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On September 01 2010 12:20 Biochemist wrote:Show nested quote +On September 01 2010 12:09 Yurebis wrote:On September 01 2010 11:54 Biochemist wrote:On September 01 2010 11:43 Yurebis wrote:On September 01 2010 11:21 Biochemist wrote:On September 01 2010 11:08 Yurebis wrote:On September 01 2010 10:23 TanGeng wrote:
How about this for you Yurebis.
Anarcho-capitalism can't work because lots of people believe in one of the following:
1. Might makes right. Domination by force justifies taking and pillaging.
2. We should redistribute wealth and force wealthy individuals to give up their money to the rest of us.
3. When political elites aggrandize themselves at the expense of the common masses, the common masses actually benefits. #1 Is a consistent description of reality, but it is an irrelevant discussion of social organization. Of course, people that can do stuff, can do stuff, completely disregarding other people's plans. Yet it doesn't follow that it is desirable, or the best course of action for a certain end. For the ends of being a sociopath, yes, I think it may be best to just think that way and disregard everything else. But for the purposes of human cooperation, it is very relevant to discuss what courses of action are desirable; what actions aren't tolerable, and what actions should follow them. It is a discussion of human interaction, not empty morality. Why is it irrelevant? It's the best course of action for me, an amoral individual, if I want to acquire someone else's stuff. Anarcho-capitalism has no solution for this when applied on a large scale, and every time it's brought up you either totally dodge the issue (like this) or don't even reply (like when I brought it up a few hours ago). Then do it, I don't care. I'm talking to cooperative human beings who do care. Wow, way to miss the whole point.. Good luck finding a society filled with "cooperative human beings who do care." The very merits of capitalism are based on the fact that human beings are greedy, selfish individuals. By giving individuals the ability to advance themselves in society, you raise the level of society as a whole. In an anarcho-capitalist society, these same greedy people are going to destroy each other, and competing PDAs will be in on the action from both sides, not stopping it like a responsible government would. I hate socialism, and I'm all for the minimization of government, but doing away with it completely is just stupid. Greedy and selfish doesn't mean they're sociopaths, and certainly doesn't mean they can't cooperate. Read up on egoism. Have you ever taken a history class in your life?
Yes, sadly I have.
:D
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On September 01 2010 09:25 Yurebis wrote:Show nested quote +On September 01 2010 07:34 D10 wrote:On September 01 2010 04:49 Yurebis wrote:On August 31 2010 12:56 D10 wrote:
sounds impossible, I think its way easier to have a UED than that Why. There is no purity of ideology anywhere, you see communists who are capitalists, liberals who are conservative. If states collapsed there would be a ton of fringe groups in line with big guns just waiting to take control and impose their set of views on society, from drug gangs to paramilitary militias, things would suck much harder for everyone, there is no real freedom other than death Perhaps the communist who is a capitalist, or the liberal who is conservative, isn't one of the two; perhaps the theory are indeed inconsistent with itself; but the correct way to assert that is by elaborating why, not just saying it And I've explained how anarcho-capitalism doesn't degrade to the mainstream presentation of anarchism. Transitional anarchy is not what I'm talking about. Also I've touched on how drug lords are not entirely formed because of the free market, but actually facilitated by the state. For an empirical case, see the history on prohibition on alcohol, and how "alcohol-lords" if I may call them that, both risen and disappeared, correlated with the prohibition of such product. The same could also be said for druglords, for drugs weren't illegal some decades ago - but it is not as a closed case since the prohibition of those still go on.
What about Paramilitary militias ?
Here in Brazil theres 2 kinds of poor neighboorhoods, the ones dominated by a drug gang, or the ones dominated by some form of paramilitary militia formed by police officers, fireman, security guards and the like, they brutally murder any kind of drug gang occupying the area and install their own policies, which seems to universally be.
Use drugs and you die.
Natural Gas, cable TV, internet, and a security tax, are all cheaper than the ones a rich man will pay for, but it doesnt help that they are paying it to the militia and the militia is illegaly imposing those fees, theres really no option.
You sit on your high hills in your first world cities thinking about anarchy, when it exists in the slums of many cities and it fucking suck balls, people are bound to come in all formats, and to think that the strong wont impose their will unpon the weak with the lack of law is foolish
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The US government is virtually nothing more than an agent of industry at this point. The state doesn't exist in any meaningful sense.
+ Show Spoiler +
We (in the US) live in anarcho-capitalism. It works in the sense that it literally "works". It is happening. It does not work in the sense that the disparity of wealth in this country is extreme and the people are generally unhappy with the governance of their lives.
+ Show Spoiler +
In any other sense this discussion is meaningless.
Edit: "argument" changed to "discussion"
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On September 01 2010 12:08 Yurebis wrote:Show nested quote +On September 01 2010 11:50 Biochemist wrote:On September 01 2010 11:46 Yurebis wrote:On September 01 2010 11:22 Biochemist wrote:On September 01 2010 11:17 Yurebis wrote:On September 01 2010 10:42 Biochemist wrote:
I'm new to this whole idea, but the more I think about it and read the posts of those defending it, the more I realize that this is a textbook example of taking a good idea to an extreme where it is no longer a good idea.
I'll make you a table:
Good idea ------------------------------------- Bad extreme
Don't eat unhealthy stuff ------------------- Only eat raw food
Don't ingest random chemicals --------- Don't vaccinate your kids
Free market capitalism -------------------- Anarcho-Capitalism Extremes are arbitrary, ad-hoc argument And I can make them too. Slavery -------- State ------------- Freedom War ---------- some war ----------- Peace Bad -------- Average ----------- Good Meaningless. It's not meaningless. This whole idea is simply taking the idea of free market capitalism and taking it to it's total and complete extreme. I was making some analogies to help illustrate how taking good ideas to these extremes are usually bad, but apparently the meaning was lost on you. And you can make the argument against anything else as long as you put them on the extreme side. It's completely ad-hoc, and doesn't address the merits of the action or product themselves. Yes it is ad hoc, but that doesn't make the analogy irrelevant or incorrect. See many other posts in this thread, for example the point about civil war that you are becoming very astute at ignoring. What the hell, I completely addressed civil wars. It's no different than the claim that PDAs will kill everyone, because PDAs are exactly the type of companies with the best means to start a civil war, and try to establish a state again. They have the most guns and able personnel to do it. If they won't do it, then who will? Grampa with a rifle? More inefficient militias? Why would they initiate force and risk being killed, to overthrow what? The analogy is irrelevant because the same type of argument can be used against or for anything. It's an argument for moderation. Beating seems like a good idea, but no beating is bad; stealing seems like a good idea, but no stealing is bad; religion seems like a good idea, but no religion is bad; You can say ANYTHING is bad by parting from a more "moderate" point of view. What is MODERATE is subjective, and so is the EXTREME. It's completely ad-hoc because you're working backwards to prove a preconceived value.
I feel like I'm talking to a computer program that spits out programmed responses when I say certain key words. You keep missing my point and spitting out empty rhetoric that totally fails to address anything that I'm actually saying.
I feel like saying your reading comprehension belongs on failblog, but you would probably just say something about ad homenim and use it as an excuse to ignore anything else in my post.
I did not say or imply that anything was bad because it was extreme. In fact I wasn't attempting to make an argument at all; I was simply summarizing my feelings about this idea after skimming though some of the first pages and reading your replies to various questions.
You clearly have no education or experience in political science, and seem to have learned all your ideas from another internet forum since you can't seem to answer questions with original thought.
Being very anti-left politically, I tried really hard to like this idea... but you guys haven't done anything but demonstrate to me how the supporters of this idea (at least on this forum) apparently don't live in the same world I do.
yadda yadda ad homenim yes, but there's no point in trying to engage what amounts to a computer script in any meaningful dialogue.
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On September 01 2010 12:52 D10 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 01 2010 09:25 Yurebis wrote:On September 01 2010 07:34 D10 wrote:On September 01 2010 04:49 Yurebis wrote:On August 31 2010 12:56 D10 wrote:
sounds impossible, I think its way easier to have a UED than that Why. There is no purity of ideology anywhere, you see communists who are capitalists, liberals who are conservative. If states collapsed there would be a ton of fringe groups in line with big guns just waiting to take control and impose their set of views on society, from drug gangs to paramilitary militias, things would suck much harder for everyone, there is no real freedom other than death Perhaps the communist who is a capitalist, or the liberal who is conservative, isn't one of the two; perhaps the theory are indeed inconsistent with itself; but the correct way to assert that is by elaborating why, not just saying it And I've explained how anarcho-capitalism doesn't degrade to the mainstream presentation of anarchism. Transitional anarchy is not what I'm talking about. Also I've touched on how drug lords are not entirely formed because of the free market, but actually facilitated by the state. For an empirical case, see the history on prohibition on alcohol, and how "alcohol-lords" if I may call them that, both risen and disappeared, correlated with the prohibition of such product. The same could also be said for druglords, for drugs weren't illegal some decades ago - but it is not as a closed case since the prohibition of those still go on. What about Paramilitary militias ? Here in Brazil theres 2 kinds of poor neighboorhoods, the ones dominated by a drug gang, or the ones dominated by some form of paramilitary militia formed by police officers, fireman, security guards and the like, they brutally murder any kind of drug gang occupying the area and install their own policies, which seems to universally be. Use drugs and you die. Natural Gas, cable TV, internet, and a security tax, are all cheaper than the ones a rich man will pay for, but it doesnt help that they are paying it to the militia and the militia is illegaly imposing those fees, theres really no option. You sit on your high hills in your first world cities thinking about anarchy, when it exists in the slums of many cities and it fucking suck balls, people are bound to come in all formats, and to think that the strong wont impose their will unpon the weak with the lack of law is foolish
Well again, anarchism of no kind implies a lack of law, only lack of rulers.
I think there's no question that governments everywhere exacerbate, if not create, the issue with drug lords, doesn't matter to me where, and you seem to understand what I mean by that so I won't explain again, even though I don't know if you agree or not.
Now about the paramilitary gangs... I don't know anything about them. Do their policies include taxation, or are they voluntarily paid for? Do they exploit the populace besides just killing other gangs and drug users (seems like a mimicking of the federal law)? I mean, if they're paid voluntarily, that is indeed a curious example of what could be considered a PDA. Very curious. Of course, they probably don't understand much about private property, since they kill people just for using drugs, which is pretty bad. But what do the residents think of them? Is it nearly unanimous that they should kill drug users? Perhaps they're afraid that drug users will draw the drug gangs and feds to town (oh I think I may have found something there)? If so, is it not the fed's fault for making drugs illegal?
