I am begging you, pleading from you. Please STOP writing such long, rhetorical, verbose posts. Stay to the point. None of us have time reading the repetitive pages of your mises.org/forums book.
“Further more your argument is in paradox. Since in order to protect citizen’s from an establishment of absolutism they must submit first into an establishment of absolutism. Why do you consistently ignore the hypocrisy?”
In order to best fill everyone’s desires best, you have to get their desires out of managing the market… is that not a paradox?
“what does it have to do with our discussion?”
I believe the question was “what precepts confirm anarchism over minarchism.” He used the constitution as evidence that minarchism gaurantees natural rights through the rule of law, whereas (in his view) anarchy would have no such protection.
“And in who’s opinion, yours?”
Balanced government is when no one branch of government has absolute power over another. This is decided by the common populace, established in the rule of law through a constitution. Sometimes the majority DOES have rights to dictate to the minority (i.e. if the minority believes in slavery, too bad).
"In order to protect against the tyranny of the majority, those people must first submit unto the tyranny of the majority."
There is a difference between the rule of something and the tyranny of something. Minarchist states have protections built in them to check the power of the majority. I believe Rett uses this as evidence that (in his view) anarchy has no such protections. One could make the argument that market anarchism is the ultimate form of democracy, as their is no way a minority (other than one with large purchasing power) can break the will of the majority.
“and your solution is socialized/organized/planned anarchy”
decentralization of power != anarchy
“Name one liberal democracy which has voted away it’s power”
a valid point. But this is not neccesarily because of liberal democracies in themselves, as much as it could be apathy on the part of their citizens to “wash the tree of liberty in the blood (figuratively or physically) of tyrants.”
“Since when? lol”
1776? They may not be as effective as you desire, but the point still stands.
“Blowing up or threatening to blow up potential clients is bad for business”
Unless of course you are blowing up a couple poor potential customers FOR the benefit of a collective of more wealthy customers.
I don’t see how that follows. Actually it doesn’t even make sense.
I addressed that, and it’s been addressed already by others. No need to repeat. An arbitrary piece of paper means absolutely nothing.
Nonesense. Thats like saying I have a balanced body because my left ear isn’t bigger then my right toe. Your talking about different body parts of the same organism. They all work together for a common end, whether you like it or not. Sometimes those ends desire war, other times they desire increased taxation, and other times they request more socialism. The state has but one purpose, to inevitably grow. It is the cancer of anarchy.
Right so then you confirm that we are back to a system of cercion. This is the opposite function of a market. Well done.
For the umpteenth time. Please cite an example of a liberal democracy voting itself into minarchism, and then succesfully keeping it there.
Your confused and don’t follow. I doubt retropper does either so I will clarify. So what your doing is creating competition amongst states. Your still trying to mimic a market, yet you fear the market, so you keep it as state-like as possible via using “States”. But there is always anarchy, you cannot evoid.
Apathy? Or fear? The provisions set in place now which give citizen’s incentive to remain serfs were and are built by the mechanics of liberal democracy’s. The very root of a liberal democracy requires all citizen’s to be serfs under it’s constitution. It only grows from there in time.
Thanks for conceding the point.
Heh, this is hilarious. I wonder if I should even bother responding. So America, which has succesfuly demonstrated as doing the exact opposite of what a liberal democracy should, according to retropper, is now considered a success? Then if America’s checks and balances worked, you should have nothing to complain about?
Or better yet, we could just put a gun to everyone’s head and take 30% of their pay everymonth in the form of taxation. Ahh your solution is so refreshingly non-violent.
Try failing again.
filc,
I don’t think you grasp the gravity of this point. Without economic calculation there is no way of telling when a service is performing successfully or not. So I challenge you to re-read my post and better comprehend it.
absurd, it succeeds when society is not subjected to predation without deficit spending. military spending in the USA is less then 5% of GDP. easily we can defend against external threats, stay in the black, and preserve liberty all at the same time.
