What would you do?

Miscellaneous General
141

With woney being the most vendible good, a monetary economy is a barter economy with a dominant vendible good(money). In princple however the two are identicle. They function the same. Voluntary trade functions the same individual subjective preference, evaluation, and action also occurs the same way. I’m not even sure how you could even begin to logically argue otherwise.

Exchange ratio’s existed prior to the existence of money, in fact they had to for money to form in the first place.

True, money does increase the precision of analyzing opportunity costs and measuring exchange ratio’s. But when moeny is introduced into a market, the rules of the market do not magically change as you assert.

Here is an example. It makes no sense whatsoever to pass a qualitative judgement on types of addition. Would you say 2+2 is a more primitive addition process when compared to 4+4? The process is the same in both examples, one is not more primitive then the other. In the same way the market is a process, it operates one way. The difference between the market economy your thinking of and an advanced market economy only lies in it’s material objects(capital) which make it up. The market itself(A process) has remained the same. And 3000 years from now assuming we don’t obtain material superabundance the market will continue to operate the same way.

If 2+2 is a primitive addition process then it follows that 4+4 is also primitive. Or you could just concede that qualitative opinions of that sort do not belong assigned to such a process.

Only in material makeup. The market(A process) functions the same in both places. At this point though your not even talking economics. You might as well be comparing the American auto industry with the phillipenes tech industry. Passing a qualitative judgement between two regions with different resources and histories. Then calling one more “primitive” then the other.

Besides it look just obsured on its face such a judgement completly ignores the preferences of the individuals of each local. There are parts of the world where men only work 5 hours a day(Ive lived there). Naive people, such as your self, say they are impoverished and are poor. They only make 2 american dollars a day. They need to work more! Yet if you talk with those people you will find that they are extremely happy and satisfied. They are not be willing to trade 1st world wealth by working an extra 3 hours a day. The culture and the individuals that make it up prefer the leisure to more economic wellbeing.

We could not call such people more primitive. They are only doing what their preferences dictate. Who am I to say that a tribe in the Amazon is not exactly where they want to be or don’t want to be. I for one can make no such judgements as you do so loosely.

So like I said before, arguing from ignorance.

142

Thats not an acurate comparison though. It would be more acurate to say that he saves your life only to kill you moments later. Or that he is a doctor but whos business only comes from patience he’s wounded prior. Or a Mafia Lord who offers private defense but at the threat of robbing you should you reject the offer.

AJ you’ve been here long enough to give LS’s comment a bit more thought then that man.

143

They can only provide protection AFTER they’ve already previously violated. It is never the case where the state provides protection without first violating your property. It doesn’t provide protection sometimes, and randomly violate it other times. No it doesn’t work that way. It’s inherent to the system and by design your rights are violated BEFORE you can recieve any protection. It is the equivilent of a mafia lord offering you protection from theft by the mafia lord. THe very definition of extortion. So LS’s statement is correct an expropriating property protector is a contradiction in terms.

Come on guys, this realy isn’t rocket science.

144

Your longer explanation sounds a lot better than just saying it’s a “contradiction in terms,” which is easy fodder for statists, as they can note that some state agents do protect their property and decide the whole contradiction thing is an overreach. The point is not that no state agent ever protects property, but that the state cannot be considered a net benefit, or to provide any protection on net, just because it does technically provide some protection. Your explanation gets that point across, but the popular catchphrase “an expropriating property protector is a contradiction in terms” doesn’t.

145

The state doesn’t provide any protection of private property, it creates the illusion that it does. A simple example, name one thing you own which the state does not maintain that it can confiscate from you at any time.

146

It’s not easy fodder at all AJ. I think you’re reaching for what are the most idiotic arguments statists can make, instead of just looking at how foolishly simple their errors are.

That is precisely the point. It’s a myth. The state is a mass delusion. It’s a con job. The emperor has no clothes. Talking about the state like it is anything other than a well believed pack of lies, or avoiding the fact that the state admits it is not what people think it is, continues to perpetuate the nonsense.

147

Because the state undermines markets. This is really, really basic stuff Eric. Again, basic logical deduction. State massively undermines markets, no state = more markets. Seems a fairly logical conclusion. It’s not a value statement, it’s a train of reasoning.

