There’s nothing wrong with any of that at all, so long as people are able to opt out of it.
Here’s Rothbard’s “Nation’s by Consent,” which pertains well to to the current topic of this thread.
To get people to abide to certain rules or standards we can have a Constitution like:
The purpose of human life is to live happily.
The function of government is to guarantee those conditions that allow individuals to fulfill their purpose. Those conditions can be guaranteed through a constitution that forbids the use of initiatory force, fraud, or coercion by any person or group against any individual:
* * *
Article 1
No person, group of persons, or government may initiate force, threat of force, or fraud against any individual’s self or property.
Article 2
Force may be morally and legally used only in self-defense against those who violate Article 1.
Article 3
No exceptions shall exist for Articles 1 and 2…
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Values exist only relative to life.
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Whatever benefits a living organism is a value to that organism. Whatever harms a living organism is a disvalue to that organism.
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The basic value against which all values are measured is the conscious individual.
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Morals relate only to conscious individuals.
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Immoral actions arise from individuals choosing to harm others through force, fraud, deception, coercion – or from individuals choosing to usurp, attack, or destroy values earned by others.
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Moral actions arise from individuals choosing to benefit others by competitively producing values for them.
We say that a private organization and the market will take care of us better then any government can and will ever do is because in the free market place and economy, There is competition that drives down prices. If you don’t get your monies worth With a private defense organization, you simply stop paying them like you would any other service that you buy in the market.
The government is the complete opposite. The government, politicians, and bureaucrats don’t compete with anyone, except among them selfs of course. They only compete with one another on how to win votes, how to get deeper into debt and for their own special interests.
Since the government doesn’t compete with anyone, They go into debt, which they push onto it’s citizens(you and me and everyone else), Prices fall and the status quo remains the status quo!
The governments sole existence depends it on living on debt and taxes (our money). The government forces you to pay taxes ( either directly or indirectly) and if you don’t you go to jail.
What? You want to live free -have freedom but you think it’s arrogant to think that a complete free society can ever exist in a world with choice? That baffles the hell out of me! What is your definition of freedom? Freedom is about making your own choices not someone else making choices for you. Are you one of these people that thinks you have to give up liberty for freedom or freedom for liberty?
I gotchya!
And what exactly would these projects be?
Digging holes and filling them? Building Pyramids? (I still can’t believe my teacher told me these things were constructive to an economy last year).
Why should the government spend money on services everyone can already spend on?
All the government would be doing is creating an artificial supply that isn’t calculated to an appropriate market demand. Essentially, they’re offering a product that not everyone wants and preventing those people from spending money on what they would rather have.
It’s effectively detrimental towards an economy.
Exactly why is it that the free market can do most things, just not defence?
It actually looks to me like a constitution of this sort strongly relates to that of the “I robot” type laws, cause no harm but stop all harm.
The arrogant comment was more in response to the notion of being portrayed as arrogant as another posted noted. It just seems to me that with the difference in personalities between people would prevent a totally free market from staying in perfect sync at all times. Corruption and scheming seems to me like too much of a possibility. Lets say you have 5 companies that provide security in an area. All 5 of them collaborate to raise prices and not work as hard so they can all reap the benefits. With no other security companies in the area, and no anti-trust enforcement body to regulate their activities, how will a market correct this?
Same goes for any industry. With no checks and balances to watch what they are doing, what would stop like industries from elemenating competition and causing people to all pay higher prices for like products or services?
I admit my mind is trained from years of a minarch society, but i am also trying to look in the side of pure business, and so far in my life time i have seen business be just as corrupt as government can be. A monopoly or a collaboration can lead to bullying and suppression just as easily as a government. I suppose if people volunteered a government to help this could work, but if you have the choice to not be involved then you have the choice to not abide by their rules, therefor causing even more tension.
I am a big fan of the ron paul type thought in this matter where the american society as it was architected is used as it was intended rather than having it distorted and corrupted. I guess the argument is how can you make sure it won’t be corrupted, and to that answer I have no idea, but I would think as in a marketplace, the competition between nations of the world will determine where people want ot be, and so far the U.S. seems to be winning on that mark (for now anyways).
