Newgrounds.com — Everything, By Everyone.

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(Net Revenue)

I meant to say Net Profit. Whatever

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At 5/8/10 05:41 PM, Ytaker wrote: Actually, it bases power on the power to consume.

If you have money, you have more power to consume.
And this comes about in the form of money-lending. So if you have a ton of money, you lend it to the poor.

Then you're taking the decisions. You're deciding who gets a house, who builds what where and who can start a business. You can let someone you hate starve and give your friends a boost and there's no laws to stop you.

Politics just has the fun affect of making it even easier for rich people to gain immense amounts of power.

There's not really any system where rich people don't have power or where the powerful don't become rich.

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At 5/9/10 11:58 PM, poxpower wrote:

At 5/8/10 05:41 PM, Ytaker wrote: Actually, it bases power on the power to consume.

If you have money, you have more power to consume.
And this comes about in the form of money-lending. So if you have a ton of money, you lend it to the poor.

It's not about the amount you spend, but on what. As I said, while rich people will have control over jet planes, poor people will have control over walmart. For abortion, moderately intelligent black people would have most of the buying power, racist eugenists and environmentalists who wanted population control most of the selling power. For news, there's a multitude of targets. For immigraton, farmers who cared about the issue would have most power.

It's mostly only a good idea to lend to the poor if the government encourages you, as say, happened with a lot of subprime derivatives. Otherwise it's a better idea to lend to businesses, poor or rich.

Then you're taking the decisions. You're deciding who gets a house, who builds what where and who can start a business. You can let someone you hate starve and give your friends a boost and there's no laws to stop you.

If you want to increase your supply of money, then that would be a very stupid idea. If you want to increase your influence, that would be an excellent idea. Capitalism favours one of the two.

So, your solution to people using their influence to ruin the lives of people they dislike is to give power to people who mostly hate poor people?

Cities love clearing the "blighted" land of poor people.

Politicians love giving their friends plush jobs, imposing onerous fines on people who they dislike (see, poor people and cigarette taxes).

It's a hobby stopping businesses with whom they have ideological-see, not enough bribes), problems (some oil companies) and giving waivers to those who pay them lots of money (Obama got a lot of BP money, and so he gave them a waiver on a certain vulnerable rig). You can't cure corruption by giving corupt people even more power, and the backing of police forces and the law.

It's one way which politicians are always bipartison. Corruption is universal.

Politics just has the fun affect of making it even easier for rich people to gain immense amounts of power.

There's not really any system where rich people don't have power or where the powerful don't become rich.

More government is a great way to make that even worse. The poor people pay taxes to have rich people use tear gas and tasers and well trained paramilitary police on them.

There's benefits too- but not much in terms of, people being nicer to the poor.

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You're completely right. The government shouldn't tax you to hell, no, but living in America means that you have an obligation to the community, and are required to give some of your money in taxes. Taxes are vital to our society.

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At 5/10/10 10:18 AM, Ytaker wrote:

It's not about the amount you spend, but on what. As I said, while rich people will have control over jet planes, poor people will have control over walmart.

It's not about stores and luxury goods, it's about who controls the means to produce the base necessities and who controls key resources.

That's where a country's power comes from at the base. From controlling a territory where economic activities take place.

So, your solution to people using their influence to ruin the lives of people they dislike is to give power to people who mostly hate poor people?

See again countering the "here's what would happen with your system" with the non-sequitur of "here's what happens in our system" without ever answering.

The argument here isn't that our current setup is perfect or flawless, it's to demonstrate that something like anarcho-capitalism is DESIGNED to spiral out of control and basically bring people back to the Dark Ages.
It can't do anything but that whereas a democracy's failure only happens when assholes are involved.

More government is a great way to make that even worse. The poor people pay taxes to have rich people use tear gas and tasers and well trained paramilitary police on them.

That makes sense if you ignore everything that's happened in the last 200 years.
Emancipation, liberation of women, protection of free speech, minimum wages, public healthcare, unemployment benefits, wildlife conservation, space program, right to a fair trial, public utilities, rise of literacy, freedom of religion, public vaccination campaigns etc.

That's what a government gives you that J.D. Rockerfeller wouldn't.

Historically, any time the government starts "meddlng" in the market and giving people more free shit, overall quality of living improves. Every time the government just "lets the market take it's course" you have massive upwards accumulation of wealth and power and a struggling lower class who eat shit all day long until they decide it's time for a bloody revolt.

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Considering we are all in a recession, the best thing at the moment would be to lower taxes and encourage spending. We should not be focused on creating new programs that continue to tax people.
If nobody goes out and spends money (or has money to spend), we will slide deeper into the hole, much as Greece has. It's that simple.

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At 5/10/10 06:29 PM, poxpower wrote:

It's not about stores and luxury goods, it's about who controls the means to produce the base necessities and who controls key resources.

Those who do don't get to control key resources unless either. A. They're smart, and avoid stupid hiring decisions or B. They take it by force, aka politics.

That's where a country's power comes from at the base. From controlling a territory where economic activities take place.

It comes from taking money from people in that economic area, not from any special control over businesses. Unless you're talking about a state monopoly? In capitalism, lots of people control economic activities, and they all want your money.

See again countering the "here's what would happen with your system" with the non-sequitur of "here's what happens in our system" without ever answering.

You're assuming my conclusion is weak. I'm actually saying, here's what happens at the moment with our system, because of our system, anarcho capitalism goes in the right direction. I value police forces, and the service they bring, and lots of other aspects of government, and I suspect that if you eliminated the police forces, mafia style syndicates would take over as the dominant form of governance in a lot of areas, but in an economic frame, it's going in the right direction.

The argument here isn't that our current setup is perfect or flawless, it's to demonstrate that something like anarcho-capitalism is DESIGNED to spiral out of control and basically bring people back to the Dark Ages.

Because rich people control the resources, as they already do?

It can't do anything but that whereas a democracy's failure only happens when assholes are involved.

Democracy's successes are in restraining assholes.

That makes sense if you ignore everything that's happened in the last 200 years.
Emancipation, liberation of women, protection of free speech, minimum wages, public healthcare, unemployment benefits, wildlife conservation, space program, right to a fair trial, public utilities, rise of literacy, freedom of religion, public vaccination campaigns etc.

Emancipation- I support strong values and laws, and agree with this, so, yay.

Liberation of women- due to women entering the workplace, and being forced to work more in two world wars. Strong economic and cultural forces made it happen. Still, a legal example.

Freedom of speech. Well, government goes both ways for this one, and delights in suppressing it. That's why the first amendment forces government to not abridge it. As long as people can't be violent, so, some sort of law enforcement, this is partially guaranteed. Don't people mostly try to suppress freedom of speech through the government, though? And the law courts.

Minimum wages. Pretty good. They do guarantee high unemployment for young people, though, since people just don't hire them. The reason is mostly education. People are smarter, so, it can be afforded.

Recently, I'm not so in to the public healthcare thing. You know that a lot of businesses have decided it'll be cheaper to stop insuring their workers, and just take the fine, because of the way the government has arranged the fines? Woow, public finances collapse and lots of people get no healthcare. I'd definitely prefer less government involvement.

Wild life conservation- eh, I support this, and it's cheap, whatever. Not that it's done much except by those who've already destroyed their wild life.

Space Program. We went on the moon. Private industry would have got into low space orbit. Not much point in being on the moon. A nice propaganda gesture in the cold war, anyway.

Right to a fair trial. Yay, law.

Public utilities. High taxes, and public utilities. I prefer private ones. Tend to be cheaper.

Rise of literacy- doubtful, that was rising long before education started to be emphasized by the government. There are such things as private schools, and it's easy enough to learn at home.

Freedom of religion- from government, sure. What's your point? That a government isn't burning heretics?

Vaccination campaigns- rich countries have rich people who support charities that do this, and most people can afford it. It's mostly a challenge to do it in poor countries. But hey, I support government in this minor act of charity.

That's what a government gives you that J.D. Rockerfeller wouldn't.

Well, actually, he donated huge amounts of money to medical charities, and schools, but sure, some of those goals came about with moderate aid from government. Vaccination, emancipation, minimum wages. And more expensively, public utilities and hospitals.

And of course, we're ignoring business regulation, financial regulation, housing regulation, subsidizies. In otherwords, most of the examples you've given aren't much to do with capitalism. Public utilities, public healthcare, minimum wage, and, ooh, I missed it, unemployment benefits, that fun way to bribe people not to work, being the main ones. Most of those just require a strong legal system. Some function as charitable giving by a government. The space race one, serves as a propaganda drive to get on the moon.

Historically, any time the government starts "meddlng" in the market and giving people more free shit, overall quality of living improves. Every time the government just "lets the market take it's course" you have massive upwards accumulation of wealth and power and a struggling lower class who eat shit all day long until they decide it's time for a bloody revolt.

Your lack of examples is inspiring. And in America, because of capitalism, there isn't a lower class that eats shit all day. Likewise in most modern democracies. Even lower classes have a moderately large income.

In poorer countries, higher levels of government tends to lead to this.

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At 5/11/10 07:28 AM, Yottabyte wrote: Considering we are all in a recession, the best thing at the moment would be to lower taxes and encourage spending. We should not be focused on creating new programs that continue to tax people.
If nobody goes out and spends money (or has money to spend), we will slide deeper into the hole, much as Greece has. It's that simple.

No, that's not why Greece is in the whole, but that is exactly how to put us in the whole. The thing I've never understood is how people expect lowering taxes will be better for the country in order to stop a recession with out doing anything else. Lowering taxes decreases government funds during a period of time when the government is already in a decline in terms of the amount of money the government can take in due to people spending less already and hence not paying taxes. Which in turn means the government has to fire people, the government can't pay its employees, and the government goes further into debt which further weakens the dollar against other currencies and eventually will lead to massive runaway inflation, which we're unfortunately likely to see in the U.S. during our lifetimes.

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At 5/11/10 01:27 PM, Ytaker wrote: They take it by force, aka politics.

Or you know, actual FORCE, as defined in the dictionary.

In capitalism, lots of people control economic activities, and they all want your money.

They control it WITHIN a country. I own my house, but my house is in Canada and I don't own Canada.
The Canadian government owns Canada on behalf of Canadians.

because of our system, anarcho capitalism goes in the right direction.

Then why do you people never answer anything about anarcho-capitlism and instead always come back to "but our system blabla".

but in an economic frame, it's going in the right direction.

They've already tried free-market capitalism, that's where all the regulation on business come from, because it was SO EASY to abuse.

In anarcho-capitalism, there's no FDA.
There's no consumer protection. There's no product testing or quality insurance. There's no anti-trust laws and there's no environmental protection or quotas.

If Smilez answers this, I KNOW all he'll be able to say is "but the FDA did X wrong, consumer protection did X wrong" etc.

Notice how this DOESN'T answer the actual question of what to put in their place?

Because rich people control the resources, as they already do?

The government owns it. The right to exploit it is their, but it's the government who actually owns and defends it.

Freedom of speech. Well, government goes both ways for this one, and delights in suppressing it.

In China maybe.

You know that a lot of businesses have decided it'll be cheaper to stop insuring their workers, and just take the fine, because of the way the government has arranged the fines?

Again not an argument against the idea of public healthcare but a nitpick about a particular aspect of that one particular system.

Public utilities. High taxes, and public utilities. I prefer private ones. Tend to be cheaper.

Tend to not exist too.

Rise of literacy- doubtful, that was rising long before education started to be emphasized by the government.

