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Great Debates
121

water: Look, I am not attributing to YOU that I feel Lib’t is close to (but not the same as)Anarchy. But I do believe it, and i think the evidence shows that I am right. I also beleive Nazism is close to Communism. But they are not the same thing. So, where you have a limited form of gang rule-near-anarchy going on, where it is “survival of the strongest”, I say that that “seems to me” much like what a “real” Libt gov’t would end up like. NO, Libt is NOT the same as Anarchy, but it is close, and could slide there in a brief time. And I have heard other expounders of Libt say “there is only one law, no coerion”. True, you have not said that. But again, what is so Libt about Hong Kong? The ONLY thing that is any way like Libt is that they let business do its own thing, more or less. But the Lib’t say that there must be freedom from coercion, and the only way to have that is for the "citizen’ to agree/contract with the “Laws”. And there is NOTHING anything like that in HK.

Oh, and my GI was some 50K, my AGI some 40K, my “cash” contributions some 3.5K, and if you count hours spent, that would come to some 6K more. I am on 3 volunteer city boards
and am an Officer in a Nonprofit.

Lib: you do seem to be evading the “opting out” question, which to me is the biggest single flaw of your system. The other big flaw is best shown in the parable of the Frog & the Scorpion.

122

OK, I haven’t been able to support my “assertion” the overall spending on social programs quadrupled. I must say that the point I was making when I foolishly included a dubious assertion parenthetically and with an IIRC note still stands. I have no reason to believe that private charity was overall substantially less encumbered by government action at any point during the Reagan years than at any point before or since.

The benefits of an inverse income tax are that it provides money to poor people in the manner that is most useful to them, namely cash, and that it keeps the incentive to work present. With this plan, the amount of money spent by the government is kept minimal, while the amount of money spent by the person getting it is as large a portion of the total as possible. Certainly it should be obvious that a person possesses better information as to their own needs than does some government agency.

The incentive to work is maintained due to the fact that if the person recieving the subsidy earns more, their overall income is always increased. It’s not a perfect system, and it’s certainly not truly libertarian, but while we live in a society that seems set on helping the poor, it is a better way to do it.

Daniel, nice to see you willing to actually debate. I’ll address your post in a bit.

123

Damn, I’m not going to be able to address Daniel’s points until this evening. Anyone else want to tackle explaining why libertarianism won’t lead to anarchy?

124

Well, I could, since I don’t believe libertarianism would lead to anarchy, but I won’t, since I do believe it would lead to widespread exploitation and abuse of poorly educated or unpropertied (yet peaceful and honest) people.

I’ve already done more than my share of defending and explaining the practical aspects of libertarianism; I’d rather not undercut my opposition any further by doing so. I think with a little work the libertarians here can explore the structural details better than I can. (Then I can limit my comments to the social consequences of that structure. :smiley: )

125

waterj2:

I feel like I owe you one, and I’m already running late. Hope you feel like this helps.

Off the top of my head, I would say that a libertarian system won’t lead to anarchy for the same reason that no governmental system leads to anarchy. Why, even anarchy won’t lead to anarchy.

Without trying to dig up a bunch of opaque research, just think about it. Anytime people gather in groups, some sort of “rule” structure emerges, whether formal or informal. Hell, just check out this board. There are definitely rules of conduct, but the moderators do not enforce the rules of debate. Rather, what generally happens is that, when someone debates poorly, everyone else on the board “corrects” them (through the use of kind words).

People in general don’t like living in true anarchy. They like rules. They like to feel like they can know in advance whether they are acting in the right or in the wrong. In just about any setting where groups of people are studied, the tendency is for people to progress from less rules to more, from informal rules to formalized rules, from informal enforcement mechanisms to formalized procedures.

Imagine if you actually created an anarchic “state”. What would you expect to happen over time? Alliances would form. People would band together for safety or power. Eventually, you would have some person or group in charge, based either on physical power or economic power.

Libertarians generally acknowledge that the exercise of government is the exercise of power. We also tend to believe that exercises of power generally result in some form of tyranny. For that reason, we define the minimum functions that government should perform and endeavor to restrict government to using its power for those functions only.

A libertarian government is still government, though. It does not have less power, per se, than any other government, and is in no greater danger of dissolving into anarchy. Differences lie in the allowable exercises of government power.

Even among libertarians, you will find a fairly wind range of beliefs about where exactly the line is drawn in terms of government power. I have yet to encounter one, though, who posits a government that is so weak that it could maintain its own power to resist anarchy. Remember that, among those tasks that libertarians believe government should perform are national defense and protection of individuals from attack by others.

-VM

126

Hi Smartass! Nice to see you posting again (even if it’s few and far between). Let me whip up some good liberal indignation before you really get going again, though, 'kay? :wink:
[end of highjack]

127

You mean, it could slide down a slippery slope?

