8 ms·

It's time -- lord, long past time -- for smart hacker types to leave behind the immature, naïve libertarianism that pervades their industry and engage with a re

by kiba 16y ago

It's time -- lord, long past time -- for smart hacker types to leave behind the immature, naïve libertarianism that pervades their industry and engage with a real, honest politics that, at least implicitly, acknowledges and owns-up to the great wealth and resources already afforded them. /You didn't get here on your own, and you never would have otherwise./ This argument is highly misleading. Libertarians complain about the quality of the public services all the time. They complained about congestion on roads, the high expenses of hospitals due to emergencies law, and police that spend way too much time chasing drug dealers rather than providing actual security. They are taking money by force. You pay your taxes, or you go to jail. You don't have any option of not driving on roads, not getting emergencies care services, and so on. It is by laws that emergency services will be provided for you, regardless of your ability to pay. It is by government mandates that create all these roads that we drive on. Your security is not provided by a local milita but by a professional army. That is the cost of giving up your freedom. It's freedom that I wouldn't want to give up. Because a large enough government to give everything you want is large enough to take it away. The French revolution history lecture by my history professor is enough to change my very reason of being a libertarian from idealism to never again resolve.

rwmj 16y ago
"Money" only exists because of the organization of government. If we didn't have any, I could just come on to your land, shoot you, and take all your land and possessions.
- fondue 16y ago
  At the risk of being shot by the land owner or whomever else has a stake in you not doing that.
  - evgen 16y ago
    As all of the "they are taking my hard-earned money and giving to those unproductive masses" like to point out, there are far more of them then there are of you. Eventually you would run out of bullets and end up decorating your precious property as a wall-hanging or drinking mug.
- jpwagner 16y ago
  Yes, the existence of money is what stops me from shooting you
  - hugh3 16y ago
    I assume he means "the existence of government stops you" not "the existence of money stops you".
    - jpwagner 16y ago
      equally absurd
- hugh3 16y ago
  Unless I have a gun too, which I would in hypothetical anarchyland, in which case we've got a gunfight. Hypothetical anarchyland isn't a very nice place to live, though. Most libertarians are not anarcho-capitalists (let us ignore the subset who are because they're crazy), and are quite happy to pay the portion of taxes which go towards sensible things like the police force and the enforcement of contracts. The problem is that governments get to set whatever tax rates they like, inevitably wind up with a desire to go beyond this and to begin using tax dollars to feather the nests of whoever gets to make the government's decisions, whether it's a solid gold tomb for the King or free welfare checks for the bottom 51% of the population. And, y'know, we can deal with some of that happening, because it's inevitable, but we do need people to be standing up all the time and saying "Hey look Mr President, how about we get to keep a bit more of our money and you get to fly around in a private 777 instead of a private 747?" I'm not sure how you make the leap from "the government is necessary to protect your private property" to "it's not really your property, it's the government's". The bank is also necessary for me to get paid, and so is the electric company and the telephone company and the nice lady down in HR, but it's still my money. I don't mind paying for the services they provide either, but I'll still complain if they take more than they're entitled to.
  - Symmetry 16y ago
    I don't really think that anarcho-capitalists are _that_ crazy. I'd be quite happy if some of them were to try getting together and building their utopia somewhere, because I'm honestly curious as to how it would end up playing out. I mean, I strongly suspect it would be worse than the government we have now - but would it be that much worse? People even managed to make communism work for a little while and this seems a bit less crazy a priori.
    - kiba 16y ago
      I already have some experience in an quasi anarcho-capitalist economy. Here are what I learned: 1. Cheaters are most problematics to deal with, especially with drive-by fraudsters. They make everything worse for everybody else, not just the direct recipient of the fraud. 80% of drive-by cheaters can be prevented with simple measures. However, the rest are long term scammers who build up reputation and than cheat over us. This is extremely difficult to prevent. Thus everyone factor in the risk of being cheated out of their money. 2. Reputation is VERY IMPORTANT in an economy with no court and police. 3. Paypal dollars and anything that is chargebackable is BAD MONEY. It is the DOMAIN of scammers and fraudsters. They also cause bank runs as people transfer their worthless money into something more valuable. Is the economy a utopia? No. There are some scumbags who cheat and sometime got away with it. In one situation, their fraudulently brought merchandise got confiscated by an exchange mediator but not before it cause damage to the system. However, others were not so lucky. A guy got 2000 dollars in chargeback and had to shut down. What people will do, is learn how to handle cheaters, and find better methods to avoid cheaters. Since it is the internet, you can't just do "violence" or coerce individuals. It's impossible. Contracts are entirely based on reputation and trust. Nobody want to go to a state court and waste lot of money on lawyer.
