You don’t think that the beginning of the United States experiment was constructed around limited constitutional government?
Please, explain.
Just resemble? If it looks like a duck…
Indeed, the free market/anarchy literature usually assumes the worst about the economic actor: that he would lie cheat steal kill if it would advantage him. And anarchy is still preferable to the state under these assumptions.
Lam, what do you make of this quote from LeFevre:
"If men are good, you don’t need government; if men are evil or ambivalent, you don’t dare have one.
We don’t need to model men as good or bad, just rational in the sense that they respond to incentives.
He was wrong on the first, possibly on the second.
Isn’t the ability to leave perhaps the greatest incentive in an organization? If we are compelled to remain in the group either in concordance with our will or against our will, does it really matter what incentives we try to instill?
I one sense yes (although if men we good and so was the world would labour exhibit any disutility?) which Molinari should back in the 19th century that competition is evrerywhere and always superior to monopoly. However Lam’s point was becasue men are presumbly prone to evil then they need restarining by a monopoly- the LeFevre quote shows this line of reasoning to be a manifest absurdity.
I agree. Socialism may be unsustainable for more than one reason. Though central planning may not be an efficient way of allocating resources, it doesn’t preclude it from being sustainable. Optimal efficiency is not necessary for sustainability. But I feel that this goes off topic.
I only meant to say that posters here (or anywhere) and people self-reflective enough to be pondering these societal principles are much more likely to be bound by them. I admire your belief that the remaining 6billion people are similarly inclined.
As a strong individualist, I find myself merely different from the average human, by definition. As for this being superior, that all depends on your objective function (goal). Actually, one could argue that thinking with your own head may not be optimal from an evolutionary standpoint. Sheep are much more easily herded under banners of all sorts, producing states/armies able to wipe out the non-coherent individualist ones. It’s amazing that there’s even this many of us left to ponder our existance in this forum. [:)]
True, but how long has it been tried without a fiat money economy? I think Hazlit (I could be wrong) posited that central banking may be the main driving force for the vicious cycle towards statism and totalitarianism. Is it a concidence that the largest statist ideas (socialism, communism, fascism, nacional socialism) all appeared within years of central banking being accepted globally at the beginning of the 20th centry? Definitely something to explore further.
Please help me understand your usage of the term ‘violence’. Could you ponder a situation in which you voluntarily give up (trade, exchange) SOME of your freedom in return for something that may benefit you and your neighbors? Assume that you and two of your neighbors had a choice of each getting an expensive tractor (thus ruining your profit margins) OR sharing an ownership of a single one. Wouldn’t option 2 be a serious contender – trading SOME freedom (to fire up and drive my own tractor whenever I want, profits be damned) for the benefit of having a profitable farm? In option 2, do you consider the contract that you entered with your neighbors (“you can only use the tractor Mon and Thu”) actual ‘violence’ of your freedom simply because you cannot use it on Wed?
Personally, of course I wouldn’t steal your gold. But I also wouldn’t do many things that I see other humans do. You keep refering to this as some kind of a proof by example, while you’re purposefully neglecting other manifestations of human nature as recorded by history.
Z.
For a talented, intelligent, skillful, sane, prescient, and productive member of society the cost benefit analysis may indeed point toward cooperation, and even then ever so slightly (Prisoner’s Dilemma). The equation drastically changes for someone whose largest (and only) talent is knowing how to efficiently smash someone else’s head.
How does monopoly government change the incentive for negotiation over violence for your average human? What does the existance of a state have to do with this inherently human condition?
Z.
The average human is not violence-prone beyond the occasional fistfight.
Civil rights laws and welfare both reward anti-social behavior, so it is the State itself which incentivizes violence and interpersonal conflict. There are other externalities as well but those are the two that seem most patent to me.
I found this recent quote from another thread here that I think may hit at the heart of this issue:
Ultimately, in a finite world, with finite resources, and finite length of life, your freedom is potentially ALWAYS in danger of being limited by the mere fact that I also exist with an equal claim to such a freedom. At the minimum, as we pass by each other on the walkway, my very existence limits your freedom to walk right through me. So you are inevitably bound (by the laws of physics) to give up SOME freedom (and accept some kind of social contract: “let each of us make a slight step aside so we can get through”) for the larger benefit of getting to your destination. Do you consider this to be a pre-emptive violence of your freedom?