I don’t accept your premise that states massively undermine markets. It is not necessarily true that markets will be more prevalent in the absence of a state, as there is no guarantee that property rights would be enforced to the extent that they are now.

Find me someone who will argue that they don’t own themselves, and I will believe that they truly feel that there are no property rights. Then I will homestead them and ride them around like a donkey.

I will accept for the sake of argument that I own myself. How do you go from that to property rights?

As I said, your appeals to your preferred beleifs as being voluntary are not well founded. They are voluntary for you, not necessarily for everyone else. Someone who has a different conception of legitemate ownership will not find a markets which are based on the enforcement of private property as being voluntary, as they do not accept the legitemacy of private property.

I thought you supported property rights? How can you support property confiscation and property rights?

I do support property rights to an extent. I also think that without a state, property rights wouldn’t be enforced to the extent that they are now. You keep coming up with this supposed “contradictions” that arent actually contradictions. As I said, the choice isn’t “property rights” or “no property rights.”

148

Translated as: It’s not property rights if the state’s stealing it from you.

So you like to assign these property rights at whim, not based on any principle. Contrary to how you formulate the belief property rights occur for specific reasons. They are very specific in occurance and behave in specific ways. There is no arbitrary nature in it.

149

Translated as: It’s not property rights if the state’s stealing it from you.

So you like to assign these property rights at whim, not based on any principle. Contrary to how you formulate the belief property rights occur for specific reasons. They are very specific in occurance and behave in specific ways. There is no arbitrary nature in it.

As I said, in the absence of a state I don’t think property rights are likely to be enforced to the extent that they are now. So by supporting a state, I am holding a more pro-property position that I would were I to reject a state.

150

Except that the first half of this statement is an assertion. The second half you concede that you think you only get more property protection only after you’ve submitted yourself into serfdom first. Stockholm syndrome. The slave argue’s that his master takes good care of him and is deeply concerned about his personal rights and space.

What exactly are you missing. An expropriating property protector is a contradiction in terms by very definition of “Property” and “expropriation”.

Also you keep re-asserting your position but you’ve yet to back it up with anything. Argument ad nauseum.

History provides several examples of w here the state was not needed for property to be protected. There are places all over the world where the state is nearly non-existent yet neighbors somehow magically continue to get along just fine. It’s in the economic best interest of everyone to collaborate in this way.

Furthermore you think your property is being protected today yet the state claims 3rd of the percent of your wages and a partial percentage of your property in property tax every year. No theif could ever claim that much in revenue from you. You would be better off paying no taxes and getting robbed twice a year as far as raw numbers are concerned.

Furthermore you have the whole issue of actually not getting protection. There are very few cases where the state can be shown to actually protect property. Our judicial system has no built in emphases on restitution. There are people today who have lost loved ones and lost capital or property and are still waiting decades later for some kind of justice. There are people whos family members have been murderd, even if by accident, where justice isn’t even allowed to be persude(You cannot persue civil justice if the federal government holds an active case open, active cases can remain open for half a decade. By the time the state closes the books and allows civil recourse most of the evidence had already been tampered with or is daated that it begins to become questionable)

Your foolish to actually believe that we get any kind of property protection as is. Even more foolish if you think it can’t be improved. Economic calculation alone explains why our current judicial system falls far short of what a market would actually demand.

151

In principle, the state considers everything within its territory to be its property. No matter what promises it makes, or guarantees it puts in place, it is the ultimate arbiter of any disagreement and can change the rules of the game as it goes along. On the other hand, It does not directly control every aspect of private life and has not confiscated all property within its territory. So long as it leaves some private property in the hands of its private citizens and enforces their claims against private criminals, it is to some extent a protector of private property. What would you consider the enforcement of laws against murder, rape, armed robbery, property theft and fraud to be? Anti-private property? Neutral to private property? An illusion?

152

So, you admit that it does sometimes protect private property. Agreed that its a contradiction so far as it is offered as a solution to the problem of security and protection.

