Yahoo pushes idea of white, male, heterosexual, and non-disabled privilege..

Originally posted by Scribble
The thing is, I'm starting to feel like a truly "free market" is becoming the same kind of thing as "real communism has never been tried." Humans just aren't very good at transposing complicated ideas into actual positive change, there are too many variables.

That said, I am not particularly economically learned and so getting into the nitty-gritty of how markets work isn't my forte.

👆

https://mises.org/wire/libertarianism-utopian

I posted this in my response to artol, but was afraid you'd miss it there.

Libertarianism isnt complex tho. It's three axioms, then the implications that follow.

Non aggression principle, which means force is illegitimate and deontologically immoral.

Action/corroboration via contract.

And freedom of association.

The state is the biggest violator of all three

Originally posted by Artol
I see mere [b]property rights as unjust, as they vastly privilege those who were born earlier and those who have through whatever means accumulated a lot of property. That's why I believe we have to have mechanisms to make the distribution of property (or wealth or capital, however you want to call it) more equal. I also think we need to work to create equal opportunities that the market mechanism are unable to provide.

I agree on the constitution, it was written to preserve the property rights of some of the American elites against their competition of some other American elites and English Colonial Interests. That is the case both for Southern Slave holders and Northern Merchants and Industrialists. It is a document designed to protect these elites from losing their status and from ensuring that those who do not have property, and the children of those that do not have property, do not threaten the interests of the ruling elite and their property.

All human interaction is in some way force. Force is a reality of human life, and we should decide which types of force we accept and which ones we do not accept, and what mechanisms we have to ensure that our values are preserved. I assume you are a proponent of the non-aggression principle? That is one way to decide which force you see as justified and which not, and that can certainly be part of a more complex set of rules that govern the forces guiding human life.

I don't see a "free market" as free of coercion. If all public land has been privatized, if your only option for survival is to sell your labor, that is not a free choice, that is a form of force, a form of coercion. If you want to get closer to a free market you should develop something that gives people similar amounts of bargaining power, that puts them in positions where they can really assert their own free will, rather than having a fake choice between doing what the more powerful actor demands or suffering immense consequences like starvation and death. [/B]

I feel like I better understand your view of property from our tangent. It seems mostly right, but you don't view them as absolute, which I adamantly disagree with. But that's okay enough to learn from each other.

You're right about the constitution, your opinion is almost the exact same as the great libertarian albert jay nock. He was part of the old right with h.l. Mencken, among others. He pointed the finger mostly at the existence of the state, because the mercantilists couldn't have tapped that power without the legislative infrastructure of the state.

How could non coercion work in any other way than the NAP ? Interested to hear that, as I've yet to come across a good answer. Calling things complex is not an argument.

Existence can't be called coercive without drastic personification. Life is cold and neutral, which is why humans devised of civilization, which arose waaaaaaaay before nation states ever did.

If an entrepreneur takes the enormous risk of starting a business that is profitable to pay others under contract, and people sign this contract without coercion or duress then this is legitimate.

The worker signing up to work has other options, like violence, but thee worker realizes being a criminal is costly. So if anything working under contract abstains from violence on both ends of the contract. The entrepreneur can abstain from being a slaver and the worker from being a violent scoundrel.

Everyone implicitly recognizes that the division of labor is more collectively beneficial than being violent. The only reason violent criminality exists now is because the state criminalizes certain things like drugs, which causes a black market. If you don't understand the connection between black markets and violent crime see the prohibition and how organized crime i.e. the mafia, organized around it. (We'll leave the kennedys out of it lol !)

The only bargaining power a man has, without using force against others, is by his ability to provide value to others.

Some can widdle a trinket, some can organize multi million dollar businesses. Society needs them all. The state parasitizes society. Less us excise the parasite, instead of treating it.

Originally posted by Scribble
The thing is, I'm starting to feel like a truly "free market" is becoming the same kind of thing as "real communism has never been tried." Humans just aren't very good at transposing complicated ideas into actual positive change, there are too many variables.

That said, I am not particularly economically learned and so getting into the nitty-gritty of how markets work isn't my forte.

👆

Let's go by definitions.

Socialism = control of the means of production via democracy of workers voting on how to allocate resources.

Communism = a state or state apparatus controlling the means of production.

Both are impossible to achieve because they fail at cost calculation, which can only be achieved in a social order determined by the division of labor with freedom of association. That means each individual is able to make any consumer choice they want. Each h individual choice updates and changes the entire pricing matrix. This is good because constantly updated data is accurate.
The pricing matrix determined by consumer choices is how people with capital allocate resources for production.

For example, it would be dumb to make 100,000 tons of staples if there wasn't a demand for it. The resources used to make the staples would be a loss for everyone.
This type of blind production is the only possible way for a centralized economy to behave.

Therefore, almost every economy on the planet is socialist/communist/fascist/ state capitalist economy.
There is no such thing as a mixed economy, either the consumer is sovereign, or not.
This means a commie who says that real communism has never happened is using a no true scotsman fallacy.

I already posted an example of an anarchistic country ala Somalia.

If we look at the mass ideological movements of the 20th century, the common thread is a hyper powerful centralized governments. Every case ended in disaster.

No private company has ever come close to the savagery committed by States. The common argument against getting rid of the state is a company, like amazon, using unmonopolized force.
Well if unmonopolized force is undesirable, why is it not obvious monopolized force is even less desirable ?

This is a rap battle between mises and marx and I thought it could bring a little levity. It makes me laugh anyways.

https://youtu.be/QwqnRYPcrl0

Originally posted by ilikecomics
This is a rap battle between mises and marx and I thought it could bring a little levity. It makes me laugh anyways.

https://youtu.be/QwqnRYPcrl0

That's funny, and very well produced. I think it's also really indicative of the way that people talk past each other and simplify the arguments of who they think are their opponents. There's really so much agreement between both sides on a lot of things, but fervent proponents can often not see it.

