They (and any other laws) are coercive if and only if the creditor is an involuntary citizen. I do not oppose any law made by any government to which a person has given willful and voluntary consent. As far as I’m concerned, a law may require money holders to give free money to all who demand it, so long as the consent of all involved has been freely given. Government’s greatest coercion is when it threatens to seize your property — your home, the land you own — simply because you elect to withhold your consent to be governed. When ordinary people do that, it’s called extortion. Your consent is a right that came with your birth and the formation of your brain. No government gave it to you, and no government has ethical license to take it away. Government is supposed to secure your rights, not take them away.
So, again, I myself prefer a society without bankruptcy laws simply because they are redundant. It is easy to construct loan agreements that take into account extremely high risk. But that does not mean that bankruptcy laws are coercive in se. This is the point that I can never seem to get Dewey to understand. He seems to think that I am preaching my way or the highway, when in fact I am recognizing his right to consent to whatever he wishes. He believes that the world might end if government is indeed legitimized by the consent of those it governs.
So, things would be quite different. But who is to say whether they would be better or worse? I’ve pointed out quite many problems with the system that is in place, but his response has always been that those things do not excuse libertarianism. He has in fact never attacked it on a theoretical level, but only on a hypothetical level, and then only with the most outrageous scenarios imaginable and assumptions of absurd premises — like bankruptcy laws being coercive outside of any context.
I haven’t said that. I haven’t said that the new bankruptcy laws are either good or bad. What I did say was that, to a non-libertarian like Dewey (and like the person whom I had addressed in the thread that spun off this one), they ought to be good because they contribute to the already labyrinthine mass of legal knots. I’m not the person who thinks problems can be solved by yet more laws. I am in fact the person who has consistently advocated that there need be only one.
I honestly have no idea where the whole false premise came from, other than perhaps a careless reading by Dewey of this post to the non-libertarian in the other thread who attacked the new laws. I wrote:
He, the guy I was addressing, the fellow who attacked the new law, the person who is not me — that guy — should be ecstatic because now there are yet more laws, more paperwork, and more expense. I did not express an opinion either for or against it.
Dewey then popped in and ascribed to me a view that HE believed I held:
But then I explained to him that I was attempting of late to participate in threads without invoking libertarian theory, and dealing merely with the issues in the context of non-libertarianism. That answer (of course) did not satisfy him, and so he went on a tear of ignoring my response, continuing to assign to me a view that I don’t hold, and seizing the opportunity of my invitation to open this thread and shit on me some more. He has absolutely zero interest in what my answer might be. He has yet to demonstrate having comprehended anything I’ve ever said, and this thread is just the beat going on.
Did someone hold a gun to the G7’s collective heads? If not, how is their generosity coercive. Do you honestly equate voluntary forgiveness of a debt with deliberate breach?
Have you stopped beating your mother? Answer yes or no.
I know (and have said often) that I am morally weak. I don’t pretend otherwise.
I am not quite clear - in Libertaria, there would be no bankruptcy law. However, contracts could include clauses allowing citizens to default on or restructure their debts under circumstances similar to those described under current bankruptcy law. Yes?
What I mean by “Is it the case that your objections to the new bankruptcy laws is due to the fact that it is being imposed on all?” was that you don’t have any more objection to or affection for the new bankruptcy regulations than you would for any other attempt by the government to interfere prior to a breach of contract. In other words, libertarians don’t like bankruptcy laws at all, because they interfere with citizens freely entering into contract with each other.
So (not to put words in your mouth), your answer to this question:
would be “there is such an equivalent if such is provided for in the contract - if not, there isn’t”.
Is there any recourse for a debtor who signs on the dotted line, and whose contract has no provision for default? My feeling for Libertaria is no, he is SOL. I am not sure what the government or the lendor would be allowed to do to him - would there really be such things as debtor’s prisons, or does his name just go onto the Master Libertaria Shit List and he would never be able to borrow from anyone again?
But the point is that in absense of specific language in a contract what happens. For some reason Libertaria will stick its nose into these two peoples business when no deception nor physical force has happened.
For example if I say I will meet you for dinner at 7:00 pm tonight unless I get run over by a car, struck by lightening, thrown from a horse, fall from a ladder, shot by a robber, sick from my lunch, have my car break down, fall off my roof, get taken hostage, have an accident at work or my mother becomes ill. No matter how many scenarios I list I can’t list them all. For example if I fail to mention get bit by a rabid dog and a dog bites me preventing me from keeping my appointment what deception or physical force have I taken against you? I made a promise in good faith and did my dardnest to keep it but a circumstance we didn’t account for occured. How does that make me a coercer and a criminal?
Yes — keeping in mind that Libertaria is a metaphor meaning “the views of Lib” that do not consitute the sole possible interpretation of the libertarian ethic.
