A Q for Libertarian on Libertaria

Great Debates
141

Mass dilution of ownership is still possible; what is not possible is you escaping responsibility for the business that you are part owner of. No laws to hide behind. You want the benefits of ownership you need to take the risk associated with it as well.

I have no doubt that what you say is true: risk free (relatively speaking) investment did and still does create a rapid growth. Much like welfare has allowed for more people to not work, and the New Deal allowed the government to be the biggest employer, and social assistence led people who shouldn’t be able to raise children not give it a second thought.

No doubt in my mind that state assistence of all sorts, be that legislation to avoid personal responsibility in child rearing or corporations, creates more rapid growth. But no one is ready for that growth, because the forces that would tamper it are only applied after a problem is noticed. “Population boom? How are we going to educate all these people?” “Well, I’ll tell you how. Remember those committees we made to help allow for such economic growth? Now we’ll simply make another committee to figure out how to provide for these people what they can’t provide for themselves due to our own short-sightedness. Plus we get to absorb some of the excess labor force we’ve created since the implimentation of such a scheme will require more workers than we have at our disposal. Listen, here’s how we do it…”

Sorry *kabbes, I think modern lack of responsibility is the biggest problem we face. Your favorite example of the CEO let off with a fat pension after destroying lives… you remember, I’m sure. This is not a fault of having people account for their actions.

I can’t believe you are offering me this, kabbes ol’ boy. The method of collection is vastly important. Why, they shouldn’t even need to withhold it from your paycheck when they could come door to door and beat it out of you. Either way, they got it, right? :wink:

There is a difference here between people not wanting to contribute to a bloated power-hungry government who picks up causes to rationalize its oversized budget and people not wanting to donate to the causes they asked that bloated government to pick up in the first place. Without 30% of your paycheck being withheld I’m sure you wouldn’t mind donating some of that money to the United Way, for example. You’d still have some left over. (assuming prices would remain largely the same, which they wouldn’t, but whatever).

I know :frowning: Work has kept me all too busy.

Perhaps you have a different definition of voluntary than I do. Pointing a gun at me and telling me to eat my porridge doesn’t mean I volunteered to do so. I don’t even think we’re arguing semantics here, that just isn’t volunteering.

Agreed.

No one stops that now. In Libertaria you would be in fear of litigation, and violating the “one law” (though I still disagree it would be just one since the complications of it are large but anyway). Here you are in fear of getting caught by a similar force. But in neither case, nothing is stopping you. There is no “right’s force” which prevents you from entering another person’s property, Shai Hallud will not swallow you hole when you walk on the golf course’s sand traps without permission.

No, we are reliant on the agreement between thousands of individuals who live together. Whether or not we write this agreement down doesn’t matter. After all, I can’t recite even the Bill of Rights, but I know enough not to step over it’s ideas. It might as well be the Illiad, passed down by word of mouth, as far as I am concerned.

Nothing ever, ever, ever stops the biggest guns from winning once someone has decided to use them. All we have done is put the biggest guns in the hands of the people who are babysitting us. Who babysits the babysitters? Obviously no one, or government wouldn’t be the huge hog it is today. Actually, hog implies some matter of self-reliance. Shall I say ubertapeworm instead. And I don’t even think the government deserves to live in my shit, none the less suck any sustenance from me.

Cheers pan :slight_smile:

142

Well, Jab denied it to me, but I didn’t have to wait long after all.

Yes, I have a grown daughter and two grown step-daughters. According to USDA figures, “For 1999, the child-rearing cost estimate for middle-income, two-parent families ranges from $8,450 to $9,530, depending on the age of the child.” Assuming we can trust USDA statistics (granted, a generous assumption), either you can afford this or you cannot, but you ought not to go willy-nilly cranking out babies without regard to whether you can afford to provide for them. Certainly, it is possible to drastically reduce the USDA costs. Children don’t necessarily need fast food, brand new clothes, bigger cars, or bigger houses. My family was quite poor, but thanks to loving and sacrificial parents, our childhoods were very happy.

I haven’t defined children solely in terms of finance which is a gross misrepresentation of my argument. Caring for a child is about a lot more than money, but money is not a trivial part of it. If a person is unable to afford basic food, clothing, shelter, and education for a child, I cannot wrap the irresponsibility of producing one in words to convey sufficient horror.

