Perhaps my understanding of the constitution and property are lacking, but it seems to me, via observation (the mathematician’s “by inspection” method), that we have two classes of people: landed and unlanded. Perhaps you should refer to Degrance’s earlier quote by some frenchie. Or, I may offer that the unlanded are not permitted to live on public property. Bums, for example, are routinely booted from sleeping in parks, etc. At least east of the Mississippi they are (I have only once travelled west of it).
The Constitution has not eliminated the class that Libertaria also does not eliminate. We live with it, right now. To not see it is a matter of willful dismissal of facts, I think, and no one here is like that so I am at a loss right now. To think that, “it works” right now but couldn’t possibly without a constitution that says nothing about land ownership in this sense is downright strange.
As well, there is nothing in the Constitution which prohibits me from buying up land like a madman. AFAIK, there is no law anywhere which prohibits me from buying land someone else is selling. If I recall, Donald Trump made quite a fortune in real estate. The idea of public property merely adds another buyer in the market. In the end, actually right now, we have the government which own some land, private individuals which own some land, non-living legal entities which own some land, and the rest of us are stuck living on the land on their terms. At least, that’s the impression I get from all the rental contracts I’ve been a part of.
In what way is property not personal wealth to be included in that statement. In which way has America’s virtual democracy eliminated the idea of property classes (apart from allocating government property toward housing units, which basically turns the government into a landlord)?
Good, because it is kinda’ my point too. Glad we can agree. Lib has explicitely stated that a group of landowners may get together and decide to use their land for “the public”, as it were, which is exactly what we have done. What changes here is that we cannot simply “pull” out of the government contract. It has no time limit. We must now convince all of America that we want our rights back. Self-defense, a common enough notion, is a tough sell when it includes guns, now that we’ve handed over protection to the state. The Constitution, and most of our laws on all levels, are declarative statements about existence. They have no time limit. The only way to remove them is to get it down to a vote. Removing declaritive statements like that is intensely more difficult than simply writing a new contract between individuals or groups of individuals.
You have the right to do what you want with your property, right up until it meets my property. This is where Libertaria and The rest of the world differ.
Wait, you mean even a monarch, the ultimate tycoon of business and land ownership, thought it was in his best interest to act in accordance with the rest of the species? I don’t believe it! No way anyone with that much power and resources would give in to the likes of us lower-class, landless serfs.
How amusing that we keep making points for the other. Perhaps we should all switch sides on the debate for a bit?
Public property wasn’t designed to be home for the homeless. It’s intended for every citizen, so if one group uses the land in such a way that it infringes on the right of the remainder, that first group must be denied.
If that is true, it means that Libertaria is no better than what we have. Why change to a system that is no better than what we have?
Wrong most other systems of arranging a human society have multiple avenues to power. In Lebertaria THE path to power is the accumulation of land. In some societies you need to be charismatic in order to make the laws. In some you need to be physically strong. In others you need to be seen to be a pious member of the accepted religion. In Libertaria all you need is to own property.
I hate to do so but since you insist on dragging this argument back to contemporary USA. Land ownership is not the primary path to power in this society. I could get further pressing my agenda by getting elected to something or by starting a religious cult. Land in the USA is seen as a liquid asset. Land would stop being liquid if it were the primary access to the powerful elite.
Huh?
We are debating the power structure of Libertaria. “c” and “d” were my entire point. “a” and “b” only constitute two types of people. It is not until land ownership entitles the owner to write the laws that the two types of people become separate classes.
Well thank you. The debate is over. You have just said there will be a landed ruling class and a landless underclass. Therefore Libertarianism is a fraud.
But in the system you live in land ownership comes with no additional rights. In Libertaria ALL RIGHTS stem from land ownership. Your buying property will not make you more powerful in the here and now. In Libertaria it would make you royalty.
No it isn’t! In the system you live in land ownership grants with no additional rights. In Libertaria ALL RIGHTS stem from land ownership. Your buying property will not make you more powerful in the here and now. In Libertaria it would make you royalty.
Yes it does. Everybody has the same rights now whether they own property or not. In the system you live in land ownership grants with no additional rights. In Libertaria ALL RIGHTS stem from land ownership. Your buying property will not make you more powerful in the here and now. In Libertaria it would make you royalty.
In Libertaria there would be no exception for property open to the public. This makes a HUGE difference. Sit still for a minute. Think about it.
Look you have this idea in your mind that it would take some huge conglomerate to make this happen. Forget about huge landholders making absurd laws. Just consider the following.
In Libertaria if you own land (whether it is the size of Texas or a city lot) then you have somewhere you can go and do whatever you please in what ever way you want for as long as you want and dictate the actions of anyone else who crosses your property line. Anyone who does cross your property line has no rights except those that you give them.
If you don’t own land then you have nowhere to go. You are subject to the whim of whoever’s land you are standing on. You have nowhere you can go and do as you please. You may or may not be allowed to leave the land you are currently standing on because you need permission of the land owner even to leave his land.
If that description does not scare the hell out of you then I wish you a lifetime of living as a landless individual in Libertaria.
Thanks for holding. I’m caught up enough at least to deal with some of the major (re)issues. You’ve done a great job, Eris! Hope you don’t mind my butting back in for an afternoon.
I won’t spend any time on ignorant statements like, “Libertarianism is a fraud,” except to say that I’m surprised that Kimstu, Collounsbury, and others who decry sloganeering don’t disassociate themselves from such fanatical claptrap. [shrug…] In order to deal with so many posts, I’ll merge like issues together, but Xeno’s first, and then the rest…
The Will of the Individual versus the Will of Society
Individuals have consciousness; societies don’t. When you cut individuals, they bleed; societies are abstractions. Individuals are like the items in a mathematical word problem: the apples, the oranges, the things that are counted. Societies are like the numbers, the formulas, the equations that are contrived to quantify the things. Individuals are living breathing life-forms; societies are composite entities. Every person posting here, even Degrance, is an individual.
A man with character as good as Xeno’s does not mean to be dishonest by anthropomorphising society. He means well, and I would grant no one more poetic license than I would to him. But the “will of society” is an inherently misleading attribution that belies what it really means. It really means “will of the powerful”. That power will be defined in different ways within different societal contexts. For example, in America, the will of society is the will of those with political clout. Now, political clout is not malum in se. But when political clout is extended to oppress individuals who have committed no ethical wrong, it is an ethical abomination. In Libertaria, the “will of society” is a metaphor, nothing more. It is of statistical interest only. “More people favor this; fewer people favor that.” Imposing a foreign will, whether by one man or by millions, is tyrannical. Even God Himself does not impose His will on us.
The Big Lies(?)
One libertarian to concern himself with the subsumption of individuals by democracies was Thomas Jefferson. In an impassioned letter to Pierre Samuel Dupont de Nemours in 1816, he wrote, “The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society.”
Libertarians do not misunderstand human nature. Many of them are well educated in the social sciences with intelligence rivaling your own. They, too, have written anthropological examinations of human history. And they are not predisposed to lying any more than Diamond or Bloom. The Internet is so rich in libertarian literature (much of it online!) that there is no need to provide links. Just start at Free-Market, a portal to libertarianism from introductory essays to advanced treatises.
