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Life as a Service

167 points by emwa 14y ago

tzaman 14y ago
Great analogy, it seems like you live right next door :)
davidkatz 14y ago
There's a serious discussion here which seems ignored. It is: "what are the pros and cons of government forced 'terms of life'". Without that discussion, it seems to me that most of the complaints in the article remain a curiosity.
- zerostar07 14y ago
  The underlying idea is that you have silently agreed to a social contract by participating in the society. Of course, children are not likely to understand the reasons why this is a good idea for most people. One can freely choose to live like an outlaw or outside of society, with all the pros and cons that come with it. This kind of nostalgia is similar to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weltschmerz http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weltschmerz
peteretep 14y ago
Can't you simply renounce your citizenship at 18?
- vasco 14y ago
  One would think that if one was to renounce its citizenship, waiting for a predefined age set by whom you will be renouncing would be rather odd.
  - peteretep 14y ago
    Defacto your legal guardians have signed you up to this until the age of majority. That seems pretty reasonable, under any jurisdiction.
    - adaml_623 14y ago
      'legal guardians' AND 'jurisdiction'. These are concepts that weren't negotiated when signing up for the L-a-a-S. (just continuing OPs direction of thought)
      - peteretep 14y ago
        This reduces to absurdity pretty quickly, when you start complaining that babies don't sign up for any of the decisions their parents make on their behalf. No shit. Almost everything your parents sign you up for can be undone at an age that's almost universally close to 18 from the perspective of the state. Compare and contrast that with Islamic or Scientological interpretation of apostacy if you're really looking for a service your parents signed you up for and you can't easily get out of...
nagnatron 14y ago
This hits very close and I guess you only realize it if at some point of your life you live where you'd rather not but have no way to get out. I need permission from my government if I want to leave the country. Being given a passport is apparently not a right. Oh and they cost quite a bit of money and are valid only 5 years. That works out to a certain amount of money per day just to be able to exist outside the borders of the country I was born in. Good thing it doubles as an ID card, I can save a bit there. Now I’ve never done anything from the list of offenses that would stop me from receiving a passport but I really wonder who gave who the right to stop anybody from going where they wanted to go. It makes very little sense to me, all these countries each with their own set of laws, borders, border guards to keep people out of one place, border guards to keep people in another place and so on. It feels as though they’re all prisons, just large enough that you can’t see the fences on the edge. But the fences are definitely there. And you can only buy your way out. Never mind that to go somewhere else you are also going to have to buy your way in.
- jschuur 14y ago
  I challenge the 'quite a bit of money' part. Fees for a Dutch passport amount to about US $100 at the UK embassy e.g. (I'm Dutch, but live in the UK): http://www.dutchembassyuk.org/page/index.php?i=158 http://www.dutchembassyuk.org/page/index.php?i=158 Sure, $100 sounds low for many people, even though it's a fortune for some. However, spread across a 5 year period, it's a little more than 5 cents a day.
  - rheide 14y ago
    It's tax for living. It's bad.
    - jschuur 14y ago
      It's no such thing. You're not forced to get a passport. Plenty of people live quite happily in the same country or region they were born. People should travel, and experience other cultures, but they're not being forced to pay for a passport if they don't want to. I see $100 as an administrative fee that covers the process of applying for a document, the issuing agency reviewing the credentials of the person applying and then manufacturing it based on the current security standards. If it were free, it would still come out of tax payers money somehow (FWIW, I'm not a Dutch taxpayer, since I don't live there). The fact is, we live in a world with different cultures, different economies, different norms, and some have chosen to place limitations on who may enter/visit/move to them. Having documentation to meet another country's requirements is basic cost of living if I want to participate in a global society. It's simply impractical to erase all border controls and have anyone be able to enter any country without an ID. Poorer populations would seek to better their lot quicker by moving to a richer country, rather than stimulating the economy where they're from. It's not ideal, but we can't live in a world where the entire third world can just decide to move to the industrial world because they don't impose immigration standards. And in order for them to do so, passports are needed. If you can't afford $100 every 5 years, how can you afford to travel to another country?
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Anderkent 14y ago
While some of the complaints are fair, the conclusion is absurd. The rights already clearly outweigh the obligations, which the author confirms himself by stating that "given the option I probably would/should have signed it [the contract". It seems to me the author takes many benefits of having the "Life as a Service" subscription for granted, and thus believes they are not part of the service - that they would persist even if there was no overseeing organization. Just to provide an example, the right to own property is only enforced by the service - without it, you only have the 'right' to own whatever you can defend yourself (or convince someone to defend for you). Thus in the 'LaaS' you have to pay taxes, or your property will be confiscated. Without 'LaaS' you have to be ready to fight for whatever you own, or your property will be confiscated. Seems like a win for me.
- robryan 14y ago
  Yeah, I think it is more about the lack of choice aspect than the result, depending on which country you find yourself in. Coming from a rich country at least you have enough mobility to eventually overcome immigration rules and move pretty much where you desire. Not true of poorer countries though, at least not for most people living in them.
- flyinRyan 14y ago
  But keep in mind; he doesn't seem to be a fan of property rights anyway, so he probably isn't sympathetic to a position of "defending your land".
gws 14y ago
This article leaves me uneasy. We need to separate the process that societies use to determine laws and customs from the outcomes themselves. I'm also against many of the outcomes described in the article but the process used to get there in the countries where Jacques and I live in it's the best process we know of. OK, maybe the least worst is more appropriate but I can't really think anything else I would like to replace Democracy with.
h2s 14y ago
The unordered list is an overused and inadequate replacement for properly structured prose.
mhd 14y ago
My gist of that: society and economy are weird. (Although a few points are, well, a bit silly) Welcome to the human condition, geworfenheit etc.
lifeisstillgood 14y ago
The essence of the (flawed) argument Jacques is making is in his passport section I need permission from my government if I want to leave the country. Oddly, that's not true. A passport is necessary to get into a country, not leave one. The distinction is subtle but important. You can if you wish as an adult, leave the country you are in, and if they will let you in, enter another with a different set of obligations. At worst you can just bob around the Atlantic in a bath tub for a bit. The whole set of complaints boil down to, are there other countries which have a better setup than the country I am in? Can I go now? The answer for anyone in the West is of course, not such that you would notice. And yes, no-one is stopping you. (But I would not recommend the bathtub option) Edit: I just realised that it could read as "well if you dont like it F off." It honestly was not meant like that - but its hard to reword the whole comment now.
- fingerprinter 14y ago
  You need a passport to leave Australia. Australia has immigration on exit. Though, that is the only place I've seen this.
  - wattson12 14y ago
    Ive been through quite a few customs on leaving a country, typically when there is a fixed time limit you are allowed to stay on certain visas
  - mynegation 14y ago
    For me, it is the other way around: US and Canada don't check your passport at exit and when that happened to me for the first time I had to ask airport employee just to make sure I did not take a wrong turn or something. All of EU, All Latin America countries I've been to, Russia and Ukraine check passports and there were and still are countries that you cannot leave without explicit permission from governement (eg North Kirea and Kuba).
- ra 14y ago
  Most countries that require a passport for entry also require one for exit. Otherwise there would be no control to stop people from fleeing the law.
_pferreir_ 14y ago
I think "Life as a Slave" would have been more suitable.
- phn 14y ago
