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...what the hell, it cut off 90% of my post. The end looks totally retarded without the other body of text. DX

I'm too lazy to retype it, but basically I was saying that "yes I know nothing about this but you are arguing for something for which has never happened before, so you can't make much of a better claim yourself"

Sometimes I really hate newgrounds for not having a preview button.

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At 1/7/11 08:34 AM, Drakim wrote: I find this attitude among you and other posters to be very disturbing.

If you want a particular good or service to be provided in a particular manner, one which you think I [or sadistic since your conversation is mostly w/ him] am ignoring, please tell me.

I have put social democracy, vanilla republican and vanilla democrat ideas through my mind and rejected them on one ground or another.

Otherwise this strikes me as a veiled appeal to the middle ground.

But if it makes you feel any more comfortable, my ideas, and presumably Sadistic's, unlike almost all other political ideologies which are necessarily single-minded, do not necessarily require you to abandon you're preferred mode of control. But what you would have to accept is the ability of other individuals to choose not to fund State programs that you support and not to receive

Practically speaking this couldn't happen with all persons in all places, for example, while anyone living anywhere could legitimately opt out of being controlled by 1) Entitlement programs 2) Having FDA decisions dictate their consumption, the funding of defense and police protection is a trickier issue that necessarily involves geography.

If there were a sufficiently large group of individuals who thought like i did, I still wouldn't consider it intelligent to actually 'overthrow' the state in the same way that Statist guerrillas and revolutionaries have done in the past. Since there will still be a considerable portion of the population that believes in the state, assuming statelessness doesn't occur because the US Government falls apart of its own accord, secession of individual states and then sub-states within the states is probably going to be a start.

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At 1/7/11 10:27 AM, SmilezRoyale wrote:

At 1/7/11 08:34 AM, Drakim wrote: I find this attitude among you and other posters to be very disturbing.

If you want a particular good or service to be provided in a particular manner, one which you think I [or sadistic since your conversation is mostly w/ him] am ignoring, please tell me.

I have put social democracy, vanilla republican and vanilla democrat ideas through my mind and rejected them on one ground or another.

Otherwise this strikes me as a veiled appeal to the middle ground.

I can see that, but I can reassure you it was not my intention at all. I hate appeals to the middle ground.

What I'm talking about is a personal experience I've had here on newgrounds, where anything but a far right opinion on economics is viewed as childish and uneducated. Having this type of stance on anything else, such as religion, will instantly get you labeled a fundy or extremist atheist, while on economics go pretty much unchallenged. If I say "anybody who believes in God is an idiot" I will get challenged. Apparently not so for "anybody who believes in the state".

I don't really want us to move to the middle ground. I want to be allowed to express opinions other than this single one, and it seems like certain people think that's ridiculous. How dare you not hate the state.

But if it makes you feel any more comfortable, my ideas, and presumably Sadistic's, unlike almost all other political ideologies which are necessarily single-minded, do not necessarily require you to abandon you're preferred mode of control. But what you would have to accept is the ability of other individuals to choose not to fund State programs that you support and not to receive

I'm happy over that, but I'm not feeling very confrotable talking about... well, anything really, because there is this hint of a threat that I can just gleem out of these posts. Support anything but free market capitalism and we will treat you like an ignorant creationist. I'm not one to get deeply involved in economical debates as it's not my forte, but the fact is that my nation exist and it goes in a diffrent direction of what I see argued must be. I get compelled to bring this to the table and see what people have to say about it, but it usually gets ignored and I get called economically illiterate because I'm not a free market capitalist. After all, that's economics 101. Anything else is wrong.

What really pisses me off about this is the fact that what's being argued for here is not mainstream. Although originally about rebranding, this thread is clearly about the ins and outs of a stateless society, and a stateless society is pretty shaky spooky ground where nobody has evidence or experience.

Despite this, and I know it's totally not intentional because you are good people, I feel like I'm being treated like an idiot because I do not hold the opinion that a stateless society would be an instant maximum success.

It's of my highly personal opinion that it comes from the whole capitalism vs communism debate. Capitalism won, the soviet union collapsed, and capitalist are vindicated. People who argue for communism usually are more about ideals than practical solutions, and are quite easily shot down by capitalists. This has transferred into a situation where any state vs notstate issue is seen as adult arguing against kids situation, even when the state solutions are in fact doing quite fine and danny out in the world and cannot be dismissed.

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At 1/7/11 08:34 AM, Drakim wrote: I find this attitude among you and other posters to be very disturbing.

yeah okay I tend to get a little aggressive when debating. but it's REALLY hot here, give me a break :P

You talk as if it's a matter of course that free market capitalism is the only path to success, no exceptions. Anybody who claims otherwise is simply uneducated, as it's basic economy 101. I live in a near socialist country and it works pretty damn fine, so I can't help but to wonder if you have some sort of loyalty to this system that won't allow you to considerer anything else, quite akin to what we find in Soviet Russia.

We don't say that state programs automatically fail catastrophically, just that they're sub-optimal. Things are good? Cool, but they could be even better and more sustainable with a free market.

Also, I'm assuming you mean 'welfare state' when you say socialism, because when WE use that word we're talking about a centrally planned economy. I'm assuming you're living in a European country, and if so you're still entirely dependant upon market activity for your standard of living.

Further, "free marketism" is not in the mainstream, and free marketeers are more often called stupid than social democrats, so if anyone should be complaining...

Oh btw you should readthis article.

At 1/7/11 08:36 AM, Drakim wrote: "yes I know nothing about this but you are arguing for something for which has never happened before, so you can't make much of a better claim yourself"

Well actually there have been a number of examples of functioning stateless societies in recent history, such as Iceland, Ireland, and colonial America.
These examples by no means form the basis of our theories, but if you want empirical conformation of working stateless societies, then it exists.

Anyway, this "scientific" approach to politics is awful; that is, "let's try everything out and see what works best".

You might say "Well Soviet Russia was awful, but at least we now know that central planning doesn't work". However, it was thoroughly dismissed at the very beginning of the Soviet Union, before all of that millions of deaths business.

