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the acts are philosophically different. Stealing from a thief who has stolen from you is also pretty different from stealing from a stranger at the level of per

the acts are philosophically different. Stealing from a thief who has stolen from you is also pretty different from stealing from a stranger at the level of personal ethics.

Retric 2y ago
Few governments aren’t a massive net surplus for their citizens, just look at any failed state to see the alternative. So calling them a thief is almost always purely self serving nonsense.
- pessimizer 2y ago
  > Few governments aren’t a massive net surplus for their citizens If the baseline is a complete lack of social organization, yes. But that's a terrible baseline. You compare governments to other potential governments, not to anarchy. That would be like calling eating six ounces of oatmeal per day a massive net surplus to starving to death; of course it is, but that's the easiest curve in the world. And the fact that you can only have one government at a time means that your current one is blocking all of the others.
  - Retric 2y ago
    > But that's a terrible baseline. Fair but it’s such a massive difference there’s steps up the ladder which are still worse. I’d still be careful when suggesting anything but success is theft, because as you say internal transitions are risky. Migration however has improved the living standards of billions throughout history. Meanwhile just about anywhere today is still better for the average person than living in say medieval Europe or antiquity etc. Falling birth rates provide a significant opportunity for improvement. China isn’t a great place to live, but it’s also now the 2nd most populous country.
    - BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
      I feel like you’re defending terrible governments for no particular reason. Of course it might be better to live in modern china than medieval europe, but this doesn’t defeat the notion that modern china could be made much better for its people if the structure of its government were altered. The point of the argument isn’t, or doesn’t have to be, technicality (“bad governance constitutes theft”) but a statement about what one believes the people deserve. Implicit in the argument is a belief in a social contract being voided by one party, wherein the government makes lacking effort to provide “the best possible governance” and the people respond with disobedience. I’d personally disagree with the notion of a social contract, and argue only from the idea that an alteration to the government could produce better outcomes, but that argument would produce the same sentiment as the one they’re expressing, so in what way would you disagree with their sentiment?
      - lupire 2y ago
        Why did you say "Modern China" instead of "Modern USA" or some other country?
        BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
        Read the end of what i responded to
      - Retric 2y ago
        I’m defending social order not terrible government. Governments can be a pure net negative, but that’s really rare. I disagree with the idea that ‘poor performance’ rather than ‘negative performance’ gives someone extra authority. Voiding the social contract by leaving is one thing, but “disobedience” is something else. Anyone can disagree with how a government functions, but individuals who dislike something don’t inherently know how to build a better system. Even non violent means like tax evasion, protests, and voter suppression have real downsides. When people act with the assumption of authority they often result in serious negative consequences and only very rarely cause actual improvement. Taken to the extreme the idea even supports wars of conquest. If your government is even mildly better than another why not ‘improve’ the situation. PS: Which isn’t to say operating within a given system is useless. Convincing others, be that voters or a dictator, can also enact change with less risk. But again well supported arguments are safer than simply persuasive ones, because you can more easily adapt to changing conditions. For example today we have more options, but in the mid 90’s the US environmentalists arguing for nuclear power could have been a meaningful contribution to climate change potentially offsetting ~10 billion tons of CO2 by now. That’s the kind of politics makes strange bedfellows compromise which you don’t see when everyone is throwing around emotionally charged rhetoric. Which sums up my argument, the perfect ideal is often the enemy of the practical.
