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On April 30 2010 11:09 L wrote: No it isn't. That would be A law, not THE law.
o ic, it only becomes THE law when you have the leviathan god enacting it
ok
On April 30 2010 11:09 L wrote:Show nested quote +if someone rich guy pays a reputable court to make a law to his benefit, people will notice and call them on it. People do this all the time in the majority of states in the world. Over 90% of the world's legal systems are run via bribes (including some of those in the USA  which you actually mention ), yet you're assuming that the good will and private self interest of individuals will make them act in a manner that doesn't benefit them. Wronnnnnnnnnnnng. Hilarious how you can cite cases wherein your assumptions are flat out wrong, then restate your assumptions a line or two down.
what?
90% on bribes?
define bribes please
and if you really mean bribes, not some switcharoo of words
then why the fuck do you support such system in the first place
if its that bad...
On April 30 2010 11:09 L wrote:Show nested quote +what exactly is enforcement for you, and why can't you imagine cops that aren't non-consensual? Because the fact that you would need them indicates that someone in the equation doesn't want to have cops running him down. Unless you assume that me killing you and stealing all your shit indicates consent on my part to be taken to some sort of consensual jail, of course.
yes if I were a really tough libertarian id say that. the thief consents to have the stolen items taken back by force, because since he did it in the first place, he doesnt respect anyones private property, therefore his private property shouldnt be respected either
but I'm gonna go ahead and say no, thats a bs explanation, and I don't need bs explanations to advocate restitution or compensation
I would just do it because it fits my property rights principles
and I would respect anyone trying who does the same
am I being too rough? I don't know, the judges will tell
say, thief steals my car
I set up court proceedings. thief doesn't show up, judges probably gonna rule in my favor w\ all the evidence and blacklist the thief. I take my car back, he can't do shit, no PDAs will answer him.
2 bad for him.
it's a case by case thing
and it could work in other ways
wouldn't you, L, do the same?
On April 30 2010 11:09 L wrote:
If, by contrast, you're talking about a large group of people who have collectively agreed to restrict one another by agreeing to have some sort of consensual police force, but then you'd have a collective and a commonwealth of laws and your initial argument doesn't work again.
it's not a consensus to a certain body of law
you join the body of law and the PDAs that agree to such body of law
and that facilitates a lot of things
think credit agencies. you only get credit if your score is good
if your score is bad, you dont necessarily go to jail, but you dont get credit either.
you dont get their help
On April 30 2010 11:09 L wrote:Show nested quote +no, I never said that, I said that it is rarely in someones self interest to pick a fight Its rarely in someone's interest because they know they're going to get carted off to jail in civil society. Can't assume current conditions. Go back. Try again. and they know they're gonna get bad credit in free society
I mean...
you don't need a gun to put down a criminal.
thats the old way of doing things
the pen is mightier than the sword now
On April 30 2010 11:09 L wrote: Okay, so now everyone has the right to unilaterally declare themselves above the 'law' of the commonwealth?
there are no rights, claim of right you mean?
yeah and I can claim to be the king of england, big whoop dee doo.
On April 30 2010 11:09 L wrote:
There goes your system of law enforcement again!
where
I dont see it
On April 30 2010 11:09 L wrote:Show nested quote +1- thankfully, that sir you just blew your money on is no more right to pass a court decision than a bum on the street. hes not a god, nor is he a thug.
people are eventually gonna notice and call you on it, go to the court next door, and you're left w\ nothing
2- besides self defense. which shouldn't be considered coercion. but you do, perhaps because you don't like people resisting your thuggishness.
3- you mean theres no demand for courts, or that people are just missing out an amazing profit opportunity because no one knows how to read or something?
if theres no courts, well, just hire some bum on the street that both parties agree on to arbitrate the case.
why do you want a thug to arbitrate your case anyways...
4-what? when, where? I'm only going to bother dealing with this point and the one about war because I've already dealt with everything else. Feel free to reread the context surrounding the ring of Gyges so that you can understand why its being used. 1- What's a right? This is why I had you ask yourself the prior property question. Until you know what a right is, don't tell me XYZ has a right to ABC.
claim of right
a right doesnt actually exist
I been saying that forever
sorry I made it up, so its ok if you dont want to use this terminology
On April 30 2010 11:09 L wrote:
2- Self defence is coercion, but its justifiable coercion. Again you shit up the place by attempting to use pejorative moral language instead of actually dealing with what I'm saying. This doesn't just go for this line either. This goes for the entirety of your rhetorical diarrhea. Your magic private cops are cops, but public ones are thugs? Give me a break.
ok I'm gonna be using the term "justifiable coercion" from now on
private cops (generally) practice "justifiable coercion"
state cops practice "unjustifiable coercion"
its gonna be a pain to write that every time but k
and I said generally, because they're men too, they can be paid off to kill and kidnap, sure, but at least it isn't their modus operandi.
