9 ms·

>> How do we convince individualists that some services need to be established by the collective itself and not an offshoot (syndicate/business)? We don't, bec

>> How do we convince individualists that some services need to be established by the collective itself and not an offshoot (syndicate/business)? We don't, because you're talking about imposing some "services" on other people, which always happens through coercion. We should both be aware that coercion is bad, mm'kay? "But who will build the roads?!" is like asking an anti-slavery activist "but who will pick the cotton?!" - the correct answer is: "who fucking cares? Slavery is immoral and needs to stop." Punishing people for attempting to keep their property (ie. taxation) is immoral too. It's plain to see, for everyone who allows himself to.

sanoli 13y ago
So you're saying public education is immoral, and public health care is immoral. Maybe for the taxpayer it is. I doubt it seems immoral for the child of some poor parents. Or for someone seriously ill who can't afford to go to the private doctor, no matter if they chose not to plan for the future and be financially sound.
- anoncowherd 13y ago
  You're overlooking a couple of important things here: 1) Public education is shit anyway, and mostly just meant to indoctrinate us into the Cult of Statism. 2) Private schools would do a vastly better job, for a small fraction of the price. I'm sure you agree on public schools being bad quality, to put it mildly. You might not agree on the indoctrination aspect, but hey, if we want to change things for the better, we can always write to our representatives and of course, vote! Vote the bums out! All hail The Land Of The Free! As for private schools doing a better job, you probably know how competition works. You get better stuff for lower prices.
  - sanoli 13y ago
    But what are you saying should be done instead, a voucher system where families would decide which school to put their money into, or just abolish public funding for education altogether, and let each family fend for themselves?
    - tokenizer 13y ago
      Well considering the cost of the Dept. of Education is 71.9 a year (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_United_States_federal_budget#Total_revenues_and_spending http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_United_States_federal_budg...), that would work out to 20$ a year for a population of 360 Million. Adjusted for Youth, which is around 73.9 Million (http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2012/01/census-number-of-youthful-americans-shrinks/1#.Uq9BjPRDuLQ http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2012...), we're looking at about 972$ per youth per year. Thats what the governments pays now for the entire system. The teachers, the building costs, the supplies, etc. If we really wanted to have an alternative to public schooling, IMO (I'm an anarchist) it couldn't be done with a voucher system. The best solution is to question school as an institution. It was primarily for very young children and for reading. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Education_in_the_United_States#Growth_of_public_schools http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Education_in_the_Uni... We need to rethink these institutions and consider the technological advantages. My solution would be to put half of that 70 billion into Libraries, and make the accomodable for children during the day. Make it completely optional.
      - sanoli 13y ago
        Make it completely optional, ok. What about the kids whose parents won't ever take them to one of these spaces/libraries? You know there will be thousands of kids growing up illiterate, not knowing any math, learning nothing but TV/youtube/Xbox if they are lucky to have that. Public education is shit, I agree with you on that. The problem is that for a percentage of children (varies by country, but quite high in the third world), handing the responsibility of their education to their parents is even shittier.
        tokenizer 13y ago
        > What about the kids whose parents won't ever take them to one of these spaces/libraries? What about them? There are plenty of children growing up today that either don't go to school, get expelled, or refuse to learn anything. I don't see the difference. The percentage of children of going to these places? What about the last 5000 years of human progress? Surely they progressed without mandatory/forced state education. Would you agree with yourself if we were all in North Korea knowing what we know? That's the problem with hypotheticals, you can expound ad infinitum. > The problem is that for a percentage of children (varies by country, but quite high in the third world), handing the responsibility of their education to their parents is even shittier. Which doesn't matter. The question isn't what's more economically efficient or favourable to higher literacy rates. It's a matter of morality. If the state requires me to let them raise my children, and threatens me with force if I do not, then in your opinion, who's in the wrong? Now of course, things need to be in context. But you can't simply make an assertion that the state will always be better of a parent to a child than even a poor or illiterate or even neglectful parent. The problem with the ability to exert pressure on persons to send their children to public schooling is that it violates a natural and historical bond, and replaces it with "the monopoly on violence" in the name of justice. Always in the name of justice. Ask yourself this, if you're worried about children becoming illiterate, then surely you're worried about children joining armies to fight economic wars, children being locked in prison for nonviolent crimes, and children being used to scapegoat authoritarian measures right? What about the children -is not a defense between the DPRK threatening to take my child because I won't permit them to indoctrinate her.