“Public Property” and “Constitutional Rights”
I’ll forego, for now, any debate about whether a public park is owned by its magistrates or by its users, or any debate about whether the constitution was written to constrain government or to prescribe rights, and deal with these matters on the more mundane level that they are presented here by detractors of libertarianism.
It is misleading at best, and cruel at worst, to make people think that if they are ubiquitously rejected from everywhere else, they may go squat in a public park and make a home out of it. That is not the case. As a cursory search of Google will show, there are thousands and thousands of vagrancy ordinances in practically every city and town in the United States. Homeless people are routinely routed from public property and thrown in jail. In fact, the National Coalition for the Homeless is fighting with all its might against the most cruel practices in the most visible places: seizure and destruction of what little property the homeless have; herding of homeless people like cattle to clean up cities for important upcoming events; and general mistreatment of homeless people in the form of tauntings, harassment, and even beatings, by civil authorities.
As to constitutional rights, anyone who has been audited by the IRS, anyone who has had his property seized because his tenant was suspected of a crime, anyone who has had his son or daughter murdered by O.J. Simpson knows quite intimately, thank you, how the system often works. The Constitution is not interpreted ideologically; it is interpreted politically. That’s why George W. Bush is the president. Its words are not considered; its interstices and penumbras are presumed by people in robes who sit with their heads higher than everyone else’s in chambers where they have god-like powers and there is no “freedom of speech”. You will speak when, and if, they allow it.
Democracies, Wealth, and Power
Xeno says that “Democracies restrict the translation of personal buying power into raw political and economic power; Libertaria removes those restrictions.”
It may be a coincidence that Bush raised more money than any presidential candidate in history. But boy, there are an incredible number of coincidences. I’m not saying that the tobacco executives got off scott-free for their fraud (actually their consumers are paying their fines!) just because they contribute a couple of million dollars to campaigns. I’m not saying that labor unions get any special legislation in exchange for their nearly $30 million in contributions. I’m just saying that the whole thing walks like raw power and quacks like raw power. See for yourself at Open Secrets.
Now, the others…
Attacking the Status Quo
Libertarianism is defensible on the merits of its inoffensive ethic alone. But when you raise up red herrings like “public property” and “classes” as examples of Libertaria’s perceived failures, you make the status quo fair game. Even Jab understands that public property shields noone from the abuse of those in power. And the two classes of political clout and political impotence are far worse than economic classes, because at least men can change their economic class, so long as they are protected from the coercion of people with political clout.
Buying Land in Libertaria
For every buyer, there must be a seller.
Okay, I probably won’t see y’all in this thread until the weekend, unless I get another free afternoon this week.
The argument that in a libertarian country all political power goes to land owners is specious. First, property isn’t just land - it’s stocks, bonds, jewelry, gold, whatever. A fundamental principle is that if you create something from nothing (i.e. wealth), then no one has a right to take it away from you and give it to someone else who didn’t earn it.
Anyway… Just how will land owners exploit people? Other than private residences, land is worthless if you can’t get people to enter it to do business, or to live, or whatever. That means landowners are still constrained by the market.
So, if you don’t want to own land, you can still rent, because there will be landowners willing to rent their property to you. And you’ll still have rental contracts, because they are a powerful incentive for both parties. And there will still be courts to enforce those contracts.
I don’t see much different in the way things are now. Almost everyone today who doesn’t own land rents from people who do. Very few people live in public spaces.
We can also find clues in how private property works in many areas where there is a need for common areas: long-term leases. Our airport is sitting on land that someone else owns, but we have a 99 year lease. There would be nothing stopping say, a subdivision developer from buying up the land for roads, and then leasing it back to the homeowners for a lifetime in order to give them the security that they need to build houses on the adjacent land that the roads serve.
The thing about markets that people have such a hard time understanding is that they create ORDER. Most people attack Libertarianism starting from a premise that everything will be chaotic without the hand of government on everything. But in fact, most of the order in our society was created spontaneously by market forces. No government agency told Texas to explode in population - the arrival of cheap air conditioning created a market-based demographic shift. No government told all the computer makers to standardize on VGA connectors, PCI buses, IEEE standards for communications, etc. The market did. If a computer maker decides he’s going to be a rogue and create a non-standard computer with non-standard software, the market will punish him for that MUCH quicker than the government could.
Yet, markets are flexible. If a need arises, the market will mutate and adapt to allow for solutions. This is one of the primary differences between governments and markets - governments drive change from the top down, and therefore stagnate and are inefficient. Markets take feedback from the bottom up, and mutate and change as the overall equation changes.
Can you imagine if a government standards body decided what our computers would look like? Can you imagine a government approval process for new processors, much like the approval process for new drugs? If that were the case, we’d still be using 8086’s.
Remember Intel’s screwup of the math coprocessor in the original 386? If that had killed a few people, there would have been a clamor for regulation of new processor designs. Had that happened, we’d be sitting here today STILL using 386’s, albeit with good math coprocessors, and everyone would be talking about how is was so good of the government to step in. They’d never have known what they COULD have had if the government was not in the way. All they’d know is that ‘approved’ processors are guaranteed not to have serious problems. And if some radical came along and said that government should get out of the microprocessor-regulating business, you same people would be here today arguing that government regulation is necessary to prevent mass slaughter from bad computers. The tale of the Intel 386 screw-up would be a cautionary tale that we get taught in schools, rather than a tiny footnote in the highly successful computer industry.
This is the state we’re in today in many industries. Consider the following:
[ul]
[li]Houses are still built roughly the way they were in 1900. The move to highly automated production lines and modern materials never made it to the highly regulated housing industry.[/li][li]New drugs take 10-15 years to reach market. The delay in many of these drugs killed tens of thousands of people.[/li][li]Small airplanes are still being built with engines designed in the 1930’s, because no one can afford the approval process on a new design.[/li][li]Since the Department of Education was founded, school scores have dropped markedly despite the billions spent on that new agency.[/li][li]NASA is farther away from being able to put a man back on the moon than they were in 1960, the space shuttle is 25 years old, and its successor was just cancelled. And when a shuttle crashed, the entire American manned space program came to a halt for YEARS, because all our eggs were in one basket, and that basket was an inefficient, highly timid government agency awash in red tape and bureaucracy.[/li][li]OSHA has spent far more money than the Apollo Moon Landing cost, and yet it had almost no effect on workplace safety.[/li][li]It is estimated that government regulation costs the economy about 500 billion to 1 trillion dollars a year. Imagine how wealthy we would be if even half of our regulations were eliminated.[/li][li]Social Security is considered the great success story of big government, yet it is unfunded in the long term and headed towards bankruptcy unless things change. And young workers are facing huge, regressive Social Security taxes in order to keep the program afloat. When Social Insurance (Canada’s version) came in, my mother paid 2% of her salary, and her employer matched it. I now pay 8% of my salary, and the employer has to match it. That’s a four-fold increase in taxes with no gain in benefits. And it’s going to go up again.[/li][li] After 25 years of the ‘War on Drugs’ (and hundreds of billions of dollars spent), drug prices are at an all-time low, meaning there is more supply now than there was before the ‘war’ started. And in the meantime, there are hundreds of thousands of people in prisons across the U.S. for the ‘crime’ of providing a product to a consenting adult who wishes to buy what he’s selling.[/li][/ul]
And I could go on all night with other examples. We haven’t even looked at the civil rights abuses going on under the war on drugs, or the Americans with Disabilities Act, or the ‘takings’ going on due to things like the Endangered Species Act.