Correct, and that is one of their flaws. As such we have no way of knowing if they are producing something that society considers of value.
absurd, liberal democracies still have to fund defense within the limits established by the free markets since they depend on the free market to determine the cost of munitions, labor, R&D, et al.
the department of defense continually cancels and rejects programs because they determine the cost/benefits are too high. Moreover, you dont have to worry about economic calculation because your competing against statist regimes that have the same problem.
Further more your argument is in paradox. Since in order to protect citizen’s from an establishment of absolutism they must submit first into an establishment of absolutism. Why do you consistently ignore the hypocrisy?
simpleminded base argument.
to use an analogy, a small amount of flu virus is injected into a human to innoculate it from full blown effects of the same virus.
liberal democracies employ the vaccine of severely restricted, decentralized, and limited “statism” to check the emergence of full blown absolutism.
in your ancap “utopia” society is completely defenseless to absolutism since it has no defenses to deter it.
there is nothing paradoxical about uses elements of a system to protect the whole from absolutism.
it is equivalent to saying stop lights restrict freedom rather then enhance it when every private road employs the use of stop lights to increase efficiency and reduce chaos.
Meaningless. The bill of rights is not some divine document created by god. It’s a random piece of paper that when created, immediately violated the rights of thousands of pre-established american communities. Further more what does it have to do with our discussion? Nothing.
manifestly false.
the bill of rights and our system of governance provides a scorecard or frame of reference in which to identify and forestall statist intrusions.
moreover, it provides a baseline in which you will see society rollback statism intrusions that have crept into the system.
see november 2010 and 2012.
Another worthless comment. This comment makes no sense what so-ever. What is even is government balance? And in who’s opinion, yours?
it may make no sense to fringe adherents of unproven, unpopular pipe dream that you advocate, but it is accepted by hundreds of millions of citizens worldwide.
it is amusing when ancaps attack constitutional federal republicanism as “worthless” when they themselves acknowledge its superiority by (1) strictly observing its societal rules and (2) not taking substantive action to replace it save hot air associated with considerable empty whining and moaning.
moreover, if it was “worthless” thousands of intelligent, brave, and moral men and women would not be risking life and limb to defend it.
in contrast, the ancap whiner risks nothing to promote his system of choice which says more about the efficacy of it than any pompous ignorant posts.
Do you have anything concrete to argue with or is rhetoric the only ammo you currently have loaded?
myself and millions of other supports of liberal democracy have risked property, life, limb and sacred honor to successfully defend our system.
what have you done to promote anarchism, save empty absurd statements like the one above ??
anarchism’s failure is confirmed by the lack of resolve from its fringe defenders and the pitifully tiny number of adherents.
Oh but we have that little inconvenient problem again. In order to protect against the tyranny of the majority, those people must first submit unto the tyranny of the majority. lol
citizens in a liberal democracy are not submitting to statism. liberal democracy punishes statism by breaking it up into tiny transparent pieces so that it can be better monitored, controlled, and rolled back.
in contrast, ancap society has no provisions or checks to absolutism. moreover, it is blind to the emergence of it since statists can gain power within the framework of the market and not reveal itself until after it establishes hegemonic power.
Your arguing against anarchy, and your solution is socialized/organized/planned anarchy. lolol
I havent argued against anarchy. I have argued against total anarchy and statism which would emerge from total anarchy.
i have always advocated for an anarchic free market except for a night watchman in matters of law and national defense – similar to von mises, hayek, et al.
Name one liberal democracy which has voted itself into minarchism. Name one liberal democracy which has voted away it’s power and decentralized itself. Citations please!
virtually all of europe is now in the process of dismantlng the welfare state. the USA reduced the size and scope of government in the 1980s and the 1990s which led to the longest sustained period of growth in our history.
where have you been ?
moreover, we will see the statist lose power in at least one chamber of congress in 2010 and again they will lose the executive branch in 2012.
by any objective, rational, and independent thinking measure – women, minorities, and non-property owners have dramatically more individual rights then before 1776.