Sorry if I have assumed too much.
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On September 01 2010 12:22 Yurebis wrote:Show nested quote +On September 01 2010 12:03 kidcrash wrote:On September 01 2010 11:42 Yurebis wrote:On September 01 2010 11:19 kidcrash wrote:On September 01 2010 09:59 Yurebis wrote:On September 01 2010 09:41 kidcrash wrote:Well, why don't you elaborate on how the Manhattan Project was something so ingeniously managed that no single market actor could compete with it, let alone top it, if not stolen the opportunity? Coming from the person who said that our entire economic principle should be based on greed. It's not that no single market actor could compete with it, but why should they feel the need to? If they did feel the need to, who's to say they would work at the pace and urgency needed to get the project done in time? Who's to say government workers do work on time? How can government know what the time is? How can it know how much to tax for it? How many bombs to make? How many scientists to hire? How much to pay them? It's far more arbitrary and inefficient. I just doubt it was the case that what they did was something so fantastic, that no free man could have done. Because when you are pro-active in fund-making and hire specialists, things get done quicker. I gave one specific example about advancements in military technology and large scale operations. However I truly believe that the ana-cap private "donation" fund replacements for all currently state funded programs would be inadequate. I strongly disagree with depending on "if there is a will there is a way" to accomplish large scale tasks that produce little to know profit in compensation. Benefits for the disabled and veterans? What about road maintenance and things like that? I didn't disagree that proactivity can be better, I was just noting that it isn't always the case. If it were always the case, you'd be preparing for anything that even has a remote chance of happening. You'd carry an umbrella on a sunny day, tranquilizing rifles to the office in case a wild animal appears, wearing seatbelts to go to the convenience store at the corner. It's an evaluation of how to face risk, cost and benefit. Just because you think it was proper of the state to steal from everyone to avoid a certain menace, in HINDSIGHT, might I add, doesn't mean it was 1- justified at the time, and 2- the best means to prevent it. Why do you think there's a need for a veteran to receive benefits? Any more than any other government employee? Because it's done now? Veterans, assuming they weren't drafted, were aware of the contractual benefits and obligations on his part. To say that an employee of any type deserves more than that which he already had agreed to receive... is as equal of a claim that the employer deserves more work from the employee past what was contractually decided and agreed on. Disabled.. disabled aren't to be treated as a special class just because they're disabled. No one is entitled to another man working and giving money to him for free. If you want to be taken care of, then do it voluntarily. Have charities, ask family, neighbors, anything, but please god stop jumping for the damn gun(verment). Road maintenance.. who owns the road? Who paid for it to be built? And who pays for the road to be maintained? How can a business model be made around roads? Think a little yourself. Might as well have asked "who will make the bread that I buy at the grocery". Search Walter Block on roads... On September 01 2010 11:19 kidcrash wrote:
Let me give you an example of how laziness rubs off on the ones around you. I want you do then give me your estimated opinion on the percentage of people this applies to.
At your job you frequently open the store in the morning for your shift. You notice that the people who close the night before often leave with the closers tasks undone. You end up having to finish it for them when you get there in the morning and it's hard because you are the only one there for the first few hours. You aren't sure if it's because they are lazy, or they just don't have enough time but the truth is, it's a combination of both. Your boss tells them it's okay to stay passed close in order to make sure everything is wrapped up before they leave.
Next month when one of the closers quits, you are forced to cover a swing shift, working both the morning shift and the night shift, where you will be closing the store. When closing you decide that the most fair option is to leave each night after you've finished an amount of tasks equal to what the other closers finish when they close the store and you open the next day. Your boss continues to tell all closers to stay after in order to finish everything that needs to be done, however your boss is also never pointing anything he/she sees in the morning that's left over and unacceptable to them.
I do not want your opinion on what a person should or should not to in the situation, that is irrelevant. I want to know what percentage of the population you think would go above and beyond their fellow co-workers work habits and what percentage do you think would work equally as hard as they see their co-workers themselves working. Getting a promotion should not be factored into this calculation.
The key point of this scenario is, the person is not being coerced, exploited, or guided into anything and has to choice to make any decision that they want. When you give someone the option to make sacrifices or to not make sacrifices, it's much harder to give them the will to accomplish something. "If there is a will there is a way" takes a back seat to "procrastination over sacrifice". The results are a system that struggles to find a pro-active reason to accomplish anything. Uh, you know that argument for lazyness is way, way more appliable to the state, right? The state officer has way less incentives to do his work... I've explored the incentives vis-a-vis multiple times in this thread. Not only can the bureaucrat not possibly know how to best serve a demand, but he can indeed be more laid back, and work just enough to get reelected. If you think government is more proactive than businesses.. I really don't know what to say. They may be more proactive at bombing third world countries, and using the military industrial complex for their own shady reasons, I'll give you that much. There would be zero incentive for anyone to start a fund for handicap people or any social service. These things would not happen or if they did happen they would be inadequate. Your saying a government official that is being paid and who's job is based essentially on a popularity contest has less incentive to get these things done than a company ceo who has no incentive or motive to donate money to a road construction and maintenance fund or for a fund for the disabled or for a military budget, other than just out of the kindest of their heart? Yes. Private charities already exist, and charity is a market demand. Stealing from everyone can hardly be called charity however, for any end at all. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_philanthropistsI couldn't find a non-mixed list, but... http://www.forbes.com/lists/2005/14/Revenue_1.htmlShow nested quote +On September 01 2010 12:03 kidcrash wrote:
You're saying a person who is being paid and needs to make a good public impression has less incentive than company executives who you expect to just give their money away for zero compensation. What about jails and a police force and a judicial system? Are you going to tell companies, you can help pay for these things if you want, but we aren't going to force you? Judges and police officers would probably receive like a 50% pay cut.
Hm, you're right in that governments may donate more, or have more incentives to donate more, I had not thought of that. But who do they donate to? How can they access which charity to donate will best satisfy the altruistic feeling of the people he robbed? Even with the incentive, he cannot choose the right ones all the time. He could donate to the big foundations who make TV adverts, and the well known institutions, but it can never access who needs it most, as good as the population itself would. AAaand, again, it is hardly charity to do anything with stolen property. If a thief is to steal your car, then tell you that he's using it to drive orphans to the school, does that make the thief exempt from repercussion? No, that's a ridiculous excuse to support coercion. Let people donate as they want, and don't try to save face with that. Let people keep what they earn, and then perhaps little to no donations are needed at all.
It's not stealing because you're living in the country and using the roads and services in return. I will agree that property tax kind of crosses the line between that which is reasonably being given in compensation for our taxes. I've always agreed with the libertarian view on property rights. If you honestly think that you could live without things like a police station and road construction than you do have a choice to either become homeless and jobless or just leave the country.
You can argue the principle behind taxes and whether it's stealing or not, but if you need the service they are giving in return for taxes, it becomes a non-issue. Utilitarianism overrides the principle. The only thing you can do is debate whether the specific services the state provides are worth paying the taxes or whether they are a waste. I'll agree our system isn't perfect but your are underestimating the task the corporate state would have to take on and the amount of coorporation and funding (voluntary) needed to make up for a lack of taxation system.
I read through those links you provided me and they were quite interesting. In the list of 200 largest charities 13 of those provided a charitable donation of 1 billion dollars or more, the most being the mayo foundation with 4.8 billion in donations. It should be noted that most of these organizations receive 2-3% in government support and one in particular, catholic charities USA receives a whopping 61% in government support.
On the list of philathropists we have the top 5:
Warren Buffett $30.7 billion
Bill Gates $29 billion
Li Ka-shing $10 billion
George Soros $6 billion
Howard Hughes $1.56 billion
Li Ka and George Soros are not US citizens therefore I doubt they would contribute to any sort of American social service, or at least very much. Howard Hughes died in 1976 so he's out of the picture as well. Bill and Warren are in the top 3 wealthiest people in the world. Here's an interesting link with some information in regards to how their wealth compares to the total net worth of the US population.
http://www.holtz.org/Library/Social Science/Economics/Economic Inequality in the United States.htm
I'll post the key points for anyone who doesn't want to click.
The top 1% of Americans own as much wealth as the bottom 95% percent.
The total wealth of the top 60% of Americans is 500 times the total wealth of the bottom 40%.
The bottom 40% of households own one-fifth of 1% (or 0.2%) of the nation's wealth.
Bill Gates alone has more wealth than 40% of the U.S. population combined, or 120 million people.
From what I've collected from the sites you showed me and the one I provided, I don't think there would be even close to enough funds to take over government services. The US military budget is 663.8 billion. I'll agree we could to stand to cut that down quite a bit for the sake of eliminating wastefulness. Let's say we were able to make enough cuts to bring that total to half of it's current total: 330 billion. If all the top philanthropists and charitable organizations just dropped their current charities and put forth their efforts to support the US military budget, we would still be short. But of course we wouldn't want to use those donations for anything other than their intended purposes (lol at taking money from aids foundation and giving it to bomb manufacturing) so we'd have to look elsewhere.
Now I'd agree that companies would have more capital due to the removal of the taxation system. However I think we can predict what a company is willing to donate simply by looking at the numbers above. These totals only seem to show that companies only donate once they've accumulated a ridiculous amount of money. This is a result of the fact that companies tend to hoard money. If we don't tax them for it, there is no guarantee they'd be willing to give what was needed to maintain the public services and projects necessary for every day life.
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On September 01 2010 12:56 mint_julep wrote:The US government is virtually nothing more than an agent of industry at this point. The state doesn't exist in any meaningful sense. + Show Spoiler +We (in the US) live in anarcho-capitalism. It works in the sense that it literally "works". It is happening. It does not work in the sense that the disparity of wealth in this country is extreme and the people are generally unhappy with the governance of their lives. + Show Spoiler +In any other sense this discussion is meaningless. Edit: "argument" changed to "discussion"
Uh...That's called corporatism, if anything.
Anacho-capitalists are just as opposed as you seem to be, but not because corporations are wealthy - there is nothing wealth alone can do to harm anyone. Money doesn't go out of people's wallets and bite them in the nose. Man chooses to coerce, and man is to be called out on it. Corporations use the state, yes, but you have to note that it is the state that does the coercion. Corporations cannot coerce nearly as well without the subsidized and monopolized police, courts, law, roads, army, whatever else they do. Corporations by themselves would have to raise their own courts, police, army, etc. etc. to do the same. It would cost at least tens of billions - but they can do it for a few million by lobbying.
