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At 8/19/10 01:23 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote:

is of secondary importance to whether or not the loan finances something that is actually beneficial. XD

If you have money to lend, you're free to lend it to whoever you want.

If the state hasn't dealt with the problem, why, unless this supposed system of forced labor was institutionally protected.

The way they get by the regulations is simply by dumping money in the state's coffers.
So they can just carry on as if there was no state.

I never saw barbed wire or armed guards.

There's none in this one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truck_syste m

But there are instances where the workers can't even leave when they want, if at all.

Yes, having wealth makes choice easier. And since you enjoy FACTSFACTSFACTS, and correlations so much, Here's one for you.

I never argued that choice was bad or it didn't drive positive change, I'm saying some people don't have it.

There presently isn't a very strong ideological backing for a one world government, at least not around the world.

Nope
But there are many pushes for worldwide cooperation and legislation such that some political organizations ( like the UN ) will eventually have a say on what happens globally.

If a private company establishes a slave plantation in a 1 mile radius and I happen to be in that area, I am forever trapped. But under a hypothetical one world government with the capacity to amass the world's resources for it's self-serving military all i have to do is get a gun license and start a violent revolution.

You can start violent revolutions if you're a slave too.
What's your point?
:O

States are already existing under a free for all world, this is what happens when you live under the pathology that the state some regulating finger of god, above and outside the nexus of complex human interactions. The state is made of individuals no more immortal or free of natural laws that govern your own behavior.
Or to put it more eloquently concepts such as 'state' and 'society' and 'government' have no existence save as physically exemplified in the acts of self-responsible individuals. He believes that it is impossible to shift blame, share blame, distribute blame . . . as blame, guilt, responsibility are matters taking place inside human beings singly and nowhere else

No idea what you're talking about here.

Because the government was small, the small issue is a big one RELATIVELY speaking, and so was more likely to be fixed

Well again, that argument implies that smaller cities would have less problems than bigger ones because they'd fix them faster. It implies that the smaller a body gets, the better it manages everything because it realizes really fast how it's made mistakes.

I believe that's crap as there's probably a number beyond which incompetence remains the same and that number is probably so low that if you split up in groups to alleviate this incompetence, you have a bunch of tribes and you don't go anywhere because you don't concert your efforts so when a famine/plague/horde of bandits comes along, they wipe you out.

Productive capacity precedes the state's ability to siphon off said capacity.

Right but that doesn't answer whether or not turning to a central form of governance accelerates growth or not.
For instance, it may naturally come about that you gather enough supplies to feed one extra guy. But if you don't organize, the ability to feed 10 extra guys will never happen.

That's the question I think is harder to answer.

whoever controls the state or federal government is justified in enforcing their values,

Well that's why there's constitutions.

At 8/19/10 01:54 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote:

In order for a society to live without a state, there needs to be a strong enough ideology against notions of fiat land claims and monopolies of force, or at least an ideology that permits secession.

Well I think you've been linked to the "floating city" project before.
So if you think that's gonna work, then donate a couple millions to the floating city and let's see how that goes.

I somewhat agree with your point that humans are predisposed to organize into states and that may be the reason why no stateless society has ever prospered for long beyond the point of a small village. But until someone can actually demonstrate it working for any period of time, I doubt you'll be able to convince anyone.

I don't see what is wrong with this 'fragmentation' .

Think of it this way: if you live in New York, you can't go work in the Chinese District at a buffet if you don't speak Chinese. Cultural diversity quite clearly limits your options for the same reason why you think "love it or leave it" is a shitty argument.
The more fragmented the culture, the smaller the area will be where you have to stay for fear of leaving everything you know behind.

Again, what is your EMPIRICAL basis for this claim, or are you just putting forward an anecdote?

Well there's no correlation between the size of a country and, say, it's rate of corruption:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/gov_co r-government-corruption

Like I wrote earlier, I think incompetence is more of a person to person basis and that beyond a certain point it stays fairly constant, and that point is certainly far below the population of an entire country, state and probably city.

Obviously transaction costs mean nothing to you.

Like I've said many times, we have choices, other don't.
Some things we have a lot of choices about, some things we don't.

We all understand how a free market works and is beneficial in the presence of lots of choices, but it breaks down when you cease to have those choices.

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At 8/19/10 02:34 PM, studmuffin7 wrote: The rich are not "opposed" to giving back to society, they are overtaxed. My father is an emergency room physician in Illinois and is up to 60% income tax (yes, I've seen it myself). We actually run a small farm because having a farm saves us a lot of money every year in taxes.

Yes, do you think you are rich though? Farm? Doctor?

At 8/19/10 02:34 PM, studmuffin7 wrote: Then you have to look at where it is going... unemployed/welfare leeches perfectly capable of doing work,

SOME, MANY not very much.

At 8/19/10 02:34 PM, studmuffin7 wrote: illegal immigrants leeching off the system,

Yah, its not like they have shit jobs that most people don't have the patience to do for such a little amount like crop picking and our immigration process blocks them out because they're not educated and they don't have family in America, but I'm glad I live in a world where that doesn't happen.

At 8/19/10 02:34 PM, studmuffin7 wrote: government buyout of GM so they can send kickbacks to the democratic party

However, so far the automobile companies have been good with paying the government back, take Chrysler.