- c_magg 13y ago
  The biggest problem with humanity is arrogance. Not everyone can live. Sorry!
  - eli_gottlieb 13y ago
    > Not everyone can live. If your definition of morality is "a system for decreeing who should die" rather than "a system for ensuring everyone lives", you are the problem.
    - anoncowherd 13y ago
      No matter how much we want everyone to live, we can't try and ensure it through coercion. Besides, coercion only works for evil. You can't achieve good through coercion. Whenever you try, it has the opposite effect. Take minimum wage for example. You want poor people to get higher salaries, but in reality, all you accomplish by raising the min. wage is preventing some lowest-skilled people from getting a job (which contributes to economic stagnation too, ofc).
      - eli_gottlieb 13y ago
        > No matter how much we want everyone to live, we can't try and ensure it through coercion. Besides, coercion only works for evil. You can't achieve good through coercion. Whenever you try, it has the opposite effect. Justify your religious faith using objective data and control groups, or go back to church, please.
        anoncowherd 13y ago
        Feel free to refute my minimum wage example for starters. Here's another: 1) you want to help the poor 2) you confiscate wealth from other people, and give it to the poor 3) you have just removed money from the economy and caused it to get used much less efficiently than it would have, and demotivated lots of people from doing business and producing value to the world at large.
- goshakkk 13y ago
  Yes, public education & health care are immoral because they are funded through means of coercion. Helping the poor is a noble end, but even noble ends can't justify violent means. It does not matter how fair theft seems to the recipient of the services that are funded in such a way, it's still theft. It is cool that you care about the unfortunate ones though. You are not alone in that — most people do, too. If we go from the assumption that democracies really represent the opinion of the majority, it can be seen that a lot of people do care. So, if the majority of people really want to help the poor, they would still help (voluntarily this time) without a coercive apparatus, right? (Obviously, private charities will be better at helping the poor, and private schools and medicine are doing a better job that the government does, but my reply focuses mainly on the moral side of things.)
  - tokenizer 13y ago
    This is the main issue between left and right minded anarchists IMO. I've felt like both sides have been right at different times in my life. That said, you are right. Taxes of any kind, if forced, is theft. If liberal minded individuals can't offer me a voluntary way to function from within society, than they'll be considered authoritarians to me. The only solution I can think of is a type of confederacy of anarchist collectives, where all collectives agree on basic freedoms (freedom to travel, freedom to leave, completely fair representation, etc) where some are bastions of socialism, and the other bastions of individualism. The only problem I have as a right leaning anarchist with anarcho-capitalism, is wage labour. While I agree that the contract may be voluntary, the conditions leading to it may not have been, and we see exploitation in our current system regarding this, with some people becoming indentured servants.
    - goshakkk 13y ago
      > The only solution I can think of is a type of confederacy of anarchist collectives, where all collectives agree on basic freedoms (freedom to travel, freedom to leave, completely fair representation, etc) where some are bastions of socialism, and the other bastions of individualism. Voluntarily-entered socialist bastions can indeed exist in an anarcho-capitalist system. As there is no state and hence nothing particularly limiting, they can aspire any kind of community — including a socialist one. As long as participation in this kind of community is voluntary, there is nothing wrong with it. Members of socialist communities may vary well subject themselves to community's rules and socialist dispute resolution providers in their internal matters.
loopdoend 13y ago
The only way to protect property is by force. At that point you're talking about imposing your concept of your property on others. To me that sounds immoral, but I am not an "anarcho-capitalist".
- anoncowherd 13y ago
  Property can only be defended (by force) after someone tries to take it from you. The aggressor is immoral.
  - eli_gottlieb 13y ago
    No, property is defined by force. Without force, it becomes the commons. If you plant an apple orchard and leave it alone, and someone takes an apple, that's improving the commons. If you plant an apple orchard, and someone takes an apple, and you shoot him, then we've got private property.
    - tokenizer 13y ago
      But can't we simply compromise and have public means of production with private residential property? As a libertarian socialist this seems like the best way to move past this debate until we implement such a system. I agree with your point, but I'd rather not expound the hypotheticals containing a married couple and child, being visited in the night by some unrelated teens who feel it is their right to sleep in the same room and said couple's child. Your thoughts?
      - eli_gottlieb 13y ago
        Honestly, I think the most rational thing to do is shift the conversation to specific alternative institutions. So, for instance, if you propose "We should replace today's join-stock companies with joint-stock cooperatives, and institute commons trusts, empowered to levee taxes on economic rents, for management of public resources", you're likely to get a pretty broad buy-in, from almost everyone except the most hardcore, deontological minarcho-capitalists and revolutionary socialists.