Bottom line: Most opponents of Libertarianism take the following positions: One, that there’s very little wrong with the current system, and two, that Libertarian government would lead to chaos and mass tramplings of the ‘little guy’. Neither assertion is correct.
It’s really refreshing to see that when you make a telling point everyone ignores it.
I’ll check back from time to time but it looks like the argument for Libertarianism amounts to, “Yah, it’ll be really, really bad for most people living in Libertaria, but at least it won’t be the USA.”
Wrong again, degrance. For example, as I just drove in to my customer’s site today I noticed a sign which read, “Private Property No U-Turn.” Do you suppose, for just one minute, that the idea of “It is my land and I will do what I want on it” is a pretty popular notion? “No Tresspassing,” “No Hunting,” or even the ever mysterious “For Sale By Owner.” Your right to freedom of speech ends when you enter my property. Period. Your right to a speedy trial has no meaning in my house. Period. I make the law on my property. I can do this because private property exists. The government owns so-called public property. IT makes the laws that must be followed on it. This isn’t a particularly startling or difficult idea. Perhaps the truth is so clear we are seeing right through it? “Rights” as defined by the constitution rarely, if ever, apply to individuals. Police need a warrant to search; I don’t: once you enter my property I have the right to search you. Period.
I do what I want with my invention once it is realized that it is MY invention. I do what I want with my money once it is realized that it is MY money. I do what I want with my land once it is realized that it is MY land.
To restate Lib’s earlier assertion: Rights stem from property. Here, there, everywhere. To restate myself and what Sam has also mentioned, property is not just land.
My oil reserves on MY property are fucking useless until I get a hold of someone’s technology with which to get it out of the ground. That oil is useless to me unless I can find a buyer. That buyer does not need me; I am not the only person in the world with oil. I, however, need him to give my oil any value (other than using it as currency on my property in some giant squid scenario).
Man, you are killing me! It is like this everywhere! Who enforces the rules on my property? Me! Who enforces the rule’s on the government’s property? The government! Whether the area is Cuba, the USA, or South Africa whoever owns the property makes the rules. Theocracies know this. Dictatorships know this. Libertarians know this. Monarchies know this. Democracies know this. Any system which allows for “ownership” will create rights from the things that are owned.
This can only be a large oversight. I buy property with rental units on it. My power has increased. Period. This will happen in the UK, in Canada, in the US, and even in Libertaria. Please recognize that any form of property grants the owner rights. You wish to interpret “rights” as “power” in attacking Libertaria; I will permit you to do this. But please do not ignore that any existing society which you don’t want to change into Libertaria does not also have the same thing going on. Any attack you make toward Liobertaria in this vein is an attack on the principles of ownership that are recognized, in one form or another to some extent, all over the world.
This is patently absurd. Refer to the quote you gave me earlier by some frenchie. Refer to the homeless. Refer to people who don’t own land. Refer to people who do own land but do not own their own business. Refer the the inventor with a patented invention but no resources with which to manufacture it. Rights are meaningless without a context(such as, say, ownership)* and in the absence of some market*. Recognized ownership creates rights. Without the market the right to do what I want with my oil doesn’t mean squat. Rights come from interaction and property (even though we have always been assuming interaction from the get-go and left it out as obvious.)
The Constituion of the US, or of the Commonwealth of MA, or whatever, is meaningless without the context of the people who live in it, the trade that takes place, etc, etc etc. They are, as Lib eloquently mentions, scribbles on paper.
No. They stem from ownership period, whether that be land or not. Mountains are essentially worthless: there is little food, harsh living, poor land for growing crops. And yet, if I know how to manufacture dynamite and you know how to manufacture blasting caps and Lib knows how to drill deep holes (has the equipment) we might be able to get together, buy up some mountain area, and blast a hole through it. We would even be able to gasp build a popular road there by hiring outside contractors. Not all land is inherently valuable. But, through other forms of property it can become valuable. Earlier civilizations prized metals much more than we do now; why do you suppose that is?
Ok, I have. Who says there wouldn’t be “public” property, like restaraunts? What, McDonald’s is suddenly gonna emulate Castro? Serve only the elite? Sheesh.
Ever hear about the guy stuck in France’s International Airport for, like, over a decade? Is this what you are picturing?
I will requote myself: “But how did they make popcorn without any microwaves?” :shrug:
Nothing but common sense, anyway. Requiring people to lease the roads that lead to their homes? Good grief! Why don’t you lease the fucking air while you’re at it?
I’m not joking. If a corporation could figure out a way to make people pay for the air they breathe, they would.
If a computer maker builds a better computer with better software, the market will crush him also, but not if there are anti-trust laws and the enforcement of them.
You mean a poorly-designed computer can kill people the way a poorly-designed drug can? I didn’t know that. :rolleyes:
Why would this be a bad thing? We should not regulate things that can kill us?
[quote] [li]Houses are still built roughly the way they were in 1900. The move to highly automated production lines and modern materials never made it to the highly regulated housing industry.[/li][/quote]
Manufactured housing has been around for decades. People don’t like the designs, the architecture. Looks like it’s the market that decided how houses should be built.
[quote] [li]New drugs take 10-15 years to reach market. The delay in many of these drugs killed tens of thousands of people.[/li][/quote]
I wonder how many people would have died over that same time span from unapproved drugs? I bet it would be more. Lots more.
[quote] [li]Small airplanes are still being built with engines designed in the 1930’s, because no one can afford the approval process on a new design.[/li][/quote]
Cite, please.
[quote] [li]Since the Department of Education was founded, school scores have dropped markedly despite the billions spent on that new agency.[/li][/quote]
This may be due more to the influence of television than anything else. What’s responsible for the development of television? Oh, yeah, the market.
[quote] [li]NASA is farther away from being able to put a man back on the moon than they were in 1960, the space shuttle is 25 years old, and its successor was just cancelled. And when a shuttle crashed, the entire American manned space program came to a halt for YEARS, because all our eggs were in one basket, and that basket was an inefficient, highly timid government agency awash in red tape and bureaucracy.[/li][/quote]
The reason we do not have commercial exploration of space is because it is not immediately profitable. Executives (especially in American corporations) seldom look more than two or three years down the road. It would take decades to set up the infrastructure necessary to exploit the Moon and longer before such an enterprise would turn a profit.
IOW, market forces prevent the commercial exploration of space.
[quote] [li]OSHA has spent far more money than the Apollo Moon Landing cost, and yet it had almost no effect on workplace safety.[/li][/quote]
Cite, please.
[quote] [li]It is estimated that government regulation costs the economy about 500 billion to 1 trillion dollars a year. Imagine how wealthy we would be if even half of our regulations were eliminated.[/li][/quote]
Imagine how many lives would be lost every year without regulations.