  Have you read anything at all about slavery? Compared to that, being a citizen with rights as well as obligations is a huge blessing.
  - flyinRyan 14y ago
    Well, it depends on which slaves you're talking about. Not being a slave is always better than being one, but sometimes "slave" basically meant being in a lot of debt...
    - _pferreir_ 14y ago
      That's exactly what I meant. Unfortunately, slavery is much more than chains and forced labour.
  - _pferreir_ 14y ago
    I have read about slavery of course, and I'm aware of what the word means. I obviously didn't meant "slave" in the traditional, historical sense. Actually, the OED defines "slave" as "One who is the property of, and entirely subject to, another person, whether by capture, purchase, or birth". That's quite a broad definition, isn't it? Yes, I know I am really fortunate by comparison with most of the world's population, but that's not enough for me, I am sorry. I tend not to look to whatever I have as "blessings", I guess I'm one of the "half-empty" guys.
    - phn 14y ago
      Yeah, I understand that. I actually think is important to find what bothers us despite our "blessings" and try to make it better, we'd be stuck in the past if we didn't. I just found "slavery" a strong word, and that a little perspective on these matters is also very important.
drstrangevibes 14y ago
there are those that believe that the act of registering a birth is construed in law as registering the life of the child to the state, much as a ship is consigned to a port.
fierarul 14y ago
This is a rather poor attempt at philosophy that basically rides on yesterday's blog (the pendulum one) remark about Life-as-a-Service. If anything it should teach people about how to keep the blog audience interested. I was pretty sure I could down-vote by now but apparently I can't downvote articles. I guess I should just upvote everything else on the page...
- icebraining 14y ago
  It's not possibly to downvote articles, only upvote or flag.
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- digitalWestie 14y ago
  Agreed about riding on the back of other articles. Care to explain further? Why is it a poor attempt at philosophy?
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- marklindhout 14y ago
  Riding? Yes. Poor attempt at philosophy? No. This merely describes the daily situation here, and I find myself agreeing with most all of what he says. He is very well-spoken, and I believe it resonates with many people from the Netherlands.
mbrock 14y ago
Furthermore, why must I live inside this sack of greasy skin, with all these disgusting organs?
praptak 14y ago
The author has not really gone beyond stating that we are subject to the social contract (no shit sherlock) and that we should try harder to make this contract much better (ditto.) Go read the Wikipedia article on social contract, it has a much better value per seconds of your attention.
- eli_gottlieb 14y ago
  Yeah, well, this is what you get when you cut out all the political philosophy and liberal arts from the education system: a bunch of libertarian programmers who think they've discovered something really new.
msluyter 14y ago
"Even so, I’d be a lot happier paying taxes if there had been a moment where I was given the choice: pay taxes and have these benefits or be left to your own devices." Except that there's no (current, easy) way of excluding you from various public goods that are paid by taxes. Examples include national defense, public spaces like parks, public highways, fire protection (if you live in shared housing or simply close enough to others such that we can't take the risk of letting your house burn down), etc... That's why these goods are called "non-excludable." See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excludability http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excludability
- praptak 14y ago
  Don't forget the money service - managing supply and providing guarantees for its value. Actually if you manage to exclude yourself from using this particular service you won't have to pay any taxes.
  - Zak 14y ago
    That's not entirely true. I'll confine my response to how things work in the US since that's where I live and it's what I know the most about. Attempting to use an alternate medium of exchange may result in legal problems. In particular, Federal law says: Whoever, except as authorized by law, makes or utters or passes, or attempts to utter or pass, any coins of gold or silver or other metal, or alloys of metals, intended for use as current money, whether in the resemblance of coins of the United States or of foreign countries, or of original design, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. That doesn't seem to exclude exchanging goods or services for precious metals or other commodities so long as they're not cast in to something resembling money. It would be difficult to make small day-to-day purchases that way. The other problem is that income tax law in the US applies to non-monetary compensation. If I pay you 2kg of gold to work for me for a year on a software project and the IRS finds out about it, they will demand that you pay taxes on its dollar value.
    - praptak 14y ago
      Indeed, going barter will probably not let you avoid taxes. I thought of avoiding the use of money by totally withdrawing from the economic exchange.
adaml_623 14y ago
I think the OP's point that we are surrounded by established monopolies is very noticeable nowadays. Copyright agency, Lawyers, Medical practitioners, etc.
- a-priori 14y ago
  s/monopolies/professionals/ You picked a strange list of examples. None of them are monopolies, they're usually individual professionals or small practices.
  - anonymoushn 14y ago
    People are artificially prevented from entering these professions in the United States. A person who spends several years in a library learning about the interpretation and application of the law, and who would be capable of passing a bar exam, is not allowed to take the exam. In all but 2 states, to gain the privilege of taking the exam, he or she must first pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to a law school. In the remaining 2 states, if he or she is old enough (23 or 25, if I recall correctly), it would suffice to instead work for a judge for a couple years. This keeps the supply of professionals low and allows the organizations that sell proffesion-practicing certifications to collect a rent. It's a good scam, and I would prefer to be on the other side of it. As I probably won't be able to achieve this, my close second preference would be for the scam to not exist.
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Grunnt 14y ago
Life is not a service. You did not sign a contract. Not everything is a business agreement. Individualism is not the ultimate value. I guess that is what bugs me the most about this article: the idea that seems to underlie it that humans are all rational beings that are somehow unconnected to society. Or at least the idea that it is morally desirable for this to be the case. I do not agree with this. It is individualism taken too far, beyond where the idea of individualism is meaningful. Human beings need social conditioning as much as they need food and drink to survive. Anarchism is a nice theory (much like pure communism or capitalism) but it disregards the nature of human beings, who need to be embedded in society with all its rules, norms and conditioning mechanisms to function. If you want a different society, go into politics, change things for the better. Don't sit on the couch complaining that the "service" is not as good as you like. p.s. Life is life (nanananana)
- elemenohpee 14y ago
  s/anarchism/libertarianism/ While there are certainly strains of individualist anarchism, the dominant tradition has been that of socialism, which stresses the importance of community and social relations. You seem to be confusing the maxim of "no rulers" with "no rules".
eckyptang 14y ago
Some thoughts on this: You have no obligation to conform to these laws at all. You are not born into a contract. A contract is a piece of paper which you can use to wipe your bum with if you wish. You can in theory do what the hell you like. People regularly do. You can kill people, not pay tax, walk over the border of any country and urinate anywhere you like. The only downside is that someone who does subscribe to the rules will probably throw you in jail or kill you without respecting your choice. Fear of the above is the only reason that the law works at all. When the law becomes bad for the population, which it really is under many common ethical principles these days and it is getting worse, we need to have a revolution to reset the badness. There is no happy solution to adding legislation other than resetting it completely occasionally. Dying and emigrating just bring their own legal problems.
- digitalWestie 14y ago
  Absolutely right - there is no formal contract. What is being reflected on here is really a 'social contract' - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract
  - eckyptang 14y ago
    There is no social contract either. It evaporates in a moment's notice when you break the speed limit or download an mp3.
    - digitalWestie 14y ago
      what do you mean by there being no social contract? When you break the law the state punishes you because you have broken 'social contract'.
      - eckyptang 14y ago
