19
Feb
2013
Humorous Interlude
From a recent Tom Woods post:
“Who will build the roads?” is the question that belongs at the top of every libertarian drinking game. If we didn’t have forced labor, the argument runs, there would be no roads. There’d be a Sears store over there, and your house over here, and everyone involved would just be standing there scratching their heads.
Well, after the Revolutionary War, boatloads of slaves who fought and were given amnesty came to my island (Trinidad). They were separated into six groups, and given tracts of land to settle in six different areas in the densely forested Southern part of the island. I mean like 1800 AD jungle, not a well managed campsite. They cleared some land, built some houses and grew some food. Certain areas were more suited to growing certain crops, and of course, the communities wanted to trade with each other, and of course, see their friends more often. No prizes for guessing what they did next.
Needless to say, the road system these former slaves built, in the shadow of a neglectful and often hostile colonial British government, with barely any expertise available, is pretty much still in use today, which is not a bad result at all for a bunch of ordinary folks who just wanted to eat some corn instead of potato and maybe go to church in a different village one Sunday for the month.
“If we didn’t have forced labor, the argument runs, there would be no roads. ”
Yeah, this is what I was taught in school about the Interstates: Eisenhower rounded up all the slaves. I remember when they paved the road to my parents house the overseers with whips.
Talk about absurd strawmen. Taking Tom Woods seriously is, as usual, a mistake.
Aaaaaand Woods, as usual, is (at least) one step ahead of his critics.
Implications are apparently not his critic’s strong suit.
Hint: Hazlitt’s lesson.
Look, my dad and I built the interstates. He ordered the parts and I tied the steel re-bar.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bob_roddis/3518487963/in/set-72157600948975202
Pretty sure he’s talking about tax dollars Ken B. I.e. “if we don’t rely on coercion, roads won’t exist.”
What’s that thing you are always recommending to me? Reading at a charity ball or something?
It sounds weird, though. Libertarians usually say things like theft or coercion when they talk about work funded through taxes, not forced labor.
That aside, I don’t really think the argument is that we wouldn’t have streets but rather that we would have either monopolies or huge efficiency losses.
Yeah exactly. It’s the usual rhetorical amping up. If Wods means look, a lot of people say only governments can build roads and you can only build them with tax dollars then yes I hear that argument. (Since in Ontario we have priavtely built toll roads I hear it less than I doid but I still hear it.) But Woods is really being tendentious and over the top using the phrase “forced labor” which has a more specific meaning and connotations.
The line between “forced labor” in the orthodox sense, and taxed labor in the usual sense, isn’t so wide that it deserves getting one’s panties in a twist when they are used interchangeably in rhetorical flourishes.
Everyone does this with closely associated concepts. What distinguishes us is to which particular flourishes we speak up and call technical foul.
It’s like being at a game of pick up hoops, where minor fouls are permitted, but one guy always cries foul at this one other guy because he doesn’t like him very much for whatever reason. Technically he is right to call foul, but it’s clear he has a motivation apart from wanting the other players to abide by the rules.
What Woods does is typical cult leader stuff MF (talk about amping up!). A cult is a small faith group in high tension with the surrounding culture. Woods works ceaselessly to keep the tension high. His opponents are thought police slave drivers yada yada. It turns most people off but it serves us vs them quite well.
Aaaand Ken B is himself doing exactly what I joked about below, and chastises Woods for doing (claiming Woods is behaving as a leader of a cult) what he himself does (amping up the rhetoric).
The line between “forced labor” in the orthodox sense, and taxed labor in the usual sense
Even so. That’s not the issue. If you say “forced labor” in the context of building X, you unavoidably create the impression that you are talking about the labor of building X being forced, not the labor that is being taxed to fund the building of X.
But even if Woods had made it clear that he meant taxation, it wouldn’t be any less weird. The argument against privatized streets is not that it has to payed for by stolen money, but that it should be owned by the government. The argument wouldn’t change even if the government got all the money voluntarily.
“you unavoidably create the impression that you are talking about the labor of building X” .
Exactly.
I have made this visually point in a comment awaiting moderation …
That’s why I said there is a line, albeit a thin one, rather than saying they’re interchangeable.
Because Woods, and definitely not you, rhetorically amps up.
Please, tell us more about people rhetorically amping up, Ken B.
First of all, government is the source of monopolies, which are companies with government privileges which allow them to have artificially higher market share.