And then give them an Internet connection, right? God help us. I’ve seen more thoughtful formulas than that applied to raising cats.

The subsidies exist whether or not you avail yourself of them. I do applaud the attention you are giving to your child and, unless you are abusing her, which I’m confident you are not, how you care for her is none of my business.

143

Excessive bolding, sigh. I hit preview, think I fixed it, then must have made the same mistake again.

Ok.

Karl Marx is not dead! How quaint. Inequality is necessary for trade and growth. It is built into any system which uses any form of motiviation to accomplish tasks. No society anywehere which has any structure will avoid this. Not socialism, not communism, nothing. If you are currently happy playing video games then I have nothing to offer you except something you don’t have that would make you happier. Period. In any society. Whoever the motivator is. Have and have-nots can never, ever, ever be eliminated. It is a pipe dream to think otherwise.

As was laboriously pointed out to me in some other thread, humans have unlimited wants and needs. There isn’t a universe large enough to accomodate us. Nothing can change that. It is a red herring.

144

To jump in late…

I think it’s important to realise that there are several differences between cars and children

[list=1]

[li] Cars require a downpayment[/li][li] You can’t buy a car by accident, or through ignorance of preventative techniques[/li][li] There’s no moral issue in terminating a car purchase[/li][li] You won’t rely on friends and family to help care for your car[/li][li] Cars confer immediate advantages on the owner[/li][li] Cars have resale value[/li][/list=1]

It would also be interesting to know the repossession rates for cars in the US, as a means of testing the statement that people think more about car purchase than childbirth.

I think that the axiom that rights accrue from property, universally and absolutely, is false. Rights accrue from power, be it individual or collective. Property in the sense of real estate equates to a zone of influence. Property in the sense of things equates to the power to use that thing e.g. car, airwaves, weapon, money. The assertion that we know the government has all the rights/power because it has the ability to claim all property for itself is topsy-turvy. If the government can claim all property it is because it has all the rights/power in the first place. Absolute ownership of a piece of property reflects power, it does not confer it.

In a situation where property was rights then I would expect to find that a) everybody wanted property and b) nobody wanted to sell it. That a) people with property would have greater scope to exercise their rights and conversly b) people without property would have less scope to exercise theirs. That people whose property offered little in the way of resources or opportunities other than a zone of influence would be stuck with undesirable property. That without a boundary commission, people would attempt to expand the limits of their property at the expense of their neighbours, and that this would result in continual appeals to arbitration, government, authority in an attempt to resolve the issue. That conservation would go out of the window as people rushed to claim land (it’s bad enough when land = money in this system). That without some authority to determine the status of unclaimed land/property, disputes would rage over it. That the overwhelming interest of everybody would be to defend what they had and to gouge out more.
I appreciate that the principle of non-coercion would regulate all of this activity. I just suspect that there would be a whole lotta regulation goin’ on. And as I understand that one of the selling points of Libertaria is freedom from the incessant regulation that is such a feature of the current system, that might be a bit of a drawback.
There’s one big question for all systems which attempt to set out rights for individuals: According to what theory are the conflicting rights of two or more individuals weighed against each other?

145

The less you attempt to coerce, the less you will be regulated. Frivolous charges of coercion are themselves coercive as a form of fraud. Besides, people who spend their lives in litigation will miss out on the free trade enjoyed by the people who have the good sense to cooperate with one another. Libertaria is a hard sell anyway. I just love the naivete of those who refer to Libertaria derisively as a “utopia”. I fail to see what is utopian about struggle, hard work, and self-reliance.

It is impossible that rights, rightly assigned, will conflict. Suppose Straight Dope were libertarian, for example. A person who would claim that board policy conflicts with his right of free speech would be laughed off the board. Chicago Reader owns the site. It calls the shots.

146

Libertarian: *If a person is unable to afford basic food, clothing, shelter, and education for a child, I cannot wrap the irresponsibility of producing one in words to convey sufficient horror. *

Lib, I certainly don’t wish to misrepresent you or introduce red herrings, but I can’t figure out how this does not equal saying that “poor people shouldn’t have children”. Or at least, “people too poor to afford basic food, clothing, shelter, and education for a child” (which is not an insignificant number of poor people) “shouldn’t have children.” Considering that severe poverty is not a sign of bad character and doesn’t automatically disqualify someone from wanting or being able to be a good parent, I think that’s rather cruel.