        It's all about trading the social contract against risk of punishment. It's so absolutely unenforceable that more people break the social contract than adhere to it.
olalonde 14y ago
> But it could be so much better if we really tried. For anyone interested in alternative ways to improve government, check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_city http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_city "A charter city is a city in which the governing system is defined by the city's own charter document rather than by state, provincial, regional or national laws." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasteading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasteading "Seasteading is the concept of creating permanent dwellings at sea, called seasteads, outside the territory claimed by the government of any standing nation."
Paul_S 14y ago
Shop around for a country to live in. I wish countries were more accommodating about this. In my dream world like minded people live in the same country. Just think of how great it would be if you didn't have to compromise because everyone in the country were on the same side of (for example) the liberal/conservative divide.
- sdoering 14y ago
  Interesting idea. But I believe, that countries as a whole a too big to be really manageable. I imagine a society living in smaller regions (but big enough for natural resources, et al.) and these regions are part of a bigger structure. Like cells in a body. OK, Germany or the US do have a similar way of organizing, but I would love for these "cells" to be more autonomous, so that like-minded people could "just" switch cells, so that ideologies or political principles would be voted for by feet. Something along these lines. sitting @work, this rough sketch is everything I can offer. And I know, a lot of detail is missing.
  - Paul_S 14y ago
    I think a 2 million city would be big enough. We can call it an special economic area. I do believe this is already happening. We all know that this is the inevitable cyberpunk future - just substitute governments with corporations.
  - innguest 14y ago
    I have come to the same conclusion. I don't understand why we keep voting with ballots and not feet. Does anyone here remember those vertical cities (they were effectively cities) in SimCity 2000 (3000?)? I can't find a picture (EDIT: found it: http://imgur.com/MBAzs http://imgur.com/MBAzs) but ever since I first played that game, that tiny pixelated picture has given me many ideas. Think of a large building with everything you need inside - all big box stores, small businesses, and residences. But in order to live there you need to share a lot in common with the philosophy that building was made for. So there would be one for liberals who are for abortion and for legalizing pot and so on and so forth; there would also be a separate building for all of the tiny variations, and those buildings would literally undergo a kind of natural selection (people would choose where to live) and the least popular ones would keep fine tuning their philosophy to try and attract more people. That way we would all live with like minded people, there would be a lot less of the problems there are in today's society (basically all the proselytizing and wanting others to do as you think is right for them). I'll stop here because I'm saving this stuff for a book or a long article, but Jacques article and your comments here have just alerted me to the fact that there might be other people who think the same as I do. To be frank, I'd much rather have a beer with you all than waste my time typing this crap. We could all do that if we lived in one of those vertical charter cities. :)
eloisant 14y ago
Well, it sounds like a really consumerist way to interpret things. While it is true that some countries will not let you leave your country and will impose obligations even if you don't live in the country, in most western democracies (and in particular the author's country): * You can leave freely * As soon as you're not resident, you pretty much have no obligation toward your origin country - hell, you can even get a citizenship from a different country and be done with it. I think among western democracies, only US imposes taxes on non-residents citizens. Most of the complains are irrelevant - of course they are rules you have to follow, and you didn't decide at some point to "agree" with them. The rules are usually for the benefit of the group, i.e. not being able to use a land you buy for anything you want prevent you to build a chemistry factory in the middle of a residential area.
jonathanleane 14y ago
I had the good fortune of being born Australian. Through sheer dumb luck I'm entitled to: - Free healthcare - Free education - Free roads and parks - Free safety and security (i.e. a relatively well functioning police force that will protect me from violence) These entitlements are far from perfect, and come with the caveat that if and when I start earning money, some of it will be taken from me (by threat of force, if necessary) to go into a communal fund to provide other Australians with these benefits. That sucks a bit, but on the other hand I have a legal right to decide, along with other citizens, on the proportion of my income that is taken, as well as on the people in charge of managing these communal funds. Perhaps more importantly, I get to live in a society where other people get these things too. I'm not saying this from a touchy-feely standpoint - there are huge benefits to the individual living in such a system. Because virtually everyone in my country has food in their stomach, a roof over their head, and a shot at improving their situation through hard work, I rarely feel unsafe. From a purely selfish standpoint, I am extremely grateful that most of the people in my country feel they have more to gain by defending 'the system' than by attacking it. As a business owner, I also have access to a large pool of highly educated people to work with and millions of (relatively) wealthy people to sell my products and services to. I'm not sure where I'm going with this. I quite liked the article and often think about how silly and arbitrary things like nationalism and citizenship are. And yet... Sure it sucks that I never really had the opportunity to opt out of the system, but on the other hand - boy am I lucky that it was opt in by default.
marklindhout 14y ago
If this guy isn't Dutch, I'm the pope. These are quite literally exactly the reasons why I'm emigrating.
edanm 14y ago
A few of these points are interesting, because things don't have to be that way (e.g. various government-granted monopolies). But most of these points are uninteresting, in the sense that I cannot easily imagine alternatives. Public goods are a simple example - there's an economic reason it is not possible to let people opt-out of public goods: you can't not protect some people, so it is in their interest to opt-out and receive protection anyway. So everyone will opt-out. I have a lot of respect for jacquesmattheij, and I love posts that make us reconsider basic assumptions of our society and decide whether they're good or not. Even as a philsophical exercise and without a practical angle, it's interesting. But most of the complaints here don't come with an alternative, so what are we supposed to do with them?
- snitko 14y ago
  May I refer you to David D. Friedman and Murray Rothbard for explanations of how public property would be so much better off as private property and how protection can be both private and optional? I mean you can disagree after reading it, but at least you wouldn't say there's no alternative.
  - edanm 14y ago
    Sure, and thanks. I'm not very well-read in economy but am working on it. Do you have anything specific of theirs in mind?
    - snitko 14y ago
      "For a New Liberty" by Murray Rothbard and "The Machinery Of Freedom" by David D. Friedman.
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flyinRyan 14y ago
The worst part is: if you're a US citizen you're still "opted in" to paying taxes even after you don't live there and no longer use any of the services. In some cases, even if you've never lived there at all or even speak the language (hint: you can get american citizenship from being born on the soil or having a single biological parent who was).
- infinite8s 14y ago
  There's an easy solution to that - renounce your citizenship. What's that? You want to keep your American citizenship? Then you must abide by the social contract underlying that grant of citizenship, which comes with certain benefits/obligations no matter where you are in the world.
  - flyinRyan 14y ago
    Nonsense. First of all, I am giving up my citizenship. But the US and North Korea are the only countries on this planet stupid enough to think people who don't live there anymore owe them money.
jofo25 14y ago
> And if a substantial number of them would opt-out that would be a much clearer sign than any elections ever could give that that society was on the wrong track. I think this is a pretty interesting comment. It sparked the idea of a 'tax-free' zone in each country in my head. Like a area of each country with no government infrastructure or intervention. The proportion of population living in these zones would really give a good indicator of how the countries are treating it's citizens. People would be free to cross this fence whenever they wanted. But in reality I don't think any country would want to give up land for such means.