Therebye perpetuating wars civilian’s dont want. As they have no other option but to continue to pay the same coercive monopoly of national defense.
did you read my post ?! they do have an option, they vote out the party that starts an unpopular war.
it is obvious that liberal democracy reduces the chances for wars for profit since those that fund it dont benefit from it, hence they always vote out the leadership from power that initiates these kinds of wars.
In contrast, ancap society rewards those who initiate war with 100% of the plunder, they dont have to redistribute it. moreover, if you oppose war in an ancap society, there is nothing you can do to stop it.
if a PDA can secure funding from internal or external sources, it will engage in a war for profit irrespective of what the majority of ancap societies citizens believe on the matter.
Since when? lol
again, I dont have the bandwidth or the time to teach you 8th grade civics
Deterring statism is a different discussion now isn’t it? Are you trying to derail my painful points? You essentially evaded my whole post.
it is apparent that you dont understand my posts.
liberal democracy is the best and most accepted deterrent to absolutism yet known to man.
ancap is simply a statist means to absolutism that sidesteps the deterrent of liberal democracy.
in sum, I can guarantee that statist will be supporting the emergence of any ancap society because it will be the vehicle for them to reestablish themselves.
You agree that a statism regime cannot economically calculate. So how then does it know if it is pleasing its citizen’s? How then does it know how many resources to direct towards domestic protection, vs national defense vs roads?
liberal democracies who overcompensate on defense will vote inefficient politicians out of office. Those that underspend will invite aggression from statist regimes.
more importantly, if liberal democracy dominates the geopolitic there wont be any need for defense spedning since liberal democracies dont wage war against one another.
Answer my question. Don’t evade. Does Security Socialized outperform market security. And if so, why not socialized medicine? Food? Housing? Roads? cloths? everything?
strawman, I never said command economies are more efficient than market economies.
INdeed, I have stated repeatedly that PDAs are more efficient that their statist counterparts.
however, with respect to national defense – liberal democracies are not competing against large private armies they are competing against statist regimes.
moreover, the purpose of confining national defense within a decentralized, transparent, and accountable government structure is to prevent it from metastasizing into a tool to establish absolutism. national defense establishment within a liberal democracy are not for profit as would be the case with an ancap PDA. liberal democracies establish defense for security and the preservation of life and liberty, hence their structure is intentionally inefficient and decentralized to the extent that it can still deter statist threats.
with respect to food, medicine, housing, cloths, roads, et al — i have always advocated private control since these industries and enterprises can attain monopoly status without impacting societal health and well being in more than a temporary inconvenience.
in contrast, once a PDA reaches hegemon status, your utopia is finished. there is no emergence from creative destruction or a 2nd chance for a competing company or industry.
Blowing up or threatening to blow up potential clients is bad for business. People will switch providers and capital will move away from the hostile PDA to more secure ones. No further funds would be allocated to potential dangerous PDA’s. How do these firms continue to get funding in order to pay for their expensive and destructive endeavors?
again, who says that blowing up potential clients is always bad for business or that a dominate PDA cant find funding and profit from this action ?!!
the market is not inherently repelled or guided by whether some endeavor is peaceful or violent — only profitable. you have a polyannish view of the market that places non-violence as the goal versus profit seeking.
again, if an enterprise is determined to be profitable it will be funded irrespective of whether it is peaceful or violent.
in contrast, within liberal democracies violent enterprises conducted within society are almost always rejected by the voters, politicians, and/or both irrespective of whether it is profitable.
so your solution is making one of those PDA’s a monopoly.
The USA is not a monopoly PDA
every segment of the AMerican defense establishment is disparate and distinct.
intelligence, sea power, air power, ground power, funding, command and control, et al EVERYTHING is separate, and largely dependent on one another.
the intelligence community cannot usurp societal power for more than an instant without incurring the wrath of other centers of power.
likewise, the Marines cant establish hegemonic rule without running up against the army and air force.
the president cant assume hegemonic power without the support of the disparate states, militias, all the branches of the military, and the source of funding congress and ultimately the tax payer.
moreover, there is complete transparency among these disparate agencies of sometimes competing interests. Yes, it is inefficient, but not to the extent that it cant defeat statism but it is inefficient for a reason – to deter the establishment of absolutism.