The credit isn't all due to governments obviously but mandatory education pushed the literacy rates up in the countries it's been instituted in and states.

Freedom of religion- from government

From everyone.

Vaccination campaigns- rich countries have rich people who support charities that do this

Charities don't handle vaccination of the population at large.

Most of those just require a strong legal system.

If that's somehow different from a government, I'd love to hear why.

Your lack of examples is inspiring.

It's called the 19th century.

In poorer countries, higher levels of government tends to lead to this.

There's bad governments.

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At 5/11/10 04:02 PM, gumOnShoe wrote:

At 5/11/10 07:28 AM, Yottabyte wrote: Considering we are all in a recession, the best thing at the moment would be to lower taxes and encourage spending. We should not be focused on creating new programs that continue to tax people.
If nobody goes out and spends money (or has money to spend), we will slide deeper into the hole, much as Greece has. It's that simple.

No, that's not why Greece is in the whole, but that is exactly how to put us in the whole. The thing I've never understood is how people expect lowering taxes will be better for the country in order to stop a recession with out doing anything else. Lowering taxes decreases government funds during a period of time when the government is already in a decline in terms of the amount of money the government can take in due to people spending less already and hence not paying taxes. Which in turn means the government has to fire people, the government can't pay its employees, and the government goes further into debt which further weakens the dollar against other currencies and eventually will lead to massive runaway inflation, which we're unfortunately likely to see in the U.S. during our lifetimes.

A mix of laffer curve and stimulus ideals. The laffer curve states that as you decrease taxes, people's willingness to pay increases. Republican often conflate this to, most tax cuts increase revenue. If businesses trust the government more, and are less willing to evade taxes, this helps. There's also the idea that if you lower taxes, businesses will spend less time evading taxation, be more willing to risk their cash reserves, and likewise consumers will have more cash on hand to spend on businessses.

It worked for Bush. He had a clintonite recession- computer technology was used too much, the bubble collapsed around when bush came into office, spiked hard by Clinton's aggressive antitrust suit against microsoft. He lowered taxes, the recession ended, businesses and rich people started paying more taxes, and revenues shot up. He then increased spending on schools and medicine, and got america deeper into debt.

Democrat people prefer government spending more, so they want to increase spending during a recession- with the idea that it will put cash into consumers and business hands, increase activity, and spark an end to the recession. And raise 'pro business' taxes, sometimes, rarely. In the basics, this is an utterly emotional response. Like republican's reflex idea to cut taxes, and maybe possibly spending in response to any problem. Both have lots of serious thoughts and justification behind them, however.

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OK this is a response to pox's older post. I've been busy and i will continue to be, so Responding to the various posts is going to be difficult. My apologies.

At 5/8/10 04:04 PM, poxpower wrote: Yep and nope.

That's Awesome Possum.

It's a system, it's not benevolent or malevolent and the people running it are rarely all good or all bad. They make great decisions and they make bas decisions but they do allow for a system where you can challenge the decisions without resorting to violence.

First, one *can* call an institution benevolent. "We the people cannot trust the corporations to regulate themselves" Common discourse holds the corporation as an Amoral, regardless of whether the actual agents within said institution are "good" or "bad". And in the notion that we cannot trust corporations to regulate themselves, we are saying the institution lacks the 'moral fiber' to operate unregulated without negative consequences, because the institution is amoral, its primary function is to earn profits. That is, the corporation is not benevolent. Maybe benevolence was a bad word and a better one would be "trustworthiness"
Second, No, you cannot, you cannot refuse to patronize a state service, I've said it again and again and you either deny it, or argue that the fact that the state operates through the threat of violence is what makes private companies act voluntarily with their constituents. It may be possible to 'peacefully' pay off a politician to grant legislative favors to your clique, but it is impossible to avoid the fact that there are thousands of similar cliques who are demanding the government extort funds from the citizens at large so that they can have their "fair share."

No it doesn't since you can't overturn its laws easily. The elected officials have to obey the previous laws, they can't change them on a whim.

So you've at least abandoned the notion that having kind hearted people is at the root of the system. Good. Certain laws cannot be changed easily of course; interest groups with favors granted to them by the state will work feverishly to defend them whereas citizens who collectively lose a great deal but individually lose very little have little incentive to fight to repeal them, and thus it is impossible for there to be any sort of ceasefire agreement between interest groups. (It makes more sense to lobby for your own privileges that give you unearned privilege than it does to lobby against those that give others privileges that harm you) , but again it depends upon the law. Getting rid of bad laws is rare and in some cases impossible for reasons stated above. And likewise getting bills passed that benefit some interest groups at the expense of others may take time to get through, but whatever laws get passed they will not have the common interest in mind, they will have the interests of the constituents of the congressman and senators that wrote and signed the bill, the ones that fund the incredibly profitable yet expensive campaigns.
And my point of saying this is so that you do not confuse general corruption with 'constitutional restraint'. Some laws, like the patriot act, get passed even with incredible unpopularity and even with nominal criticism from those who would never themselves actually repeal the bill, but none the less with great speed.

And throughout most of history slavery existed as a result of prisoners of war, which was a product of the state,

Today slavery is still committed by private companies and individuals in countries where it's outlawed. Have fun blaming that on the state anyway like you do for all things.

"Where it is outlawed" Meaning that your beloved state has failed yet again to secure the rights of it's citizens. But I do not know precisely where and what you are talking about, you mentioned slavery in Africa but I already dealt with that. State Kleptocracy and civil war creates poverty and desperation and also leads to the kind of 'dispensability' that your video lecturer was talking about. In those countries, the inability of the state to secure any sort of lasting peace and secure property rights makes the buildup of capital Impossible and thus demolishing any chance of developing an economy that works and thinks in the long run, that is, investments that pan out in the far rather than the immediate future.
You would expect evil corporations like Nike and Walmart to be building factories in even poorer places in the world where wages would undoubtedly be lower, like Africa, rather than relatively richer countries like Indonesia and Asia. But the reasons aforementioned make this impossible.
A free man with access to capital, not simply picks and shovels and hoes but real machines, is more productive than a slave or even several slaves, by several orders of magnitude, and does not need to be driven around by well paid armed guards who take the risk of a slave revolt, this is why when one speaks of slavery, pre-industrial agriculture most always comes to mind, and this is also why the south was poorer than the north.
Africa has no access to capital almost entirely because of the state.

What law? That slavery is profitable in some instances?
Yeah where could I have dreamed up that one huh?

That it is more profitable to pay people to force other people to work involuntarily for you and have no incentive to work since they do not get to keep the product of their labor, than it is to simply pay them a wage they will agree to and not have to pay armed men to bring them to and from work.

If the functionality of a system is determined by who gets in and structure doesn't matter at all, then any system will work as well as any others

No one said the structure didn't matter.
But there's no structure that is impervious to a major asshole.

If you mean that structure is not impervious to crimes of passion or some lunatic behavior, this is true, but again how well a society performs is connected in large part to it's structure, which structure gives us the most solace that some lunatic won't be commander in chief for "four more years", and minimizes catastrophic mistakes by making people immediately accountable for their actions, in the same way that someone is immediately accountable for placing their hand on a hot stove, rather than placing their hand on a stove and having the pain distributed throughout society equally.

There is a demand for for a humane society, and institutions will supply that demand to the extent that it is demanded.

See now you're chucking "humane" demands in with capitalism.
Guess what, there was a demand for slavery too and that drove it for a pretty long while until those who did not have a "demand" for slavery said "hey quit that shit" to those who did have it.

The desire to abolish slavery entirely in the antebellum south and even in the north was a desire only held by a minority, the rest of society disliked slavery but not enough to want to abolish it and not enough to oppose the taxes that were being paid to round up escape slaves for the sake of the small minority that owned slaves, nor enough to oppose the various black codes.

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But the reform of a state charitable institution is nearly impossible

Except it's not..

You're talking out of your ass now. Good work, you've really achieved a new low.
If you want to know what the intellectual equivalent of this is, it would be something like this.
"Yes, private charities are superior to state charities in terms of their effectiveness relative to their expenditures, this is a fact. And state programs are nearly impossible to reform, this is also a historical fact. They get bigger and they are given more funding."
Actually no, that's not me talking out of my ass, that's the truth. This is me talking out of my ass.
"You're a retard."

Again where's that society where there's no social net offered by the government and yet there's private charities tending to the needs of the people?

When did that EVER happen?

I would point you to De Tocqueville.
http://www.civitas.org.uk/pdf/Tocquevill e_rr2.pdf
And No, it's not like we have to even discuss such abstract and irrelevant things as economics and incentives. Yawn.

What are you talking about?

The antecedent you are looking for is "Cartels and monopolies"
You may have an industry with relatively fewer firms than another, or in rare instances a single firm in a free market. But in the former case you will not see cartels being able to collude to raise prices in the long run. And you will not see monopolists charging the 'monopoly price' in the long run. Whether there are a few firms or a single firm providing a service they got that way because they were competitive (Even if you argue they can somehow magically raise an army and maintain their cartel or monopoly by force alone, which is of course a lie, the force needed would require a war chest profits which assumes that the firms have been competitive for some time prior to establishing a 100% marginal state)

The only reason they were stopped is government intervention.

Except there were not... :o

How something ultimately ends up is more important than how it's written on paper. Case and point - prohibition.

Yeah or, say ANARCHY.

Case and point - Somalia V. Zimbabwe. The former went from being a psychotic dictatorship to a poor third world country with, (notwithstanding), improving standards of living by all measures, and then slipping back into disorder and violence when US and UN troops try to prop up a state. The Latter went from being the breadbasket of Africa to a basket-case with a psychotic dictatorship and degraded standards of living. Statism sounds great on paper but fails in reality, at least relative to the (Relatively) freer alternatives. And I chose these two countries because they share more in common as far as history and longevity is concerned.

Again, show me this prosperous society that doesn't have a social net for its citizen.

Already taken care of,

Anyway you describe a system where the government has always exactly as much money as you could lose to give back to you if you should fail. Yeah that system surely would make people take insane risks all the time!

So the government has an annual income of 0$, so I as an individual could lose 0$ and thus the state can give the 0$ back to me should I fail?

Again, in a country with NO AFFORDABLE HEALTHCARE.

And why is healthcare unaffordable? Oh, I've already gone over it. Several times, and I will not go over it again. Dummkopf.

"Hey I have a flying car! It rules"
"Ok where is it? I've never seen that!"

Your argument isn't that I haven't made any logical or empirical case for freedom, but that because I can't prove by pointing to a stateless industrial society that a stateless society can work that no amount of economics will change your mind. If Such a society existed no argument would be necessary.

Under a state you can't.

And you can't foresee any problems arising from this brilliant idea to just secede every time a group of people gets angry with a decision?

No not really. :D I use the word secede as synonymous with non intercourse. You claim to hate monopolies yet abhor the idea of people having freedom of choice, you claim the government offers choice and the free market creates monopolies but people having said freedom of choice leads to the boogieman of Tribalism. I can only conclude that Your preference is neither for or against freedom of choice, the only thing you care about is that the STATE is running it.
:From where, genius?
Wind, Solar, Nuclear, Natural Gas, Geothermal, Hydroelectric, Coal, or any combination of the above, (And there's the state, lots of options with the state... Really, you are FREE to choose, you've got a republican, a democrat... A republican... Democract...) After of course you are approved by the EPA and the various regulatory boards, assuming the mode of power hasn't been made illegal or potential sources of energy people would like to bid for have been closed off by some evil corporation acting on behalf of the public interest. Even if you're company has a monopoly on oil in a given geographic area, it is dealing with foreign competitors and it is dealing with substitutes, many of which cannot be monopolized unless you care to spew forward a theory that on a free market private companies have an economic incentive to build giant space tarps that block out the sun and charge citizens exorbitant rates and without the white knight of the state the world would fall into perpetual darkness.