All we do is look at existing and observed market phenomena and use economic reasoning to explain why they can realistically be extrapolated to the production of goods and services in a stateless society.

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I can see that, but I can reassure you it was not my intention at all. I hate appeals to the middle ground.

What I'm talking about is a personal experience I've had here on newgrounds, where anything but a far right opinion on economics is viewed as childish and uneducated. Having this type of stance on anything else, such as religion, will instantly get you labeled a fundy or extremist atheist, while on economics go pretty much unchallenged. If I say "anybody who believes in God is an idiot" I will get challenged. Apparently not so for "anybody who believes in the state".

The overwhelming majority of people believe in "Government Regulation" to some degree or another, as well as 'government welfare' and of government in general although whether or not this belief is the result of strong conscious meditation on the issue or is purely ad-hoc.

I acknowledge that my ideas on how adult societies should 'manage' themselfs are extremist, even if I don't regard any of what I say as being extreme when one thinks about it hard enough. [Conversely, when i consider the republican and democratic platforms i regard them as fundamentally bizzare and extreme in what they advocate even if it doesn't appear as such to joe regular]

Most people on this forum that have more moderate "Right wing" [I consider the left-right dichotomy defunct and not at all useful] economic views than mine, but maybe because I consider 'economic isues' [What is economic and what is not economic is again another false dichotomy IMO] more important than other issues, I and Sadistic are more vocal than they are.

I don't really want us to move to the middle ground.

I have a position and I try to argue it. Right before i lost my belief in God I would get very frustrated that other individuals, particularly you, made so many threads about the existence of god and contradictions in the thinking of certain religious individuals, attacking what i felt were 'moderate' christians.

But don't think it's **weird** that people think that what i call The State is an institution that can solve social problems, to the contrary. But if someone does call for state intervention, since i don't believe in the state, I will argue against it.

And BECAUSE most people who argue with me already know that I oppose the state in its entirety, topics concerning small state issues turn into discussions about Statism versus "ANARCHY!"

and because my line of thinking does involve trying to logically distill an institution [That is, classifying it by it's essential internal qualities] and how it operates. So when i say things like how states can claim property in ways that private institutions cant, and that states tax power enables it to behave in an arbitrary way, i am not implying that every supporter of what is commonly called 'Government' would actually support the state excercizing it's powers to it's theoretical limit; a USSR or a North Korea or a Nazi Germany. [Though poxpower comes pretty close :P]

I'm happy over that, but I'm not feeling very confrotable talking about...

Forgive me but this sounds like an emotional issue rather than an intellectual one. I can't speak for anyone but myself, but **I** don't recall calling people economic illiterates. I may have said in the past that people do not understand the essential nature of the state. But I'm not going to be guilted into thinking that taking extreme positions constitutes dismissing all alternative positions as

What really pisses me off about this is the fact that what's being argued for here is not mainstream.

You're upset because I'm not advocating a mainstream position? You DO realize that in spite of what impressions you get being on the internet, Atheism is still a minority, and a distrusted one at that. :P

I think I've given valid reasons why the "It's never been tried" argument may be grounds for being skeptical about an idea, but not grounds for rejecting it. One of the arguments against the abolition of slavery in the 1600's or 1700's could very well have been that slavery was a historic institution and no
'modern' precedent. Also is the fact that the abolition of slavery leaves many questions, some of which can be answered only through economic reasoning, and others that have only partially satisfactory answers. How will the slaves find work once they are freed? What rights should be given to these slaves? How do we prevent the threat of retribution on the part of vengeful former slaves?

Most importantly is the obvious paradox of refusing to try something unless it's been tried before.

Economics itself isn't an issue that can be settled by 'experience' in spite of what many people would have you believe.

Despite this, and I know it's totally not intentional because you are good people
It's of my highly personal opinion

It seems to me that in this context, you are the one who is looking at matters in terms of black and white. Unless a particular state solution brings society to the brink of collapse, we can call it 'fine and dandy out in the world' and regard "Alternative solutions" as you yourself use the term, as being wholly unnecessary.

The issue itself can only be resolved on a case by case basis, give me a particular issue that you feel states are necessary to solve and that in present conditions have solved satisfactorially.

I BELIEVE that...

1) education in the US is COMPARATIVELY bad is because of the states territorial monopoly
2) Inflation of college tuition prices exists because of state accredation combined with the state influenced expansion of credit to college students
3) Healthcare in the United states is artificially scarce and expensive due to various already enumerated interventions on the part of the state [in previous threads that is]
4) Wars with no objectives and perpetually unbalanced government budgets exist because of rational ignorance, fiscal illusions, and rent-seeking of legislation

and i CAN argue against each of these individually, the problem is when other people turn the discussion into statelessness IN GENERAL, and then I have no choice but to either back down or argue against the state in it's entirety.

Unlike most people, I have zero reverence for 'The facts'.Tthere do exist statements that are apodictically true, or very probably true and should be treated as such. But arguments consists not in terms of relaying facts but in terms of interpretations of the evidence. This interpretation requires a THEORY which requires logic that exists outside of experience and facts. [if it were possible to perform lab experiments which were able to single out variables and their effects in the social sciences, this 'apriori' approach would not be necessary] It may be a fact that in 1980 the Stock market dropped 256 points [Not a real example] But you cannot give any causal explanation for this occurrence based purely on that observation alone.

The beauty of "The free market" is that it CAN theoretically be compatible with what is commonly called "Socialism", a community or a county [via a homeowners association] would not be prohibited by any "Right wing" ideologues from establishing as a condition of owning a home in their neighborhood, contributions to a welfare fund or so-called "free" "Public" education for all children between some arbitrarily determined age. You could call this a state but it lacks the character of a state, it does not claim land that it never homesteaded and it does not claim the power on individuals outside those who agreed to the arrangement of the HOA.

The same, unfortunately, cannot be said in reverse. Call it a dramatization if you like, but if a "Moderate" and "Mainstream" individual such as yourself, theoretically, advocates 'universal healthcare' as it is commonly fashioned They are advocating violence be used against those who did not agree to extract payment and compliance regardless of whether the services or used.

