It appears you ignored what I said. Let me attempt to clarify.
Are we witnessing human nature here? Or are we witnessing Human Nature corrupted by the state? Incentives?
I vehemently disagree with your last claim. Whilst it is true that “savage” Anarcho-Primitivist tribes were aggressive and usually in conflict (although this became heavily ritualized and relative to the state I believe the death toll was relatively meagre to small, either the state wins when it comes to destruction), are you honestly trying to say that the State is less deadly then a society without it? Are you oblivious to human history? How many wars of attrition can you name fought between a state and a private institution or even two competing institutions? And if so how influential was the state in incentivising such conflicts to begin with? War of Northern Aggression? WW1 & 2? Wars indo-china during the 20th century?Perhaps any other war between now and the last 4000 years?
THE STATE IS WAR. The state thrives on conflict, it’s in interest. That’s what the state is, the legitimization of the initiation of force.
I do believe in the scientific method, however it depends on what it is being applied to.
“Mises attempted to find the conceptual root of economics. Like other Austrian and classical economists, he rejected the use of observation, saying that human actors are too complex to be reduced to their component parts and too self-conscious not to have their behaviour affected by the very act of observation. Observation of human action, or extrapolation from historical data, would thus always be contaminated by overlooked factors in the way that the natural sciences would not be (although in quantum mechanics observation of one property of a system causes uncontrollable, but generally predictable, changes in other properties).
To counter the subjective nature of the results of historical and statistical analysis (see Methodenstreit), Mises looked at the logical structure of human action (he entitled his magnum opus Human Action). In other works he built on the methodological aspect of Economics, on a PostKantian base, the synthetic a priori.”
You can read the rest of the explanation here… Please do
Are you implying that I’m off topic? Well in a sense I am, but the topic itself was already on a tangent. I was trying to end that discussion whilst bring it back to it’s original purpose. And I think this statement is also a tangent. So start a new thread if you wish to start such a discussion.
To your first question, praxeology. To your second point…!? To your third point… perhaps you should re-read it? To your last point again… !? And how does that make you a realist? Why does every single person who uses empirical validation/verification with regards to human action, automatically think they are a realist? You can use it in Natural philosophy i.e Physics , however were not the greeks capable of making scientific discovery’s through reason? Are you aware of the extent of their advancement? Do we need empirical validation to be aware of gravity? Can we not reason it’s existence?
Getky, either I am a dunce or am unaware of the context of Mises’ above statement.
Could you please enlighten me to explain how that possibly means that everyone will or will not enjoy a higher standard of living in the free market?
Soweleif, the piece quoted from Mises pertains to value-freedom. Gethky noted some instances of Austrians who assert that free trade creates benefits, and alleged that this is a breach of the fact-value dichotomy. As I mentioned though, this is not what Mises meant.
Yet you ignore that fact that people in thier right minds would not sell themselves into slavery. Throughout history people have been coerced into slavery. You make the mistake of thinking just because there isn’t a law against something that means it will be done. Most people I know have a moral compass that guides their actions. It may not point in the same direction as mine, but usually they’re close enough.
Read Jeffrey Hummel’s “Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men.” It deals, among other things with the theory that chattel slavery could not have remained in existence without government sponsored coercion via compulsory slave patrols, the fugitive slave law and anti manumission laws. Slavery only was able to exist so long in America because its costs enforcement costs were socialized. Private free enterprise slave patrols would have been too costly for the slave owner, thus, through government they passed regulations requiring everyone to join the slave patrols. It’s also interesting that had manumission rates of 1790-1800 remained constant, nearly every slave would have been free by 1860. Anti manumission laws, however, prevented this. I don’t think slavery could exist in a modern (or antebellum) economy without government support.
“I would say that the slave trade without government protection would be impossible.” - Anonymous Coward
12/19/07 "The Independent" – – Three Florida fruit-pickers, held captive and brutalised by their employer for more than a year, finally broke free of their bonds by punching their way through the ventilator hatch of the van in which they were imprisoned. Once outside, they dashed for freedom.
When they found sanctuary one recent Sunday morning, all bore the marks of heavy beatings to the head and body. One of the pickers had a nasty, untreated knife wound on his arm. Police would learn later that another man had his hands chained behind his back every night to prevent him escaping, leaving his wrists swollen.
The migrants were not only forced to work in sub-human conditions but mistreated and forced into debt. They were locked up at night and had to pay for sub-standard food. If they took a shower with a garden hose or bucket, it cost them $5.
Their story of slavery and abuse in the fruit fields of sub-tropical Florida threatens to lift the lid on some appalling human rights abuses in America today.
…A week after the escapees managed to emerge from the van in which they had been locked up for the night, police discovered that a forced labour operation was supplying fruit-pickers to local growers. Court papers describe how migrant workers were forced into debt and beaten into going to work on farms in Florida, as well as in North and South Carolina. Detectives found another 11 men who were being kept against their will in the grounds of a Florida house shaded by palm trees…The entire operation was being run by the Navarettes, a family well known in the area…
I didn’t feel like typing all that out again… Thanks for proving my point though.
So what are we really talking about here anyway, the act of slavery or the institution of slavery?
The act of slavery is quite possible under any form of government especially if you have a group of people existing in a society with no protections under the law (well, except the right to be deported) but the institution of slavery is completely and totally impossible without government consent and protection.
Interesting thing this illegal immigrant labor. With a slave you have to care for them, feed them, clothe them, and make sure they stay in pretty good health but with an illegal immigrant if they get sick or hurt on the job you just tell them to not show up the next day because you know there are plenty of healthy ones waiting for that job.
Illegal immigration turns out to be a lot more economical than the slave trade ever was and people wonder why they aren’t seriously trying to crack down on it…
Awesome article Gethky!!! Man, it’s great that the article enforces the claims put forth all along that only with the existence of the STATE can slavery be maintained. Whether they are legal or illegal migrants. It’s interesting how you ignore it is because of the PRESENT system, that such exploitation can be maintained.
Also the article states this… “But conditions in the state’s fruit-picking industry range from straightforward exploitation to forced labour.”
Wow, very non-bias paper, it seems NONE of the workers gain, which is a very strong absolutist statement. I presume the independent is a socialist leaning paper? Perhaps centrist left?
I’m not saying that forced labour or the conditions above do not exist, I’m merely following these cruel practices to their root, which is not the companies but the State.