On April 30 2010 11:09 L wrote:
3- Hire a random bum off the street? And have him do what? Armlock the loser if the loser just decides to tell both of them to fuck off? Not only do you have no enforcement, but you also have no certainty in your legal system either.
well I don't think you'll keep up a good credit armlocking people.
so people will know you're a thug
and you'll lose opportunities you'd otherwise have if u were a bit more civil.
maybe you wont be able to buy food at the supermarket
get a job at a big company
no credit cards at all
its up to you to weight it out the advantages
On April 30 2010 11:09 L wrote:
Give me a real solution, otherwise stop pretending that vagrants on the street do the same function as an entire legal system. Then again, given that you have no idea where the original incentive to actually form a commonwealth comes from, this isn't surprising. Your only incentive is that you hate government, I suppose.
theres a ton of incentive mechanisms that I havent told you and that youre not giving yourself a chance to think about
even more that I don't know about
and even more that no one has yet invented
all by justified coercion (man, that sounds ugly)
On April 30 2010 11:09 L wrote:
4- Go read.
Regarding the list of things you need to read because i've addressed them, i'll quote 5 things that I've DIRECTLY answered, or that you could literally look up in a dictionary and see that you're wrong.
sorry it must be like 10 pages back, I can't find it
can I just concede this one then? I don't even know what it was, idc, lolololo
On April 30 2010 11:09 L wrote: (this one is particularly hilarious) Show nested quote +WHY DO I NEED TO RELINQUISH MY PERCEIVED RIGHT TO SELF DEFENSE TO YOU JUST SO YOU COULD GIVE IT BACK TO ME? (also pretty hilarious) All of these have been answered, but you're doing your best to avoid recognizing that.
but that bold capitalized and angry one is new, isnt it
I mean I know youre a fan of leviathan
but really
what is the exact purpose of this merry-go-round of rights
I give you my rights, mr thug!
oh why, thank you peon. here, you can have self defense back
gee, thank you mr. thug! I can now enforce it myself right?
yes, yes little slave, you can use it now that I gave it back to you. it's unlocked!
o I c mr. thug thank you so very much for keeping world peace. bye bye mr.!
see you...
On April 30 2010 11:09 L wrote:And so we'll end on this point: You're 100% wrong. People do not go out waging wars because its unprofitable. In fact, the entire conception of a "justified war" which arose in the middle ages was specifically to develop a moral force AGAINST highly profitable wars of opportunity. So, I'll ask: What exactly do people wage wars for if it isn't profitable? Include both negative gains (preventing losses) and positive gains in your answer. Then address the issue of perspective; How does a commonwealth vs a private organization that can wage war change the calculus (you will find that perspectival analysis is very detrimental to your position here)?
1-increases control over peons
2-artificial scarcity or control over resources
3-war breeds fear, fear breeds ... more state, and state breeds war.
the ciiiircle of liiiiiiife
4-it's free anyway, you're making peons kill peons
5-not so much over territory or resources, but some of that yeah.
maybe more but thats from the top of my head.
On April 30 2010 11:09 L wrote:Bonus because its hilarious and frankly I love to see your double think in action: You realize that this is exactly what the mafia did, right? Tell people to pay for protection, don't force them or anything. Then, if you don't, create a need for protection? Governments do the exact same thing; Start conflicts than beat the "rally around the state to protect you from shit we're starting!!!" drum. How is this different when its a private organization? dude, don't steal my analogies
thats mine
also, private mafias work hand in hand w\ government, contrary to popular thought
they profit off black markets that are made illegal by the government
and enjoy this monopoly using unjustified coercion
if the government were to make drugs legal, prostitution legal, gambling legal
guess what, the private mafias would disappear, because the peaceful entrepreneurs would outcompete them easily, and they would run out of money
so... contrary to what you may think, the government basically creates private mafias too.
On April 30 2010 11:09 L wrote:
Maybe because you're hoping that a nice, gentle happy PDA would outcompete all the ruthless ones that kill their competitors. But then why wouldn't you apply the same evolutionary pressure to governments and say that the nicest, gentlest, happiest ones will outperform the others? Ah, because public bad, private good, thugs thugs, violence, have a cup of peace. Gotcha. you know, I never said the market of state mafias didn't also respond to austrian economics theory. they do. a "nicer" mafia certainly would have more of a capital pool to leech resources from. but its just a parasitic relationship, its up to the flea whether it wants to suck off more blood or less.
the most efficient PDAs would prevail. unjustifiably coercive PDAs could spawn, just like crazy maniacs who shoot people at malls can. but their time is short lived. You gotta ask not if "is it possible?" it's always possible, it's also possible that a PDA can at the worst, gasp, devolve into a state. yea? but is it likely? you got to ask just that.