At 8/19/10 02:34 PM, studmuffin7 wrote: and generate jobs in Mexico, etc...

Yah, its not like their people are immigrating here for nothing right.

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At 8/19/10 10:20 PM, Warforger wrote:

At 8/19/10 02:34 PM, studmuffin7 wrote:

Yes, do you think you are rich though? Farm? Doctor?

So you want to dictate how much is enough and "redistribute the wealth" away from those who've earned it to those who haven't? That is a dangerous precedent, and frankly it is the very definition of communism. How do people like you come to believe you are entitled to a piece of what someone else has worked for and earned? My father wasn't born into money, he was actually born on a farm in Missouri. My uncle Scott went through the military for his college education so that option is always there for those who are serious about bettering themselves.

At 8/19/10 02:34 PM, studmuffin7 wrote: Then you have to look at where it is going... unemployed/welfare leeches perfectly capable of doing work,

SOME, MANY not very much.

Most are physically capable of working yet sit on their unemployment/welfare. I challenge you to go drive through the nearest set of projects and take stock of how many people there are truely disabled. I think we both know if there were they wouldn't last long in such an enviornment anyway.

At 8/19/10 02:34 PM, studmuffin7 wrote: illegal immigrants leeching off the system,

Yah, its not like they have shit jobs that most people don't have the patience to do for such a little amount like crop picking and our immigration process blocks them out because they're not educated and they don't have family in America, but I'm glad I live in a world where that doesn't happen.

If most people don't have the patience for hard work, then that is yet another in a long list of reasons why they should be cut off from unemployment/welfare. As long as there are jobs out there untaken, unemployment should not be paid out to people in that area. Moreover, I find it morally abhorrent that we can tolerate so many people waltzing in and flagrantly ignoring our laws.

At 8/19/10 02:34 PM, studmuffin7 wrote: government buyout of GM so they can send kickbacks to the democratic party

However, so far the automobile companies have been good with paying the government back, take Chrysler.

GM has not been good with paying us back. They are mostly owned with tax dollars now and are using that money to send kickbacks to politicians and create new jobs in Mexico.

At 8/19/10 02:34 PM, studmuffin7 wrote: and generate jobs in Mexico, etc...

Yah, its not like their people are immigrating here for nothing right.

What point are you trying to make here? GM needs to be making jobs for Americans and illegals, regardless of the reason, should not be immigrating here in the first place. We need MUCH harsher penalties/enforcement policies to deal with the problem. Not only on them but on the people who hire them.

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At 8/19/10 04:34 AM, poxpower wrote: One of the points of owning territory is national defense.
But I guess if you think that's pointless.. well...

Well in a stateless WORLD, there obviously won't be nations and hence no need for 'national' defence per se. If a military force wants to take over a huge area, how will they do it? By hijacking the state of the area.
But without a state, you can't really just take over huge areas. And without state armies, militias will emerge. Southern gun-enthusiast type of people, and obviously any able-bodied men who care strongly about the safety of their community, would probably have their own volunteer training organisations for domestic threats.

Which controls exactly?
Is a minimum salary a control?

Yes, its a form of price control.

Or health inspections? Or building safety codes?

They are regulations of commerce, so technically yes, but they're more safety measures rather than having the intention to achieve some economic end (growth, stability, higher wages etc).

Regardless, they're not necessary.

People suck at planning ahead is the lesson here. It's no less true when their lives depend on it.

Hmm, our careers will be ruined if there were to be an oil leak here, but thats alright BP drill here all you want without the proper safety precautions.

Nope. No one does in fact. Except the people who are being polluted on,

...which is my point

Basically your intention was to make it sound like experts were on your side and when that proved to be false, you just decided to ignore the experts anyway.

I said an understanding of (qualitative) economics, not that economists all agree with me. And i would contend that modern mainstream economists either don't actually have a rigorous understanding of proper qualitative economics, or they have vested interests in makin up their own theories for self-gain.

And no I'm no claiming I'm some economic genius who knows better than economists. I've merely studied the work of actually brilliant economists.

Not the founders of the movement, they became finance ministers.
I guess they were the biggest tools of all!

Um, by founder I'm assuming you're referring to Carl Menger, who did have a position in the Austrian governmnet, but:

1. 19th century Austrian politics is obviously wayyy different to current american politics.
2. he was there in order to bring about change with his newly developed economic insight
3. Although he was the founder, he was not like teh ultimate Austrian. Austrian theory was developed primarily by Mises , whose magnum opus human action was published over 20 years after menger's death.
So yeah, maybe I'd be a little more stirred if you proved that mises was Reagan's economic advisor or something :P

well maybe that's true, I dunno

Lol, banks need economists who will get them the most state power possible. Austrians try and accomplish the opposite of this.

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At 8/20/10 07:59 AM, SadisticMonkey wrote: But without a state, you can't really just take over huge areas.

Er... by that logic isn't a state impossible in the first place?

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At 8/20/10 07:59 AM, SadisticMonkey wrote: And i would contend that modern mainstream economists either don't actually have a rigorous understanding of proper qualitative economics, or they have vested interests in makin up their own theories for self-gain.

You can understand all the economics you like, but it's simply impossible for you to contend anything without an understanding of propositional logic, which you've already evidenced that you do not have. You make completely false implications, I don't think I've seen you make one substantiated claim in any thread.