[quote] [li]When Social Insurance (Canada’s version) came in, my mother paid 2% of her salary, and her employer matched it. I now pay 8% of my salary, and the employer has to match it. That’s a four-fold increase in taxes with no gain in benefits. And it’s going to go up again. [/li][/quote]
It’s because of one of those “market forces” called inflation. You can’t attribute it solely to red tape and bureacracy.
[quote] [li] After 25 years of the ‘War on Drugs’ (and hundreds of billions of dollars spent), drug prices are at an all-time low, meaning there is more supply now than there was before the ‘war’ started. And in the meantime, there are hundreds of thousands of people in prisons across the U.S. for the ‘crime’ of providing a product to a consenting adult who wishes to buy what he’s selling.[/li][/quote]
You’ll get no argument from me. I once started a thread here that argued for the legalization of most (if not all) street drugs for all of these reasons.
And just what is wrong with this act? You think it’s wrong to require that buildings be accessible to people who must use wheelchairs or crutches or walkers? You think it’s wrong to tell businesses they cannot discriminate against people with disabilities?
Yeah, just let people do what they want with their land. “Who cares if some irreplaceable species of life goes extinct? Let’s make money, dammit!”
I hope I have made it clear in this post that the market can do both good and bad. But you seem to be a market fundamentalist who believes the market can do no wrong. If you are, it would be pointless to argue further with you because I have never known a fundamentalist to moderate his views.
I’m a ‘market fundamentalist’? Apparently you haven’t read this thread, because I spent the first half of it arguing against Libertarian.
Now let’s take your points in order:
Apparently, you’re not reading very carefully. I’m talking about LONG leases. As in 99 years or more. The point was, when someone owns property and wants you to use it, you have the power to draft a contract that you like, or walk away. So if you’re worried about access to your home, you can make sure that the roads are held in perpetual lease to the collection of homeowners in the area.
But if you’ve got an irrational fear of leases, think about Condo Associations. If you buy a condo, you’re buying a small piece of a building that has common areas. The common areas are typically owned by a condo association, which sets rules and fees for maintenance, access, etc. The condo association is a collective group of owners, who elect or hire managers and representatives.
Condos are now expanding beyond single buildings. You can find whole subdivisions of condominiums now, where the roads, parks, etc. are owned by the collective homeowners.
I see no reason why this concept cannot be expanded further to protect the rights of access of people to common areas. And there is nothing in Libertarianism that prevents whole cities from essentially becoming mini governments in the sense that the citizens collectively own the municipal property and then elect people to run it.
And if government could figure out a way to tax it, they would. See, I can throw around non-sequiters too.
Really? Do you have some examples of excellent products that were crushed by the market? Do you have an example of an inferior product that crushed a better one due to a market failure?
And be careful if you go down the “PC/Mac” avenue, because I’m intimately familiar with the whole issue from having been in the industry from the beginning.
Really? Apparently, you have never heard of pacemakers, respirators, instrument landing systems, ABS brakes, GPS, fuel flow controllers, traffic light controllers, or a million other applications for computers that will result in deaths if they fail. And yet, there is almost no regulation of computers in these roles. Have you seen an epidemic of computer-related deaths recently?
It’s a bad thing because there are tradeoffs. If computers were regulated they might be somewhat safer (although that is hard to imagine), but they would also be several generations behind what we have now. How much is that worth, both in terms of standard of living and lives saved? GE just released a new Medical Imaging system that is about 10 times faster than the old one, meaning that far more people can get CAT scans, and critical scans can be done when needed without delay. How many lives will that save? Would we have this device today if government heavily regulated the semiconductor industry?
Apparently, you’re not even remotely familiar with the issue. Why do you think ‘manufactured’ housing is synonymous with ‘mobile home’? Typically, because the only way such homes can be constructed while getting around legal and union rules is to pretend they are trailers. Thus we have the farce of building ‘mobile’ homes that are transported to their final site and essentially put on blocks for the rest of their existance. REAL manufactured housing is starting to become available, and the homes that are built that way look just like other normal homes, and maybe even nicer. But they are still very expensive and in limited production because they are not allowed to be built in all areas, and because they still need to be assembled by tradespeople in inefficient ways. But I look for some big gains in this area in the next decade.
Well, since I can’t disprove something that never happened, I can’t tell you how many people would have died without regulation. But pointing to other industries that aren’t as heavily regulated, I would suggest that there would have been some bad drugs that would have killed people, but that would have been offset by having a much more vibrant drug industry. Maybe we’d have a cure for cancer by now.
But you know, snake oil salesmen always find a way around government. You can buy all kinds of dangerous or useless drugs today, in the form of Homeopathic medicines, diet ‘cures’, herbal remedies, or outright quackery like spiritual healing. Do you think all that stuff should be regulated? If not, how come? And why should REAL drug manufacturers like Pfizer or Merck have to wade through decades of red tape while Aunt Edna can sell her special anti-cancer tonic over the counter?
Cite for what? That the common engines used today were designed in the 1930’s? Or that new certification trials are very expensive? Phone Cessna and ask them. Or look up “Lycoming” and “Continental” on the web. While you’re at it, look up “DynaCam”, to find out the regulatory fate of a new aircraft engine that has been tied up in certification trials for over 20 years now.
After you’ve done that, check out the homebuilt aircraft movement, which is exempt from regulation. If I go the homebuilt route, I can buy a 350 MPH fiberglass airplane for $90,000 complete, and hire a professional mechanic to build it for another $50,000. A regulated Cessna 172, which goes about 120 MPH, costs around $170,000.
A certified Lycoming O-235 develops 108 horsepower, and costs about $25,000. A new, uncertified 100HP Rotax engine is about 1/5 that price. Rotax engines have finally been government certified, but that would never have happened had their not been a huge, totally unregulated homebuilt aircraft movement to act as a market to buy the uncertified engines and to act as a proving ground for regulation.
Oh, and by the way… That totally unregulated homebuilt aircraft industry has an overall accident rate almost exactly the same as the highly regulated general aviation market.
Oh, good comeback! Pick out a completely arbitrary product, and blame the failure of education on it! Do you have any evidence whatsoever that the existance of television has led to a decline in educational standards?
Oh, this is rich. Business is short-sighted? Governments take the long view? Oh, please. Show me a government program that won’t show results for 30 years. For my part, I’ll point to the Boeing 747, the new Airbus, and many other large private ventures that not only cost billions of dollars but were undertaken even though the breakeven-point was decades away. The 747 is a good example - Boeing bet the entire company on it. If it had failed, Boeing would have gone under. Yet, when they started the project there was no existing market for Jumbo jets, the prototype wasn’t even scheduled to fly for years, and the breakeven point was projected to be years and years beyond that.
You have it exactly backwards. It is GOVERNMENT that can’t see past the next election cycle. The Superconducting Supercollider was killed because the politicians currently in power would have to pay the political price of funding it, while the benefits would accrue to their successors. Look at Nuclear power - we’re STILL storing waste in ‘temporary’ holding facilities, because politicians find it easier to defer the tough decisions until after the next election cycle. And of course, whoever wins that election will defer the problem to the next one…
Or we could look at deficit spending, a bald-faced attempt to buy votes by borrowing against the future. How short-sighted can you get? And by the way, we don’t have surpluses because the government discovered fiscal restraint - we have surpluses simply because the economy managed to outgrow even the most creative politician’s attempts to spend more money. But government spending has increased fast than inflation almost every year in the modern era.
