If one understands property, I don't see this as an issue. Specialization of labor, trade, comparative advantage, etc. I'm sure you've heard these words before. I honestly don't know what would happen in this fictional scenario. I was just using it as a way to explain the libertarian view of the state. Maybe it wasn't the best method for doing so, as you seem to be entirely confused. I wasn't attempting to lay out a step-by-step guide for how every matter ought to be handled. It's initiatory violence that is against libertarianism. I thought I had already stated that. If not, my bad. For someone who says he is open to other points of view, you sure do like to attempt unwarranted cheap shots. I think that kind of attitude might be why OP started a thread like this. Correlation does not mean causation blah blah blah etc... http://www.amazon.com/Death-Government-R-J-Rummel/dp/1560009276/ref=pd_sim_b_1/185-6489935-4684530
Have you read any of my replies to you? Can someone else reading this help me out? He doesn't seem to understand a very basic thing that I keep repeating to him.
This isn't true, but let's just say it is. What you're saying is the problem is that in a free society, people would come to be lorded over by a minority. So the remedy for that horrible situation would be to create a state (a minority to lord over the free society) so as to prevent a minority from lording over the free society. I just don't see how that's a good idea.
No. And you are far more confused than I thought. Libertarianism is pretty simple. Simply understand 1) non-aggression axiom and 2) property. Compare this to (modern) liberalism or (modern) conservatism, which changes seemingly by the hour. And yet, it's libertarianism that people don't understand. I don't get it.
Oh i understand your point perfectly. Libertarian idea sounds good on paper just like communism (to each its own), never mind it goes against the human nature and does not work in practice.
Then what exactly do you think would be the real world result of the implementation of a libertarian state/entity/society?
A libertarian society would result in a happier and healthier population?? That's not what you were looking for, I know, but that's kind of a massive question. One better suited for a book than a post on a Rockets fan site. If you want detailed specifics, I would recommend For a New Liberty and Libertarianism Today. FaNL can be found in its entirety online for free in a few places. And the first 40 pages of Libertarianism Today is online for free.
One sees this is an issue in macroeconomics, because markets don't function optimally. There is no comparative advantage in a bunch of people whittling. Likewise, there is nothing but deadweight loss for sitting capital and cash reserves. I ask these questions not in jest, but to question your assumptions of what constitutes a working economy. Many of the "compulsive" actions you see as damaging are actually very beneficial. Also, if one views compulsion only in the lens of initiatory actions, than taxation does not fit under that category, as taxation is, by nature, a reaction---you are taxed if you do action x or y, which depends on x and y, which was funded by x and y government funds. Sidebar: if correlation does not equal causation, than how are Austrians so confident in government-created bubbles? Especially since private banking systems create reserves by themselves. What do you think has led to the greatest century of human history---the uncoordinated discovery of modern miracles, led by self-bootstrapping, no govmint men such as Norman Borlaug and Alan Turing, or the relative lack of government in Hong Kong (one of the only places that might qualify to be free market heaven---except for after 2008). (Don't even get me started on development economics of most of the Asian Tigers, which it must be pointed out, all followed intervention-heavy government directed paths to phenomenal growth). If you think discrediting liberitarian economic ideas as unrealistic and not pragmatic is a cheap shot, well, very few have proved me wrong on the point yet (you haven't come close).
Humans are by nature aggressive, we want to compete, we want more of everything, and we are willing to fight for it under many conditions. Through out the modern ages (last two thousand years) there was not one successful Libertarian nation in the recorded history, makes you wonder why doesn't it? When resources such as water or food get scarce due to things beyond human control, do you think your non aggression idea will hold up?
Okay, now I'm curious. If taxation is theft (because it is coerced), is leveraging market power also theft? Say, on this island with the shipwrecked people, none of the water is potable but one guy has a portable water filtering machine that he had the good sense to keep in his backpack. Everyone else will soon die unless he allows them to pass water through his machine. He uses this leverage to demand outsized compensation -- not outsized compared to its use value because it's infinitely useful, nor outsized compared to its market value because people would be willing to pay just about everything they have, but outsized compared to the work the owner must put in to providing it, and outsized compared to how easy it would be to kill the b*stard and nationalize his water filtering machine. But, they're good libertarians, so they won't take it from him. Is he libertarianly justified in charging exorbitantly for its use?
You don't seem to understand the concept of public goods. In economics, a public good is a good that is both non-excludable and non-rivalrous in that individuals cannot be effectively excluded from use and where use by one individual does not reduce availability to others. Private property rights by definition cannot be applied to this concept. Defense and information goods for example. Left to the devices of the market, private agents will underinvest in these public goods because they cannot capture value from them. Yet they benefit inordinately from them. Is that not in the spirit of theft? Or is it only private property rights that matter, instead of collective social benefit?
You make an assumption that those of us questioning libertarian thought have neither studied it, considered it, nor have some knowledge of it. This would be untrue. I salute your dedication to your belief and your (implied) positive outlook on human nature, but I think the history of man would prove this outlook as naive. Keep up the good fight.
I would love to meet you in person because I think there is no way you are making these absurd points and arguments with sincerity. You're all over the place, and I just can't accept that you actually engage people in this way in real life. And then you say something like this: ??? Am I supposed to be impressed that you think so highly of your internet arguments? As to this: You don't really think this is a good argument do you? You can see your error in this, can't you?
Probing your views becomes a lot less fun once you actually stop engaging and start throwing out ad hominum attacks. Cheap shots! my skin, it hurts. As for my internet arguments, I was referring more to my real-life arguments (i.e ones I have to conduct as part of my studies and part of my profession). My confidence about internet arguments is moot because there is no "winning" here---unless one of you guys is a Fed NY member and I don't know it. I just love talking shop. I'd love to meet you too, but try it out on Skype if you want to have a real conversation, or pay for my ticket to Houston (I wouldn't mind). I'll send you an email through the board of my Skype ID, I gotta be on tonight for a meeting anyways.
First, taxation is theft because theft is theft. Coercion is not necessarily wrong. If you're in my house and I want you out but you don't want to go out, I will have to coerce you out. And that is legitimate. Second, that is quite the hypothetical. But if I understand correctly and your essential question is: is "price gouging" compatible with libertarianism, the answer is yes: http://mises.org/daily/1593/Price-Gouging-Saves-Lives-in-a-Hurricane Of course, that answer assumes that the goods/services he is "gouging" were acquired legitimately, ie, without the use of initiatory violence.
Trying to point out the problems of things I never said ≠ probing my views. Going to the Rockets game tonight. Free tickets, you know. I must confess ignorance of the point you are trying to make. Doesn't this refer to a period when banks were run by state law? If so, why use as an argument against libertarianism or a critique of the argument against public goods?
I'd say it's a question that drives more at atypical profits -- market entities that use their market power to extract value for their goods that far far exceed the work they put into them, yielding much higher returns than the market generally (and then turn around and complain that taxes take money that is 'rightfully theirs'). If physical coercion is wrong, I don't see why economic coercion is okay. I'm all for compensating work and for compensating risk. I'm not even looking to legislate away extraordinary profit. But, I won't call it right. So, if the answer is yes, then I have no use for libertarianism. It strikes me as fundamentally immoral. I will continue in my statist ways. Thank you for your help.