Then it instantly goes into "then it appeals to the goverment to create barriers".

Yep. The AMA, The power companies, cable companies, water companies, municipal garbage disposal, the post office, the insurance companies, the oil companies, the car companies, the private and public unions.

No that's bullshit. Cartels don't need a government or laws, they just sell at a loss until the competitors are driven out of business.

On Predatory pricing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6dD-ifIr 8s

You're talking about laws, which is another service. So my statement stands.

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No there's nothing wrong with diversity.

Languages. Names for things. Measuring conventions, building codes etc. etc. etc.

You're conflating choice with selection, people can voluntarily chose the same thing for convenience, for instance, language. You are free to speak a different language and no one will put a bullet in you for doing so, but for the sake of convenience people in the US Generally speak English particularly as a business/communication language with Spanish and Chinese probably following behind. But this is not the same as saying that English Spanish and Chinese should be the only languages people are permitted to speak PERIOD. The same applies to shoe sizes and time zones (which were standardized by private companies, not by governments), the inconvenience of learning multiple size and time zone systems led people to adopt the ones that were most convenient to them, but this is not the same as saying that we demand a law making it a crime to use alternative time zone or shoe size systems because we have to restrict people's ABILITY to pick alternatives; for their own good.

And so, how many choices are good for society, is most generally, and should be, determined by society. That is, there are, for example, 50 competing cereal companies in the long run equilibrium (Assuming relative ease of entry relative to political struggles) because the diverse individuals within society have preferences for cereal that is only fulfilled by 50 companies, not 49, not 51. If that same society only has 2 or 3 main languages, for business and for social and family life, as well as communication with foreigners, and those languages are transmitted and are learned without any sort of legal stimulus or prohibition, then it is because the demands of society are most fulfilled by 2 or 3 languages. (Though generally the tendency is for languages between cultures to mix and form a single language)
And this optimal quantity can ONLY be determined by society's voluntary actions.

So when I say options should not be limited by the state, I'm not saying that 2500 languages are better than 2 or 3. I'm saying no one should be stopped by force from choosing an alternative, and so we are really comparing a fixed number of options (one or two in the case of the state) set arbitrarily by an authority, versus unlimited potential options, not how many options there need to be for something to be competitive at any given time.

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At 5/11/10 06:06 PM, poxpower wrote:

At 5/11/10 01:27 PM, Ytaker wrote: They take it by force, aka politics.

Or you know, actual FORCE, as defined in the dictionary.

Yeah, and then they have the fun of fighting a lot of people with shotguns, and probably a milita. Anyway, I'm pro police.

In capitalism, lots of people control economic activities, and they all want your money.

They control it WITHIN a country. I own my house, but my house is in Canada and I don't own Canada.
The Canadian government owns Canada on behalf of Canadians.

Mm, but the point is, in an anarcho-

Let me go on a sidetrack here. I like government. Just less. It's hard for me to argue against my position. I don't think government should be destroyed, just vastly reduced. Lower taxation, more emphasis on using private organisations, like hospitals, schools, with scholarships and medical credits, less on public thingies. Minimal business regulation, mostly focused on making sure that businesses are transparent, stopping them from causing severe poisoning. Anti trust laws focused on serving competition, not competitors- if a monopoly guarantees lower prices, allow it, challenge any practises where they use their power to suppress competitors. Towards the direction of anarcho capitalism, but not all the way.

But the reason I'm far more willing to go that way is that I trust businesses. And the reasons for that...

"Actually, it bases power on the power to consume." You were comparing a country to a business. A country has much more of a monopoly. You can't leave a country, without surrendering huge amounts of capital and roots. You can leave a business with ease if they suck. So your earlier point, that rich people selling stuff gave them immense power- false. There're other businesses. If they try to manipulate their power on a large scale, people have the right of boycott. And that's why businesses are better than countries.

A country which is extremely corrupt, and doesn't serve it's people, but has good tax collectors, is still gonna get a lot of money. Unlike a business. A rich person's power base is buyers.

because of our system, anarcho capitalism goes in the right direction.

Then why do you people never answer anything about anarcho-capitlism and instead always come back to "but our system blabla".

Well, mostly, because I was annoyed at you blaming capitalism for universal human problems, which are vastly worsened by bigger government.

but in an economic frame, it's going in the right direction.

They've already tried free-market capitalism, that's where all the regulation on business come from, because it was SO EASY to abuse.

In anarcho-capitalism, there's no FDA.
There's no consumer protection. There's no product testing or quality insurance. There's no anti-trust laws and there's no environmental protection or quotas.

Regulation on business isn't hugely free market. It's mostly a tool for rich big businesses, with deep pockets and lots of politicians. It makes life easier for big businesses, and harder for their competitors. A form of monopolizing.

In terms of the recent recession, the regulation was, and has been for a long time, lend lend lend, poor people need homes!

I'm mostly pro that. It's scientific, and as such, not too expensive. Although, that sort of government has had flaws. A few tens of million people dead due to the lack of DDT. Some weird regulation on poisons, suppression of a lot of drugs. Possibly, a banning of CO2, and the swift collapse of all industry.

Plus, there's some of that. Just, less.

Because rich people control the resources, as they already do?

The government owns it. The right to exploit it is their, but it's the government who actually owns and defends it.

Yes, rich people. Rich people, the government, pretty much the same.

Freedom of speech. Well, government goes both ways for this one, and delights in suppressing it.

In China maybe.

Or Canada. If you insult muslims. Or if you support the war in afghanistan, say, Christine St-Pierre. Or opposing homosexuality, like Chris Kempling.

Again not an argument against the idea of public healthcare but a nitpick about a particular aspect of that one particular system.

Ok. Long wait times, minimal scientific discovery, severe monopoly problems, suppression of private industry, a lack of support for babies, brain drain, rationing. Say hello, Canada!

Public utilities. High taxes, and public utilities. I prefer private ones. Tend to be cheaper.

Tend to not exist too.

Maybe in Canada. Wooow!

Rise of literacy- doubtful, that was rising long before education started to be emphasized by the government.

The credit isn't all due to governments obviously but mandatory education pushed the literacy rates up in the countries it's been instituted in and states.

Nah. Literacy is easy. Schools mostly work to teach more advanced things. Maths, basic reasoning. Advanced reading.

Freedom of religion- from government

From everyone.

"Human rights commissions, as they are evolving, are an attack on our fundamental freedoms and the basic existence of a democratic society ... It is in fact totalitarianism. I find this is very scary stuff."

Clearly a quote by some foolish anarcho capitalist.

Vaccination campaigns- rich countries have rich people who support charities that do this

Charities don't handle vaccination of the population at large.

Well, there's no point. But they do it in poor countries. People like Bill Gates. If governments didn't do it, rich individuals would do it in America first.

Most of those just require a strong legal system.

If that's somehow different from a government, I'd love to hear why.

It's not economic.

Your lack of examples is inspiring.

It's called the 19th century.

Their quality of life and length of life improved substantially through that century, so I'll take that as a compliment. Despite massive population growth, frequent wars, and severe non economic problems.

In poorer countries, higher levels of government tends to lead to this.

There's bad governments.

Not really. They're socialist ones, and they prevent the uptake of extremely advanced western technology, and thus, their people eat shit. Extremely advanced western technology is the reason most of our problems are gone. You mentioned low quality of life as a problem- that's only a problem in places without modern technology. It's mostly irrelevent to our debate. Canada is going to be rich and powerful, under almost any government.

---

At 5/11/10 06:44 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote:

Maybe benevolence was a bad word and a better one would be "trustworthiness"

Humans aren't trustworthy, therefore anything run by humans isn't trustworthy.
But there are many more fail safes in place to keep government officials honest than there would be to keep an industrialist honest under the free market ( i.e. none ).

Second, No, you cannot, you cannot refuse to patronize a state service

I never said you could, I said you could challenge it without resorting to violence.

but whatever laws get passed they will not have the common interest in mind

Not that's just false. There's many laws that benefit the common person. One easy example is free speech laws. There's consumer protection, the FDA, building codes and so on.

"Where it is outlawed" Meaning that your beloved state has failed yet again to secure the rights of it's citizens.

Again, not answering the point.

But I do not know precisely where and what you are talking about,

In Brazil, for instance, there's still slavery and the government conducts raids of slaver facilities and free hundreds of people a year.

In those countries, the inability of the state to secure any sort of lasting peace and secure property rights makes the buildup of capital Impossible and thus demolishing any chance of developing an economy that works and thinks in the long run, that is, investments that pan out in the far rather than the immediate future.

Thanks for basically describing an anarcho-capitalist system and concluding that it's responsible for slavery in those places.

A free man with access to capital, not simply picks and shovels and hoes but real machines, is more productive than a slave or even several slaves, by several orders of magnitude,

Do you even know what an order of magnitude is?
You're basically saying that one dude laying bricks freely is as productive as 200 slaves laying bricks. Nonsense.

They don't hire slaves to do taxes and build rockets, they hire slaves to carry rocks and dig holes. It takes a couple guys with an aka-47 and a bag of gruel to keep slaves working 70 hours a week.

At 5/11/10 06:46 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote:

You're talking out of your ass now.

How is the reform of a state charitable institution "nearly impossible"??
What's that mean?

I would point you to De Tocqueville.
http://www.civitas.org.uk/pdf/Tocquevill e_rr2.pdf

Dude what the shit I'm not reading entire books.
I've already watched a mind-numbingly stupid video narrated by a 15 year-old, I'm not wasting 10 hours reading a book that hasn't allowed you to answer simple questions.

100 to 1 odds nowhere in that book does he mention a society with no social net where private charities did all the work like tend to all the sick people, tend to all the retired people etc.

I think the closest examples you could ever come up with are Churches and how they sought the monopoly on healthcare and education and it wasn't a "no strings attached" deal.

But in the former case you will not see cartels being able to collude to raise prices in the long run.

Is 150 years long enough?
I'm sorry we never got to find out how long they could keep it up since the U.S. government put a stop to it.

Statism sounds great on paper but fails in reality, at least relative to the (Relatively) freer alternatives.

Yeah it's not really hard to make any society look good when compared to a horrible dictatorial regime. But compare Somalia to France and see how well they stack up.

Again, show me this prosperous society that doesn't have a social net for its citizen.

Already taken care of,

Was Somalia really it?

So the government has an annual income of 0$, so I as an individual could lose 0$ and thus the state can give the 0$ back to me should I fail?

What?

And why is healthcare unaffordable? Oh, I've already gone over it. Several times, and I will not go over it again. Dummkopf.

Yeah I wonder why healthcare is impossibly hard to pay for in the only developed country without government-run healthcare.

If Such a society existed no argument would be necessary.

Well again look at healthcare. The USA argued about it for 4-50 years when it clearly is a stupider system to have it private than not as the results demonstrate in every other developed country.

yet abhor the idea of people having freedom of choice,

There's no "freedom of choice" system. Almost any freedom for one individual comes at the price of less freedom for another.

From where, genius?

