People here occasionally ask what the fastest/most effective comeback for something is. I believe these are excellent because people don’t want to hear/read an essay, and mainstream already have them. “They took our jobs”/“what about the pooor”?
So I think we should make a compilation. Post your own, or comment/critique others. I’ll start with some of mine.
MSM: Whaaa? You’re an anarchist? That’s chaos.
Ancap: The state is an institution which is judge in its own case. As a law-monopolist, it is itself totally lawless and unaccountable. I am an anarchist because I believe so firmly in the rule of law.
MSM: Herpa derp jobs and unemployment herpa derp
Ancap: When you say “job”, you really mean “risk free use of another man’s capital”. You should ask why more capital isn’t being created, and why existing capital isn’t rented out more frequently.
MSM: The government can do X
Ancap: And serial killers CAN stop killing. Stop pretending like the state will automatically do what you want it to do, and consider what states are LIKELY to do. Hint, they actually gain power if we are successfully attacked by terrorists.
MSM: Whaaa? You’re an anarchist? That’s chaos.
Ancap: I mean anarchist in the other definition. It’s the absence of state force, not chaos.
MSM: That’s going to cause unemployment / That’s going to create jobs
Ancap: Unemployment is caused by regulation banning employment. Everybody would be employed if wages were allowed to adjust.
MSM: The government can do X
Ancap: The actual consequence of government doing that has always been a decline in X.
MSM: What about the poor?
Ancap: They are going to be better off because of improved productivity.
MSM: They want to cut taxes on the rich.
Ancap: Good. Taxes on the rich make the poor worse off by delaying progress.
MSM: You are just a greedy shill for the rich, I am noble and selfless.
Ancap: Is it really that selfless to advocate destructive policies that hurt millions for your own self-congratulation?
Isn’t the question here essentially “What’s to stop men from evil?” Nothing really. But then isn’t it true that the only argument against the state is that the state might come back?(In the form of a security firm wanting protection money).
For most things now I just link government’s actions to only being feasible through force.
MSM: “bla bla government could/should do X”
Ancap: “Government can only do X through force / the money it spends on X is extorted from the population. Sounds very uncivilized and barbaric to me”
Works for pretty much any topic and once you establish that point all the other points just topple down.
Hmm… Free market countries will always score lower on economic metrics because freer immigration and capital mobility decreases per capita productivity in the country, even though it improves it on an international level. Example - allowing 1bn people who live on less than a dollar a day to immigrate would drastically cut american wages, but that would be an ultra free market policy and be better for those people.
Example - allowing 1bn people who live on less than a dollar a day to immigrate would drastically cut american wages, but that would be an ultra free market policy and be better for those people.
It should be true, therefore it is true?
Tho I agree with your thoughts on migration (except for the wage part). I don’t think that’s a very good 1 liner.
“There is simply no other choice than this: either to abstain from interference in the free play of the market, or to delegate the entire management of production and distribution to the government. Either capitalism or socialism: there exists no middle way.” -Mises
Isn’t it a good thing to find that out early anyways? If someone has that viewpoint then any debate you have about anything will end up in a never ending argument and neither side will budge. And all because you two disagree on this single issue, if you can establish this difference in morality early on then you can save yourself a lot of headache and just agree to disagree and move on to the next person.
What about the wage part? That wages in America would fall? Look per capita they probably would in the short term, if only because you’re taking a bunch of totally unskilled people and re-calculating metrics with them. Of course productivity per capita will fall. Of course literacy and health quality will fall… State socies look at stuff by country, which is a totally arbitrary sample space. This is an implicit demonstration of that.
What is a stronger response to the superior metrics of state socialists?
Even if this is true, I think they can bring up distinctions between necessary/unnecessary, public/private, rivalrous/private, etc goods in an attempt to justify the double standard for health care and national defense over pizza and iPods.
What about the wage part? That wages in America would fall? Look per capita they probably would in the short term, if only because you’re taking a bunch of totally unskilled people and re-calculating metrics with them. Of course productivity per capita will fall. Of course literacy and health quality will fall… State socies look at stuff by country, which is a totally arbitrary sample space. This is an implicit demonstration of that.
Of course wages would fall. Ownership sure isn’t going to take any cuts if they don’t have to. Where we disagree is on whether or not that’s a good thing.
You don’t convince people this way. If you’re going to go the aggression route, I might suggest Molyneux’s “would you shoot me over the minimum wage?” tactic to try and get them to say something really really awful - that they would use violence against you to get their way. All the while you get to say “i’d only use violence against you in self defense”, which just socially makes you seem like the better person.
Personally though? Its not enough. Even if they lose on morality, I want them to lose on every single point they use to support socialism. No matter how much they lose on 99% of issues, they will hang on to every last iota to justify the welfare state. I will hunt them down untill there is nothing left.
MSM: Herpa derp jobs and unemployment herpa derp
Ancap: When you say “job”, you really mean “risk free use of another man’s capital”. You should ask why more capital isn’t being created, and why existing capital isn’t rented out more frequently.
I also have to take issue with this, if I may. It seems strange to say the low paid worker that would lose his house, and probably break up his family, lose his easy access to food, have to hope he can find another job, etc… is using the man who will maybe have to not buy a new BMW this year’s capital “risk free.”
EDIT: oh yeah, and many times he is taking very large personal risks just by doing the job like; coal miners, or ice road truckers, etc.
Personally though? Its not enough. Even if they lose on morality, I want them to lose on every single point they use to support socialism. No matter how much they lose on 99% of issues, they will hang on to every last iota to justify the welfare state. I will hunt them down untill there is nothing left.
Would you shoot a welfare satist for it? (I know, aggression and all that. it’s just a joke… jeez)
The word “use” is like, to do stuff with, not to “exploit”.
And risk free is with respect to rate of return. Not absolute quality of life.
Yeah. I mean there’s grey area all over any definition of employment. What I’m describing is what most people think of though. You go and you work for someone else who already has capital, and you use their capital in exchange for some contracted wage. That’s a very narrow and stupid definition of employment, but its what the mainstream uses.
The word “use” is like, to do stuff with, not to “exploit”.
I am using it in that context.
And risk free is with respect to rate of return. Not absolute quality of life
I understand that. But someone who has thought about the issue will tear through that “risk free” notion in seconds. It’s vague, and appealing… like syances (is that spelled right? Ghost talking?). But the substance is lacking. The lowly worker arguably has far more at risk than ownership.
Remember if ethics doesn’t work, make a utilitarian argument, and vice versa. Bust out some Rothbard, or bust out some Friedman. Because your going to get someone complaining about either or.