This discussion is not meaningless. What is meaningless however, is blobbing together everyone you don't like, and blame them all for the ills of the world. Justify why each person who does what they do are wrong. Every group. Being 'rich' is not an evil.
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On September 01 2010 13:13 Biochemist wrote:Show nested quote +On September 01 2010 12:08 Yurebis wrote:On September 01 2010 11:50 Biochemist wrote:On September 01 2010 11:46 Yurebis wrote:On September 01 2010 11:22 Biochemist wrote:On September 01 2010 11:17 Yurebis wrote:On September 01 2010 10:42 Biochemist wrote:
I'm new to this whole idea, but the more I think about it and read the posts of those defending it, the more I realize that this is a textbook example of taking a good idea to an extreme where it is no longer a good idea.
I'll make you a table:
Good idea ------------------------------------- Bad extreme
Don't eat unhealthy stuff ------------------- Only eat raw food
Don't ingest random chemicals --------- Don't vaccinate your kids
Free market capitalism -------------------- Anarcho-Capitalism Extremes are arbitrary, ad-hoc argument And I can make them too. Slavery -------- State ------------- Freedom War ---------- some war ----------- Peace Bad -------- Average ----------- Good Meaningless. It's not meaningless. This whole idea is simply taking the idea of free market capitalism and taking it to it's total and complete extreme. I was making some analogies to help illustrate how taking good ideas to these extremes are usually bad, but apparently the meaning was lost on you. And you can make the argument against anything else as long as you put them on the extreme side. It's completely ad-hoc, and doesn't address the merits of the action or product themselves. Yes it is ad hoc, but that doesn't make the analogy irrelevant or incorrect. See many other posts in this thread, for example the point about civil war that you are becoming very astute at ignoring. What the hell, I completely addressed civil wars. It's no different than the claim that PDAs will kill everyone, because PDAs are exactly the type of companies with the best means to start a civil war, and try to establish a state again. They have the most guns and able personnel to do it. If they won't do it, then who will? Grampa with a rifle? More inefficient militias? Why would they initiate force and risk being killed, to overthrow what? The analogy is irrelevant because the same type of argument can be used against or for anything. It's an argument for moderation. Beating seems like a good idea, but no beating is bad; stealing seems like a good idea, but no stealing is bad; religion seems like a good idea, but no religion is bad; You can say ANYTHING is bad by parting from a more "moderate" point of view. What is MODERATE is subjective, and so is the EXTREME. It's completely ad-hoc because you're working backwards to prove a preconceived value. I feel like I'm talking to a computer program that spits out programmed responses when I say certain key words. You keep missing my point and spitting out empty rhetoric that totally fails to address anything that I'm actually saying. I feel like saying your reading comprehension belongs on failblog, but you would probably just say something about ad homenim and use it as an excuse to ignore anything else in my post. I did not say or imply that anything was bad because it was extreme. In fact I wasn't attempting to make an argument at all; I was simply summarizing my feelings about this idea after skimming though some of the first pages and reading your replies to various questions. You clearly have no education or experience in political science, and seem to have learned all your ideas from another internet forum since you can't seem to answer questions with original thought. Being very anti-left politically, I tried really hard to like this idea... but you guys haven't done anything but demonstrate to me how the supporters of this idea (at least on this forum) apparently don't live in the same world I do. yadda yadda ad homenim yes, but there's no point in trying to engage what amounts to a computer script in any meaningful dialogue.
That's really kind of you. Sorry for not being any use.
(A)bort, (R)etry, (I)gnore?
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On September 01 2010 13:42 Yurebis wrote:Show nested quote +On September 01 2010 12:52 D10 wrote:On September 01 2010 09:25 Yurebis wrote:On September 01 2010 07:34 D10 wrote:On September 01 2010 04:49 Yurebis wrote:On August 31 2010 12:56 D10 wrote:
sounds impossible, I think its way easier to have a UED than that Why. There is no purity of ideology anywhere, you see communists who are capitalists, liberals who are conservative. If states collapsed there would be a ton of fringe groups in line with big guns just waiting to take control and impose their set of views on society, from drug gangs to paramilitary militias, things would suck much harder for everyone, there is no real freedom other than death Perhaps the communist who is a capitalist, or the liberal who is conservative, isn't one of the two; perhaps the theory are indeed inconsistent with itself; but the correct way to assert that is by elaborating why, not just saying it And I've explained how anarcho-capitalism doesn't degrade to the mainstream presentation of anarchism. Transitional anarchy is not what I'm talking about. Also I've touched on how drug lords are not entirely formed because of the free market, but actually facilitated by the state. For an empirical case, see the history on prohibition on alcohol, and how "alcohol-lords" if I may call them that, both risen and disappeared, correlated with the prohibition of such product. The same could also be said for druglords, for drugs weren't illegal some decades ago - but it is not as a closed case since the prohibition of those still go on. What about Paramilitary militias ? Here in Brazil theres 2 kinds of poor neighboorhoods, the ones dominated by a drug gang, or the ones dominated by some form of paramilitary militia formed by police officers, fireman, security guards and the like, they brutally murder any kind of drug gang occupying the area and install their own policies, which seems to universally be. Use drugs and you die. Natural Gas, cable TV, internet, and a security tax, are all cheaper than the ones a rich man will pay for, but it doesnt help that they are paying it to the militia and the militia is illegaly imposing those fees, theres really no option. You sit on your high hills in your first world cities thinking about anarchy, when it exists in the slums of many cities and it fucking suck balls, people are bound to come in all formats, and to think that the strong wont impose their will unpon the weak with the lack of law is foolish Well again, anarchism of no kind implies a lack of law, only lack of rulers. I think there's no question that governments everywhere exacerbate, if not create, the issue with drug lords, doesn't matter to me where, and you seem to understand what I mean by that so I won't explain again, even though I don't know if you agree or not. Now about the paramilitary gangs... I don't know anything about them. Do their policies include taxation, or are they voluntarily paid for? Do they exploit the populace besides just killing other gangs and drug users (seems like a mimicking of the federal law)? I mean, if they're paid voluntarily, that is indeed a curious example of what could be considered a PDA. Very curious. Of course, they probably don't understand much about private property, since they kill people just for using drugs, which is pretty bad. But what do the residents think of them? Is it nearly unanimous that they should kill drug users? Perhaps they're afraid that drug users will draw the drug gangs and feds to town (oh I think I may have found something there)? If so, is it not the fed's fault for making drugs illegal? Sorry if I have assumed too much.
Its imposed by force (if you buy it, it has to be from them) most people like them tho since neighboorhoods with militias (as they are called) have almost 0 violence.
Eventually they become the law of the land and handle any problems of the neighboorhood.
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On September 01 2010 13:43 kidcrash wrote:Show nested quote +On September 01 2010 12:22 Yurebis wrote:On September 01 2010 12:03 kidcrash wrote:On September 01 2010 11:42 Yurebis wrote:On September 01 2010 11:19 kidcrash wrote:On September 01 2010 09:59 Yurebis wrote:On September 01 2010 09:41 kidcrash wrote:Well, why don't you elaborate on how the Manhattan Project was something so ingeniously managed that no single market actor could compete with it, let alone top it, if not stolen the opportunity? Coming from the person who said that our entire economic principle should be based on greed. It's not that no single market actor could compete with it, but why should they feel the need to? If they did feel the need to, who's to say they would work at the pace and urgency needed to get the project done in time? Who's to say government workers do work on time? How can government know what the time is? How can it know how much to tax for it? How many bombs to make? How many scientists to hire? How much to pay them? It's far more arbitrary and inefficient. I just doubt it was the case that what they did was something so fantastic, that no free man could have done. Because when you are pro-active in fund-making and hire specialists, things get done quicker. I gave one specific example about advancements in military technology and large scale operations. However I truly believe that the ana-cap private "donation" fund replacements for all currently state funded programs would be inadequate. I strongly disagree with depending on "if there is a will there is a way" to accomplish large scale tasks that produce little to know profit in compensation. Benefits for the disabled and veterans? What about road maintenance and things like that? I didn't disagree that proactivity can be better, I was just noting that it isn't always the case. If it were always the case, you'd be preparing for anything that even has a remote chance of happening. You'd carry an umbrella on a sunny day, tranquilizing rifles to the office in case a wild animal appears, wearing seatbelts to go to the convenience store at the corner. It's an evaluation of how to face risk, cost and benefit. Just because you think it was proper of the state to steal from everyone to avoid a certain menace, in HINDSIGHT, might I add, doesn't mean it was 1- justified at the time, and 2- the best means to prevent it. Why do you think there's a need for a veteran to receive benefits? Any more than any other government employee? Because it's done now? Veterans, assuming they weren't drafted, were aware of the contractual benefits and obligations on his part. To say that an employee of any type deserves more than that which he already had agreed to receive... is as equal of a claim that the employer deserves more work from the employee past what was contractually decided and agreed on. Disabled.. disabled aren't to be treated as a special class just because they're disabled. No one is entitled to another man working and giving money to him for free. If you want to be taken care of, then do it voluntarily. Have charities, ask family, neighbors, anything, but please god stop jumping for the damn gun(verment). Road maintenance.. who owns the road? Who paid for it to be built? And who pays for the road to be maintained? How can a business model be made around roads? Think a little yourself. Might as well have asked "who will make the bread that I buy at the grocery". Search Walter Block on roads... On September 01 2010 11:19 kidcrash wrote:
Let me give you an example of how laziness rubs off on the ones around you. I want you do then give me your estimated opinion on the percentage of people this applies to.
At your job you frequently open the store in the morning for your shift. You notice that the people who close the night before often leave with the closers tasks undone. You end up having to finish it for them when you get there in the morning and it's hard because you are the only one there for the first few hours. You aren't sure if it's because they are lazy, or they just don't have enough time but the truth is, it's a combination of both. Your boss tells them it's okay to stay passed close in order to make sure everything is wrapped up before they leave.