Certainly most people do and should take finances into consideration when planning their families, but I don’t think it’s horrible to expect others to help out in some respects. (E.g., few parents even among the non-poor pay the entire costs of their children’s college educations out of pocket; they rely also on privately- and state-subsidized scholarships, financial aid, and loans. Nobody scolds them for their thoughtless improvidence in having children that they couldn’t afford to educate by themselves.) Children aren’t just a personal possession or chattel for parents, you know, they’re the future of the world. To some extent, all children are everybody’s children, IMHO.

Besides, what about all the private charity that you keep assuring us would be a prominent feature of Libertaria? Surely many of those benevolent souls would be happy to have some part of their money going to “food, clothing, shelter, and education” for children? If abundant charity is going to be so reliable, I don’t see that it’s so “inexpressibly horrifically irresponsible” for poor people to rely on it.

(Also, I’m not sure where you get the idea that most people devote more thought (or at least, more accurate estimation) to the issue of whether they can afford a car than to whether they can afford a child. Surely you know that cars are repossessed for nonpayment at the rate of thousands per year? Evidently there’s a lot of deficient planning going on out there in all areas of life.)

(Anyway, thanks for your kind greeting, and I promise I will try this time to continue pleasant and polite! :))

147

I am 99.999% sure that Lib wouldn’t have a problem with people volunteering their own money to assist those less fortunate, even if such funds were used to compensate for irresponsibility. I certainly have no problem with it. I might even donate money myself. I believe education is very important, and so I would do what I could to bring about an education-assistance program, a for-profit organization which can collect money and help blanket the cost of education.

I would not support a program which stole money in order to do this. Would not? I mean: I don’t.

Which reminds me. My taxes are still overdue. How long will it be before I feel democracy in action, when the state will charge me more money for not willfully allowing them to rob me?

148

Lib, this prompts a few quite different reactions from me.

First, IANAL, but it’s my impression that there is a very crowded branch of the legal profession dedicated entirely to contract law. Thousands of cases are adjudicated daily to resolve conflicting contractual claims. I really can’t believe that Libertaria would be so free of conflict over “rights”, when all rights in your utopia derive from property and all legal actions are decided by contractual agreement over the uses of property.

Second, when we combine the idea of rights being derived from poperty with your statement that “rights, rightly assigned” cannot possibly conflict, it sounds like you’re saying “Might makes right.” -Ownership of property confers total control over that property in Libertaria. Woe to the citizens who own no land or no business; the only “right” they have is the right to starve on their own terms or contract with real property owners on whatever terms they can get.

Third, the fact that “free speech” is a laughable concept in Libertaria illustrates why so many of us don’t share your disdain for public property. Libertaria seems to be nothing more than a network of Chicago Readers. It doesn’t matter how pleasant most such private fiefdoms might be; if one can only speak outside of one’s own property at someone else’s sufferance, then one’s freedom is purely illusory.

149

I knew I was going to regret reading this thread when I caught the mention of my name. Foolishly I have been sucked into the vortex of economic illiteracy bound up in pseudo- economic/philosophical moralizing.

ARL the following is absolutely not a red herring:

Let’s leave empty red-baiting out of this. Degrance I believe is pointing towards a fundamental problem, the point at which Lib’s Libertaria fails (well it fails on so many grounds as to make one wish to spit, but that’s another issue): externalities.

Nothing of the sort.

Some inequalities are. Excessive inequalities, emperical studies indicates, strangle the same. Problem with Randistas, they think in false absolutes. That dichotomy thing again.

Eliminated, yes, minimized not at all a pipe dream, but this entirely avoids the issues raised, if implicitly.

Education is clearly an area where market failure occurs if one’s goal is to provide decent quality (given prevailing standards) education to the widest possible number of members of society. I don’t believe that is possible to truly argue otherwise given historical and present empirical evidence. As noted previously, there is a question of what is rational for the society at large, where its largest gains are and what may be individually rational. Under-investment in public goods like education will inevitably lead to declining productivity and to inefficient concentrations of wealth in a closed elite.

