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Consider where this logic would take you if you applied it to all spheres of life. There would never be experimentation, innovation, or in fact development of
by duncan_bayne 8y ago
Consider where this logic would take you if you applied it to all spheres of life. There would never be experimentation, innovation, or in fact development of any kind.
Coming back to the Objectivist angle, there's a great passage from Atlas Shrugged that covers this:
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"Then what on earth do you know about Rearden Metal?"
"That it's the greatest thing ever put on the market."
"Why?"
"Because it's tougher than steel, cheaper than steel and will outlast any hunk of metal in existence."
"But who says so?"
"Jim, I studied engineering in college. When I see things, I see them."
"What did you see?"
"Rearden's formula and the tests he showed me."
"Well, if it were any good, somebody would have used it, and nobody has." He saw the flash of anger, and went on nervously: "How can you know it's good? How can you be sure? How can you decide?"
"Somebody decides such things, Jim. Who?"
"Well, I don't see why we have to be the first ones. I don't see it at all."
"Do you want to save the Rio Norte Line or not?" He did not answer, "If the road could afford it, I would scrap every piece of rail over the whole system and replace it with Rearden Metal. All of it needs replacing. None of it will last much longer. But we can't afford it. We have to get out of a bad hole, first. Do you want us to pull through or not?"
"We're still the best railroad in the country. The others are doing much worse."
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In general this feels like a class of logical fallacy, of the form "no-one has attempted to achieve X, so X must be undesirable" but I can't find it in any lists.
edit: To make it clearer, take your post, and substitute slavery for coercive taxation. Your argument immediately appears specious, because with the benefit of hindsight we know that large, complex, modern societies did just fine after abandoning slavery. But people argued against emancipation in just that way at the time.
- perl4ever 8y agoPeople arguing about slavery in the US did have the ability to observe that other societies had abolished it and been successful. And we today have the ability to observe other societies that don't have a stable monopoly of force and taxing power and see them in perpetual chaos, where competing groups with different sources of revenue struggle to become governments. It doesn't make any sense to say nobody has ever tried anarchy, because (a) it's all over the place, and manifestly involves poverty and misery, and (b) it was the original state of humankind, so we know it is possible and that government as we know it develops from it.
- duncan_bayne 8y agoSorry if I wasn't clear; I'm not arguing for anarchy, I'm arguing for small Government tasked solely with protecting the rights of its citizens, funded by voluntary taxation.
- toss1 8y agoThe same argument still applies. It is NOT impossible for people to make progress. It just takes more than a set of half-baked ideas. The ideas must be fully thought through to their consequences, with second- and third-order consequences, adjusted so that they will actually work with real human nature factored in, tested, adjusted, then rolled out. In this sense, although I am strongly attracted to Libertarianism and often use it as my default starting point, I recognize that it is like Communism in that it is completely impractical and won't happen in a real world (actually, communism has a better chance with modern tech solcing central planning, blockchain micropayments, smart contracts allocating resources, LOL, bs...).
- perl4ever 8y agoIf government funded by "voluntary taxation" isn't anarchy, I'm not sure what else it could be. It seems to me obvious that either there is a monopoly on coercive power or there is not, and "voluntary taxation" means there is not. Which means you have multiple gangs or insurgencies.
- toss1 8y agoI work in an industry that is in EXACTLY that situation -- Carbon Fiber Composites (I've also read Atlas Shrugged). Ayn Rand's description sounded great when I was a teenager. Living it for real, I know it is utter bullshit. Carbon Fiber Composites are far stronger, stiffer, and lighter than any steel, and less expensive in small volumes. It's more expensive in large volumes, but R&D is mitigating that. Yes, managers and even engineers have a bias against it because it is new and untested, takes more work to include in designs. Yet, it is being steadily adopted. --------------- In terms of govt, sure, a small govt with voluntary contributions sounds great. Until you realize (which you haven't) that this is setting up EXACTLY the commons problem: it is in everyone's interest too support the government, but in every individual's interest to freeload or over-use and under-pay. Eventually even the goodest of the do-gooders will be sick & tired of being mooched off of, and you're back to anarchy. If you doubt this, go look at the population of any commercially viable fish; ask how they're doing. The fact of the matter is that if you ACTUALLY think through any of these ideas, they are hollow. That is the reason they have never been implemented.