Yer pal,
Satan - Commissioner, The Teeming Minions

*I HAVE BEEN SMOKE-FREE FOR:
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*“I’m a big Genesis fan.”-David B. (Amen, brother!) **

128

Satan

Nice perception, thanks.

All

I just found out that I will be working this weekend, which will likely delay publication of “The Vandal” for another week. I’m sorry for that. (I did expect a greater workload after my promotion to Senior Vice President, just not quite this much this soon.) I do work on it when I get time, and since I am a Melancholy, I require utter concentration for it. I promise I will not delay beyond necessity. Thanks for your patience.

129

Okay, Phaedrus!

:: d, c & r ::

Yer pal,
Satan - Commissioner, The Teeming Minions

*I HAVE BEEN SMOKE-FREE FOR:
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Extra life with Drain Bead: 3 weeks, 1 day, 4 hours, 10 minutes.

*“I’m a big Genesis fan.”-David B. (Amen, brother!) **

130

Should a property-owner be allowed to sell for a profit any archaeological artifacts or paleontological fossils he should find on his land, thereby depriving scientists and historians the opportunity to study them and learn something about our past?

I say no.

131

jab1: *Should a property-owner be allowed to sell for a profit any archaeological artifacts or paleontological fossils he should find on his land, thereby depriving scientists and historians the opportunity to study them and learn something about our past? *

Does it have to be an either/or proposition, jabster? Speaking as a historian, I have no objection to a property-owner’s selling artifacts from his own property, as long as he gives researchers the opportunity to study them first, or builds into the contract of sale the provision that researchers shall be given access to study the object(s). (I cunningly note that this is often a very shrewd move for the seller or subsequent owner, as the market value of an object generally skyrockets if respected researchers think it’s important. Think of the recent sale of the Archimedes palimpsest—how much of the huge sale price was due to all the publicity about historians saying this was the most important mathematical find of the century and it was vitally necessary to study it, etc. etc. etc.?)

132

jab1 asks:

Are you proposing that eminent domain be applied to all finds of scientific interest, or are you asking that property owners be required to allow access of any interested scientists into their property, and confiscation of items? I find it hard to justify either approach.

This is differently phrased but related to the question posed by oldscratch in this thread: Fossils and Profit. Side note. Libertarianism, where many of the legal and philosophical ramifications were discussed.

133

Oh, and water, you mentioned the “negative income tax”, as a system better than our current one. We already have a “negative income tax”, it is the EITC, which altho sorta small for singles, is BIG money for folks with kids & low incomes. And, water, I am still waiting for some explanation of how HK is even sorta libt.
We are still awaiting the “hypothetical Libertaria” we were promised, and an explanation about those residents who do not sign the “contract”, and thus “opt out”.

134

I am going to take a moment here before work begins.

Number one, I promised nothing to you, Daniel. Nothing. Zip. Nada. Zilch. The story I am writing is for the benefit of Lissener. Not you. Let’s make that plain up front. Were it for you, I would not bother to take on the task at all. So, if you include yourself in the “we” that is waiting on the short story, you can go on and nip at ankles elsewhere.

Second, with regard to your “opt out” question, I am reminded of the guy who came to the board recently and thought he’d posted the “ultimate question”. And when we clicked the thread, it was the stupid moronic God-and-the-Rock thing. Like him, you might think that in the history of libertarian thinking, no one, not Lao Tsu, not Aristotle, not von Mises, not Jefferson, not Bastiat, not Locke — not any friggin’ body — has ever posed the question you ask. You have no doubt assumed that the mind of Daniel has conceived the death-knell that will bring centuries of thought by history’s greatest thinkers to its knees.

Bzzzzzt. Thank you for playing anyway.

Not only has that question been addressed here at SDMB numerous times, as a cursory search of libertarian threads in Great Debates will show, but the question is a naive one with a simple answer. You “asked”:

It … is … a … {{{** CONTRACT }}}. It is like any other contract. When its term expires, you need not renew. If the other party breaches the contract, it is nullified. If there never was a contract, then none exists. That is the nature of {{{ CONSENT** }}}. You may withhold it if you wish, but once you have given it, you are bound by its terms. It is most distressing having to explain something so ethically basic.

135

I think I’ve got a moment before I have to go to address Daniel’s whining. Also, thanks Smartass for bringing the Theory of Spontaneous Order into the discussion. Wasn’t the angle I was planning on arguing from, but certainly a good argument.

Anyways, about Hong Kong. I never claimed that it was truly libertarian, just that it was closer than Beirut. I also said exactly why when I made the claim. Because (going slow now) the people… are protected… from force and fraud… to a larger extent. Yeah, there are taxes. I don’t know about you, but I see moderate taxation as less coercive than gangs roaming the streets with guns.

In Hong Kong, people can trade freely with each other. In Beirut, people have no recourse when goons with machine guns steal everything from them. Libertarianism is not about completely maximizing freedom, but depends on the freedom to coerce being severly restricted. The important feature is individual rights. A person retains their rights to be free of force and fraud more in Hong Kong than in Beirut, or the United States for that matter.

