You don’t draw any conclusions from the communism of the apostles? From the eye of the needle, or the beatitudes? I think in the Bible, and especially in Christianity, you ARE your brother’s keeper.
The bleeding heart liberal attitude towards the market is that temporarily earning zero wage income due to being laid off due to competition from rival firms, or temporarily having no control over means of production due to going bankrupt due to competition from rival firms, this is considered “losing” because of the progressive’s mental conception of what human life should be like irrespective of the individual’s choices, actions, and circumstances. Not living that ideal is “losing”, and living that ideal is “winning.”
The market economy cannot GUARANTEE that the individual will always earn an income, but if there is a powerful enough institution that robs from the rich, then the individual can be guaranteed an income.
Both Blinder and Mises likely agree with each other regarding what would take place with pure laissez-faire cooperation. Rising living standards on average, but temporary periods of time where some individuals earn zero income in the division of labor.
——————————-
The only way that we could have a laissez-faire, peaceful society, is if we can convince each other that none of us have a blank check on others merely for being alive. We have to accept the possibility that each of us could die from starvation or disease on account of not being able to convince others to give their wealth in exchange for what we each can offer others.
We will never live peacefully if we view each other as permanent potential victims of our desire to live at their expense. I have already decided that I would not steal in order to live. I would rather die an honorable man who is snickered at by social leeches, than live as a leech whose whole existence is only possible because other people are supporting me by force. I do not want to live like that. My life would be a tragedy.
You old? Tough luck, you shall starve to death since nobody has to care about you. Orphaned? Starve in a gutter! In ER without money? Bleed out it is.
Do you even hear yourself? Your whole position is neither empathetic nor smart, since societies has evolved and can exist only as a web of trust and social connections among individuals. It is because societies guarantee care to the more unlucky members we are something more than a pack of animals in a perpetual state of war of all against all. Truly, with your position it is you who are a leech..
How did I go from being a slacker to being successful at whatever I do? I was given nothing. Instead of being given a guaranteed floor, I built myself an entire house. Was my family a “pack of animals” for letting success rest in my own hands? Of course not. Instead of being taught how to build my life around qualifying for government handouts, I have built my life around as successful as possible.
This would be a discussion if YOU offered YOUR money to help others. You believe in others using their money to support YOUR causes. You believe in others using their time and expertise to support YOUR causes (e.g. doctors).
Don’t worry about us starving to death. We believe in personal responsibility. And if we fail, we have family, church, and each other. We don’t wish others ill as you do. Libertarians have faith in humanity, whereas you do not.
It is an illusion that what you are as an individual is separate from the social ties that formed you. Alone, you are naught but a two-legged featherless animal. The social connections you had in your entire life are what make you human. Just as your parents gave you your social, intellectual and physical capital, fed, closed and taught you, so did the society as a whole.
And what do you mean I don’t offer my money? I pay taxes and enter the social relations to support the institutions that provide for basic human rights, as defined in my Constitution.
I believe in unconditional support of every member of society. Poor, average, rich – all must have the same basic rights, such as the right to live, to be healthy, to not suffer, etc. You, on the other hand, would wish us to depend on the whimsical grace of some patriarch or religious community. Is it not totalitarian?
Right to live healthy? Translation: others are forced to give their labor away to causes you see fit. To prison if they feel otherwise.
Right to not suffer. I’m suffering reading your nonsense so you just violated my rights. Good job.
Geez, why do opponents of libertarians always come unarmed to these battles? Roman doesn’t even know what a right is, not does he realize what the logical conclusions of his absurd ideas lead us. He would just say things like “No, I didn’t say that” when you point them out to him. Please statists/Keynesians, up your game. It’s embarrassing.
It is an illusion that what you are as an individual is separate from the social ties that formed you.
Is there anyone here claiming otherwise?
I believe in unconditional support of every member of society. Poor, average, rich – all must have the same basic rights, such as the right to live, to be healthy, to not suffer, etc. You, on the other hand, would wish us to depend on the whimsical grace of some patriarch or religious community.
Support can never be unconditional. It will always depend on the “whimsical grace” of someone or some group, be it the majority, the dictator, or individuals who will decide themselves whether or not to give to charity.
“It is an illusion that what you are as an individual is separate from the social ties that formed you. Alone, you are naught but a two-legged featherless animal. The social connections you had in your entire life are what make you human. ”
^^^ Leftist straw-man argument. Libertarians believe in the division of labor, trade, social constructs, charity, etc
“And what do you mean I don’t offer my money? I pay taxes and enter the social relations to support the institutions that provide for basic human rights, as defined in my Constitution. ”
You did not offer anything. You were forced to pay taxes. When is the last time you wrote a voluntary check to any organization including government? If so, was this check only to receive a tax break, ie. lessen the government bullet…
“It is an illusion that what you are as an individual is separate from the social ties that formed you.”
Ah, good old Marxist determinism rears its ugly head. I don’t have a consciousness, independent from my surroundings. No, my surroundings have determined my consciousness, my thoughts, my beliefs, and my ideology. It is “production relations” which establish why I think is good, and as such, everything I say could only ever be based on the interests of the class to which I belong, where such a class is ANY abstract group conception, be it economic, or territorial, or familial.
Just seek to destroy my rational, individualist nature by convincing me that it is an “illusion”, and in so doing, characterize my call for no violence to be nothing but a product of the circumstances surrounding my good “fortunes.”
“Alone, you are naught but a two-legged featherless animal.”
If I was alone on a deserted island, economic laws would still apply to me. I would still be faced with having to make choices in a world of resource scarcity. I would still incur costs of seeking a particular outcome. I would still understand the world through a prism of myself as an actor, not a God.
Alone, I am still a man.
“The social connections you had in your entire life are what make you human.”
I am more than the similarities between you and I. I am a unique individual who SHARES humanity with you, but that commonality does not fully describe who I am, what I want, and what I do.
