Slashdot Mirror

So when has the anarcho-utopia existed?

The libertarian society of Ireland, which lasted for a thousand years — and which will be described further below — was able to resist English conquest for hundreds of years because of the absence of a State which could be conquered easily and then used by the conquerors to rule over the native population.

[...]

The most remarkable historical example of a society of libertarian law and courts, however, has been neglected by historians until very recently. And this was also a society where not only the courts and the law were largely libertarian, but where they operated within a purely state-less and libertarian society. This was ancient Ireland — an Ireland which persisted in this libertarian path for roughly a thousand years until its brutal conquest by England in the seventeenth century. And, in contrast to many similarly functioning primitive tribes (such as the Ibos in West Africa, and many European tribes), preconquest Ireland was not in any sense a "primitive" society: it was a highly complex society that was, for centuries, the most advanced, most scholarly, and most civilized in all of Western Europe.

For a thousand years, then, ancient Celtic Ireland had no State or anything like it. As the leading authority on ancient Irish law has written: "There was no legislature, no bailiffs, no police, no public enforcement of justice . . . . There was no trace of State-administered justice."

How then was justice secured? The basic political unit of ancient Ireland was the tuath. All "freemen" who owned land, all professionals, and all craftsmen, were entitled to become members of a tuath. Each tuath's members formed an annual assembly which decided all common policies, declared war or peace on other tuatha, and elected or deposed their "kings." An important point is that, in contrast to primitive tribes, no one was stuck or bound to a given tuath, either because of kinship or of geographical location. Individual members were free to, and often did, secede from a tuath and join a competing tuath. Often, two or more tuatha decided to merge into a single, more efficient unit. As Professor Peden states, "the tuath is thus a body of persons voluntarily united for socially beneficial purposes and the sum total of the landed properties of its members constituted its territorial dimension."10 In short, they did not have the modern State with its claim to sovereignty over a given (usually expanding) territorial area, divorced from the landed property rights of its subjects; on the contrary, tuatha were voluntary associations [p. 232] which only comprised the landed properties of its voluntary members. Historically, about 80 to 100 tuatha coexisted at any time throughout Ireland.

http://mises.org/rothbard/newlibertywhole.asp

It lasted 1000 years.

Please prove that property rights are innate.

Prove it to yourself:

http://mises.org/rothbard/ethics/ethics.asp

So is child slavery OK as long as the parents agree?

Being forced to send your child to a school is Child Slavery, do you approve of it? Do you believe that because a majority thinks it is appropriate, that confers legitimacy upon it?

The ownership of children is revolting and completely wrong (in my opinion) - both by the State or parents.

Then you grasp the fundamental problem. SOMEONE has to be responsible for children. What you have to decide is who you think should be responsible, the State or parents, and then you have to say why.

If you say the State, then you have to explain why such a violent idea is morally correct.

Children have rights. If the parents are unable or unwilling to provide them, the State empowered by the People should provide them. Education is one of the rights, as decided by consensus.

You do not know what rights are or where they come from. If you did, you could not say, for example, that not sending your child to school is removing rights from children, or that children have a 'right to education at school'.

Children do not have rights that are separate and distinct from the rights that all men have. The UN is responsible for creating this fallacious idea of 'Children's Rights' which is nothing more than a means of getting access to children so that they can be controlled in law.

The state is not "empowered by the people" this is brainwashing and rote repetition of the programming people get in Schools. Rights are not conferred or created by consensus, the UN, legislature or anything else.

Please provide the source of the One True Morality. Until then, there is no reason to believe that morality is anything but subjective to each person and therefore such judgments of value are meaningless.

If all morality is subjective, then you cannot claim that it is wrong for people to do harm to one another, since it is only the perspective of the individual that is the basis of morality, This is pure autism, "Only I am real, only what I know is true. Other people are not real, they feel nothing; only my feelings are real" etc.

Inflation stimulates malinvestment. I don't have space in this post but if you are interested read http://mises.org/resources/694/Americas-Great-Depression. It goes into what i think is a convincing examination of booms and busts.