The a priori assertion that somehow some pie in the sky charity is going to manage to cover under-investment in this and areas with similar characteristics runs in the face of reality.

As for your use of the verb rob for your taxes… Well I have only contempt for such rhetoric. Contempt.

In any case, I would be happy to have Libertaria operate on his bases as expounded. After its descent into feudalistic poverty I am sure a more rational state would be happy to take it over. Of course if people are not supposed to have children until they personally can afford them, then we expect two things to happen, collapsing birth rate and endemic child poverty which in the long run will further reduce competitivety of Libertaria, which when Rationalia takes over will unfortunately require years of investments to overcome. The factors for its failure are legion.

150

Then it looks like Cecil’s job would be finished! :smiley:

I’m sorry, but do you see it working some other way? As far as I ever noticed this is how it is under any conceivable system other than anarchy (where there is no property).

151

That doesn’t answer the question. The answer to the question would have to be found before rights could be rightly assigned. All it does is change the form of the question: how are rights assigned?

So, everybody has to comply with whatever the owners of property tell them to do. And the more proeprty you have, the more you can tell people what to do, right? In the absence of public property, does this not affect such matters as the right of freedom of assembly? Freedom of movement? The right to protest? If you have no property on which to worship, can you not be barred from practicing your religion?

I don’t see this as a big step forward.

Oh, and in relation to the argument about good and honest people making the system work, I’d point out the example of the Weimar Republic, which gave more rights to the people than any other state or society in history, and survived for about a decade before nasty people appeared and made it all go bad.

152

Kimstu:

It takes a village, huh? :wink:

It isn’t a matter of what’s fair to the parents, but of what’s fair to the children. I agree with you that poverty is no sign of bad character; in fact, in my own experience, some the people of highest character that I have known (like my father, for instance) were poor. But people of good character do not abrogate their responsibilities to others. They accept responsibility for what they do.

My concern is for throw-away children, children who are not loved, who are dumped at the feet of The State for care. Faceless bureaucracy, endless forms in triplicate, and a chair in a school abandoned by its own community is not my idea of sufficient care. I think it is reasonable to assume that fewer such children would exist in a society where such a crime is not tolerated.

As for college students, they are adults. There is nothing wrong with hard work and struggle for the sake of one’s own education. People these days act like work is a bad thing.

Xeno:

Forgive me, but when you tell me what is so utopian about hard work and struggle with no guarantee of success, then I will address your questions and concerns. I don’t know what I did that you, of all people, would take such a stab at me.

153

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Libertarian *
**

Ok, Lib, it looks like we’ve identified a fundimental point of disagreement between our points of view. There’re a wide range of parental choices which can’t be called abuse which I’d happily prohibit. A parent who wants his kid to work 8 hours a day in the coal-mines, rather than go to school was certainly within his rights up 'till…what? the early 20th century? He’s not abusing his kid by any definition of abuse, he’s not neglecting his kid (he may be working alongside his kid!). He could easily argue that ‘he’s providing his kid with a trade and skills.’ but he’s limiting the kid’s future horribly.

Fenris

154

Sorry. You must have just walked in. Rights are an attribute of property.

Not really. You may only tell people what to do with respect to the property you own. And if your manifest desire in life is to be a giant squid bad-ass, you aren’t going to have many visitors.

To assemble “freely” in New York, you must get a permit from the property owner, City Hall. To move “freely” in Georgia you must refrain from sitting on a penis. To protest in Seattle or Cleveland, you must be willing to have your face bashed in. And to worship as a Rastafarian anywhere in the U.S., you must be willing to go to prison.

You’re entitled.

Hoo, boy…

I know of no such argument, least of all by me. What I have argued repeatedly is that if peaceful honest people could make it without assistance, we could all just be anarchists; hence, the need for a government to suppress coercion. What I have argued repeatedly is that if peaceful honest people could make it without assistance, we could all just be anarchists; hence, the need for a government to suppress coercion. What I have argued repeatedly is that if peaceful honest people could make it without assistance, we could all just be anarchists; hence, the need for a government to suppress coercion.

Got it?