your assertion is absurd and it is a perfect example of the clueless naivete of ancaps regarding the threat of absolutist power and how system must be in place to check it .
in constrast. a hegemonic ancap PDA can incorporate intelligence, funding, R&D, WMD procurement, command and control, training, air, ground, sea, et al ALL IN ONE PACKAGE without a hint of transparency.
now who is naive ?
and which system do you think will deter the emergence of absolutism ?
in sum, liberal democracy can be attenuated to enjoy the benefits of no government intrusion in housing, medicine, education, energy, et al without increasing the risks to destruction from external and internal statist threats that exist in ancap society.
you stand correct.
i will respond to any additional comments next shift.
filc,
I am begging you, pleading from you. Please STOP writing such long, rhetorical, verbose posts. Stay to the point. None of us have time reading the repetitive pages of your mises.org/forums book.
agreed.
however, i read all of your posts and often you accuse me of sidestepping some of your arguments.
nonetheless, I acknowledge that it is tedious to read these long posts.
I will summarize in the future,
sorry.
Filc, you are missing the most important part of the refutation. ANYBODY who works for said firm would instantly become an outlaw. The price you have to pay someone to become an outlaw is astronomical. Let’s just take the 100 billion dollars. If you have 100,000 people working for you, that’s 10,000 dollars each, and that’s without ever paying your stock holders. You’re telling me that 100,000 trained professionals (roughly what it would take to invade and hold Iran, and that’s being generous) are going to become outlaws for 10,000 dollars? 100,000 dollars (1 trillion dollar price tag)? 1 million dollars (10 trillion dollar price tag)? Mercs right now make 150K-250K a year without being an outlaw (I don’t know if that price will hold). You’re going to pay them 4-7 years of pay to make them an outlaw? And that’s if you can get 10 trillion dollars to invade Iran. The upfront costs for becoming an outlaw firm is prohibitively expensive, and that’s before you even see any dividends for stock holders. It’s absurd to think that a PDA with existing customers, big enough to invade Iran would even consider the offer.–sam
who says you have to take and hold anything but the centers of gravity ?
in the case of iraq, you send in a small navy and marines to take the strait of hormuz and charge exorbidant fees for iraqi ships to transit.
over 50% of the worlds most accessible oil reserves pass through this choke point.
it is ludicruios to think that a for profit entity would try to take and hold iraq in this manner.
moreover, it is equally ludicrious to think that the USA liberated iraq for short term profit
in sum, those arguing the efficacy of ancap society dont have a clue how ancap civilization will play out ----otherwise they would be putting their “money where their mouth is”
in reality, most of the ancaps on this site are pimply faced college kids getting subsidized with taxpayer money in the form of student loans.
probably, few have ever met a payroll or ran a business for themselves.
I addressed that, and it’s been addressed already by others. No need to repeat. An arbitrary piece of paper means absolutely nothing. – filc
I always crack up when I hear ancaps saying the constitution and federal law is an “arbitrary piece of power that means absolutely nothing”
I’d liked to hear them say that to a judge, IRS agent, or an afghan war veteran.
like I have said repeatedly, if societies were built on hot air and nothing else – anarchism would be king.
what is equally amusing that anarchists cite ad populum to debunk the argument that they require more than a fringe minority of elites and masses to realize this pipe dream
like anarchism will materialize just because they think it is a good idea despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of people reject it out of hand.
A complete non-sequitur and has nothing to do with my comment.
As do PDA’s.
Not simpleminded and good job at evading.
And the difference is, the flu virus vaccine has your body create anti-body’s. A small amount of the state doesn’t do anything like that. We don’t build small militia’s to fight against the state. Instead what’s been consistently shown is the state perpetually growing. To use your analogy, it would be like taking the flu vaccine, but then having it radically take over your body ultimately destroying you.
Think harder.
Non-sequitur and irrelevent. Also, you’ve risked property to build a system which steals mine? Thanks.
Incorrect, if anarchy failed we wouldn’t have a market! Try again.