- comex 2y ago
  Define “net”. An especially corrupt government might be a net surplus compared to anarchy, yet simultaneously a significant net loss compared to a more typical government. Put another way, the government is failing to give its citizens what it owes them. By analogy, suppose your employer pays you half the wage they agreed to pay. That’s still a form of theft, even if you are still at a surplus compared to the alternative of being unemployed.
  - Retric 2y ago
    Ed: When exactly did these governments agree to do better? A restaurant consistently providing bad food isn’t theft, it’s just a poor place to go. I have a great deal of sympathy for people living in areas captured by Russia or locked into North Korea etc, but in general it’s decades to generations of poor performance at this point. > Define “net”. All personal costs vs all personal benefits. Militaries and public roads etc may be basic functions of government but someone needs to pay for them and your personal contribution isn’t enough to completely cover such expenses.
    - lupire 2y ago
      You might do well to read about the fundamentals of political philosophy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract
      - lazide 2y ago
        I doubt very much they don’t know the potential philosophy. Personally though, at some point theoretical vs practical takes precedence yeah. Or are we going to start going around ‘fixing’ everyone else’s political systems? Because historically, that hasn’t exactly helped has it?
      - Retric 2y ago
        That’s not the fundamentals of political philosophy. It’s a western take on political philosophy, there’s many others both from the west and elsewhere.
      - 2y ago
- kazinator 2y ago
  If I rob Peter, but give every penny to Paul, I'm a thief from Peter's perspective.
  - Retric 2y ago
    The question is if I rob Peter, then give him twice as much in return am I still a thief?
    - kazinator 2y ago
      Obviously yes; the surplus had to be taken from someone else.
      - Retric 2y ago
        Not when economies of scale provide an ever larger surplus. Guarding one house in a lawless environment takes less total manpower than guarding a town but not on a per property basis. Enforcing law and order in a country is even more efficient.
        kazinator 2y ago
        Governments don't produce anything. Taxing is only redistribution, not production. You can't tax your way into wealth. Economies of scale are a facet of capitalism. If you rob me but then give me back twice as much, the only way this action is not unfair to someone else is if it has the effect of undoing a robbery. I e the surplus I received in the end is actually restitution. Furthermore, it was taken back from the correctly identified robbers. That's how your Bolsheviks and Leninists justified their ideas and actions: monarchs and capitalists are just parasites who have taken from the people, so if you take it away from them, it's just restitution.
        Retric 2y ago
        > Economies of scale are a facet of capitalism Animal flocking behavior exists from what amounts to economies of scale. Each animal can spend less effort watching their surroundings when there exists a large group with similar motivations. > the only way this action is not unfair to someone else is if it has the effect of undoing a robbery The benefit of a road network grows with the total size of a road network and can therefore quickly exceed the cost of creating and maintaining it. That’s a surplus which has nothing to do with moving money from individual A to individual B. It’s a surplus derived from scale not the efficiency of construing individual segments of road.
- andrewflnr 2y ago
  People tend to judge their government by the standard of what it could be if it just exercised common decency and honesty, not by comparison to failed states or anarchy. Personally I think this is the correct standard.
kazinator 2y ago
It's not stealing until you've recovered what was taken from you plus some discretionary punitive amount. Beyond that it swings into theft.