Next month when one of the closers quits, you are forced to cover a swing shift, working both the morning shift and the night shift, where you will be closing the store. When closing you decide that the most fair option is to leave each night after you've finished an amount of tasks equal to what the other closers finish when they close the store and you open the next day. Your boss continues to tell all closers to stay after in order to finish everything that needs to be done, however your boss is also never pointing anything he/she sees in the morning that's left over and unacceptable to them.
I do not want your opinion on what a person should or should not to in the situation, that is irrelevant. I want to know what percentage of the population you think would go above and beyond their fellow co-workers work habits and what percentage do you think would work equally as hard as they see their co-workers themselves working. Getting a promotion should not be factored into this calculation.
The key point of this scenario is, the person is not being coerced, exploited, or guided into anything and has to choice to make any decision that they want. When you give someone the option to make sacrifices or to not make sacrifices, it's much harder to give them the will to accomplish something. "If there is a will there is a way" takes a back seat to "procrastination over sacrifice". The results are a system that struggles to find a pro-active reason to accomplish anything. Uh, you know that argument for lazyness is way, way more appliable to the state, right? The state officer has way less incentives to do his work... I've explored the incentives vis-a-vis multiple times in this thread. Not only can the bureaucrat not possibly know how to best serve a demand, but he can indeed be more laid back, and work just enough to get reelected. If you think government is more proactive than businesses.. I really don't know what to say. They may be more proactive at bombing third world countries, and using the military industrial complex for their own shady reasons, I'll give you that much. There would be zero incentive for anyone to start a fund for handicap people or any social service. These things would not happen or if they did happen they would be inadequate. Your saying a government official that is being paid and who's job is based essentially on a popularity contest has less incentive to get these things done than a company ceo who has no incentive or motive to donate money to a road construction and maintenance fund or for a fund for the disabled or for a military budget, other than just out of the kindest of their heart? Yes. Private charities already exist, and charity is a market demand. Stealing from everyone can hardly be called charity however, for any end at all. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_philanthropistsI couldn't find a non-mixed list, but... http://www.forbes.com/lists/2005/14/Revenue_1.htmlOn September 01 2010 12:03 kidcrash wrote:
You're saying a person who is being paid and needs to make a good public impression has less incentive than company executives who you expect to just give their money away for zero compensation. What about jails and a police force and a judicial system? Are you going to tell companies, you can help pay for these things if you want, but we aren't going to force you? Judges and police officers would probably receive like a 50% pay cut.
Hm, you're right in that governments may donate more, or have more incentives to donate more, I had not thought of that. But who do they donate to? How can they access which charity to donate will best satisfy the altruistic feeling of the people he robbed? Even with the incentive, he cannot choose the right ones all the time. He could donate to the big foundations who make TV adverts, and the well known institutions, but it can never access who needs it most, as good as the population itself would. AAaand, again, it is hardly charity to do anything with stolen property. If a thief is to steal your car, then tell you that he's using it to drive orphans to the school, does that make the thief exempt from repercussion? No, that's a ridiculous excuse to support coercion. Let people donate as they want, and don't try to save face with that. Let people keep what they earn, and then perhaps little to no donations are needed at all. It's not stealing because you're living in the country and using the roads and services in return. I will agree that property tax kind of crosses the line between that which is reasonably being given in compensation for our taxes. I've always agreed with the libertarian view on property rights. If you honestly think that you could live without things like a police station and road construction than you do have a choice to either become homeless and jobless or just leave the country. You can argue the principle behind taxes and whether it's stealing or not, but if you need the service they are giving in return for taxes, it becomes a non-issue. Utilitarianism overrides the principle. The only thing you can do is debate whether the specific services the state provides are worth paying the taxes or whether they are a waste. I'll agree our system isn't perfect but your are underestimating the task the corporate state would have to take on and the amount of coorporation and funding (voluntary) needed to make up for a lack of taxation system.
Actually, I do wish to pay for things like police and roads. I however, prefer choosing to pay, not being stolen to pay.
If a thief robs you $50, gives you back $40, and you use those $40, does that mean the thief is justified...? Absolutely not, that's post-fact rationale, and can't be right before-the-fact, when the stealing took place.
On September 01 2010 13:43 kidcrash wrote:
From what I've collected from the sites you showed me and the one I provided, I don't think there would be even close to enough funds to take over government services. The US military budget is 663.8 billion. I'll agree we could to stand to cut that down quite a bit for the sake of eliminating wastefulness. Let's say we were able to make enough cuts to bring that total to half of it's current total: 330 billion. If all the top philanthropists and charitable organizations just dropped their current charities and put forth their efforts to support the US military budget, we would still be short. But of course we wouldn't want to use those donations for anything other than their intended purposes (lol at taking money from aids foundation and giving it to bomb manufacturing) so we'd have to look elsewhere.
Now I'd agree that companies would have more capital due to the removal of the taxation system. However I think we can predict what a company is willing to donate simply by looking at the numbers above. These totals only seem to show that companies only donate once they've accumulated a ridiculous amount of money. This is a result of the fact that companies tend to hoard money. If we don't tax them for it, there is no guarantee they'd be willing to give what was needed to maintain the public services and projects necessary for every day life.
It's not just the companies that would be richer... the middle class too, the lower class, and the dirty-poor class. Companies that have their taxes levied would have a huge profit margin to work down in competition. Products and services would be cheaper - everyone benefits...
Have you heard of the phrase that "taxing the rich is taxing the poor by proxy"? It is very much true. The opposite is also true... when taxes go down, the rich have to put prices down, or else they'll be outcompeted by those who will.
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On September 01 2010 13:53 D10 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 01 2010 13:42 Yurebis wrote:On September 01 2010 12:52 D10 wrote:On September 01 2010 09:25 Yurebis wrote:On September 01 2010 07:34 D10 wrote:On September 01 2010 04:49 Yurebis wrote:On August 31 2010 12:56 D10 wrote:
sounds impossible, I think its way easier to have a UED than that Why. There is no purity of ideology anywhere, you see communists who are capitalists, liberals who are conservative. If states collapsed there would be a ton of fringe groups in line with big guns just waiting to take control and impose their set of views on society, from drug gangs to paramilitary militias, things would suck much harder for everyone, there is no real freedom other than death Perhaps the communist who is a capitalist, or the liberal who is conservative, isn't one of the two; perhaps the theory are indeed inconsistent with itself; but the correct way to assert that is by elaborating why, not just saying it And I've explained how anarcho-capitalism doesn't degrade to the mainstream presentation of anarchism. Transitional anarchy is not what I'm talking about. Also I've touched on how drug lords are not entirely formed because of the free market, but actually facilitated by the state. For an empirical case, see the history on prohibition on alcohol, and how "alcohol-lords" if I may call them that, both risen and disappeared, correlated with the prohibition of such product. The same could also be said for druglords, for drugs weren't illegal some decades ago - but it is not as a closed case since the prohibition of those still go on. What about Paramilitary militias ? Here in Brazil theres 2 kinds of poor neighboorhoods, the ones dominated by a drug gang, or the ones dominated by some form of paramilitary militia formed by police officers, fireman, security guards and the like, they brutally murder any kind of drug gang occupying the area and install their own policies, which seems to universally be. Use drugs and you die. Natural Gas, cable TV, internet, and a security tax, are all cheaper than the ones a rich man will pay for, but it doesnt help that they are paying it to the militia and the militia is illegaly imposing those fees, theres really no option. You sit on your high hills in your first world cities thinking about anarchy, when it exists in the slums of many cities and it fucking suck balls, people are bound to come in all formats, and to think that the strong wont impose their will unpon the weak with the lack of law is foolish Well again, anarchism of no kind implies a lack of law, only lack of rulers. I think there's no question that governments everywhere exacerbate, if not create, the issue with drug lords, doesn't matter to me where, and you seem to understand what I mean by that so I won't explain again, even though I don't know if you agree or not. Now about the paramilitary gangs... I don't know anything about them. Do their policies include taxation, or are they voluntarily paid for? Do they exploit the populace besides just killing other gangs and drug users (seems like a mimicking of the federal law)? I mean, if they're paid voluntarily, that is indeed a curious example of what could be considered a PDA. Very curious. Of course, they probably don't understand much about private property, since they kill people just for using drugs, which is pretty bad. But what do the residents think of them? Is it nearly unanimous that they should kill drug users? Perhaps they're afraid that drug users will draw the drug gangs and feds to town (oh I think I may have found something there)? If so, is it not the fed's fault for making drugs illegal? Sorry if I have assumed too much. Its imposed by force (if you buy it, it has to be from them) most people like them tho since neighboorhoods with militias (as they are called) have almost 0 violence. Eventually they become the law of the land and handle any problems of the neighboorhood.
Oh I see. So they basically tariff everything, and pay themselves that way.
Hmmmmm.
And do they have shoot-outs with the feds, or the feds don't even go there?
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the feds see it as a pacified zone with no need for intereference and dont go there... some feds live there btw.
militias were born of the necessity to live cheaply and not get murdered by drug gangs that kill cops.
cops started to unite and clear neighboorhoods so they could live without fear.
forming those militias, in most of these neighboorhoods, cable TV, internet is illegally stole from the main grid, they charge you a modest price to install it illegally on your house a cheap montly payment and they make of point of being the only guys selling gas to people
![[image loading]](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_unSNw4I7jYY/Sx_lZrJntQI/AAAAAAAACWQ/Fe1dRmlj0xg/s400/1CBF5D_1.jpg)
they also charge a mandatory security tax, and generally make the neighboorhood much less violent, problem is when they are sort of bullish themselves and look to cause trouble with small time troublemakers ...
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On September 01 2010 12:02 Yurebis wrote:Show nested quote +On September 01 2010 11:45 geometryb wrote:On September 01 2010 10:52 Yurebis wrote:On September 01 2010 10:11 geometryb wrote:On September 01 2010 10:08 Yurebis wrote:On September 01 2010 09:56 geometryb wrote:On September 01 2010 09:54 Yurebis wrote:On September 01 2010 09:30 geometryb wrote:
Is there a mechanism to maintain market competition? What prevents businesses from merging with each other to form super companies?