Citizen’s of a liberal democracy state are not citizen’s of a liberal democracy state? Can you try making logical sense?
More non-sequiturs. Can you stay on point please?
A) You say we’ve never had full anarchy. Yet we somehow got full statism. So perhaps you should re-think your argument.
B) You don’t even comprehend the economic calculation argument by Mises or Hayek. In fact I would go so far as to challenge that you’ve probably only read Road to Serfdom. Have you even read any of Mises’s work? Don’t lie please we can tell. 
You should probably go back and do your homework. the 1990’s grew thanks to the fed and low interest rates.
Also are you telling me that in 1990 the US government was smaller then it was in 1776? No? Then I’ll allow you to concede the point.
So since they cannot voluntarily retract from the system. They are forced, against their will, to participate in voting. Waiting 4 years for their chance to get rid of one crook, to place into another. But regardless of who you put in power, the citizen’s are forced to participate whether they like it or not.
Your still resulting to violence and coercion.
The whole war is profitable thing is complete nonesense. If war were profitable then why has ever nation in the history of mankind who’s participated in it gone bankrupt, or inflated it’s currency, or hyper-inflated it’s currency. If it were true that war was profitable there would be no need whatsoever to run the printing press.
But you do when it involves security.
Well I use common sense, IDK about you!
And you actually need to read Ludwig Von Mises for once.
The one who thinks that national defense is transparent. And that one is not me =)
Paradox. A liberal democracy is a statist regime. It’s fundamental basis for existence revolves around submission, and coercion.
Yes it is. lolol
Look I’m going to stop because I don’t want to read yuor lengthy posts. I’m trying a new tactic now.
Instead what’s been consistently shown is the state perpetually growing. To use your analogy, it would be like taking the flu vaccine, but then having it radically take over your body ultimately destroying you.
absurd, even sweden rolled back the size and scope of government in the 1990’s
the USA cut back government in the 1980s with Reagan and again in the 1990s with the republican congress.
we will see further reductions starting in 2010 and again in 2012.
the system is designed to make changes, albeit slow to prevent civil disorder.
Non-sequitur and irrelevent. Also, you’ve risked property to build a system which steals mine? Thanks.
absurd, my system eliminates 95% of government spending and places retirement, health care, education, et al in private hands. and deters free riders from avoiding contributions for defense.
i require 5% of gdp to fund defense and arbitration. primarily to provide for sturdy defense against statist threats and create a system that exposes potential absolutist threats to decentralization and transperancy.
Incorrect, if anarchy failed we wouldn’t have a market! Try again.
wrong, anarchy is the absense of government. last I checked our free market was operating within a liberal democracy.
in sum, you can have 95% of the economy functioning in a free market with limited government for defense and law.
i reject total anarchy since it invites predation from internal and external statist threats.
A) You say we’ve never had full anarchy. Yet we somehow got full statism. So perhaps you should re-think your argument.
B) You don’t even comprehend the economic calculation argument by Mises or Hayek. In fact I would go so far as to challenge that you’ve probably only read Road to Serfdom. Have you even read any of Mises’s work? Don’t lie please we can tell.
strawman,
statism emerged from the anarchy present before the establishment of civilization. moreover, I didnt say that statism couldnt emerge from other systems including liberalism. the checks while more substantial that those absent in ancap society can be overcome by a determined statist movement.
i have never read road to serfdom. however, I have read hoppe, rothbard, dilorenzo, murphy, et al.
You should probably go back and do your homework. the 1990’s grew thanks to the fed and low interest rates.
Also are you telling me that in 1990 the US government was smaller then it was in 1776? No? Then I’ll allow you to concede the point.
NO, as a percentage of government spending of GDP, It decreased from 1990 to 2000.
moreover, it decreased significantly since 1945 and generally from 1945 until bush II – it was pretty stable at around 20% of GDP.
today thanks to obama and the dems it is over 20% of GDP – note I am refering to federal spending.
however, I have always stated that government spending is out of control. - i dont advocate the promotion of an unproven and unpopular system to replace liberal democracy.