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At 1/7/11 08:42 PM, SadisticMonkey wrote: yeah okay I tend to get a little aggressive when debating. but it's REALLY hot here, give me a break :P

Don't worry, the overall tone of my post was utterly changed when newgrounds missed most of it's content. What you are seeing was just a paragraph I added at the end commenting a small issue. I did not mean for it to look like I got upset about the whole debate. ><

We don't say that state programs automatically fail catastrophically, just that they're sub-optimal. Things are good? Cool, but they could be even better and more sustainable with a free market.

That's perfectly fine, and I like talking about it. I'd especially like your opinion on Norway, which is a mix economy, but pretty socialist as far as American opinion goes. We are number 1 in a range of ways right now, such as standard of living and education. Do you think these socialistic aspects (such as state owned power, education, hospitals, etc) are holding us back despite that we are already at the top? What would happen do you think if we became a stateless society? Would we rocket all the way to the moon?

Also, I'm assuming you mean 'welfare state' when you say socialism, because when WE use that word we're talking about a centrally planned economy. I'm assuming you're living in a European country, and if so you're still entirely dependant upon market activity for your standard of living.

Yeah, I mentioned that in the last paragraph. It's easier to just call Norway socialist because it gives the average American the right idea about how Norway is structured compared to the US. But in truth, Norway is a mixed economy, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Further, "free marketism" is not in the mainstream, and free marketeers are more often called stupid than social democrats, so if anyone should be complaining...

It's not mainstream among the general public, but it's pretty close to mainstream in intellectual circles. It's pretty identical to belief in God.

Oh btw you should readthis article.

Thanks

At 1/7/11 08:36 AM, Drakim wrote: "yes I know nothing about this but you are arguing for something for which has never happened before, so you can't make much of a better claim yourself"

Well actually there have been a number of examples of functioning stateless societies in recent history, such as Iceland, Ireland, and colonial America.

That's great, but aren't these rather small examples, over short periods of time?

These examples by no means form the basis of our theories, but if you want empirical conformation of working stateless societies, then it exists.

It's just that, throughout our history, there is no cornerstone of our world that was stateless. The ancient Egyptians didn't thrive in a stateless fashion. Europe wasn't stateless when it developed into the enlightened era.

It seems to me that all stateless examples are corners of the world, without much power or historical events going on. Some small colonizes in the new world. Little Ireland next to big brother England with a state. etc.

I am in no way educated to make a judgement call about the importance of this, but to me personally, it just doesn't cut it. For me, you have proven that stateless societies can exist for short spans of time without falling into total chaos, but nothing more. I see nothing that suggests greatness in these examples.

My reasoning is that if a stateless solution is truly greater, then why do we not see it? Why have state solution prevailed all across the world since recorded history? States found and civilized the new world (in a spectacular bloodbath). States built the great monuments we call wonders today. States took us out into space and onto the moon. States put up sattelites and telephone systems.

I'm sure you think this can happen in stateless societies too, but it just hasn't thus far.

Anyway, this "scientific" approach to politics is awful; that is, "let's try everything out and see what works best".

hahaha, indeed

You might say "Well Soviet Russia was awful, but at least we now know that central planning doesn't work". However, it was thoroughly dismissed at the very beginning of the Soviet Union, before all of that millions of deaths business.

For communism to work we need a central planer robot machine cyborg which cannot be corrupted :p

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At 1/8/11 12:16 AM, SmilezRoyale wrote: The overwhelming majority of people believe in "Government Regulation" to some degree or another, as well as 'government welfare' and of government in general although whether or not this belief is the result of strong conscious meditation on the issue or is purely ad-hoc.

But just like how in society, the overwhelming majority of people believe in God, but they haven't thought about it much and don't have any good arguments for it. If I make a topic about the state, I think the sum of knowledge will actually be greater on the non-state side.

[Conversely, when i consider the republican and democratic platforms i regard them as fundamentally bizzare and extreme in what they advocate even if it doesn't appear as such to joe regular]

US politics has become too much about the meta politics themselves and not about the actual issues. Republicans don't care about ending government regulation. They care about making democrats look bad. And vice versa.

Most people on this forum that have more moderate "Right wing" [I consider the left-right dichotomy defunct and not at all useful] economic views than mine, but maybe because I consider 'economic isues' [What is economic and what is not economic is again another false dichotomy IMO] more important than other issues, I and Sadistic are more vocal than they are.

Hmm, I really shouldn't be whining about this, but part of what got me pissed was an email I got from a regular newgrounder here in relation to this topic who likes to troll me. You two are pretty nice.

I have a position and I try to argue it. Right before i lost my belief in God I would get very frustrated that other individuals, particularly you, made so many threads about the existence of god and contradictions in the thinking of certain religious individuals, attacking what i felt were 'moderate' christians.

Oh, don't worry about that. After all who made this topic in the first place? ;)

and because my line of thinking does involve trying to logically distill an institution [That is, classifying it by it's essential internal qualities] and how it operates. So when i say things like how states can claim property in ways that private institutions cant

But I say that the reason private institutions can't do that is because there is a state that reserves that right for itself.

Forgive me but this sounds like an emotional issue rather than an intellectual one.

Not really. Maybe I worded it badly for my purposes, but what I mean is that I don't feel that if I were to word my opinion, but people think I have nothing useful to contribute, I'm not gonna be able to participate and I could as well be lurking. Don't you know that feeling from when you were a kid? The adults are talking and when you say something they sorta ignore it because you are just a kid and can't say anything useful.

But let's depart from this, it's not what the topic should be about.

You're upset because I'm not advocating a mainstream position?

What? No!

I think I've given valid reasons why the "It's never been tried" argument may be grounds for being skeptical about an idea, but not grounds for rejecting it. One of the arguments against the abolition of slavery in the 1600's or 1700's could very well have been that slavery was a historic institution and no 'modern' precedent.