And no I'm no claiming I'm some economic genius who knows better than economists.

Good, because you aren't.

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At 8/19/10 08:21 PM, poxpower wrote:

If you have money to lend, you're free to lend it to whoever you want.

Yes, you are. And i fail to see how that is relevant to this particular issue. Being free to lend money to whoever you want does mean it follows that all loans made will be put to good use. Free and voluntary lending tends to produce beneficial results; However when it comes to sovereign debt the issue of whether financing government borrowing is not the same as financing the borrowing of entrepreneurs. One is the issue of their manipulating interest rates, and two is the issue that the repaying of the debt is almost necessarily detached from whatever it was financing through debt. That is a business owner uses a loan to create something that will pay for itself, whereas government programs seldom if ever pay for themselves and repayment of the debt is either financed through monetizing the debt or by increasing taxes.

The way they get by the regulations is simply by dumping money in the state's coffers.
So they can just carry on as if there was no state.

Well this is something that actually has some importance, if it is true of course. if state agents are being bribed to ignore these 'slave plantations', they also have a bit of a monopoly on the matter of protecting the property of these 'slave owners', so the Brazilian government and it's relation to advancing the interests of the slaves and workers is a net zero or even negative to say the least. It's not identical to a stateless situation, because a monopoly of force not only decides not to act upon the issue of slavery, but also prevents anyone else from taking effective positive or even negative action against it.

Like you said yourself, some problems can't be solved by leaving and in such a case You might think the more practical solution would be to simply form a militia and attack these owners Russian revolution style, and then after that allocate ownership of land in a homesteading fashion.

Historically one of the problems with southern American countries has been that States would seize land or claim land they never touched and then handed it out to those politically connected individuals. Ironically enough, the south American equivalent of private property is the American Equivalent of eminent Domain. The United States didn't suffer from this problem quite nearly as much except with the issue of railroads.

There's none in this one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truck_syste m

Then we're not talking about chattel slavery, we're talking about a very lousy economic situation when very few businesses are operating in a geographic area. Which draws back to the whole issue of wealth and economic opportunity.

Nope
But there are many pushes for worldwide cooperation and legislation such that some political organizations ( like the UN ) will eventually have a say on what happens globally.

Yes, but they operate primarily through the coercive mechanisms of the smaller units, which do have the ideological support. And of course this situation is bad whichever way you slice it.

If a private company establishes a slave plantation in a 1 mile radius and I happen to be in that area, I am forever trapped. But under a hypothetical one world government with the capacity to amass the world's resources for it's self-serving military all i have to do is get a gun license and start a violent revolution.

You can start violent revolutions if you're a slave too.
What's your point?

O

I was being sarcastic. I'm saying that, two revolutions of equal size have varying chances of success depending upon the size and military might of the monopoly you are launching a revolution against.

No idea what you're talking about here.

Ugh.. I'm saying that your assumptions about states seem to be outside of the whole 'dog eat dog' reality of human nature, rather than an obvious part of it.

I believe that's crap as there's probably a number beyond which incompetence remains the same and that number is probably so low that if you split up in groups to alleviate this incompetence, you have a bunch of tribes and you don't go anywhere because you don't concert your efforts so when a famine/plague/horde of bandits comes along, they wipe you out.

You are conflating the size of a political unit with the size of a division of labor. A tiny community can be run by a small local government, but it can still participate in the division of labor. [E.x. Hong kong] Whereas a geographically and [population wise] State can be ENORMOUS but still remain isolated from the world economy and thus be tribal and primitive in the way you describe. [Ex; Maoist china]

Private companies can cooperate voluntarily to complete very large scale goals, the companies do not HAVE to merge into a single large one.

Though yes, i think down scaling has it's limits.

Right but that doesn't answer whether or not turning to a central form of governance accelerates growth or not.

From everything i have learned about Economics, the most beneficial role a state plays in accelerating the economy of a country is whatever it ABSTAINS from doing. Empirically speaking the IEF does make a strong case for a correlation between 'Small Government' [in terms of power not in terms of size] and economic well being. However the question of outright statelessness is something that can really only be answered through apriori reasoning, at least until Andrew Ryan finishes building rapture

Well that's why there's constitutions.

Constitutions are ineffectual compared to general values concerning the state, and we've gotten to a point now where politicians openly admit to laws not being constitutional but not caring. Eventually you'll hear them saying outright 'fuck the constitution'. The incredible explicit nature of the 5th amendment didn't stop the patriot act. And the whole 'search and seizure' clause won't stop the government from seizing people's medical records.

At 8/19/10 01:54 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote:

Well I think you've been linked to the "floating city" project before.

In the mean while I'd still like to argue against the various state interventions, regardless of whether or not the whole political theory consists of abolishing the state.

Think of it this way:

Communication issues isn't something that has been much of a problem. There is a difference between forced integration and the natural tendency of people to adopt foreign cultural aspects; as well as the tendency for people to learn such things as trade languages [like English] in order to be more productive workers and to better benefit from the div. of labor.

Again, what is your EMPIRICAL basis for this claim, or are you just putting forward an anecdote?