So since they cannot voluntarily retract from the system. They are forced, against their will, to participate in voting. Waiting 4 years for their chance to get rid of one crook, to place into another. But regardless of who you put in power, the citizen’s are forced to participate whether they like it or not
they dont have to participate, congress can refuse to fund the war. the military can refuse to fight (as the enlisted troops did in 1970’s), impeachment is an option, et al.
moreover, waiting 4 years to remove a reckless warlike president is nothing compared to waiting 6000 years for the re-emergence of liberal democracy from the detritus of a failed ancap utopia and the statist systems that will emerge from it.
Your still resulting to violence and coercion.
of course, what is wrong with a little or alot of violence and coercion ?
if violence can be used to gain wealth than it will be undertaken in the free market.
if a bunch of pacific anarchists think that the free market willl protect them from bullying, then they are in for a rude awakening if ancap society is ever formed.
the best thing ever to happen to violence averse cerebral little nerds is liberal democracy. without it, most of these clowns would be walking around in dresses with funny looks on their faces.
liberal democracy is very good at controlling random private violence against innocents. statism is even better at controlling random acts of violence against innocents who mind their own business. however, I acknowledge that without reservation any potential competitors for power within statist systems are immediately subject to torture and murder.
if your a pacific defenseless weakling who doesnt mind surrendering some rights for protection from random violence than statism should be your system of choice. otherwise, you better get a thick skin if you plan on living in an anarchic society as you will be subject to numerous physical confrontations and intimidations without your “mother” the state to adjudicate in your favor.
in sum, brute physical force has a utility in ancap society not to be dismissed or discounted.
The whole war is profitable thing is complete nonesense. If war were profitable then why has ever nation in the history of mankind who’s participated in it gone bankrupt, or inflated it’s currency, or hyper-inflated it’s currency. If it were true that war was profitable there would be no need whatsoever to run the printing press.
the same reason that every private company has gone out of business. a big fish always shows up to eat the little fish.
and not every nation who has engaged in warfare walked away unhappy or without profiting, otherwise war would have been obsolete year ago,.
Well I use common sense, IDK about you!
common sense doesnt guide the markets, profit does.
But you do when it involves security.
unlike the rest of the free market, security is a zero sum game.
when someone increases his security, yours relative to his decreases.
not so, when I gain material wealth. we both can benefit from exchanges and overall societal wealth increases.
however, when PDA invest in war making overall societal wealth does not increase only relative strength between competing PDAs
And you actually need to read Ludwig Von Mises for once.
and I will exit with this quote from your beloved von Mises:
Government may even be called the most beneficial of all earthly institutions as without it no peaceful human cooperation, no civilization and no moral life would be possible. –mises, Economic Freedom and Interventionism
[Edit: cut it out]
Retropper cite an example of a liberal democracy voting itself into minarchism(Permentantly). Not voting itself 1% smaller for a few short terms.
From here on out I will address you one post and one point at a time as I think it will be easier for you, and much easier for the rest of us to read.
lennow,
thanks for the constructive criticisms.
however, I am at work and restricted on time so it is difficult to proofread.
nonetheless, I will take note and attempt to make avoid these errors in the future.
thanks again.
Retropper cite an example of a liberal democracy voting itself into minarchism(Permentantly). Not voting itself 1% smaller for a few short terms.
From here on out I will address you one post and one point at a time as I think it will be easier for you, and much easier for the rest of us to read.
Since you acknowledged that we have had decreases. Actually I think Reagan reduced discretionary federal spending during the Cold War by over 10%.
I acknowledge that we have not done nearly enough and what we have done has been pitiful compared to the overall level of increased government spending.
however, there is a precedent among liberal democracies to dramatically reduce government spending as a percentage of GDP — see sweden, ireland, greece, et al.
all of these reductions were forced due to the apparent failure of the welfare state. The only reason that the USA has not responded in kind is because we didnt have as severe a welfare state as those now making reductions.
with the devastating consequences of failed entitlement programs coming to fruition, we will now have no choice but severely curtail government spending.
states and local governments have already done so. see virginia and new jersey.