sanoli 13y ago

So you're saying public education is immoral, and public health care is immoral. Maybe for the taxpayer it is. I doubt it seems immoral for the child of some poor parents. Or for someone seriously ill who can't afford to go to the private doctor, no matter if they chose not to plan for the future and be financially sound.

anoncowherd 13y ago
You're overlooking a couple of important things here: 1) Public education is shit anyway, and mostly just meant to indoctrinate us into the Cult of Statism. 2) Private schools would do a vastly better job, for a small fraction of the price. I'm sure you agree on public schools being bad quality, to put it mildly. You might not agree on the indoctrination aspect, but hey, if we want to change things for the better, we can always write to our representatives and of course, vote! Vote the bums out! All hail The Land Of The Free! As for private schools doing a better job, you probably know how competition works. You get better stuff for lower prices.
- sanoli 13y ago
  But what are you saying should be done instead, a voucher system where families would decide which school to put their money into, or just abolish public funding for education altogether, and let each family fend for themselves?
  - tokenizer 13y ago
    Well considering the cost of the Dept. of Education is 71.9 a year (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_United_States_federal_budget#Total_revenues_and_spending http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_United_States_federal_budg...), that would work out to 20$ a year for a population of 360 Million. Adjusted for Youth, which is around 73.9 Million (http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2012/01/census-number-of-youthful-americans-shrinks/1#.Uq9BjPRDuLQ http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2012...), we're looking at about 972$ per youth per year. Thats what the governments pays now for the entire system. The teachers, the building costs, the supplies, etc. If we really wanted to have an alternative to public schooling, IMO (I'm an anarchist) it couldn't be done with a voucher system. The best solution is to question school as an institution. It was primarily for very young children and for reading. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Education_in_the_United_States#Growth_of_public_schools http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Education_in_the_Uni... We need to rethink these institutions and consider the technological advantages. My solution would be to put half of that 70 billion into Libraries, and make the accomodable for children during the day. Make it completely optional.
    - sanoli 13y ago
      Make it completely optional, ok. What about the kids whose parents won't ever take them to one of these spaces/libraries? You know there will be thousands of kids growing up illiterate, not knowing any math, learning nothing but TV/youtube/Xbox if they are lucky to have that. Public education is shit, I agree with you on that. The problem is that for a percentage of children (varies by country, but quite high in the third world), handing the responsibility of their education to their parents is even shittier.
      - tokenizer 13y ago
        > What about the kids whose parents won't ever take them to one of these spaces/libraries? What about them? There are plenty of children growing up today that either don't go to school, get expelled, or refuse to learn anything. I don't see the difference. The percentage of children of going to these places? What about the last 5000 years of human progress? Surely they progressed without mandatory/forced state education. Would you agree with yourself if we were all in North Korea knowing what we know? That's the problem with hypotheticals, you can expound ad infinitum. > The problem is that for a percentage of children (varies by country, but quite high in the third world), handing the responsibility of their education to their parents is even shittier. Which doesn't matter. The question isn't what's more economically efficient or favourable to higher literacy rates. It's a matter of morality. If the state requires me to let them raise my children, and threatens me with force if I do not, then in your opinion, who's in the wrong? Now of course, things need to be in context. But you can't simply make an assertion that the state will always be better of a parent to a child than even a poor or illiterate or even neglectful parent. The problem with the ability to exert pressure on persons to send their children to public schooling is that it violates a natural and historical bond, and replaces it with "the monopoly on violence" in the name of justice. Always in the name of justice. Ask yourself this, if you're worried about children becoming illiterate, then surely you're worried about children joining armies to fight economic wars, children being locked in prison for nonviolent crimes, and children being used to scapegoat authoritarian measures right? What about the children -is not a defense between the DPRK threatening to take my child because I won't permit them to indoctrinate her.
c_magg 13y ago
The biggest problem with humanity is arrogance. Not everyone can live. Sorry!
- eli_gottlieb 13y ago
  > Not everyone can live. If your definition of morality is "a system for decreeing who should die" rather than "a system for ensuring everyone lives", you are the problem.
  - anoncowherd 13y ago
    No matter how much we want everyone to live, we can't try and ensure it through coercion. Besides, coercion only works for evil. You can't achieve good through coercion. Whenever you try, it has the opposite effect. Take minimum wage for example. You want poor people to get higher salaries, but in reality, all you accomplish by raising the min. wage is preventing some lowest-skilled people from getting a job (which contributes to economic stagnation too, ofc).
    - eli_gottlieb 13y ago
      > No matter how much we want everyone to live, we can't try and ensure it through coercion. Besides, coercion only works for evil. You can't achieve good through coercion. Whenever you try, it has the opposite effect. Justify your religious faith using objective data and control groups, or go back to church, please.
      - anoncowherd 13y ago
        Feel free to refute my minimum wage example for starters. Here's another: 1) you want to help the poor 2) you confiscate wealth from other people, and give it to the poor 3) you have just removed money from the economy and caused it to get used much less efficiently than it would have, and demotivated lots of people from doing business and producing value to the world at large.
goshakkk 13y ago
Yes, public education & health care are immoral because they are funded through means of coercion. Helping the poor is a noble end, but even noble ends can't justify violent means. It does not matter how fair theft seems to the recipient of the services that are funded in such a way, it's still theft. It is cool that you care about the unfortunate ones though. You are not alone in that — most people do, too. If we go from the assumption that democracies really represent the opinion of the majority, it can be seen that a lot of people do care. So, if the majority of people really want to help the poor, they would still help (voluntarily this time) without a coercive apparatus, right? (Obviously, private charities will be better at helping the poor, and private schools and medicine are doing a better job that the government does, but my reply focuses mainly on the moral side of things.)
- tokenizer 13y ago
  This is the main issue between left and right minded anarchists IMO. I've felt like both sides have been right at different times in my life. That said, you are right. Taxes of any kind, if forced, is theft. If liberal minded individuals can't offer me a voluntary way to function from within society, than they'll be considered authoritarians to me. The only solution I can think of is a type of confederacy of anarchist collectives, where all collectives agree on basic freedoms (freedom to travel, freedom to leave, completely fair representation, etc) where some are bastions of socialism, and the other bastions of individualism. The only problem I have as a right leaning anarchist with anarcho-capitalism, is wage labour. While I agree that the contract may be voluntary, the conditions leading to it may not have been, and we see exploitation in our current system regarding this, with some people becoming indentured servants.
  - goshakkk 13y ago
    > The only solution I can think of is a type of confederacy of anarchist collectives, where all collectives agree on basic freedoms (freedom to travel, freedom to leave, completely fair representation, etc) where some are bastions of socialism, and the other bastions of individualism. Voluntarily-entered socialist bastions can indeed exist in an anarcho-capitalist system. As there is no state and hence nothing particularly limiting, they can aspire any kind of community — including a socialist one. As long as participation in this kind of community is voluntary, there is nothing wrong with it. Members of socialist communities may vary well subject themselves to community's rules and socialist dispute resolution providers in their internal matters.