“Just as your parents gave you your social, intellectual and physical capital, fed, closed and taught you, so did the society as a whole.”
To want zero violence, is not to want isolation. Your fallaciously believe that to allow individuals to fend for themselves in the natural world without harming other individuals, is the same thing as everyone living in a black box, isolated from everyone else.
On the contrary, to refuse to give in to the threats of force from others, carries with it a willingness to cooperate with other individuals in a mutually consensual manner.
“And what do you mean I don’t offer my money? I pay taxes and enter the social relations to support the institutions that provide for basic human rights, as defined in my Constitution.”
Offering money is not the same thing as paying money to people who would throw you into a cage if you don’t. Offering money in exchange for goods and services, voluntarily, is the only way to live peacefully with each other.
The Constitution died with its signers. Nobody has a right to sign binding social contracts on behalf of the unborn.
“I believe in unconditional support of every member of society. Poor, average, rich – all must have the same basic rights, such as the right to live, to be healthy, to not suffer, etc. You, on the other hand, would wish us to depend on the whimsical grace of some patriarch or religious community. Is it not totalitarian?”
That’s a false dichotomy. I only want no violence (no robbery, no physical aggression, etc). Just because I want to stop violence, it doesn’t mean I want to replace it with the “whims” of a particular group of people.
It is whimsical to call for one group to initiate perpetual violence against the wealthy so that no individual experiences zero income in a peaceful division of labor.
“You, on the other hand, would wish us to depend on the whimsical grace of some patriarch or religious community.”
I said no such thing.
When I ended my service to the Army, I had no job and very little money. Did I sign up for unemployment? No. I moved into my parent’s home for 2 months until I acquired the necessary skills to do the work that I still do to this day. I didn’t need a handout. I had enough support and enough savings to survive.
When you know you have guaranteed government support, many build their lives around getting that support, instead of using it in a worst case scenario.
“I believe in unconditional support of every member of society. Poor, average, rich – all must have the same basic rights, such as the right to live, to be healthy, to not suffer, etc.”
You and all others that are born have the same rights. What one becomes is up to them. Choosing to fail should not grant one a reward. Try this same mentality when you raise children. When they fail, give them money. When they succeed, you take a portion of their success for yourself. Tell me whether failure increases or decreases.
“And what do you mean I don’t offer my money? I pay taxes and enter the social relations to support the institutions that provide for basic human rights, as defined in my Constitution. ”
What is progressive taxation then?!? Do you pay the same effective tax rate that the very wealthy do? (non GE)
Again, this would be an actual conversation if it was actually fair across the board.
Actually this is all a distraction. What we want is little to no government. We believe that society as a whole will be far better off as a result. This means less starving and more support for those that need it. When you give government more control over GDP, it is like adding drag…… it slows down economic growth, ceteris paribus.
“institutions that provide for basic human rights, as defined in my Constitution. ”
Your constitution grants no such thing in the context in which it was written.
So save some money instead of consuming everything you produce.. You live a better life than me by spending everything you earn and then you cry during your older years when you have nothing but memory’s of a drunken spending orgy.
It’s pretty amazing isn’t it. Here I am saying that I would rather die than aggress against Roman P (or anyone else for that matter) to save my own life, and Roman P calls me a “leech”, suggesting “totalitarianism”, and so on.
It’s obvious he’s letting his emotions get to him. His brain goes into haywire at the thought of himself dying because he couldn’t acquire wealth peacefully from others. He has to have the insurance of being able to kill me or my family if we don’t give him what he wants if the alternative he faces is death.
He isn’t empathetic. True empathy for other humans would have him willing to face his own death rather than harm others.
“Do you even hear yourself? Your whole position is neither empathetic nor smart, since societies has evolved and can exist only as a web of trust and social connections among individuals.”
Remind me again where any of this implies pointing guns at innocent people? And remind me again why pointing guns at innocent people is “empathetic”, whereas me refraining from violence and letting individuals seek to improve their lives without themselves initiating violence, is not empathetic?
“It is because societies guarantee care to the more unlucky members we are something more than a pack of animals in a perpetual state of war of all against all.”
OK, so “society”, meaning the state, initiates perpetual violence against the wealthier, to ensure that no poor individual is left to fend for themselves in the horrible cruel heartless natural world.
Is that not a perpetual war of some (violence initiators and the poor) against everyone else (the wealthier)? If not, why not?
Truly, with your position it is you who are a leech..”
Now you’re just spewing lies.
How exactly am I a leech for not wanting to leech off anyone, and for nobody to leech off me? Do you even read what you are saying? Or are you just going on an emotional rant where truth doesn’t matter?
Men, ARE you all nuts. What was the point of picking apart my comments sentence by sentence and getting all of them fantastically wrong? I don’t even feel the need to reiterate given that I’d just have to write the same points again. Besides, there could be no consensus since you see enforcing a social order that is in your advantage as just and natural, and define any other order as leeching (off you).
“What was the point of picking apart my comments sentence by sentence and getting all of them fantastically wrong?”
How are they wrong?
“I don’t even feel the need to reiterate given that I’d just have to write the same points again.”
But those same points are wrong, as I have shown.
“Besides, there could be no consensus since you see enforcing a social order that is in your advantage as just and natural, and define any other order as leeching (off you).”
No, it is the ABSENCE of “enforcing a social order.” It is the individual reigning supreme in his and her own affairs. No violence. No theft. Voluntary cooperation.
Here, no individual “imposes” ANY “social order” on others.
What you perceive to be an enforcement of a social order on others, is in actuality a REMOVAL of enforcement of social orders. Currently, some people (the state) enforces a social order on others (the citizenry) against their will. What I want is to remove that imposition.
Yes, those who currently benefit from exploitation will have to produce for themselves in the division of labor, or ask for charity. But that isn’t “imposing” anything on them. It is a removal of imposition of the victims that are exploited to benefit those you believe will be imposed upon if the exploitation were removed.