136

I’m proposing that we monitor auction houses and websites like eBay to see if anyone is selling anything of scientific value, whether it came from their own property or not. Let’s say someone finds, in his backyard, an artifact from one of the Lost Golden Cities of Cibola (which never really existed, BTW). Instead of allowing archaeologists to study it, he sells the artifact to a gold dealer who either melts it down or turns it into jewelry. If this happens, every party involved should be fined and/or jailed.

(I realize there are laws existing right now for this sort of event. What bothers me is that some people want to do away with these laws using Libertarianism as the reason.)

Now, I have no problem with this fellow selling to a museum at a profit; it’s when it’s sold and destroyed or turned into a doorstop (a paleontologist once found a rare feathered dinosaur fossil that was being used this way) that I get ticked off. It’s selfishness and short-sightedness that I object to and Libertarianism seems designed to reward those deplorable human traits.

Personal note: My father and his brother, brother-in-law and mutual friend used to drive their pick-up trucks and motorcycles to west Texas, to a privately-owned ranch down-river from Big Bend National Park for camping trips. One of the things they used to do down there was pick up arrowheads and spearpoints which were everywhere. The ranch-owner had given them permission to do this, so it was okay in a legal sense, but I wonder now (they took their last trip before I turned thirteen) if they shouldn’t have left them where they were and notified archaeologists what they had found. (They also found several caves with smoke on the ceiling, indicating that the long-gone natives had often used them for shelter.) I wonder what knowledge was lost because they had taken those artifacts.

I’m halfway through it. I may post there.

Libertarian, you were very rude to Daniel. If I contract with someone for fire protection and they don’t try to put out a fire, how will they be punished? I think you once mentioned arbitration. How is that better than what we have now?

137

jab1, thanks for your response. I was hoping you’d come back with some more moderate statement, and you did. I agree that some protection must be afforded scientific artifacts (so that they don’t become doorstops or junk jewelry) and that existing laws should be defended against repeal.

Fortunately, the intrinsic and financial value of important finds, particularly those like your hypothetical Cibola artifact, provide a strong incentive to the finder/owner for their preservation. Obviously, this isn’t true in all cases, but my not so HO is that the loss of individual freedoms imposed by more restrictive laws would not be balanced by any noticeable scientific gains. There’ve always been black markets in reaction to such restriction, where the personal gains to violators of the law are just as great as in a free market, but where violence, corruption and other abuses are a necessary part of the market.

I see you’ve posted to 'scratch’s thread!

138

Good lord . . . I can’t believe that proposing throwing people in jail for dispensing as they see fit with items that they find on their own property could be considered “moderate” by any reasonable definition of the word. God help you when otherwise well-meaning people decide there are things of value on your property and in your house that they think they are entitled to.

139

A pure gold nugget is valuable only to whomever legally owns it.

An artifact of pure gold made by a Mayan goldsmith that was worn by his king is valuable to everyone. It’s your history too, even if all your ancestors were European. Studying our history tells us who we are and where we came from and where we might be headed. You cannot intelligently decide where to go if you don’t know where you’ve been.

To keep such an artifact for yourself and allowing no one but your friends and family to view it is the height of selfishness. To sell it to someone who melts it down and turns it into gold bars is greedy and short-sighted and a crime against us all. This has happened to many an artifact.

Those who would sell their history are ignorant fools. (I make an exception for those who are in desperate financial straits, but I have to hope they’ll sell it to the right bidder, who may not necessarily be the highest bidder.)

Those who would sell someone else’s history are thieves.

140

pldennison, I was a little confused with your last post, until I re-read my own post, which certainly makes it look like I agree with the “fines or jail” suggestion made by jab1. I should really learn to edit myself better; I merely meant to compliment his willingness to debate the issue without acrimony.

Although I agree totally with jab1’s contention that scientifically significant finds should enjoy some protection against destruction, I meant to make it clear that I support the existing US laws (which as far as I know deal exclusively with “public” or Federally operated lands), not any draconian measures criminalizing the exploitation by private individuals of artifacts found on their own land.

I would be in favor of some restrictions on the private sale of archaeological/paleontological artifacts, but only so far as these restrictions can be shown to effectively promote scientific study, rather than pointlessly abridging individual property rights.

jab1, just to be clear:

I agree unreservedly. However:

[ul][li]Selfishness, greed and stupidity aren’t illegal.[]As I and others have pointed out, melting down a gold artifact into ingots significantly decreases its value, an economic incentive against destruction that is probably much more effective than legal prohibitions against it.[]Could you provide some cites regarding the estimated number of artifacts destroyed for gold content in modern times? (i.e. a few centuries post-Cortez :wink: )[/ul][/li]
jab1, human history does indeed belong to all of us. Historical artifacts, on the other hand, have another set of moral and ethical connections, many of which admittedly have to do with cultural/anthropological value, but others of which also have to do with personal property and individual liberty.