153

If you don’t mind filc, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t call him foolish and put a little more thought into trying to understand his position, instead of just completely dismissing it. It seems to me that he has put a good deal of thought into it, and deserves a little more respect.

154

I would if he seemed genuinely interested in sharing his position. Its fairly obvious thats not the case. Otherwise we wouldn’t be talking about the same subject material for several pages now.

People who are genuinely interested in revealing their position must open themselves, and their understanding, to extreme scrutinization. I’ve done it, it’s painful. But massively rewarding as far as understanding life goes.

Most people however don’t have the balls to do it. So instead they repeat the same old tired assertions over and over and over expecting different results(Insane). Never is there any offering or means given to actualy analyze the positions taken. Instaead it’s a concrete wall of repitition.

155

He’s on a hostile forum arguing in earnest. He has balls. It’s a very difficult thing to do. I’ve given it a try myself.

First of all. its hard to respond to everybody at once. You have a bunch of people ready to jump all over you the moment you even put position out there. So, if he’s not addressing every point you make, its not because he’s unwilling to debate, or evasive, or that he lacks balls. It’s just that he has to economize on his time and focus on the major points.

And, you’re wasting his time by conflating and strawmanning his position. He never said that taxes weren’t theft, or state expropriation isn’t a violation of private property. All he said was that he thinks the protection of private property rights is likely higher under modern governments than it would be in their absense. When you strawmant his position, he has to clarify it.

So, if anyone is holding up the debate, its you and LS. Try to be fair and you’ll get more out of the discussion.

156

I don’t accept your premise that states massively undermine markets. It is not necessarily true that markets will be more prevalent in the absence of a state, as there is no guarantee that property rights would be enforced to the extent that they are now.

The only function the state has in relation to the market is to interfere/undermine/confuse. A market of any size consists of producers and consumers voluntarily exchanging with each other to improve their situations in their subjective opinions, what part of this requires a government?

So because a stateless future in which there are abundant markets and privately-enforced property rights is not 100% provable (which nothing is, not even scenarios backed up by empirical evidence) the superior choice is one where the government steals, murders, and violates the property of the people it claims to protect? I don’t believe that I need to justify how a stateless world would function, the burden of proof lies with the statists for why it’s okay for their government to commit crimes that any individual would be jailed or executed for.

Do you think it requires some overseeing third party for property rights to be enforced? Even if you can’t accept the idea that private defense and insurance companies would fill the void of property-rights-enforcement, individuals can still perform this task themselves. When was the last time your property rights were enforced by the state? The point is that there’s no one solution, communities and businesses can cooperate to discover the most efficient and preferable contracts and common laws to solve and prevent disputes.

I’d like to hear some specific reasons why you think there will be less markets or less private property enforcement, it’s quite easy to say that but you’ve yet to give any concrete scenarios.

Perhaps the word “anarchy” produces a scary image in your mind of criminals roaming the streets and mass panic, but if you think about everyone you know and whether they would become different people overnight were the government to no longer exist, you might realize that we would all get along just fine.

I will accept for the sake of argument that I own myself. How do you go from that to property rights?

As I said, your appeals to your preferred beleifs as being voluntary are not well founded. They are voluntary for you, not necessarily for everyone else. Someone who has a different conception of legitemate ownership will not find a markets which are based on the enforcement of private property as being voluntary, as they do not accept the legitemacy of private property.

You own yourself. You own that which you expropriate from nature or gain through trade with others. To say that you don’t accept “property rights” is a bit silly, even communism and socialism accept property rights, they just assign the rights differently than we do, to the state rather than to the individual.

You can’t be forced to make a voluntary exchange, so I’m not sure what you’re getting at in that second paragraph.

I’m getting the feeling that you’re on an Austrian Economics forum yet you haven’t read much Rothbard or Mises, am I right?

157

The only function the state has in relation to the market is to interfere/undermine/confuse. A market of any size consists of producers and consumers voluntarily exchanging with each other to improve their situations in their subjective opinions, what part of this requires a government?

The key question is whether or not property rights would be enforced to a greater or to a lesser extent without government. This is a very tough question, as there is little emperical evidence to go by. But given that people have extremely important long term plans based on todays government, I think such a radical change would cause panic. Also, look at statelessness in Somalia, or look at how the citrus farmers in sicily were treated by the mafia, which originated as a group of PDAs. Also, why wouldn’t mercinary armies be economically viable? For all intents and purposes, they came to dominate “anarchist spain” after all.