But that's not what I was arguing. It would only be the same if there had never been any nations except a colony here and there which didn't have slavery penetrate every part of their society. Then somebody might have an argument as to that "We don't know what will happen if we don't have slavery". But this was not the case. Tons of places in the world forbade slavery when it was at it's height in modern times.

Also is the fact that the abolition of slavery leaves many questions, some of which can be answered only through economic reasoning, and others that have only partially satisfactory answers. How will the slaves find work once they are freed? What rights should be given to these slaves? How do we prevent the threat of retribution on the part of vengeful former slaves?

These questions are very alike "Who will police us after the state is disbanded and companies haven't had enough time to offer up their own protective services?"

But I don't think that if we were actually going to go for a stateless solution, this would actually be what hinders us. It might be a bump in the road but no chance in hell that somebody would say we couldn't covercome it so we'd have to turn around.

Most importantly is the obvious paradox of refusing to try something unless it's been tried before.

But it's perfectly valid to be more careful and skeptical of something which has never been tried before. Especially if trying it could seriously hurt us. It's not like you can just remove the state and try a stateless society for a week. Changing any form of government leads to a lot of conflict. Removing government entirely is gonna be a rough few months methinks.

But that's not to argue that change is so scary we can't even try it. But I think we will find that most aren't willing because they know there is a certain cost, and they don't see the potential gain as worthwhile.

It seems to me that in this context, you are the one who is looking at matters in terms of black and white. Unless a particular state solution brings society to the brink of collapse, we can call it 'fine and dandy out in the world' and regard "Alternative solutions" as you yourself use the term, as being wholly unnecessary.

Don't fix it if it ain't broken. lol jk

No but seriously, do switch over the US to a stateless solution. I'd love to see what comes of it. Go on. I'll be watching.

The issue itself can only be resolved on a case by case basis, give me a particular issue that you feel states are necessary to solve and that in present conditions have solved satisfactorially.

It's exactly this I am afraid of. I am afraid that I won't be able to name the thing that gets us all killed, because I have never seen a huge stateless society that exists over time before.

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At 1/8/11 12:16 AM, SmilezRoyale wrote: I BELIEVE that...

1) education in the US is COMPARATIVELY bad is because of the states territorial monopoly

I wonder how the US would have done as an military alliance between states instead of a country.

2) Inflation of college tuition prices exists because of state accredation combined with the state influenced expansion of credit to college students

I wasn't born in a rich family. Despite this, I can go to any college in Norway. There are no elitist colleges for the filthy rich. Everything I know tells me that if you have a stateless solution, this would NOT be the case. It simply would not. There would be reasonable collages for me to go to yeah, but it wouldn't be nearly like it is now. The sort of fee I am able to pay would simply not be enough on a per student basis to afford the sort of high quality college I could go to now. It's paid by society though tax on everybody, because education of the youth is seen as a societal good rather than a personal gain for each youth.

3) Healthcare in the United states is artificially scarce and expensive due to various already enumerated interventions on the part of the state [in previous threads that is]

That may very well be, but the health insurance problems, health insurance companies having agents going though your contract to find spelling mistakes so they don't have to pay you, is surely not the fault of the state. That's motivated by a desire to increase profits, which will surely exist no matter what.

4) Wars with no objectives and perpetually unbalanced government budgets exist because of rational ignorance, fiscal illusions, and rent-seeking of legislation

Hard to relate for me. My state doesn't go to war at random here and there.

and i CAN argue against each of these individually, the problem is when other people turn the discussion into statelessness IN GENERAL, and then I have no choice but to either back down or argue against the state in it's entirety.

I totally understand that.

The same, unfortunately, cannot be said in reverse. Call it a dramatization if you like, but if a "Moderate" and "Mainstream" individual such as yourself, theoretically, advocates 'universal healthcare' as it is commonly fashioned They are advocating violence be used against those who did not agree to extract payment and compliance regardless of whether the services or used.

I thought a lot before replying to this one, because you are making a very strong point.

I think the main difference is the angle that you and I see the issue from. You are talking about economical justice. It's true in that sense, that the state is robbing you by forcing you to pay taxes even though you aren't gonna use the services.

I look at it from the angle that the general health of society is maintained by not allowing opt-outs in terms of taxes. If we don't have a functioning welfare system, more poor people will turn to crime and it will come back and harm me, to a greater degree that it harms me to pay taxes. It might be blackmail, but the means are secondary to me provided that the results are better. If a state playing robin hood is the best way to decrease suffering and increase progress (by welfare programs and funding science you couldn't care less about) then I favor a robin hood state.

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At 1/6/11 08:31 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: - Rational ignorance keeps voters from having any reason to make informed decision

This is true in ANY situation, it is not limited to elections.

- The state regulates it's elections and establishes rules of competition.

To a point, yes.

- High 'startup' requirements for taking office [Elections cost millions of dollars]

Indeed... that is a bit of a problem.

- the fact that competition can only take place during certain intervals

In a system that has a high desire for experience, this is necessary, but I see your angle.

...who are their constituents going to vote for in the next election? The democrats?

Realistically, they won't vote at all, and the balance of power will change through their apathy toward "their" candidate. Mind you while I understand the reasons for the two party system, I do believe we need more varied choices for our elected officials... but that falls squarely under rational ignorance.

Very few believe that two mega-corporations competing against one another is sufficient to call a particular market 'regulated'.

And yet, to stretch the metaphor, we can see how difficult it is for a third party to gain any ground when two megacorps have so much of the power.

But the advocates of state run or state regulated this or that generally are not calling for individual states to adopt policies that, by virtue of their success, would be adopted by other states.

Huh? I'm not sure what you're saying here.

And of course if the fidelity of a state is trusted on it's level of competition with other states, then the rational conclusion would be to advocate the greatest practicable level of devolution of power. And relative to our current predicament I would endorse this.

Wouldn't that espouse large unitary states though? As long as China and India and the EU exist, the only way our state (USA) can maintain "competition" is by being as big and powerful as we are. In order to maintain an equal level of power, each state would have to devolve it's power structures at the same time.

Chronically high incumbency rates in spite of low approval of congress suggests the model of democratic regulation is a farce.

