5 ms·

From mutual agreement in exchange of goods and services, or by force. Not the same. Only thieves and governments do the latter.

by nova 13y ago

squidfood 13y ago
I dunno. I think the system of laws by which we elect people, they set taxes, build a road, and if we don't like the exchange we turn them out, is as close to "mutual agreement" as a city or larger-sized group of people can come up with...
- technologue 13y ago
  Wrong Wrong Wrong. Could not be more wrong. Freedom of Contract is one of the most important concepts of free market capitalism. People must have the right to review the terms of contract, decide to sign or not and be held to the terms, and there should be penalties for breach on both sides and conditions for dissolution of the contract. The "Social Contract" you are talking about is no contract at all. It is imposed by force, you are given no chance to sign, a false choice (red or blue!) and only 1/385millionth of a say in it. There is no remedy for breach and no conditions for dissolution. It is the very opposite of voluntary exchange and mutual agreement. DO NOT conflate the two, or go back to whatever liberal arts school terribly educated you.
  - squidfood 13y ago
    PhD in STEM, if it matters. And as someone who specifically and directly moved from one city to another because I didn't like the local policies (school district, in this case), I'm a straightforward and simple example of someone who left one social contract for another and paid for the privilege, thanks. (If I repeat the word "wrong" a few more times, will it improve my opinion?) The mistake of both libertarians and liberals in these loud arguments is that they focus on the top (national government) where the real social contracts start locally. If you start to build up a system of local social contracts; well, if it quacks like a government, it's a government, even if you'd rather call it a Homeowner's Association with Guns.
    - technologue 13y ago
      Governance is fine, but there are contractual forms of governance and non-contractual (non-consensual) forms of governance. But please don't use "social contract", it's just a liar's word. It is neither social or contractual what people do under a "social contract". It is naked force: "Do what I say or I will hurt you". Since you have a PhD, I'll assume that you are not so lazy you can't separate these things in your brain.
      - _delirium 13y ago
        Your level of confidence seems entirely out of line with the level of education in politics and history you display here. Instead of insulting people from a position of ignorance, why not read more books? Sorry for putting it bluntly, but every one of your comments in this discussion so far is a rudely worded assertion of something that at best is highly contested, and at worst something you could not even possibly believe if you had read more than a few libertarian newsletters and websites. Not even if you had read only libertarian-leaning theorists (such as Hayek). Stop it.
        technologue 13y ago
        Since you've advanced literally no argument, I don't feel a need to respond to this. Sorry I hurt your brain?
        _delirium 13y ago
        Here is an argument, which I have carefully tailored to the level of the arguments you have advanced: Democracy, augmented with some anti-majoritarian safeguards, is a reasonable way of organizing society on a basis that generally advances overall liberties, and social-contract theory provides a reasonable philosophical basis. Libertarian freedom-of-contract is essentially a right to indentured servitude with only the barest attention paid to anything resembling actual real-world liberty or genuine consent, and only people who are either primitivist hippies living in the woods, or malicious exploiters, promote it as a fundamental good. And also anyone who disagrees with this paragraph is dumb.
  - valas 13y ago
    > "People must have the right to review the terms of contract, decide to sign or not" You are describing a universe which only exist in an imaginary island where all the Galts are living. "Freedom of Contract" works when there are one or two similar-sized parties involved, but it does not scale well beyond that. Try renting a car with a customer agreement tailored for your liking; or try negotiating custom EULA with vendor of whatever browser you are using to post your comments.
    - jjoonathan 13y ago
      Also, you'd better hope that the accessible methods of accumulating wealth haven't already been commoditized (which amounts to hoping that you are special in a world with plenty of people).
  - vacri 13y ago
    Do you actually sign a contract when you buy a loaf of bread?
    - Turing_Machine 13y ago
      It isn't signed, but there is definitely a contract in that situation.
      - vacri 13y ago
        My point is that the terms in the sale of a loaf of bread are implicit, just like those in the social contract. The idea that it isn't a free market until you sign a document is demonstrably false.
        Turing_Machine 13y ago
        The contract law behind buying a loaf of bread is well-codified and settled. The term "social contract" means whatever the person using the term wants it to mean. Not the same thing. At all.