This is not just “defining” something as just and natural and everything else unjust and unnatural. It is knowing that initiating violence against others is unjust.
Most libertarians do, in fact, care if about the standard of living for everyone. This is why we believe in a system of laws based on libertarian principles, because it will raise this standard of living. Government action (which, btw, only uses violence to achieve its ends) only results in the lowering of this standard of living.
“This perspective is at complete odds with the vision of the market economy put forth by Ludwig von Mises, particularly in his misesmasterpiece Human Action. For Mises, the way to “win” in the market economy is simply to satisfy the desires of the consumers better than rival entrepreneurs”
lol. So there are no losers at all in Mises’s system? Never any involuntary unemployment? Never any people who cannot afford health care?
Either Mises is stupid beyond words or perhaps he is saying the “losers” have no right to other people’s money?
Either way, the essence of Rothbardianism boils down to: if you cannot find work on the market or successfully beg for charity, then sod off and die. There is no room at Rothbard’s inn.
“So there are no losers at all in Mises’s system? Never any involuntary unemployment? Never any people who cannot afford health care?”
These are not “losers” according to Mises. He doesn’t look down on those who don’t make as much money as the most productive. To Mises, one seller serving the consumers better than other sellers, such that those other sellers have to lay off their employees, is a net improvement.
“Either Mises is stupid beyond words or perhaps he is saying the “losers” have no right to other people’s money?”
There he saying neither of those two options.
“Either way, the essence of Rothbardianism boils down to: if you cannot find work on the market or successfully beg for charity, then sod off and die. There is no room at Rothbard’s inn.”
From my perspective, it’s better that you die from not being able to produce enough for yourself, than you living and pointing a gun at me threatening to kill me if I don’t give you my wealth. You see, if you were against killing me to save yourself, then I might have felt bad for you and given you charity. But because you have communicated your willingness to kill me if I choose not to give charity to you, then I would rather you die from non-violent means.
You have no rebuttal to this, other than “F U, I’m taking from you whether you like it or not.” You shouldn’t act so surprised. You reap what you sew.
You are missing the utilitarian value of Rothbard’s system of natural law. In the unhampered market economy, there will be maximum efficiency and productivity, hence a higher average standard of living for everyone. All government intervention can only lower this standard of living.
” if you cannot find work on the market or successfully beg for charity, then sod off and die. There is no room at Rothbard’s inn.”
Nope. There is family. There is entrepreneurship. There is savings.
See, statists tell the “losers” that they CAN’T. We tell them that they CAN. A successful life as an adult begins with hard work ahead of time. In an environment where one knows they have to work to survive and succeed, they will. In a welfare economy, many build their lives around proving that they shouldn’t have to work.
For the empiricists out there, explain to me the exponential increase in welfare spending and NO DECREASE in poverty rates.
There is no Keynesian defense for these two pictures. Obviously, the government is slowing down economic growth and stalling the natural decline in poverty rates only made possible by a productive society.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say there are “losers” under the free market in the sense that some who have no marketable skills due to poor genetic endowments (or accidents) will not always always thrive. However, Capitalism has raised real wages dramatically over the last one hundred years. The fact that some have fallen through the cracks is hardly an indictment given the magnitude of this fantastic growth. In other words, a comparable institutions approach is warranted here. I should also point out that people still fall through the cracks under social democracy; not to mention the fact that gov’t has retarded growth due to taxing and consuming capital funds. Social democracy is funded by the workers, not the rich, in the form of lowered real wages. We would all be vastly more wealthy under laissez-faire.
Hold on. Are you going to bring up fix prices again?
“Nor is the coordinator functioning of the appraisement process obstructed in the slightest by the existence of contractually fixed prices for inputs or outputs which, it may turn out, are negotiated on the basis of mistaken expectations. Such prices, as Hutt emphasizes, do not constitute rigid market prices that distort the allocation of resources. [Hutt, The Keynesian Episode, p. 144]. In fact, in the instant after they are contractually established, prices governing future transactions lose the character and function of market prices and begin to operate merely as terms upon which speculative gains and losses resulting from fluctuations of spot prices are distributed between buyers and sellers in the structure of production, for example, laborers and employers, materials suppliers and materials users, retailers and wholesalers, and so on.” -Salerno, “Coordination in Austrian Macroeconomics” in Money: Sound and Unsound, p. 191
You only joke about that in that way because you know, and I know, and everyone else here knows, that I am, in contrast to you to the extent of your minarchism, in favor of trust and (consensual) social connections to the fullest extent conceivably possible.
My guess is that since I make you feel uncomfortable about yourself, you have to jokingly smear me as untrustworthy and anti-social like you, so that you stand out less.
It’s ironic, because you just described yourself exactly. You don’t trust yourself, and therefore you don’t trust others, to live without a state. So nobody can be trusted. Look in the mirror Ken B, then think about who you are, and then consider the fact that I would rather die sooner than later, if the alternative is to live as a leech off of you. Then consider how the people around me would be affected by my behavior. It would be nothing but what they are willing to accept from the best of me.
I may be verbally caustic, but would you rather live with smiling and fun loving rapists and thieves?
No, I don’t want “violence” auctioned to the highest bidder. I want PROTECTION auctioned to the highest bidder.
Again you conflate protection against rape and theft for hire, with rape and theft for hire. If it was wrong the previous five times you did that, what makes you think the sixth time will be any different?
If I want to hire protection of my person and property, I am not hiring that person to steal from you or harass you. By that logic, you should shout from the mountaintops that there must be a ban on personal bodyguards, private security guards at offices, and neighborhood watchmen. After all, they’re really just hired to rape and pillage aren’t they?
Ken B, private protection through and through does not imply selling your labor to kill or rob from others. However, does this mean that there won’t be hired hitmen? Of course not. There would be, just like there are hired hitmen NOW, UNDER STATISM. We have to live with not only (illegal) private hired hitmen, but we also have to deal with a (legal) MONOPOLY in hired hitmen.