- gordonguthrie 14y ago
  The US has run this experiment with the frontier. What happened? The communities beyond the frontier organised themselves and asked to be accepted as States of the Union. You can freely move to Liberia now and do this. Buy magically nobody does.
adrianscott 14y ago
"I spent some time researching the emigration options. A lot of time actually. And I’ve found out that the place where I live is in spite of all of the above probably one of the best places on earth to be living at the moment. It’s shocking! Half the world or more of it would be more than happy just to trade with me, and they’d be absolutely right." If you can earn a first-world nation without having to live there, something quite possible in tech, there are a number of countries where many folks can be quite happy and more free. And remember you don't have to just stay in one country, you can travel around a bit and sample countries also. I made the move and it was the right decision to me, imho.
- jonathanleane 14y ago
  Curious as to which countries you were considering, and which one you eventually decided on?
clneagu 14y ago
I'm not seeing anyone complain about the lack of competition for The State. If nothing else why would anyone defend the monopoly of the state? I don't see anyone defending any other monopoly. Why should I be forced to move elsewhere for better service? I understand that for now we don't have a better solution but stop defending the fucking monopoly.
- lmm 14y ago
  I'll defend anything that I see people criticise without offering a better solution.
confluence 14y ago
I've made up my own law of selfish libertarianism - if you'll indulge me: > It's only a liability or an entitlement until you yourself need it - then it's a fucking right. For example being a young white male born into a middle class western family affords you the ability to state "all I need is contract law - everything else is just impinging on my rights and forcing me to take on obligations I don't appear to benefit from - I deserve what I earn." No health problems + family and state support + faulty logic + short sightedness + sex/race advantages = libertarianism. Contract law is no more a right than free health care is. But one definitely serves your self interests better. Rights should be based on the veil of ignorance principle - the weak should be protected and the strong should pay for they are one car crash away from welfare. The lense people should be looking through is that of the weakest in society - not having a geek hissy fit and fantasizing of going Galt because you feel others are holding you back. If you don't like it - leave. Somalia is lovely this time of year I hear.
- eli_gottlieb 14y ago
  Well, contract law and property-title enforcement. Take away private property and Mr. Libertarian isn't going to be so happy that people copied his program-code and took over his factory. Hence why it's properly called proprietarianism: organizing society with private property as the prime principle.
- yummyfajitas 14y ago
  Rights should be based on the veil of ignorance principle - the weak should be protected and the strong should pay for they are one car crash away from welfare. Your moral values seems to hold that individuals have few rights, and that collectively we should operate from the principle of infinite risk aversion (i.e., the Rawlsian veil of ignorance). Great - we all agree that if these are your values, Libertarianism is not the political philosophy for you. It's amusing that while mocking Rand, you make the exact same fallacy she makes in Atlas Shrugged: "anyone who disagrees with me must be evil and selfish, with no moral values." If you don't like it - leave. Somalia is lovely this time of year I hear. I'm constantly confused when those who oppose libertarianism bring up Somalia. What is the relevance?
rglover 14y ago
This article is brilliant. Each and every point Jacques makes is spot-on. I'm sure many will disagree with his stance, but he makes an excellent point. Irrespective of our personal preference, we are effectively locked in to and subordinate of our government and its policies. Any self-respecting human who has contemplated this should be sick to their stomach. Realize this: we're floating in space. Not one soul on this planet knows why we're here, where we're going, or how we should conduct ourselves. In essence we've been handed our own "Gary's Mod" and yet we've resolved to have infinite and mostly useless structure. I'm not praising anarchy, but like what was mentioned in this piece, I should have a choice.
- infinite8s 14y ago
  Why should you have a choice? Taking this article to it's logical conclusion, no obligations nor rights should be granted to you. As another commenter above mentioned so brilliantly, individuals don't have rights. Rights only arise in groups of individuals.
  - Buzaga 14y ago
    I fail to see the reason in that statement, why is it so brilliant?
  - rglover 14y ago
    We should all have a choice because we're all exactly the same. We're made of the exact same stuff that's floating out in the universe. There is no universal code that says one group of humans (or individual) should control/rule another. It's all made up by humans and it's going to kill us in the long run.
potatolicious 14y ago
Given how often libertarianism comes up around and here and some of the attitudes that are repeated demonstrated, it's pretty clear that a large segment of HN's population has never been in a disadvantaged situation in life, either in economics, geography, or race.
- AngrySkillzz 14y ago
  I'm not sure that this article is advocating libertarianism per-se, more that it is pointing out oddities in our current system. It doesn't make the claim that life would be better off with less support or regulation.
  - forensic 14y ago
    They're only oddities to well-off straight white able-bodied males with no perspective. These "oddities" exist for good practical reasons and the government is there for all people not just the nerd faction who decide they only want the government functions that benefit them personally.
fghh45sdfhr3 14y ago
Holland right? Is that the place he is talking about? I wonder how he feels about Switzerland, or say Canada?
cafard 14y ago
According to Henry Sumner Maine, the development of law in the west was one of movement from status to contract. According to Mr. Mattheij, it hasn't gone far enough, I gather.
unreal37 14y ago
Ah Jacques. You've posted some brilliant articles, Three Roads to the Top of the Mountain[1] is among the best articles I've read on starting a business. In fact, I will go and read it again after posting this. And seek out some other good startup/business related articles you have written. But this Life as a Service article is just incomprehensible to me coming from you. How selfish! How can the same person who posted the Top of the Mountain post write this? Not sure how life in the Netherlands is so much different from here in Canada, but the article is full of things that are either not true, or overblown. It's depressing to read, and a sad attempt to tear up the social contract we all must be a part of. "I have no problem paying taxes, but I wish I had a choice about it." You can't give people a choice about it. You can't have a society supported by some people with loads of people refusing to support it. (Too poor to support it is different.) And how can you complain about that AND complain that the rich and royalty are above the law? You're arguing both sides! Maybe you want to go find a remote outpost in the Northern tip of your country that you truly get no government services provided to you - no roads, no police, no hospitals, no ID required, no electricity, no internet, or phone service... go do that. But if you are part of society, you must be part of the social contract. Better to accept that and go on to do (or write) something productive that adds value.. [1]http://jacquesmattheij.com/three+roads+to+the+top+of+the+mountain http://jacquesmattheij.com/three+roads+to+the+top+of+the+mou...
Buzaga 14y ago
I've thought about this some times, it's a hard thing to wrap logic around, definitely... but here's two things that are a bit unsettling to me on this topic: - life is paid, you can't just go to some abandoned place, raise chicken and plants and live off of it and if you can't pay for your life you either turn yourself into a slave(living to pay to be alive) or you're made into the worst thing possible, with all your dignity taken from you(be a bum and face everything that's left when you can't pay for a life, even the ones created by the system itself) - why can't there be competition? it made me remember this article: http://www.fastcoexist.com/1678720/former-seasteaders-come-ashore-to-start-libertarian-utopias-in-honduran-jungle http://www.fastcoexist.com/1678720/former-seasteaders-come-a... what would happen if different state models were allowed to exist and they proved to be less corrupt, safer, fairer, happier and people just started migrating to this better states(from what I took they'd still live in capitalism)? I'm almost sure other governments wouldn't let it happen, and this takes me to another unsettling thought that is how, as much as people wan't freedom and dignity, governments want the power, they're barely ever accountable and they don't have competition, they own the game. Well, just thoughts..