155

rob: 1 a (1) : to take something away from by force : steal from (2) : to take personal property from by violence or threat b (1) : to remove valuables without right from (a place) (2) : to take the contents of (a receptacle) c : to take away as loot : STEAL <rob jewelry>
2 a : to deprive of something due, expected, or desired b : to withhold unjustly or injuriously
intransitive senses : to commit robbery
usage: Sense transitive sense 1c, in which the direct object is the thing stolen, is sometimes considered to be wrong, or perhaps archaic. The sense has been in use since the 13th century and is found in earlier literature <contrive to rob the honey and subvert the hive – John Dryden>. It is still in use though not as common as other senses <then robbed $100 after the clerk fled – Springfield (Mass.) Morning Union>.

I know of no other word in the English language which so accurately describes it. If you have contempt for such accuracy then it leads me to wonder (I know you don’t merely a touche).

  1. I do not authorize the US Government to take money from me.
  2. I expect to earn the money that my employer intends to pay for services I rendered.
  3. If I take measures to resist this removal of money I am penalized in some other way, either through fines and/or jail time. As I know this in advance, this can only be called a threat.
  4. Should I not cooperate with my jail time, I will be forcibly removed from public life.

You’re right. degrance, you have been very civil. I apologize.

Excessive inequalities do cause problems economically, politically, and in every other form of interaction I can possibly think of. To remove one excessive inequality you must create another. To remove an economic inequality, you must create a force inequality. The more we equalize our differences, the more force must be handed over to a central source. I have not claimed that all men are rational, but this can only be seen as pure, stomping, frothing-ly crazy. Everyone here has noted that force is the most powerful form of action we have available, and yet my opponents insist on localizing this force in a central body. In no way can I call this a rational decision.
Perhaps, when I reach the ripe age of 80, I will look back at my idealism and say, “Well, they were right. Man is an animal with a shitload of set screws that must be tweaked, but by golly we did it.” Until such time, I will maintain my position.

Remind me to change my name.

Tell me, C, is there a pot of gold out there called “resources” and we must manage them effectively? Or are there a teeming group of living, feeling, beings out there who act according to their own interests(wants+needs)? If it is the former, then why ever would we not use force to get things done since it is most efficient. If it is the latter then why would we ever want to use force at all? If it is neither, then what are we and where are these resources?
As well, who gets these resources? Everyone? No one? Americans only? The person who invented modern strip mining techniques? The inventor of steel? The steel plants? Machine shops? The workers who are actually doing this stuff? The guy who organized everyone together and funded their life in order to get at this stuff?
Yes, it takes a nation to get these things done, but nowhere have I seen that it takes a nation-state.

My company just gave me a 6% raise. It didn’t legally have to give me anything. It also just developed a new instrument to aide in quicker manufacture of drugs. It didn’t have to do that, either.

The idea that without regulation my job would somehow be in jeapordy runs in the face of my reality. In fact, we could make even more money without having to hire an accountant for taxes.

My boss, the CEO of this company, left England and started this business in his own name 4 short years ago(with one other employee). Since that time, it has been incorporated and profited each year, the number of employees has doubled every year(not counting the sales force). Our customer base spans America, Europe, and some of Canada and Japan. Trade made this possible.

“But arl, government made trade possible!”

I’m sorry, but I cannot agree. I guess my econ book left that part out. From where I stand it only seems to make things more difficult. While the invisible hand of self-interest is trying to hold me up, the invisible hand of regulation is trying to strangle me.

156

Libertarian: *My concern is for throw-away children, children who are not loved, who are dumped at the feet of The State for care. Faceless bureaucracy, endless forms in triplicate, and a chair in a school abandoned by its own community is not my idea of sufficient care. I think it is reasonable to assume that fewer such children would exist in a society where such a crime is not tolerated. *

Sorry Lib, but you lost me again: which is the “crime” you refer to, exactly? Throwing away a child? Not loving a child? Dumping a child? Being a faceless bureaucrat? Filling out forms in triplicate? (pretty harsh, dude! :)) Sitting in chairs? (harsher still!) Abandoning one’s community school? ?? You seem to be painting a vague picture of generalized deplorability and woefulness and then attaching the word “crime” to it. Okay, whatever, but that’s not what I was talking about: I was talking about people choosing to have a child that they earnestly love and care for but need some financial assistance to support. I really have a hard time considering that a “crime”, and I don’t want to live in a society that so considers it.