But secondly, there is no problem with companies having large – or even exclusive – market share, in a free market, since no one is entitled to the work or products of someone else. There’s no such thing as a “public good”.
As for the “efficiency losses” claim: losses to whom?! Losses to those who were never entitled to the gains in the first place.
Trading happens between particular individuals, and ONLY those particular individuals will directly benefit from any trade. Everyone will benefit, indirectly – provided they are making trades, themselves – but the entire point of the trade was to benefit only those parties to a given trade.
It is impossible for me to trade with everyone at once, assuming I even wanted to, and it is impossible for the benefits of the division of labor to directly accrue (key word: directly) to those who are not a party to a particular transaction.
Trade NECESSARILY benefits ONLY the parties to a given transaction, directly. Therefore wealth inequality is not only to be expected through peaceful exchange, but because such trades do not involve coercion, such wealth inequality is good, PER SE.
Wealth inequality that happens through theft is due to a REJECTION of property rights, whether by direct theft, or by government interventions which interfere with peaceful exchanges.
Charity waltz.
Ken,
First of all,
…
What?
Second,
This word, the straw-man. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Surew it does Cody. Woods is saying theat people seriously advance the argument that “If we didn’t have forced labor … there would be no roads.”
That what he means by “the argument runs”. I am pointing out how absurd that is.
Ken,
Are you saying that there does not exist a person who argues in favor of taxation by implying that roads and bridges would never come into being without it?
That such a person is a strawman of Tom Woods’ creation?
This brings heaviness to my heart.
I thought my country had elected and then re-elected its first African-American president.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKjPI6no5ng
But it turns out Tom Woods made him up.
Damn you, Tom Woods.
Damn you.
I’m saying conflating taxes and “forced labor” is … tendentious.
And it’s not even technically true if non-labor income or asets are taxed.
“If you work on this territory, that is not owned by me, I will take a portion of your daily earnings, according to my discretion, and if you resist, I will kidnap you and throw you into a cage, also at my discretion. I will not force you to work. I will rely on your self-motivation to work. So if you do work, you shall work in part for me, or else.”
You’re right. It’s totally, completely, and absolutely absurd to rhetorically use the phrase “forced labor.” What was Woods thinking? It’s like he was calling an orange a duck or something.
We’re lucky to have Ken B ensure that nobody ever uses rhetorical flourishes every time he sees them being made. Because that’s what he always does. Corrects people on rhetorical flourishes. He also never uses them himself. I’ve also never seen anyone make a post with rhetorical flourishes on this blog that Ken B has not corrected. He’s there every single time. He never overlooks anyone. He never gives any particular person a pass in this respect. He takes rhetorical flourishes very seriously…
Think about it. Virtually every objection of Keynesians and statists to our proposals is a pathetic exercise in hair-splitting (or subject changing) about the meaning of well known and easily understood words and concepts.
http://krugman-in-wonderland.blogspot.com/2013/02/kick-that-keynesian-habit.html?showComment=1360544395284#c4991500197178083803
Further, “progressives” like to claim that statist diktats evidence a broad consensus. No. The exact opposite is true. A broad consensus requires no threat of jail or a fine. A broad consensus of society that wishes to build roads can join together, pool their resources, buy the land and build the roads. This is just one more of the never-ending examples of destruction of plain language by “progressives” and statists.
“A broad consensus requires no threat of jail or a fine. “
What you’re implying above is: there’d be no need for the threat of jail or a fine in a Rothbardians – not at all! And no need for private protection agencies, no need for private courts or private prisons.
After all, a “broad consensus requires no threat of jail or a fine”!!
E.g., 98% of people might think that parking in ambulance zones is wrong (whether in a modern state or your Rothbardian fantasy world), but 2% might not. A threat of jail or a fine is still required – in both societies.
Correction:
“there’d be no need for the threat of jail or a fine in a Rothbardian world “
In an anarcho-capitalist society, there is no prohibition against enforcing recompensing of parties whose property rights were violated.
“E.g., 98% of people might think that parking in ambulance zones is wrong (whether in a modern state or your Rothbardian fantasy world), but 2% might not. A threat of jail or a fine is still required – in both societies.”
False. In an anarcho-capitalist society, the determination of who can park on a particular space resides with the owner of the land, not 98% of the people and not 2% of the people.