Wind, Solar, Nuclear, Natural Gas, Geothermal, Hydroelectric, Coal, or any combination of the above,

You're get your oil from wind?
Good luck with that.

Even if you're company has a monopoly on oil in a given geographic area, it is dealing with foreign competitors and it is dealing with substitutes, many of which cannot be monopolized

You can't run your car on solar electricity.
Now you're resorting to sci-fi technology to solve a monopoly problem.

"Yeah maybe a company can control the water supply from a river by putting a damn on it, but that's when you just use your matter extractor device and teleport water from Europa!"

No that's bullshit. Cartels don't need a government or laws, they just sell at a loss until the competitors are driven out of business.

On Predatory pricing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6dD-ifIr 8s

Cannot find any examples of this?
That's HIGHLY disputable. But mostly likely IT DID happen during the 19th century but it was just less efficient that buying out the competition although sometimes it could be used to devalue the prospects of competitors so they could buy them out for less.

Anyway predatory pricing is not really important since price fixing and mergers were far more efficient ways to keep a monopoly situation going.

At 5/11/10 06:47 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote:

but this is not the same as saying that we demand a law making it a crime to use alternative time zone or shoe size systems because we have to restrict people's ABILITY to pick alternatives; for their own good.

I don't think I've ever said there should be laws against diversity. I said it's useless and even detrimental in some cases, as is clearly apparent in many things, like your examples of companies standardizing shoe sizes.
There's no downside to everyone using the same system for shoe sizes.

And so, how many choices are good for society, is most generally, and should be, determined by society.

No one said otherwise but there are instances where the government has to make the choice.

For instance: road signs. You can't have all road signs everywhere be in all languages.
That means there's an extremely strong incentive for you to learn whatever language the road signs are in the country you're in.

---

At 5/11/10 07:39 PM, Ytaker wrote:

I don't think government should be destroyed, just vastly reduced.

Well that's a case by case basis and not really what this thread is about.

"Actually, it bases power on the power to consume." You were comparing a country to a business.

I was comparing votes to money.
As poor as you are, your vote is still worth the same as Bill Gate's.

You can leave a business with ease if they suck.

Depends.

If they try to manipulate their power on a large scale, people have the right of boycott.

That's not always an option.

Well, mostly, because I was annoyed at you blaming capitalism for universal human problems, which are vastly worsened by bigger government.

You mean dictators?

It makes life easier for big businesses, and harder for their competitors. A form of monopolizing.

Yeah that's true in some respect, but there's factors outside of the market for why you'd want everyone to submit their meat to inspection, for instance. No one wants a society where every purchase is a gamble.

Yes, rich people. Rich people, the government, pretty much the same.

Representatives don't "own" the government, they run it. It's sort of like a big company with shares and everyone has the same number of shares: one. We elect a boss for it, but the boss doesn't own the country like kings used to.

Or Canada. If you insult muslims.

Instances of the governments in developped countries limiting free speech are pretty rare all things considered.

Ok. Long wait times, minimal scientific discovery, severe monopoly problems, suppression of private industry, a lack of support for babies, brain drain, rationing. Say hello, Canada!

US healthcare costs: TWICE as big as everywhere else for the same level of care.
Suckers.

Nah. Literacy is easy.

Right...

Well, there's no point. But they do it in poor countries.

Cause no one else does it.

If governments didn't do it, rich individuals would do it in America first.

Well aside from the fact that it's never happened anywhere in the world, I'm sure you're right.

Most of those just require a strong legal system.

If that's somehow different from a government, I'd love to hear why.

It's not economic.

Neither is a government.
Whatever "it's not economic" means.

Their quality of life and length of life improved substantially through that century

That's about as crazy as me saying that since the anti-trust laws, we've gone to the moon and invented computers.

What happened in the 19th century was rampant price fixing and merging until the government made efforts to stop it.

Not really.

Yeah I'm PRETTY sure there's bad governments.

You mentioned low quality of life as a problem- that's only a problem in places without modern technology.

North Korea vs South Korea.
East Germany vs West Germany.
French-controlled Haiti vs liberated Haiti

and so on.

A shitty government can ruin any country just as a shitty boss can ruin any company.

---

At 5/12/10 01:01 AM, poxpower wrote:

At 5/11/10 07:39 PM, Ytaker wrote:

I don't think government should be destroyed, just vastly reduced.

Well that's a case by case basis and not really what this thread is about.

Mostly cases where there's some economic around.

"Actually, it bases power on the power to consume." You were comparing a country to a business.

I was comparing votes to money.
As poor as you are, your vote is still worth the same as Bill Gate's.

Not really. He can just bribe a couple politicians.

http://techrights.org/2008/02/25/ooxml-w eek-of-frauds/

Plus he can tell his employees to vote for what he wants.

You can leave a business with ease if they suck.

Depends.

Most monopolies only work with physical intimitdation. Otherwise, others can break that monopoly. That's why I'd keep the most important part of government- the laws against beating other people up.

If they try to manipulate their power on a large scale, people have the right of boycott.

That's not always an option.

It is more often than with government, where lobbyists seek to establish a monopoly for themselves.

Well, mostly, because I was annoyed at you blaming capitalism for universal human problems, which are vastly worsened by bigger government.

You mean dictators?

I mean, GM greasing the pockets of a lot of politicians and getting a multi billion dollar bailout. In a normal country, the universal problems of corruption and concentration of wealth in the hands of the rich and huge power in the hands of the rich are amplified tenfold.

It makes life easier for big businesses, and harder for their competitors. A form of monopolizing.

Yeah that's true in some respect, but there's factors outside of the market for why you'd want everyone to submit their meat to inspection, for instance. No one wants a society where every purchase is a gamble.

Yeah, I support that regulation. That's a long way from the level of regulation you'd advocate though, I'd suspect.

Yes, rich people. Rich people, the government, pretty much the same.

Representatives don't "own" the government, they run it. It's sort of like a big company with shares and everyone has the same number of shares: one. We elect a boss for it, but the boss doesn't own the country like kings used to.

Yes, but there are a large number of rich people there, and there's an extensive effort by other rich people to bribe and lobby even more influence. As such their number of shares is a lot higher. It depends on a lot of factors, like ideology, recent events, but rich people are far, far more likely to get a vote their way.

Or Canada. If you insult muslims.

Instances of the governments in developped countries limiting free speech are pretty rare all things considered.

Sadly not. It's common enough that people self censor as well. People are unwilling to criticize muslims publically, because they know the government is going to attack them, as well as radical muslims. And in other cases, every time someone writes a letter to a newspaper, they have to worry they'll lose their job.

Ok. Long wait times, minimal scientific discovery, severe monopoly problems, suppression of private industry, a lack of support for babies, brain drain, rationing. Say hello, Canada!

US healthcare costs: TWICE as big as everywhere else for the same level of care.
Suckers.

Higher cancer survival rates, much shorter waiting times to use diagnostic equipment, more doctors around. The only meters you beat them on are life expectancy and infant mortality, which is likely because- they drink far more and are fatter.

Nah. Literacy is easy.

Right...

Ok, basic literacy is easy, and nearly universal. There are benefits to state education, but not at a very basic level.

Well, there's no point. But they do it in poor countries.

Cause no one else does it.

Yeah, and so, they get lots of praise. If nothing else, other countries would likely mount vaccination expeditions. Vaccination is very cheap.

If governments didn't do it, rich individuals would do it in America first.

Well aside from the fact that it's never happened anywhere in the world, I'm sure you're right.

There's no point since the government does it. It doesn't mean that charities wouldn't spring up to help poor people with health problems, as happens with more expensive conditions.

You can get vaccines from any private hospital. While coverage might not be as complete, most people would pay for it themselves.

Most of those just require a strong legal system.

If that's somehow different from a government, I'd love to hear why.

It's not economic.

Neither is a government.
Whatever "it's not economic" means.

It doesn't relate to- selling a product.

"No, I meant you can't evaluate what a Monet painting is worth based on how much paint it took to make it."

"Good thing I never said any of that.
Economists widely favor progressive taxation.

That proves only that the people who know what they're talking about agree with me and not with you."

"Yeah what if there's no fucking stores?
What if I live in a shithole and there's one guy who controls the town's water supply and he's got 20 men with guns with him?"

"SImilarly, the entrepreneurial spirit rises when people have a safety net on which they can fall back if their ventures should fail.
And people can more freely pursue better employment when they're not held hostage by their employer."

Notice how you've been arguing about monopolies, the value of things, and a safety net? Economic matters.

Their quality of life and length of life improved substantially through that century

That's about as crazy as me saying that since the anti-trust laws, we've gone to the moon and invented computers.

Since the industrial revolution. Their quality of life was flat before that, and then it started rising. With no government intervention. Britain didn't start doing anything until around 1890, America till 1910ish.

What happened in the 19th century was rampant price fixing and merging until the government made efforts to stop it.

If you wanna see when price fixing stopped, look to super markets. They started offering discounts, because they bought in bulk. Merchants hated it.

You mentioned low quality of life as a problem- that's only a problem in places without modern technology.

North Korea vs South Korea.
East Germany vs West Germany.
French-controlled Haiti vs liberated Haiti

and so on.

A shitty government can ruin any country just as a shitty boss can ruin any company.

Uh huh. A racist pro slavery government and two communist governments. Neither strengthens my belief in the goodness of government and the badness of capitalism.

---

At 5/11/10 06:15 PM, Ytaker wrote: A mix of laffer curve and stimulus ideals. The laffer curve states that as you decrease taxes, people's willingness to pay increases. Republican often conflate this to, most tax cuts increase revenue. If businesses trust the government more, and are less willing to evade taxes, this helps. There's also the idea that if you lower taxes, businesses will spend less time evading taxation, be more willing to risk their cash reserves, and likewise consumers will have more cash on hand to spend on businessses.

It worked for Bush. He had a clintonite recession- computer technology was used too much, the bubble collapsed around when bush came into office, spiked hard by Clinton's aggressive antitrust suit against microsoft. He lowered taxes, the recession ended, businesses and rich people started paying more taxes, and revenues shot up.

Businesses did not start paying more taxes because taxes were lowered. Increased revenue occurred because the recession ended and people were making and spending money, which activated more taxes. Regardless of whether Bush lowered tax rates, he still collected more tax money when revenue for the government went up, and it wasn't because he lowered rates. The economy was likely going to recover regardless of the tax cuts, the tax cuts were merely an emotional plea for everyone to have confidence in the system again.

Regardless, the tax cuts Bush imposed and his increased spending ultimately did harm the government and increase the debt. And you'll note Greece's problem is that everyone spent too much and their debt is too high. Notice anything similar there at all?

It isn't like China isn't dumping American currency for other more stable variants in fear that we will default eventually. Oh wait, it is. The difference is that Greece is small, and America is "Too Big To Fail."

Until it does.

And then back on target with this entire topic, your money will be worthless, as much as you may feel you are entitled to it.

---

At 5/12/10 08:37 AM, Ytaker wrote:

Not really. He can just bribe a couple politicians.

Yeah but that's cheating the system rather than being in a system designed to give rich people all the power.

Most monopolies only work with physical intimitdation.

Yep

I mean, GM greasing the pockets of a lot of politicians and getting a multi billion dollar bailout.

That's a pretty insignificant "problem" compared to the actual real problems caused by dictators.
It's even debatable if bailouts were good or bad for the general populace.

I'd say a government like the US makes life a lot better for people than just a lack of it.
Not so much with Stalin or Mugabe though.