I wouldn't go that far. It is a problem, yes, but I do not believe it is systemic to the concept of democratic regulation, merely to our current version of it. Most of that can be attributed to voter apathy, which can be attributed to a sense of "what does my one vote amongst 300 million matter?" of residing in a massive state... so there's that. But then again, I also think that the media culture of the last 10 years has exacerbated the problem. Noone seems to remember the 2000 election and the import of third parties and the amount a few people's votes could make a difference.

In short, i would say that the statistical fears about Corporations consolidating not only logically applies to states...

Agreed. I certainly don't argue that power consolidation is an issue in states, but I would also think it would be folly to expect the same to not happen with companies.

I don't follow. What are you treating as corporation as and what

Huh? Again, unsure to what you are referring.

...the extent to which the idea of media regulation of government is pure mysticism.

Absolutely. My own belief is that the media is one area from which the government should be completely removed.

If i argued for a minimal state, the next closest thing to a state, I could easily argue that no 'pure' minimalist state existed

Well, that obviously teeters close to a no true scotsman fallacy. The point I was trying to make is that there is nothing but theory backing up a stateless system. State systems have shown themselves to be stable for hundreds of years at a time, and have ushered in every achievement mankind has made since agriculture. It's going to take more than economic theory to make the idea attractive.

But i don't think those objections would be raised against me if i Did start falling back on minimal statism.

Well, they would, but in lower volume because a minarchist state is, at least, closer to what already exists than statelessness.

That a style of governance was tried and failed in the past seems more objectionable than a system that has 'never actually been done'

Well, to say that statism has failed would be folly, I think, because it has proved to be a very stable, and hearty system that has reigned supreme on Earth for the last 3000+ years. What advocates of anarchism need to do is gather and make their idea happen. DO IT. If it works well enough, it will catch on. If your system makes companies work better, and more profitably, then obviously companies will want that system, and the state as it exists will fall, or at least change.

The Bank's power to make lousy decisions [ignoring the whole 'too big to fail' nonsense] is hedged in ways a national state simply is not.

True, because there is less at stake. However, if my government was bad enough, I would take my business (taxes) elsewhere. If enough people did that, the government would either change or crumble.

...the decisions of my neighbors doesn't impose involuntarilly nearly as much upon an individual as it does under statism.

I think this is another mistake that advocates of individual governance make: The idea that other's decisions, desires, or choices in policy will have less involuntary effect on you. In fact, the collapse of a business that provides essential services due to mismanagement or due to neighbors' bad behavior without a larger safety net would be far more devastating to someone than any such event in a state system. The concept of a safety net that a state excels at is not something that people will individually plan for... rational ignorance strikes again.

Individuals cannot 'opt out' of social security in the same way they can switch between insurance companies and banks... Unless you want to abandon your friends, family, culture, language, job, and much of your property and move to another country.

How would this be different in a stateless society, except for the smaller distance one would need to move in order to avoid unwanted policy? Legal protection is necessarily territorial, otherwise it would be unenforcable, so anyone wishing to live under a certain set of laws would need to move to a location that has them. And if a set of people all decide to live, as a singular culture, under a set of rules made by a business, then how, except in semantics, would that differ from a "state"? Especially if, through the power of "peer pressure" the minority of folk who had reservations about certain policies endure them to stay within their familial/cultural system.

To answer your last question, 'No', I don't want the benefits states have to offer.

Not a fan of roads? Pardon the quip, but it serves a point and I'm running out of characters.

I don't think people should have to live in the wilderness and separate them selfs from the benefits of the division of labor, someone of this condition is no more 'free' than convict on the lam is free.

That's exactly what I mean about wanting the benefits of the state system without wanting to pay into it. In these communities (which, granted, are generally very small and slightly more communistic than you'd probably like) the division of labor is very small, and is thus usually relegated to agrarian communities that don't get things like the electricity or flushing toilets. There's just not enough labor to divide to get to such things. When you distill such communities to small enough units where you get complete freedom and autonomy, your level of tech will also fall. It is only in systems that are very large (in the thousands of people at the least) where systems like the ones to which you are accustomed can exist. Once you get there, the line between what is and is not a state I think becomes a matter of semantics.

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Drakim, I'll respond to you tomorrow if I have time.

At 1/8/11 11:12 AM, Ravariel wrote:

At 1/6/11 08:31 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: - Rational ignorance keeps voters from having any reason to make informed decision

This is true in ANY situation, it is not limited to elections.

It's not limited to elections, but rational ignorance isn't universal to all matters of choice. RI occurs when the rewards and punishments of [usually collective] decision making are not felt. The outcome of an election is hardly at all changed if any individual decides to make an informed rather than uninformed vote. Or in other terms, it is irrational for any individual to be informed about politics, because the outcome of an election is barely at all impacted by their decision. It is rational for a collective to be informed, but irrational for each individual, and since collectives do not act in the technical sense.
Individual decision making in a market USUALLY does not have this problem. For example, the hiring of a plumber to fix your toilet is not a collective decision. Making an informed decision about who you hire [whether you do your own research or get recommendations through a personally trusted proxy] has a clear and tangible effect on the 'outcome' [the state of your plumbing] and thus the individual has a stake in making a somewhat more informed decision, relative to what he would in an election.

- the fact that competition can only take place during certain intervals

In a system that has a high desire for experience, this is necessary, but I see your angle.

I actually wrote a pretty long essay explaining why this is a problem. If a politician screws you over, [lets say, theoretically, that bush promised in the 2000 elections not to follow the 'Nation Building' of Bill Clinton, and later in 2003 and 2004 the new president flip-flopped and out-performed his predecessor as far as interventionism abroad.] You have no recourse to the actions of said president, at least not until the next election cycle. At which point you've got to go through another election, which is at *best* only a duopoly. A Coke and Pepsi of sorts, with some differences I think you can figure out, ones that don't help the cause of democracy
If a private company were to do something *that* brazen, one benefit a consumer would have is that the contract can be ended more swiftly. There is less risk of individuals forgetting the trouble that some malpraticing firm put them through because market competition lacks this rigidity.