Look at Social Security - it needs to be reformed, and we’ve known it since 1980. But it’s a political hot potato, so every administration has managed to defer it to the next one.
Yeah, it’s sure a good thing we have those forward-thinking, visionary governments to protect us from those short-sighted businessmen.
I’ll get back to you. Have to do some research.
Well, that’s an article of faith on your part. I’ve already provided examples of regulated vs non-regulated industries where the accident rate is nearly identical. Or, you could have a look at Hong Kong, which is almost completely Laissez-faire yet has one of the highest standards of living in the world. I haven’t noticed people dropping like flies there, even though they don’t have any equivalents of the FDA, or a Department of Agriculture, or OSHA, or any of the other agencies that ‘protect’ you.
[quote]
quote:
When Social Insurance (Canada’s version) came in, my mother paid 2% of her salary, and her employer matched it. I now pay 8% of my salary, and the employer has to match it. That’s a four-fold increase in taxes with no gain in benefits. And it’s going to go up again.
It’s because of one of those “market forces” called inflation. You can’t attribute it solely to red tape and bureacracy.
[quote]
Uh, no. I don’t suppose you noticed that I was talking about PERCENTAGES? Notice that percentage is a unitless value - inflation has nothing to do with it. In other words, my Mom paid 4% of her income, and I pay 16%. That’s a 4-fold increase. Because of inflation, my salary is also about 10 times higher than what hers was for the same purchasing power. So I’m paying FORTY times as much. But in constant-terms, it’s a four-fold increase.
The real reason why it has increased was because the forward-looking, visionary government at the time rigged the books. To make the program politically palatable, they intentionally under-funded it in the beginning. In other words, they dumped a liability on future generations to pay for the current one. Everyone knew that Social Security was fiscally unsound, right from the day it was enacted. They just deferred the problem. And, they always represented the program as ‘insurance’, implying that it was actuarily sound. It wasn’t. Social ‘insurance’ is nothing more than a tax, with a promise to pay you a benefit in the future on the backs of future taxpayers.
Then to add insult to injury, those forward-thinking politicians took the social security money and spent it. If that money was supposed to be in a big vault somewhere, all you’d find in there now is a bunch of IOU’s.
I think that when you take something that the market should decide and make it a universal law, you get ridiculous situations like small family businesses having to put in a wheelchair-accessible washroom even though no employees are handicapped, and no members of the public enter the premises.
Here in Canada we have a similar law, but it only kicks in after a company has more than 12 employees. So guess what? An awful lot of companies stop growing once they hit 12 employees, because the owners don’t want to take on the hassle of all the regulations that kick in with the 13th. That helps put the brakes on economic growth.
I suggest you go read about some of the abuses of power that have taken place under the umbrella of the ADA and other heavy-handed government regulations. There was a business shut down in Edmonton a couple of years ago because an environmental inpector found an empty Lysol spray can in the garbage. Now, this regulation was meant to curb big-time environmental offenders, but it gave some bureaucratic weasel the power to control the lives of others, and he went overboard with it. But unlike private business, it’s damned near impossible to sue the government, so this business had no recourse.
I was thinking more along the lines of a family farm ruined because someone spotted an endangered species on the land, and therefore they were no longer allowed to farm it. This has happened plenty of times, which is why there is so much hostility towards big government in the midwest these days.
This application of the endangered species act is an especially good example of the ‘law of unintended consequences’. When a central authority makes command decisions on something as complex as the market, it often has repercussions that were impossible to predict, and often creates the exact opposite effect of what was intended.
In this case, the application of the Endangered Species Act was intended to protect those species. Instead, what happened was that farmers adopted a ‘shoot on sight’ policy towards such animals, lest their property be taken from them. If a Peregrine Falcon can destroy someone’s life, you’ve just created a great motive for killing Peregrine Falcons. Stupid, stupid law.
Oh, don’t worry, we already pay for it. Twice over, even. See, the government’s Clean Air Act, among other environmental regulations, cause businesses to be forced to make new departments to handle these regulations and ensure compliance. Think those people work for free? As well, think the government employees and inspectors work for free?
Don’t think air is free. It may be cheap, but it ain’t free.
Well, the thread hasn’t gone very far in the past two days, and I’ve been too busy to make any contributions to it, so I’ll make one rather lengthy rebuttal and go back to work. My intention is not (despite the last section of this post) to make fun of libertarians as a group, or as individuals, but to respond to various criticisms of our present system and to address what I perceive as a basic flaw in modern libertarian philosophy.
So as not to do a hit and run, I promise to respond this weekend to any well meant criticism of my post.
The Will of the Individual vs. the Will of Society
I think it would be helpful to discuss the terms we’re using. Libertarians and I seem to mean the same thing when we say “the Individual,” but we may have different understandings of “Society.” Since the two terms are conceptually codependent, one’s understanding of each affects one’s attitude toward the other. Definitions will only take us so far; to adequately explore the philosophical gap between libertarianism and “statism”, we must discuss the relationships between individuals and their societies.
First, though, let’s take a look at the relevant meanings of the word society.
Main Entry: [sup]1[/sup]so·ci·e·ty
Pronunciation: s&-'sI-&-tE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -ties
Etymology: Middle French societé, from Latin societat-, societas, from socius companion
Date: 1531 3 a : an enduring and cooperating social group whose members have developed organized patterns of relationships through interaction with one another b : a community, nation, or broad grouping of people having common traditions, institutions, and collective activities and interests 4 a : a part of a community that is a unit distinguishable by particular aims or standards of living or conduct : a social circle or a group of social circles having a clearly marked identity <move in polite society> <literary society>
When we speak of the effect of political ideologies on “society” we’re generally using definition 3 b above, although typically libertarians prefer to explain the workings of their philosophy within the context of a 3 a society. -Nothing wrong with that; it’s after all a primary focus of libertarianism to eliminate as many political institutions as possible. It’s important, however, to keep in mind that within each such “broad group” society, there inevitably exist discrete subsocieties (4 a), in which membership is determined by distinctions of interest, race, geography, wealth, etc. The importance of this will become obvious as we proceed.
Anthropologically speaking, humans are social animals. We communicate and interact with each other in complex ways and we form groups with complex interrelationships. Customs, traditions and accepted modes of behavior arise and develop through social interactions of persons and groups over time. The social structures that are consequential to all this interaction have a coherence and a continuity that is independent of the entry or departure of individual members. Moreover, these institutionalized social forms are near-universally assumed by anthropologists to play the major part in influencing human actions. The collection of social structures within a particular group form that “abstraction” we think of as society.
Modern libertarians take as axiomatic the proposition that the collective will of a society, where it exists at all, is merely of statistical interest, having no expression or utility beyond that which fulfills the needs of its individual members. Nowhere in libertarian literature will you find this proposition tested through empirical or historical methods; nowhere on libertarian websites and faq’s will you see the “natural” autonomy of individuals presented as anything other than Absolute Truth. The proposition is dogmatic, in that libertarians will brook no falsification; it is the fountainhead of their philosophy and it is sacrosanct.