The point i'm trying to make is there is no way to tell if there will be one, ten, or 10,000 PDAs (i'm leaning towards 1). For example, is it possible that a company comes up with a product so good that others can't compete. And mergers/acquisitions provides the means for several companies to combine into a few. Are there purely market forces that would prevent defense companies from joining together. Especially defense companies, which gain significant benefits from pooling resources. There are Diseconomies of scale, to begin with. And I don't think defense companies always benefit from growing larger. Even if they did, at which point it becomes worrisome for the customer, then he can seek smaller ones. There are people who go to moms and pops even with Walmart open half a mile away, meaning, price isn't always everything even in the free market. it's not about price. it's about who can provide the best protection or the best product. as a customer, i do not worry about the size of the company that gives the product, only the quality of the product and the price they sell it at. i would argue that a large defense company can provide better protection than a smaller one. it's not very clear to me how a defense company can have diseconomies of scale. can you elaborate? Every time I compare price, it's implied I'm referring to equally serviceable products, products that provide the same benefit. A PDA (private defense agency) would not benefit from increased size... examples: -Additional policemen do not deter crime any better past a certain density. Having one policeman per street corner is hardly necessary, you're paying the next police officer $40000 for an expected return of much, much less in stopping crimes-a-year. -Additional guns, same deal -Distance, it is increasingly harder for a company to have adaptive presence in an area the further away from it's headquarters it is (mitigated by technology but still, what isn't). Local PDAs can best know what is needed in the area. Just a few I can think of... those are dealing with small criminals. when a PDA is defending you from attacks on a much larger scale... i'm going to an extreme here, but a PDA with ballistic missile defense and launches satellites for an advanced warning system is a much nicer product to have than a few police officers. again, there is nothing intrinsic about a PDA that says there will be 10,000 competing PDAs and nothing about economies or diseconomies of scale that say there will be 1 or 10000. I'm sorry about using PDAs because this really applies to all industries. Pretend an oil monopoly gets established...and then the oil company decides to start its own PDA since all the PDAs are too small to meet its needs. Uh, how much is a missile worth, and how much crime does it deter? Even if it's cost-beneficial for having one missile, then how much benefit does the second missile give? The third? The fourth? Diseconomies of scale are much more relevant than economies of scale, because there exists such a thing as diminishing returns. Economies of scale are almost always wrong, because resources aren't infinite, even if demand could arguiably be deemed infinite, so efficiency will always be capped on how many resources are available, and at what cost they come for. i think you're going off on a tangent with what ifs and focusing too much on scale and ignoring the essence of what i'm saying. i'm saying that monopolies can exist (and based on what i read anarchocapitalist say they have no problem with natural) and there's no inherent mechanism to prevent them from forming. Diseconomies of scale is not an anti-monopoly or anti-very few very big company measure. And if monopolies can exist, then monopolies in Defense exist. why would markets call for a big energy (or whatever) company (that can create a defence company) and not a big defence company? again, saying there are diseconomies of scale does not limit the size of the company. especially since you can't say when diseconomies start happening. Uh, I reject the popular definition of monopoly, and I take it that by natural monopoly, you mean that it may be natural in some circumstances for a company to provide a certain service in some area that no other one does. And second "uh", diseconomies of scale DO limit company size, that's exactly what the incentives do. If you read anything that I've written, that the wiki site of it says, and the wiki site on diminishing marginal utility, you'd understand there's a limit on how much a company spends or grows, and how much it profits. There may come to be a big defense company, but that is somewhat irrelevant, and if you're afraid of them, I also already addressed why PDA (protection defense agencies) would not or could not turn to coercion, not nearly as much as the state can, and no matter how big. Basically, if you're worried about it, so would any anarchist be. The bigger a PDA gets, the more worrisome it's anarchic clients would get, and they'd either move out of the PDA, or they'd require it to give them assurances that it would not go unaccounted for any single bullet shot. Third parties could help with foresight. Insurance companies, actuaries, any type of predicative and investigating specialists could help satisfy that demand. And yes, fear asks for assurances, and assurance is a demand to be satisfied, at some cost of course.
I still don't think you understand my point.
i didn't say diseconomies of scale didn't exist, you just don't know when they set in (exxon mobile can probably make more money than exxon). I dont think you can make an assumption and make it arbitrarily low for PDAs.
You acknowledge that there can be a big defense company. additionally, there is no way to gaurantee a perfectly competitive market with many firms.
the mechanism you create for preventing the growth of PDAs is "that people worry that it grows too big and leave." As the service you are purchasing is gets better, you want to move to an inferior service? I dont think that makes since. I would argue the opposite. As my business grows and i can accumulate more resources, I would want more security. The simplest market solution is for other PDAs improve their own capabilities through mergers. The defense market slowly gets smaller and smaller. Also, even if there is a demand for security that limits itself, there will likewise be demand for security that does not--you cant control what people want.
Furthermore, there's no mechanism for preventing businesses that control a lot of resources to enter the security market. There's no rule in capitalism that say businesses have to be profit maximizing...they can be utility maximizing. Companies can decide to take a loss in order to build their security forces and become state-like. They can't find a market for large defense system, so they build their own. So you can have a security company backed by the largest companies.
I would think very few very large security forces are bad for anarchy. A market failure in the defense industry would probably mean an end to anarchy.
tldr- no way to say when diseconomies of scale set in. no way to gaurantee many small security companies. no way to stop security companies backed by large businesses.
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On September 01 2010 14:17 D10 wrote:
the feds see it as a pacified zone with no need for intereference and dont go there... some feds live there btw.
militias were born of the necessity to live cheaply and not get murdered by drug gangs that kill cops.
cops started to unite and clear neighboorhoods so they could live without fear.
forming those militias, in most of these neighboorhoods, cable TV, internet is illegally stole from the main grid, they charge you a modest price to install it illegally on your house a cheap montly payment and they make of point of being the only guys selling gas to people
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they also charge a mandatory security tax, and generally make the neighboorhood much less violent, problem is when they are sort of bullish themselves and look to cause trouble with small time troublemakers ...
Oh Ok so they tariff gas, tax, and the feds won't go there. They also wire stuff illegally. Okay. That is a very daring little gang. It is kind of like a PDA in the sense that it arose spontaneously, and it seems to provide at least some services voluntarily, but the main one, defense, is not.
It may have arisen because the government subsidizes if not also monopolizes the defense market, in that it does not allow competing cops to exist (certainly not the kind that goes by the streets shooting drug dealers), but their own cops barely defend anything. It would make sense then for a defense company to emerge, to fill the demand gap for defense. However it doesn't explain why they are coercively paid... perhaps because it is an illegal practice to start with? And that they basically have to be violent, to show the feds how they're tough, and that they will shoot them down too if they come in the province?
It is just a guess, but it is not a stretch to say, that the same thing that happens in the black market of drugs, can happen in a black market of defense. And that's basically what I think that is. If the federal government were to allow competing police, perhaps they wouldn't have to be coercive. A bit of a stretch, and I don't even know the place, I know, but that's the theory I can think of right now.
edit: editted out huge picture
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On September 01 2010 14:06 Yurebis wrote:Show nested quote +On September 01 2010 13:43 kidcrash wrote:On September 01 2010 12:22 Yurebis wrote:On September 01 2010 12:03 kidcrash wrote:On September 01 2010 11:42 Yurebis wrote:On September 01 2010 11:19 kidcrash wrote:On September 01 2010 09:59 Yurebis wrote:On September 01 2010 09:41 kidcrash wrote:Well, why don't you elaborate on how the Manhattan Project was something so ingeniously managed that no single market actor could compete with it, let alone top it, if not stolen the opportunity? Coming from the person who said that our entire economic principle should be based on greed. It's not that no single market actor could compete with it, but why should they feel the need to? If they did feel the need to, who's to say they would work at the pace and urgency needed to get the project done in time? Who's to say government workers do work on time? How can government know what the time is? How can it know how much to tax for it? How many bombs to make? How many scientists to hire? How much to pay them? It's far more arbitrary and inefficient. I just doubt it was the case that what they did was something so fantastic, that no free man could have done. Because when you are pro-active in fund-making and hire specialists, things get done quicker. I gave one specific example about advancements in military technology and large scale operations. However I truly believe that the ana-cap private "donation" fund replacements for all currently state funded programs would be inadequate. I strongly disagree with depending on "if there is a will there is a way" to accomplish large scale tasks that produce little to know profit in compensation. Benefits for the disabled and veterans? What about road maintenance and things like that? I didn't disagree that proactivity can be better, I was just noting that it isn't always the case. If it were always the case, you'd be preparing for anything that even has a remote chance of happening. You'd carry an umbrella on a sunny day, tranquilizing rifles to the office in case a wild animal appears, wearing seatbelts to go to the convenience store at the corner. It's an evaluation of how to face risk, cost and benefit. Just because you think it was proper of the state to steal from everyone to avoid a certain menace, in HINDSIGHT, might I add, doesn't mean it was 1- justified at the time, and 2- the best means to prevent it. Why do you think there's a need for a veteran to receive benefits? Any more than any other government employee? Because it's done now? Veterans, assuming they weren't drafted, were aware of the contractual benefits and obligations on his part. To say that an employee of any type deserves more than that which he already had agreed to receive... is as equal of a claim that the employer deserves more work from the employee past what was contractually decided and agreed on. Disabled.. disabled aren't to be treated as a special class just because they're disabled. No one is entitled to another man working and giving money to him for free. If you want to be taken care of, then do it voluntarily. Have charities, ask family, neighbors, anything, but please god stop jumping for the damn gun(verment). Road maintenance.. who owns the road? Who paid for it to be built? And who pays for the road to be maintained? How can a business model be made around roads? Think a little yourself. Might as well have asked "who will make the bread that I buy at the grocery". Search Walter Block on roads... On September 01 2010 11:19 kidcrash wrote:
Let me give you an example of how laziness rubs off on the ones around you. I want you do then give me your estimated opinion on the percentage of people this applies to.
At your job you frequently open the store in the morning for your shift. You notice that the people who close the night before often leave with the closers tasks undone. You end up having to finish it for them when you get there in the morning and it's hard because you are the only one there for the first few hours. You aren't sure if it's because they are lazy, or they just don't have enough time but the truth is, it's a combination of both. Your boss tells them it's okay to stay passed close in order to make sure everything is wrapped up before they leave.
Next month when one of the closers quits, you are forced to cover a swing shift, working both the morning shift and the night shift, where you will be closing the store. When closing you decide that the most fair option is to leave each night after you've finished an amount of tasks equal to what the other closers finish when they close the store and you open the next day. Your boss continues to tell all closers to stay after in order to finish everything that needs to be done, however your boss is also never pointing anything he/she sees in the morning that's left over and unacceptable to them.