Let that sink in. Hundreds of thousands of civilians killed in the middle east because of the monopoly of hired hitmen you call the US government.
I want that monopoly of hired hitmen to be abolished, so that we can better handle hired hitmen with hired protection against hired hitmen.
I am confused. Considering how you consider yourself a self-professed logical thinker, why do you keep believing in such an obvious logical fallacy? There is something wrong in the path of your mental processes Ken B. There is a corruption in one or a few of the steps in your reasoning.
It’s not in an undersupply in a monopoly, because there is no counter-balancing threat that would reduce that supply.
A monopoly has fewer barriers to expand BADs.
It’s a bug and a feature, because the feature IS the bug.
You seem to have the belief that a monopoly has an incentive to produce fewer bads, when in reality it has all the incentive in the world to produce bads.
Monopolies undersupply GOODS, i.e. protection against bads.
Again, for the 7th time, you conflate the production of security with the production of aggression.
You might want to consider tatooing this on your chest, in reverse, so that when you look at it, it’s legible:
Protection is a good and aggression is a bad. Monopolies undersupply goods and oversupply bads. Competition eliminates undersupply of goods and oversupply of bads.
Ken, you re constantly corrected but repeat the same garbage each time. You simply are not a bright guy. You still can’t understand the difference between self defense and initiation of force.
You want enforcement of disputed claims sold to the highest bidder. Calling this protection does not mean it is. Sometimes it will be, sometimes not.
Markets provide goods and services. Calling it a bad gets you nothing. Kiddie porn is to me, and you, a bad. But to those who like it it’s a good. Markets unhindered will provide it just as they supply Freeze dried coffee.
Denying that protection is protection doesn’t mean it isn’t.
“Sometimes it will be, sometimes not.”
I am not calling for a “free market” in aggression. I am calling for a free market in protection.
Just because you can’t distinguish between defensive force, and aggressive force, doesn’t mean that a free market in protection is also a free market in aggression.
If I or another individual wants to hire a private protector, and opt out of the state’s “protection”, then this is not ipso facto a desire nor an action of hiring a private thief or private rapist or private murderer. It is the hiring of a private defender. If those who call themselves statesmen allowed individuals to do this, then there is no introduction of a private market in aggression. Thus, should those in the state remain belligerent, and demand that everyone pay it for protection, constitutes the very thing you claim would be present in a free market of protection, namely, private property rights violations (e.g. selling robbery services to the highest bidder).
“Markets provide goods and services. Calling it a bad gets you nothing.”
Monopolies oversupply bads and undersupply goods.
“Kiddie porn is to me, and you, a bad. But to those who like it it’s a good.”
A free market in protection is not the same thing as any old conception of protection such as the right to protect one’s child porn ring, no more than a monopoly in protection does not necessarily imply a right to defend one’s right to engage in child porn.
But the difference is that IF a monopolist enforces child porn, there is no competition to stop that bad, from private producers of good aggression, i.e. defense.
A society of private protection can “legally” use defensive force against another private protector who initiates force.
“Markets unhindered will provide it just as they supply Freeze dried coffee.”
Individuals in a market for protection are not “unhindered.” They are hindered by the threats of defensive force from private protectors, including the individual themselves. With a monopoly, aggression is unhindered, because the monopoly is the final judge and jury on its own aggression.
If you want to argue that hired thieves are something to worry about less under statism than in a free society, because the state will ban private hired thieves but will itself remain a thief, then you can’t also argue that private thieves will be encouraged in a free society, for private protection bans private hired thieves, without themselves necessarily being thieves by way of enforcing their own monopoly.
What you want Ken B is violence auctioned to the highest bidders too. You just want the only victor to be those who just so happen to be the most powerful, regardless of their moral code or behavior. If they’re the strongest, if they hold a monopoly, then to you that ipso facto makes the system just.
The day that you realize he has no interest in an intellectually honest conversation, is the day you realize he isn’t worth your time. He’s the kind of guy that cheers when Daniel Russo gets his leg swept, simply to irritate everyone else who is enjoying the movie. Typical troll. Very typical, at that.
I think he’s sincere. It’s just some topics that he sounds like he’s trolling, but I believe it’s just because he can’t articulate his position clearly due to not having thought about it enough.
Okay Bob I read your article and I followed the link to David Henderson and read his article. He seems to be trapped in the opponents mindset in which government only takes from the winners and gives to the losers. This is a trap because the government takes from winners and takes losers and gives to winners and gives to losers.
If you look closely, you will see the true victor of this convoluted governed system of redistribution and destruction is the fox in the henhouse. The weasel always wins whether it be a wealthy weasel of a poor weasel. The current system benefits the sly. The higher the tax rate, the more cheating pays…
Wow Bob, what does your pastor say about such antichristian essays?
Huh?
You don’t draw any conclusions from the communism of the apostles? From the eye of the needle, or the beatitudes? I think in the Bible, and especially in Christianity, you ARE your brother’s keeper.
Spoken like a true Catholic. However nowhere is the tip of a gun mentioned…
They did not have guns. They used stones.
Read this article for more info on stoning:
Invitation to a Stoning
http://reason.com/archives/1998/11/01/invitation-to-a-stoning
Sorry, that article is not about Gary North. It’s not relevant here.
Sense from another Mises writer. http://mises.ca/posts/blog/why-christianity-will-never-be-at-peace-with-free-markets/
The bleeding heart liberal attitude towards the market is that temporarily earning zero wage income due to being laid off due to competition from rival firms, or temporarily having no control over means of production due to going bankrupt due to competition from rival firms, this is considered “losing” because of the progressive’s mental conception of what human life should be like irrespective of the individual’s choices, actions, and circumstances. Not living that ideal is “losing”, and living that ideal is “winning.”