I should have left work over 1hour ago. so I will respond to your posts individually later.
it is a good idea to adopt this format.
since It appears that we are in agreement that government is far to big, reductions that occur are far to few and minimal to be beneficial.
however, it appears that we disagree that change is possible within liberal democracy .
In sum, the reductions already undertaken overseas and in VA and NJ appear to disprove your view that democracy is incapable of identifying problems and responding positively with change for the better — in this case smaller government.
see you tomorrow.
Is that your answer? Re-read my question.
P.S.
A) The US Government was exponentially larger in 1989 then it was in 1776.
B) The US Government is larger today then it was in 1989.
Fine then, you can use that definition. But you haven’t defined government. One common definition is any entity having a coercive geographical monopoly on defense services. This definition (as well as a couple similar ones) is usually considered to apply to all modern states, which are all considered to be such monopolies. (Note: Mises, Rothbard, and I all have problems with the idea of monopolies, but I’ll let it slide here since I don’t think it introduces any special fallacies.) So if anarchy is the absence of government, then we have anarchy in Sweden, and Uganda - both regions have large governing organizations that monopolize coercion. So far so good. But then you come in with the complaint that we don’t have a worldwide monopoly on the use of coercion! Oh no! But this point is completely absurd. If all the smaller states already monopolize coercion then there can’t also be a single organization that has a worldwide monopoly. That would be equivalent to saying that I have all the muffins in the world and so do you. C’mon, Rettoper! If I have all the muffins in my house and my neighbor has all the muffins in his, no halfway intelligent person would wonder whether any single individual has all the muffins in both houses. Obviously not! Same thing with your point, which illustrates nothing about anarchy whatsoever and is a completely useless analysis. The real question is whether there should be coercive monopolies in the first place, not how large they should be.
No, I said that one definition of anarchy is ‘the absence of coercion.’ The paragraph you are commenting on was written according to that definition. You are criticizing me for saying that a society without coercion doesn’t have coercion. Wow, what an insane claim to make!
I’m going to ignore naive, which is just an attempt to be provocative. Let’s just say that I don’t disagree that PDAs would use their resources to defend their customers from any threat, including predatory PDAs. Wouldn’t you want that kind of dedication from your PDA? This isn’t a problem or issue at all.
No, it doesn’t. Omnipotence is unthinkable - can an omnipotent being create something that is immune to his future modification? No PDA could ever become omnipotent. No government has ever been omnipotent either, and no government will ever be.
Thank you for calling my naive for the third time this post. Unfortunately, using the same insult three times in a row only reveals your limited vocabulary, not any problems with my intelligence or argument.
By the way, Caesar crossed the Rubicon to fight the Senate, a governmental entity. Not against a PDA. So you picked a really poor expression to make your point.
Now, I can figure out that what you were trying to say was A PDA could use coercion to destroy its competitors. I’ve already partially responded to this, and other posters have explained this to you many times, but I’ll give it one more go. In an anarchic society, one PDA certainly could try to become a government. However, it is in the best interests of everyone else to stop this from happening. Rival PDAs (potential or actual competitors) would want to stop this, and all the customers of all the PDAs would be negatively affected by this. So while it could happen, an anarchic society includes safeguards to minimize any sort of abuse, whether from PDAs or any other individual or group. These safeguards are rooted in the incentives people are guided by, not in some powerless, non-acting piece of paper.
Wow, it seems like “naive” never gets old, does it?
Remember when I called you “Aristotle” and explained that both sides to any exchange benefit? You said that you understood, but you obviously don’t right now. Were you being untruthful, or are you exercising selective memory? If you need an explanation, I’ll give. If not, stop obfuscating the debate by pretending not to know things like this.
By the way, your use of “in sum” here is bad English. That expression is used to signal that a conclusion, summary, or restatement of a longer block of text follows, whereas what actually comes next in your post is a completely new point. Use transitions like “moreover”, “also”, and “in addition” to signal a new and complementary point. (Side note: notice how in addition and in sum mean completely different things despite referring to the same mathematical operation? English is awesome!)