I do not want your opinion on what a person should or should not to in the situation, that is irrelevant. I want to know what percentage of the population you think would go above and beyond their fellow co-workers work habits and what percentage do you think would work equally as hard as they see their co-workers themselves working. Getting a promotion should not be factored into this calculation.
The key point of this scenario is, the person is not being coerced, exploited, or guided into anything and has to choice to make any decision that they want. When you give someone the option to make sacrifices or to not make sacrifices, it's much harder to give them the will to accomplish something. "If there is a will there is a way" takes a back seat to "procrastination over sacrifice". The results are a system that struggles to find a pro-active reason to accomplish anything. Uh, you know that argument for lazyness is way, way more appliable to the state, right? The state officer has way less incentives to do his work... I've explored the incentives vis-a-vis multiple times in this thread. Not only can the bureaucrat not possibly know how to best serve a demand, but he can indeed be more laid back, and work just enough to get reelected. If you think government is more proactive than businesses.. I really don't know what to say. They may be more proactive at bombing third world countries, and using the military industrial complex for their own shady reasons, I'll give you that much. There would be zero incentive for anyone to start a fund for handicap people or any social service. These things would not happen or if they did happen they would be inadequate. Your saying a government official that is being paid and who's job is based essentially on a popularity contest has less incentive to get these things done than a company ceo who has no incentive or motive to donate money to a road construction and maintenance fund or for a fund for the disabled or for a military budget, other than just out of the kindest of their heart? Yes. Private charities already exist, and charity is a market demand. Stealing from everyone can hardly be called charity however, for any end at all. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_philanthropistsI couldn't find a non-mixed list, but... http://www.forbes.com/lists/2005/14/Revenue_1.htmlOn September 01 2010 12:03 kidcrash wrote:
You're saying a person who is being paid and needs to make a good public impression has less incentive than company executives who you expect to just give their money away for zero compensation. What about jails and a police force and a judicial system? Are you going to tell companies, you can help pay for these things if you want, but we aren't going to force you? Judges and police officers would probably receive like a 50% pay cut.
Hm, you're right in that governments may donate more, or have more incentives to donate more, I had not thought of that. But who do they donate to? How can they access which charity to donate will best satisfy the altruistic feeling of the people he robbed? Even with the incentive, he cannot choose the right ones all the time. He could donate to the big foundations who make TV adverts, and the well known institutions, but it can never access who needs it most, as good as the population itself would. AAaand, again, it is hardly charity to do anything with stolen property. If a thief is to steal your car, then tell you that he's using it to drive orphans to the school, does that make the thief exempt from repercussion? No, that's a ridiculous excuse to support coercion. Let people donate as they want, and don't try to save face with that. Let people keep what they earn, and then perhaps little to no donations are needed at all. It's not stealing because you're living in the country and using the roads and services in return. I will agree that property tax kind of crosses the line between that which is reasonably being given in compensation for our taxes. I've always agreed with the libertarian view on property rights. If you honestly think that you could live without things like a police station and road construction than you do have a choice to either become homeless and jobless or just leave the country. You can argue the principle behind taxes and whether it's stealing or not, but if you need the service they are giving in return for taxes, it becomes a non-issue. Utilitarianism overrides the principle. The only thing you can do is debate whether the specific services the state provides are worth paying the taxes or whether they are a waste. I'll agree our system isn't perfect but your are underestimating the task the corporate state would have to take on and the amount of coorporation and funding (voluntary) needed to make up for a lack of taxation system. Actually, I do wish to pay for things like police and roads. I however, prefer choosing to pay, not being stolen to pay. If a thief robs you $50, gives you back $40, and you use those $40, does that mean the thief is justified...? Absolutely not, that's post-fact rationale, and can't be right before-the-fact, when the stealing took place. My answer to this is from a utilitarian point of view, we need most of the services given to us from the state so instead of debating whether it's stealing or we should be debating which services are needed and which ones are a waste. You have to ignore the principle in this situation to create the greatest amount of good. Utilitarianism always overrides the principle. If you kill one person to save 10 you ignore the principle. Show nested quote +On September 01 2010 13:43 kidcrash wrote:
From what I've collected from the sites you showed me and the one I provided, I don't think there would be even close to enough funds to take over government services. The US military budget is 663.8 billion. I'll agree we could to stand to cut that down quite a bit for the sake of eliminating wastefulness. Let's say we were able to make enough cuts to bring that total to half of it's current total: 330 billion. If all the top philanthropists and charitable organizations just dropped their current charities and put forth their efforts to support the US military budget, we would still be short. But of course we wouldn't want to use those donations for anything other than their intended purposes (lol at taking money from aids foundation and giving it to bomb manufacturing) so we'd have to look elsewhere.
Now I'd agree that companies would have more capital due to the removal of the taxation system. However I think we can predict what a company is willing to donate simply by looking at the numbers above. These totals only seem to show that companies only donate once they've accumulated a ridiculous amount of money. This is a result of the fact that companies tend to hoard money. If we don't tax them for it, there is no guarantee they'd be willing to give what was needed to maintain the public services and projects necessary for every day life. It's not just the companies that would be richer... the middle class too, the lower class, and the dirty-poor class. Companies that have their taxes levied would have a huge profit margin to work down in competition. Products and services would be cheaper - everyone benefits... Have you heard of the phrase that "taxing the rich is taxing the poor by proxy"? It is very much true. The opposite is also true... when taxes go down, the rich have to put prices down, or else they'll be outcompeted by those who will.
Absolutely, everyone would have more money at all social classes. You'd still have to hope the people with the most money were going to be willing to donate to the things we need to form a stable society. Why create an economic theory which places so much risk on hoping for something to happen? Utilitarianism will show you that our current system "in theory" is doing the same thing as an ana-cap system, without the risk of "well I hope enough people donate to these funds that we need even though they have zero incentive". Without the risk of "well i hope my neighborhood is still safe even though we had to cut half the police force".
Utilitarianism always overrides such arbitrary principles as "taxation is stealing". It may be stealing, but is it effective and is it worth the price? If not, how can we fix it to make it less wasteful?
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just to reiterate my point,
a failure in the security industry would mean an end to anarchy because very few organization with a lot of power have the "power corrupts" syndrome.
a failure in the security industry can occur because there is no gaurantee on a competitive market. There is no way to look at the number of firms.
just another thought that is less important -- imperfect information. the inherent secrecy behind security capabilities (you dont want others to know your vulnerabilities) will not allow people to audit out of control firms.
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On September 01 2010 14:40 geometryb wrote:
just to reiterate my point,
a failure in the security industry would mean an end to anarchy because very few organization with a lot of power have the "power corrupts" syndrome.
By failure you mean, they decide to go initiate some force into those silly ancaps right?
It would indeed be somewhat of a failure.
On September 01 2010 14:40 geometryb wrote:
a failure in the security industry can occur because there is no gaurantee on a competitive market. There is no way to look at the number of firms.
just another thought that is less important -- imperfect information. the inherent secrecy behind security capabilities (you dont want others to know your vulnerabilities) will not allow people to audit out of control firms.
There are no guarantees in government either, first off. The correct question to ask is, which one is less likely to coerce? Well, actually that's quite the biased question since the PDA wins by default... eheh... well, let's not compare then.
Within the free market, everyone is aware of that possibility. People will be more weary of buying the services of a large PDA, and that PDA's services will carry that weigh and risk with them. Would you buy into a cheaper service that has a higher chance of backstabbing, defraud you, or will you choose the more expensive one that has no such risk? I don't know, depends by how much, right? But there is an incentive to back off big PDAs, even if diseconomies of scale don't hold them back. The larger it gets, the higher the risk of backstabbing, and the more it will either have to better address the transparency issues like you said, or will have to shrink/stale.
Systems of checks and balances aren't impossible to be made in the free market either. That's what insurance companies are famous for - perhaps they themselves could be the proxy of risk, with all it's actuaries. Instead of buying into PDAs directly, anarcho-capitalists could hire them through insurance companies that both made the services cheaper for less troublesome clients, and more expensive for violent individuals. These insurance companies would also be hiring PDAs either on-demand or on short-term contracts to attend their customers in need. The PDAs chosen and paid would immediately be put into considerations of risk, just as the customers are. Bigger PDAs would be paid less or hired less if they're increasingly shady, and more transparent or smaller PDAs would be hired more, even if it comes at an increase. PDAs could be required to report to the insurance companies everything they've done. There could be made anonymous or private phone lines where people and members report issues they've had with PDAs, or tips on whether a PDA could be planning something, and the insurance companies would take those into account, perhaps hiring third party investigators to know what's up. The insurance companies however are just an additional layer, and it does ultimately come down to the customer wanting more transparency, less risk, at a cost of course.
Government is indeed a bit freer in that regard, they can bust down any doors and wire any lines, however at what cost? and who keeps an eye on government itself? There is always more to it when you talk about government being good at anything. Think of the externalities and limitations.
No problem, below.
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sorry i edited it because i misclicked post too early
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On September 01 2010 14:33 kidcrash wrote:Show nested quote +On September 01 2010 14:06 Yurebis wrote:On September 01 2010 13:43 kidcrash wrote:On September 01 2010 12:22 Yurebis wrote:On September 01 2010 12:03 kidcrash wrote:On September 01 2010 11:42 Yurebis wrote:On September 01 2010 11:19 kidcrash wrote:On September 01 2010 09:59 Yurebis wrote:On September 01 2010 09:41 kidcrash wrote:Well, why don't you elaborate on how the Manhattan Project was something so ingeniously managed that no single market actor could compete with it, let alone top it, if not stolen the opportunity? Coming from the person who said that our entire economic principle should be based on greed. It's not that no single market actor could compete with it, but why should they feel the need to? If they did feel the need to, who's to say they would work at the pace and urgency needed to get the project done in time? Who's to say government workers do work on time? How can government know what the time is? How can it know how much to tax for it? How many bombs to make? How many scientists to hire? How much to pay them? It's far more arbitrary and inefficient. I just doubt it was the case that what they did was something so fantastic, that no free man could have done. Because when you are pro-active in fund-making and hire specialists, things get done quicker. I gave one specific example about advancements in military technology and large scale operations. However I truly believe that the ana-cap private "donation" fund replacements for all currently state funded programs would be inadequate. I strongly disagree with depending on "if there is a will there is a way" to accomplish large scale tasks that produce little to know profit in compensation. Benefits for the disabled and veterans? What about road maintenance and things like that? I didn't disagree that proactivity can be better, I was just noting that it isn't always the case. If it were always the case, you'd be preparing for anything that even has a remote chance of happening. You'd carry an umbrella on a sunny day, tranquilizing rifles to the office in case a wild animal appears, wearing seatbelts to go to the convenience store at the corner. It's an evaluation of how to face risk, cost and benefit. Just because you think it was proper of the state to steal from everyone to avoid a certain menace, in HINDSIGHT, might I add, doesn't mean it was 1- justified at the time, and 2- the best means to prevent it. Why do you think there's a need for a veteran to receive benefits? Any more than any other government employee? Because it's done now? Veterans, assuming they weren't drafted, were aware of the contractual benefits and obligations on his part. To say that an employee of any type deserves more than that which he already had agreed to receive... is as equal of a claim that the employer deserves more work from the employee past what was contractually decided and agreed on. Disabled.. disabled aren't to be treated as a special class just because they're disabled. No one is entitled to another man working and giving money to him for free. If you want to be taken care of, then do it voluntarily. Have charities, ask family, neighbors, anything, but please god stop jumping for the damn gun(verment). Road maintenance.. who owns the road? Who paid for it to be built? And who pays for the road to be maintained? How can a business model be made around roads? Think a little yourself. Might as well have asked "who will make the bread that I buy at the grocery". Search Walter Block on roads... On September 01 2010 11:19 kidcrash wrote:
Let me give you an example of how laziness rubs off on the ones around you. I want you do then give me your estimated opinion on the percentage of people this applies to.