167 points by emwa 14y ago

Great analogy, it seems like you live right next door :)

There's a serious discussion here which seems ignored. It is: "what are the pros and cons of government forced 'terms of life'". Without that discussion, it seems to me that most of the complaints in the article remain a curiosity.

zerostar07 14y ago
The underlying idea is that you have silently agreed to a social contract by participating in the society. Of course, children are not likely to understand the reasons why this is a good idea for most people. One can freely choose to live like an outlaw or outside of society, with all the pros and cons that come with it. This kind of nostalgia is similar to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weltschmerz http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weltschmerz

peteretep 14y ago

Can't you simply renounce your citizenship at 18?

vasco 14y ago
One would think that if one was to renounce its citizenship, waiting for a predefined age set by whom you will be renouncing would be rather odd.
- peteretep 14y ago
  Defacto your legal guardians have signed you up to this until the age of majority. That seems pretty reasonable, under any jurisdiction.
  - adaml_623 14y ago
    'legal guardians' AND 'jurisdiction'. These are concepts that weren't negotiated when signing up for the L-a-a-S. (just continuing OPs direction of thought)
    - peteretep 14y ago
      This reduces to absurdity pretty quickly, when you start complaining that babies don't sign up for any of the decisions their parents make on their behalf. No shit. Almost everything your parents sign you up for can be undone at an age that's almost universally close to 18 from the perspective of the state. Compare and contrast that with Islamic or Scientological interpretation of apostacy if you're really looking for a service your parents signed you up for and you can't easily get out of...

nagnatron 14y ago

This hits very close and I guess you only realize it if at some point of your life you live where you'd rather not but have no way to get out. I need permission from my government if I want to leave the country. Being given a passport is apparently not a right. Oh and they cost quite a bit of money and are valid only 5 years. That works out to a certain amount of money per day just to be able to exist outside the borders of the country I was born in. Good thing it doubles as an ID card, I can save a bit there. Now I’ve never done anything from the list of offenses that would stop me from receiving a passport but I really wonder who gave who the right to stop anybody from going where they wanted to go. It makes very little sense to me, all these countries each with their own set of laws, borders, border guards to keep people out of one place, border guards to keep people in another place and so on. It feels as though they’re all prisons, just large enough that you can’t see the fences on the edge. But the fences are definitely there. And you can only buy your way out. Never mind that to go somewhere else you are also going to have to buy your way in.

jschuur 14y ago
I challenge the 'quite a bit of money' part. Fees for a Dutch passport amount to about US $100 at the UK embassy e.g. (I'm Dutch, but live in the UK): http://www.dutchembassyuk.org/page/index.php?i=158 http://www.dutchembassyuk.org/page/index.php?i=158 Sure, $100 sounds low for many people, even though it's a fortune for some. However, spread across a 5 year period, it's a little more than 5 cents a day.
- rheide 14y ago
  It's tax for living. It's bad.
  - jschuur 14y ago
    It's no such thing. You're not forced to get a passport. Plenty of people live quite happily in the same country or region they were born. People should travel, and experience other cultures, but they're not being forced to pay for a passport if they don't want to. I see $100 as an administrative fee that covers the process of applying for a document, the issuing agency reviewing the credentials of the person applying and then manufacturing it based on the current security standards. If it were free, it would still come out of tax payers money somehow (FWIW, I'm not a Dutch taxpayer, since I don't live there). The fact is, we live in a world with different cultures, different economies, different norms, and some have chosen to place limitations on who may enter/visit/move to them. Having documentation to meet another country's requirements is basic cost of living if I want to participate in a global society. It's simply impractical to erase all border controls and have anyone be able to enter any country without an ID. Poorer populations would seek to better their lot quicker by moving to a richer country, rather than stimulating the economy where they're from. It's not ideal, but we can't live in a world where the entire third world can just decide to move to the industrial world because they don't impose immigration standards. And in order for them to do so, passports are needed. If you can't afford $100 every 5 years, how can you afford to travel to another country?

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Anderkent 14y ago

While some of the complaints are fair, the conclusion is absurd. The rights already clearly outweigh the obligations, which the author confirms himself by stating that "given the option I probably would/should have signed it [the contract". It seems to me the author takes many benefits of having the "Life as a Service" subscription for granted, and thus believes they are not part of the service - that they would persist even if there was no overseeing organization. Just to provide an example, the right to own property is only enforced by the service - without it, you only have the 'right' to own whatever you can defend yourself (or convince someone to defend for you). Thus in the 'LaaS' you have to pay taxes, or your property will be confiscated. Without 'LaaS' you have to be ready to fight for whatever you own, or your property will be confiscated. Seems like a win for me.

robryan 14y ago
Yeah, I think it is more about the lack of choice aspect than the result, depending on which country you find yourself in. Coming from a rich country at least you have enough mobility to eventually overcome immigration rules and move pretty much where you desire. Not true of poorer countries though, at least not for most people living in them.
flyinRyan 14y ago
But keep in mind; he doesn't seem to be a fan of property rights anyway, so he probably isn't sympathetic to a position of "defending your land".

gws 14y ago

This article leaves me uneasy. We need to separate the process that societies use to determine laws and customs from the outcomes themselves. I'm also against many of the outcomes described in the article but the process used to get there in the countries where Jacques and I live in it's the best process we know of. OK, maybe the least worst is more appropriate but I can't really think anything else I would like to replace Democracy with.

h2s 14y ago

The unordered list is an overused and inadequate replacement for properly structured prose.

mhd 14y ago

My gist of that: society and economy are weird. (Although a few points are, well, a bit silly) Welcome to the human condition, geworfenheit etc.

lifeisstillgood 14y ago

The essence of the (flawed) argument Jacques is making is in his passport section I need permission from my government if I want to leave the country. Oddly, that's not true. A passport is necessary to get into a country, not leave one. The distinction is subtle but important. You can if you wish as an adult, leave the country you are in, and if they will let you in, enter another with a different set of obligations. At worst you can just bob around the Atlantic in a bath tub for a bit. The whole set of complaints boil down to, are there other countries which have a better setup than the country I am in? Can I go now? The answer for anyone in the West is of course, not such that you would notice. And yes, no-one is stopping you. (But I would not recommend the bathtub option) Edit: I just realised that it could read as "well if you dont like it F off." It honestly was not meant like that - but its hard to reword the whole comment now.

fingerprinter 14y ago
You need a passport to leave Australia. Australia has immigration on exit. Though, that is the only place I've seen this.
- wattson12 14y ago
  Ive been through quite a few customs on leaving a country, typically when there is a fixed time limit you are allowed to stay on certain visas
- mynegation 14y ago
  For me, it is the other way around: US and Canada don't check your passport at exit and when that happened to me for the first time I had to ask airport employee just to make sure I did not take a wrong turn or something. All of EU, All Latin America countries I've been to, Russia and Ukraine check passports and there were and still are countries that you cannot leave without explicit permission from governement (eg North Kirea and Kuba).
ra 14y ago
Most countries that require a passport for entry also require one for exit. Otherwise there would be no control to stop people from fleeing the law.