Yeah, I support that regulation. That's a long way from the level of regulation you'd advocate though, I'd suspect.

Again, case by case.

As such their number of shares is a lot higher.

There's no system where someone who accrues a lot of wealth won't have more power in some form or another.
Democracy just dampens it.

It could probably be made to dampen it more but then people like Smilez start bitching about the free market and blabla

Sadly not. It's common enough that people self censor as well. People are unwilling to criticize muslims publically

It's not the government who does it last I heard, it's media companies who refuse to publish cartoons or air images to protect themselves.

Higher cancer survival rates,

But not lowest rate of death for cancer.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_de a_fro_can-health-death-from-cancer

They use a biased sample anyway since the people they treat at those who can afford healthcare and thus are those who benefit from early detection whereas other countries have to factor in all cases that make it to the hospital.

Ok, basic literacy is easy, and nearly universal.

Not it's really not easy and government involvement is important and does work.
Developing countries are taking great pains to educate their people, like in India for instance.

Vaccination is very cheap.

It's not really cheap to get everyone in a shit country vaccinated because they have bad infrastructures.

There's no point since the government does it.

When the government didn't do it, charities didn't "have it covered".
They sure don't have it covered in poor countries.

Notice how you've been arguing about monopolies, the value of things, and a safety net? Economic matters.

What are you even talking about now?
You said "laws aren't economics" but then you said government are economics?
What?

If you wanna see when price fixing stopped, look to super markets. They started offering discounts, because they bought in bulk. Merchants hated it.

That's not price fixing or lack of price fixing.

Uh huh. A racist pro slavery government and two communist governments. Neither strengthens my belief in the goodness of government and the badness of capitalism.

You said that a great country would be strong no matter what the government, evidently that's false.

---

At 5/12/10 10:07 AM, gumOnShoe wrote:

At 5/11/10 06:15 PM, Ytaker wrote: A mix of laffer curve and stimulus ideals. The laffer curve states that as you decrease taxes, people's willingness to pay increases. Republican often conflate this to, most tax cuts increase revenue. If businesses trust the government more, and are less willing to evade taxes, this helps. There's also the idea that if you lower taxes, businesses will spend less time evading taxation, be more willing to risk their cash reserves, and likewise consumers will have more cash on hand to spend on businessses.

It worked for Bush. He had a clintonite recession- computer technology was used too much, the bubble collapsed around when bush came into office, spiked hard by Clinton's aggressive antitrust suit against microsoft. He lowered taxes, the recession ended, businesses and rich people started paying more taxes, and revenues shot up.

The economy was likely going to recover regardless of the tax cuts, the tax cuts were merely an emotional plea for everyone to have confidence in the system again.

We've seen how well the democrat version of an emotional plea to have confidence in the system works.

Regardless, the tax cuts Bush imposed and his increased spending ultimately did harm the government and increase the debt. And you'll note Greece's problem is that everyone spent too much and their debt is too high. Notice anything similar there at all?

Since the 2003 tax cuts revenue has increased by 800 billion. Tax collection increased.

Yeah, America's spending is sky high. Any gain in revenues was swamped by increased spending.

"Yeah but that's cheating the system rather than being in a system designed to give rich people all the power."

Lobbying is legal. It's using the system as politicians want them to use it. Regardless of the purpose- the end result is, rich people win.

"That's a pretty insignificant "problem" compared to the actual real problems caused by dictators.
It's even debatable if bailouts were good or bad for the general populace.

I'd say a government like the US makes life a lot better for people than just a lack of it.
Not so much with Stalin or Mugabe though."

Are we arguing that dictators are better than non dictators? It's anarchocapitalism we're arguing about, isn't it?

I'd argue that you could slice spending in half and make it even better.

" Yeah, I support that regulation. That's a long way from the level of regulation you'd advocate though, I'd suspect.

Again, case by case."

Not really. Are they poisoning, or using biological weapons (aka, parasites and illnesses in meats) on the populace? Are they using physical violence to hurt people they don't like? Regulation which is focused on whether they kill people.

"There's no system where someone who accrues a lot of wealth won't have more power in some form or another.
Democracy just dampens it.

It could probably be made to dampen it more but then people like Smilez start bitching about the free market and blabla"

How does democracy dampen it? It gives them police to keep the rabble down, huge amounts of money if their business fails, laws which hurt small business competitors. Democracy, to the extent that it meddles in the market, makes those who have the money to pervert the people who do the examining more powerful.

"It's not the government who does it last I heard, it's media companies who refuse to publish cartoons or air images to protect themselves."

See, the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal. The media companies know that they can't legally publish cartoons or air images, or at least, can't without extensive court battles. Canada was the only western country I know to ban imports of The Satanic Verses.

http://www.nber.org/papers/w13429.pdf?ne w_window=1

"But not lowest rate of death for cancer.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_de a_fro_can-health-death-from-cancer

They use a biased sample anyway since the people they treat at those who can afford healthcare and thus are those who benefit from early detection whereas other countries have to factor in all cases that make it to the hospital."

Using a more methodologically sound study.

http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/a rt.asp?articlekey=91106

The USA beats Canada, and is at the top. They have the highest five year survival rate.

http://www.ncpa.org/pdfs/ba596.pdf

"Not it's really not easy and government involvement is important and does work.
Developing countries are taking great pains to educate their people, like in India for instance." Unless they're female, or from a low caste. That's their main problem. People who are of the wrong caste can't go to any school.

It works to get the literacy rate from about 70% to 99%. You're probably right, from my googling. Good I support public funding of education.

It's really weird

"It's not really cheap to get everyone in a shit country vaccinated because they have bad infrastructures.

There's no point since the government does it.

When the government didn't do it, charities didn't "have it covered".
They sure don't have it covered in poor countries."

It's still quite cheap. The most expensive vaccine only costs about 1 dollar, that for measles. Just, that might be a couple days wages for a lot of them.

Yeah, in poor countries, with large governments and small ones, they don't have it covered.

I support vaccines by the government, anyway.

"What are you even talking about now?
You said "laws aren't economics" but then you said government are economics?
What?"

I can't find any quote from me saying governments are economic.

I'm arguing for the removal of government from economic matters.

" If you wanna see when price fixing stopped, look to super markets. They started offering discounts, because they bought in bulk. Merchants hated it.

That's not price fixing or lack of price fixing."

Prices obviously aren't fixed if you have discounts. Prices are lowered.

Example.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Ant itrust_Act

Enforced from 1901-1908 mostly.

http://www2.census.gov/prod2/statcomp/do cuments/CT1970p1-06.pdf

p18, price for food goes up by 12, price for oil goes up by 3. That worked well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discount_re tailer

Apparantly, from 1890s, discount retailers became more common.

On the previous price thing, from 1890 to 1900- food prices reduced by 16 points.

You can see why I'd question the value of government action over private industry in preventing people from being forced to eat shit.

" Uh huh. A racist pro slavery government and two communist governments. Neither strengthens my belief in the goodness of government and the badness of capitalism.

You said that a great country would be strong no matter what the government, evidently that's false."

Communism is unique in it's destructive power, being the enemy of capitalism. Since they tend to destroy the advanced technology that makes places like Canada great.

---

At 5/12/10 02:25 PM, Ytaker wrote: We've seen how well the democrat version of an emotional plea to have confidence in the system works.

Yup, we're relatively leaving the recession behind in terms of people actively trying to do business again. The real issue behind the market collapse hasn't been healed, but it wasn't healed 10 years ago by bush either. Both approaches were founded on alleviating symptoms instead of causes, which is why at a maximum of 10 years we'll be right back where we were if not sooner. And the only reason I'd bet sooner is that a problem that persists tends to corrupt a system at an exponential, if not polynomial rate until it is solved.

Regardless, the tax cuts Bush imposed and his increased spending ultimately did harm the government and increase the debt. And you'll note Greece's problem is that everyone spent too much and their debt is too high. Notice anything similar there at all?

Since the 2003 tax cuts revenue has increased by 800 billion. Tax collection increased.

Had the tax cuts never been imposed, that revenue would have been what you name plus $2.48 trillion at the given growth rate. So, regardless of whether tax collection increased, you're missing the point that the government realistically had less revenue to work with than it should have. There's a reason we went from surplus to deficit so quickly, and that's because the government accepted an unsustainable budget plan for the sake of placating donating interests. And again, I pose that the increase that you claim exists was not because taxes were decreased, but because the economy recovered.

Yeah, America's spending is sky high. Any gain in revenues was swamped by increased spending.

No argument, but the revenue lost by reducing taxes aggravated the situation.

Regardless of how you feel about taxes, with out them your money and everyone else's is going to be worthless. Its time to buck up and realize you can't always get what you want, which is the true conservative stance. Taxes should be raised and spending reduced where possible, especially since the economy is starting an upswing and could theoretically handle the extra pressure.

---

At 5/12/10 02:25 PM, Ytaker wrote:

Lobbying is legal. It's using the system as politicians want them to use it.

Lobbies don't have to be an integral part of a democracy. There's strict laws concerning overt campaign donations, laws that vary from country to country and that many people think should be stricter.
If you resort to bribes, which are illegal, then you're doubly cheating the system.

The point is that you can put laws and sanctions in place to prevent these things in a democracy. In an open market, there's nothing you can do to prevent cartels from operating.

It's anarchocapitalism we're arguing about, isn't it?

You lump all governments together, as doea smilez. He actually brought up Zimbabwe trying to blame statism for being wretched.

I'd take the U.S. government any day of the week over anarcho-capitalism.
Is it optimal? No, definitely not.

How does democracy dampen it?

Taxing, voting and law-making.
To argue that those things simply help the rich is ludicrous.

See, the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal.

That's one example of it being the government's fault, vs .. how many being private enterprise's? Just in the US alone?
How many times did Viacom censor that image?

Using a more methodologically sound study.

No it's the same thing again.
Nowhere in there are reasons mentioned either.

Anyway something doesn't add up if you have the best survival rates but are far from having the lowest incidence of cancer deaths.

Unless they're female, or from a low caste. That's their main problem. People who are of the wrong caste can't go to any school.

Caste systems are pretty antiquated and don't figure in the Indian government's efforts to instruct the country. Well maybe except to eradicate it.

It's still quite cheap. The most expensive vaccine only costs about 1 dollar, that for measles. Just, that might be a couple days wages for a lot of them.

The problem isn't making the vaccine, it's getting it to them.

I'm arguing for the removal of government from economic matters.

Well again you don't have to look any further than the 19th century to see what the US government, who had been largely absent from meddling in business until that point, thought about that.

Prices obviously aren't fixed if you have discounts. Prices are lowered.

Price fixing is when a bunch of "rival" companies all agree on what the lowest price should be.
So let's say there's 5 grocers who controls 95% of all grocery stores in the US and they all decide that beans shouldn't cost less than a buck per can.
Whatever business they'll lose to the 5% who sell beans slightly cheaper, they'll more than make up for by not having to compete with each other.

Other way to fix prices is to set lowest bars for contracts or give each other turns to get contracts. They do that a lot. Let's say you want to build a stadium and there's 10 construction companies bidding for it. They all just agree on who gets the contract in advance and all place a bid higher than the guy who they decided would get it.
Then when the next job comes along, another company gets it.

That way, over 10 jobs, they each get a higher pay than if they were competing fairly.

There's tons and tons of ways like this to screw the market.