        Iftheshoefits 13y ago
        If it's well-codified and settled then you'll have absolutely no problem providing a complete, and completely uncontroversial, version of it.
        Turing_Machine 13y ago
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Commercial_Code http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Commercial_Code Enjoy.
  - jjoonathan 13y ago
    > The "Social Contract" you are talking about is no contract at all. It is imposed by force, you are given no chance to sign, a false choice (red or blue!) and only 1/385millionth of a say in it. For the vast majority of people, contracts provided by the market are an even worse false choice: Maslow's Hierarchy imposes needs on every individual, fixing the supply of labor at a lower bound which is empirically observed to lie far above the demand for it, thereby commoditizing the unskilled worker and coupling his salary to the minimum dictated by his Maslow needs rather than to the value he creates. The difference goes to his employer, and a non-governmental tax is exacted upon each of his purchases that is distributed to local capital-holders according to their wealth, exacerbating the imbalance in an exponential feedback loop. There is no remedy when his employer resorts to wage theft (frequently), because the justice system requires time and capital that he does not have to achieve the simplest forms of redress. There are conditions for dissolution, but he fears them, because written between the lines are an economic certainty that will dash him repeatedly against the rocky shores of unemployment and homelessness. This is a laughable notion of consent. When did he agree to have Maslow's needs imposed upon him? When did he agree to abide by the rules of a game that systematically disadvantages him? When did he agree to initial conditions that give him far less than 1/400millionth of a share in economic power? This is the very opposite of what someone with a choice would have chosen. The only things this hypothetical worker has going for him came from the government: minimum wage laws (and yes, I believe these are a good thing, since wages in commoditized labor markets tend towards the lower end rather than the higher end of the economically feasible range), worker safety standards, subsidized food and health care, education for his children, and so on. None of this is speculation: we can look to history to see what happened when government did not "intrude" on these areas of life.
- brucefancher 13y ago
  Fine, but let's not conflate government taking money from people with people voluntarily giving their money away (charity). They're two different things.
MisterBastahrd 13y ago
That's amazingly naive. Violence comes in more forms than just striking someone. Democratic governments don't even enter into that frame of reference unless you want to have a governmental system where you elect a personal representative.
a8000 13y ago
Ironically if the Government was not spending that much money, fiat money would be worthless.
boie0025 13y ago
I don't know where you reside, but I always find it interesting when people in the US refer to taxation as thievery. In a representative democracy, the "government" is the people[^1]. Don't like taxes? Rally support behind yourself, and run for office. [^1]: http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_trans... see: preamble.
- marris 13y ago
  I don't think your opponent believes that the US system is a "representative democracy" or a "democracy" or whatever it is that lets N-1 people take arbitrary stuff from 1 person. Your "rally support" solution would not fix the situation.
  - tomp 13y ago
    You're forgetting that that 1 person is also getting stuff from N-1 others - his freedom, safety, absence of famine/war/disease, ... It is simply illusionary to expect a person to be really well-off if everybody else around him is dirt poor. Yes, there were rich people throughout history, but today the average US/European citizen has better healthcare than anyone 20 years ago.
  - boie0025 13y ago
    I don't think that it's fair to say that any "democratic" type of government lets any number of people take anything from any 1 (or any arbitrary grouping) person, it's that the self governed group decides that the cost of existing is paid collectively. And rallying support, from my understanding, is the only way to fix any situation in any type of "democracy". [edit] More directly to your point, it's irrelevant what anyone thinks is "letting" government "steal", the "thievery" is enabled by laws which are created by elected representatives, therefore "the people" (aka government) is directly responsible for taxation.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
dannypgh 13y ago
What about slavery? What about robber-barons paying strike breakers to shoot organizing workers - or for that matter, the missing Coca-Cola union organizers in Columbia? What about businesses that made their money from violations of treaties with the Native Americans? Or from contracts to organize the data necessary for the Holocaust? What about the people who ended up with a leg up in life due to inheriting any of the ill earned wealth above? Or do you write most if not all off as thieves?

