact, a state). That means plurality of jurisdiction in , which brought about a high level of development in ancient times. Please don’t misunderstand me, I’m not advocating a military family or a caste system but I hold that where the center of legitimate violence resides in something smaller than the state (families in china and castes in ), things have improved.
You have a debt because the average American has higher time preferences than the average Chinese, that I no measure of success whatsoever, just e measure of preferences.
You would be outcompeted if people started moving to .
Yes but Chinese are meddling with Hong-Kong’s affair for now, just with its defense and foreign policy. For now is almost as good as independent. Note: if started adopting a Hong-Kong-like path, rest assure that they would out compete the States.
does cause more efficient states, but not vice-versa. All of the contrary. increases in spite of more efficient states (due to competition), not because of them.
Well once again you don’t have your facts straight. Rothbard didn’t want efficient people in government in fact and this is a quote from him ‘we want people who can’t find the door knob’ Efficient government is worse then inefficient. Really, I don’t understand how you think that increases in the government’s ability to do its job means increases in liberty. That would be like saying moonshiners hope the ATF gets better at illegal liquor stings.
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Amen to that, but that’s not what I meant (again I apologies for I misused the word). “Efficient state” as in, one more capable of exerting its functions due to higher income, due to increased production in a freer society. Do you think the Chinese state is a tenth as efficient as the American state? You perhaps could enforce internet controls, for they surely cannot.
I tried to make it clear that the fall of a state is not the fall of the State. I was two years old when my own crumbled, but no one, as I already hinted, abandoned the idea of the state, just seeked an other form of it (i.e. democracy). The states essence is truly in the mind of the people and no statist disaster can move that. So, a statist cycle is one in which form a plurality of states one eventually gets a singe state which crumbles back into a plurality of states. No anarchy in this cycle. (this could be an argument for monarchists to ponder about).
So your battle cry is world government and your creedo is ‘Give me liberty or give them death’?
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If that would apply, yes it would be. But of course only a child could believe that states crumble to bring anarchy. We’ve witnessed all of communism falling and there still aren’t Russian DROs operating in .
Well this is bizarre..are you implying that Rothbard is a statist? Or that he somehow has some connection to Marx?
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They both upheld anarchy, and both secede the steta as a vehicle to achieve it. Ever read Rothbard’s response to Konkin on libertarian strategy? He says something along the lines of “the path to anarchy? Of course it’s political action, not Konkin’s black market!” And he was a prominent figure of the Libertarian Party (and left on for non-ideological reasons). So, with all his genius (second only to Mises’) he got this very, very wrong and has doomed a hefty percentage of libertarians to pay Ron Paul to perform magic tricks.
Again, semantic misunderstanding. Some countries are worse, but on general we have improved, politically and economically. That’s all I meant. My fault here.
To unify posts again i’ll have to quote you manually.
“Don’t not be so confused into thinking that because I don’t accept your theory of the cyclical nature of history or that society somehow evolves into a better world that I am somehow against anarchy. You are not anarchy and your argument is not anarchy therefore I can reject you and your argument and in doing so I do not reject anarchism.”
I didn’t mean that you’re against anarchy as an idea, just that you seem not to believe it shall come to be, sooner or later. And that you said yourself. Is it true that you’re not 100% sure that anarchy shall happen?
“Really? Pray tell, where have I said ‘god-given’? All I have stated is that we have a right to anarchy since it is the only environment in which we can exercise our other rights without molestation. Go to Bob Murphy’s topic about theism in libertarianism. I’m sure it is still around. In there I plainly announce that libertarianism can be achieved without theistic overtones. I am not a militant atheist or for the purging of theistic elements in libertarianism. I find myself agreeing with natural law and natural rights based on Aristotelian reason. The whole point of good sardonic statements is that you are derisive about the actual truth about what people are proposing, not strawmen and falsity.”
Again, I only meant to show that the belief in some “inherent right”, not open to logical questioning and just “there”, is a direct parallel to a theistic conception, not that you as an individual think God gave us rights. Again, you stated that even with no need for a society we woudl still be “entitled” to anarchy, although teh concept would then be devoid of any meaning.
“Self-victimization is very cliche.”
And enoyable!
“If you are so inclined to give yourself such titles then I would point out that being all four things is prima facie contradictory.”
Please have the good sense to point that out to yourself, as I’ve done nothing more than borrow them from you.
An additional request. If you could be kind enough to answer this I’d be delighted: should Ricardo’s law (yes, comparative advantage) not apply, would you be “unjustly traded” (work with me here, I couldn’t find a better expression) by not living under anarchy (as anarchy presupposes a society, which wouldn’t come to be in absence of Ricardo’s law)? Would the situation be “inherently” unjust as it would be a war of all against all (with n state being even capable of being conceived, let alone put to practice), with truly no rules? Would chaos inherently be unjust?