Poppycock. The natural result of a libertarian anarchy where anything can be bought is that eventually someone will buy the authority & rule of law. In that case, all in the land are his vassals. Sovereignty arises from liberty, it doesn’t contradict it.
What you’re proposing, OTOH, is idealistic socialism. Cute, but not proven to work.
Well, maybe it’s worked somewhere, but it’s not where our legal system comes from, & I think it’s a fantasy on the part of the ignorant & utopian.
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. (red bolding mine)
“Braying…” about “Welfare.” The gathering of Taxpayer dollars for one’s own use.
Let us laughingly compare “Welfare mothers” and all of what is costs… to the “welfare” that Corporations (and politicians!) recieve …
No contest.
Tax dollars support Business. The Government. The Military.
Add it up.
The “Generational tax cheats”…have a thing or two to learn from these three entities.
Of course, none of them get the benefits they do without Legislation.
And, again, outside of infrastructure, NOTHING gets more taxpayer dollars than Business, The Military and The Government.
But let’s cry about “Welfare Queens” (please read all of Curlcoats musings) -
No. No! Let’s not!!
Let’s actually add up the actual “Tax Payer Dollars” - run in on a scale… and see who gets the most benefit.
More than anything, I wish the American people would educate themselves about just how their taxes are spent.
Maybe they would stop hating one another and start asking questions.
I have found it.
Here you go. I’d actually responded to this post in its thread. (And he’s actually mistaken about the gospels; Jesus was SCARY.)
Well said.
I think this argument is economically simplistic.
Isn’t working for less than you can live on dangerously foolish? In fact, one of Social Darwinism’s arguments is that those who agree to be paid poorly deserve to suffer because they made bad decisions. Looking at the position holistically, it becomes, “That fool entered into a contract with me; ergo, he is a moron & I may abuse him as I wish.”
I’m not convinced the government has an obligation to permit that. (That said, I do think the minimum wage should ideally be a soft, rather than hard, floor, & adaptable to deflation, not that that is relevant in the USA today.)
Yeah, I’m the one who believes in Great Men & the Triumph of the Will. Get it right.
And about that…
I was being unfair there. There are several different social theories that have worked in different societies. Some don’t even recognize sovereignty over the land on the part of the state.
But if the people rule the land, then that’s a state. That’s what that is. And those people can raise taxes, or delegate to a government the authority to raise them. For public ends, ranging from paying tribute to the Mongols to building a hospital system.
If you’re a vassal, then your lord has some authority to do what he wants with what you have. (Especially to benefit his people, & they are **his **people.) Customary restrictions for the common welfare do apply in feudalism, though I don’t so much recall customary restrictions against the common welfare, which seems to be what the right wing want. :dubious:
OTOH, if you are in a republic, then the people rule, & they can do this stuff. Yeah, I know Locke had this whole thing about limited powers, but I don’t have to agree with everything Locke said. Limited powers are to prevent abuse of the ruled, not to keep the ruled from benefiting from rule.
It is not a question of deserts. It’s a question of who gets to decide.
Someone agrees to work for $5 an hour (in a society with no minimum wage). She is being exploited, right? The situation is that she is a single mother with a small child. The $5 per hour job is working from home, and she doesn’t have to pay for child care or transportation. The only other job she could find pays $8 an hour, but there is a twenty minute commute by bus and she cannot find a baby-sitter for less than $4 an hour.
Is she being exploited? Would raising the minimum wage to $8.50 an hour help?
Even if the minimum wage applied to babysitters?
Regards,
Shodan
Let’s look at reality, not your little made up example. Like this recent study
No exploitation there, right?
Let’s forget about babysitters and concentrate on people who really need the money.
Say your generic worker with little or no bargaining power can produce $15 an hour for an employer. So, no self respecting employer would think about paying less than the minimum wage, right? But if they can get away with paying this worker $7.50 instead of $8.00 for the same work, their margin increases by 15% - a nice bit. So there is always incentive to underpay. And don’t tell me that the worker should run out and get a better job. If he is skilled he wouldn’t be at minimum wage. Any employer who would pay more would soon lose out due to competitive pressures. So the minimum wage not only protects the worker, but it protects the ethical employer from having to rip off his employees or go out of business.
How about the worker? In times of labor shortages, again it won’t be a problem. But in times like today, where there is high unemployment, let’s consider the situation from the worker’s point of view. He gets offered a job at $7.50, not 8.00, the minimum wage. If he takes it he loses .50 an hour. If he doesn’t take it, he loses $7.50 an hour. So, what do you think he will do? The law gives him a third option, of reporting the employer, which we’d hope would encourage the employer to not undercut the minimum wage - but, as the cited study shows, the imbalance of power means this doesn’t work very well.
The standard response is that a higher minimum wage will increase unemployment. I say that a competent business should use the increase in wages to motivate ways of making workers more productive, which not only supports the higher wage but also increases profits. If a company can’t figure out how to do this, they deserve to fail.
That dude’s a Freeper. Seriously.
A fine post, Mr. Kiber.
I certainly don’t like taxes, but the libertarian/Rand-ish notion that a tiny government is the best (and only moral) manner to promote economic growth is silly.
Another thing to consider is without taxes to finance the government you don’t have a functional government.
How’s Somalia working out for that theft avoidance thing?
Clearly, nothing is going to change anyone’s mind on either the moral argument (which anti-tax wins easily) or the legal argument (which pro-tax wins easily). But let’s not perpetuate the myth that Ayn Rand was somehow associated with libertarians. She despised libertarians, calling them “hippies of the right”. She despised the libertarian philosophy, calling its premise naive and arbitrary.
It is not true that libertarians favor a “tiny government”. They favor a government that is of whatever size necessary for the protection of people from foreign and domestic coercion. If that requires a big government, then so be it. It isn’t the size of government that concerns libertarians, but its scope of powers. That is all.
And who will protect us from the libertarians?
No one, which is the real point.
Sorry, but I don’t understand the question. Who protects you now from the Republicans and Democrats?
The government. See how that works?
The way it did when Bush was President?
Regards,
Shodan
Especially during the Cheney regime. I shudder to think what he might have wrought without the restraint of government.
Well, now let’s see if I’m smart enough to see how that works.
I wrote:
[Libertarians] favor a government that is of whatever size necessary for the protection of people from foreign and domestic coercion.
You then asked:
And who will protect us from the libertarians?
Whereupon I expressed flummoxity at the question, and asked you:
Who protects you now from the Republicans and Democrats?
And you come full circle with your quote above: The government [which consists of Republicans and Democrats] will protect you from the Republicans and Democrats.
So, if you can figure out a way to argue non-circularly — meaning in such a way that your conclusion is not presumed in your premise — please proceed. Otherwise, I will consider the matter to be closed, and your argument to be defeated.
See, there’s your problem; you are unable to separate the government from the political parties. I do, and can cite numerous occasions where the Justice Department and/or the Supreme Court has acted to limit the power of the party in power. Do I need to do that, or are you willing to admit you are wrong?
The validity of my arguments is not within your control. The world continues even after you close your eyes, Lib.
Can you prove that?
The government. Besides what Fear Itself said, you are ( as libertarians always do ) ignoring the fact that the government isn’t the only source of coercion and exploitation. The only thing that keeps the corporations, the wealthy, and any other large organization and wealthy/powerful individuals from running roughshod over most of the population is the government. Libertarians want a weak government because that will render the majority of the population helpless. Easy to exploit, easy to abuse.