Originally posted by Artol
That's funny, and very well produced. I think it's also really indicative of the way that people talk past each other and simplify the arguments of who they think are their opponents. There's really so much agreement between both sides on a lot of things, but fervent proponents can often not see it.

I agree. That's what I was trying to combat with the steelman thread. People want security and a chance for upward mobility, mostly.

Originally posted by ilikecomics
I agree. That's what I was trying to combat with the steelman thread. People want security and a chance for upward mobility, mostly.

Originally posted by Artol
Yeah, like a lot of people just look at their situation in relatively simple ways, and just want things for them and their family to get better. They don't really care for the systemic reasons for why they are in a comparatively bad (or good) situation,

That's where I am. It's also why I like libertarianism, it's simple.

Yeah, I guess that was similar for me. I feel like having learned a bit more about history of politics has made it hard to ignore the power imbalances though, which is why I have moved much more left. I still value freedom extremely highly, I just think my previous idea of how to achieve it was not realistic, and you need a complex set of checks and balances to ensure that the most amount of freedom is available to the largest number of people.

Originally posted by Artol
Yeah, I guess that was similar for me. I feel like having learned a bit more about history of politics has made it hard to ignore the power imbalances though, which is why I have moved much more left. I still value freedom extremely highly, I just think my previous idea of how to achieve it was not realistic, and you need a complex set of checks and balances to ensure that the most amount of freedom is available to the largest number of people.

Have you read human action or liberalism by von mises ?

P.s.

What historical facts were most informative for you ???

I've not read first hand sources by von Mises, I have read a lot of the writing of the Mises Institute when I was a Libertarian.

There's a lot of things that are very informative, if you are interested in US History, I would suggest Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, it goes over a fair amount of it. But generally also the excesses of private enterprises and how they have used their power (both directly as well as through instituting or co-opting the governemnt). The historic rise of the large capitalist nations we know and how it is deeply linked with colonialism. Also the fact that, contrary to what is claimed now, free trade has never made any country wealthy, rather the opposite, all the countries that we now know as wealthy, were deeply protectionist as they invested in their own economy (the British Empire and the United States foremost), while forcing smaller and weaker countries to adopt "free trade policies" that are hurtful to their economies. It's sort of a weaponization of Ricardo's comparative advantage. If you are interested in that kinda stuff, the (capitalist) economist Ha-Joon Chang wrote a very good book Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade.

Originally posted by Artol
I've not read first hand sources by von Mises, I have read a lot of the writing of the Mises Institute when I was a Libertarian.

There's a lot of things that are very informative, if you are interested in US History, I would suggest Howard Zinn's [b]A People's History of the United States, it goes over a fair amount of it. But generally also the excesses of private enterprises and how they have used their power (both directly as well as through instituting or co-opting the governemnt). The historic rise of the large capitalist nations we know and how it is deeply linked with colonialism. Also the fact that, contrary to what is claimed now, free trade has never made any country wealthy, rather the opposite, all the countries that we now know as wealthy, were deeply protectionist as they invested in their own economy (the British Empire and the United States foremost), while forcing smaller and weaker countries to adopt "free trade policies" that are hurtful to their economies. It's sort of a weaponization of Ricardo's comparative advantage. If you are interested in that kinda stuff, the (capitalist) economist Ha-Joon Chang wrote a very good book Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade. [/B]

What are some examples of a private Enterprise using it's power, without the state ?

Originally posted by ilikecomics
What are some examples of a private Enterprise using it's power, without the state ?

Pinkerton strike breakers in the 19th Century.
Chiquita funding and using paramilitary death squads in Colombia
The occupation of India by the East India Company

But it is of course hard to separate things that companies did alone, without using state structures, because our world is made up of states or state like apparatuses, and that's something we do have to acknowledge, that doesn't absolve companies for their actions though.

Originally posted by Artol
Pinkerton strike breakers in the 19th Century.
Chiquita funding and using paramilitary death squads in Colombia
The occupation of India by the East India Company

But it is of course hard to separate things that companies did alone, without using state structures, because our world is made up of states or state like apparatuses, and that's something we do have to acknowledge, that doesn't absolve companies for their actions though.

Do you acknowledge that those companies wouldn't act the same way, due to different incentive structures, if the state were completely disolved ?

Originally posted by ilikecomics
Do you acknowledge that those companies wouldn't act the same way, due to different incentive structures, if the state were completely disolved ?

Of course, I expect we would disagree how they would act differently, I believe companies would act worse if they didn’t even have the small chains of the state that decades of labor and social activism has put on them. In fact I believe they would soon develop state like structures that solely serve their interests.

@artol (quote function broke)

what do you think the difference between a monopolization of force is vs. an entity/organization/individual with force ?

I think the monopoly on violence (as it is usually called on the literature) is a legal fiction to justify certain power structure and give a semi moral explanation for them. In the best case it is a realistic implementation of the non-aggression principle, in the worst case it’s a justification for corrupt, unjust and violent actors.

The best case scenario always shifts to the worst case scenario, empirically.
Do you disagree ?

Yes, I disagree, things can and do shift in both directions (taking my personal understanding of good and bad, of course)

Originally posted by Artol
Yes, I disagree, things can and do shift in both directions (taking my personal understanding of good and bad, of course)

Give an example of:

1.) Small gov. That stayed small.

P.s. I meant to ask, not tell.

2.) Big gov. That became small.

P.s.s. a little drunk and struggling