"is it likely?" and how can you decrease the chances of that happening? wouldn't the PDAs clients be demanding some insurance that the PDA isn't stockpilling or perhaps unjustifiably coercing some of its clients into paying them?
I don't know, use your creativity. weekly reports, third party inspections, insurance agencies could do something about it, make one of those "prove me wrong" contests, lol so many things
but over all just the fact that it's not a unjustifiably coercive agency and therefore can have competitors should decrease the risks a lot. if theres any demand by the consumers for insurance, then insurance will be served (for a slight cost ofc, theres nothing free, not even w\ a socialist state)
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On April 30 2010 12:11 Zeke50100 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 30 2010 11:36 0neheart wrote:#1 - Only individuals have consciousnesses
#2 - Individuals cannot know what other individuals think or want
#3 - Individuals can only afflict other individuals by actions, and can only *assume* what other individuals think by their actions
#4 - Individuals always act on the best means known to be available to fulfill their goals two is practically wrong, because we have the action known as "communication" (technically true because it is impossible to know exactly what another individual means, but you can take an extremely good guess) three is true if you count communicating as an action, so you can "assume" that when i say i'm a human being, i do think so four is hilariously wrong. not only because of obvious examples (alcohol, drugs) but because humans don't think like that. for example: you have something to do (a paper for instance) but you feel like procrastinating, although you know you shouldn't. - The collectivist is wrong when he says he knows whats best for anyone but himself, breaking premise #2, since he cannot know other people's goals are. (he can only assume per #3) your assuming the collectivist is deaf, blind, and illiterate. I have not read the entire thread, or much of it at all, but I feel I can answer some of these arguments that you make on the various points. #2 - Individuals cannot know what others want/think because no individual reveals the entirety of their thinking to another. Taking a "good guess" is nowhere near close enough. #3 - Communicating is most definitely an action. Someones actions will never represent someone's thought. It may represent part of it, but not enough to actually know what they are thinking; only enough to make assumptions. #4 - In that procrastinating example, the short-term goal has been shifted from finishing the paper to avoiding to finish the paper. #4 is correct. The ONLY reason people do something is because they believe it is the best method to reach their goal(s). Whether it is short-term or long-term goals that are focused on at any particular moment is dependent on the moment itself.
don't take my job
so unprofessional
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o ic, it only becomes THE law when you have the leviathan god enacting it
ok No. The law is not a specific rule within the larger context of a legal system. A legal system has rules for who makes rules, rules for who interprets rules, penalties on people who don't follow rules and ways of enacting those penalties, etc. If you take away any of these qualities, you don't have a functioning legal system.
what?
90% on bribes?
define bribes please You give someone something for favors in a situation where it creates a conflict of interest.
Why do I support this? I don't. The legal systems which involve such corruption are those with the weakest government oversight; Western industrialized nations, by and large, are very well developed on the legal front; state courts in the USA, for instance, are completely anomalous to the concept of judicial independence, yet they're the direct spawn of fear of the american government. Your philosophy here actually CREATES the problem you're trying to bash me for acknowledging. Well done.
yes if I were a really tough libertarian id say that. the thief consents to have the stolen items taken back by force, because since he did it in the first place, he doesnt respect anyones private property, therefore his private property shouldnt be respected either
but I'm gonna go ahead and say no, thats a bs explanation, and I don't need bs explanations to advocate restitution or compensation
I would just do it because it fits my property rights principles
and I would respect anyone trying who does the same That's irrelevant, remember? You said every single person can judge based on their own perception. Unless you're your own judge, jury and executioner, you can't enforce any of your cute principles. And if you're all three, you don't actually have principles, its just you walking around doing whatever you want to whomever you want.
That guy fucking threw gum on the ground? DEATH SENTENCE ACCORDING TO MY PRINCIPLES.
Your principles are nothing but wishes until you get force applied behind them. If you get a group to enforce your principles with you, you're in a commonwealth and thus that's unacceptable according to your original position.
But yeah, you already know this. You already know that your 'principles' don't afford you rights in your property unless those rights are defended. You admit as such right here:
there are no rights, claim of right you mean?
To use your own example; sure you can claim you owned something, but whoop de doo, no one cares.