While it’s certainly true that managers operate in their own self-interest, customers do as well, and so do third parties that the managers are trying to win over. In a free market, the self-interest of all these individuals is balanced. Government/coercion unbalances everything, delivering a suboptimal result.
You mentioned AIG in an attempt to show that the market doesn’t work. However, AIG failed due to
- Legislation designed to artificially increase home ownership, and
- A bubble created by the Federal Reserve.
Neither of these failures was caused by the market; on the contrary, both are entirely the fault of government interference in the economy. I can’t comment on the other two companies due to a lack of knowledge in those areas.
You also mentioned that 99% of companies go bankrupt. However, even if I accept this statistic as true, it proves absolutely nothing. On the contrary, companies fail because they don’t serve their customers as efficiently as their competitors do. This is not problematic or undesirable at all; it merely ensures that everyone’s subjective utility is maximized.
I haven’t even gotten halfway through your post, but this is all the time I have today.
I will delete my post on this thread shortly
Is rettoper’s new argument “we need the government to steal our loots from us, so we loot less”?
if so then I have this to say:
What the butt?
That is the thrust of it.
The only thing I fail to do is see how you make the jump from “this is how war may be profitable” to “I want to shoot people in the head.” Please let go of your personal bias.
I apologize, perhaps it seemed I was attacking you. It is your attitude. I find many of your claims to be self-reciprocating and unsubstiantiated (or even able to be substantiated). And the way you present yourself as a condescending know-it-all put me off at first. It was not my intention to seem like I was attacking you.
“An arbitrary piece of paper means absolutely nothing.”
No piece of human culture has any meaning. It is all a symbol we place a meaning to. A constitution gains its legitmacy when the balancing power overwhelmingly accepts it.
“The state has but one purpose, to inevitably grow”
Your view is self-reciprocating. The scope of the State has always gone back and forth. One culture has a strong state, the next relaxes it. It keeps cycling back and forth. Is there not less state now than 700 years ago?
“Then if America’s checks and balances worked, you should have nothing to complain about?”
Well, if we had anarchy, noone would have anything to complain about… spare me your utopian ideals. There will always be power to check and injustices to right.
@ retopper,
heh, well I enjoyed the thread. The only thing I’d ask is why, if 20% GDP in taxes is ideal, do we have 40%, as you say? Or, more broadly, if liberal democracy works as well as you say, why are there also large problems in its actual manifestation? Either you must deny the problems or suggest an improvement to the structure to be consistent.
You pointed out that the founding fathers instituted checks against the ‘tyranny of the majority.’ I’d suggest that if you closely examine the history of the period, you’ll find that what the fathers meant by ‘tyranny of the majority’ was a heavily class-loaded term. States, without Federal or Royal oversight, after the Revolution and before the Constitution, were voting to cancel or reduce the debts of the poorer majorities, for example. Shays rebellion was the most explosive example of this type of sentiment. The founding fathers, being mostly wealthy elites, wanted to ensure the government protected the wealth of elites. This is the reason for the electoral college - mostly elites would serve as representatives to it - and the reason for the appointed Sentate - wealthier individuals would be appointed by state legislatures to the national senate - and the reason for the independent Judiciary - only lawyers, who have to have expensive educations, can become Judges. Property requirements for voting are the most blatant example of this class-bias to the early American republic.
The U.S. system was rigged, on purpose, from the very beginning, to favor elite interests. Given this, it should not be surprising when elites do in fact use the government to serve elite interests - for example, bank bailouts, or wars that subsidize elite profiteers, or a debt based money system which requires more debt to create more money and facilitate economic growth. The higher level of taxation than is beneficial for everyone (and many other policies) do in fact benefit small cliques which have learned to manipulate government, often at the expense of society in general. In other words, efforts to avoid a ‘tyranny of the majority’ have instead facilitated tyranny by minorites.
This is my analysis as to why taxes are at around 40%, as you say, when they should be at around 20% - what is yours?