Well there's no correlation between the size of a country and, say, it's rate of corruption:

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/gov_co r-government-corruption

The problem here is the confounding variable of one, unitary versus federal systems of government. That is, a Large state can be comprised of smaller federal units with greater degree of autonomy. And then there is the confounding variable of actual power held by the state. And again this is why I don't like positivism in political science, correlating two variables in a laboratory is not the same as correlating two variables between societies where variables cannot be held constant.

We all understand how a free market works and is beneficial in the presence of lots of choices, but it breaks down when you cease to have those choices.

This i can agree with.

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An interesting talk on the issue of choice and the cultural variability of something we all hold to be universal.

Might be worthwhile to the discussion considering that choice is primary to the capitalistic ideal.

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At 8/20/10 03:55 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote:

However when it comes to sovereign debt the issue of whether financing government borrowing is not the same as financing the borrowing of entrepreneurs.

That's down to a case by case basis.

whereas government programs seldom if ever pay for themselves

That's not really the point of a government.

It's not identical to a stateless situation, because a monopoly of force not only decides not to act upon the issue of slavery, but also prevents anyone else from taking effective positive or even negative action against it.

In a free market, whoever wants to go for slavery can do so.
Slavery has been rampant in Africa for instance, where there was no state, only tribes.
As far as I know, pretty much every system of tribe, or the vast majority, took part in slavery of some kind.
It's a pretty universal human trait to enslave others.

I was being sarcastic. I'm saying that, two revolutions of equal size have varying chances of success depending upon the size and military might of the monopoly you are launching a revolution against.

What's your point again?

Ugh.. I'm saying that your assumptions about states seem to be outside of the whole 'dog eat dog' reality of human nature, rather than an obvious part of it.

Not really sure what you're saying that about here.

You are conflating the size of a political unit with the size of a division of labor. A tiny community can be run by a small local government, but it can still participate in the division of labor. [E.x. Hong kong

Hong Kong is not a "small community".

Though yes, i think down scaling has it's limits.

Yes and I think it's pretty low, probably only in the couple of thousands of people.

However the question of outright statelessness is something that can really only be answered through apriori reasoning, at least until Andrew Ryan finishes building rapture

Yep we'll see how well that goes but I'm guessing someone will be elected as the administrator of that project at some point : D

Constitutions are ineffectual compared to general values concerning the state, and we've gotten to a point now where politicians openly admit to laws not being constitutional but not caring.

Yeah there's a bunch of examples of them going against it, but there's a great deal of examples of them going with it to strike down stupid ideas.

Communication issues isn't something that has been much of a problem. There is a difference between forced integration and the natural tendency of people to adopt foreign cultural aspects; as well as the tendency for people to learn such things as trade languages [like English] in order to be more productive workers and to better benefit from the div. of labor.

Again those are all things that you only get with choice. Learning a "trade language" requires education which historically has been sorely lacking in the populace when they get stuck into the vicious cycle of poverty.
Open trade in that case typically is only beneficial to a select few who exploit the work of an uneducated trapped minority and then export the goods.

So yeah if you have fragmentation, pockets of population will be struck by disaster and then plunged into poverty where they will remain because they can't really go anywhere and the only work they'll get is bottom rung crap that won't allow them to educate their children.

At 8/20/10 04:42 PM, Ravariel wrote: An interesting talk on the issue of choice and the cultural variability of something we all hold to be universal.

Might be worthwhile to the discussion considering that choice is primary to the capitalistic ideal.

Oh yeah I saw that one but it's not really what we're talking about. Though I might be remembering the video wrong, I dunno.

Also fuck the Japanese and their tea etiquette. I'LL DRINK MY GREEN TEA HOWEVER THE FUCK I LIKE.

Man I sure told them. When they read this post, they'll be so pissed.

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At 8/20/10 01:13 AM, studmuffin7 wrote:

At 8/19/10 10:20 PM, Warforger wrote:

At 8/19/10 02:34 PM, studmuffin7 wrote:

Yes, do you think you are rich though? Farm? Doctor?

So you want to dictate how much is enough and "redistribute the wealth" away from those who've earned it to those who haven't?

All I asked was do you consider yourself rich.

At 8/20/10 01:13 AM, studmuffin7 wrote:

:That is a dangerous precedent, and frankly it is the very definition of communism. How do people like you come to believe you are entitled to a piece of what someone else has worked for and earned?

YOU didn't work to pave the roads you drive on, YOU didn't work to keeping crime down, YOU didn't work to maintaining a powerful military YOU didn't work to represent 40,000 people etc. Sure you may have done alot of hard work, but you certainly take for granted what your government does for you that taxes sound like COMMUNISM.

At 8/20/10 01:13 AM, studmuffin7 wrote:

At 8/19/10 02:34 PM, studmuffin7 wrote: Then you have to look at where it is going... unemployed/welfare leeches perfectly capable of doing work,

SOME, MANY not very much.

Most are physically capable of working yet sit on their unemployment/welfare. I challenge you to go drive through the nearest set of projects and take stock of how many people there are truely disabled. I think we both know if there were they wouldn't last long in such an enviornment anyway.

We need some statistics.

At 8/20/10 01:13 AM, studmuffin7 wrote:

At 8/19/10 02:34 PM, studmuffin7 wrote: illegal immigrants leeching off the system,

Yah, its not like they have shit jobs that most people don't have the patience to do for such a little amount like crop picking and our immigration process blocks them out because they're not educated and they don't have family in America, but I'm glad I live in a world where that doesn't happen.