_pferreir_ 14y ago

I think "Life as a Slave" would have been more suitable.

phn 14y ago
Have you read anything at all about slavery? Compared to that, being a citizen with rights as well as obligations is a huge blessing.
- flyinRyan 14y ago
  Well, it depends on which slaves you're talking about. Not being a slave is always better than being one, but sometimes "slave" basically meant being in a lot of debt...
  - _pferreir_ 14y ago
    That's exactly what I meant. Unfortunately, slavery is much more than chains and forced labour.
- _pferreir_ 14y ago
  I have read about slavery of course, and I'm aware of what the word means. I obviously didn't meant "slave" in the traditional, historical sense. Actually, the OED defines "slave" as "One who is the property of, and entirely subject to, another person, whether by capture, purchase, or birth". That's quite a broad definition, isn't it? Yes, I know I am really fortunate by comparison with most of the world's population, but that's not enough for me, I am sorry. I tend not to look to whatever I have as "blessings", I guess I'm one of the "half-empty" guys.
  - phn 14y ago
    Yeah, I understand that. I actually think is important to find what bothers us despite our "blessings" and try to make it better, we'd be stuck in the past if we didn't. I just found "slavery" a strong word, and that a little perspective on these matters is also very important.

drstrangevibes 14y ago

there are those that believe that the act of registering a birth is construed in law as registering the life of the child to the state, much as a ship is consigned to a port.

fierarul 14y ago

This is a rather poor attempt at philosophy that basically rides on yesterday's blog (the pendulum one) remark about Life-as-a-Service. If anything it should teach people about how to keep the blog audience interested. I was pretty sure I could down-vote by now but apparently I can't downvote articles. I guess I should just upvote everything else on the page...

icebraining 14y ago
It's not possibly to downvote articles, only upvote or flag.
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digitalWestie 14y ago
Agreed about riding on the back of other articles. Care to explain further? Why is it a poor attempt at philosophy?
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marklindhout 14y ago
Riding? Yes. Poor attempt at philosophy? No. This merely describes the daily situation here, and I find myself agreeing with most all of what he says. He is very well-spoken, and I believe it resonates with many people from the Netherlands.

mbrock 14y ago

Furthermore, why must I live inside this sack of greasy skin, with all these disgusting organs?

praptak 14y ago

The author has not really gone beyond stating that we are subject to the social contract (no shit sherlock) and that we should try harder to make this contract much better (ditto.) Go read the Wikipedia article on social contract, it has a much better value per seconds of your attention.

eli_gottlieb 14y ago
Yeah, well, this is what you get when you cut out all the political philosophy and liberal arts from the education system: a bunch of libertarian programmers who think they've discovered something really new.

msluyter 14y ago

"Even so, I’d be a lot happier paying taxes if there had been a moment where I was given the choice: pay taxes and have these benefits or be left to your own devices." Except that there's no (current, easy) way of excluding you from various public goods that are paid by taxes. Examples include national defense, public spaces like parks, public highways, fire protection (if you live in shared housing or simply close enough to others such that we can't take the risk of letting your house burn down), etc... That's why these goods are called "non-excludable." See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excludability http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excludability

praptak 14y ago
Don't forget the money service - managing supply and providing guarantees for its value. Actually if you manage to exclude yourself from using this particular service you won't have to pay any taxes.
- Zak 14y ago
  That's not entirely true. I'll confine my response to how things work in the US since that's where I live and it's what I know the most about. Attempting to use an alternate medium of exchange may result in legal problems. In particular, Federal law says: Whoever, except as authorized by law, makes or utters or passes, or attempts to utter or pass, any coins of gold or silver or other metal, or alloys of metals, intended for use as current money, whether in the resemblance of coins of the United States or of foreign countries, or of original design, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. That doesn't seem to exclude exchanging goods or services for precious metals or other commodities so long as they're not cast in to something resembling money. It would be difficult to make small day-to-day purchases that way. The other problem is that income tax law in the US applies to non-monetary compensation. If I pay you 2kg of gold to work for me for a year on a software project and the IRS finds out about it, they will demand that you pay taxes on its dollar value.
  - praptak 14y ago
    Indeed, going barter will probably not let you avoid taxes. I thought of avoiding the use of money by totally withdrawing from the economic exchange.

adaml_623 14y ago

I think the OP's point that we are surrounded by established monopolies is very noticeable nowadays. Copyright agency, Lawyers, Medical practitioners, etc.

a-priori 14y ago
s/monopolies/professionals/ You picked a strange list of examples. None of them are monopolies, they're usually individual professionals or small practices.
- anonymoushn 14y ago
  People are artificially prevented from entering these professions in the United States. A person who spends several years in a library learning about the interpretation and application of the law, and who would be capable of passing a bar exam, is not allowed to take the exam. In all but 2 states, to gain the privilege of taking the exam, he or she must first pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to a law school. In the remaining 2 states, if he or she is old enough (23 or 25, if I recall correctly), it would suffice to instead work for a judge for a couple years. This keeps the supply of professionals low and allows the organizations that sell proffesion-practicing certifications to collect a rent. It's a good scam, and I would prefer to be on the other side of it. As I probably won't be able to achieve this, my close second preference would be for the scam to not exist.
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Grunnt 14y ago

Life is not a service. You did not sign a contract. Not everything is a business agreement. Individualism is not the ultimate value. I guess that is what bugs me the most about this article: the idea that seems to underlie it that humans are all rational beings that are somehow unconnected to society. Or at least the idea that it is morally desirable for this to be the case. I do not agree with this. It is individualism taken too far, beyond where the idea of individualism is meaningful. Human beings need social conditioning as much as they need food and drink to survive. Anarchism is a nice theory (much like pure communism or capitalism) but it disregards the nature of human beings, who need to be embedded in society with all its rules, norms and conditioning mechanisms to function. If you want a different society, go into politics, change things for the better. Don't sit on the couch complaining that the "service" is not as good as you like. p.s. Life is life (nanananana)

elemenohpee 14y ago
s/anarchism/libertarianism/ While there are certainly strains of individualist anarchism, the dominant tradition has been that of socialism, which stresses the importance of community and social relations. You seem to be confusing the maxim of "no rulers" with "no rules".

eckyptang 14y ago

Some thoughts on this: You have no obligation to conform to these laws at all. You are not born into a contract. A contract is a piece of paper which you can use to wipe your bum with if you wish. You can in theory do what the hell you like. People regularly do. You can kill people, not pay tax, walk over the border of any country and urinate anywhere you like. The only downside is that someone who does subscribe to the rules will probably throw you in jail or kill you without respecting your choice. Fear of the above is the only reason that the law works at all. When the law becomes bad for the population, which it really is under many common ethical principles these days and it is getting worse, we need to have a revolution to reset the badness. There is no happy solution to adding legislation other than resetting it completely occasionally. Dying and emigrating just bring their own legal problems.

digitalWestie 14y ago
Absolutely right - there is no formal contract. What is being reflected on here is really a 'social contract' - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract
- eckyptang 14y ago
  There is no social contract either. It evaporates in a moment's notice when you break the speed limit or download an mp3.
  - digitalWestie 14y ago
    what do you mean by there being no social contract? When you break the law the state punishes you because you have broken 'social contract'.
    - eckyptang 14y ago
      It's all about trading the social contract against risk of punishment. It's so absolutely unenforceable that more people break the social contract than adhere to it.

olalonde 14y ago

> But it could be so much better if we really tried. For anyone interested in alternative ways to improve government, check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_city http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_city "A charter city is a city in which the governing system is defined by the city's own charter document rather than by state, provincial, regional or national laws." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasteading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasteading "Seasteading is the concept of creating permanent dwellings at sea, called seasteads, outside the territory claimed by the government of any standing nation."

