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>It's not absurd at all, and your first example is nonsensical. It is absolutely absurd, and my first example makes perfect sense if one has the capacity to un

by aminok 10y ago

>It's not absurd at all, and your first example is nonsensical. It is absolutely absurd, and my first example makes perfect sense if one has the capacity to understand what is being discussed. >There's a fundamental difference between creative capitalism, which is the application of intelligence and organisation to the creation of new resources and opportunities from new materials and ideas, Proudhon's argument is that all property is "theft", so there is no such distinction in his philosophy. He was the angsty teenager with the edgy arguments of the 19th century. >It's incredibly hard to destroy a monopoly through market means alone, and lower prices certainly aren't enough to do it on their own. Government is a monopoly of force. You want to cure market monopolies by expanding the power of a monopoly that employs threats of violence. Good luck with that. >Why worry about monopolies? Because they're the inevitable outcome of limited ownership. Unequal access to resources is magnified until either a monopoly or a cartel results. This is unscientific quackery. You have provided no evidence at all for this inflammatory fearmongering. You're making a very specific argument about the cause of a particular outcome, in a system with an untold number of factors at play that could explain any set of outcomes. >Any suggestion that equates the ability to create this outcome with a basic human right is preposterous. Violently attacking someone and/or throwing them in prison for their refusal to hand you a share of the currency they received in private trade is a grotesque violation of human rights. Trying to justify this grotesque violation of human rights with economic quackery that you are trying to pass off as fact (just another variation of the "if you don't rob the rich guy, you'll starve to death" snake oil that is always used to justify socialist ideology that violate human rights) is childish idiocy.

ashark 10y ago
> Violently attacking someone and/or throwing them in prison for their refusal to hand you a share of the currency they received in private trade is a grotesque violation of human rights. This argument will be a lot more interesting as soon as someone demonstrates a functioning advanced economy absent a sovereign state, as we commonly think of it, and without someone or something else becoming the de facto sovereign in short order, since then we'll know the state isn't entirely necessary for the levels of wealth and advanced commerce and industry we presently enjoy, as it currently very much appears to be. I'm not holding my breath.
- aminok 10y ago
  I am not opposed to the existence of a state, and my argument does not necessitate that it be abolished. I think there are legitimate sources of revenue that a state can rely upon, and legitimate functions it can serve in society.
vidarh 10y ago
> Government is a monopoly of force. You want to cure market monopolies by expanding the power of a monopoly that employs threats of violence. Good luck with that. Or you could destroy it by reducing the power of government to use violence to guarantee exclusionary land use. > Violently attacking someone and/or throwing them in prison for their refusal to hand you a share of the currency they received in private trade is a grotesque violation of human rights. I would be fully for giving you the right to live untaxed if you also agree to not make use of any of the shared goods paid for by those taxes. That would be including most roads, of course. Have fun trying to earn more that way.
- aminok 10y ago
  >Or you could destroy it by reducing the power of government to use violence to guarantee exclusionary land use. Exclusionary land use is necessary for anything as basic as having privacy in your home and personal security. Shifting taxes from income to land would certainly be beneficial, but it would not eliminate monopolies. >I would be fully for giving you the right to live untaxed if you also agree to not make use of any of the shared goods paid for by those taxes. That would be including most roads, of course. And that would be absolutely fine. The vast majority of taxes are used for forcible income redistribution (social welfare) and government largess (e.g. miliarily occupying other countries). If government stuck to providing national defence and roads, it could collect all the revenue it needed from something like a split-rate property tax, and there'd be no need for a human-rights-violating income tax.
aninhumer 10y ago
>Government is a monopoly of force. You want to cure market monopolies by expanding the power of a monopoly that employs threats of violence. Good luck with that. I really wish libertarians would stop using this facile rhetorical device: "Government must be bad, it relies on THREATS OF VIOLENCE!!" But if you're talking about property rights, unless you're suggesting enforcement by stern warnings, you're already talking about using threats of violence to coerce people.
- aminok 10y ago
  Threats of violence, and by extension government, are not always evil. It's evil when it's used to violate one's human rights. Punishing someone for driving dangerously on public roads, or stealing someone's wallet, is a legitimate exercise of force. Using violence to punish someone for refusing to hand over a share of currency they receive in private trade, or for being 'too successful' at selling a widget and therefore being categorised as a monopolist, is not. I mean if you're going to criticise libertarianism, at least learn the basics, like what the Non Aggression Principle (notice it's not called the Non Violence Principle) is. Libertarianism is just the formalization of common decency and common sense. People denigrate it so that they can term basic decency as the tenet of some fringe ideology and get a pass to promote tyranny over other people through political action.
  - aninhumer 10y ago
    >Threats of violence, and by extension government, are not always evil. Of course. But my objection is that libertarians like to imply that violence coercion is inherently bad for rhetorical effect when criticising government. >Using violence to punush someone for refusing to hand over a share of currency they receive in private trade, or for being 'too successful' at selling a widget and therefore being categorised as a monopolist, is not. Well clearly we disagree. I think asking participants in society to pay for the benefits it affords, and discouraging anti-competitive practices are perfectly reasonable uses of violent coercion, and lead to better outcomes overall. If you disagree that those policies are effective, that's fine. But please don't elevate your economic theories to morality. >at least learn the basics, like what the Non Aggression Principle is (notice it's not called the Non Violence Principle). I know what the NAP is, and I agree right up until libertarians start trying to define aggression to include theft. Honestly, the NAP seems at best like an awkward attempt to simplify a political philosophy, and at worst like a rhetorical device to hide property rights inside something that seems superficially unobjectionable. >Libertarianism is just the formalization of common decency and common sense. Yes, that's certainly how it likes to portray itself, but my impression is that as soon it gets into details, it's all about property rights. I think society should be designed in the way that leads to the best utilitarian outcomes, and I think property rights are a very effective tool and should be part of that system. But they are not perfect, they are not morality, and they're certainly not "common decency".