Communism is unique in it's destructive power

Haiti wasn't communist. And Cuba is "communist" but did better under Castro than under the previous dumbass. Tons of countries in Africa just have a dictator who wages wars and makes life shitty for everyone by being completely corrupt.

No matter the kind of government, if it's badly administered enough, will plunge a country into shit.

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At 5/11/10 11:52 PM, poxpower wrote:

Humans aren't trustworthy,

Failsafes presupposes the ability of the rest of society to impose checks on a particular individual, i.e. Negative and positive enforcement on bad behavior, but generally negative enforcement. I've already pointed out that the even the most cartelized and relatively private companies, excluding the obviously state granted private franchises which are as private as the police force, offer consumers more choice than the cliche democratic and republican parties, in which incumbents have obscenely high incumbency rates in spite of high congressional disapproval. So you're argument that government officials are 'held to higher standards' by democracy is either willfully ignorant or a lie.

Your fail safe against a politician is 1) A duopolistic and often times one sided election, particularly in the congress 2) A violent revolution. 3) Trial against the state in a state run court where the legitimacy of the state law is presupposed. Take your pick. Not being able to patronize something is the single most effective ways of bringing it to change, the profit margin of a company is significantly less than 51%, so a a 50% drop in approval ratings as occurred under Bush would bankrupt or force a reform of the 'Bush' company much sooner than in 8 years.

Not that's just false.

1) Free speech laws simply outline what the state cannot do against you, this law doesn't give anything to you you don't already have; The physical power to express yourself with your body and your posessions. And free speech laws are more a token law than an actuality, They are violated when convenient and are only enforced to the extent society is not willing to tolerate state predation

2) State controls on various persons and industries which you euphemistically call 'regulations' and why they cause more harm than good is a matter I have already made on other threads which you have not responded to. I will not talk about it again unless you have something new to say.

Again, not answering the point.

I already explained why slavery is uneconomical in countries with economies that aren't run into the ground by states. Interestingly enough you're counter-argument consists of showing me examples of countries where slavery persists even where it's outlawed by states in countries with relatively un-free markets. At best what you've done is proved that slavery will exist in spite of efforts to outlaw it and so your case that only a state can eliminate slavery to me is self-defeating.

Private property is an institution that in the absence of a heavily statist mentality exists to one degree or another as is the build-up of capital, and it was only to the extent that a state was limited in it's power

Thanks for basically

If you're implying we need a state to protect private property... Private property is an institution that in the absence of a heavily statist mentality exists to one degree or another as is the build-up of capital, and it was only to the extent that a state was limited in its power.

That is, it doesn't take a state for people to recognize that it is beneficial to give people the 'right' to own what they produced without being attacked by the mob, and so private property is a beneficial EMERGENT institution like language, money, etc. And, historically, the only institution to violate private property has been the state. And the very theme of this OP's post calling for the violation of private property rights for the ASSUMED good of society should also call this notion into question.

You're basically saying that one dude laying bricks freely is as productive as 200 slaves laying bricks. Nonsense.

A farmer with modern farm equipment? Tractors, fertilizers, pesticides, the works. Yes, I contend he could probably outgrow 200 slave farmers. Americans produce vastly more food than Sub-Saharan Africans do, yet farmers amount to a very small proportion of our population, which is larger and consumes a great deal more. Given the above, It shouldn't be that unbelievable. As for bricklaying, I consider that a poor example of a common slave task, slaves in Africa are primarily engaged in primary tier production, that is, farming and resource extraction. Not construction. In which case, it would be better to compare a laborer at a brick MAKING company versus a slave taking mud and patting it with his hands into bricks, and I would again contend that 1 worker could probably outmatch 100+ slaves.

But the specific number varies and guessing what it is, is not as important as understanding that a free man with access to capital is several times more efficient than a slave laborer with nothing but crude instruments, as well as more dependable and more motivated.

And you've got to pay that man with the Ak-47 a pretty penny as well, since he IS putting his life at risk. And even as slaves you have to feed and house a large number of slaves who produce little relative to their cost versus a much smaller number of freemen with a significantly greater MPP.

At 5/11/10 06:46 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote:

You're talking out of your ass now.

How is the reform of a state charitable institution "nearly impossible"??
What's that mean?

Mobilizing 50%+1 of the voting population against a state program is not easy, particularly when attempts to reform a state institution, aside from giving it more money or more power, are always taken (by people like YOU) as attempts, to let the poor die in the streets.

If I find out that 75% of the Red Cross' funds are going to overhead, I tell my friends and fellow philanthropists about it, inform the media of the scandal proper (and, since it isn't government welfare, they are more than eager to report said scandal) And I simply patronize a more responsible welfare service. And of course the best part about it is that the Red Cross cannot physically nor can they afford to send men to arrest me for doing it.

And of course that this reality exists on the market Is why these things are not common nor are they chronic with voluntarily funded institutions.

Dude what the shit I'm not reading entire books.

1) He points to the fact that the United States, with no state run charity services, has one of the a social safety net better than that of France, Britain, or any other European nation, the system did not produce idleness and he also noted Americans were the wealthiest individuals in the world, excluding European aristocrats.

2) The state does not 'do all the work' in the present. And that private charities exist at all is a hinting to the fact that people are not satisfied with government run welfare. Or at least that some people care more about the poor than you would have people believe.

3) Abridged Version.
http://brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseac tion/reviews.detail/book_id/748/

So yes, private charity does better than state charity given what donations are available, which are most always more abundant when not crowded out by welfare-state taxation, and has historically proven more effective at providing relief for the poor without encouraging idleness than state charity, and for all logical reasons. But charity itself does not eliminate poverty, productivity does, so do not conflate a social safety net, emergent or artificial, with the ending of poverty and amassed abundance, the former is a product of the latter, not the other way around. Sweden, the UK, and others are only able to spend oodles of their resources on welfare because they have an economy that can saddle the tax rates.

Continued in the next post.

---

I think the closest examples you could ever come up with are Churches and how they sought the monopoly on healthcare and education and it wasn't a "no strings attached" deal.

Friendly societies and other institutions in the United States prior to the welfare state could be secular, religious, ethnic, or based on trades, not purely church based. And all welfare, even state welfare, has strings attached, and these are necessary to an extent.

Is 150 years long enough?

Enough for there to have secret price cutting agreements (Wholesale) or the formation of new competitors, or the development of competitive substitutes, the time for new competitors to arise I imagine would be a year. And I know that you're knowledge of cartels is purely anecdotal and comes from what little you retained of your statist public education history classes. So why don't you show me who's boss and point to a specific example of cartelization in the pre-antitrust age. I can mention the failure of the railroads to cartelize without the IPCC, or of Oil to cartelize, or of any particular industry you think was cartelizing.

All you have to do to see that this anti-trust nonsense is just that, nonsense, is to see that throughout the 'gilded age', from 1870 to roughly 1900, prices both real and nominal were falling consistently, and falling most rapidly in those industries often accused of 'cartelization' and 'collusion'.

Yeah it's not really hard to make any society look good.

Compare any developing country to a country that had it's industrial revolution over 100 years ago and you'll see a difference, and logically so.

Compare the United States in 1900 with the united States in 2010 and you'll find that people in general are wealthier now than they were in 1900, obviously this is because we are more statist now than we were then, because statism is the root to industrial development. Obviously not. Obviously it's because a country with 110 extra years for an economy to develop, that never had to deal with Imperial interventions or dictatorial exploitation, will be wealthier over time. But you draw no such distinction and so draw idiotic correlation-causation conclusionss.

So the government has an annual income of 0$, so I as an individual could lose 0$ and thus the state can give the 0$ back to me should I fail?

What?

Well if neither of us can figure out what you meant then I guess I don't have to respond. :D

Yeah I wonder why healthcare is impossibly hard to

I'm not going to be modest on this issue anymore, On the healthcare Thread I made the case that the high cost of healthcare in the united states is incredibly expensive as a product of the state controls. And that government-run healthcare is cheaper because government run healthcare can impose price controls and simply deny people coverage rather than let people bid up healthcare resources made artificially scarce. And that case went *unchallenged*. So I'm not going to bring myself down to have to make that same case again just so you can ignore it and keep spewing the same unproven arguments. So unless you want to go back and reread what it was I said and try and disprove it, I contend that I am right and you are wrong. Gooday. :D

And no, the US Healthcare system is as private as the federal reserve is private.

There's no "freedom of choice" system. Almost any freedom for one individual comes at the price of less freedom for another.

Like how my ability to choose what shoes I wear keeps you from being able to wear yours. Or is it that you think if the state runs these things like Healthcare, shoes, etc. That they will be provided with more aggregate options? Either way it's an insane position to take.

You can't run your car on solar electricity.
Now you're resorting to sci-fi technology to solve a monopoly problem.

And you're resorting to mysticism, that is, angels from above (having the largest of all monopolies), to solve a monopoly problem. If it's a question of technology, do not look to the state for technological innovation. And if it is a problem of geographic monopoly, do not look to the state. But yes, technology breaks monopolies all the time. Oil lamps were beat out by electric bulbs, kerosene by gasoline,

But anyway, (Sarcasm) The notion that cars could run on electrical source other than gasoline is WAY crazier than the idea of one group of people owning all of a single resource on the whole planet. (/Sarcasm)

Cannot find any examples of this?

Then you have no clue, you're just assuming it happened.

Anyway predatory pricing is not really important since price fixing and mergers were far more efficient ways to keep a monopoly situation going.

The mergers are only successful if they improve the company's efficiency. If they fail to enable the company to be more efficient they fail to eliminate competition. And even then you have the problem of new competition arising, and a company without competition can still only be maintained as long as no one can compete, that is, no one can price lower than the merged firm. And obviously your fear is not of one or a few firms dominating the market PERSAY, (otherwise you would have a problem justifying the state) it is the possibility that they will screw the consumer, and if they are charging competitively there is no problem.

I don't think I've ever said there should be laws against diversity.

Oh so you think people shouldn't be prevented from patronizing their own private options for social security, 1st class mail delivery, personal security, monetary contracts, etc?

For instance: road signs. You can't have all road signs everywhere be in all languages.
That means there's an extremely strong incentive for you to learn whatever language the road signs are in the country you're in.

In the case of road signs I would imagine that there would be a general consensus in a geographic area as to what standardized roads would be for each private road owner, because no road owner is going to want to put signs that people can't comprehend their meaning, for instance, a private road owner in England making road signs in tie-dye colored Chinese sign language, for the same reason companies have standardized shoe sizes and railroads invented time zones. No private road owner would benefit from confusing drivers on the road and so standardization would be general. That being said, the OPTION of having different road signs makes it possible for a private owner to experiment within reason with different signs and how they improve or worsen traffic For example, whether it is safer to have a stop sign or a yield sign at a corner or a kind of symbol, and if the change is found to reduce traffic congestion and traffic accidents, any self-interest road owner would adopt it as well. Language works the same way, there's no law saying that you have to say LOL and not 'laugh out loud', it's just that someone invented LOL and everyone realized it was easier to type up.

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At 5/12/10 07:08 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote:

So you're argument that government officials are 'held to higher standards' by democracy is either willfully ignorant or a lie.

You mean "laws"?
Yeah I do think that's a higher standard than your system of "no laws".

1) Free speech laws simply outline what the state cannot do against you, this law doesn't give anything to you you don't already have;

Yeah it can. For instance: protection against my neighbors, roads, consumer protection, food inspection, nature preserves, security and so on.

And free speech laws are more a token law than an actuality

No they're not, people sue over them constantly.