loopdoend 13y ago

The only way to protect property is by force. At that point you're talking about imposing your concept of your property on others. To me that sounds immoral, but I am not an "anarcho-capitalist".

anoncowherd 13y ago
Property can only be defended (by force) after someone tries to take it from you. The aggressor is immoral.
- eli_gottlieb 13y ago
  No, property is defined by force. Without force, it becomes the commons. If you plant an apple orchard and leave it alone, and someone takes an apple, that's improving the commons. If you plant an apple orchard, and someone takes an apple, and you shoot him, then we've got private property.
  - tokenizer 13y ago
    But can't we simply compromise and have public means of production with private residential property? As a libertarian socialist this seems like the best way to move past this debate until we implement such a system. I agree with your point, but I'd rather not expound the hypotheticals containing a married couple and child, being visited in the night by some unrelated teens who feel it is their right to sleep in the same room and said couple's child. Your thoughts?
    - eli_gottlieb 13y ago
      Honestly, I think the most rational thing to do is shift the conversation to specific alternative institutions. So, for instance, if you propose "We should replace today's join-stock companies with joint-stock cooperatives, and institute commons trusts, empowered to levee taxes on economic rents, for management of public resources", you're likely to get a pretty broad buy-in, from almost everyone except the most hardcore, deontological minarcho-capitalists and revolutionary socialists.