Except that that might itself be a part of a citizen’s contract. Suppose the citizen had sought out a government with that very law to which he wished to give his consent. In that case, the citizen is a volunteer, and the government is securing his rights.
The question is too loaded to answer, just like the famous wife beating question. It presumes that I am an anarcho-capitalist, espousing the “absence of government in the traditional sense, replaced by freely-contracted-for services”. If it has become untraditional for government to secure the rights of its citizens, then we are all in deep doo-doo. Why should I answer questions on behalf of anarchists? Let them answer their own.
I suppose he has the recourse of the lender. The lender is certainly entitled (but not obligated) to renegotiate terms. He isn’t even required to prosecute the coercion. He also might have recourse to other lenders, to charitable institutions, to family, friends, houses of worship — what have you. But he has no recourse with government, nor should he. Government is there to secure rights, and the lender has a right to get his money back whereas the borrower had no right to steal it. But government is not concerned beyond that point. It does not maintain lists of people for the purpose of making their lives miserable. Its only interest is in making the lender whole for this specific breach. Now, lenders themselves certainly might form associations and maintain lists, which wouldn’t be a bad idea. But the onus on government is to extract from the criminal whatever is necessary to restore the victim — a criminal, by the way, whom we are to assume voluntarily accepted this system. Otherwise, it isn’t a libertarian system that we’re even discussing. So, if that means forced labor until the debt is paid, then that’s what it means. It may seem harsh, but the on the other hand, people as a whole benefit from more reasonable interest rates and prices from merchants. I submit also that it benefits a society if its citizens take a more sober view of their obligations and responsibilities. “Personal finance” would be an excellent course for Libertarian schools, even from the elementary school level.
But non-libertarians don’t automatically assume that “more laws” = “better”. That’s just silly.
Whether you have too many or too few laws, from a non-libertarian perspective, depends on the circumstances. No non-libertarian believes that just because you’ve added some extra law, you’ve necessarily made things better. The important issue is what the laws in question say and what effects they have.
I’m kind of startled that you would have been, as you claim, thinking deeply about libertarian beliefs for so many years without managing to comprehend non-libertarian viewpoints any better than this. I must have misunderstood you, although your meaning seemed pretty clear.
Whats the difference? It cost you time, money and effort to go to the restaurant and that was all wasted becuase I did not meet you. Either way the point still stands. If you want to replace “meet you for dinner” with “agreed to a loan” it doesn’t change the argument.
I readily admit to hyperbole, but it was in response to a thread that was “addressed for comments by the Ayn Rand worshipers – the Capitalists” who advocate “survival of the fittest”. (From the OP of the thread linked by Dewey.) If you care to tell the OP of that thread how silly he was being, he is visiting this one as well.
The important issue to me is upon what ethic they are based.
Again, I was responding in kind to an outrageous characterization. Certainly, an authoritarian state could be constructed with a single law as well.
Oh, in that sense, I agree. If you loan me two dollars and I bail on you, you have every right to take it to arbitration. It’s your two dollars, not mine. By the same token, consider your scenario in the case that I’ve agreed to set up a wedding reception for you, and you’ve paid me $20,000. Should we all just hold hands and sing Kumbaya if you get to the reception hall and find it empty?
Of course not you should be able to go after my assets and recoup your loss. There is no disagreement with that provided I have the assets to cover the $20,000. If I were to say I can’t pay back the money when I in fact can that would be a lie and thus a coercion. However if I say I can’t pay back the money when I in fact can not pay back the money what deception or initiation of force is there? Remember, there is no language in our contract to handle a situation like this.
You certainly need to provide us with a copy of your dictionary. All the ones I can find make this distinction between “civil law” and “criminal law”, and are thus incompatible with your assertion.
If there has been no agreement to pay back the money, then there is no agreement to pay back the money. You can’t hold people to commitments that are in fact imaginary. If you are sued for breach of such an agreement when you in fact follwed the terms, then the suit is itself a coercion.
I’ve done that already. Somewhere in the bowels of this thread (and in probably dozens of others) coercion in a libertarian context is defined. I suppose that my two attempts to join discussions of a non-theoretical nature about applications of existing systems like you just described have been miserable enough failures that I won’t attempt them again. I’ll stay on the theory side, and let you people fight over which Democrat or which Republican would be a better candidate, or which tweak in the law would be better than which.
You didn’t address my question. There is language saying that I will pay back the loan but nothing addressing what occurs if I am unable to pay back the loan.
Answer me this question please. I enter into a loan agreement in good faith and provide all the information a creditor requests accurately and honestly. If I am unable to complete the terms of the agreement what deception have I taken or what physical force have I used?