What drives sustainable investment is savings. This should seem pretty basic. Look at a village of a dozen farmers. Say they produce just enough to feed everyone. Now say they want to produce a plow to make it easier for them. You can either decide to work harder to save enough food to feed everyone while that person is building the plow or have everyone go with less that year. Either way (earning more/consuming less) you are saving. Once the plow is built than production increases so you can produce more food with less people.

Inflation would be the example of someone saying that there will be plenty of food and you should start building the plow now. You start building the plow but eventually you realize that there wont be enough food. You have been eating the same as before so you either can try to continue building the plow but you have to REALLY cut back on your consumption or abandon the plow and start hunting or gathering for the rest of the year to survive.

This is exactly what inflation causes at a larger scale in the real world. You have to save before you invest. If you inflate you just cause producers to shift from consumer goods to capital goods with the assumption that the increased demand is real when it isn't.

It would be convenient if you were right, but you've confused correlation with causation. There were a great number of inventions and innovations over the past 400 years that were not in any realm involving intellectual property or we placed in the public domain by their invetors: sanitary sewers, the corporation, scientific method, the modern democratic republic, rotation of crops, pasteurization, immunizations (Salk asked, "Would you patent the sun?" when asked about patenting his Polio vaccine), and penicillin (here's the full stoy) all have much more to do with today's life expectancy than do intellectual property laws. One could make the case that today's intellectual property laws are reducing lifespans by making the cost of life extending medications for diseases like AIDS, certain cancers or Multiple Sclerosis (1yr supply averages over $50,000) out of reach of all but the wealthy. Of course, that's not convenient when you are trying to justify greed as a way of life, so we'll just ignore it.

Here is a great book http://mises.org/books/against.pdf against intellectual property laws.

I am a believer in natural law theory. This basically means there are laws that govern how humans interact with each other just like those that we describe with physics. The goal of human law should be to work with those laws.

There is a natural intellectual monopoly that goes with any discovery. When a new product is first created it isn't obvious if it will be successful. It is only after it is successful do others want to copy it. This gives the creator a natural monopoly in which they can be the only seller. Also what is interesting is that unlike our legal monopoly the natural one adjusts based on how advanced the discovery is. Something that is obvious like the one click buy button can be instantly copied. But a new piece of hardware that is a generation more advanced might take competitors years to reverse engineer and gear up for fabrication

What do you think of this?
    http://mises.org/Community/forums/p/16118/325657.aspx
"So I would say NO, Japan was not justified in attacking the USA over the USA refusing to sell Japan oil or steel or other stuff.
    It is sad that the Rosevelt Administration refused to speak to the son of the Emperor of Japan who was carrying a deal with the USA that Japan would withdraw from China if the USA would continue the previous trade relationship. The worst part is in the opportunity cost: Mankind would have been saved 2 cities destroyed by atom bombs. Hundreds of cities destroyed by bombing and fire, 1700 Americans on the Arizona, countless innocents in the Pacific Islands and China being killed by bullets, bombs and disease, China going commie, etc."

Or this?
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_reparations#Impact_on_the_German_economy
"The economic problems that the payments brought, and German resentment at their imposition are usually cited as one of the more significant factors that led to the end of the Weimar Republic and the beginning of the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler."

Although others disagree with that.

History is pretty complex... This is not to defend expansionist wars of conquest that both Japan and Germany engaged in. As well as the USA at various times (Mexico, Canada, the Philippines, etc.).

The bottom line -- Germany could have prospered if it had turned its ingenuity inward to make Germany work for all its people. Similarly, to use nuclear energy to fight in wars created by people fighting over a perceived scarcity of oil is very ironic.

Or do our libertarian-capitalist feelings outweigh our anti-Microsoft ones on slashdot now?

I'm not sure I see much libertarianism in Microsoft. Or capitalism for that matter. Microsoft wouldn't exist as it is without government enforced intellectual property, which is inherently un-libertarian.

To see why read this: http://mises.org/journals/jls/15_2/15_2_1.pdf

I used to think similar things. But I kept seeing how the system was being abused. I read the following book Against intellectual Property. As one would expect this book is public domain. It gives examples from history and ideas for the future about how creative people can still make money without intellectual property rights. Thing food and clothing. Recipes and designs cannot be copyrighted. Yet these industries thrive and the creative people make money inspire of copies. The one part of intellectual property the author finds the sleast offensive is trademarks. Copying a trade mark is akin to fraud since you are claiming the product you made is made by another company.

http://mises.org/journals/jls/15_2/15_2_1.pdf

Libertarians who give the matter serious thought in the modern era should probably oppose imaginary property, see http://mises.org/against.pdf

Did you ever hear about the time that one brand of doctoring felt threatened, and formed a lobby to make their competition illegal?