Your own arguments DIRECTLY contradict each other. Either you cede one point or you cede the other.
and they know they're gonna get bad credit in free society Stigma already dealt with as insufficient. Not going over it again.
it's not a consensus to a certain body of law
you join the body of law and the PDAs that agree to such body of law
and that facilitates a lot of things
Its not consensus to a body of law, yet there you are joining one? Either you're forced in by measures which would vitiate your consent, or you are indeed consenting to it. This section literally contradicts itself in two subsequent phrases. That's impressively quick.
But again, how is a PDA different from a state here? Why can't you do the exact same thing in modern times by moving to another country?
claim of right
a right doesnt actually exist
I been saying that forever
sorry I made it up, so its ok if you dont want to use this terminology So you admit that you pretty much don't have rights because you can't enforcement. There goes property. Now you simply have a bare pre-property relationship to objects. That relationship is terminated the moment you lose possession. There goes bailments, trusts, banks, investments, currency, securities, financing. Clearly such a society would out compete one with such amenities. I'd cite how history shows the opposite occurs with 100% frequency, but you don't listen to facts.
ok I'm gonna be using the term "justifiable coercion" from now on
private cops (generally) practice "justifiable coercion"
state cops practice "unjustifiable coercion"
its gonna be a pain to write that every time but k
and I said generally, because they're men too, they can be paid off to kill and kidnap, sure, but at least it isn't their modus operandi. Ah good.
I'll bold this because its incredibly important. You've already stated that private moral judgement is the only form of judgement in your society; what happens if any person finds that the private cops are 'unjustified', even under conditions that most would call 'justified'? Well, now you have a civil war.
This portion right here is the central nugget of your entire rant and why I wanted you to search back to get here. Essentially your premise relies on the concept that states automatically practice unjustified coercion, but that's not true. That isn't remotely true. Sure it happens, but as you've admitted, a PDA could do the same. So why is competition between nations not the exact same type of free market force that would drive PDAs to not rape and pillage their vassals?
Is a state unjustified when it incarcerates murderers? This is central; If you find that there is a justified use of force, then you need to agree that the justifiability of actions coming from those with power rests upon a spectrum, and does not automatically lie at 'unjust' for states and 'just' for private individuals. You've already admitted that private enterprises COULD do stuff you consider unjustified.
If you admit that, then your conclusion is false and we can start a more honest discussion about the proper limits that can be imposed upon a government and how best to impose them.
theres a ton of incentive mechanisms that I havent told you and that youre not giving yourself a chance to think about Oh. So you can't be asked to actually field a working civil society, but you want me to believe that in the face of the massive holes, zero case study support and completely contradictory support you've pushed forward that I should take a leap of faith and assume it'll work.
No. Try again.
well I don't think you'll keep up a good credit armlocking people.
so people will know you're a thug
and you'll lose opportunities you'd otherwise have if u were a bit more civil.
maybe you wont be able to buy food at the supermarket
get a job at a big company
no credit cards at all
its up to you to weight it out the advantages Who's going to deny those opportunities? And how would this even matter if you haven't solved the problem of me stealing in the first place? Why would I bother buying food if I could just take it and walk away with it?
You tried to address this issue by calling the PDA your legal system, but I've already demolished that. Here, however, you're back to an entirely stigma based system. You don't even know which option you want to support! I can't blame you! They're all trash.
but that bold capitalized and angry one is new, isnt it No. Already dealt with.
1-increases control over peons
2-artificial scarcity or control over resources
3-war breeds fear, fear breeds ... more state, and state breeds war.
the ciiiircle of liiiiiiife
4-it's free anyway, you're making peons kill peons
5-not so much over territory or resources, but some of that yeah. You realize all of these support my statement, right? I don't really give a shit about your moral point of view, but you're trying to defend the statement that war is not profitable, yet you just gave me a list of sources of profit. Besides 3, which is a problem that your entire system just wishes away.
also, private mafias work hand in hand w\ government, contrary to popular thought Yeah, I figured when they were having shootouts between the FBI and the italian mafia that they were both trying to consolidate power independently. Little did I know that co-existing as power brokers means they're not competing, despite the fact that they were both aggressively attempting to consolidate their positions!
Oh wait, that makes no sense and neither does your premise here!
if the government were to make drugs legal, prostitution legal, gambling legal
guess what, the private mafias would disappear, because the peaceful entrepreneurs would outcompete them easily, and they would run out of money Go to Somalia. None of that stuff is illegal because they have no real legal system. I guess the private warlords don't exist anymore because of that?