If most people don't have the patience for hard work, then that is yet another in a long list of reasons why they should be cut off from unemployment/welfare. As long as there are jobs out there untaken, unemployment should not be paid out to people in that area.

Here's the problem, crop picking has such a low wage for work too hard its not worth it to the average American, I live in California, they thought that if we kick the illegals out that the citizens will move in and take the vacated jobs during the 70's, but all that happened was the the agricultural economy received a blow because no one was hard working and able to do that job for such a low wage and just alot of immigrant families deported.

At 8/20/10 01:13 AM, studmuffin7 wrote: Moreover, I find it morally abhorrent that we can tolerate so many people waltzing in and flagrantly ignoring our laws.

I find it morally abhorrent that anyone would think that its terrible to illegally immigrate to your country while the immigration process doesn't let them through.

At 8/20/10 01:13 AM, studmuffin7 wrote:

At 8/19/10 02:34 PM, studmuffin7 wrote: and generate jobs in Mexico, etc...

Yah, its not like their people are immigrating here for nothing right.

What point are you trying to make here? GM needs to be making jobs for Americans and illegals, regardless of the reason, should not be immigrating here in the first place. We need MUCH harsher penalties/enforcement policies to deal with the problem. Not only on them but on the people who hire them.

I assumed you meant to prevent immigration. Northern Mexico is in terrible shape, so people want to escape to America as its close nearby, but the immigration process doesn't let them through as I said, they probably haven't gone to college or have family in the US. It makes perfect sense to illegally emigrate.

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At 8/20/10 05:22 PM, poxpower wrote: Oh yeah I saw that one but it's not really what we're talking about. Though I might be remembering the video wrong, I dunno.

Also fuck the Japanese and their tea etiquette. I'LL DRINK MY GREEN TEA HOWEVER THE FUCK I LIKE.

Man I sure told them. When they read this post, they'll be so pissed.

Yeah, that's the one. It's relevant in a contextual way. If we accept an idea of capitalism-as-governance, we necessarily require a strong focus on individual agency (read: choice) with a strong responsibility of the individual to choose well. For many, many reasons (some psychological, some cultural, some physical) our ability to choose well decreases in proportion to the number of available options.

This is just something you need to keep in mind as a backdrop for any discussion about the role of government in lives, and the challenges of a stateless society (or a netocracy as in Gum's topic).

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At 8/17/10 07:52 PM, QuantumPenguin wrote:

At 8/17/10 01:56 AM, Jackotrades wrote:

The free market is entirely directly responsible for the state of America's economy at the moment.

America doesn't have a free market, it has a mixed economy.

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At 8/20/10 09:28 AM, Bacchanalian wrote: Er... by that logic isn't a state impossible in the first place?

Nah. It would be if I had said "states come about by claiming huge areas of land."

But I didn't. States start for ideological reasons and when they have sufficient power they claim land.

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At 8/20/10 10:57 AM, QuantumPenguin wrote: You can understand all the economics you like, but it's simply impossible for you to contend anything without an understanding of propositional logic, which you've already evidenced that you do not have.

Capitalism results in highest aggregate utility.
If we value aggregate utility, then we should have capitalism if we want to satisfy this value.

You don't have to agree with capitalism resulting in highest utility (though it does), but how is this not logically consistent.

I don't think I've seen you make one substantiated claim in any thread.

says you, "in socialism no one ever dies of sickness derp!"

"Free markets caused the economic collapse"

Good, because you aren't.

Compared to you I am.

my point was, he would likely respond "so you think you know better than all economists and you're just some dude?", and I'm saying that the people I have learnt from do.

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At 8/20/10 05:30 PM, Ravariel wrote: our ability to choose well decreases in proportion to the number of available options.

I'm talking more about how some people have no choice at all even in a free market due to factors like bad luck, lack of education, handicaps, weather and so on.

That video is about how humans suck at choosing, basically.

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The main thing is most rich people, like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, have worked hard for their money. So they either feel increased taxes to be a fine for doing well in life. Why should the rich pay more taxes when 1% of the country is responsible for paying over 90% of America's taxes. Also rich people tend to know more about the economy because they worked for it, theerefore they believe trickle down economics is the best way to handle our debt. Why else would you see only the rich who inherited money being for taxes.

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At 8/20/10 05:22 PM, poxpower wrote:

That's down to a case by case basis.

Perhaps, but I've already given reasons why I don't see any benefits from allowing the federal government to remain on an unsustainable path.

That's not really the point of a government.

To provide the public with goods of greater value than what they are paid in for?

In a free market, whoever wants to go for slavery can do so.

And the risk of retribution and attacks on their property is taken solely by them, not by the state.

Slavery has been rampant in Africa for instance, where there was no state, only tribes.
As far as I know, pretty much every system of tribe, or the vast majority, took part in slavery of some kind.
It's a pretty universal human trait to enslave others.

Ignoring the fact that states do exist in these areas and those states are very powerful relative to the general population, and ignoring the fact that kleptocracies and civil wars make capital accumulation nigh impossible. Every society you describe with slavery also has a common trait of being pre-industrial. If slavery was so profitable then one has little reason to expect why any state would take up the task of banning it in the first place; since it would seem that those with slaves would be the wealthiest members of society. The only reason this sort of thing didn't remain is because industrialization took place.

