You’re in the market for a new vacuum cleaner. You invite 3 salesmen to your house for a demonstration; B. Obama, J. McCain, and R. Paul. Assuming all 3 have the same product at the same price, who do you buy from and why?
As a follow-up question: If available, would you purchase products (soap, beer, whatever…) that carried a “liberty label” stating that the producer/seller was actively supporting the free market or resisting the state in some way?
I would love to hear any thoughts, good or bad. I’m curious if anyone has any objections to this type of action…
Other things being equal, I would sure as hell buy it from Dr. Paul. He would use the money to increase my liberty, not increase the state’s control over me.
And a “liberty label” would sure as hell make me more likely to buy such a product.
Recently the company I work for decided to comply with a new regulation from the State. When I asked why we don’t fight it I was told “because it isn’t profitable.”
I am trying to brainstorm ways of making it profitable for a business to support liberty/resist the state.
I would buy it from Barrack H. Obama. He is a weak personality that tries to please everyone at the same time so he could be arm twisted into giving me all sorts of free goodies along with the vacuum cleaner.
I’ll get the best product. But if there would be multiple products that I can’t decide over, then I would choose the one with the “liberty label.” Liberty beer would be pretty sweet.
Ron Paul is selling a vacuum cleaner. He comes in, demonstrates his product, and then offers a reasonable price.
John McCain is selling a broom with promises that no interest groups benefit from the production or sale of the broom - except for the ones he supports. He spreads ashes and grease on your floor, rubs it into your carpet, and blames partisan politics for the broom’s inability to clean up the mess.
Barrack Obama talks about this great vacuum cleaner he’s willing to sell you for 1000 times more than what Ron Paul is asking for, but not to worry because the savings will more than make up for it. Meanwhile Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have broken into your house and are robbing you blind. By the time Obama finally shuts up, you find out there was no vacuum cleaner, everything you had is gone, and you have an invoice for 12 trillion dollars with promises that some armed thug will be by that afternoon to collect payment.
On the Liberty Label:
A product must have more than a label to express liberty. The product must be the best at an affordable price, all in keeping with a free market. There’s the potential that some would use the label to con the consumer into believing the product is genuine, when in fact it is not. In addition, it’s extremely difficult to declare a product 100% free of state coercion or interference. Remember I, Pencil?
Impossible. If fighting for liberty costs anything at all, it will raise the cost of liberty-stickered items. IMO its a flimsy but fun way of thinking about funding anarchism.
Welcome to the human condition.
I think the point was to declare that you are fighting the state, not that you are successfully applying anarchism. Although if there were anarchist communes that made stuff they could do this…
Really, though, every producer is supporting the free market just by producing. If they simultaneously produce and then lobby or ask for more state controls, they’re being self-destructive, nothing more.
To clarify, I was refering to more specific actions. Example: The bar owner who ignores the smoking ban, the the beverage producer who gives the FDA the finger when given an order, etc…
I think these types of actions could be reinforced through the profit motive, somehow…
All that is necessary is a safe transaction system that governments cant monitor, so allows for tax evasion to become a viable low risk business.
Somekind of distributed network of third people who provide cash payments for the business that makes a sale(with the person on the network closest to the businessman being the cash payer), and the buyer of the good in turn pays to the third person over a period of time as logistics allow. Would still mean a buyer would have to pay interest for the purchase, but should be cheaper in the end than paying taxes, right?
The problem with e-cash or paypal systems seems to be that the money still goes through the banking system, which governments have tight control over, it would be necessary to bypass this completely to lower the risk.