- moron4hire 16y ago
  Untrue, the concept of money was developed long before government. Hammurabi's code only formalized a number of systems that were already in place. It took government to make money unsound.
  - bad_user 16y ago
    Yeah, it took a government to transform "money == gold / gold in a bank" to "money == debt".
  - doron 16y ago
    partially true, you are talking about Fiat money, and it is true that it is a fairly modern invention. Taxation was more abusive system prior to Fiat money, your local lord, or city state with its self issued currency, it was not a rosy experience always.
    - dualogy 16y ago
      Depends on historians interpretations mostly -- as in any case there are instances that support your point and those that refute it, and there are historians who come to your conclusions and those that come to the opposite ones. By necessity, local landlords and smaller communities were in a much stronger "competition of sorts" with their neighboring "jurisdictions", more effective than our grand nation states with their inter-national tax agreements. Some of them were nasty bastards, but the next one presumably less so. They seriously couldn't indebt themselves and keep raising taxes quite as abusively as today's nation governments do, the world over, and didn't. You do realize than sub-10% taxes were the default scenario in these times long past, and in many European provinces they were in fact paid voluntarily, for real armed protection services that could be denied if you chose not to pay them, but weren't forced to. References / citations? Read Hans Hermann Hoppe's Democracy book, it's full of them.
      - doron 16y ago
        thanks for the reference, in turn i offer Nial Ferguson excellent - the ascent of money. fantastic overview, if only for the analysis of the dramatic effect of fibonacci, and the ascent of the Medici family.
ChristianMarks 16y ago
It's not misleading. The political economic function of the government is to ensure that markets function under controlled conditions. An elaborate government apparatus provides services without which capitalism as we know it today would be inconceivable. Those services are worth something. If you disagree, let the government cease the enforcement of limited liability.
- kiba 16y ago
  It's not misleading. The political economic function of the government is to ensure that markets function under controlled conditions. An elaborate government apparatus provides services without which capitalism as we know it today would be inconceivable. Those services are worth something. If you disagree, let the government cease the enforcement of limited liability. Libertarians has proposed a number of ways by which to regulate the market economy that doesn't involved coercion. Whether or not that is feasible is another matter entirely. That being said, I prefer the alternative of being a member of the unorganized milita rather than a police state that handle every security services for me. I believed that a professional, well trained army are of some use but they should be limited to a size that doesn't allow them to invade nations and conquer the locals. Wars is the death of empires, nations, and government.
  - bpm140 16y ago
    <i>Whether that is feasible is another matter entirely.</i> No, it's not. I could suggest that we can power cold fusion with green cheese but that doesn't mean it will heat your house this winter.
  - ChristianMarks 16y ago
    A false dichotomy. The choice isn't between living in a police state and running amok with your slingshot. Enforcing trademarks another example of a social program for business that I guess you could live without. We could disagree about the need for patents and how the US Patent and Trademark office is configured, but most people here, among them entrepreneurs, would agree that trademarks are a good thing, and that they should be enforced. But let's see what happens if we were to hijack each other's brands. Maybe we should take over the YCombinator trademark. After all, enforcing trademarks isn't directly concerned with national defense. In the name of limited government, it's OK to suggest affiliations with corporations by using their trademarks without their approval. Especially since we dyed-in-the-wool libertarians don't believe in negative externalities, and that businesses have the right to do whatever they want. Those other companies with their putative concerns about reputation and perception about their brands, trademarks and logos are third parties to the exercise of our God-given libertarian rights. I only hope my militia is stronger than their militia.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