In a fairy tale land where the government is indeed doing what “the people” want, i.e. what you call democracy, 51% can vote to violate the property rights of the remaining 49%, and put the owners in jail even if they permit who they permit to park on their land.
Who decides who owns the land? Who decides weather the force used was used to enforce the property right or if that was a smokescreen? Who decides what happens when the owner makes an error?
You’re not asking the right questions.
It not who decides who owns the land, or who decides whether force is justified, or whether someone made an error.
It’s what decides these things.
The what is reason.
It’s up to the “who’s” to use it.
“A broad consensus requires no threat of jail or a fine.”
I can think of all kinds of counter examples. There’s a broad concensus you shouldn’t eat your lovers. Jeffrey Dahmer dissented. There’s a borad concensus you shouldn’t run Ponzi schemes, but Bernie Madoff was not on board. There’s a broad concensus that cruelty is a bad thing but Bob put up 5 consecutive karaoke videos. Concensus and social pressure only go so far.
You and LK are not having good days.
Roddis obviously mean that a broad consensus requires no government to enforce the few who dissent, contrary to the progressives who think otherwise.
For example, if there is a broad consensus that you should not eat your spouse, or if there is a broad consensus that you should not take Ken B seriously, then there is no need for a government to enforce no eating of spouses and not taking Ken B seriously.
Talk about hair splitting demagoguery.
Please note: The above is NOT an implicit argument that would imply government would be needed otherwise. Just that the progressive argument is untenable.
I can’t even take Ken seriously anymore. I just assume he says things to get a rise out of people.
“I just assume he says things to get a rise out of people.”
But has that not always been his tactic? He interjects himself into every comment made by someone; usually with some lame attempt at humor.
The “karaoke” jab made me smile.
…
But then, so did the “Ponzi” example.
😀
coughsocialcoughsecuritycoughtreasurycoughbondscough!
The road spat often does take the form of implying the economy will be unworkable or disintegrate overnight, rather than saying private roads would result in higher cost, less mobility, more inefficiency, etc…
The road spat often does take the form of simply implying the economy would be unworkable or slowly disintegrate into chaos without federally funded roadbuilding. I haven’t seen many proponents say, private roads aren’t great because there’d be higher costs and inefficiencies and lower productivity, etc…
There’d be a Sears store over there, and your house over here, and everyone involved would just be standing there scratching their heads.
Allow me to take a page out of the Hans-Hermann Hoppe playbook. How are people supposed to get from their house to the Sears when that requires crossing other people’s private property? Isn’t that trespassing?
C’mon Blackadder. How would production occur in a free market like Rothbard envisions? I mean, how could you put labor and iron ore and apple juice into a product? Why, you’d need to get all kinds of permission to make anything! Stupid.
Do you acknowledge Bob that government can in such cases help with transaction costs and the group action problems holdouts can pose? I think those arguments are oversold in general, and that markets can solve most problems, but surely they are at least plausible and on point, not stupid.
The problem with that is, again, one of monopolies.
If the guy who delivers my apple juice is the guy whose wife I slept with, I’m just gonna get my apple juice somewhere else. How is that going to work out if I sleep with the wife of the guy who owns the street leading to my house?
So you are worried that if the government isn’t there to force people to let you use their property, then you won’t be able to sleep with their wife?
Dan, good to have you here with us.
I’m sorry Chistopher. I should’ve given your sleeping with someone’s wife dilemma more serious consideration. How about this. When you buy your house you set up a contract that guarantees you access to the road in front of it even if you sleep with the road owners wife. Since you are concerned about your ability to sleep with other people’s wives you would want to set up most of your contracts with this “slept with your wife” clause.
Jesting aside you’ve put your finger on why public facilities are often the best solution: negotiation costs.
I’m a fan of private roads, I use a private highway all the time and pay the toll. But it does not follow that all roads are better private.
I believe private roads would make things immensely cheaper. See Walter Block’s book for why.
Yep, Dan. That would be one solution. And that actually happens. But if you think about all the places you visit in your daily life, and imagine you would have to get such a contract with pretty much every street owner in your country, it would arguably be more efficient to have a government do that for you.
Chris, you are just being unimaginative. Walter Block has an entire book dedicated to the idea of private roads. He offers many solutions, and this is one man without a profit incentive to solve the problem.
