4 ms·

You seem to be confused about the meaning of "other people's money". You see, in a free market, you have voluntary contracts and transactions like in people dec

You seem to be confused about the meaning of "other people's money". You see, in a free market, you have voluntary contracts and transactions like in people deciding on how their money is used, put a risk, etc. which is ethically perfect. Progressivists societies, on the contrary, can do nothing without the use of coercion. Then they put their bunch of bureaucrats to vote on how to use the money that they have taken from you at gunpoint.

holri 10y ago
There is no coercion and no gunpoints because the government in Vienna is elected by the people.
- dmichulke 10y ago
  So "elected by 50%+" means absence of coercion?
  - holri 10y ago
    yes that is how democracy works.
    - maverick_iceman 10y ago
      Ah, so minority rights don't matter any more? By your standards even Hitler was democratically elected. That doesn't make his actions moral.
      - holri 10y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law
      - IvarTheHomeless 10y ago
        Hitler was appointed, not elected.
    - dmichulke 10y ago
      Coercion is entirely orthogonal to any form of state. In practice, all forms of state use coercion. Try resisting arrest by the police for a crime you are suspect but didn't commit. There are much worse examples that polarize much more.
      - sangnoir 10y ago
        How can individual's rights and possessions be protected without coercion? These are fundamental to any society. Empirically, when the state is dissolved, it is quickly replaced by equally coercive (or worse) warlords.
- maverick_iceman 10y ago
  You're comically unaware of the tyranny of the majority. Ever heard of Idi Amin?
fauigerzigerk 10y ago
>ethically perfect Being a proponent of free markets I would love to see them as not just necessary and useful for some purposes but also as "ethically perfect". But I can not. Free markets, based exclusively on voluntary agreements, lack a crucial element to be fair: Equal opportunity. Extreme inequality of wealth causes extreme inequality of opportunity. This is the core dilemma of free market liberalism. There is no plausible definition of meritocracy that has a place for inherited wealth. Place of birth isn't very meritocratic either. We will also have to account for the possibility that luck may play a much bigger role in success than we like to think. If we want to keep the good parts of free markets and voluntary agreements, we will have to do better than declaring every form of redistribution of wealth to be coercion at gunpoint.
- sebastianconcpt 10y ago
  Any alternative to voluntary agreements would inject noise in the feedback that the humans involved can use to improve themselves and, ultimately, the species. You can't have equal opportunity. It's an impossible goal. It can't possibly exist. What should be possible is to have some kind of Fair Opportunity by optimizing it somehow but never equal. You need that constraint loose in the system so it can create wealth. Pursuing equality is only pre-authorize coercion and will converge in totalitarianism (because victimists will always bug you ad-infinitum to achieve their claims of lack of equality).
  - fauigerzigerk 10y ago
    >You can't have equal opportunity. It's an impossible goal. I never said we could have completely equal opportunity. But by implication, the outcomes of our voluntary agreements are never perfectly ethical or completely justified. Redistribution of wealth makes up for the fact that the playing field is never completely level. Rejecting all social processes that lead to peaceful redistribution of wealth or to more equal opportunity is both unpragmatic and unethical. Also, extreme inequality distorts markets massively. It's much more than just noise. Markets break down completely if too many participants are forced to sell or buy at any price just to survive.
mastazi 10y ago
> free market > progressivist societies Do you realize that in many countries free markets are a progressive thing, and that many right wing parties promote high public expenditure and extensive welfare?
- sebastianconcpt 10y ago
  Depending on the semantic stretching yes, you are correct, there are many "right-wing" populist that also do that and use coercion in the same morally problematic way. The point I'm stressing is that some "right-wing" might be for a minimalistic state, while most of the left-wing is all for an all-powerful state
  - mastazi 10y ago
    Yes I agree with you that there is a semantic problem (e.g. in the US the adjective "liberal" means "leftie" whereas everywhere else means "in favour of free markets") but that's much less important than the substance so I don't want to focus on words and definitions. It seems to me that as of 2017 the major threat to free markets comes from protectionism, not from socialism. The new president of the USA, who is a Republican, has in numerous occasions pledged to follow protectionist policies, and many European right-wing parties, not only in UK, are against the EU single market. So I would say that centre-right or right-wing politicians who are against free markets are not an edge case any more.