One early libertarian to concern himself with the importance of society in the lives of every individual was Thomas Jefferson. In that same impassioned letter quoted by Libertarian (written to Pierre Samuel Dupont de Nemours in 1816), he wrote, “We consider society as one of the natural wants with which man has been created; that he has been endowed with faculties and qualities to effect its satisfaction by concurrence of others having the same want; that when, by the exercise of these faculties, he has procured a state of society, it is one of his acquisitions which he has a right to regulate and control, jointly indeed with all those who have concurred in the procurement, whom he cannot exclude from its use or direction more than they him.”
In other letters, Jefferson made even more abundantly clear his view of the existence and importance of that “will of society” supposedly to be taken as a metaphor in Libertaria:
“Every society has a right to fix the fundamental principles of its association, and to say to all individuals, that if they contemplate pursuits beyond the limits of these principles and involving dangers which the society chooses to avoid, they must go somewhere else for their exercise; that we want no citizens, and still less ephemeral and pseudo-citizens, on such terms. We may exclude them from our territory, as we do persons infected with disease.” --Thomas Jefferson to William H. Crawford, 1816.
“Individuals are parts only of a society, subject to the laws of a whole.” --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1789.
“The first principle of republicanism is that the lex majoris partis is the fundamental law of every society of individuals of equal rights; to consider the will of the society enounced by the majority of a single vote as sacred as if unanimous is the first of all lessons in importance, yet the last which is thoroughly learnt. This law once disregarded, no other remains but that of force, which ends necessarily in military despotism.” --Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, 1817
Because the powerful and influential individuals in any society are disposed to form subsocieties based on the differences which have placed them in positions of such power and influence, we see in any large society oligarchical tendencies whereby a few individuals have most of the control over ideologies or policies. In most societies, power and influence stem from ownership of properties, particularly land and facilities. Systems of government attempt to address this tendency in various ways. Thomas Jefferson, in the same letter Lib and I have been quoting so liberally (PI), appears quite sympathetic to “statist” ideals when he speaks of the American system:
“We think experience has proved it safer, for the mass of individuals composing the society, to reserve to themselves personally the exercise of all rightful powers to which they are competent, and to delegate those to which they are not competent to deputies named, and removable for unfaithful conduct by themselves immediately. Hence, with us, the people (by which is meant the mass of individuals composing the society) being competent to judge of the facts occurring in ordinary life, they have retained the functions of judges of facts under the name of jurors; but being unqualified for the management of affairs requiring intelligence above the common level, yet competent judges of human character, they chose, for their management, representatives, some by themselves immediately, others by electors chosen by themselves.”
Libertarians see conflicts between Jefferson’s strong belief in minimal government and the concepts of government operation of public property, regulation of industry and trade, public funding of works and the pursuit of foreign interests. Jefferson himself put a bit more productive thought into limiting those conflicts rather than eliminating them as proposed by those who deride the idea of a democratic republic. Unfortunately, Jefferson’s style of pragmatic liberalism seems to have been selectively dispossessed by fundamentalist libertarians.
The “Big Lie” Technique
I do not mean to impugn the honesty of individual libertarians when I charge libertarianism with use of the Big Lie. Proponents of the philosophy have already accepted as gospel the fundamental untruth that society is an abstract, of no consequence to political philosophy. When one is spreading a gospel, one does not cast doubt on dogma.
If one spends enough time reading critiques of libertarianism, the critiques of those critiques and the resulting counter-critiques, one begins to see eerie similarities with those dialogues between scientific rationalists and young earth creationists. There is a tendency in both cases for those arguing the creationist or libertarian positions to ignore data which weakens their position and to present faulty or misleading data in support of their viewpoints.
One example might be the charge that OSHA has had no appreciable effect on workplace safety. On the contrary, since the agency was created in 1971, workplace fatalities have been cut in half and occupational injury and illness rates have declined 40 percent. (OSHA statistics.) At the same time, U.S. employment has nearly doubled from 56 million workers at 3.5 million worksites to 105 million workers at nearly 6.9 million sites. It can be validly argued that the causes of these reductions in workplace deaths and injuries are manifold, but it cannot be honestly argued that they are unconnected to the OSH Act.
Now, I would never claim that only those arguing in favor of libertarianism resort to distortions and misrepresentations. I do argue, though, that modern libertarianism fosters such tactics.
“Sloganeering” and “Fanatical Claptrap”
Lib bemoans the non-abandonment by “Kimstu, Collounsbury and others” of those statists in this thread who make “ignorant statements.” He cites “libertarianism is a fraud” as an egregious example. Let’s examine some distortions and foolish assertions from the other side, shall we?
When we statists are responding to utterances such as “smokers are subjugated [in this country]”, “‘Rights’ as defined by the constitution rarely, if ever, apply to individuals” and “[1930’s technology is still in use] because no one can afford the approval process on a new design” perhaps there’s a tendency on our part to speak bluntly. When we are subjected to misrepresentations of our statements (e.g. the “restrictions” I submitted that democracies place on accrual of political power through personal wealth were changed into total “elimination” by erislover) perhaps we find it a bit tiresome. And when we are presented with little snippets of quotes from respected founders of the country in an attempt to represent one of their major concerns as their overriding theory of government, perhaps we resent the degree to which our pudenda are being collectively yanked.
If irresponsible businesses did not pollute the air, there would be no need for the Clean Air Act. Did you know that even Los Angeles has cleaner air than it did in the 1950s? Did you know that even with cleaner air, long-time residents of L.A. tend to have diminished lung capacity when compared to other Americans?
We’re not paying for the air, we’re paying for the clean-up and the maintenance of the air. We’re also paying for higher medical bills and lost work time due to excessive sick leave. Here is a story that says there may be a link between high infant mortality and air pollution. I remember an earlier story that says more people call in sick in L.A. than anywhere else. You might think it’s just people playing hooky from work to go to the beach, but I believe there was a corresponding increase in the rate of doctor visits. (I’ll try to find this story.)
Here is yet another story that links high concentrations of ozone with an increased risk of developing asthma.
Here is yet another story that details how there is still too much air pollution in America’s cities. And you think there is no need for the Clean Air Act? :rolleyes:
Sam Stone, you must lose a lot of babies the way you advocate throwing them out with the bathwater. There is nothing wrong with the theory of government regulation. The problem is with the practice of it. If the practice is wrong, change the practice; don’t discard the theory. The devil in making the theory work is in the details of the practice.
Well, I can’t speak for a whole subsociety of people (haha, had to put that in there) but I can tell you that this is a little too extreme for my tastes. True, society has no “collective” will, I do think that is true. One may form some sort of statistical (even on the level of observational versus actually gathering empirical data) idea of what all these people have in common in some fashion. However, once you’ve abstracted this society you may very certainly use this abstraction to consider people as groups or wholes; why else would you form such an abstraction? Considering where to live, or publishing a magazine telling people what it is like to live in an area, or targeting a specific group-within-a-group through marketing: none of these particularly care about individuals but rely on these trends you mention, this abstraction of societies or subcultures.