Wrong.
you know, I never said the market of state mafias didn't also respond to austrian economics theory. they do. a "nicer" mafia certainly would have more of a capital pool to leech resources from. but its just a parasitic relationship, its up to the flea whether it wants to suck off more blood or less. No. It actually works such that a nicer mafia would have less immediate resources available, so their competitors who were less nice would have more funds to expand and take more territory, which would again give them more resources to expand. Once they hit the point that they were relatively equally matched with other PDAs, they would focus on developing their captive market by being nicer. The financial market exhibited the exact same problem during the recent crisis; Even if you knew what you were doing was wrong, someone else was going to make a move and if you didn't you'd be smaller than your opponent and would get completely walked over.
How is that even MORE of a factor when it comes to an organization that essentially buys guns and tries to expand their turf with goons? Well, you're going to assume that people are made of daisies and that people could contract with another PDA or some shit, but you might as well make the same argument about street gangs; doesn't flesh out in real life.
"is it likely?" and how can you decrease the chances of that happening? wouldn't the PDAs clients be demanding some insurance that the PDA isn't stockpilling or perhaps unjustifiably coercing some of its clients into paying them? Rofl. Asking for insurance insurance again, eh? Your PDA is your insurance against unjustified coercion, but you have no recourse if they themselves coerce you.
Its quis custodiet ipsos custodes all over again, but in this case the watchmen aren't just enforcers; they're an unaccountable power monopoly. Here you're faced with an infinite regress because of the issues of corruptibility of ultimate power. This very same corruption is probably why you're so opposed to states, yet you don't actually solve anything here. You just complain and set up a system which would make the problem worse.
but over all just the fact that it's not a unjustifiably coercive agency and therefore can have competitors should decrease the risks a lot. if theres any demand by the consumers for insurance, then insurance will be served (for a slight cost ofc, theres nothing free, not even w\ a socialist state) See, i'd like to agree with this, but the fact that you admit that a PDA could eliminate competition by unjustified means essentially 1) admits that a PDA could abuse their position as a monopoly to gain a massive competitive advantage in the market, and 2) sets up tyrannical corporatism of a nature far worse than any government we currently have.
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What a battle Yurebis and L had. Why'd you fucking mods have to stop it!?!?
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o__O Did they both get temp banned because of this thread?
Anyways, most people who would rat out a bribe are those who can't stand another person getting easy money (being bribed) or an easy way out (bribing).
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I had L winning on my scorecard 
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#2 - Individuals cannot know what others want/think because no individual reveals the entirety of their thinking to another. Taking a "good guess" is nowhere near close enough.
#3 - Communicating is most definitely an action. Someones actions will never represent someone's thought. It may represent part of it, but not enough to actually know what they are thinking; only enough to make assumptions.
it's true that you'll never know the other person's entire mind, but being sure of someone's intentions is definitely possible. basically, i disagree that you would need to know all of somebody's thoughts to be sure of what they think on a major issue.
#4 - In that procrastinating example, the short-term goal has been shifted from finishing the paper to avoiding to finish the paper. #4 is correct. The ONLY reason people do something is because they believe it is the best method to reach their goal(s). Whether it is short-term or long-term goals that are focused on at any particular moment is dependent on the moment itself.
are you really saying that no one has done something just because he felt like it? am i the only one? -_-
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#2 - Individuals cannot know what others want/think because no individual reveals the entirety of their thinking to another. Taking a "good guess" is nowhere near close enough.
#3 - Communicating is most definitely an action. Someones actions will never represent someone's thought. It may represent part of it, but not enough to actually know what they are thinking; only enough to make assumptions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication
Read this first, thoroughly. Then think that the informations you acquired aren't even a tip of an iceberg when it comes to the subject of communication in sociology (this field should be a major one for your OP, communication spreads over many fields).
When you educate yourself some more (you have some free time now seeing that you're banned), come back, read your OP again and review it.
Edit: Read the rest of the OP so I can provide some more opinions.
1. It's hard to understand because I'm a grammar nazi.
2. You start off wrong and then the rest of your hypothesis just goes downhill.
3. You want to look smart but you fail hard. I have no idea about your education but you either read just a few things you found on the net and then proceeded to create your "hypothesis" or you're studying sociology/psychology or whatever else but you're a bad student.
Required reading for the OP:
Gustave Le Bon, The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind
H. G. Wells, Men Like Gods (yes, it's science-fiction, but it illustrates what you're trying to convey a lot better than you do)
After you finished this 2 books and familiarized yourself with terms like diffusion of responsibility, come back and make the thread again.
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To be brutally honest, this whole OP fails for two reasons:
1) Totally misconstrued sense of "consciousness"
2) Narrow understanding of human communication, as Manitou suggested
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So we are all greedy. We all act collectively, only on the "presumption" that its what other people want and that we are all after the same goal.
That's really great, very insightful. Rampant individualism is the best thing you can do for society. Taking care of yourself and "yours" is the best thing you can do for society. Screw the old lady down the street who cant pay for her healthcare, that's obviously her fault.