...who are their constituents going to vote for in the next election? The democrats?

Realistically, they won't vote at all, and the balance of power will change through their apathy toward "their" candidate. Mind you while I understand the reasons for the two party system, I do believe we need more varied choices for our elected officials... but that falls squarely under rational ignorance.

Very few believe that two mega-corporations competing against one another is sufficient to call a particular market 'regulated'.

And yet, to stretch the metaphor, we can see how difficult it is for a third party to gain any ground when two megacorps have so much of the power.

Fortunately the process is both logically and empirically easier on the part of the firm. Market share does not operate in a 'winner take all' as it does under present electoral politics. If parties were firms and voting percentages constituted market share, the mere existence of one party, even if it has a plurality or even a majority of the 'market share' does not exclude alternative parties from providing their services for any period of time. The same cannot be said about electoral politics. Secondly, it does not explicitly prohibit small groups of individuals finding alternatives which may prove superior to the dominant system.

The best example I can think of is how Netflix revolutionized the Movie renting system and in large part "defeated" the Behemoth "Blockbuster".

It's certainly not perfect, nor are democratic elections COMPLETELY ineffective at regulating state action. The government is not [yet] so autonomous that it can engage in the practice of execute its own citizens on a whim. But as far as I can see the market system is comparatively more competitive than the state system, and would likely be more so if not for state licensing, crippling controls, and "accreditations".

But the advocates of state run or state regulated this or that generally are not calling for individual states to adopt policies that, by virtue of their success, would be adopted by other states.

Huh? I'm not sure what you're saying here.

For example, you don't hear advocates of state run healthcare or mandated health insurance or of quantitative easing or of other generally statist policies calling for people who largely agree with the statist policies to convene in a particular state, implement their policy within that state, and 'by virtue of their success' convince other states that their policies are superior. Rather, they call for it being implemented onto the whole of society.

And of course if the fidelity of a state is trusted on it's level of competition with other states, then the rational conclusion would be to advocate the greatest practicable level of devolution of power. And relative to our current predicament I would endorse this.

Wouldn't that espouse large unitary states though? As long as China and India and the EU exist, the only way our state (USA) can maintain "competition" is by being as big and powerful as we are. In order to maintain an equal level of power, each state would have to devolve it's power structures at the same time.

If someone is concerned with states having the greatest amount of "power", as defined the ability to control other individuals without recourse or due process, then the rational conclusion would be for the creation of a single world government under which no one could opt out of the system.

If someone is concerned with states having the greatest amount of **Accountability**, they would argue for the opposite using precisely the same logic. The geographically smaller the state, the less is its ability to impose unpopular or undesirable laws.

When I spoke of states being competitive, I meant in the sense that is used in describing businesses as 'competitive'. I did not mean competitive in the sense of having powerful militaries capable of destroying weaker states.

Firms and businesses that have to constantly improve to satisfy the demands of consumers are competitive in this sense. Firms and businesses that lack this competition have no reason to improve and can thus behave in ways one might describe as slow, irresponsive, and bureaucratic.
In fact, even if we use as a metric of competitive states the extent to which a state can use police and military to protect citizens from internal and external threats, large states are not necessarily more competitive in this regard. One can make a case that US Foreign policy and our obscenely large military power has resulted in American citizens being less safe and more vulnerable, but this is a case that needs to be made on its own ground.

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Chronically high incumbency rates in spite of low approval of congress suggests the model of democratic regulation is a farce.

I wouldn't go that far.

Perhaps. I'm not ENDORSING voter apathy, and I am not so pessimistic as to say that activism means nothing. Hell, if it wasn't for Ron Paul and his fanatical supporters I wouldn't hold the positions I do today. I just regard it as systemically more difficult for good policies to be enacted through statist meanst and even more difficult to maintain good policies as such, as well as remove bad policies. For this reason. I instead endorse alternative means to solving social problems which I Believe lack these systemic features.

In short, i would say that the statistical fears about Corporations consolidating not only logically applies to states...

Agreed. I certainly don't argue that power consolidation is an issue in states, but I would also think it would be folly to expect the same to not happen with companies.

It's an issue of the structures in place. I strongly believe a large part of the "Bigness" of modern corporations [which are themselves a legal fiction created by states] is due to state manipulations of the economy, contrary to what is taught in the civics and history classes of public schooling. This conviction of mine is obviously something you are not going to accept merely on my own terms and It is something I would have to prove independently of this topic in order to get you or anyone else to agree with this particular premise.
However, I do believe I have made a strong enough case using primarily logic that "Market" competition, as it exists when free individual choice is respected, is more effective than electoral competition, as it exists **presently**.
For the same reason my ideas on why business consolidation is aided by state intervention would require separate arguments, if you wanted to convince me that democratic elections **could** be changed to be more competitive than market competition, ones which could solve or at least offer treatment of the problems of rational ignorance and political consolidation, then you would have to make a separate case for it.

Huh? Again, unsure to what you are referring.

You claim that people treat things as states and treat other things as corporations when it suits their interests. Could you put this idea into a context for me to understand.

If i argued for a minimal state, the next closest thing to a state, I could easily argue that no 'pure' minimalist state existed

Well, that obviously teeters close to a no true scotsman fallacy.

They have shown themselves to be stable by people who accept the idea of a state, for people who reject the state they see present problems as being caused by the state. [Expensive healthcare, racial animosity, terrorism, pollution, the list is enormous] Books and articles are published making a case that present problems [and we do not live in a perfect world] can be solved by eliminating facets of state power. Whether these arguments are valid cannot be solved by referencing factual data. With rare exceptions, the data is **not** being debated, it is the interpretation of the data. Interpretations of data require a theory.
For example, with the exception of a few deluded republicans who do NOT understand the free market they supposedly champion, the health care debate was never about whether the United States healthcare system was dysfunctional. The debate was never about the facts, it was about the economic theory.
People who tried to make it look like the debate was solely about the functionality of Healthcare rather than the causes were only attempting to make it appear as if anyone who acknowledged that the US healthcare system was broken by necessity also agreed that **more** state power was needed to remedy the problem
Another example, let's pretend that it is a historical fact that in 1000 b.c.e, China experienced a drought. This is a unique historical fact that says nothing about why the drought occurred. A contemporary Chinese historian may have claimed that the drought was brought about by the emperor's sin, but a modern historian, using his knowledge of meteorology can reject this narrative WITHOUT rejecting the fact that the drought occurred.
And of course, simply because the sky isn't falling doesn't mean there is no alternative to accepting the "statist quo"
For the same reason an economic historian can reject narratives of historical facts which are put forward on the basis of economic theories that are patently false, without rejecting the so-called 'evidence' that is used to support the false economic theory.
In short, facts cannot and do not write their own history.