by kiba 16y ago

rwmj 16y ago

"Money" only exists because of the organization of government. If we didn't have any, I could just come on to your land, shoot you, and take all your land and possessions.

fondue 16y ago
At the risk of being shot by the land owner or whomever else has a stake in you not doing that.
- evgen 16y ago
  As all of the "they are taking my hard-earned money and giving to those unproductive masses" like to point out, there are far more of them then there are of you. Eventually you would run out of bullets and end up decorating your precious property as a wall-hanging or drinking mug.
jpwagner 16y ago
Yes, the existence of money is what stops me from shooting you
- hugh3 16y ago
  I assume he means "the existence of government stops you" not "the existence of money stops you".
  - jpwagner 16y ago
    equally absurd
hugh3 16y ago
Unless I have a gun too, which I would in hypothetical anarchyland, in which case we've got a gunfight. Hypothetical anarchyland isn't a very nice place to live, though. Most libertarians are not anarcho-capitalists (let us ignore the subset who are because they're crazy), and are quite happy to pay the portion of taxes which go towards sensible things like the police force and the enforcement of contracts. The problem is that governments get to set whatever tax rates they like, inevitably wind up with a desire to go beyond this and to begin using tax dollars to feather the nests of whoever gets to make the government's decisions, whether it's a solid gold tomb for the King or free welfare checks for the bottom 51% of the population. And, y'know, we can deal with some of that happening, because it's inevitable, but we do need people to be standing up all the time and saying "Hey look Mr President, how about we get to keep a bit more of our money and you get to fly around in a private 777 instead of a private 747?" I'm not sure how you make the leap from "the government is necessary to protect your private property" to "it's not really your property, it's the government's". The bank is also necessary for me to get paid, and so is the electric company and the telephone company and the nice lady down in HR, but it's still my money. I don't mind paying for the services they provide either, but I'll still complain if they take more than they're entitled to.
- Symmetry 16y ago
  I don't really think that anarcho-capitalists are _that_ crazy. I'd be quite happy if some of them were to try getting together and building their utopia somewhere, because I'm honestly curious as to how it would end up playing out. I mean, I strongly suspect it would be worse than the government we have now - but would it be that much worse? People even managed to make communism work for a little while and this seems a bit less crazy a priori.
  - kiba 16y ago
    I already have some experience in an quasi anarcho-capitalist economy. Here are what I learned: 1. Cheaters are most problematics to deal with, especially with drive-by fraudsters. They make everything worse for everybody else, not just the direct recipient of the fraud. 80% of drive-by cheaters can be prevented with simple measures. However, the rest are long term scammers who build up reputation and than cheat over us. This is extremely difficult to prevent. Thus everyone factor in the risk of being cheated out of their money. 2. Reputation is VERY IMPORTANT in an economy with no court and police. 3. Paypal dollars and anything that is chargebackable is BAD MONEY. It is the DOMAIN of scammers and fraudsters. They also cause bank runs as people transfer their worthless money into something more valuable. Is the economy a utopia? No. There are some scumbags who cheat and sometime got away with it. In one situation, their fraudulently brought merchandise got confiscated by an exchange mediator but not before it cause damage to the system. However, others were not so lucky. A guy got 2000 dollars in chargeback and had to shut down. What people will do, is learn how to handle cheaters, and find better methods to avoid cheaters. Since it is the internet, you can't just do "violence" or coerce individuals. It's impossible. Contracts are entirely based on reputation and trust. Nobody want to go to a state court and waste lot of money on lawyer.
moron4hire 16y ago
Untrue, the concept of money was developed long before government. Hammurabi's code only formalized a number of systems that were already in place. It took government to make money unsound.
- bad_user 16y ago
  Yeah, it took a government to transform "money == gold / gold in a bank" to "money == debt".
- doron 16y ago
  partially true, you are talking about Fiat money, and it is true that it is a fairly modern invention. Taxation was more abusive system prior to Fiat money, your local lord, or city state with its self issued currency, it was not a rosy experience always.
  - dualogy 16y ago
    Depends on historians interpretations mostly -- as in any case there are instances that support your point and those that refute it, and there are historians who come to your conclusions and those that come to the opposite ones. By necessity, local landlords and smaller communities were in a much stronger "competition of sorts" with their neighboring "jurisdictions", more effective than our grand nation states with their inter-national tax agreements. Some of them were nasty bastards, but the next one presumably less so. They seriously couldn't indebt themselves and keep raising taxes quite as abusively as today's nation governments do, the world over, and didn't. You do realize than sub-10% taxes were the default scenario in these times long past, and in many European provinces they were in fact paid voluntarily, for real armed protection services that could be denied if you chose not to pay them, but weren't forced to. References / citations? Read Hans Hermann Hoppe's Democracy book, it's full of them.
    - doron 16y ago
      thanks for the reference, in turn i offer Nial Ferguson excellent - the ascent of money. fantastic overview, if only for the analysis of the dramatic effect of fibonacci, and the ascent of the Medici family.

ChristianMarks 16y ago

It's not misleading. The political economic function of the government is to ensure that markets function under controlled conditions. An elaborate government apparatus provides services without which capitalism as we know it today would be inconceivable. Those services are worth something. If you disagree, let the government cease the enforcement of limited liability.

kiba 16y ago
It's not misleading. The political economic function of the government is to ensure that markets function under controlled conditions. An elaborate government apparatus provides services without which capitalism as we know it today would be inconceivable. Those services are worth something. If you disagree, let the government cease the enforcement of limited liability. Libertarians has proposed a number of ways by which to regulate the market economy that doesn't involved coercion. Whether or not that is feasible is another matter entirely. That being said, I prefer the alternative of being a member of the unorganized milita rather than a police state that handle every security services for me. I believed that a professional, well trained army are of some use but they should be limited to a size that doesn't allow them to invade nations and conquer the locals. Wars is the death of empires, nations, and government.
- bpm140 16y ago
  <i>Whether that is feasible is another matter entirely.</i> No, it's not. I could suggest that we can power cold fusion with green cheese but that doesn't mean it will heat your house this winter.
- ChristianMarks 16y ago
  A false dichotomy. The choice isn't between living in a police state and running amok with your slingshot. Enforcing trademarks another example of a social program for business that I guess you could live without. We could disagree about the need for patents and how the US Patent and Trademark office is configured, but most people here, among them entrepreneurs, would agree that trademarks are a good thing, and that they should be enforced. But let's see what happens if we were to hijack each other's brands. Maybe we should take over the YCombinator trademark. After all, enforcing trademarks isn't directly concerned with national defense. In the name of limited government, it's OK to suggest affiliations with corporations by using their trademarks without their approval. Especially since we dyed-in-the-wool libertarians don't believe in negative externalities, and that businesses have the right to do whatever they want. Those other companies with their putative concerns about reputation and perception about their brands, trademarks and logos are third parties to the exercise of our God-given libertarian rights. I only hope my militia is stronger than their militia.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]