My point is that the mere existence of something doesn't prove it is profitable in a society where industrialization is permitted to occur. Pointing to a pre-industrial society, or a society where industrialization cannot take place because of state policy doesn't prove your point at all.

I was being sarcastic. I'm saying that, two revolutions of equal size have varying chances of success depending upon the size and military might of the monopoly you are launching a revolution against.

What's your point again?

It is easier to revolt against a small land monopoly than a large one, ceteris paribus.

Not really sure what you're saying that about here.

Forget it.

Hong Kong is not a "small community".

Geographically, it is small. The word community wasn't important and i probably should have used it.

Yes and I think it's pretty low, probably only in the couple of thousands of people.

That's small enough for me.

Constitutions are ineffectual compared to general values concerning the state, and we've gotten to a point now where politicians openly admit to laws not being constitutional but not caring.

Yeah there's a bunch of examples of them going against it, but there's a great deal of examples of them going with it to strike down stupid ideas.

The constitution only lists people's freedoms, and people will only respect appeals to 'the constitution' provided there is an ideology of constitutionality. When an ideology of personal caprice and broad interpretation prevails the fact that a legal document stating 'congress shall make NO LAW' will still remain meaningless. You can have a free society without a written constitution provided there is a prevailing ideology of personal liberty, but you cannot have a free society with a written constitution listing freedoms when there is no ideology for freedom or against increased state power.

Again those are all things that you only get with choice. Learning a "trade language" requires education which historically has been sorely lacking in the populace when they get stuck into the vicious cycle of poverty.

In the days of the 'gilded age' around the turn of the century you had immigrants coming from several countries around the world, most of which were not English speaking countries. The vast majority of those immigrants learned the english language either as their primary or secondary language and passed that knowledge on to their children, and these immigrants were significantly poorer than the ones we have today, who for no greater lack of opportunity are sticking to their native languages.

People do NOT make themselves any wealthier by living in larger geographic states and you do not make people wealthier by forcing them to live under a uniform system of laws. They make themselves wealthier by participating in more extensive divisions of labor and with greater amounts of investments in capital. Living in a different state does not preclude engaging in trade with other groups and it doesn't change in any way the nature of the trade between the groups. Nor does having two states instead of one preclude an individual from choosing to live in another state. And giving people the freedom to separate does not preclude the freedom to assimilate or to live a more cosmopolitan lifestyle.

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At 8/21/10 05:46 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote:

Perhaps, but I've already given reasons why I don't see any benefits from allowing the federal government to remain on an unsustainable path.

Yeah I'm against "unsustainable" anything too!

To provide the public with goods of greater value than what they are paid in for?

Governments are safety nets and equalizers that ensure that if you're struck by illness, old age, bad luck, handicaps, natural disasters etc. etc. your life won't be ruined and that your rights will be protected no matter who you are.
It's the idea that a collectivity of people can better shoulder a burden than an individual and that collective wisdom is superior to individual foresight.

That's the basic idea and function of any state. Whether it's implemented well or not in certain cases is debatable but I find it pretty hard to argue against the basic idea.

In a free market, whoever wants to go for slavery can do so.

And the risk of retribution and attacks on their property is taken solely by them, not by the state.

Yep

Ignoring the fact that states do exist in these areas and those states are very powerful relative to the general population,

TRIBES did it too. Tribes of several dozen people.

Every society you describe with slavery also has a common trait of being pre-industrial.

I don't think there's ever been a post-industrial society where slavery was legal.
But when it was, it was extremely profitable. The entire reason why they didn't want to abolish it was because they were making truckloads of cash.

My point is that the mere existence of something doesn't prove it is profitable in a society where industrialization is permitted to occur.

If the abolition of slavery is dependent on technology, then that doesn't say much about the free market.
At best it says that slavery today is not needed in some areas, not that the free market is what abolished slavery ( or that it would have done it sooner, which it certainly wouldn't have ).

It is easier to revolt against a small land monopoly than a large one, ceteris paribus.

Well on the flip side of that, it's easier to exert force on a small monopoly than a big one.

You can have a free society without a written constitution provided there is a prevailing ideology of personal liberty, but you cannot have a free society with a written constitution listing freedoms when there is no ideology for freedom or against increased state power.

Luckily there is an ideology of freedom.
History clearly shows people as a whole gaining more and more freedoms in the law books over time.

In the days of the 'gilded age' around the turn of the century you had immigrants coming from several countries around the world, most of which were not English speaking countries.

Well then that gets back to my "love it or leave it" argument. If you're trying to say "hey man language doesn't matter, look at these guys, they did it!" and act like that's reasonable, then let me shoot it back to you: if you don't like the laws here, go somewhere else and don't complain about cultural / financial barriers.

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At 8/20/10 05:25 PM, Warforger wrote:

At 8/20/10 01:13 AM, studmuffin7 wrote:

At 8/19/10 10:20 PM, Warforger wrote:

At 8/19/10 02:34 PM, studmuffin7 wrote:

All I asked was do you consider yourself rich.

Not really, I would say upper middle class. Still, we are overtaxed to high hell.

At 8/20/10 01:13 AM, studmuffin7 wrote: That is a dangerous precedent, and frankly it is the very definition of communism. How do people like you come to believe you are entitled to a piece of what someone else has worked for and earned?