The lobby is still alive today. It's known as the "American Medical Association". Many of the competing philosophies have disappeared, or are completely marginalized, even though the therapies they used were vastly superior to the treatments that were then-advocated by the American Medical Association: bloodletting and quicksilver (mercury).

In the 1840's, 1850's, anyone could set up as a doctor. There were hundreds of medical schools. Some were good, some were okay, some were diploma-mills. In the early 1900's, the AMA got some help from the Carnegie foundation to form standards for medical education. This was after they'd successfully lobbied for state licensing laws.

This is the classic analogy about asking the fox to design fortifications for the hen house. The Carnegie foundation's goals were to concentrate wealth and power. Half the medical schools in the country closed due to the Flexner Report. Mr. Flexner was NOT a doctor, and didn't know anything about medical education. He was just a tool for the Foundation. Today doctors spend years learning about conditions and diseases, what to prescribe and how to do surgery. They also spend a week or two learning about the biochemistry of nutrition. They learn how to use their hands for diagnostics, but hands can be used to heal too (massage, ostepathic manipulation, etc).

The Osteopathic profession survived the Great Medical Purge, and during those flu outbreaks in 1918 or so, allopathic hospitals killed their patients by medicating fevers away and mixing flu patients with everyone else, while the Osteopathic hospitals made special sick wards, did their hands-on treatments, and allowed the fever as the body's natural defensive mechanisms. Osteopathic hospitals lost a handful of patients, but they were much more survivable than the AMA's death-houses, whose doctors were trained by the Carnegie Foundation.

There's a good link or two on that wikipedia page. I like 'How the Cost-Plus System Evolved': Part I Part II Part III.

100 Years of Medical Robbery has a really nice overview too.

Diabetes is something you're never cured from. No matter what such and such a diet might say, it may greatly improve things, but the diabetes is still there.

There is no pill to cure diabetes. But a good "acupuncturist" can balance the body's energy systems well enough to make it a complete non-issue (when combined with personal self-healing initiatives, like changes in diet and activity levels). And stopping the lipid-peroxidation chain reaction (which is caused by the great 20th-century switch in dietary fats from animal-sources to seed-oil) helps too.

Doctors are very smart people, but their education is tailored to make them servants to the pharmaceutical industry. There are better options than pills, for all chronic conditions (emphasis on CHRONIC - drugs are great in an emergency), but all the best health options are marginalized because they're relatively cheap.

The truth is that the monopolies were created decades before the theory was formalized by intervention-minded economists, who then used the theory a s a n ex post rationale for government intervention. Atthe time when the first government franchise monopolies were being granted, the large majority of economists understood t h a t large-scale,capital intensive production did not lead to monopoly, but was a n absolutely desirable aspect of the competitive process.

The theory of natural monopoly is also a-historical. There is no evidence of the "natural monopoly" story ever having been carried out-of one producer achieving lower long-run average total costs than everyone else in the industry and thereby establishing a permanent monopoly. As discussed below, in many of the so-called public utility industries of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, there were often literally dozens of competitors.

There is no evidence a t all that a t the outset of public utility regulation there existed any such phenomenon as a "natural monopoly." As Harold Demsetz has pointed out:Six electric light companies were organized in the one year of 1887in New York City. Forty-five electric light enterprises had the legal right to operate in Chicago in 1907. Prior to 1895, Duluth, Minnesota,was served by five electric lighting companies, and Scranton, Pennsylvania, had four in 1906. . . . During the latter part of the nineteenth century, competition was the usual situation in the gas industry in this country. Before 1884, six competing companies were operatingin New York City . . . competition was common and especially persistent in the telephone industry . . . Baltimore, Chicago, Cleveland, Columbus, Detroit, Kansas City, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Pitts-burgh, and St. Louis, among the larger cities, had at least two telephone services in 1905.14