Do you think it requires some overseeing third party for property rights to be enforced? Even if you can’t accept the idea that private defense and insurance companies would fill the void of property-rights-enforcement, individuals can still perform this task themselves. When was the last time your property rights were enforced by the state? The point is that there’s no one solution, communities and businesses can cooperate to discover the most efficient and preferable contracts and common laws to solve and prevent disputes.

I don’t think it is required in that I don’t think it is impossible for property rights to be enforced in other ways. But we aren’t sitting in some vacum planning out what we want society to look like. Currently, property rights are enforced by the government, and while it is possible for property rights to be enfrced in other ways, the risk is absolutely gigantic. For example, if one had the ability to overthrow the USG, then you are risking the whole society.

I’d like to hear some specific reasons why you think there will be less markets or less private property enforcement, it’s quite easy to say that but you’ve yet to give any concrete scenarios.

For starters, look at Somalia. In fact, Somaliland, the portion of somalia that is the most prosperous, is also the portion of the country with the closest thing to a functioning government. There are other historical examples. I mentioned one earlyer in my post.

Also, people have long term plans built around todays government. Such a gigantic change would surely cause panic. I don’t see how the stock market and the financial system in general wouldn’t collapse, given that the governemnt plays important roles in both these sectors. People have their retirement funds tied with the governemnt. There are many other examples. I just don’t envision a smooth transition to a well functioning market.

Perhaps the word “anarchy” produces a scary image in your mind of criminals roaming the streets and mass panic, but if you think about everyone you know and whether they would become different people overnight were the government to no longer exist, you might realize that we would all get along just fine.

No that isn’t it. I was an anarchist not that long ago.

You own yourself. You own that which you expropriate from nature or gain through trade with others. To say that you don’t accept “property rights” is a bit silly, even communism and socialism accept property rights, they just assign the rights differently than we do, to the state rather than to the individual.

Communists don’t just “assign property rights to the state.” But that is beside the point. I also don’t feel like getting into my qualms with the claim that “I own myself” in this thread. But I have to ask you, how do you go from self ownership to property rights?

You can’t be forced to make a voluntary exchange, so I’m not sure what you’re getting at in that second paragraph.

Not everyone agrees with the concept of private property. Markets require private property to be enforced in order to function. Markets are not voluntary for people who disagree with the concept of private property.

I’m getting the feeling that you’re on an Austrian Economics forum yet you haven’t read much Rothbard or Mises, am I right?

No.

158

After knocking a few teeth out of the guy? I’d ask the kid if he’d like to learn to make something of himself. Then I would teach him how to be devious.

What? I’m supposed to be a good guy?

159

I don’t understand. What did you expect to happen? Us to all agree with him? He posts on an opposing forum, is he not asking for the responses he’s getting? Do you want me to not engage? Not participate? What exactly is the issue here? Im not calling him names, I’m not attacking him as a person. I am attacking his position. Does that offend you as well?

160

There are no rules to the game, and it is not the ultimate arbiter of anything, but yes, you have my point. The state is a fiction, and they will readily admit it. Despite this, people keep imposing their view of government on it, seeing it as they want it to be seen, not as it is.

We’re talking about the idea of the state, which is a fiction, not what the state does. The latter is obvious.

This is the contradiction. It isn’t a protector, it is a violator. The private market can do both of those activities without violating property rights.

This is sorta like saying a school teacher who doesn’t molest all of their students all of the time, is a good caretaker of children.

The state has no duty to do any of these things, and has made it clear that it is not responsible for those things. On occassion, the state will do an enforcement which may be consistent with libertarian ethics, but that is a coincidence. Again, the state has no duty to protect you or your property, and it is ILLEGAL for you to use another agent for this within their territory.

A big part of a market is the confidence that the money is sound, that the laws are just, and they will be applied evenly. That’s the con Stephen. None of those 3 happen, it’s just the herd largly believing they are true that keeps the mass delusion going.