This really gives me a philosophical reasoning to be a self-centered prick! TYVM
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On May 02 2010 11:33 cursor wrote:
So we are all greedy. We all act collectively, only on the "presumption" that its what other people want and that we are all after the same goal.
That's really great, very insightful. Rampant individualism is the best thing you can do for society. Taking care of yourself and "yours" is the best thing you can do for society. Screw the old lady down the street who cant pay for her healthcare, that's obviously her fault.
This really gives me a philosophical reasoning to be a self-centered prick! TYVM
This is a classic misunderstanding. Nobody is suggesting that it would be best if everyone did absolutely nothing to help poor people like this figurative old lady you speak of. That is patently ludicrous. Why it should be the case that opponents of individualism construct this nonsensical idea about it is beyond me, but it is simply not what is being advocated whatsoever. If YOU would not have compassion enough to freely WANT to help the old lady, then in a free society you would be perfectly free to not help her. Just the same, you would also be perfectly free to offer whatever assistance you were capable of, and in the amount that you felt was proper. The only thing that libertarian theory espouses is that it is detrimental to the sum "wealth"** of society to use force to make anyone do anything. If you feel that humanity simply lacks the humanity to provide help to the less fortunate without someone holding a gun to their head, then that's your own cynical problem to deal with. It's got nothing to do with the validity of the economic and logical arguments contained in libertarian thought.
** And here, by "wealth", I don't mean money or shiney coins - I mean wealth as measured subjectively by the sum of the population. For a monk to be wealthy is for him to be free to spend his days sitting peacefully on the top of a mountain and free to beg for food such that he can devote his efforts to the pursuit of enlightenment. For a generous person, being wealthy is to be free to use their time and resources helping others, and deriving pleasure from doing good. And so on - wealth is defined by what people value.
Forcing the monk to pay taxes or prohibiting him from begging, thus making him get a job and toil away in a factory that he might earn wages in a "legitimate" fashion, robs him of that which he considers wealth, even though it produces more consumer goods, higher GDP, and more "money".
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Point well made. It's part of an individual desire to want to help someone. Because... that makes ME feel good. The point is using (or not using) collective consensus to force others to do something. Like pay for this or give that. If I believe people won't do enough of it freely, that's more of a lack of faith in humanity than a criticism of a system of personal freedom.
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On May 02 2010 12:05 cursor wrote:
Point well made. It's part of an individual desire to want to help someone. Because... that makes ME feel good. The point is using (or not using) collective consensus to force others to do something. Like pay for this or give that. If I believe people won't do enough of it freely, that's more of a lack of faith in humanity than a criticism of a system of personal freedom.
Perhaps not enough for your tastes - but there will always be some with a thirst for more than others when it comes to almost anything. I still don't think it's any more right to use majority consensus to force others into whatever mode of "normal" that majority feels normal is. If, after all, the majority are happy to freely contribute to the less fortunate, then shouldn't that be enough? Why force the rest of the people?
It gets even more complex when you start thinking of it like a chess game - consequence upon consequence, move after move. Consider free access to publicly funded roads, for example - funded by taxes which people are forced to pay. How many goods are shipped via transport truck because road maintenance is funded publicly? Surely fuel taxes contribute to road maintenance, but they are by no means the sole source of funding for road upkeep. This creates a distortion in the cost of transportation. Perhaps the real cost of shipping by rail would be cheaper, save that when you ship by rail you have to deal with the private rail companies who, by necessity (and without the luxury of taxation to cheapen their service) require that their charges for use equal the cost of maintenance and upkeep. Of course, getting the taxpayer discount on roads means that good shipped by road become cheaper in the stores, making it less expensive for the person buying it - they just make up the difference in taxes where they don't equate the value to the product. Still, without the external intervention, who knows - perhaps rail would have become more dominant as a means of shipping goods. Maybe the fuel consumption of the nation would drop measurably were that the case. Who knows?
Entire patterns of economic action are affected by deceptively simple and superficially well-intentioned policies when they are effected on a large scale. What it does is make it very difficult to calculate the true costs of goods and services when they are maniupulated with force politics - ultimately it leads to people making decisions based on the rules rather than what makes most economic sense. It necessarily leads to waste and misallocation of resources - ultimately an atrophy of the collective pool of wealth. Like driving with the brakes on, it's just entirely detrimental to everyone's well being. Some will come out ahead, of course, and thus the impetus to maintain said policies. Still, the cost of those who come out ahead is paid for by a greater cost of those who come out behind. War is the ultimate example - the purest use of force, and I don't think anyone will argue that war is bad for everyone. With every use of force you pile on the attrition - it's logically inescapable.