the acts are philosophically different. Stealing from a thief who has stolen from you is also pretty different from stealing from a stranger at the level of personal ethics.

Retric 2y ago

Few governments aren’t a massive net surplus for their citizens, just look at any failed state to see the alternative. So calling them a thief is almost always purely self serving nonsense.

pessimizer 2y ago
> Few governments aren’t a massive net surplus for their citizens If the baseline is a complete lack of social organization, yes. But that's a terrible baseline. You compare governments to other potential governments, not to anarchy. That would be like calling eating six ounces of oatmeal per day a massive net surplus to starving to death; of course it is, but that's the easiest curve in the world. And the fact that you can only have one government at a time means that your current one is blocking all of the others.
- Retric 2y ago
  > But that's a terrible baseline. Fair but it’s such a massive difference there’s steps up the ladder which are still worse. I’d still be careful when suggesting anything but success is theft, because as you say internal transitions are risky. Migration however has improved the living standards of billions throughout history. Meanwhile just about anywhere today is still better for the average person than living in say medieval Europe or antiquity etc. Falling birth rates provide a significant opportunity for improvement. China isn’t a great place to live, but it’s also now the 2nd most populous country.
  - BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
    I feel like you’re defending terrible governments for no particular reason. Of course it might be better to live in modern china than medieval europe, but this doesn’t defeat the notion that modern china could be made much better for its people if the structure of its government were altered. The point of the argument isn’t, or doesn’t have to be, technicality (“bad governance constitutes theft”) but a statement about what one believes the people deserve. Implicit in the argument is a belief in a social contract being voided by one party, wherein the government makes lacking effort to provide “the best possible governance” and the people respond with disobedience. I’d personally disagree with the notion of a social contract, and argue only from the idea that an alteration to the government could produce better outcomes, but that argument would produce the same sentiment as the one they’re expressing, so in what way would you disagree with their sentiment?
    - lupire 2y ago
      Why did you say "Modern China" instead of "Modern USA" or some other country?
      - BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
        Read the end of what i responded to
    - Retric 2y ago
      I’m defending social order not terrible government. Governments can be a pure net negative, but that’s really rare. I disagree with the idea that ‘poor performance’ rather than ‘negative performance’ gives someone extra authority. Voiding the social contract by leaving is one thing, but “disobedience” is something else. Anyone can disagree with how a government functions, but individuals who dislike something don’t inherently know how to build a better system. Even non violent means like tax evasion, protests, and voter suppression have real downsides. When people act with the assumption of authority they often result in serious negative consequences and only very rarely cause actual improvement. Taken to the extreme the idea even supports wars of conquest. If your government is even mildly better than another why not ‘improve’ the situation. PS: Which isn’t to say operating within a given system is useless. Convincing others, be that voters or a dictator, can also enact change with less risk. But again well supported arguments are safer than simply persuasive ones, because you can more easily adapt to changing conditions. For example today we have more options, but in the mid 90’s the US environmentalists arguing for nuclear power could have been a meaningful contribution to climate change potentially offsetting ~10 billion tons of CO2 by now. That’s the kind of politics makes strange bedfellows compromise which you don’t see when everyone is throwing around emotionally charged rhetoric. Which sums up my argument, the perfect ideal is often the enemy of the practical.
comex 2y ago
Define “net”. An especially corrupt government might be a net surplus compared to anarchy, yet simultaneously a significant net loss compared to a more typical government. Put another way, the government is failing to give its citizens what it owes them. By analogy, suppose your employer pays you half the wage they agreed to pay. That’s still a form of theft, even if you are still at a surplus compared to the alternative of being unemployed.
- Retric 2y ago
  Ed: When exactly did these governments agree to do better? A restaurant consistently providing bad food isn’t theft, it’s just a poor place to go. I have a great deal of sympathy for people living in areas captured by Russia or locked into North Korea etc, but in general it’s decades to generations of poor performance at this point. > Define “net”. All personal costs vs all personal benefits. Militaries and public roads etc may be basic functions of government but someone needs to pay for them and your personal contribution isn’t enough to completely cover such expenses.
  - lupire 2y ago
    You might do well to read about the fundamentals of political philosophy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract
    - lazide 2y ago
      I doubt very much they don’t know the potential philosophy. Personally though, at some point theoretical vs practical takes precedence yeah. Or are we going to start going around ‘fixing’ everyone else’s political systems? Because historically, that hasn’t exactly helped has it?
    - Retric 2y ago
      That’s not the fundamentals of political philosophy. It’s a western take on political philosophy, there’s many others both from the west and elsewhere.
    - 2y ago
kazinator 2y ago
If I rob Peter, but give every penny to Paul, I'm a thief from Peter's perspective.
- Retric 2y ago
  The question is if I rob Peter, then give him twice as much in return am I still a thief?
  - kazinator 2y ago
    Obviously yes; the surplus had to be taken from someone else.
    - Retric 2y ago
      Not when economies of scale provide an ever larger surplus. Guarding one house in a lawless environment takes less total manpower than guarding a town but not on a per property basis. Enforcing law and order in a country is even more efficient.
      - kazinator 2y ago
        Governments don't produce anything. Taxing is only redistribution, not production. You can't tax your way into wealth. Economies of scale are a facet of capitalism. If you rob me but then give me back twice as much, the only way this action is not unfair to someone else is if it has the effect of undoing a robbery. I e the surplus I received in the end is actually restitution. Furthermore, it was taken back from the correctly identified robbers. That's how your Bolsheviks and Leninists justified their ideas and actions: monarchs and capitalists are just parasites who have taken from the people, so if you take it away from them, it's just restitution.
        Retric 2y ago
        > Economies of scale are a facet of capitalism Animal flocking behavior exists from what amounts to economies of scale. Each animal can spend less effort watching their surroundings when there exists a large group with similar motivations. > the only way this action is not unfair to someone else is if it has the effect of undoing a robbery The benefit of a road network grows with the total size of a road network and can therefore quickly exceed the cost of creating and maintaining it. That’s a surplus which has nothing to do with moving money from individual A to individual B. It’s a surplus derived from scale not the efficiency of construing individual segments of road.
andrewflnr 2y ago
People tend to judge their government by the standard of what it could be if it just exercised common decency and honesty, not by comparison to failed states or anarchy. Personally I think this is the correct standard.

kazinator 2y ago

It's not stealing until you've recovered what was taken from you plus some discretionary punitive amount. Beyond that it swings into theft.