holri 10y ago

There is no coercion and no gunpoints because the government in Vienna is elected by the people.

dmichulke 10y ago
So "elected by 50%+" means absence of coercion?
- holri 10y ago
  yes that is how democracy works.
  - maverick_iceman 10y ago
    Ah, so minority rights don't matter any more? By your standards even Hitler was democratically elected. That doesn't make his actions moral.
    - holri 10y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law
    - IvarTheHomeless 10y ago
      Hitler was appointed, not elected.
  - dmichulke 10y ago
    Coercion is entirely orthogonal to any form of state. In practice, all forms of state use coercion. Try resisting arrest by the police for a crime you are suspect but didn't commit. There are much worse examples that polarize much more.
    - sangnoir 10y ago
      How can individual's rights and possessions be protected without coercion? These are fundamental to any society. Empirically, when the state is dissolved, it is quickly replaced by equally coercive (or worse) warlords.
maverick_iceman 10y ago
You're comically unaware of the tyranny of the majority. Ever heard of Idi Amin?

fauigerzigerk 10y ago

>ethically perfect Being a proponent of free markets I would love to see them as not just necessary and useful for some purposes but also as "ethically perfect". But I can not. Free markets, based exclusively on voluntary agreements, lack a crucial element to be fair: Equal opportunity. Extreme inequality of wealth causes extreme inequality of opportunity. This is the core dilemma of free market liberalism. There is no plausible definition of meritocracy that has a place for inherited wealth. Place of birth isn't very meritocratic either. We will also have to account for the possibility that luck may play a much bigger role in success than we like to think. If we want to keep the good parts of free markets and voluntary agreements, we will have to do better than declaring every form of redistribution of wealth to be coercion at gunpoint.

sebastianconcpt 10y ago
Any alternative to voluntary agreements would inject noise in the feedback that the humans involved can use to improve themselves and, ultimately, the species. You can't have equal opportunity. It's an impossible goal. It can't possibly exist. What should be possible is to have some kind of Fair Opportunity by optimizing it somehow but never equal. You need that constraint loose in the system so it can create wealth. Pursuing equality is only pre-authorize coercion and will converge in totalitarianism (because victimists will always bug you ad-infinitum to achieve their claims of lack of equality).
- fauigerzigerk 10y ago
  >You can't have equal opportunity. It's an impossible goal. I never said we could have completely equal opportunity. But by implication, the outcomes of our voluntary agreements are never perfectly ethical or completely justified. Redistribution of wealth makes up for the fact that the playing field is never completely level. Rejecting all social processes that lead to peaceful redistribution of wealth or to more equal opportunity is both unpragmatic and unethical. Also, extreme inequality distorts markets massively. It's much more than just noise. Markets break down completely if too many participants are forced to sell or buy at any price just to survive.

mastazi 10y ago

> free market > progressivist societies Do you realize that in many countries free markets are a progressive thing, and that many right wing parties promote high public expenditure and extensive welfare?

sebastianconcpt 10y ago
Depending on the semantic stretching yes, you are correct, there are many "right-wing" populist that also do that and use coercion in the same morally problematic way. The point I'm stressing is that some "right-wing" might be for a minimalistic state, while most of the left-wing is all for an all-powerful state
- mastazi 10y ago
  Yes I agree with you that there is a semantic problem (e.g. in the US the adjective "liberal" means "leftie" whereas everywhere else means "in favour of free markets") but that's much less important than the substance so I don't want to focus on words and definitions. It seems to me that as of 2017 the major threat to free markets comes from protectionism, not from socialism. The new president of the USA, who is a Republican, has in numerous occasions pledged to follow protectionist policies, and many European right-wing parties, not only in UK, are against the EU single market. So I would say that centre-right or right-wing politicians who are against free markets are not an edge case any more.