?? I am at a loss here, yet again. Perhaps it is the anarchist in me, but autonomy is exactly what we have. Dogmatic assertion? Perhaps I am not reading ito the words correctly, but nothing physically stops me from killing people, bashing heads in, stealing cars, poisoning water, violating health code standards, and so on. I am autonomous in that sense completely and “naturally,” that is, I am born in a certain state determined by biological factors and then I have complete ability to do whatever I want to do (within the constraints of my physiology). I’m not sure that I would call it Absolute Truth, but I think it is pretty self-evident.
If you mean that we are not “naturally” born with a mindset to do such things, well, I would agree with very little reservation. We, in being social animals, are very prone to creating rules governing behavior based on tradition, superstition, ignorance, wisdom, etc, etc. We don’t need a government, for example, to tell us to get dressed in the morning (though some may argue we need one to imprison those who don’t). We especially don’t need one to set dress codes at certain jobs, either. Much behavior is coded into this “abstraction” called society (though more realistically into these subsocieties).
I do, however, think it is a leap of faith to take this abstraction and create new rules based on it. There are so many behaviors coded into day-to-day living already that it seems to me that if we wanted to do things that way we would do things that way.
I will paraphrase from the Principia Discordia, a conversation in which Mal-2 talks with Eris, a greek goddess.
Easier said then done, you say? Given our world’s political history, it would seem that it is easier done than said. Revolution is not uncommon, political activism is not uncommon, civil war is not uncommon, regular old war is not uncommon. Indeed, it is much easier and far more practical to simply use an instrument of force to get people to do what we want. Both individuals, societies, and governments have this tool at their disposal; indeed, as I mentioned, it is one of the “natural” tools at our disposal(Absolute Truth?), and we have used it with (sometimes) frightening precision.
The apologists for use of force as a means to an end will claim all sorts of things. God(of whatever relavent faith), Rightousness, Natural Order, The-Way-Things-Are, For-Your-Own-Good, For-Our-Own-Good, and so on, are all historical justifications for a single action: the forcible repression of action by individuals.
Ah, again we return to individuals. In my “smokers are repressed(or whatever I said)” comment I received a few smirks to the toll of “Those are groups, not individuals” or “Smokers are subjagated?” You cannot use force against a society. This, most clearly, is where we see the illusion/abstraction dissolve. You cannot ban smokers from entering an establishment, but you can certainly post that no smokers are welcome and forcibly remove/fine individual smokers who violate these tenets.
Society is an abstraction, albeit a useful one, but it is a one-way street. We may abstract upwards (which is what the process of abstraction is all about) but we may not, then, use the abstraction the other way around. Consider a popular one for the racists, about there being a high percentage of blacks in prison (I neither know nor care if this is true in this conversation, let us simply assume it is a valid statistic). We then are NOT justified to turn around and apply this to all blacks. Similarly, we may find that, for example, there are more McDonalds in the US than anywhere in the world. We can’t turn around and apply this abstraction downward and say that most Americans eat McDonalds (even if it is true) because it simply doesn’t follow from the abstraction.
Speaking from the sense of someone looking for a place to live, they are looking for qualities in a place. Are the houses nice? Are the people speaking my language? We are rarely shocked to find violations of the abstraction we’ve done; it is no mystery that it is, indeed, an abstraction to us.
Politically, however, the best way to form an abstraction is through polling of some sort, whether that be a census or a vote. One would think that such a polling would statistically represent “the will of the people.” I wouldn’t say that, I would rather say it indicates a trend toward an opinion, but I suppose the distinction is negligible. At any rate, we form our abstraction (most americans want abortion to be legal) and draw up a law (say) that outlines that abortions are, in fact, legal(which we haven’t, but whatever). The positive legality of something, however, is non-enforceable, so even though we acted on the abstraction it does nothing; those who don’t want to have abortions won’t, for example. Both parties may live together, though not without a little tension in this case. However, let us turn to a different example, that where we outlaw something.
When we measure the will of the people (no need to keep putting it in quotes I don’t think) we form a statistical measure of what the sum of individuals want. The majority, say, of individuals want to outlaw ecstacy. Seems like a smart move, then, to outlaw it. Uh-uh. We’ve made the black-jail/McDonald-American mistake of applying our abstraction downward, commonly known as the good of the many outweigh the good of a few (whether or not this is false or true in all cases, if ever, is totally unimportant). Now we outlaw something that a minority didn’t want outlawed. NOW we must use force against individuals to get them to act legally. Remember, before one could act or not act and both were legal, here we have explicitely stated that a certain action is wrong.
Society didn’t say this. Society doesn’t say anything. It can’t say anything, it isn’t a creature with a mouth or some other means of communication. Instead, what we have done is create an abstraction of a group of individuals and treated this group as a single entity with some, perhaps, conflicting interests (angel on one shoulder, devil on the other) and proceeded to tell this uber-individual what to do. But again, I must stress, we cannot tell society what to do. It doesn’t work both ways! We can only tell individuals what to do, and when individuals don’t listen we punish them individually.
Recognizing that we may promote societal behavior but can only punish individuals is not an act of ignorance in any way. I (and perhaps other Libertarians) are not willfully ignoring the fact that culture and societies exist. We are merely stating, recognizing, and pointing out that they only exist to the person who does the abstraction! There is no physical requirement that we follow the trends of society. We follow the trends of society, and the government’s rules, and the commercial’s suggestions, largely because we either agree with them, know of no other option, or feel that to not follow them would lead to more harm than following them (not paying taxes, for example). We learn what these things are, not from any official society body, but from individuals interacting with other individuals. We are social animals. Word spreads within a community. Role models set “standards” for behavior. The social contract is strong even though neither the government nor any individual has wrote it down.
Unfortunately as well, Jefferson’s ideas of a limited government have gone by the way-side. Indeed, I would offer that most laws written now do not limit the government or its power but the individuals and their freedoms.
There is little doubt in my mind that a large group will impose its will on a small group, whether that be by physical force or simply setting social standards (as I outlined above). I find that initiated physical force is reprehensible, and so I tend to not follow the mob-mentality of majority wins. Or minority wins, for that matter. Indeed, I reject abstractions on individuals from winning.
In a regulated society we live with what we are allowed to, and there is no other recourse. In a Liberarian society there is virtually no restriction on action. You may form a religious community, I may form an anarchistic one, someone else may try and impliment some small-scale marxism. And we would all flock to these “oligarchy” states of idealism partially realized. It wouldn’t be a paradise, I don’t think, but it would be a much less destructive and repressive illusion than the one we live with.
I must stress, the socialist is welcome to live in a capitalist society; the capitalist is a prisoner in a socialist society. As with the political theories, the Statist (of whatever sort) is welcome in Libertara to gather with other like-minded people and realize, not an abstraction forced on individuals, but the grouping of people like-minded which would create tremendous advantages for all involved[sup]*[/sup]. However, in Majoritaria (or some other forceful state, even the “really bad” ones :p) we find that the Libertarian is, bluntly, screwed. He must pay taxes for his own good, he must follow laws for his own good. Funny thing is, he never decided his own good.
Some day, I think, I’ll have more to say on the social contract and complexity theory vs government (which I haven’t mentioned here) but it is far too late in this thread to bring such topics up.