At your job you frequently open the store in the morning for your shift. You notice that the people who close the night before often leave with the closers tasks undone. You end up having to finish it for them when you get there in the morning and it's hard because you are the only one there for the first few hours. You aren't sure if it's because they are lazy, or they just don't have enough time but the truth is, it's a combination of both. Your boss tells them it's okay to stay passed close in order to make sure everything is wrapped up before they leave.
Next month when one of the closers quits, you are forced to cover a swing shift, working both the morning shift and the night shift, where you will be closing the store. When closing you decide that the most fair option is to leave each night after you've finished an amount of tasks equal to what the other closers finish when they close the store and you open the next day. Your boss continues to tell all closers to stay after in order to finish everything that needs to be done, however your boss is also never pointing anything he/she sees in the morning that's left over and unacceptable to them.
I do not want your opinion on what a person should or should not to in the situation, that is irrelevant. I want to know what percentage of the population you think would go above and beyond their fellow co-workers work habits and what percentage do you think would work equally as hard as they see their co-workers themselves working. Getting a promotion should not be factored into this calculation.
The key point of this scenario is, the person is not being coerced, exploited, or guided into anything and has to choice to make any decision that they want. When you give someone the option to make sacrifices or to not make sacrifices, it's much harder to give them the will to accomplish something. "If there is a will there is a way" takes a back seat to "procrastination over sacrifice". The results are a system that struggles to find a pro-active reason to accomplish anything. Uh, you know that argument for lazyness is way, way more appliable to the state, right? The state officer has way less incentives to do his work... I've explored the incentives vis-a-vis multiple times in this thread. Not only can the bureaucrat not possibly know how to best serve a demand, but he can indeed be more laid back, and work just enough to get reelected. If you think government is more proactive than businesses.. I really don't know what to say. They may be more proactive at bombing third world countries, and using the military industrial complex for their own shady reasons, I'll give you that much. There would be zero incentive for anyone to start a fund for handicap people or any social service. These things would not happen or if they did happen they would be inadequate. Your saying a government official that is being paid and who's job is based essentially on a popularity contest has less incentive to get these things done than a company ceo who has no incentive or motive to donate money to a road construction and maintenance fund or for a fund for the disabled or for a military budget, other than just out of the kindest of their heart? Yes. Private charities already exist, and charity is a market demand. Stealing from everyone can hardly be called charity however, for any end at all. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_philanthropistsI couldn't find a non-mixed list, but... http://www.forbes.com/lists/2005/14/Revenue_1.htmlOn September 01 2010 12:03 kidcrash wrote:
You're saying a person who is being paid and needs to make a good public impression has less incentive than company executives who you expect to just give their money away for zero compensation. What about jails and a police force and a judicial system? Are you going to tell companies, you can help pay for these things if you want, but we aren't going to force you? Judges and police officers would probably receive like a 50% pay cut.
Hm, you're right in that governments may donate more, or have more incentives to donate more, I had not thought of that. But who do they donate to? How can they access which charity to donate will best satisfy the altruistic feeling of the people he robbed? Even with the incentive, he cannot choose the right ones all the time. He could donate to the big foundations who make TV adverts, and the well known institutions, but it can never access who needs it most, as good as the population itself would. AAaand, again, it is hardly charity to do anything with stolen property. If a thief is to steal your car, then tell you that he's using it to drive orphans to the school, does that make the thief exempt from repercussion? No, that's a ridiculous excuse to support coercion. Let people donate as they want, and don't try to save face with that. Let people keep what they earn, and then perhaps little to no donations are needed at all. It's not stealing because you're living in the country and using the roads and services in return. I will agree that property tax kind of crosses the line between that which is reasonably being given in compensation for our taxes. I've always agreed with the libertarian view on property rights. If you honestly think that you could live without things like a police station and road construction than you do have a choice to either become homeless and jobless or just leave the country. You can argue the principle behind taxes and whether it's stealing or not, but if you need the service they are giving in return for taxes, it becomes a non-issue. Utilitarianism overrides the principle. The only thing you can do is debate whether the specific services the state provides are worth paying the taxes or whether they are a waste. I'll agree our system isn't perfect but your are underestimating the task the corporate state would have to take on and the amount of coorporation and funding (voluntary) needed to make up for a lack of taxation system. Actually, I do wish to pay for things like police and roads. I however, prefer choosing to pay, not being stolen to pay. If a thief robs you $50, gives you back $40, and you use those $40, does that mean the thief is justified...? Absolutely not, that's post-fact rationale, and can't be right before-the-fact, when the stealing took place. My answer to this is from a utilitarian point of view, we need most of the services given to us from the state so instead of debating whether it's stealing or we should be debating which services are needed and which ones are a waste. You have to ignore the principle in this situation to create the greatest amount of good. Utilitarianism always overrides the principle. If you kill one person to save 10 you ignore the principle. On September 01 2010 13:43 kidcrash wrote:
From what I've collected from the sites you showed me and the one I provided, I don't think there would be even close to enough funds to take over government services. The US military budget is 663.8 billion. I'll agree we could to stand to cut that down quite a bit for the sake of eliminating wastefulness. Let's say we were able to make enough cuts to bring that total to half of it's current total: 330 billion. If all the top philanthropists and charitable organizations just dropped their current charities and put forth their efforts to support the US military budget, we would still be short. But of course we wouldn't want to use those donations for anything other than their intended purposes (lol at taking money from aids foundation and giving it to bomb manufacturing) so we'd have to look elsewhere.
Now I'd agree that companies would have more capital due to the removal of the taxation system. However I think we can predict what a company is willing to donate simply by looking at the numbers above. These totals only seem to show that companies only donate once they've accumulated a ridiculous amount of money. This is a result of the fact that companies tend to hoard money. If we don't tax them for it, there is no guarantee they'd be willing to give what was needed to maintain the public services and projects necessary for every day life. It's not just the companies that would be richer... the middle class too, the lower class, and the dirty-poor class. Companies that have their taxes levied would have a huge profit margin to work down in competition. Products and services would be cheaper - everyone benefits... Have you heard of the phrase that "taxing the rich is taxing the poor by proxy"? It is very much true. The opposite is also true... when taxes go down, the rich have to put prices down, or else they'll be outcompeted by those who will. Absolutely, everyone would have more money at all social classes. You'd still have to hope the people with the most money were going to be willing to donate to the things we need to form a stable society. Why create an economic theory which places so much risk on hoping for something to happen? Utilitarianism will show you that our current system "in theory" is doing the same thing as an ana-cap system, without the risk of "well I hope enough people donate to these funds that we need even though they have zero incentive". Without the risk of "well i hope my neighborhood is still safe even though we had to cut half the police force". Utilitarianism always overrides such arbitrary principles as "taxation is stealing". It may be stealing, but is it effective and is it worth the price? If not, how can we fix it to make it less wasteful?
I don't have to hope anything, I'm not in need of donations right now. Does society rely on charity? I don't think so. Charity plays some role, and again, has the demand for it, but I don't think it's intrinsic for society's well-being. Just because you or the state thinks more donations are "necessary" (for what again?), it is not enough of a justification to steal from everyone.
A central planner can't know if it's "worth the price", because he's not acting on market forces. He's acting on what he thinks is ideal, and at best, acting on what he thinks other people think is ideal, which is still subpar to simply.. let people act on their own subjective values, to the best of their ability.
Again, a central planner, even if elected on the promise that he will take 10% of all people's income and donate to charity, disallows people from choosing what charities to donate to, disallows them from using the money in what could be productive things that raise the standards of living for everyone and consequently the poor, disabled, orphaned; disallows them from donating at a certain other time - perhaps after an investment starts giving returns - which would be preferable to them, because they'd be able to donate more and have more left for himself as well.
So many externalities are created that, again, no matter what the planner does with the money, is a net 0 benefit for society at the very very best.
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On September 01 2010 14:58 Yurebis wrote:Show nested quote +On September 01 2010 14:33 kidcrash wrote:On September 01 2010 14:06 Yurebis wrote:On September 01 2010 13:43 kidcrash wrote:On September 01 2010 12:22 Yurebis wrote:On September 01 2010 12:03 kidcrash wrote:On September 01 2010 11:42 Yurebis wrote:On September 01 2010 11:19 kidcrash wrote:On September 01 2010 09:59 Yurebis wrote:On September 01 2010 09:41 kidcrash wrote:
[quote]
Coming from the person who said that our entire economic principle should be based on greed. It's not that no single market actor could compete with it, but why should they feel the need to? If they did feel the need to, who's to say they would work at the pace and urgency needed to get the project done in time?