From mutual agreement in exchange of goods and services, or by force. Not the same. Only thieves and governments do the latter.

by nova 13y ago

From mutual agreement in exchange of goods and services, or by force. Not the same. Only thieves and governments do the latter.

squidfood 13y ago

I dunno. I think the system of laws by which we elect people, they set taxes, build a road, and if we don't like the exchange we turn them out, is as close to "mutual agreement" as a city or larger-sized group of people can come up with...

technologue 13y ago
Wrong Wrong Wrong. Could not be more wrong. Freedom of Contract is one of the most important concepts of free market capitalism. People must have the right to review the terms of contract, decide to sign or not and be held to the terms, and there should be penalties for breach on both sides and conditions for dissolution of the contract. The "Social Contract" you are talking about is no contract at all. It is imposed by force, you are given no chance to sign, a false choice (red or blue!) and only 1/385millionth of a say in it. There is no remedy for breach and no conditions for dissolution. It is the very opposite of voluntary exchange and mutual agreement. DO NOT conflate the two, or go back to whatever liberal arts school terribly educated you.
- squidfood 13y ago
  PhD in STEM, if it matters. And as someone who specifically and directly moved from one city to another because I didn't like the local policies (school district, in this case), I'm a straightforward and simple example of someone who left one social contract for another and paid for the privilege, thanks. (If I repeat the word "wrong" a few more times, will it improve my opinion?) The mistake of both libertarians and liberals in these loud arguments is that they focus on the top (national government) where the real social contracts start locally. If you start to build up a system of local social contracts; well, if it quacks like a government, it's a government, even if you'd rather call it a Homeowner's Association with Guns.
  - technologue 13y ago
    Governance is fine, but there are contractual forms of governance and non-contractual (non-consensual) forms of governance. But please don't use "social contract", it's just a liar's word. It is neither social or contractual what people do under a "social contract". It is naked force: "Do what I say or I will hurt you". Since you have a PhD, I'll assume that you are not so lazy you can't separate these things in your brain.
    - _delirium 13y ago
      Your level of confidence seems entirely out of line with the level of education in politics and history you display here. Instead of insulting people from a position of ignorance, why not read more books? Sorry for putting it bluntly, but every one of your comments in this discussion so far is a rudely worded assertion of something that at best is highly contested, and at worst something you could not even possibly believe if you had read more than a few libertarian newsletters and websites. Not even if you had read only libertarian-leaning theorists (such as Hayek). Stop it.
      - technologue 13y ago
        Since you've advanced literally no argument, I don't feel a need to respond to this. Sorry I hurt your brain?
        _delirium 13y ago
        Here is an argument, which I have carefully tailored to the level of the arguments you have advanced: Democracy, augmented with some anti-majoritarian safeguards, is a reasonable way of organizing society on a basis that generally advances overall liberties, and social-contract theory provides a reasonable philosophical basis. Libertarian freedom-of-contract is essentially a right to indentured servitude with only the barest attention paid to anything resembling actual real-world liberty or genuine consent, and only people who are either primitivist hippies living in the woods, or malicious exploiters, promote it as a fundamental good. And also anyone who disagrees with this paragraph is dumb.
- valas 13y ago
  > "People must have the right to review the terms of contract, decide to sign or not" You are describing a universe which only exist in an imaginary island where all the Galts are living. "Freedom of Contract" works when there are one or two similar-sized parties involved, but it does not scale well beyond that. Try renting a car with a customer agreement tailored for your liking; or try negotiating custom EULA with vendor of whatever browser you are using to post your comments.
  - jjoonathan 13y ago
    Also, you'd better hope that the accessible methods of accumulating wealth haven't already been commoditized (which amounts to hoping that you are special in a world with plenty of people).
- vacri 13y ago
  Do you actually sign a contract when you buy a loaf of bread?
  - Turing_Machine 13y ago
    It isn't signed, but there is definitely a contract in that situation.
    - vacri 13y ago
      My point is that the terms in the sale of a loaf of bread are implicit, just like those in the social contract. The idea that it isn't a free market until you sign a document is demonstrably false.
      - Turing_Machine 13y ago
        The contract law behind buying a loaf of bread is well-codified and settled. The term "social contract" means whatever the person using the term wants it to mean. Not the same thing. At all.
        Iftheshoefits 13y ago
        If it's well-codified and settled then you'll have absolutely no problem providing a complete, and completely uncontroversial, version of it.
        Turing_Machine 13y ago
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Commercial_Code http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Commercial_Code Enjoy.
- jjoonathan 13y ago
  > The "Social Contract" you are talking about is no contract at all. It is imposed by force, you are given no chance to sign, a false choice (red or blue!) and only 1/385millionth of a say in it. For the vast majority of people, contracts provided by the market are an even worse false choice: Maslow's Hierarchy imposes needs on every individual, fixing the supply of labor at a lower bound which is empirically observed to lie far above the demand for it, thereby commoditizing the unskilled worker and coupling his salary to the minimum dictated by his Maslow needs rather than to the value he creates. The difference goes to his employer, and a non-governmental tax is exacted upon each of his purchases that is distributed to local capital-holders according to their wealth, exacerbating the imbalance in an exponential feedback loop. There is no remedy when his employer resorts to wage theft (frequently), because the justice system requires time and capital that he does not have to achieve the simplest forms of redress. There are conditions for dissolution, but he fears them, because written between the lines are an economic certainty that will dash him repeatedly against the rocky shores of unemployment and homelessness. This is a laughable notion of consent. When did he agree to have Maslow's needs imposed upon him? When did he agree to abide by the rules of a game that systematically disadvantages him? When did he agree to initial conditions that give him far less than 1/400millionth of a share in economic power? This is the very opposite of what someone with a choice would have chosen. The only things this hypothetical worker has going for him came from the government: minimum wage laws (and yes, I believe these are a good thing, since wages in commoditized labor markets tend towards the lower end rather than the higher end of the economically feasible range), worker safety standards, subsidized food and health care, education for his children, and so on. None of this is speculation: we can look to history to see what happened when government did not "intrude" on these areas of life.
brucefancher 13y ago
Fine, but let's not conflate government taking money from people with people voluntarily giving their money away (charity). They're two different things.