The market economy cannot GUARANTEE that the individual will always earn an income, but if there is a powerful enough institution that robs from the rich, then the individual can be guaranteed an income.
Both Blinder and Mises likely agree with each other regarding what would take place with pure laissez-faire cooperation. Rising living standards on average, but temporary periods of time where some individuals earn zero income in the division of labor.
——————————-
The only way that we could have a laissez-faire, peaceful society, is if we can convince each other that none of us have a blank check on others merely for being alive. We have to accept the possibility that each of us could die from starvation or disease on account of not being able to convince others to give their wealth in exchange for what we each can offer others.
We will never live peacefully if we view each other as permanent potential victims of our desire to live at their expense. I have already decided that I would not steal in order to live. I would rather die an honorable man who is snickered at by social leeches, than live as a leech whose whole existence is only possible because other people are supporting me by force. I do not want to live like that. My life would be a tragedy.
They see win/loss as baseball outcomes instead of success being relative in the free market.
You old? Tough luck, you shall starve to death since nobody has to care about you. Orphaned? Starve in a gutter! In ER without money? Bleed out it is.
Do you even hear yourself? Your whole position is neither empathetic nor smart, since societies has evolved and can exist only as a web of trust and social connections among individuals. It is because societies guarantee care to the more unlucky members we are something more than a pack of animals in a perpetual state of war of all against all. Truly, with your position it is you who are a leech..
How did I go from being a slacker to being successful at whatever I do? I was given nothing. Instead of being given a guaranteed floor, I built myself an entire house. Was my family a “pack of animals” for letting success rest in my own hands? Of course not. Instead of being taught how to build my life around qualifying for government handouts, I have built my life around as successful as possible.
This would be a discussion if YOU offered YOUR money to help others. You believe in others using their money to support YOUR causes. You believe in others using their time and expertise to support YOUR causes (e.g. doctors).
Don’t worry about us starving to death. We believe in personal responsibility. And if we fail, we have family, church, and each other. We don’t wish others ill as you do. Libertarians have faith in humanity, whereas you do not.
It is an illusion that what you are as an individual is separate from the social ties that formed you. Alone, you are naught but a two-legged featherless animal. The social connections you had in your entire life are what make you human. Just as your parents gave you your social, intellectual and physical capital, fed, closed and taught you, so did the society as a whole.
And what do you mean I don’t offer my money? I pay taxes and enter the social relations to support the institutions that provide for basic human rights, as defined in my Constitution.
I believe in unconditional support of every member of society. Poor, average, rich – all must have the same basic rights, such as the right to live, to be healthy, to not suffer, etc. You, on the other hand, would wish us to depend on the whimsical grace of some patriarch or religious community. Is it not totalitarian?
Right to live healthy? Translation: others are forced to give their labor away to causes you see fit. To prison if they feel otherwise.
Right to not suffer. I’m suffering reading your nonsense so you just violated my rights. Good job.
Geez, why do opponents of libertarians always come unarmed to these battles? Roman doesn’t even know what a right is, not does he realize what the logical conclusions of his absurd ideas lead us. He would just say things like “No, I didn’t say that” when you point them out to him. Please statists/Keynesians, up your game. It’s embarrassing.
It is an illusion that what you are as an individual is separate from the social ties that formed you.
Is there anyone here claiming otherwise?
I believe in unconditional support of every member of society. Poor, average, rich – all must have the same basic rights, such as the right to live, to be healthy, to not suffer, etc. You, on the other hand, would wish us to depend on the whimsical grace of some patriarch or religious community.
Support can never be unconditional. It will always depend on the “whimsical grace” of someone or some group, be it the majority, the dictator, or individuals who will decide themselves whether or not to give to charity.
Is it not totalitarian?
Individuals deciding themselves how much they give to charity – no, that’s not totalitarian.
“It is an illusion that what you are as an individual is separate from the social ties that formed you. Alone, you are naught but a two-legged featherless animal. The social connections you had in your entire life are what make you human. ”
^^^ Leftist straw-man argument. Libertarians believe in the division of labor, trade, social constructs, charity, etc
“You, on the other hand, would wish us to depend on the whimsical grace of some patriarch or religious community. Is it not totalitarian?”
I thought you just said we are nothing more than our social connections and now you are here condemning these very socials connections.
Good catch
“And what do you mean I don’t offer my money? I pay taxes and enter the social relations to support the institutions that provide for basic human rights, as defined in my Constitution. ”
You did not offer anything. You were forced to pay taxes. When is the last time you wrote a voluntary check to any organization including government? If so, was this check only to receive a tax break, ie. lessen the government bullet…
“It is an illusion that what you are as an individual is separate from the social ties that formed you.”
Ah, good old Marxist determinism rears its ugly head. I don’t have a consciousness, independent from my surroundings. No, my surroundings have determined my consciousness, my thoughts, my beliefs, and my ideology. It is “production relations” which establish why I think is good, and as such, everything I say could only ever be based on the interests of the class to which I belong, where such a class is ANY abstract group conception, be it economic, or territorial, or familial.
Just seek to destroy my rational, individualist nature by convincing me that it is an “illusion”, and in so doing, characterize my call for no violence to be nothing but a product of the circumstances surrounding my good “fortunes.”
“Alone, you are naught but a two-legged featherless animal.”
If I was alone on a deserted island, economic laws would still apply to me. I would still be faced with having to make choices in a world of resource scarcity. I would still incur costs of seeking a particular outcome. I would still understand the world through a prism of myself as an actor, not a God.
Alone, I am still a man.
“The social connections you had in your entire life are what make you human.”
I am more than the similarities between you and I. I am a unique individual who SHARES humanity with you, but that commonality does not fully describe who I am, what I want, and what I do.
“Just as your parents gave you your social, intellectual and physical capital, fed, closed and taught you, so did the society as a whole.”
To want zero violence, is not to want isolation. Your fallaciously believe that to allow individuals to fend for themselves in the natural world without harming other individuals, is the same thing as everyone living in a black box, isolated from everyone else.