Paul_S 14y ago

Shop around for a country to live in. I wish countries were more accommodating about this. In my dream world like minded people live in the same country. Just think of how great it would be if you didn't have to compromise because everyone in the country were on the same side of (for example) the liberal/conservative divide.

sdoering 14y ago
Interesting idea. But I believe, that countries as a whole a too big to be really manageable. I imagine a society living in smaller regions (but big enough for natural resources, et al.) and these regions are part of a bigger structure. Like cells in a body. OK, Germany or the US do have a similar way of organizing, but I would love for these "cells" to be more autonomous, so that like-minded people could "just" switch cells, so that ideologies or political principles would be voted for by feet. Something along these lines. sitting @work, this rough sketch is everything I can offer. And I know, a lot of detail is missing.
- Paul_S 14y ago
  I think a 2 million city would be big enough. We can call it an special economic area. I do believe this is already happening. We all know that this is the inevitable cyberpunk future - just substitute governments with corporations.
- innguest 14y ago
  I have come to the same conclusion. I don't understand why we keep voting with ballots and not feet. Does anyone here remember those vertical cities (they were effectively cities) in SimCity 2000 (3000?)? I can't find a picture (EDIT: found it: http://imgur.com/MBAzs http://imgur.com/MBAzs) but ever since I first played that game, that tiny pixelated picture has given me many ideas. Think of a large building with everything you need inside - all big box stores, small businesses, and residences. But in order to live there you need to share a lot in common with the philosophy that building was made for. So there would be one for liberals who are for abortion and for legalizing pot and so on and so forth; there would also be a separate building for all of the tiny variations, and those buildings would literally undergo a kind of natural selection (people would choose where to live) and the least popular ones would keep fine tuning their philosophy to try and attract more people. That way we would all live with like minded people, there would be a lot less of the problems there are in today's society (basically all the proselytizing and wanting others to do as you think is right for them). I'll stop here because I'm saving this stuff for a book or a long article, but Jacques article and your comments here have just alerted me to the fact that there might be other people who think the same as I do. To be frank, I'd much rather have a beer with you all than waste my time typing this crap. We could all do that if we lived in one of those vertical charter cities. :)

eloisant 14y ago

Well, it sounds like a really consumerist way to interpret things. While it is true that some countries will not let you leave your country and will impose obligations even if you don't live in the country, in most western democracies (and in particular the author's country): * You can leave freely * As soon as you're not resident, you pretty much have no obligation toward your origin country - hell, you can even get a citizenship from a different country and be done with it. I think among western democracies, only US imposes taxes on non-residents citizens. Most of the complains are irrelevant - of course they are rules you have to follow, and you didn't decide at some point to "agree" with them. The rules are usually for the benefit of the group, i.e. not being able to use a land you buy for anything you want prevent you to build a chemistry factory in the middle of a residential area.

jonathanleane 14y ago

I had the good fortune of being born Australian. Through sheer dumb luck I'm entitled to: - Free healthcare - Free education - Free roads and parks - Free safety and security (i.e. a relatively well functioning police force that will protect me from violence) These entitlements are far from perfect, and come with the caveat that if and when I start earning money, some of it will be taken from me (by threat of force, if necessary) to go into a communal fund to provide other Australians with these benefits. That sucks a bit, but on the other hand I have a legal right to decide, along with other citizens, on the proportion of my income that is taken, as well as on the people in charge of managing these communal funds. Perhaps more importantly, I get to live in a society where other people get these things too. I'm not saying this from a touchy-feely standpoint - there are huge benefits to the individual living in such a system. Because virtually everyone in my country has food in their stomach, a roof over their head, and a shot at improving their situation through hard work, I rarely feel unsafe. From a purely selfish standpoint, I am extremely grateful that most of the people in my country feel they have more to gain by defending 'the system' than by attacking it. As a business owner, I also have access to a large pool of highly educated people to work with and millions of (relatively) wealthy people to sell my products and services to. I'm not sure where I'm going with this. I quite liked the article and often think about how silly and arbitrary things like nationalism and citizenship are. And yet... Sure it sucks that I never really had the opportunity to opt out of the system, but on the other hand - boy am I lucky that it was opt in by default.

marklindhout 14y ago

If this guy isn't Dutch, I'm the pope. These are quite literally exactly the reasons why I'm emigrating.

edanm 14y ago

A few of these points are interesting, because things don't have to be that way (e.g. various government-granted monopolies). But most of these points are uninteresting, in the sense that I cannot easily imagine alternatives. Public goods are a simple example - there's an economic reason it is not possible to let people opt-out of public goods: you can't not protect some people, so it is in their interest to opt-out and receive protection anyway. So everyone will opt-out. I have a lot of respect for jacquesmattheij, and I love posts that make us reconsider basic assumptions of our society and decide whether they're good or not. Even as a philsophical exercise and without a practical angle, it's interesting. But most of the complaints here don't come with an alternative, so what are we supposed to do with them?

snitko 14y ago
May I refer you to David D. Friedman and Murray Rothbard for explanations of how public property would be so much better off as private property and how protection can be both private and optional? I mean you can disagree after reading it, but at least you wouldn't say there's no alternative.
- edanm 14y ago
  Sure, and thanks. I'm not very well-read in economy but am working on it. Do you have anything specific of theirs in mind?
  - snitko 14y ago
    "For a New Liberty" by Murray Rothbard and "The Machinery Of Freedom" by David D. Friedman.
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flyinRyan 14y ago

The worst part is: if you're a US citizen you're still "opted in" to paying taxes even after you don't live there and no longer use any of the services. In some cases, even if you've never lived there at all or even speak the language (hint: you can get american citizenship from being born on the soil or having a single biological parent who was).

infinite8s 14y ago
There's an easy solution to that - renounce your citizenship. What's that? You want to keep your American citizenship? Then you must abide by the social contract underlying that grant of citizenship, which comes with certain benefits/obligations no matter where you are in the world.
- flyinRyan 14y ago
  Nonsense. First of all, I am giving up my citizenship. But the US and North Korea are the only countries on this planet stupid enough to think people who don't live there anymore owe them money.

jofo25 14y ago

> And if a substantial number of them would opt-out that would be a much clearer sign than any elections ever could give that that society was on the wrong track. I think this is a pretty interesting comment. It sparked the idea of a 'tax-free' zone in each country in my head. Like a area of each country with no government infrastructure or intervention. The proportion of population living in these zones would really give a good indicator of how the countries are treating it's citizens. People would be free to cross this fence whenever they wanted. But in reality I don't think any country would want to give up land for such means.

gordonguthrie 14y ago
The US has run this experiment with the frontier. What happened? The communities beyond the frontier organised themselves and asked to be accepted as States of the Union. You can freely move to Liberia now and do this. Buy magically nobody does.