MisterBastahrd 13y ago

That's amazingly naive. Violence comes in more forms than just striking someone. Democratic governments don't even enter into that frame of reference unless you want to have a governmental system where you elect a personal representative.

a8000 13y ago

Ironically if the Government was not spending that much money, fiat money would be worthless.

boie0025 13y ago

I don't know where you reside, but I always find it interesting when people in the US refer to taxation as thievery. In a representative democracy, the "government" is the people[^1]. Don't like taxes? Rally support behind yourself, and run for office. [^1]: http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_trans... see: preamble.

marris 13y ago
I don't think your opponent believes that the US system is a "representative democracy" or a "democracy" or whatever it is that lets N-1 people take arbitrary stuff from 1 person. Your "rally support" solution would not fix the situation.
- tomp 13y ago
  You're forgetting that that 1 person is also getting stuff from N-1 others - his freedom, safety, absence of famine/war/disease, ... It is simply illusionary to expect a person to be really well-off if everybody else around him is dirt poor. Yes, there were rich people throughout history, but today the average US/European citizen has better healthcare than anyone 20 years ago.
- boie0025 13y ago
  I don't think that it's fair to say that any "democratic" type of government lets any number of people take anything from any 1 (or any arbitrary grouping) person, it's that the self governed group decides that the cost of existing is paid collectively. And rallying support, from my understanding, is the only way to fix any situation in any type of "democracy". [edit] More directly to your point, it's irrelevant what anyone thinks is "letting" government "steal", the "thievery" is enabled by laws which are created by elected representatives, therefore "the people" (aka government) is directly responsible for taxation.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

dannypgh 13y ago

What about slavery? What about robber-barons paying strike breakers to shoot organizing workers - or for that matter, the missing Coca-Cola union organizers in Columbia? What about businesses that made their money from violations of treaties with the Native Americans? Or from contracts to organize the data necessary for the Holocaust? What about the people who ended up with a leg up in life due to inheriting any of the ill earned wealth above? Or do you write most if not all off as thieves?