Well, they would, but in lower volume because a minarchist state is, at least, closer to what already exists than statelessness.

I don't recall as a small-government free market advocate having to provide a blueprint for the functionality of the whole of society if I was ever bold enough to challenge certain opinions I did not agree with. But you may be right.

That a style of governance was tried and failed in the past seems more objectionable than a system that has 'never actually been done'

Well, to say that statism has failed would be folly,

First, as I said before, whether or not you think statism has been the cornerstone of civilization, or the the disease that has always prevented civilization from reaching its full potential, is a matter of interpreting historical data in light of a theory.
Secondly, If arguing for statelessness simply consisted of seceding from modern statist society I wouldn't waste time arguing for people to at least give people the freedom to secede in the first place :P. But in all seriousness, attempts to separate oneself from the state have, historically, been crushed, often brutally. The free state project is in some respects doing what you describe, they moved to what they felt was the freest state in the Union and have hence worked to make it as free as possible.

Insofar as supporting the free market means giving people the right to live their own lives on their own justly acquired property, to permit individuals to establish communities separate from the state with their own systems of law, welfare, protection, etc. Is to in a sense advocate a free market even if you do not believe it can work on a large scale.

The Bank's power to make lousy decisions [ignoring the whole 'too big to fail' nonsense] is hedged in ways a national state simply is not.

True, because there is less at stake. However, if my government was bad enough, I would take my business (taxes) elsewhere. If enough people did that, the government would either change or crumble.

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Yes, but there is a level of STICK involved. Leaving a country is a very costly affair, even if open borders are maintained between countries. If the inconvenience of leaving the country is less than the inconvenience that [national] state law imposes, then you will remain in that country. Leaving a state or province is less costly for reasons both varied and obvious, and so the inconvenience that state 'government' can impose upon you without any recourse on your part is less.
And again, all of this assumes that there are no immigration and currency controls.

I think this is another mistake that advocates of individual governance make: The idea that other's decisions, desires, or choices in policy will have less involuntary effect on you. In fact, the collapse of a business that provides essential services due to mismanagement or due to neighbors' bad behavior without a larger safety net would be far more devastating to someone than any such event in a state system. The concept of a safety net that a state excels at is not something that people will individually plan for... rational ignorance strikes again.

One persons decisions in a market do have an impact on another individual, this is undeniable. If I buy something in a store I contribute to the demand of that product and thus influence the price and the supply, which affects the income and employment of other individuals.
However, it is mistaken to assume that bad business decisions are more potentially damaging and less avoidable than bad state decisions. Fundamentally, the power to 'secede' from client ships, violated contracts, etc. Is what best mitigates the damage of bad business decisions, and furthermore, that the institutions themselves are not central and so their assets when they collapse can easily be absorbed by the more sound institutions.
This applies to social safety nets; the security of the safety net presumes that the net is itself secure. And yet state mismanagement of social safety net funds, [perhaps a collapse caused by bankruptcy] would do far more damage to the whole of society than the bankruptcy of one business. Even worse is the fact that the existence of this flawed central safety net would tend to crowd out both the means and the inclination to establish more secure, competing safety nets.
If one company goes out of business, some people are hurt...
[those who lose the most are usually the stock holders of the company, not the workers, remember that the workers are paid wages until the company releases them regardless of the profits the company earns. Whereas the investors and shareholders only earn profits and dividends if the company earns a profit, and may see their entire investments destroyed if the company goes bankrupt, the worker is unemployed but the wages he earned in the past do not disappear in the same way]
...but the scope and magnitude is not nearly as large as it is under a state, where, for example, a decision to go to war or to borrow X billion dollars affects anyone and everyone.

If that company is bailed out, grows to an even larger extent, and then is bankrupted again, you've only worsened the problem by 'socializing' losses. Furthermore, if you continue to try to prop up these zombie companies, the state undermines its own financial stability and runs the risk of taking the whole of society, who may or may not have agreed with state policies, down with it.
I for example may be paying 60+% of my income to the government when I am an adult because of lousy collective decision making made in the present, even though I had no power to change state policy, or tried to change said policy but failed.
And in this sense you can argue that the social safety nets you describe do more harm than good, but again this is a separate topic that deserves its own thread.

Individuals cannot 'opt out' of social security in the same way they can switch between insurance companies and banks... Unless you want to abandon your friends, family, culture, language, job, and much of your property and move to another country.

How would this be different in a stateless society, except for the smaller distance one would need to move in order to avoid unwanted policy? Legal protection is necessarily territorial, otherwise it would be unenforcable,

Defense **is** territorial, law and arbitration is not. Courts can and do presently coordinate both across local boundaries and across national boundaries, just as companies and firms negotiate with one another and settle disputes with one another without necessarily requiring a central agency to make rulings for them. [note the difference between a central and supreme arbiter versus a third party arbiter]
The provision of private defense is a very long topic that I do not have the time or inclination to discuss, I've already spent at least 2 hours writing this response. I will instead point you to this video that argues for a way that defense could be provided without a state.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylXAhyDZh Z4
I will also point to the Lex mercantoria as an example of an territorial legal system, however, the fact that nations negotiate with one another to-day should be sufficient "Evidence"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lex_mercato ria

"peer pressure" the minority of folk who had reservations about certain policies endure them to stay within their familial/cultural system.

To answer your last question, 'No', I don't want the benefits states have to offer.