(As for “people today thinking work is a bad thing”: aw c’mon Lib, gimme a break! :slight_smile: Every generation in every civilization has been saying that at least since the days of ancient Sumer! Surely we don’t have to found our political preferences on the standard hoary chestnuts about how much better people used to be in the good old days.)

157

Fenris:

In Libertaria, children are rights bearing entities without responsibility, the nonconsenting parties to the unary contracts I mentioned before. That is because they are not party to their existence. Their parents took upon themselves the responsibility of bringing into the world a new life. That new life is not their pet, not their toy, not their bread-winner, and not their property. They do not own their children. They are their childrens’ governors who, because they govern without the consent of the child, must exercise great care in what they do. Because the children bear rights, the parents may not coerce them any more than they may coerce anyone else. Parents may use reasonable defensive force to protect their children from harm (just as their government does for them), and reasonable retaliatory force to punish their children for unethical behavior (just as their government does for them), but they may not force their children to do any work for the purpose of accruing income to the parents. Forcing children, who cannot give meaningful consent, to labor as bread-winners is tantamount to forcing severely retarded people, who also cannot give meaningful consent, to labor as bread-winners for their guardians. It is a coercion, and therefore a crime in Libertaria.

Now as to your comment about eliminating child labor in the early 20th century, this report from the University of California at Berkley might surprise you:

158

Kimstu:

Does my need constitute your obligation?

Why is that same reasoning not applied universally? People might choose to have a horse that they earnestly love and care for. Why shouldn’t you help support their horse? Why aren’t people who need cars supplied with cars? For that matter, why the materialism fetish? Why not force smart people to tutor dumb people? Why not force atheletes to train clumbsy people? Why not force dentists to fix everybody’s bad teeth?

And by the way, do you limit how many of these children we may all “earnestly love and care for” at your expense? May we have fifteen of them? If not, why not?

The crime, of course, is breach.

159

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Libertarian *
**

Ok, Lib, it looks like we’ve identified a fundimental point of disagreement between our points of view. There’re a wide range of parental choices which can’t be called abuse which I’d happily prohibit. A parent who wants his kid to work 8 hours a day in the coal-mines, rather than go to school was certainly within his rights up 'till…what? the early 20th century? He’s not abusing his kid by any definition of abuse, he’s not neglecting his kid (he may be working alongside his kid!). He could easily argue that ‘he’s providing his kid with a trade and skills.’ but he’s limiting the kid’s future horribly.

Fenris

160

Libertarian: *Parents […] may not force their children to do any work for the purpose of accruing income to the parents. Forcing children, who cannot give meaningful consent, to labor as bread-winners is […] a coercion, and therefore a crime in Libertaria. *

Whoa! Sounds like a huge regulatory morass there: how are we supposed to be able to tell the difference between children working voluntarily for a little spending money and children working “for the purpose of accruing income to their parents”? Sounds as though it’s going to take some very un-libertarian-style close scrutiny of citizens of Libertaria to protect the rights of children.

Also, why on earth is it considered automatically against the rights of children to make them labor to help support the family? As Fenris points out, many parents have honestly considered that it is not only children’s duty to do so, but a good thing for them, as it teaches them the habits of labor which will be necessary when they have to support families of their own. Now I know why I think children shouldn’t be put to work in this way, but then I’m one of those hated statists :slight_smile: whose opinions aren’t supposed to be the mandatory rule for all the other peaceful honest people out there.

See, that’s the same problem I keep seeing in these Libertaria-scenarios: when you get down to brass tacks, it’s either anarchy or a thinly-disguised Majoritaria. We always start out with ringing declarations about how in Libertaria everybody’s absolutely free to do whatever they want that doesn’t harm others, which sounds very nice. But then when critics come up with examples of behaviors which we think are harmful (although many other people definitely don’t), then poof, all of a sudden Libertaria morphs back into Majoritaria: because most of us disapprove of these things, we think up a reason why they will violate libertarian principles and therefore not be allowed. It sounds very charming to say that Libertaria is free from the tyranny of the majority because it forbids only fraud and coercion, but in fact the tyranny of the majority has not actually been eliminated. It’s just gone underground, into the details of the definitions of “fraud” and “coercion”.