by aminok 10y ago

ashark 10y ago

> Violently attacking someone and/or throwing them in prison for their refusal to hand you a share of the currency they received in private trade is a grotesque violation of human rights. This argument will be a lot more interesting as soon as someone demonstrates a functioning advanced economy absent a sovereign state, as we commonly think of it, and without someone or something else becoming the de facto sovereign in short order, since then we'll know the state isn't entirely necessary for the levels of wealth and advanced commerce and industry we presently enjoy, as it currently very much appears to be. I'm not holding my breath.

aminok 10y ago
I am not opposed to the existence of a state, and my argument does not necessitate that it be abolished. I think there are legitimate sources of revenue that a state can rely upon, and legitimate functions it can serve in society.

vidarh 10y ago

> Government is a monopoly of force. You want to cure market monopolies by expanding the power of a monopoly that employs threats of violence. Good luck with that. Or you could destroy it by reducing the power of government to use violence to guarantee exclusionary land use. > Violently attacking someone and/or throwing them in prison for their refusal to hand you a share of the currency they received in private trade is a grotesque violation of human rights. I would be fully for giving you the right to live untaxed if you also agree to not make use of any of the shared goods paid for by those taxes. That would be including most roads, of course. Have fun trying to earn more that way.

aminok 10y ago
>Or you could destroy it by reducing the power of government to use violence to guarantee exclusionary land use. Exclusionary land use is necessary for anything as basic as having privacy in your home and personal security. Shifting taxes from income to land would certainly be beneficial, but it would not eliminate monopolies. >I would be fully for giving you the right to live untaxed if you also agree to not make use of any of the shared goods paid for by those taxes. That would be including most roads, of course. And that would be absolutely fine. The vast majority of taxes are used for forcible income redistribution (social welfare) and government largess (e.g. miliarily occupying other countries). If government stuck to providing national defence and roads, it could collect all the revenue it needed from something like a split-rate property tax, and there'd be no need for a human-rights-violating income tax.

aninhumer 10y ago

>Government is a monopoly of force. You want to cure market monopolies by expanding the power of a monopoly that employs threats of violence. Good luck with that. I really wish libertarians would stop using this facile rhetorical device: "Government must be bad, it relies on THREATS OF VIOLENCE!!" But if you're talking about property rights, unless you're suggesting enforcement by stern warnings, you're already talking about using threats of violence to coerce people.

aminok 10y ago
Threats of violence, and by extension government, are not always evil. It's evil when it's used to violate one's human rights. Punishing someone for driving dangerously on public roads, or stealing someone's wallet, is a legitimate exercise of force. Using violence to punish someone for refusing to hand over a share of currency they receive in private trade, or for being 'too successful' at selling a widget and therefore being categorised as a monopolist, is not. I mean if you're going to criticise libertarianism, at least learn the basics, like what the Non Aggression Principle (notice it's not called the Non Violence Principle) is. Libertarianism is just the formalization of common decency and common sense. People denigrate it so that they can term basic decency as the tenet of some fringe ideology and get a pass to promote tyranny over other people through political action.
- aninhumer 10y ago
  >Threats of violence, and by extension government, are not always evil. Of course. But my objection is that libertarians like to imply that violence coercion is inherently bad for rhetorical effect when criticising government. >Using violence to punush someone for refusing to hand over a share of currency they receive in private trade, or for being 'too successful' at selling a widget and therefore being categorised as a monopolist, is not. Well clearly we disagree. I think asking participants in society to pay for the benefits it affords, and discouraging anti-competitive practices are perfectly reasonable uses of violent coercion, and lead to better outcomes overall. If you disagree that those policies are effective, that's fine. But please don't elevate your economic theories to morality. >at least learn the basics, like what the Non Aggression Principle is (notice it's not called the Non Violence Principle). I know what the NAP is, and I agree right up until libertarians start trying to define aggression to include theft. Honestly, the NAP seems at best like an awkward attempt to simplify a political philosophy, and at worst like a rhetorical device to hide property rights inside something that seems superficially unobjectionable. >Libertarianism is just the formalization of common decency and common sense. Yes, that's certainly how it likes to portray itself, but my impression is that as soon it gets into details, it's all about property rights. I think society should be designed in the way that leads to the best utilitarian outcomes, and I think property rights are a very effective tool and should be part of that system. But they are not perfect, they are not morality, and they're certainly not "common decency".