On the contrary, to refuse to give in to the threats of force from others, carries with it a willingness to cooperate with other individuals in a mutually consensual manner.
“And what do you mean I don’t offer my money? I pay taxes and enter the social relations to support the institutions that provide for basic human rights, as defined in my Constitution.”
Offering money is not the same thing as paying money to people who would throw you into a cage if you don’t. Offering money in exchange for goods and services, voluntarily, is the only way to live peacefully with each other.
The Constitution died with its signers. Nobody has a right to sign binding social contracts on behalf of the unborn.
“I believe in unconditional support of every member of society. Poor, average, rich – all must have the same basic rights, such as the right to live, to be healthy, to not suffer, etc. You, on the other hand, would wish us to depend on the whimsical grace of some patriarch or religious community. Is it not totalitarian?”
That’s a false dichotomy. I only want no violence (no robbery, no physical aggression, etc). Just because I want to stop violence, it doesn’t mean I want to replace it with the “whims” of a particular group of people.
It is whimsical to call for one group to initiate perpetual violence against the wealthy so that no individual experiences zero income in a peaceful division of labor.
“You, on the other hand, would wish us to depend on the whimsical grace of some patriarch or religious community.”
I said no such thing.
When I ended my service to the Army, I had no job and very little money. Did I sign up for unemployment? No. I moved into my parent’s home for 2 months until I acquired the necessary skills to do the work that I still do to this day. I didn’t need a handout. I had enough support and enough savings to survive.
When you know you have guaranteed government support, many build their lives around getting that support, instead of using it in a worst case scenario.
“I believe in unconditional support of every member of society. Poor, average, rich – all must have the same basic rights, such as the right to live, to be healthy, to not suffer, etc.”
You and all others that are born have the same rights. What one becomes is up to them. Choosing to fail should not grant one a reward. Try this same mentality when you raise children. When they fail, give them money. When they succeed, you take a portion of their success for yourself. Tell me whether failure increases or decreases.
“And what do you mean I don’t offer my money? I pay taxes and enter the social relations to support the institutions that provide for basic human rights, as defined in my Constitution. ”
What is progressive taxation then?!? Do you pay the same effective tax rate that the very wealthy do? (non GE)
Again, this would be an actual conversation if it was actually fair across the board.
Actually this is all a distraction. What we want is little to no government. We believe that society as a whole will be far better off as a result. This means less starving and more support for those that need it. When you give government more control over GDP, it is like adding drag…… it slows down economic growth, ceteris paribus.
“institutions that provide for basic human rights, as defined in my Constitution. ”
Your constitution grants no such thing in the context in which it was written.
So save some money instead of consuming everything you produce.. You live a better life than me by spending everything you earn and then you cry during your older years when you have nothing but memory’s of a drunken spending orgy.
Do you even listen to yourself…
It’s pretty amazing isn’t it. Here I am saying that I would rather die than aggress against Roman P (or anyone else for that matter) to save my own life, and Roman P calls me a “leech”, suggesting “totalitarianism”, and so on.
It’s obvious he’s letting his emotions get to him. His brain goes into haywire at the thought of himself dying because he couldn’t acquire wealth peacefully from others. He has to have the insurance of being able to kill me or my family if we don’t give him what he wants if the alternative he faces is death.
He isn’t empathetic. True empathy for other humans would have him willing to face his own death rather than harm others.
“Do you even hear yourself? Your whole position is neither empathetic nor smart, since societies has evolved and can exist only as a web of trust and social connections among individuals.”
Remind me again where any of this implies pointing guns at innocent people? And remind me again why pointing guns at innocent people is “empathetic”, whereas me refraining from violence and letting individuals seek to improve their lives without themselves initiating violence, is not empathetic?
“It is because societies guarantee care to the more unlucky members we are something more than a pack of animals in a perpetual state of war of all against all.”
OK, so “society”, meaning the state, initiates perpetual violence against the wealthier, to ensure that no poor individual is left to fend for themselves in the horrible cruel heartless natural world.
Is that not a perpetual war of some (violence initiators and the poor) against everyone else (the wealthier)? If not, why not?
Truly, with your position it is you who are a leech..”
Now you’re just spewing lies.
How exactly am I a leech for not wanting to leech off anyone, and for nobody to leech off me? Do you even read what you are saying? Or are you just going on an emotional rant where truth doesn’t matter?
Men, ARE you all nuts. What was the point of picking apart my comments sentence by sentence and getting all of them fantastically wrong? I don’t even feel the need to reiterate given that I’d just have to write the same points again. Besides, there could be no consensus since you see enforcing a social order that is in your advantage as just and natural, and define any other order as leeching (off you).
“What was the point of picking apart my comments sentence by sentence and getting all of them fantastically wrong?”
How are they wrong?
“I don’t even feel the need to reiterate given that I’d just have to write the same points again.”
But those same points are wrong, as I have shown.
“Besides, there could be no consensus since you see enforcing a social order that is in your advantage as just and natural, and define any other order as leeching (off you).”
No, it is the ABSENCE of “enforcing a social order.” It is the individual reigning supreme in his and her own affairs. No violence. No theft. Voluntary cooperation.
Here, no individual “imposes” ANY “social order” on others.
What you perceive to be an enforcement of a social order on others, is in actuality a REMOVAL of enforcement of social orders. Currently, some people (the state) enforces a social order on others (the citizenry) against their will. What I want is to remove that imposition.
Yes, those who currently benefit from exploitation will have to produce for themselves in the division of labor, or ask for charity. But that isn’t “imposing” anything on them. It is a removal of imposition of the victims that are exploited to benefit those you believe will be imposed upon if the exploitation were removed.
This is not just “defining” something as just and natural and everything else unjust and unnatural. It is knowing that initiating violence against others is unjust.
