“If a community of 9 people agree to mutally protect their houses from theft and fire, and one nearby person does not want to join, he would get something for nothing, as he would be protected from fire (they would put it out to stop it from getting to their houses) and theft (they would stop the theives from getting into their houses). Since he gains a benefit for nothing, why shouldn’t the community force him to participate?”
“In anarchy, there are PDA’s. If a system of PDA’s exists, then nothing stops one PDA from shooting the other PDA’s. When there is one PDA left, you asserted that it is government. Therefore, anarchists support government by whoever is strongest.”
Oh noez, he’s getting something for free!!! Okay, I am going to make my garden all pretty, and force people to pay for the aesthetic enjoyment I provide. How dare those parasitic leeches think otherwise?
Translation: I do not understand economics. I do not realize conflict is unprofitable and that firms prefer dealing with one another on a basis of good faith.
The fire problem is overstated, most people live in houses either sufficiently separated from their neighbours to be safe from fire, or live in shared ownership properties where exist an association to resolve those details. A lot of those issues arise because the houses were built under government rule, and inherit defects caused by the government regulation.
Anyhow, the free rider problem is irrelevant, as Rothbard said, we’re all free riders on the preceding generation’s capital accumulation. Everyone is a free rider in some way or another, and private property resolve those problem to a minimum.
Simple example, in shopping center there are often those big car-truck-train toys for children where they can put a dollar in the machine and it does some music and movement to entertain the child. I often go to play with my daughter with those toys, she has a lot of fun, and I never need to put a coin. So we’re free riders on the toy company, does that mean we should nationalize that industry? What about christmas decorations in shopping malls? You can go there just to enjoy the music and the scene, nationalize them too? The examples are countless.
Regarding PDA, that’s the last stone of the state apparatus. If someone can’t grasp free market fire services, there’s no chance he will understand that fighting is expensive, peace is cheap, and market competition for higher defense at lower cost will drive “rogue” PDAs out of business, leaving only peaceful cooperating, cheap and high quality PDA competing for customer’s dollars.
My opinion is those are not ridiculous fallacies, but I’d group them in the category “I have no idea how to make shoes, so only the government can make them”. Most people are not entrepreneurs and have no imagination or intuition on how to resolve problems in the market. They see how one service is provided by the government, and they think that it’s the only- even the best- way to do it.
Public school has done a great job of keeping the public ignorant of alternative to state intervention.
It’s causing insanity. I’d rather he took up a collection so we could get him his own apartment, and spare us more of these threads. I come to this forum to avoid statists and morons, not to be regaled with their stories and half-baked opinions.
Someone suggested before that you should just keep this stuff to 1 thread. You don’t have to make a thread for every argument you find yourself in with your parents.
With child labor laws the kids are forced to do much more exhausting and dangerous work, resort to theft or prostitution, or simply starve.
If I’m a monster for letting the kids work in factories, what does that make him?
Unless of course he meant child labor laws in wealthy countries, in which case one has to wonder how many parents would send their children to work, if they could afford to educate them.