Regardless, government roads are an unmitigated disaster. I live right next to the parking lot, otherwise known as the 405. They’ve been doing construction on the same piece of highway by my place for the last 2+ years with no end in sight. It took me 1 hr to go 500 yards to get on it just last Friday. That was not unusual. In the 10 years I’ve lived in Los Angeles the government has not done a thing to solve any of these high traffic problems in any part of the city. The problems just keep getting progressively worse. Any private company would’ve long gone out of business if they ran things like this.
I was just in a wreck last week where I was ridding with a friend and he hit a pothole that sent us into a light post and flipped the car on its side. Thankfully, nobody was hurt, but the neighbors who came out told us that they’ve been trying to get someone to come out and fix that pothole for months. The road wasn’t even lit, so there was no chance to even see it at night. 40,000 people die on government roads each year. It’s time to privatize the roads.
Yeah, Coase always carried on about “transaction costs” but really transactions are dirt cheap. Negotiation costs on the other hand are much higher, especially if everyone wants their own unique variation of the “sleep with your wife” clause (some of them might want your daughter, some want your mother, etc).
It was accepted a long time ago that a standard system of weights and measures is a public good useful to all parties.
Walter Block has an entire book dedicated to the idea of private roads. He offers many solutions
Dan, I haven’t read him but I’m curious: does he agree that monopolies are a bad thing in a free market and if so how does he address that problem?
Christopher, how exactly is privatizing the roads making it a monopoly? Are you under the impression that only one private company would own every road in the country? Or are you saying that if a private company owns any piece of property then that is a monopoly?
I guess you could say that if company X owns road Y you could call that a monopoly, but that really isn’t how the term is used by most people. If we use monopoly to mean one person or company owning a piece of property then I see no problem with that type of monopoly. I have a monopoly on all kinds of property if we are using the term like that.
If you mean something else, then I need you to spell out how privatizing the roads is creating a monopoly because I’m not understanding what you mean.
Also, don’t you find it weird to worry about a monopoly on the development and control of roads when we have a government monopoly on roads already?
I’m betting you support the monopoly government police force, fire department, utilities, etc. Is it just free market monopolies that worry you?
Dan,
the definition of a monopoly in detail is tricky. In general, though, a monopoly is a situation in which someone holds a dominant position in a market. Market being defined through interchangeability of products from the perspective of customers. I.e. if you are the only airline that offers flights from NY to Chicago it doesn’t matter whether there are other airlines that offer flights from Seattle to Florida because these goods aren’t interchangeable.
(e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_but_significant_and_non-transitory_increase_in_price )
So if I own the only street that connects your house and the hospital, I have a monopoly on that market because you can’t replace this street with the street going into the other direction if I raise my prices.
Is it just free market monopolies that worry you?
I oppose most government monopolies and prefer free-market competition.
If I have to chose between a government monopoly and a private monopoly, I prefer the former.
The discussion we are having here right now is, in general, analogous to the disputes concerning antitrust legislation within libertarian/free-market economics. E.g. see Hayek’s connections to German Ordoliberalism, the Freiburg School and especially Walter Eucken.
“I.e. if you are the only airline that offers flights from NY to Chicago it doesn’t matter whether there are other airlines that offer flights from Seattle to Florida because these goods aren’t interchangeable.”
What is stopping another airline from offering a flight from NY to Chicago to compete against this airline? The only reason I can see that a company could have this kind of monopoly is if they were offering the best service at the lowest price. If they were to raise their prices then the competing airlines would have a profit incentive to offer the same service at a slightly cheaper price and take their customers. This is basic economic 101 stuff.
“I oppose most government monopolies and prefer free-market competition.
If I have to chose between a government monopoly and a private monopoly, I prefer the former.”
Do you oppose the government’s monopoly police department, fire department, and utilz? Those are all businesses that could be run privately that wouldn’t lead to monopolies. If not, then it seems like your fear of monopolies is pretty arbitrary and only directed at so-called private monopolies.
“So if I own the only street that connects your house and the hospital, I have a monopoly on that market because you can’t replace this street with the street going into the other direction if I raise my prices.”
I already addressed this concern. Who in their right mind would buy a house where they could be banned from the roads or have the prices risen on them arbitrarily. There would be standard contracts for this kind of thing. Besides why are developers trying to make people unwilling to live in there neighborhood by running their roads like the post office?