Hey Roman,
Most libertarians do, in fact, care if about the standard of living for everyone. This is why we believe in a system of laws based on libertarian principles, because it will raise this standard of living. Government action (which, btw, only uses violence to achieve its ends) only results in the lowering of this standard of living.
“This perspective is at complete odds with the vision of the market economy put forth by Ludwig von Mises, particularly in his misesmasterpiece Human Action. For Mises, the way to “win” in the market economy is simply to satisfy the desires of the consumers better than rival entrepreneurs”
lol. So there are no losers at all in Mises’s system? Never any involuntary unemployment? Never any people who cannot afford health care?
Either Mises is stupid beyond words or perhaps he is saying the “losers” have no right to other people’s money?
Either way, the essence of Rothbardianism boils down to: if you cannot find work on the market or successfully beg for charity, then sod off and die. There is no room at Rothbard’s inn.
Yeah, and if I was being as idiotic as you I could say that the essence of Keynesianism is letting brain addled war veterans freeze in the streets.
“So there are no losers at all in Mises’s system? Never any involuntary unemployment? Never any people who cannot afford health care?”
These are not “losers” according to Mises. He doesn’t look down on those who don’t make as much money as the most productive. To Mises, one seller serving the consumers better than other sellers, such that those other sellers have to lay off their employees, is a net improvement.
“Either Mises is stupid beyond words or perhaps he is saying the “losers” have no right to other people’s money?”
There he saying neither of those two options.
“Either way, the essence of Rothbardianism boils down to: if you cannot find work on the market or successfully beg for charity, then sod off and die. There is no room at Rothbard’s inn.”
From my perspective, it’s better that you die from not being able to produce enough for yourself, than you living and pointing a gun at me threatening to kill me if I don’t give you my wealth. You see, if you were against killing me to save yourself, then I might have felt bad for you and given you charity. But because you have communicated your willingness to kill me if I choose not to give charity to you, then I would rather you die from non-violent means.
You have no rebuttal to this, other than “F U, I’m taking from you whether you like it or not.” You shouldn’t act so surprised. You reap what you sew.
You are missing the utilitarian value of Rothbard’s system of natural law. In the unhampered market economy, there will be maximum efficiency and productivity, hence a higher average standard of living for everyone. All government intervention can only lower this standard of living.
LK, why stop now with the straw men?
” if you cannot find work on the market or successfully beg for charity, then sod off and die. There is no room at Rothbard’s inn.”
Nope. There is family. There is entrepreneurship. There is savings.
See, statists tell the “losers” that they CAN’T. We tell them that they CAN. A successful life as an adult begins with hard work ahead of time. In an environment where one knows they have to work to survive and succeed, they will. In a welfare economy, many build their lives around proving that they shouldn’t have to work.
For the empiricists out there, explain to me the exponential increase in welfare spending and NO DECREASE in poverty rates.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_urM-xCw7rZI/TCSBUuy4VBI/AAAAAAAAE5w/OKrl42kwZVQ/s400/meanstested.gif
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_otfwl2zc6Qc/TJgxEwPv7RI/AAAAAAAAObs/AU8XbvZCSdo/s400/poverty.jpg
There is no Keynesian defense for these two pictures. Obviously, the government is slowing down economic growth and stalling the natural decline in poverty rates only made possible by a productive society.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say there are “losers” under the free market in the sense that some who have no marketable skills due to poor genetic endowments (or accidents) will not always always thrive. However, Capitalism has raised real wages dramatically over the last one hundred years. The fact that some have fallen through the cracks is hardly an indictment given the magnitude of this fantastic growth. In other words, a comparable institutions approach is warranted here. I should also point out that people still fall through the cracks under social democracy; not to mention the fact that gov’t has retarded growth due to taxing and consuming capital funds. Social democracy is funded by the workers, not the rich, in the form of lowered real wages. We would all be vastly more wealthy under laissez-faire.
Hold on. Are you going to bring up fix prices again?
“Nor is the coordinator functioning of the appraisement process obstructed in the slightest by the existence of contractually fixed prices for inputs or outputs which, it may turn out, are negotiated on the basis of mistaken expectations. Such prices, as Hutt emphasizes, do not constitute rigid market prices that distort the allocation of resources. [Hutt, The Keynesian Episode, p. 144]. In fact, in the instant after they are contractually established, prices governing future transactions lose the character and function of market prices and begin to operate merely as terms upon which speculative gains and losses resulting from fluctuations of spot prices are distributed between buyers and sellers in the structure of production, for example, laborers and employers, materials suppliers and materials users, retailers and wholesalers, and so on.” -Salerno, “Coordination in Austrian Macroeconomics” in Money: Sound and Unsound, p. 191
*coordinative
Autocorrect…
since societies has evolved and can exist only as a web of trust and social connections among individuals.
Did MF say he was against trust and social connections?
Let’s not rehash expressed/revealed preferences.
🙂
You only joke about that in that way because you know, and I know, and everyone else here knows, that I am, in contrast to you to the extent of your minarchism, in favor of trust and (consensual) social connections to the fullest extent conceivably possible.
My guess is that since I make you feel uncomfortable about yourself, you have to jokingly smear me as untrustworthy and anti-social like you, so that you stand out less.
It’s ironic, because you just described yourself exactly. You don’t trust yourself, and therefore you don’t trust others, to live without a state. So nobody can be trusted. Look in the mirror Ken B, then think about who you are, and then consider the fact that I would rather die sooner than later, if the alternative is to live as a leech off of you. Then consider how the people around me would be affected by my behavior. It would be nothing but what they are willing to accept from the best of me.
I may be verbally caustic, but would you rather live with smiling and fun loving rapists and thieves?
I gave a link showing the actions today of some of Bob’s fellow monotheists. You trust ’em.
Anyway MF what you want is violence auctioned to the highest bidder. No, I don’t trust that.
No, I don’t want “violence” auctioned to the highest bidder. I want PROTECTION auctioned to the highest bidder.