Basically, in a world occupied by more than one person each person’s freedom is in fact limited by the equal claims to such freedom by others.
Z.
As I understand, minarchy advocates neither civil rights laws nor welfare. Also, correlation is not causation. It is as likely that human nature causes the State’s existence, as it would be for the State to have negative influence on human nature. The fact that they seem to occur together most of the time, is no proof that one causes or encourages the other.
Z.
You keep referencing human nature as a general cause and purpose. “Human nature” so-to-speak is only your lense to view other people from, and excludes your own action.
You’ll have to break that down, because you have already demonstrated that you don’t conform to human nature (would not rob me in an alley), so obviously it is not a universal notion.
It doesn’t. Giles is badly misunderstanding another conversation. If you stick around long enough, you’ll see it happen with regularity.
You’re using a different definition of freedom than we do. You’re assuming freedom is a right to life. We use freedom as the absence of aggressive (initiated) force.
Your definition is nonsensical, in that you claim that the conditions of nature deprive man of his freedom, and yet no one has a right to life. No one claims we have a right not to be eaten by a tiger or freeze in an icestorm.
Well done.
For instance, it seems that minarchy with sound money has yet to be given a fair chance. I didn’t mean to imply that I knew what all the possible schemes actually are. Far from it. I too find the idea of anarchy (anarcho-capitalism) appealing but I have serious doubts as to its sustainability, without even going into its optimality by any measure. I’m not even sure that it will converge to a system that maximizes individual freedoms, assuming that this is its goal. Anarchy’s sustainability largely depends on a model of human nature that is so far removed from a complex reality as to be borderline Utopian. Btw, we know how Austrians feel about models of any kind.
Z.
If you have sound money, you can’t have a monopoly government. In order to have sound money, as Ron Paul puts it, you must have market money. Which means no legal tender. Which means it is nearly impossible for the government to tax.
If you’re going to make claims about different schemes, it is not unreasonable to ask you to explain them or stop mentioning them. It’s impossible to discuss fruitfully if one party insists upon invoking unknown norms.
It is unsustainable in the long run because the incentives of central planners are not sustainability. And yes, this is OT. But it’s important to understand that there is not just a political argument against socialism, but an economic one. Whether socialism is wanted or not, it is not sustainable to the same standard you claim anarchy is not sustainable. Anarchy, politically desirable or not, is economically sustainable.
Making broad sweeping claims about human nature are not the same as understanding human action. When rational actors are informed of ideas and activities to their benefit, they engage in them. There is a reason why more educated people are (generally speaking) prosperous, productive and less violent. It is not a coincidence.
Right, but rational egoism would claim that we’re all individualists. Everyone acts for his own self-interest.
As I explained in my last post, sound money and monopoly government are not compatible.
Libertarians/anarcho-capitalists/voluntarists oppose the initiation of force. And if no one initiates force, then force is not needed in self-defense. Hence, a move away from violence as a means of ordering a society. The initiation of force has to be against person or property. If we’re both racing to the last cocount, that is not violence if I get it and eat it. If you own the coconut and I take it from you, by stealth or by force, it is violence.
Most people wouldn’t. The police are an abstraction of the natural capacity for individuals to respect property rights. Police don’t pre-emptively stop crime any more than laws pre-emptively stop crime (drug war anyone?). People will do what they understand to be right/wrong, filtered through their own self-interest, regardless of the laws of the land. And that is what is worth understanding. What drives human action.
It is actually a contradiction on your part. As far as claims to history, you haven’t made any specifically. It is just more broad generalizing. That there was violence, does not mean there always will be violence. You have proven that with your answer.
He messed up the quotation, Laughing Man said that, not me.
I think you’re being disingenious. How did you conclude that I assume that freedom is a right to life? Perhaps if you answered some of my questions I would gain a better understanding of your (apparently superior) definition of freedom. Again, as I’m walking down the street toward you, would you consider that to be “aggresive (initiated) force” against your freedom to keep walking down your path?
Somewhat relevant… What is your position on VOLUNTARILY entered social contracts that stipulate limits to your freedom in the future (in return for some present and future benefit)? What happens if you change your mind and you no longer like being bound by it? Are the others who are rightfully demanding that you continue fulfilling your contract obligations not within their rights to use “aggresive (initiated) force” against your freedom? Or are you suggesting that no one shall under any circumstance be allowed to use “aggresive (initiated) force” against anyone?
Z.