Who's to say government workers do work on time? How can government know what the time is? How can it know how much to tax for it? How many bombs to make? How many scientists to hire? How much to pay them? It's far more arbitrary and inefficient. I just doubt it was the case that what they did was something so fantastic, that no free man could have done. Because when you are pro-active in fund-making and hire specialists, things get done quicker. I gave one specific example about advancements in military technology and large scale operations. However I truly believe that the ana-cap private "donation" fund replacements for all currently state funded programs would be inadequate. I strongly disagree with depending on "if there is a will there is a way" to accomplish large scale tasks that produce little to know profit in compensation. Benefits for the disabled and veterans? What about road maintenance and things like that? I didn't disagree that proactivity can be better, I was just noting that it isn't always the case. If it were always the case, you'd be preparing for anything that even has a remote chance of happening. You'd carry an umbrella on a sunny day, tranquilizing rifles to the office in case a wild animal appears, wearing seatbelts to go to the convenience store at the corner. It's an evaluation of how to face risk, cost and benefit. Just because you think it was proper of the state to steal from everyone to avoid a certain menace, in HINDSIGHT, might I add, doesn't mean it was 1- justified at the time, and 2- the best means to prevent it. Why do you think there's a need for a veteran to receive benefits? Any more than any other government employee? Because it's done now? Veterans, assuming they weren't drafted, were aware of the contractual benefits and obligations on his part. To say that an employee of any type deserves more than that which he already had agreed to receive... is as equal of a claim that the employer deserves more work from the employee past what was contractually decided and agreed on. Disabled.. disabled aren't to be treated as a special class just because they're disabled. No one is entitled to another man working and giving money to him for free. If you want to be taken care of, then do it voluntarily. Have charities, ask family, neighbors, anything, but please god stop jumping for the damn gun(verment). Road maintenance.. who owns the road? Who paid for it to be built? And who pays for the road to be maintained? How can a business model be made around roads? Think a little yourself. Might as well have asked "who will make the bread that I buy at the grocery". Search Walter Block on roads... On September 01 2010 11:19 kidcrash wrote:
Let me give you an example of how laziness rubs off on the ones around you. I want you do then give me your estimated opinion on the percentage of people this applies to.
At your job you frequently open the store in the morning for your shift. You notice that the people who close the night before often leave with the closers tasks undone. You end up having to finish it for them when you get there in the morning and it's hard because you are the only one there for the first few hours. You aren't sure if it's because they are lazy, or they just don't have enough time but the truth is, it's a combination of both. Your boss tells them it's okay to stay passed close in order to make sure everything is wrapped up before they leave.
Next month when one of the closers quits, you are forced to cover a swing shift, working both the morning shift and the night shift, where you will be closing the store. When closing you decide that the most fair option is to leave each night after you've finished an amount of tasks equal to what the other closers finish when they close the store and you open the next day. Your boss continues to tell all closers to stay after in order to finish everything that needs to be done, however your boss is also never pointing anything he/she sees in the morning that's left over and unacceptable to them.
I do not want your opinion on what a person should or should not to in the situation, that is irrelevant. I want to know what percentage of the population you think would go above and beyond their fellow co-workers work habits and what percentage do you think would work equally as hard as they see their co-workers themselves working. Getting a promotion should not be factored into this calculation.
The key point of this scenario is, the person is not being coerced, exploited, or guided into anything and has to choice to make any decision that they want. When you give someone the option to make sacrifices or to not make sacrifices, it's much harder to give them the will to accomplish something. "If there is a will there is a way" takes a back seat to "procrastination over sacrifice". The results are a system that struggles to find a pro-active reason to accomplish anything. Uh, you know that argument for lazyness is way, way more appliable to the state, right? The state officer has way less incentives to do his work... I've explored the incentives vis-a-vis multiple times in this thread. Not only can the bureaucrat not possibly know how to best serve a demand, but he can indeed be more laid back, and work just enough to get reelected. If you think government is more proactive than businesses.. I really don't know what to say. They may be more proactive at bombing third world countries, and using the military industrial complex for their own shady reasons, I'll give you that much. There would be zero incentive for anyone to start a fund for handicap people or any social service. These things would not happen or if they did happen they would be inadequate. Your saying a government official that is being paid and who's job is based essentially on a popularity contest has less incentive to get these things done than a company ceo who has no incentive or motive to donate money to a road construction and maintenance fund or for a fund for the disabled or for a military budget, other than just out of the kindest of their heart? Yes. Private charities already exist, and charity is a market demand. Stealing from everyone can hardly be called charity however, for any end at all. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_philanthropistsI couldn't find a non-mixed list, but... http://www.forbes.com/lists/2005/14/Revenue_1.htmlOn September 01 2010 12:03 kidcrash wrote:
You're saying a person who is being paid and needs to make a good public impression has less incentive than company executives who you expect to just give their money away for zero compensation. What about jails and a police force and a judicial system? Are you going to tell companies, you can help pay for these things if you want, but we aren't going to force you? Judges and police officers would probably receive like a 50% pay cut.
Hm, you're right in that governments may donate more, or have more incentives to donate more, I had not thought of that. But who do they donate to? How can they access which charity to donate will best satisfy the altruistic feeling of the people he robbed? Even with the incentive, he cannot choose the right ones all the time. He could donate to the big foundations who make TV adverts, and the well known institutions, but it can never access who needs it most, as good as the population itself would. AAaand, again, it is hardly charity to do anything with stolen property. If a thief is to steal your car, then tell you that he's using it to drive orphans to the school, does that make the thief exempt from repercussion? No, that's a ridiculous excuse to support coercion. Let people donate as they want, and don't try to save face with that. Let people keep what they earn, and then perhaps little to no donations are needed at all. It's not stealing because you're living in the country and using the roads and services in return. I will agree that property tax kind of crosses the line between that which is reasonably being given in compensation for our taxes. I've always agreed with the libertarian view on property rights. If you honestly think that you could live without things like a police station and road construction than you do have a choice to either become homeless and jobless or just leave the country. You can argue the principle behind taxes and whether it's stealing or not, but if you need the service they are giving in return for taxes, it becomes a non-issue. Utilitarianism overrides the principle. The only thing you can do is debate whether the specific services the state provides are worth paying the taxes or whether they are a waste. I'll agree our system isn't perfect but your are underestimating the task the corporate state would have to take on and the amount of coorporation and funding (voluntary) needed to make up for a lack of taxation system. Actually, I do wish to pay for things like police and roads. I however, prefer choosing to pay, not being stolen to pay. If a thief robs you $50, gives you back $40, and you use those $40, does that mean the thief is justified...? Absolutely not, that's post-fact rationale, and can't be right before-the-fact, when the stealing took place. My answer to this is from a utilitarian point of view, we need most of the services given to us from the state so instead of debating whether it's stealing or we should be debating which services are needed and which ones are a waste. You have to ignore the principle in this situation to create the greatest amount of good. Utilitarianism always overrides the principle. If you kill one person to save 10 you ignore the principle. On September 01 2010 13:43 kidcrash wrote:
From what I've collected from the sites you showed me and the one I provided, I don't think there would be even close to enough funds to take over government services. The US military budget is 663.8 billion. I'll agree we could to stand to cut that down quite a bit for the sake of eliminating wastefulness. Let's say we were able to make enough cuts to bring that total to half of it's current total: 330 billion. If all the top philanthropists and charitable organizations just dropped their current charities and put forth their efforts to support the US military budget, we would still be short. But of course we wouldn't want to use those donations for anything other than their intended purposes (lol at taking money from aids foundation and giving it to bomb manufacturing) so we'd have to look elsewhere.
Now I'd agree that companies would have more capital due to the removal of the taxation system. However I think we can predict what a company is willing to donate simply by looking at the numbers above. These totals only seem to show that companies only donate once they've accumulated a ridiculous amount of money. This is a result of the fact that companies tend to hoard money. If we don't tax them for it, there is no guarantee they'd be willing to give what was needed to maintain the public services and projects necessary for every day life. It's not just the companies that would be richer... the middle class too, the lower class, and the dirty-poor class. Companies that have their taxes levied would have a huge profit margin to work down in competition. Products and services would be cheaper - everyone benefits... Have you heard of the phrase that "taxing the rich is taxing the poor by proxy"? It is very much true. The opposite is also true... when taxes go down, the rich have to put prices down, or else they'll be outcompeted by those who will. Absolutely, everyone would have more money at all social classes. You'd still have to hope the people with the most money were going to be willing to donate to the things we need to form a stable society. Why create an economic theory which places so much risk on hoping for something to happen? Utilitarianism will show you that our current system "in theory" is doing the same thing as an ana-cap system, without the risk of "well I hope enough people donate to these funds that we need even though they have zero incentive". Without the risk of "well i hope my neighborhood is still safe even though we had to cut half the police force". Utilitarianism always overrides such arbitrary principles as "taxation is stealing". It may be stealing, but is it effective and is it worth the price? If not, how can we fix it to make it less wasteful? I don't have to hope anything, I'm not in need of donations right now. Does society rely on charity? I don't think so. Charity plays some role, and again, has the demand for it, but I don't think it's intrinsic for society's well-being. Just because you or the state thinks more donations are "necessary" (for what again?), it is not enough of a justification to steal from everyone. A central planner can't know if it's "worth the price", because he's not acting on market forces. He's acting on what he thinks is ideal, and at best, acting on what he thinks other people think is ideal, which is still subpar to simply.. let people act on their own subjective values, to the best of their ability. Again, a central planner, even if elected on the promise that he will take 10% of all people's income and donate to charity, disallows people from choosing what charities to donate to, disallows them from using the money in what could be productive things that raise the standards of living for everyone and consequently the poor, disabled, orphaned; disallows them from donating at a certain other time - perhaps after an investment starts giving returns - which would be preferable to them, because they'd be able to donate more and have more left for himself as well. So many externalities are created that, again, no matter what the planner does with the money, is a net 0 benefit for society at the very very best.
You're not getting my point. Market forces? Things like a police force, road construction, funds for the disabled, a military budget don't rely on market forces... they are things we need. Look at how much the richest companies and organizations in the country are willing to donate to a charity in our current society. Even if eliminating the taxation system lead to doubling those donation amounts, you might barely be able to cover just our country's military budgets alone.
"I don't have to hope anything, I'm not in need of donations right now. Does society rely on charity? "
No, you will be hoping that a company will donate to your local cities police fund when you are relying on them to protect you from criminals. My point is, look at how generous companies are now. You will be relying on this same generousness to provide for you the things the the current state is providing you with. Will it be enough? Is it worth the risk to rely on companies to be generous?
Can we rely on generosity to mold a stable society? I'm sorry but I don't have that much faith.
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