To make up the numbers entirely, It's not so simple as to take a dollar from the rich and give it to the poor - you have to take two dollars from the rich to give a dollar to the poor and another dollar just gets wasted away as a consequence of the action being coercive in nature. Thus one has to be very careful in making the decision to take that dollar by force, and weigh the consequences of what is lost in doing so. To my knowledge, nobody does this. Only Austrian Economics even considers the notion, and nobody teaches Austrian Economics. 0_o
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Let's not assume though, that people who have 10 million dollars actually deserve that money. And are actually a Million times more productive than the man in the 3rd world country who has 10 dollars and is actually making the product that the millionare "owns". Participation in production should assume some kind of ownership of the product, instead of the laborer being another item to just be owned. The rich, to me, have been stealing the whole time anyways.
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On May 02 2010 13:11 cursor wrote:
Let's not assume though, that people who have 10 million dollars actually deserve that money. And are actually a Million times more productive than the man in the 3rd world country who has 10 dollars and is actually making the product that the millionare "owns". Participation in production should assume some kind of ownership of the product, instead of the laborer being another item to just be owned. The rich, to me, have been stealing the whole time anyways.
It's difficult to disentangle from coercive government policies just how much the rich deserve of what they have, but if you take away all of the interventions of force by governments then yes - the rich deserve every penny of what they have, just as everyone deserves what is theirs. Why wouldn't they? Economics requires a dispassionate and logical mind. Being emotional is no way to think clearly.
Consider the factory worker who cuts or fits pipes. He makes a wage for what he does, but how would he ever do so if someone wasn't there to decide which pipes needed cutting and fitting most urgently - to give him useful work to do such that his skill of cutting and fitting pipes was put to use in a productive framework that ultimately generates goods and wealth? Simply cutting and fitting pipes is not a means to wealth in and of itself. How many pipe fitters have the mental prowess to be successful on such a scale - managing the intricacies of a vast organisation. What if he is negligent and fails in his duties - what is the scope of the damage? Perhaps an accident, perhaps some downtime, extra repairs, a few casualties, etc.
How about the president of the company? What if he is negligent and fails in his duties? Everything could go wrong - the whole company, should it become unprofitable due to his inability to manage, could fail. Thousands of workers would lose their jobs, masses of capital equipment would be wasted - millions or billions of dollars in damage could be done. Why does it not make sense that the person whose success or failure reaches further gets paid more money?
In fact, the other thing to consider is that rich people don't spend most of their money - they invest it. There are exceptions, of course, but those people don't stay rich for very long. Mike Tyson is a pretty good example of that. One could say that he didn't deserve to be rich, and it was true - he couldn't stay rich even after making more money than almost anyone. But, at any rate, people who invest are important. They make decisions about what sorts of things are worth buying now so that, in the future, they will be more productive - this is what fuels growth. It's what makes technology get better year by year. It's what makes hospitals cure more and more diseases. It's what makes mines spring up which provide materials to build our stuff with, etc, etc. When these investors are successful it means they have done well - the things they have bought have indeed been useful and have contributed things of value to the pool of goods and services we all buy from - the pool of stuff that we seek to satisfy our desires.
And yes, we all have desires - whatever they may be. If we didn't, we'd be dead. Even if what you desire is free time, then more productive processes to provide more of those things you still have to work for means that they are provided at a lower cost - thus allowing you to spend less, work less, and maintain the same standard of living you had before.
Back to the investors - if they are not successful, then it means they have invested poorly - the things they have invested in have not produced more goods or services that people want, or at a price that they want them. They lose their wealth to the degree that they have made bad investments. So you see, the only way to get rich, in a free society, is to continue to be successful not in spending your own wealth on yourself, but to save it and invest in things that you feel will most please your fellow man - the better you are at making or investing in things that your bring pleasure to your fellow man, the better you are at maintaining and retaining your wealth. How bad can that be?
Would the folks at Blizzard be rich if they weren't so good at making games that brought pleasure to so many people? Would they continue to make games that were better and better if they didn't take profits and spend them towards more equipment, development, and employees? It's the great circle. Let go of jealousy and the logic is irrefutable.
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You honestly think Donald Trump has Earned, in human output, 16 houses, 13 cars and 2 planes?
While someone who works 7 days a week 12 hours a day making shoes deserves to live in a sheet metal shack?
That's fine. The logic is irrefutable. Okay. Investing, just gambling on what will make your money grow is a fine way to make money.