adrianscott 14y ago

"I spent some time researching the emigration options. A lot of time actually. And I’ve found out that the place where I live is in spite of all of the above probably one of the best places on earth to be living at the moment. It’s shocking! Half the world or more of it would be more than happy just to trade with me, and they’d be absolutely right." If you can earn a first-world nation without having to live there, something quite possible in tech, there are a number of countries where many folks can be quite happy and more free. And remember you don't have to just stay in one country, you can travel around a bit and sample countries also. I made the move and it was the right decision to me, imho.

jonathanleane 14y ago
Curious as to which countries you were considering, and which one you eventually decided on?

clneagu 14y ago

I'm not seeing anyone complain about the lack of competition for The State. If nothing else why would anyone defend the monopoly of the state? I don't see anyone defending any other monopoly. Why should I be forced to move elsewhere for better service? I understand that for now we don't have a better solution but stop defending the fucking monopoly.

lmm 14y ago
I'll defend anything that I see people criticise without offering a better solution.

confluence 14y ago

I've made up my own law of selfish libertarianism - if you'll indulge me: > It's only a liability or an entitlement until you yourself need it - then it's a fucking right. For example being a young white male born into a middle class western family affords you the ability to state "all I need is contract law - everything else is just impinging on my rights and forcing me to take on obligations I don't appear to benefit from - I deserve what I earn." No health problems + family and state support + faulty logic + short sightedness + sex/race advantages = libertarianism. Contract law is no more a right than free health care is. But one definitely serves your self interests better. Rights should be based on the veil of ignorance principle - the weak should be protected and the strong should pay for they are one car crash away from welfare. The lense people should be looking through is that of the weakest in society - not having a geek hissy fit and fantasizing of going Galt because you feel others are holding you back. If you don't like it - leave. Somalia is lovely this time of year I hear.

eli_gottlieb 14y ago
Well, contract law and property-title enforcement. Take away private property and Mr. Libertarian isn't going to be so happy that people copied his program-code and took over his factory. Hence why it's properly called proprietarianism: organizing society with private property as the prime principle.
yummyfajitas 14y ago
Rights should be based on the veil of ignorance principle - the weak should be protected and the strong should pay for they are one car crash away from welfare. Your moral values seems to hold that individuals have few rights, and that collectively we should operate from the principle of infinite risk aversion (i.e., the Rawlsian veil of ignorance). Great - we all agree that if these are your values, Libertarianism is not the political philosophy for you. It's amusing that while mocking Rand, you make the exact same fallacy she makes in Atlas Shrugged: "anyone who disagrees with me must be evil and selfish, with no moral values." If you don't like it - leave. Somalia is lovely this time of year I hear. I'm constantly confused when those who oppose libertarianism bring up Somalia. What is the relevance?

rglover 14y ago

This article is brilliant. Each and every point Jacques makes is spot-on. I'm sure many will disagree with his stance, but he makes an excellent point. Irrespective of our personal preference, we are effectively locked in to and subordinate of our government and its policies. Any self-respecting human who has contemplated this should be sick to their stomach. Realize this: we're floating in space. Not one soul on this planet knows why we're here, where we're going, or how we should conduct ourselves. In essence we've been handed our own "Gary's Mod" and yet we've resolved to have infinite and mostly useless structure. I'm not praising anarchy, but like what was mentioned in this piece, I should have a choice.

infinite8s 14y ago
Why should you have a choice? Taking this article to it's logical conclusion, no obligations nor rights should be granted to you. As another commenter above mentioned so brilliantly, individuals don't have rights. Rights only arise in groups of individuals.
- Buzaga 14y ago
  I fail to see the reason in that statement, why is it so brilliant?
- rglover 14y ago
  We should all have a choice because we're all exactly the same. We're made of the exact same stuff that's floating out in the universe. There is no universal code that says one group of humans (or individual) should control/rule another. It's all made up by humans and it's going to kill us in the long run.

potatolicious 14y ago

Given how often libertarianism comes up around and here and some of the attitudes that are repeated demonstrated, it's pretty clear that a large segment of HN's population has never been in a disadvantaged situation in life, either in economics, geography, or race.

AngrySkillzz 14y ago
I'm not sure that this article is advocating libertarianism per-se, more that it is pointing out oddities in our current system. It doesn't make the claim that life would be better off with less support or regulation.
- forensic 14y ago
  They're only oddities to well-off straight white able-bodied males with no perspective. These "oddities" exist for good practical reasons and the government is there for all people not just the nerd faction who decide they only want the government functions that benefit them personally.

fghh45sdfhr3 14y ago

Holland right? Is that the place he is talking about? I wonder how he feels about Switzerland, or say Canada?

cafard 14y ago

According to Henry Sumner Maine, the development of law in the west was one of movement from status to contract. According to Mr. Mattheij, it hasn't gone far enough, I gather.

unreal37 14y ago

Ah Jacques. You've posted some brilliant articles, Three Roads to the Top of the Mountain[1] is among the best articles I've read on starting a business. In fact, I will go and read it again after posting this. And seek out some other good startup/business related articles you have written. But this Life as a Service article is just incomprehensible to me coming from you. How selfish! How can the same person who posted the Top of the Mountain post write this? Not sure how life in the Netherlands is so much different from here in Canada, but the article is full of things that are either not true, or overblown. It's depressing to read, and a sad attempt to tear up the social contract we all must be a part of. "I have no problem paying taxes, but I wish I had a choice about it." You can't give people a choice about it. You can't have a society supported by some people with loads of people refusing to support it. (Too poor to support it is different.) And how can you complain about that AND complain that the rich and royalty are above the law? You're arguing both sides! Maybe you want to go find a remote outpost in the Northern tip of your country that you truly get no government services provided to you - no roads, no police, no hospitals, no ID required, no electricity, no internet, or phone service... go do that. But if you are part of society, you must be part of the social contract. Better to accept that and go on to do (or write) something productive that adds value.. [1]http://jacquesmattheij.com/three+roads+to+the+top+of+the+mountain http://jacquesmattheij.com/three+roads+to+the+top+of+the+mou...

Buzaga 14y ago

I've thought about this some times, it's a hard thing to wrap logic around, definitely... but here's two things that are a bit unsettling to me on this topic: - life is paid, you can't just go to some abandoned place, raise chicken and plants and live off of it and if you can't pay for your life you either turn yourself into a slave(living to pay to be alive) or you're made into the worst thing possible, with all your dignity taken from you(be a bum and face everything that's left when you can't pay for a life, even the ones created by the system itself) - why can't there be competition? it made me remember this article: http://www.fastcoexist.com/1678720/former-seasteaders-come-ashore-to-start-libertarian-utopias-in-honduran-jungle http://www.fastcoexist.com/1678720/former-seasteaders-come-a... what would happen if different state models were allowed to exist and they proved to be less corrupt, safer, fairer, happier and people just started migrating to this better states(from what I took they'd still live in capitalism)? I'm almost sure other governments wouldn't let it happen, and this takes me to another unsettling thought that is how, as much as people wan't freedom and dignity, governments want the power, they're barely ever accountable and they don't have competition, they own the game. Well, just thoughts..