Dan,
My question was whether Walter Block says something on this issue in his book. If the only answer is that I am free to have a contract with every monopolist in the country, I am afraid, I’m not convinced.
Here are some links about the monopoly issue from an Austrian perspective, if you’re interested:
(Preferably, check them out in this order.)
Thought Controllers Call Ron Paul “Extreme”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FFhSr1A1do#t=12m23s
(Note the time stamp. When the topic changes, just go to the next video I’ve listed.)
Anti-Trust and Monopoly (with Ron Paul)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8C4gRRk2i-M
Dominick Armentano: The Case for Repealing Antitrust Laws
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBT-fnJsfo0
The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History, Lecture 8 | Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGeA1Sbd4XM
(Lecture title: Myths and Facts About Big Business)
Walter Block addresses ever concern you have brought up in detail. It’s a very thorough book. Plus if you have any further questions he is very good about answering emails
Government exists to secure our life, liberty, and pursuit of other people’s hot wives.
New subdivisions could be built pursuant to condominium rules with the roads, parks and the rec center being common areas.
It’s not that complicated.
Bob,
You want to put iron ore in apple juice? That sounds dangerous.
You obviously don’t drink Irn-Bru.
Containing ammonium ferric citrate (but only a tiny amount).
Interesting clip. Remarkably bad argument by Hoppe. It’s like asking how can taking poison make you healthier. Digoxin. Circumstances matter, as does dosage. Krugman does say printing makes you richer; he says in some circumstance printing affects behavior and the changed behavior makes you richer.
Well, the private property (assuming we’re talking about a privately constructed road) would exist in order to facilitate transportation, and the property owner would benefit from opening his property (presumably under some sort of fee structure, the details of which we cannot possibly know) to customers.
Who would build between residences and a busy commercial venture and then refuse everyone access to it? Under what possible universe is this something that would be a legitimate problem?
I think the problem is that the road owner might offer very low fees, encouraging people to buy land and build houses. Then once people are settled, the road owner is tempted to jack up fees to a captive customer base.
Contracts of course could fix this, but might be difficult to get a contract that really will work over the long haul. For example, if the road is owned by a corporation, then the corporation signs a bunch of contracts to encourage people to settle in that area, but the corporation goes bankrupt and the road is sold off. The new owner might figure they have no reason to honour those old contracts.
Built with taxes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:DSCN3708_jefferson_e_600.jpg
Built with forced labor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_146-2007-0058,_IG-Farbenwerke_Auschwitz.jpg
Something I always find interesting on this is the cause/effect issue.
Most people seem to assume that the government just goes around building roads to places that it (somehow) decides need more roads, and then, private companies decide to build houses or businesses or factories near the roads for their own benefit.
I’m hardly a development expert, but it seems to me this is not the case. I’ve never in my life (although I’m fairly young and haven’t lived in that many different places) come across roads randomly being constructed to currently vacant land, under the assumption that hopefully after the road is built, things will be built around it.
Rather, people build residences and businesses, often relying on their own (for all intents and purposes, private) roads to connect them to the government roads. If the area grows and sufficient transportation demand presents itself, THEN the government steps in and decides to build its own roads to service this area.
I see it all the time in the sunbelt.
http://thebreakingtime.typepad.com/the_breaking_time/2012/11/poems-for-friday-the-boom-and-after-the-boom.html
If only they had remembered to build fiber optic Internet connections under all that road.
While driving through Mexico on a private highway, I approached the intersection where the private highway ended and a public one began. There was a sign with an arrow pointing down which read “Aqui termina su seguridad”, which means “Your insurance ends here”…. The toll I paid to travel the private road included auto insurance (along with breakdown/mechanical assistance). So, not only does the free-market produce roads, it also solves the problem of uninsured motorists quite nicely.
Indeed. But might there be a diference between a highway with few points of ingress or egress, and a main or residential street, and might there be stronger need to reduce transaction costs in the latter case? I think there are. I might be wrong about that, but I’m not wrong that it *might* be true.
In New South Wales, new housing developments must provide all the residential streets, so those are in effect just built into the price of houses (the developer still makes a profit) and the home owners pay for their own bit of street (they can’t say no).
Ah but there’s the govt involvement Tel, “must” and “they can’t say no.”
I bet there are laws regulating this, eg forbidding denying Aboriginals from buying in. I bet there are laws about outsiders using the street too. This is basically a way of making the most frequenter user provide the funding. What the Rothbardians here talk about is private ownership of the street. This sounds just like a way of raising taxes.