2) State controls on various persons and industries which you euphemistically call 'regulations' and why they cause more harm than good is a matter I have already made on other threads which you have not responded to.

I'm sure you have.
Wait how do I know my peanut butter doesn't have E.Coli again under anarcho-capitalism? Oh right I just assume it doesn't.

Your response to this will be either:
1. Yeah well permits harm smaller industries / the government has failed to prevent 100% of cases of food poisoning! ( irrelevant )
2. Capitalism makes sure people don't get rotten food! ( a lie )

I already explained why slavery is uneconomical in countries with economies that aren't run into the ground by states.

That's simply patently FALSE.
You didn't "explain" anything. There is slavery IN ALMOST EVERY COUNTRY ON EARTH and during the time it was legal WAS HIGHLY PROFITABLE.

And more often than not, slavery operates in areas outside of government influence. YEAH THAT'S RIGHT IN AREAS WHERE THE FREE MARKET RUNS FREE, SLAVERY IS RAMPANT.

That is, it doesn't take a state for people to recognize that it is beneficial to give people the 'right' to own what they produced without being attacked by the mob,

Yeah you'd think that except that's not how it plays out in the real world.
Ever heard of "crime" ?

And, historically, the only institution to violate private property has been the state.

Wow that's probably the biggest lie you've come up with so far, ignoring everything from petty theft to piracy to mobs of rampaging Vikings, who I'm sure you consider a "state" because they have a "village chief".

A farmer with modern farm equipment?

A lot of slavers operate in remote areas with minimal income. They can't buy a diesel combine or a 10 ton semi to haul rocks in the mountain.

And human trade is still common where you sell the person to service sexual needs and other kinds of crap.

and I would again contend that 1 worker could probably outmatch 100+ slaves.

What on EARTH could you possibly base that on?
That's insane frankly.

more motivated.

Except maybe he won't let you rape his daughter, if that's your thing.
But thanks to slavery, you can! Weeee

And you've got to pay that man with the Ak-47 a pretty penny as well

No not really since that guy is pretty much just you and your friends.

Mobilizing 50%+1 of the voting population against a state program is not easy

You don't need to get the people's approval to reform a government program.

1) He points to the fact that the United States, with no state run charity services, has one of the a social safety net better than that of France, Britain, or any other European nation, the system did not produce idleness and he also noted Americans were the wealthiest individuals in the world, excluding European aristocrats.

When was that?

So yes, private charity does better than state charity given what donations are available,

The ones that aren't scams, yes.

But charity itself does not eliminate poverty, productivity does,

That's weird because the text you just linked said the opposite: being more productive leads to fewer people needing to be employed to answer the basic needs of humans.
Sounds to me like the more productive you are, the more poor people you'll have! Well that's what he said anyway.

So why don't you show me who's boss and point to a specific example of cartelization in the pre-antitrust age.

behold the wonders of wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust_%28mo nopoly%29
Standard Oil being one of the big ones: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oi l

Damn those wikipediaites and their statist mentality!!!!!!

All you have to do to see that this anti-trust nonsense is just that, nonsense, is to see that throughout the 'gilded age', from 1870 to roughly 1900, prices both real and nominal were falling consistently

The point of a trust isn't to drive prices up, it's to drive PROFITS up.
As the smart young man you are, you surely know that it's possible to increase profits while decreasing sales costs through many wonderful methods.

Obviously not. Obviously it's because a country with 110 extra years for an economy to develop, that never had to deal with Imperial interventions or dictatorial exploitation, will be wealthier over time.

You mean like Germany for instance, who was ravaged by two world wars which they lost and still have one of the best economies?

Again, we're all waiting for that anarcho-capitalist society to naturally emerge and kick everyone's ass, as you dictate it would.

And that government-run healthcare is cheaper because government run healthcare can impose price controls and simply deny people coverage rather than let people bid up healthcare resources made artificially scarce.

It takes about 20 seconds to understand how health insurance companies in the US are run to know this is complete and utter bullshit.

I contend that I am right and you are wrong. Gooday. :D

Whatever you say memorize, whatever you say.

Like how my ability to choose what shoes I wear keeps you from being able to wear yours.

I can't wear your shoes now can I? Only one of us can wear those shoes.

You'll understand one day.
One day.

If it's a question of technology, do not look to the state for technological innovation.

Again you've gone completely besides the point from "ok well if there's a natural monopoly on something, technology will solve it!" to "well ... the state won't solve it..!!! ( lie ) to now "well the state won't invent the technology that will solve it!"

All crapola.

Here's an easy example of a monopoly: There is a town around a lake. I am a private entrepreneur and I process to damn the river, thus draining the lake over a few years, depriving the citizens. Hurray. Under anarcho-capitalism? Can't touch this.
Under governments? Hammer Time

Under your system, the lake is the private property of whoever puts a fence around it and exploits it.
Or actually, just putting up the fence sounds enough.

And notice again how you'll not counter this by explaining how it's not so but rather by naming a flaw in the government.

But anyway, (Sarcasm) The notion that cars could run on electrical source other than gasoline is WAY crazier than the idea of one group of people owning all of a single resource on the whole planet.

You only need to control them in a given geographical location.

The mergers are only successful if they improve the company's efficiency.

That's not really hard to do.
That's the easiest part in fact.

The hard part is convincing the competition to sell-out to you at good prices.

Oh so you think people shouldn't be prevented from patronizing their own private options for social security, 1st class mail delivery, personal security, monetary contracts, etc?

How exactly are you prevented by law from doing any of this?
Cue to you complaining that the government isn't "fair competition".

In the case of road signs I would imagine that there would be a general consensus in a geographic area as to what standardized roads would be for each private road owner

No one said otherwise.
I'm saying this is a case where you DON'T want diversity.

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At 5/13/10 01:52 PM, poxpower wrote:

Laws are written, interpreted, and enforced by the state. In which case one's only recourse against the state is its own benevolence; which is basically circular logic. I.e. The state is trustworthy because it has laws, and it will enforce those laws because the state is trustworthy, the state is trustworthy because it has laws etc. etc. Your entire philosophy rests on this presupposed and utterly unfounded notion of accountability.

Yeah it can.

Which is related to free speech how?

No they're not, people sue over them constantly.

Only in those instances where the state is supposedly violating them XD, This argument is like me saying that without the government there would be no laws to protect us against abuse SPECIFICALLY by state police officers. Again, free speech laws just state what it is the government is not going to do to you, and they are not contractually obligated to respect their promises.

I'm sure you have.

You assume it doesn't since the state is supposedly regulating it, you probably don't bother to look at the labels and see if it's been sample tested by any reputable third party (Even a government seal) and so if someone goes and bribes the state regulator, which is easier since public employees are harder to fire and the government is a monopoly regulator with no accountability to it's constituents, you'll find yourself in a bad position.

I know your thread on the peanuts, you never responded to it, so I will assume you conceded the argument, so don't bring it up again pretending it never happened.

Your response to this will be either:
1. Yeah well permits harm smaller industries / the government has failed to prevent 100% of cases of food poisoning! ( irrelevant )

Harm done to smaller industries DOES affect the level of safety of products. It's harder to get away with chicanery when barriers to entry are reduced. And that state has failed to prevent food poisoning is a matter of relevance. If we're talking about .001% Failure rate or something due unavoidable scientific error, that's not relevant. But it says a lot about you if you presupposed the ability of the state to properly enforce these 'regulations' better than anyone else and then just shrug off any evidence to the contrary.

I already explained why slavery is uneconomical in countries with economies that aren't run into the ground by states.

That's simply patently FALSE.
You didn't "explain" anything. There is slavery IN ALMOST EVERY COUNTRY ON EARTH and during the time it was legal WAS HIGHLY PROFITABLE.

And Plutocratic governments existed in almost every country on earth for over 4 thousand years, from 3000BC to the 1700's AD. Do you Mind telling me what the precedent humanity had for democratic states? I explained why slavery existed in the past and why those conditions in whole or in large part no longer exist today. So you've lost on this point.

And more often than not,

Yes, Slavery is Rampant in Hong Kong, Canada, and well taken care of in areas like Chad and Libya, etc.

http://www.heritage.org/index/pdf/2010/I ndex2010_map.pdf

No, the 3rd world is statist, authoritarian, and is a mess for it. But I recall already bringing this up. I would much rather be doing other things than arguing with you, and you're making this less a measure of historical and economic knowledge and more an endurance test, you're not going to win by repeating the same refuted arguments from previous threads.

Don't confuse technologically inept states with 'freer' states. States that are freer tend to have a greater degree of technological and economic development. This gives governments a greater tax revenues and greater capacity to be the kind of technocratic big brother state that George Orwell wrote about. India until recently was incredibly authoritarian economically, that didn't mean that the government in India was more technological.

Ever heard of "crime"

And I am going to respond that voluntarily funded defense services and the ability to own a gun can better respond to crime than state police, and for the sake of time I'll tell you how you're going to respond...

You're going to presuppose the superiority of the state, criticize voluntarily funded protection versus coercively funded protection as leading to monopolies and slavery and oppression and continually backpedal in these pointless cycles.

Wow that's probably

You think that gangs of petty criminals (Whom states did not adequately protect their citizens against) have killed more people and robbed more people than the States? We already have a pretty good account of the number of people killed by Governments. Wars fought for territory? Nationalization? Taxation?

A farmer with modern farm equipment?

I already talked about why they don't have access to capital. Something tells me that you either intentionally or by your own nature forget everything that has been said in previous threads and pages so every single post I make is basically in an intellectual Vacuum, allowing you to fall back on the same refuted statements.

And human trade is still common where you sell the person to service sexual needs and other kinds of crap.

I'm amazed this can happen even when people could simply save themselves the hassle of getting illegal prostitutes and go to a white market Brothel. Oh, wait. Never mind. And I would again point you to the EFI and ask you where it is exactly the human trafficking

What on EARTH could you possibly base that on?
That's insane frankly.

No, really, it isn't.

more motivated.

Except maybe he won't let you rape his daughter, if that's your thing.
But thanks to slavery, you can! Weeee

You know maybe I should make up childish stories to support my absurd claims too.

You don't need to get the people's approval to reform a government program.

No, you can't be that stupid, can you?

Oh wait, I guess you don't need their approval. Violent revolution is always a possibility.

When was that?

Look it up.

The ones that aren't scams, yes.

Yes, and provided that the institution running the scam doesn't have... say... A tax-payer funded, guaranteed existence like... say... Government Welfare, I wouldn't expect to see this scam running for very long.

But charity itself does not eliminate poverty, productivity does,

That's weird because the text you just linked said the opposite: being more productive leads to fewer people needing to be employed to answer the basic needs of humans.
Sounds to me like the more productive you are, the more poor people you'll have! Well that's what he said anyway.

Yes, you really *are* that stupid. And I shouldn't have to fill in for the crappy economics education you got that didn't teach you what are quite frankly very simple concepts to understand.

A Reducto-ad-absurdum of your argument would be that we could eliminate unemployment by destroying every machine that humanity had ever produced. The problem here is that when a person can do the same task with lest time and energy required the goods produced become more abundant and thus cheaper to buy. Cheaper goods mean real higher wages and the structurally unemployed workers can then find jobs doing other things, this is why there are significantly more occupations today that never existed 300 years ago, when a large portion of the population was engaged in sustenance farming. So no, technology does not make us poorer.