Again you conflate protection against rape and theft for hire, with rape and theft for hire. If it was wrong the previous five times you did that, what makes you think the sixth time will be any different?
If I want to hire protection of my person and property, I am not hiring that person to steal from you or harass you. By that logic, you should shout from the mountaintops that there must be a ban on personal bodyguards, private security guards at offices, and neighborhood watchmen. After all, they’re really just hired to rape and pillage aren’t they?
Ken B, private protection through and through does not imply selling your labor to kill or rob from others. However, does this mean that there won’t be hired hitmen? Of course not. There would be, just like there are hired hitmen NOW, UNDER STATISM. We have to live with not only (illegal) private hired hitmen, but we also have to deal with a (legal) MONOPOLY in hired hitmen.
Let that sink in. Hundreds of thousands of civilians killed in the middle east because of the monopoly of hired hitmen you call the US government.
I want that monopoly of hired hitmen to be abolished, so that we can better handle hired hitmen with hired protection against hired hitmen.
I am confused. Considering how you consider yourself a self-professed logical thinker, why do you keep believing in such an obvious logical fallacy? There is something wrong in the path of your mental processes Ken B. There is a corruption in one or a few of the steps in your reasoning.
We have a monopoly of hitmen, and monopolies undersupply.
Feature not a bug MF.
It’s not in an undersupply in a monopoly, because there is no counter-balancing threat that would reduce that supply.
A monopoly has fewer barriers to expand BADs.
It’s a bug and a feature, because the feature IS the bug.
You seem to have the belief that a monopoly has an incentive to produce fewer bads, when in reality it has all the incentive in the world to produce bads.
Monopolies undersupply GOODS, i.e. protection against bads.
Again, for the 7th time, you conflate the production of security with the production of aggression.
Ken B:
You might want to consider tatooing this on your chest, in reverse, so that when you look at it, it’s legible:
Protection is a good and aggression is a bad. Monopolies undersupply goods and oversupply bads. Competition eliminates undersupply of goods and oversupply of bads.
Ken, you re constantly corrected but repeat the same garbage each time. You simply are not a bright guy. You still can’t understand the difference between self defense and initiation of force.
You want enforcement of disputed claims sold to the highest bidder. Calling this protection does not mean it is. Sometimes it will be, sometimes not.
Markets provide goods and services. Calling it a bad gets you nothing. Kiddie porn is to me, and you, a bad. But to those who like it it’s a good. Markets unhindered will provide it just as they supply Freeze dried coffee.
“Calling this protection does not mean it is.”
Denying that protection is protection doesn’t mean it isn’t.
“Sometimes it will be, sometimes not.”
I am not calling for a “free market” in aggression. I am calling for a free market in protection.
Just because you can’t distinguish between defensive force, and aggressive force, doesn’t mean that a free market in protection is also a free market in aggression.
If I or another individual wants to hire a private protector, and opt out of the state’s “protection”, then this is not ipso facto a desire nor an action of hiring a private thief or private rapist or private murderer. It is the hiring of a private defender. If those who call themselves statesmen allowed individuals to do this, then there is no introduction of a private market in aggression. Thus, should those in the state remain belligerent, and demand that everyone pay it for protection, constitutes the very thing you claim would be present in a free market of protection, namely, private property rights violations (e.g. selling robbery services to the highest bidder).
“Markets provide goods and services. Calling it a bad gets you nothing.”
Monopolies oversupply bads and undersupply goods.
“Kiddie porn is to me, and you, a bad. But to those who like it it’s a good.”
A free market in protection is not the same thing as any old conception of protection such as the right to protect one’s child porn ring, no more than a monopoly in protection does not necessarily imply a right to defend one’s right to engage in child porn.
But the difference is that IF a monopolist enforces child porn, there is no competition to stop that bad, from private producers of good aggression, i.e. defense.
A society of private protection can “legally” use defensive force against another private protector who initiates force.
“Markets unhindered will provide it just as they supply Freeze dried coffee.”
Individuals in a market for protection are not “unhindered.” They are hindered by the threats of defensive force from private protectors, including the individual themselves. With a monopoly, aggression is unhindered, because the monopoly is the final judge and jury on its own aggression.
If you want to argue that hired thieves are something to worry about less under statism than in a free society, because the state will ban private hired thieves but will itself remain a thief, then you can’t also argue that private thieves will be encouraged in a free society, for private protection bans private hired thieves, without themselves necessarily being thieves by way of enforcing their own monopoly.
What you want Ken B is violence auctioned to the highest bidders too. You just want the only victor to be those who just so happen to be the most powerful, regardless of their moral code or behavior. If they’re the strongest, if they hold a monopoly, then to you that ipso facto makes the system just.
The day that you realize he has no interest in an intellectually honest conversation, is the day you realize he isn’t worth your time. He’s the kind of guy that cheers when Daniel Russo gets his leg swept, simply to irritate everyone else who is enjoying the movie. Typical troll. Very typical, at that.
I think he’s sincere. It’s just some topics that he sounds like he’s trolling, but I believe it’s just because he can’t articulate his position clearly due to not having thought about it enough.
Okay Bob I read your article and I followed the link to David Henderson and read his article. He seems to be trapped in the opponents mindset in which government only takes from the winners and gives to the losers. This is a trap because the government takes from winners and takes losers and gives to winners and gives to losers.
If you look closely, you will see the true victor of this convoluted governed system of redistribution and destruction is the fox in the henhouse. The weasel always wins whether it be a wealthy weasel of a poor weasel. The current system benefits the sly. The higher the tax rate, the more cheating pays…
Great, now even Canada is outsourcing its work to America. We’re doomed.
This sounds like a job for Ricardo.
Canadians have a comparative advantage in logic.
Also snark it seems.
Logic, snark, maple sugar.
Apparently the “logic” regarding analysis of monopolies is in zero supply from your house.
You guys have Brent Butt! What more do you need?!