The Minimum Wage and the Value of Labor

[Jargon]

@DarylLloydDavis

Besides shifting the costs of government services directly upon those whose activities necessitate them, thereby disincentivizing the use of government itself, making reliance upon it personally costly and potentially risky (as in court and police costs for frivolous suits and false arrests), my system also leaves open the door for local voting precincts, or any small political unit, to reserve the right to determine many of their own laws and ordinances by their own direct voting. In other words, if enough precincts refuse to participate in a national initiative on an issue like the legalization of abortion, then any precinct may, upon ratification, decide any new issue for itself. Furthermore, upon ratification, any precinct may elect to begin to dismantle the old, existing laws, as they apply to that precinct; so long as this would not violate the new Constitution. This is a system designed to dismantled the old one, the current one–when the people learn to appreciate the freedom of self-determination–of designing each and every community the way it wishes. It isn’t ancap; because votes still decide issues; but it has a lot of potential to teach the People why freedom is always preferable to government control.

May any precinct secede?

And then what? That would leave wide open the distinct probability that force would decide all issues–primarily force of numbers, or force of might. That might not violate the letter of the NAP; but it seems to violate the spirit of it.

So we need to institutionalize violence to protect the ‘the people’ from violence? Gotcha.

I’m free to criticize all of you for not offering an alternative–and yet I am offering one of my own. I’m also gathering in your challenges, taking them seriously, and refuting them when I can. It would be nice if this exchange were always mutual.

Here’s a few: teaching people ethics, history, and economics and getting them to vote down to minarchy and then disband from government altogether. Or secede into territories like in NH. Or spread agorism so that the state shrivels from lack of taxation. None of these assumes that a specially designed state is preferable to a free and peaceful society.

I was suggesting that the capacity to commit aggression would be far greater, and far more prevalent, and far less controllable, were private individuals, with all of their random poor decisions, in possession of the weaponry upon which the government currently enjoys a monopoly. In effect, you would quite possibly add to the general level, or the numerical odds, of aggression by privatizing all weaponry, if for no other reason than as a natural result of accident/stupidity, followed by retaliation, ad infinitum. In such a case you would see less freedom than you currently enjoy–or freedom in name only.

Suggest all you want, but that is a bare assertion and it holds no reason to my mind. Humans are humans. As if once you take off the ‘public’ sticker and slap on the ‘private’ one, they’re much more greedy and foolish. You don’t understand, despite numerous explanations, that sustained aggression is possible only by involuntary funding. The costs of aggression are heavy and reveal the folly of the aggression itself, thus without taxation, aggressive institutions are short lived from a lack of funding. How exactly does privatization increase the odds of aggression?

They might make and repair the roads more efficiently; but I don’t see any orderly, unwasteful way that travel and trade could in any way be guaranteed–or even maintained–without a governing authority. By the way, would all existing roads be sold off; such that the next day, someone else owned the road outside your house–and someone else the road linked to it–ad infinitum again. It’s absurd to anyone not hell-bent on defending pure private markets.

I do. Would you explain your doubts? Specifically, why central authority is necessary to travel? Methinks you’re being willfully unimaginative of the possibilities of privatized travel. As if every 20 ft section of road in front of people’s lawns in the suburbs would have a toll booth and gun turret attached.

Pure capitalism theoretically ensures the most efficient, productive distribution and use of natural resources. And if that is the only moral value, and it is unleashed worldwide, it will most efficiently use up all of the world’s resources. Add to that formula the complete privatization of all the Earth’s land, as all of you seem to support, and every bit of it will be economically exploited, none left undeveloped, except the private property of those still holding out–an ever-shrinking few. I like that states stalemate one another’s development and exploitation of the world’s resources; and I like that America protects some of its best natural lands, e.g. Yellowstone and the national forests. I don’t wish to turn the globe into the DeathStar (from Star Wars.)

Total nonsense. Do people like wildlands, forests, and mountains? Yes. Hunters, hikers, thrillseekers, whatever. Is it so impossible to your mind that people would concentrate funds to protect wildlands? That’s what the state did, why can’t the people? Have you ever considered that the tarmac sprawl, strip mall, concrete desert format of America is due to the massive highway project pursued in the fifties which incentivized the automobile culture, and all of its corporate misfortunes, and disincentivized alternative forms of travel?

Please respond to the many already listed, or I might conclude that you are unable to do so. My investment in an exhaustive list is in direct proportion to my expectation of your investment in directly addressing it.