YOU didn't work to pave the roads you drive on, YOU didn't work to keeping crime down, YOU didn't work to maintaining a powerful military YOU didn't work to represent 40,000 people etc. Sure you may have done alot of hard work, but you certainly take for granted what your government does for you that taxes sound like COMMUNISM.

I take NOTHING for granted. It is BECAUSE we pay taxes that we can EXPECT paved roads and law enforcement. Of course around here there are often issues with our roads and police will look the other way and walk on by rather than risk their lives to stop crime but that is another rant entirely. The point is, we are paying waaaaay too much at this point for these things. And don't act like that is what our taxes go to, probably less than 50% of it actually goes to those useful infrastructure things you mentioned. There is pork spending, buyouts, kickbacks, Congress giving itself a raise, foreign aid to the tune of billions to countries that burn our flag and probably funnel it into terrorist cells or local warlords, etc...

A reasonable level of taxation for all people and responsible use of those taxes is democracy.

At 8/20/10 01:13 AM, studmuffin7 wrote:

At 8/19/10 02:34 PM, studmuffin7 wrote:

Most are physically capable of working yet sit on their unemployment/welfare. I challenge you to go drive through the nearest set of projects and take stock of how many people there are truely disabled. I think we both know if there were they wouldn't last long in such an enviornment anyway.

We need some statistics.

Just drive through the local projects and use your own eyes. I have. If any significant percentage of those people were physically handicapped, which they aren't, then people wouldn't be afraid to drive through or stop in these areas.

At 8/20/10 01:13 AM, studmuffin7 wrote:

At 8/19/10 02:34 PM, studmuffin7 wrote:

If most people don't have the patience for hard work, then that is yet another in a long list of reasons why they should be cut off from unemployment/welfare. As long as there are jobs out there untaken, unemployment should not be paid out to people in that area.

Here's the problem, crop picking has such a low wage for work too hard its not worth it to the average American, I live in California, they thought that if we kick the illegals out that the citizens will move in and take the vacated jobs during the 70's, but all that happened was the the agricultural economy received a blow because no one was hard working and able to do that job for such a low wage and just alot of immigrant families deported.

But here is the thing. As long as people are physically capable of working and there are jobs out there, they should not recieve unemployment/welfare. This would essentially leave the lazy ones with an ultimatum: work for a living or you're screwed. Alternatively, there is always the military for those who need an education and cannot afford it themselves. This would open up other options for them. But those jobs would inevitably have to be filled unless the slackers would rather starve than do an honest day's work.

At 8/20/10 01:13 AM, studmuffin7 wrote:

I find it morally abhorrent that anyone would think that its terrible to illegally immigrate to your country while the immigration process doesn't let them through.

Laws exist for a reason. There is NOTHING morally abhorrent about enforcing them. You have a VERY distorted view on morality if you think that way though it is becoming much more common amongst liberals. The whole point of immigration laws is to control how many are coming through. If the government says "no more" then that is it. No more. At that point they can either wait a while and try again or just not come over at all. Coming over illegally warrants some kind of legal punishment beyond simple deportation imo.

At 8/20/10 01:13 AM, studmuffin7 wrote:

At 8/19/10 02:34 PM, studmuffin7 wrote:

Yah, its not like their people are immigrating here for nothing right.

What point are you trying to make here? GM needs to be making jobs for Americans and illegals, regardless of the reason, should not be immigrating here in the first place. We need MUCH harsher penalties/enforcement policies to deal with the problem. Not only on them but on the people who hire them.

I assumed you meant to prevent immigration. Northern Mexico is in terrible shape, so people want to escape to America as its close nearby, but the immigration process doesn't let them through as I said, they probably haven't gone to college or have family in the US. It makes perfect sense to illegally emigrate.

IT DOES NOT MATTER what their situation is, breaking the law is UNACCEPTABLE! If you think that it "makes perfect sense" to break the law then you have some serious problems. If they can come through legally, they can come. Otherwise, they need to stay put and deal with things in their own country.

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At 8/19/10 04:34 AM, poxpower wrote: Haha.

ugh you weak cunt you just failed your own experiment

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At 8/22/10 03:16 AM, SadisticMonkey wrote:

At 8/19/10 04:34 AM, poxpower wrote: Haha.

ugh you weak cunt you just failed your own experiment

I quit that like 2 weeks ago.

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At 8/21/10 03:58 AM, SadisticMonkey wrote:

If we value aggregate utility, then we should have capitalism if we want to satisfy this value.

It's tautological, all this says is "if we like capitalism then we like capitalism". Utility isn't a well-defined concept in libertarian systems. Try again.

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sorry for the late reply.

At 8/21/10 06:56 PM, poxpower wrote:

At 8/21/10 05:46 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote:

Perhaps, but I've already given reasons why I don't see any benefits from allowing the federal government to remain on an unsustainable path.

Yeah I'm against "unsustainable" anything too!

Good then it's decided, we shouldn't finance government borrowing.

To provide the public with goods of greater value than what they are paid in for?

