I guess instead of typing it all over again, I should just post this link here:
https://steemit.com/government/@larkenrose/can-we-trust-the-market
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I guess instead of typing it all over again, I should just post this link here:
https://steemit.com/government/@larkenrose/can-we-trust-the-market
I read your post and while it's vaguely on-point, it in no way demonstrates or explains that what you are advocating is not utopian. You try to explain why you think it's moral. The question I asked you is why you think it's feasible in the way you describe it. And as you said, we did make it personal, I gave you some very specific examples and I haven't gotten a convincing answer yet.
Let me answer the questions paragraph of your post here:
Contracts, not infringing on other people's rights, rule of law, punishment for crimes and the taxes necessary to make that happen. Of course the word force is overly-emotional in this case.
In the cases when you want to spend it to illegally harm others. Like a business venture that would pollute everybody's water, you hiring an assassin to kill me, or knowingly buying a stolen item to name a few.
The above. Or fraudulent ones where you want to defraud other people.
In none.
You keep bringing up examples of things that harm people, and talk about using force to stop that. "Government" is NEVER limited to such defensive force. It ALWAYS uses immoral aggression, in the name of "taxation" and "legislation" and "regulation." When someone commits force or fraud, ANYONE has the right to do what it takes to stop that. It doesn't take politician scribbles ("laws") or special "authority" to make it justified. If you really meant your final answer to that final question, you are ALREADY a voluntaryist, and don't know it.
What is the difference between the government claiming to use defensive force and actually using excessive force and individuals or private organizations doing that under free market anarchy?
I keep bringing examples and you keep deciding on not addressing them.
And what happens? Everybody would agree on what was right and wrong? Rightful violence between people until market equilibrium? I keep asking how do you solve that practically and you keep telling me that ANYONE has the right to solve that problem. I find zero practicality in your answer. That's why I remain convinced that your position is utopian. I don't find it immoral, I find it *unfeasible.
The difference--the ONLY difference--THE difference--that makes ALL the difference ... is that "government" is imagined to have rights that you and I do NOT. It is imagined to have the moral right to INITIATE VIOLENCE in situations where normal people have no such right. In short, the belief in "government" and political "authority" is the belief that some people should be ALLOWED to do what would be universally recognized as IMMORAL if anyone else did it.
Now try to explain to me how any of the scenarios you brought up would be improved by giving some people societal permission to use immoral violence.
I apologize for the hugely belated reply, but I decided to finally come back to this discussion.
As I said before, the idea that humans could coexists with no organization, no violence at all and no coercion is utopian. It can be morally superior on every single level, but if it is impossibe to implement, it remains an non-viable idea. That's what makes it an utopia in my book. It simply cannot work like that as just a few bad actors can get it out of whack.
Having government is not perfect, but I do think it's moral to have them as they provide a better state of being with lower amounts of violence and harm than anarchy would. My assertion here is that if there is no legal system, there would be more violence. The Wild West had less government and it was more violent.
The thing with government is that it shouldn't be just any government, it should be a democracy with proper laws.
"What is the difference between the government claiming to use defensive force and actually using excessive force and individuals or private organizations doing that under free market anarchy?"
The difference is that the concepts of government and authority try to justify these acts of aggression by calling them "law".
Is there not one solution you can think of, of how this could work without government?
Yes, I don't see a better solution than government that can be expected to be stable. What I usually hear as suggestions are unstable systems that could only work if everybody participating agreed not to abuse them. But this is standard for utopias. Communism would work perfectly if everybody agreed with it and was willing to participate.
No it's not an agreement where everybody needs to agree. It's the absence of the "agreement" that violence can be justified in the name of government or anything else mafia slavery.
It's also not a constitution, or other paper.
But you can believe of course what you want you can advocate for a violence. I just don't believe that they, or you, or I, can legitimately use of violence, to get someone to do what you want or what you want me to pay for..... that's all.
Thanks for the reply :)
I think you are advocating for a situation where anybody would be able to use violence against anybody unchecked. Saying I'm advocating for things I'm not is just twisting my words or inventing things that I'm not saying.
What I'm saying is that you are advocating for an utopia. Sure, an utopia can sound great when you imagine it as a perfect little world, the thing is you just can't really propose a mechanism that would keep that world better even than the imperfect world we live in. I just don't want to advocate for solutions that I don't think could ever be successfully implemented in practice with satisfactory results.
Yeah, it took me only 18 days :/ Still I got to it eventually.
rocking-dave, problems will always exist in any society. It doesn't mean we should force others to solve them for us. If you believe in the concept of government and authority, you believe politicians have the right to coerce others using threats of force if they don't comply with the politicians' laws.
None of this is what I'm saying.
When did I say a society without problems is possible? What I'm saying is that even mediocre democratic government provides more solutions to problems than anarchy.
I love it when somebody else tells me what I believe ;) But nope.
I understand why people find voluntarism morally desirable. What I don't understand is why they think it's feasible or why would you expect to have more real freedom under that than under contemporary democracy. I mentioned at least crucial benefits that having some form of organization allows. I keep asking how those would emerge from a free market, but my questions keep falling on deaf ears.
Instead I get explanations how one of its basic principles is supposedly moral. That by no means demonstrates that the idea is not utopian. To show that something is not utopian you need to somehow demonstrate or at least hint at a mechanism that could make it happen well in practice. That's the piece of the puzzle that has me unconvinced.
This is patently false: "even mediocre democratic government provides more solutions to problems than anarchy." Democratic governments--in fact, democratically-elected constitutional republics--commit more oppression, robbery and murder than any other institution in the history of the world. Right NOW you are robbed far more by the state than by anyone else. You have been taught to believe that "government" keeps people civilized, but that is absolutely 100% bullshit. The ONLY thing the belief in "authority" adds to society is more IMMORAL violence, and the legitimization of that violence.
I hope you didn't really mean that literally. I'm sure feudal societies offered so much more freedom to peasants than today's world. Or societies where most people were slaves. Or the human-sacrificing crazy religious ones. Or North Korea. How can you even say that?
The assertion that taxation is violence is almost as large of an exaggeration as what you wrote above.
Taxation is theft under threat of violence. The more you resist it the higher the violence becomes.
If you don't believe that stop paying "your" taxes and guess what happens:
Outcome 2 is the most likely.
As to the quoted bit I'd be inclined to agree with it. Feudal regimes that became too over bearing were overthrown. Modern people are so conditioned that they don't believe taxation is theft under threat of violence... and so the oppression will get a lot worse before enough people decide that enough is enough.
Taxation can be theft or violence if you claim that all the government-issued paper you manage to get your hands on in the context of said government is legitimately and naturally yours. That's not that easy of a case to make decisively I think.
When living in a society, you are indeed forced to cooperate and that's inevitable. Taxation in the context of democracy is the best practical model we have so far. If we get a better one, I would love to get rid of it. I don't like my taxes going into the pockets of corrupt politicians either. Just explain to me how we get rid of it all and end up with something better.
If you claim that modern people are less free and more oppressed than feudal peasants, I really don't know what to say. I'm sorry to put it so bluntly, but that's ridiculous.