Yes, there’s a minimum standard of housing enforced by law. It is illegal to live in a slum around here (and illegal to build one).
Think of it like a minimum wage, but for real estate.
Friedman split his analysis of the feasibility of private roads based on highways vs. general access roads. At this point, is that where you’re at on the issue?
I think the distinction is a relevant one, yes. In general I favor private roads for things like the 407 in Ontario, etc. I am skeptical about city streets. I am not saying I know private streets cannot work, but I’m pretty sure it’s a lot harder to make that work than private highways.
I think these are best thought of a semi private btw, as eminent domain is often used to build them, traffic laws apply, and the owners use courts to collect fees. But it’s not ownership that really matters, it’s incentives.
Ken: “But might there be a diference between a highway with few points of ingress or egress, and a main or residential street, and might there be stronger need to reduce transaction costs in the latter case?”
Certainly there is a difference between a highway and main/residential streets. How would the free market solve such a problem? Your guess is as good as mine. However, when it comes to the problem of uninsured motorists, the government-provided solution sucks and requires violence. (Most states require motorists to have insurance and yet 1-in-7 still don’t have it) It would be difficult for the free-market to come up with a solution that’s actually worse than the government one.
This uninsured is an interesting point. (I like that Mexican example, but I bet you there is still enforcement in the collection of debts or disput of charges.) I bet there are lots of cases like that where we should farm out the implementation of govt policy to private hands. It is not a logical necessity of the govt controlling the road that we choose any particular method for implementing controls is it? You can for instance still want the state to be responsible for prisons but farm out their running to the private sector can you not?
Ken B: “You can for instance still want the state to be responsible for prisons but farm out their running to the private sector can you not?”
Prisons, really? What a terrible example you chose to prove your point. Were you being sarcastic?
Back in the Industrial Revolution, turnpike trusts were all the rage.
Of course, the turnpike trust did not build the road — that strip of land was much older and it’s public usage was already accepted. The turnpike money went towards improving the road with a better surface, to get greater efficiency.
Turnpike trusts were private money, but operated under a mandate from the monarch. The problem was that the monarch wasn’t smart enough to plan ahead with a time limit so in theory turnpike trusts were perpetual, but eventually the monarch just decided to abolish them as they had become rent seekers with no more road improvements to do.
Wow. The entire discussion in the comments section has proved Woods’ point precisely.
Interestingly, no one has refuted or even bothered to attempt to refute that point, i.e. that without government we would still have roads. Perhaps because doing so betrays an utter lack of faith in the common sense of men thinking for themselves.
That wasn’t what he said. He said forced labor. Look at Christopher’s point.
You know you don’t prove your point or bolster your argument by ignoring logical distinctions that your interlocutors make. Most people distinguish between forced labor, especially in the context as Christophher explained, and taxes. If you want to argue they should see them as more alike than they do they you should argue that. Just using tendentious phrases to deny the distinction is an epic fail. That’s what this whole kerfuffle is about, not about roads.
I have argued with people in Ontario about the private toll road. In Ontario there are people who hate it. I meet a lot of people who want to nationalize it, and prohibit new ones. So being able to defend it matters. People like Woods or some here just make the argument harder for the rest of us to make to the general populace.
I agree that there is a distinction between forced labor and taxes, and I suspect that Woods would probably concede that he misspoke in that regard.
The broader point though is that we do not need government to provide roads. As is always the case, human society can accomplish as much and more through voluntarism.
Oh I really disagree. Woods meant to say forced labor. That amping up, the cult leader style, is part of his approach.
Cult. There’s that word again.
I do not think it means what you think it means.
He just keeps making it more and more obvious that he has no desire to be taken seriously. He clearly just tries to ruffle feathers with his nonsense. He is just a troll with an undeserved giant ego.
I defined it. That’s the standard definition in sociology. But just as a matter of language MF, I said “cult leader style” which does not require a cult, only a man affecting a style characteristic of a cult leader.
1. LK is perhaps the most egregious and infantile example of a belief in the magical Keyensian/statist leprechaun, the exogenous Mary Poppins government spirit that is conjured up by statists and exercises omniscient and benevolent powers. Under democracy, the leprechaun is selected by the wise voters who are smart enough to vote for the right leprechaun but who are otherwise too stupid to run their own lives.