Not a fan of roads?

If someone builds a moat around my house, puts alligators in the moat, and then demands me pay for a ferry service, I am not supporting the 'services' rendered to me because I use them. Pardon the quip but I'm running out of energy to write this response :D

I don't think people should have to live in the wilderness and separate them selfs from the benefits of the division of labor, someone of this condition is no more 'free' than convict on the lam is free.

That's exactly what I mean about wanting the benefits of the state system without wanting to pay into it. In these communities (which, granted, are generally very small and slightly more communistic than you'd probably like) the division of labor is very small, and is thus usually relegated to agrarian communities that don't get things like the electricity or flushing toilets.

There is a difference between the division of labor and the centralized provision of certain goods and services. The united states and Canada trade with one another but there is, not as of yet, any central agency that provides services for BOTH the US and Canada.
Likewise, a community could secede from the state and provide most if not all of its own "public goods" and yet remain in trade with the citizens of the state. The reason we consider autonomous communities as being poor is because If they WERE large and commercial and engaged in trade with others but were not permitted to exist by the state, they would be crushed unless anti-statism is popular enough to undermine the states efforts at conformity.
Amish communities and tribes in the wilderness might be able to evade state law because these societies chose non-commercial lifestyles, and so appear unattractive to most people.
But keep in mind that there WAS once a time when theAmish did have to pay taxes for social security and other 'services', it was only after considerable effort by individuals of [roughly] my ideological persuasion that this was changed.
However, if, say, the state of Texas decided to secede from the united states and provide its own defense and law, they would likely be crushed unless they had majority support or at least majority sympathy.
If you conflate the division of labor, which is purely contractual and commercial, and the centralization of political power, you are forced to arrive at the false conclusion that the only way for an international division of labor is a single wor

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That may very well be, but the health insurance problems,

1) Greed is a constant in human affairs. Blaming social problems on greed is as silly as blaming the sinking of the Titanic on gravity. You cannot convince me that in order to make human beings act in a way that is altruistic and responsive to my needs, you first have to give them the power to force people at gunpoint to pay for their projects. The way i interpret the idea of a "Government agency" or a "Public agency" is akin to how you would interpret my suggestion that Blue cross blue shield should be given a monopoly on all health insurance in the United states, and that all americans should be forced to pay for BCBS regardless of whether they want the service or not, and that because they have this power to force americans to pay, they are now a 'public' and thus 'non profit' agency.

2) I am not enumerating these points to make a case for them individually. Each of these points would require a separate thread. I have already argued about this on other healthcare threads. The point of me mentioning healthcare is simply to point out that I interpret problems the united states is having as being caused by state action, and not an 'excess of freedom' on the part of individual americans. But i already mentioned this in my response to Rav.

3) That being said,

Hard to relate for me. My state doesn't go to war at random here and there.

This makes sense, I am of the impression that wars are largely caused by lobbying from war profiteers [arms manufacturers, contractors, and the like] If your country never had a substantial military to begin with, then i see no reason why lobbying for militarism would occur in your country. Americans are not so lucky.

But keep in mind that my point is, I can reference empirical evidence concerning the American state of affairs, and argue using a theory of political economy that these problems are caused by the american state [Whether the theory is valid is up for debate] Since these problems are peculiar to the American state, my blaming the high price of healthcare on the US Government does not say anything about your country or the role that the Danish state plays in the same 'subjects', healthcare, education, defense, etc.

But the issue is NOT about the "facts".

I look at it from the angle that the general health of society is maintained by not allowing opt-outs in terms of taxes. If we don't have a functioning welfare system, more poor people will turn to crime and it will come back and harm me, to a greater degree that it harms me to pay taxes. It might be blackmail, but the means are secondary to me provided that the results are better. If a state playing robin hood is the best way to decrease suffering and increase progress (by welfare programs and funding science you couldn't care less about) then I favor a robin hood state.

I *Believe* that most people want to help the poor to some degree, but i also believe that this feeling about welfare can be exploited for bad purposes. When you make it impossible to opt out of paying taxes for a welfare program in exchange for alternative welfare programs, you give the managers of the welfare program a significant advantage over their constituents, and remove the most important measure of accountability.

In 'empricial terms' The fact that the funders of welfare programs have no power to take their funds and use them to patronize more efficient competitors explains why 3/4ths of federal welfare programs are spent on overhead, and why the programs primary beneficiaries are not the welfare recipients but the managers of the program.

Source if necessary.... http://www.libertarian.co.uk/lapubs/econ n/econn110.htm

Relevant Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHjVxmJrp Ho

And also...

http://mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae4 _4_6.pdf

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At 1/8/11 08:15 AM, Drakim wrote: My reasoning is that if a stateless solution is truly greater, then why do we not see it?

Imagine a closed room with ten heavily armed, distrustful people pointing all their guns at each other -- I'll bet it'd be nice if someone took the initiative to fully disarm himself, but what are the chances that'll happen?

States found and civilized the new world (in a spectacular bloodbath). States built the great monuments we call wonders today. States took us out into space and onto the moon. States put up sattelites and telephone systems.

No, people did.

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At 1/8/11 08:15 AM, Drakim wrote:

States found and civilized the new world (in a spectacular bloodbath). States built the great monuments we call wonders today. States took us out into space and onto the moon. States put up sattelites and telephone systems.

As far as monuments go, I'm not ashamed of saying that early stateless societies differ in their statist counterparts [in the ancient period] that they lacked giant stone triangles and cathedrals. The Harappan civilization which, though lacking such bobbles, did have standard weights and measures, a "thought-out" urban layout, and a sewage system. These things aren't nearly as likely to remain standing after thousands of years, but they were probably far more useful [materially speaking] to the people who made them than, say, the seven wonders of the world.

The same can be said about a large portion of the space race, which was, like the pyramids, more of a display of the wealth and technology that states had claims to, rather than an attempt to make something useful for people. It took radio, television, and advances in the internet to make satellites [which private companies have sent into the atmosphere] useful. And while the internet had its origins in the US Military, the major advances in the internet did not come from them.