Governments are safety nets and equalizers that ensure that if you're struck by illness, old age, bad luck, handicaps, natural disasters etc. etc. your life won't be ruined and that your rights will be protected no matter who you are.
It's the idea that a collectivity of people can better shoulder a burden than an individual and that collective wisdom is superior to individual foresight.

if you don't see the folly in equating actions of the state with collective action in a bizarre singular platonic sense, you haven't gotten out of church yet. Government edicts are as collective as the policies of a private corporation.

If I and a bunch of like minded individuals decide to pool together a bunch of resources to create our own insurance system, say, unemployment insurance. Or create a welfare system sort of like the Mormon Welfare system. Is that not collective action? You're creating a false dichotomy between what you see as purely individual action in the market, and the 'collective action' of the state.

If the president orders a drone strike in Pakistan is that collective action? Did all of America come together and decide upon the bombing? Is the office of the president that of Clairvoyance such that he can divine the will of the masses? Or are most americans largely unaware of the specific activities and functions of the state?

Now one can comment on the Utility of or lackthereof of having the state organize a compulsory system of Welfare or of Social Security or of Unemployment, and that is a lengthy discussion in of itself. My point was simply that you can't think critically about Government if you view everything they do as a metaphor for the will of the people.

"At one time kings were anointed by Deity, so the problem was to see to it that Deity chose the right candidate. In this age the myth is "the will of the people" ... but the problem changes only superficially."

Every society you describe with slavery also has a common trait of being pre-industrial.

I don't think there's ever been a post-industrial society where slavery was legal.
But when it was, it was extremely profitable. The entire reason why they didn't want to abolish it was because they were making truckloads of cash.

What society are you talking about?

And if slavery is so profitable it doesn't explain why modern governments don't enslave their own populations completely. If anyone in the world is capable of doing it they would be able to, and if it is as profitable and as sustainable as you say. According to your theory it is not only impossible to contain mass slavery without having some agency with a monopoly on force prohibit it, but it would be impossible to imagine why such an agency wouldn't engage in that kind of behavior itself.

So it you might think I'm naive for thinking private agencies won't engage in slavery because my theory holds that free labor is more productive and more profitable when the state doesn't externalize the costs of slave revolts, poor productivity, sabotage, etc.

But it is significantly more naive to think that state agencies won't engage in slavery GIVEN that your theory holds that slavery is not only profitable but possible for private agencies to engage in; when you have a state that likely has a plurality on a nation's output and a majority on the nation's weaponry and tools of coercion.

If the abolition of slavery is dependent on technology, then that doesn't say much about the free market.

The industrial revolution coincided with the proliferation of free trade, the abolition of feudalism in land ownership, the legally enforced guild system. So yes, i think the industrial revolution came about at roughly the same time States engaged in less militant behavior on their citizen.

Well on the flip side of that, it's easier to exert force on a small monopoly than a big one.

Yes, and? I'm just a little confused what you are trying to prove through this.

Luckily there is an ideology of freedom.

History clearly shows people as a whole gaining more and more freedoms in the law books over time.

Yes, the world in GENERAL has tended towards lessening degrees of Statism. Only because there were people making the case for voluntarism.

Well then that gets back to my "love it or leave it" argument. If you're trying to say "hey man language doesn't matter, look at these guys, they did it!" and act like that's reasonable, then let me shoot it back to you: if you don't like the laws here, go somewhere else and don't complain about cultural / financial barriers.

Your implying that cultural and financial barriers are somehow easier to deal with or weaker under a regime of larger and more powerful states?

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At 8/17/10 01:56 AM, Jackotrades wrote: I should elaborate and say that I do not understand the agenda behind the obscenely rich people who keep getting richer but do not contribute to the growing debts of their nations.

I know that greed is a powerful factor in life, obviously people with money have power, and dominate the social and economic societies we live in, but is it too much to ask for those who have money just wasting away in banks to perhaps give to the poor or the government to pay back debts?

your contradicting yourself here, you admit that greed is a powerfull driving force an then ask why rich people want to hold on to their money

That of course, would incline that I want the top 5% of the rich to pay an increased tax or some sort of wage to stay rich. I am not asking for a forced tax however, I am just curious why folks like William Gates or Warren Buffett (amazing thing google) are so opposed to giving back some money they would not be spending...

google is an amazing thing... now google the bill and melinda gates foundation one of the largest individual charities in the US

Obviously if they were to give back some, we probably would have less problems concerning money (really broad concept, lets just say national debts would be helped, maybe poverty lowered, etc) and public relations with all contributing multi-billionaires would definitely increase. After all why would you continue to hate someone who is successful, yet cares enough to give back to the community?

yeah why would you hate people that give millions of dollars to charities every year, people like gates and buffet

Certainly the argument would be that anyone can get to that stature if they put their mind and body to it, however I will throw out the natural and social lotteries argument (link in case you are curious what I am referring to) and suggest that under certain conditions it may be nearly impossible for certain folks who lost the natural and social lotteries to gain the stature of obscenely rich, so at the very least the rich could help the less fortunate.

yes help them by doing things like giving huge sums of money to the underprivaleged which many rich people do

What are your thoughts? I am welcome to opinions or any objections to my judgement.

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My family earned their abundance of money through hard work and schooling.

I will be damned if some Communist piece of shit tells us we need to "contribute to society". Screw society. You either bust your ass in school and make a earnest living, or you fuck off and live in the Lower-class for the remainder of your life puffing on cigarettes and drinking cheap liquor.

My money is MY money.