They’ve been explained before, specifically in my thread with you, but you ignore them or could not provide a satisfactory refutation, to my mind. It seems like you think that economics is a religion more than a science. With all your ‘free market is god’ talk. It isn’t. It isn’t perfect, but it works the best. Since coming to these boards I have not seen one satisfactory refutation of the ability of the market to avoid monopoly, depression, ‘wage slavery’, etc. If you must convince yourself so (that economics is religion), then please do not set about to plan society, as so many before you have done.

I understand that there is plenty of abuse in a government system. (I got a $154 ticket the other day from a cop who told me that I should have lied to him about wearing my seatbelt, so that he could write me a point-free ticket for that, instead of one for running a stop sign.) But at least that cop has a superior officer, and the department has internal affairs, and then there’s the FBI–a system of checks and balances and a set of written, impartial laws that serve to ensure stability and accountability. If I have a blindspot, it is that I can’t see where a purely private society would establish a stable system of justice, and with it, a functional, authoritative check on the excesses of private individuals.

Wait so the private cop doesn’t have a boss? And that boss doesn’t have a boss? Strange business model… Here’s some basic info about the functions of a market free from central authority: consumers seek service, A provides good service, B provides bad service, consumer pays A. If you don’t understand, please go back to our thread and re-read.

When China drives steel manufacturers out of business here, by selling their steel for less than its worth–just to eliminate their competition–it makes no difference to them if one firm doesn’t buy their steel. But if the government slaps a tariff on their steel, that makes a huge difference to them: if forces them to be just. Unless the whole world goes ancap all at once, there will all sorts of vulnerabilities for the one that does go ancap, economic, military, and otherwise. That’s why a transitional plan is so crucial–and the lack of one, so disappointing.

It seems that you’re engaging in the ‘predatory pricing’ myth. It doesn’t happen and it’s not in the interests of a business to make it happen. It is in the interests of a business, however, to steadily lower prices. You also seem to be referring to tariffs in the positive, please read Henry Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson. Ok so you’re saying that the regulated taxed slave labor chinese steel industry would crush a steel industry with no taxes or regulations? Perhaps it would outsell them, but I find it hard to believe that any decent business operating under such conditions would be destroyed against the bloated state-pumped monstrosities.

Under my system those who force issues before a court pay directly for that service, just as though the court were a private enterprise–only the judges are paid from a public pool of revenue, not from private litigants. No more general taxation, only pay-per-use/serve.

From a public pool of revenue? Hm where does that come from? Secondly, remember the rule above: consumers seek service, A provides good service, B provides bad service, consumer pays A. Consumers in the Law market do not wish to employ a court that is clearly pro-corporate. Once a company buys a court, it will have effectively wasted its money, because that court is still subject to market competition, and no one buys law service from a crook. That would be like buying oregano from a drug dealer, telling your friend about it, and then him buying oregano from said drug dealer. It doesn’t happen.

Experience has born out the relative trustworthiness of liberal democracies in refraining from a use of destructive force against their own populations. Rare exceptions like Waco only prove the rule. Governments have a vested interest in preserving the lives and the earning power of the People. Businesses are focused upon eliminating the competition: those who are not their customers are not their concern. With respect to weaponry and justice, this concerns me.

What experience? Our liberal democracy just passed an indefinite detention bill. The earning power of the people is of little consequence since they can print and borrow at will. You’re assuming that the leaders of the state are its keepers, when in reality they are greedy men looking to ride a wave of cash for as long as it keeps producing. And crashes can also be prfitable.

Tell me, how does one eliminate competition other than by pleasing the customer better than your foe or buying regulations?

It’s disturbing to me to read this thread where you toss around all of the old fallacies you tossed around with me in our previous discussion. It seems that everything I said was of no consequence as you continue to ignore that which provides too great an inconvenience to your vision. I didn’t even want to write all of this out, but I cannot permit the record to show that your statements are honest mistakes. If you could refute me, would you not have done so in the previous thread(s)?

Here they are (we started in the first one and for some reason switched over to the second one midway):

https://forum.freecapitalists.org/t/private-police-forces-mall-cops-with-m-16s/21397

https://forum.freecapitalists.org/t/how-does-a-free-market-territory-prevent-a-foreign-government-from-forcing-a-state-unto-them/21329

I realize this sounds haughty and I will take full responsibility for that charge of being a pompous douche, if you can go back and show me the holes in my arguments. But I can’t permit you to ignore our previous discussion by continuing this nonsense. Also, you never satisfactorily expounded on ‘human nature’ and its relevance to corrupting a free market economy, something which you continually employ in arguments.