4 ms·

What threat of violence are you describing?

by Frondo 12y ago

leereeves 12y ago
Taxes.
krapp 12y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence
PhasmaFelis 12y ago
Some very silly people have concluded that, since ultimately no rule or law can be enforced against the unwilling without some sort of ability to exercise power over them, making a law is logically equivalent to saying that anyone who breaks it should be shot; and, therefore, people who make laws against any but the most extreme crimes are violent thugs. And thus it naturally follows that you shouldn't have to pay taxes. Isn't that convenient? (I think this formulation was originally conceived by anarchists, where it is at least logically consistent, but tax protestors and some libertarians have adopted and deformed it into a convenient catch-all for "anything the government does that I don't like is ZOMGviolence.")
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  AFAIK libertarians have this "principle of non-aggression" which basically defines "anything I don't like" as an attack, and thus pretty much anything that government does becomes violence. But in general, "monopoly on violence" is a legitimate concept and I think it's a requirement for a state-sized group of people to live in (a relative) harmony. You need to have some means to enforce coordination or else people get trapped in various destructive behaviours.
  - skilesare 12y ago
    They also have a tendency to put capitalism up on a pedestal even though it requires the charging of economic rent. Apparently extracting taxes is a crime but extracting economic rent is to be lauded.
    - TeMPOraL 12y ago
      That's why I love that 'cstross quote from [0]. "Libertarianism is like Leninism: a fascinating, internally consistent political theory with some good underlying points that, regrettably, makes prescriptions about how to run human society that can only work if we replace real messy human beings with frictionless spherical humanoids of uniform density" This holds for other political and economical ideologies as well - they may have some good and important points (that's why they gain followers), but ultimately pure theoretical models rarely work well when applied to the complexities of the real world. One needs to remember that and see places where tradeoffs are needed to be made. [0] - http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/12/why-i-want-bitcoin-to-die-in-a.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/12/why-i-wa...
- dredmorbius 12y ago
  They also very conveniently ignore a staggering (and bloody) history of corporate violence, whether against workers, the public at large, colonial states, arms and other sales, unsafe products, unsafe working conditions, and far too many more to enumerate. Power exists. Violence exists. Both are independent of whether or not they're manifested in a state. Arguments to the contrary collapse into tautologies.

What threat of violence are you describing?

by Frondo 12y ago

What threat of violence are you describing?

leereeves 12y ago

Taxes.

krapp 12y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence

PhasmaFelis 12y ago

Some very silly people have concluded that, since ultimately no rule or law can be enforced against the unwilling without some sort of ability to exercise power over them, making a law is logically equivalent to saying that anyone who breaks it should be shot; and, therefore, people who make laws against any but the most extreme crimes are violent thugs. And thus it naturally follows that you shouldn't have to pay taxes. Isn't that convenient? (I think this formulation was originally conceived by anarchists, where it is at least logically consistent, but tax protestors and some libertarians have adopted and deformed it into a convenient catch-all for "anything the government does that I don't like is ZOMGviolence.")

TeMPOraL 12y ago
AFAIK libertarians have this "principle of non-aggression" which basically defines "anything I don't like" as an attack, and thus pretty much anything that government does becomes violence. But in general, "monopoly on violence" is a legitimate concept and I think it's a requirement for a state-sized group of people to live in (a relative) harmony. You need to have some means to enforce coordination or else people get trapped in various destructive behaviours.
- skilesare 12y ago
  They also have a tendency to put capitalism up on a pedestal even though it requires the charging of economic rent. Apparently extracting taxes is a crime but extracting economic rent is to be lauded.
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    That's why I love that 'cstross quote from [0]. "Libertarianism is like Leninism: a fascinating, internally consistent political theory with some good underlying points that, regrettably, makes prescriptions about how to run human society that can only work if we replace real messy human beings with frictionless spherical humanoids of uniform density" This holds for other political and economical ideologies as well - they may have some good and important points (that's why they gain followers), but ultimately pure theoretical models rarely work well when applied to the complexities of the real world. One needs to remember that and see places where tradeoffs are needed to be made. [0] - http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/12/why-i-want-bitcoin-to-die-in-a.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/12/why-i-wa...
dredmorbius 12y ago
They also very conveniently ignore a staggering (and bloody) history of corporate violence, whether against workers, the public at large, colonial states, arms and other sales, unsafe products, unsafe working conditions, and far too many more to enumerate. Power exists. Violence exists. Both are independent of whether or not they're manifested in a state. Arguments to the contrary collapse into tautologies.