2. I really do not like the terms “the state” and “anarchy” as applied to a society that practices the NAP. “The state” is really nothing more than a set of exceptions to the usual common law prohibitions on assaultive behavior that we have had for centuries. Further, a Rothbardian society will not come into existence unless and until a significantly large number of people come to understand, appreciate and live by its principles. Since by definition, people will be more respectful of each other just by following the NAP, the idea that such a society would be run by the mafia (as claimed by LK), is pathetic and baseless. As set forth by LK in this mindless crap:
http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2013/02/steven-pinkers-better-angels-of-our.html
““The state” is really nothing more than a set of exceptions to the usual common law prohibitions on assaultive behavior that we have had for centuries.”
That’s not quite right Bob. For one thing, the power of the crown is part of the heritage of common law, and the concepts were imported to the USA. And the state has powers to enforce the common law, as well as being limited by the common law. So there isn’t this clean separation you imply here.
I will agree that historically the bailiwicks have been confused and overlapping. Conceptually, they are quite clear, distinct and easily differentiated. Thus, your knee-jerk response is an attempt at confusion and obfuscation.
No, roddis.
Common law is historically closely bound up with criminal law: that is, crimes so bad that they are against the public interest and are prevented and punished by the state.
Who enforced the prohibitions? Who enforced the judgments of common law courts in 1356 or 1788 or whenever?
The English civil war flowed partly from the conviction that king was bound by the law. And indeed so did Magna Carta, whih was seen a reaffirming some rights.
That would be the old Anglo-Saxon Moot. A group of free men who both deliberated and dispensed justice. The nobility generally weren’t much interested in justice amongst commons, hence the name “common law”.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/moot
Has the English monarch ever been subject to common law? My understanding is that the nobility were originally only subject to trial by combat and contract law.
Common law is historically closely bound up with criminal law
I thought I just said that:
I will agree that historically the bailiwicks have been confused and overlapping. Conceptually, they are quite clear, distinct and easily differentiated. Thus, your knee-jerk response is an attempt at confusion and obfuscation.
Bob Roddis, you need to listen to David Friedman and what he had to say about the NAP.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDK-hLOqZZk
That won’t play for me. Is there another link to it?
Thanks.
Try this!
http://www.youtube.com/user/mikeshanklin/videos?flow=grid&view=0
David Friedman on Triple V
You said ‘nothing more’. In the case of England, how is the right of trial by jury or the equal franchise for women an exemption from the usual common law prohibitions on assaultive behavior?
“Further, a Rothbardian society will not come into existence unless and until a significantly large number of people come to understand, appreciate and live by its principles”
Sure: “principles” like private police torture:
http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2011/10/rothbard-on-torture.html
And killing of innocents:
http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2012/06/horror-of-rothbardian-natural-rights.html
Good luck with that!
You just have to change the subject, don’t you? As Rothbard said, libertarianism is just a POLITICAL theory. What you do with your freedom is up to you. People are free to accept or reject Rothbard’s theories about private police torture. I suspect that those theories would be mostly rejected. How is that possibly relevant?
States doing these things hasn’t stopped you from being a statist.
Why should Rothbard saying X or Y stop someone from being an anarcho-capitalist?
Double standard much?
I will again repeat that most everyone in the USA understands and accepts the concepts of private real property, private personal property, the various criminal and civil rules against harming others’ person and/or property and the concept of contracts and contract breach in their everyday lives. We’re not recreating the wheel here.
I’m heading oot and aboot as they say across the river so I won’t be around to deal with future instances of L-Keynesian obscurantism. However, I did find a visual representation of LK’s vision of the magic omniscient and benevolent exogenous Keynesian leprechaun on the inner cover of “In the Court of the Crimson King” by King Crimson. Curiously, the first song on the LP is “21st Century Schizoid Man”, which is probably a homage to LK’s blog.
http://tinyurl.com/a2bcku6
Off topic, but I saw King Crimson on their 2003 tour. Different lineup than in the Court of the Crimson King”, for sure, but they put on a terrific show. Robert Fripp is cracked (in a good way). He refused to have lights on him the entire show, he was sitting on a chair playing in the dark. At the end of the night, Ardian Belew pulled him off the chair into a spot, and Robert Fripp just kinda shirked back into the darkness uneasily.