Yeah, as soon as I saw it up on the board I said to myself “D’oh.” I did mean something similar, however, in that there is no power cap outlined in general. True, we have a “balance of power” or “a system of checks and balances” but I find convincing existing legislature to overthrow current governming principles and rewrite us into 1984 as probable as, say, water tycoons from Tank Girl causing market failure in a Libertarian society. (partially a joke, please)
At any rate, there is next to no political power in Libertaria because there is next to no political body. Indeed, society is what it is. Libertaria restricts political power absolutely.
To think that the few landowners (which I don’t think would be so few as implied) would all, coincidentally, be power-hungry evil despots is, in fact, a giant squid scenario (to me). (In my Libertaria what little government that did exist would also own land; where else would the courts be?)
Hmm. And I’ve met people that would pay for that!
*[sub]Again, I do not want to imnply that Libertaria would be a happy-happy perfect land of goodness and butterflies and hippie hymnals. I merely want to show that individual ideals are far easier to actualize in such a society. As well, you are rewarded in such a society for following the societal standards, but if you act against them (apart from the non-coercion principle) you only hurt yourself (drug addiction again, for example). I am also not being willfully ignorant of the fact that even with well-defined property understanding (dare I say laws?) that there wouldn’t be issues of one person influencing his neighbors (say, pesticide use disputes involving soiled water) without realizing it. We are arguing about the principles of Libertaria and, to some extent, the potential problems we may face there and why moving from existing societies to Libertarian ones is or is not a good idea. It will have problems; all organizations do. I do not think the problems people have presented here are the largest concerns.[/sub]
Many companies have “blue sky” projects. Saying that a free market society would not plan for things unless it shows an instant or short-term gain is inaccurate.
There is a HUGE difference between regulating the computer, washing machine, underpants, chair or hi-fi markets and regulating, for example, the insurance market.
If we want to promote an efficient market, we need those involved to have ideal knowledge. This is a hopeless dream. However the information imbalances are far greater in some markets than others. Regulation needs to be in place to redress these imbalances where they are too great.
Furthermore regulation is more important where the consequences of poor decisions are more critical. For example, if Mrs Public makes a poor decision due to sub-optimal information about her pension plan, she may well only realise the consequences when it is too late. This would be disasterous for her. If, however, she buys the wrong computer she can redress this very quickly.
Please do not mix up white goods and complicated contracts. There is very little similarity between them. Analogies are hopelessly flawed.
But Sam didn’t mention personal computers. I believe he was pointing out how totally integrated computerization is in our society, right up to those beloved insurance company’s records! And the government’s records, scientific results, calculations for where a missle will strike its target, self-guiding missles. It seems to me, in fact, that computers are more integrated into society than insurance, and that far more lives depend on them.
Well, right, I do see what you mean after further thought. You don’t need to know how a microprocessor works to operate a computer, but you do need some knowledge to get into insurance contracts (or contracts in general). Point taken, at least on my part.
I would like to mention what I find to be the general problems associated with some forms of Libertaria (not necessarily Lib’s exactly).
[li]Private Education. Sorry, but this one has been won by the regulators in my mind. After a lengthy discussion with kabbes on the topic I think I have been persuaded quite a bit toward some form of mass education which, IMO, can only be brought about by some benevolent benfactor; ie-the government. Education is necessary for growth, and while i still feel much of our resources spent on education are wasted on educating people who will never use it or don’t get it, completely private education is not the way to go. Without education, as well, after an initial outpouring of growth in industry (assuming we are just at the tip of an industrial revolution) we would be stuck there, led along slowly by the few who do get educated and want to keep things going instead of being dulled by leisure.[/li][li]Bare necessities. I am still concerned about water in Libertaria. Not its availability but its cleanliness. Tack on clean air to this, and fresh clean food. I do not feel that government regulation is the only way to handle this, but it would definitely be a stumbling block in an early Libertarian society (of large population).[/li][li]Competing currencies. I am not at all familiar with the economics of competing currencies, and I have read conflicting opinions on the matter supporting both sides. I do see it as a possible difficulty, and even more so, who would make the money (create it?) The banks? Hmm. I can think of a number of schemes to have semi-private persons controlling currency on government land (yes, I know, the government will own land but it won’t be public) but that can only breed corruption in the long run. I am pretty shakey about currencies in general. Reverting to a gold standard is a possibility, though not one I am fond of after some personal research in the matter. Suffice to say, with oligarchial land masses (spaced with smaller properties) there would most certainly be multiple currencies circulating, and who made these currencies and how that affects the economy(ies?) is not something I know about.[/li][li]Mob rule. By this I don’t mean angry mobs of people, but rather the usual meaning of mob: the mafia, whatever you want to call it. Force is a powerful motivator and sleazy, behind-the-scenes, forceful characters are likely to stick around, even in the absence of black markets. I am not 100% confident that, in the absence of such black markets, that good money will drive out bad (whereas in a regulated market, bad money always drives out good). I do think that there will still be localized areas of violent activity. Whether or not this will spread is not clear to me since, indeed, so much property is private and probably not for sale.[/li][li]Debt. With the afore-mentioned problem (?) of currencies, how will credit be handled? Will it still be available in a similar fashion to what we have now?[/li][li]Military. I have my own ideas for this, but that too has some problems (I think).[/li]
There are more, I’m sure, as we get into more and more specifics of implimentation. However, I find the land issue to be a red herring completely. That is hardly the largest concern.
Now, I don’t see that these problems are insurmountable, and I think some of them will actually smooth themselves out over time. The education one, however, will worsen over time for sure and I am not sure how to approach that one (practically or philisophically speaking). My knowledge of economics once we depart from generalities is woefully inadequate (though I have finally picked up a game theory book at collounsbury’s request [sub]though he suggested that 6 months ago![/sub]). Because of this, I am no longer comfortable arguing about specific topics of economics as my ignorance has really shown through.
At any rate, Libertaria is still, in my opinion, a possible place to exist in without the huge amount of problems that seem to be associated with it. The implimentation of these ideas is the crucial aspect of it, I think, not the practice once they are implimented (whereas government is, in principle, not a bad idea but in practice gets messed up, as someone here mentioned).
We still got a whole page to go, however, so I hope this doesn’t die yet. No one has brought up Nazis yet! (have they? :p)
Goodo. I was about to complain, but you’ve summarised it well.
[quote] [li]Private Education. Sorry, but this one has been won by the regulators in my mind. After a lengthy discussion with kabbes on the topic I think I have been persuaded quite a bit toward some form of mass education which, IMO, can only be brought about by some benevolent benfactor; ie-the government.[/li][/quote]
WOOHOO! I do have a purpose.
As for the rest of the post, I only want to say one thing: you’re a good man erl and a pleasure to debate with. I’ve said it before but it’s worth repeating: it’s incredibly rewarding when someone actually takes the time to consider the arguments and take them on board. You always do this. Thanks.
In return, I’ll say that I most definitely have quite a changed attitude towards government myself now. I’ve found myself questioning people who want to see government intervention in what I’m beginning to wonder are unnecessary places. I’ve also had to think about how a government does represent the will of the people and to what extent the majority have the right to dictate to the minority.
I think most parties in this debate have emerged the better for it.
No way anyone with that much power and resources would give in to the likes of us lower-class, landless serfs.