But there’s always the possibility and in fact the probability that another company would appear to satisfy the demand for a cheaper, more efficient provider of security. Not to mention, the individuals in a free society would be allowed to provide for their own security.
My question to you is why can the free market provide all other services and yet be so incapable of providing defense? In fact, the government, as a monopolist, does and always will do the same thing, only, in this case it will be capable of outlawing any potential competitors and capable of stopping the individuals in society from defending themsevles.
damn forums ate my post…
let me try again.
Why don’t you apply the same standard of critique to the anti-trust enforcers?
Let’s suppose another scenario.
I own a resevoir and have a water distribution service. I decide that I’m going to raise prices to make more money off of people. Now let’s suppose I’ve started out with a monopoly on the distribution. As I raise my prices, the costs of my potential competitors becomes lower. I have offered them a chance to invest in capital and undercut my prices, since I’m charging so high above the cost to produce.
Let’s say I want to make 50% profits. Any businessman could simply come along invest in his own resivoir and start selling his service for only 25% profit. Not only that, the cost of his investment compared to the quality of capital he recieves will be far less since investment goods in a free market would always become cheaper. So now there is a businessman with a cheaper, more effective service that I have to compete with. Do you really think my business will survive?
But lets suppose there is no business man, nobody willing to invest in their own water service, or nobody with enough credit to invest. As the price of my service goes up, people are more and more likely to search for alternative goods: Bottled Water, building their own wells, etc. The only way your theory works is if people are not innovative, and the free market demonstrates that indeed they are.
The market itself is a check/ballance system. Businesses can only thrive if there is demand for them, and demand can only exist if people prefer the product being sold to them over what they currently have. I’m also wondering how a particular industry would eliminate its competition with higher prices.
That’s true for sure. But the corrupt businesses can only survive with a government to keep them alive by preventing competition from entering the market.
You see, you’ve undermined your entire theory referring to competition as eliminating any undesireable things. (I won’t get into the flaws of that statement in a political sense).
That’s The goal, mission , and point of libertarianism
I was that poster who made that arrogant comment
The market itself creates checks and balances. If you where poor wouldn’t you shop at walmart instead of Wholefoods or at your other local supermarket? The more money you have in you pocket from saving the better! People always look for the lowest price so there would always be someone that would form businesses and compete against each other for lesser prices.
In a libertarian society, There would be no tolerance for industries eliminating competition , thus causing people to pay higher prices. In a free society everyone would be held accountable for their actions.
In our current time, politicians, bureaucrats, and big business are not held accountable for anything, When they fail they don’t suffer the consequences, no instead they turn to big government to bail them out and/or they blame the so called “free trade” or some other crises but hmmmm for some reason it’s never their fault and yet they make a good living doing it.
Eliminating competition to raise prices would require one form or another kind of fraud, force, or coercion, Thus it would be against the law
I agree! Our current system is pro-business in a pro-big business sense. Libertarians on the other hand are pro-business in a pro-small business sense. Our current pro-big business system is in favor of protectionism -in favor of protecting big businesses interests (tariffs, business licenses, corporate welfare, and zoning laws just to name a few). While Libertarians are opposed to them! Because they control or stop competition for the person that wants to start a small business.
Indeed, you would have the choice to be involved or not in a libertarian society but there would be no tension because it was your choice not to participate! You would still remain in the current society. Hey if you chose to remain a semi free man for the status quo as opposed to being a totally free man, then that’s your problem, not mine or anyone else who is in the free society! No one can and should be held responsible for the choices you make except yourself. That’s the beauty of volunteerism and having a choice!
In a free libertarian society and economy there wouldn’t be a government for a domestic enemy and foreign government to Conquer, control, manipulate, force , coerce and etc, etc! However, If a domestic enemy or foreign government did try to conquer, control, manipulate, use force, coercion, etc, etc, then this domestic enemy and foreign government would have to control, manipulate, force, coerce, fraud and etc etc the entire free society libertarian population-I.E Every man’s personal property, house, homestead, farm, business, etc etc! So I really don’t see this as a major problem!
I would like to add to my post above that for someone to eliminate competition would require some use of fraud, force, coercion. so it would be against the law and the entire Libertarian society as a whole.