Jealousy plays no part in my logic. I'm sure I'm in the top 10% of wealth in the world what with my computer and my refrigerator. I work a part time job and live in a nice house. Not renting. My point is, wealth is concentrated so tightly at the top... with the top 1% owning the vast majority of the wealth in the world. To think that they actually produce, or even facilitate the production, to warrant that of ownership is pretty silly. Considering most of them just push papers around and have "meetings" all day- bet it in a restaurant or on a golf course.
Plumbers do not need to be told what type of pipe goes where. Usually the "owners" have no idea how to do these things. There are business models where decisions are made democratically, by the body of workers.
I really find it ironic that we live in a society that treasures "democracy" so so much, but will defend, with fervor, the correctness of working in these huge top down structures (corporations, government bodies) where all the decisions are made at the top, and are forced downward. You're a great Democrat (in the political sense) untill you go to work, then you're a rank and file fascist.
Other business models do exist, and work. Though I won't argue, that until this point- the top down, monarchy style ownership has done much much better.
edit: Investing really gets me though. The sweatshop worker should invest half his earnings. Or, investing being sold on TV as an "everyman" sort of solution to retirement, even though 99% of earnings are made by 1% of investors. I'll spare you the links to obviously biased websites. Let's just be glad social security wasn't "invested" in the stock market at the time it was being pushed. And my parents happened to lose over half of their retirement in 2008. Fortunately, Social Security wasn't invested as well.
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The fact of the matter is that we as Americans embrace an imperfect sense of democracy and capitalism much like the Soviets embraced an imperfect sense of communism and dictatorship. You can argue that rich of America only own their fortunes due to their gimmicky passion for the economy or whatever capitalist-favored industry they partake in and that they are not worthy of any more praise than a less paid and less influential physician or even a construction worker. However, you cannot deny that the higher paid you are in a capitalist society the more critical your position is to the society as a whole. Its true that there are other working systems out there, its just a matter of whether or not the government feels the initial pros of that system outweigh the initial cons and if the government has the capacity to work towards perfecting that system.
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On May 02 2010 14:52 cursor wrote:
I really find it ironic that we live in a society that treasures "democracy" so so much, but will defend, with fervor, the correctness of working in these huge top down structures (corporations, government bodies) where all the decisions are made at the top, and are forced downward. You're a great Democrat (in the political sense) untill you go to work, then you're a rank and file fascist
Well, I for one have no love for democracy. Democracy is just another form of tyrrany. Ten people in a room and eight vote to steal from two so it's ok? It's a screwed up system if you ask me.
even though 99% of earnings are made by 1% of investors.
Probably because 99% of humans would never have evolved our society past the stone age. If anything it justifies the top-down structure, except that in the corporate world you have to earn your place at the top rather than to win it through violence or a beauty-pageant popularity contest.
In a truly free market system you can't stay rich (ergo : powerful) without being successful at being powerful - in creating things for people that they don't know how to create for themselves and are willing to work doing anything to have. In a democratic system to remain powerful you just have to be skillful in the art of screwing the minority.
To say the rich deserve what they have is only to say that, at least in a truly free society, other people feel they deserve it. And other people do so by freely agreeing to exchange the goods provided by those people for the fruits of their labour. What is a carrot worth? What is a graphics card worth?
Something else to think about - intellectual property would not be something considered property by a libertarian. A band couldn't record an album and then monopolize the distribution of copies of it. To make money they would too have to work - to perform, etc. An album would become something like an advertisement - perhaps sold with goodies, but the music itself free to distribute. Their real earnings would come from performance - getting up and going to work every day. Same with technology - to build a computer chip would make you money, but you wouldn't be allowed to forcibly stop someone else from taking their own materials and making one just the same. That way competition is true - companies aren't allowed intellectual monopolies graned by the state. If you want to make a Core i7 CPU, you're going to have to do it better and cheaper than the other guy. Your advantage comes from being first, from reputation and quality of production, etc. I could go on.
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Ya. Is society more "just" now? Or more "just" if it were re-arranged?
To assume it would be "pure" either way is pretty naive.
I certainly won't say we need to redistribute everything. I obviously wouldn't say that society is now a perfect refection of 'production' to 'possession'.
Either way we are off topic. GG
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On May 02 2010 15:46 cursor wrote:
Ya. Is society more "just" now? Or more "just" if it were re-arranged?
To assume it would be "pure" either way is pretty naive.
I certainly won't say we need to redistribute everything. I obviously wouldn't say that society is now a perfect refection of 'production' to 'possession'.
Either way we are off topic. GG
I quote Kurt Cobain :
Monkey see, monkey do
I don't know why
I'd rather be dead than cool
I don't know why
Every line ends in rhyme
I don't know why
Less is more, love is blind
I don't know why
Who knows, man...who knows, lol.
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EPT