---

behold the wonders of wikipedia

I already discussed standard oil; I will not do it again. Give me a real example, you know, a monopoly that actually raised prices.

And I don't want anti-trust cases where the Judge's reason for convicting the Company was something like this...

"It was not inevitable that it [Alcoa] should always anticipate increases in the demand for ingot and be prepared to supply them. Nothing compelled it to keep doubling and redoubling its capacity before others entered the field. It insists that it never excluded competitors; but we can think of no more effective exclusion than progressively to embrace each new opportunity as it opened, and to face every newcomer with new capacity already geared into a great organization, having the advantage of experience, trade connections and the elite of personnel." - Judge Learned Hand on Alcoa

All you have to do to see that this anti-trust nonsense is just that, nonsense, is to see that throughout the 'gilded age', from 1870 to roughly 1900, prices both real and nominal were falling consistently

The point of a trust isn't to drive prices up, it's to drive PROFITS up.

Yes and if a company can make profits by cutting its prices, who cares? The argument behind the anti-trust was that companies were coming together and colluding to raise prices.

As the idiot that you clearly are, you don't see the purpose behind the ability to compete this way. If a company finds a cheaper way of producing something, it cuts the price by less than the lowered cost to increase it' profits. The profits are the company's reward for figuring out how to cut the costs and increase output. Eventually competitors figure out how to emulate the reduced cost and continually undercut one another and drive the prices down to where profits are normal.

I bet you never read a single piece of serious literature on economics. Economics to you is like what biology is to a creationist, it's something that is as valid and true if it comes out of the top of your head or from the Ad-Hoc emotional quarters of your brain than if it is syllogistically thought out. So making these absurd arguments about technology creating poverty or cutting prices competitively being evil is just as scientific as something like 'prices and production'.

You mean like Germany for instance, who was ravaged by two world wars which they lost and still have one of the best economies?

Considering that the growth only occurred after the fall of east Germany, and that new Germany received significantly more investment than Somalia, and that Germany had already been one of the first countries to industrialize in Europe. (Growth tends to be exponential) No, I'm not surprised.

I could just as easily say that Hong Kong is more developed than South Korea and the reason is because the power of the HK state with respect to its controls over the economy. And so neither of us are better off by reducing economic development by reducing it to a single factor.

Again, we're all waiting for that anarcho-capitalist society to naturally emerge and kick everyone's ass, as you dictate it would.

And to bring about a democracy you've got to convince enough people to pose a threat to the Monarchists who are eager to send their armies to smash anyone who wants to organize themselves as they see fit. If you've ever worked or ever bought anything you've paid taxes that allow the US Government to murder people at home and abroad who do not approve of the US government.

It takes about 20 seconds to understand

It takes about 5 seconds to understand that You don't know very basic economics? That You're a fool? Yes. Yes I think so. Oh, and argument from assertion. If you do it, you think of yourself as being smart (like you just used it above), if I do it you call me memorize. Most of your arguments are arguments from assertion, and they become arguments from assertion when you simply repeat what you've stated in previous threads that were already addressed and you never made any counter responses to. Be it healthcare or food regulations. I won't bother to respond to you in any meaningful way if you don't do the same.

Like how my ability to choose what shoes I wear keeps you from being able to wear yours.

I can't wear your shoes now can I? Only one of us can wear those shoes.

The extent to which one individual's consumption patterns affect the choice of another individuals consumption patterns doesn't come anywhere close to the level of freedom that is lost when people are given what they are given by dictate of the state. And that you don't see this is scary, more freedom is lost giving the state a monopoly of production than is lost from having a relatively small amount of resources bid away.

All crap

All arguments from assertion, yet again. You're basically just saying 'You're wrong and I know if and some day you'll figure it out." You're talking to someone who used to be a progressiveness-Compassionate-conservati ve-neocon, with basically the same positions as you except without the hedonism and the welfare statism. Before he actually studied the topics he pretended to know about on the new grounds bbs.

Stop wasting my time.

Here's an easy example of a monopoly

Why would the town have not bought the lake before hand, economically it is worth MORE to them that it does the would-be monopolist.

But let's put it another way, There is a town around a lake, I run the private franchise utility company, say, AT+T and I process to dam* the river and deprive water from the citizens. The local government initially moves to stop me but I simply bribe them with the money I've made charging citizens insane rates for water. The state agents, being only human, simply ignore the citizen's demand for the government to step down and the local government uses the police to put the citizens down, after all, I'd need a police force to keep people from revolting anyway. The state has already banned the ownership of firearms and monopolized law, protection, licensing, and regulation, so citizens have no recourse and the maintaining of the monopoly occurs without any effective resistance. There's *your* state solution right there. Under Statism? Can't touch this.

Of course the answer is obvious, you don't EXPECT the state to do this and so offer no explanation as to why they wouldn't, it just is.

You only need to control them in a given geographical location.

The gasoline people drive their car with is extracted from all over the planet.

The hard part is convincing the competition to sell-out to you at good prices.

Buying out firms was already dealt with. The more firms you buy the firms themselves become price makers and not price takers. And cunning entrepreneurs can simply build up factories and threaten to establish competition if the would-be monopolist doesn't buy the firm at an exorbitant rate.

Oh so you think people shouldn't be prevented from patronizing their own private options for social security, 1st class mail delivery, personal security, monetary contracts, etc?

How exactly are you prevented by law from doing any of this?
Cue to you complaining that the government isn't "fair competition".

You see this is why I never should have even bothered arguing with you, you're so ignorant that you don't know that the aforementioned services have been monopolized. Yes, the government isn't a fair competitor, Definition of LEGAL MONOPOLY

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_monop oly

protected, *by law* from competition.

I'm saying this is a case where you DON'T want diversity

And I'm saying you don't have to worry about it.

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At 5/13/10 08:12 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: Laws are written, interpreted, and enforced by the state. In which case one's only recourse against the state is its own benevolence

No, it's not a monarchy, your recourse against the state is the laws. If it's judged that you have been wronged by the state according to the laws, then YOU WIN AGAINST THE STATE no matter how evil or not the state is.

But now you're just off into schizo land where every judge, cop and politician is a shadowy agent of the "state" who never goes against its holy edicts.

Yeah it can.

Which is related to free speech how?

For instance, you can't get fired because of your religion. If that happens, you have legal recourse. Same thing for many other things related to lifestyle or ideas.

Only in those instances where the state is supposedly violating them XD,

No people sue many other offenders of free speech than the state.

You assume it doesn't since the state is supposedly regulating it, you probably don't bother to look at the labels and see if it's been sample tested by any reputable third party (Even a government seal) and so if someone goes and bribes the state regulator, which is easier since public employees are harder to fire and the government is a monopoly regulator with no accountability to it's constituents, you'll find yourself in a bad position.

And once again dodging the question by deflecting it on administrative flaws of current government systems.

And Plutocratic governments existed in almost every country on earth for over 4 thousand years, from 3000BC to the 1700's AD.

Again trying to blame slavery on goverments.
Slavery in native americans: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Amer icans_in_the_United_States#Traditions_of _Native_American_Slavery

Slavery from vikings: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking

Slavery is literally as old as the records we have of humanity. The only requirements are a big enough population to have slaves and people who enslave them.

No, the 3rd world is statist, authoritarian, and is a mess for it.

Yeah I'm sure their shit comes STRICTLY from them having a state. Any state at all would have done the same. DAMN YOU STATES!!

Don't confuse technologically inept states with 'freer' states. States that are freer tend to have a greater degree of technological and economic development.

Than what? Societies with no states or societies with shitty states?

And I am going to respond that voluntarily funded defense services and the ability to own a gun can better respond to crime than state police, and for the sake of time I'll tell you how you're going to respond...

Again trying to play it off like you just didn't say governments were the only entities to violate the right to property. A bold-faced lie that you're trying to sweep under the rug by once again diverting your attention to complaining about the state sucking.

You think that gangs of petty criminals (Whom states did not adequately protect their citizens against) have killed more people and robbed more people than the States?

I never said that.
And it's pretty irrelevant anyway.

I'm amazed this can happen even when people could simply save themselves the hassle of getting illegal prostitutes and go to a white market Brothel.

These are children they're fucking dude. There's no legal children brothel anywhere on the planet as far as I know. And do you want one? Is that how you want to solve that problem?

That sort of crap is rampant in, say, India. There's lots of poor nobodies and they get their kids and pimp them out. Sexual slavery.

You don't need to get the people's approval to reform a government program.

No, you can't be that stupid, can you?

Last I checked the only decisions voters made was which party to elect.

I wouldn't expect to see this scam running for very long.

This is you talking about a society where people have been buying homeopathic medicine, astrology tables and tiger penis magic potion for thousands of years.

Yeah I'm sure no one could keep a charity scam going for any length of time!
And besides, you don't even WANT to keep it going for long, all you want is to make money fast and get out.

A Reducto-ad-absurdum of your argument would be that we could eliminate unemployment by destroying every machine that humanity had ever produced.

Don't shoot the messenger, I just repeated what Tocqueville said pretty much verbatim in the text YOU linked. He blamed the higher production rate for the rise of unemployment and thus the need for charity.

At 5/13/10 08:56 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote:

I already discussed standard oil; I will not do it again. Give me a real example, you know, a monopoly that actually raised prices.

"In 2004 De Beers pleaded guilty and paid a $10 million fine to the United States Department of Justice to settle a 1994 charge that De Beers had colluded with General Electric to fix the price of industrial diamonds."

Price fixing is extremely common when there's just a few guys who have a monopoly on something.

Yes and if a company can make profits by cutting its prices, who cares?

Depends where the price cutting comes from.

Considering that the growth only occurred after the fall of east Germany

Again utter lie.
West Germany's economy was booming in the 50's.
"The growth rate of industrial production was 25.0 percent in 1950 and 18.1 percent in 1951." Germany's GDP rose by 2/3rds in that decade
http://www.germanculture.com.ua/library/
facts/bl_economic_miracle.htm
es about 20 seconds to understand

The extent to which one individual's consumption patterns affect the choice of another individuals consumption patterns doesn't come anywhere close to the level of freedom that is lost when people are given what they are given by dictate of the state.

That wasn't the point

Why would the town have not bought the lake before hand, economically it is worth MORE to them that it does the would-be monopolist.

I didn't damn the river to make them thirsty, I damned it to sell the electricity.
You think a shitty little town can buy me out? What if I just flooded their town instead? What are they gonna do?

Definition of LEGAL MONOPOLY

I didn't see the "etc" at the end of your "social security, 1st class mail delivery, personal security, monetary contracts, etc".

Anyway yes there are some state monopolies. A pretty good one would be nuclear arms technology.
You really want that to be taken care of by the free market?

Once again I foresee a response about something unrelated like "yeah well do YOU want to see statism take care of liquor sales???"

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too long. did not read.

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At 5/11/10 04:02 PM, gumOnShoe wrote: the government can't pay its employees, and the government goes further into debt which further weakens the dollar against other currencies and eventually will lead to massive runaway inflation, which we're unfortunately likely to see in the U.S. during our lifetimes.

;;;
You do realise that the dollar has lost more than 90% of it's value since the 1940's right ?

Be afraid, be very afraid & if you can, get out of debt, & acquire some assets that are not made out of paper...although when a collapse comes, you will at least have some paper to wipe your bum !

I keep these & 1930's German Marks on my wall to remind me, just how paper money is actually not to be trusted.
(23 years ago Zimbabwean dollars traded on the world market on par with the British pound people ! )