https://www.mises.org/journals/rae/pdf/RAE9_2_3.PDF

Plus you argument if we were to accept it, would only really hold for the last mile. Over the long distances railroads will gladly rent their right of way to cables, and there are several methods of laying cables deep enough underground that you would never notice it went under your property unless you were told it did. Especially with TCP/IP where redirection, NAT, and proxy can be done almost transparently. The last mile could even be a cooperative based on wireless mesh making clever use of directed antennae charging a small fee to cover equipment cost, and then charging per gigabyte (based on competitive bidding of high level providers), perhaps even offering credits for opting into certain types of advertisement . And even then without government intervention you would see homes and neighborhoods built in such a way to minimize cost of infrastructure. Perhaps a single meta-conduit which would be rented by utilities for space or whose cost would be split according to how many systems you had running into your home, how far each had to run to a source or hub, and how much space each service took up in the big pipe. It's just one possibility of several and perhaps dozens. There are plenty of solution if those damn bureaucrats would just let it lie.

Your criticism of damage to public property such as roads, is an argument against public roads, not against direct competition of utilities. It's only a problem because there is no good way to internalize the the costs and delays of adding such infrastructure over and on public property.

Once AT&T's initial patents expired in 1893, dozens of competitors sprung up. "By the end of 1894 over 80 new independent competitors had already grabbed 5 percent of total market share . . . after the turn of the century, over 3,000 competitors existed.55In some states there were over 200 telephone companies operating simultaneously. By 1907, AT&T's competitors had captured 51 percent of the telephone market and prices were being driven sharp

Under natural law, you typically only own that which is limited, in such a way you can control its use exclusively. But what about ideas? They aren't limited resources, anyone can create their own instance of an idea, an invention, a writing... http://mises.org/daily/5108/Ideas-Free-and-Unfree-A-Book-Commentary [mises.org]

My disdain for libertarians only seems to deepen the more I hear from them. This is the same website that promotes legalizing drunk driving (http://mises.org/daily/2343). Also, if this viewpoint were actually followed, it means everyone can sell anything - this isn't about free/web-based piracy, but it's about mega-corporations being allowed to print up all the books, movies, software, etc that they want and sell them. This is particularly an issue where the physical format is more valuable than the digital version. It also means movie theaters can show whatever they want without paying any movie production company. The reality is that libertarians don't really think about how their laws would actually impact society, they're completely wrapped up in their notions of "rights" with little appreciation for how they affect other people or society. I'd actually like to hear a libertarian explain why governments have a right to tax the public. I actually don't think they could do it. Even taxes collected for the purpose of national defense or roads aren't defensible within the libertarian framework.

Under natural law, you typically only own that which is limited, in such a way you can control its use exclusively. But what about ideas? They aren't limited resources, anyone can create their own instance of an idea, an invention, a writing... http://mises.org/daily/5108/Ideas-Free-and-Unfree-A-Book-Commentary

> "Intellectual property laws are incompatible with Libertarianism."

First, Ayn Rand supported intellectual property.
Second, Libertarians believe a lot of crazy things, so I don't think it's much of a criticism to say "libertarianism disagrees with it". Just the other day, I read an article by a libertarian arguing that drunk driving should be legalized. If you think I'm making that up, then here you go: http://mises.org/daily/2343

Of course the Republicans didn't spend more the past two years, they weren't in power! (Having the house doesn't count, as that's more of a stalemate) Sometimes I get quite amazed at how stupid people in the US really are.

Same here, I too am quite amazed how stupid people in the US are. Obama has only had control over the budget this year. Last year's budget, 2010, was signed into law by Obama's predecessor, Bush. See the blog post Bush’s Huge Budget Numbers Blamed on Obama on Ludwig von Mises Institute website. And in case you want to call it a left wing supporter of Obama, the institute is a Libertarian "academic organization engaged in research and scholarship in the fields of economics, philosophy and political economy" based on the Austrian School of Economics' Ludwig von Mises. As such they support free trade, which Obama opposes. Of course Bush opposed free trade too as has every president since before FDR..

Falcon

http://blog.mises.org/16107/bushs-huge-budget-numbers-blamed-on-obama/

Gee! According to that article, the president writes the budget. And here I though we still followed the Constitution that says CONGRESS controls spending. When did that get amended?

Oh, and for the record, the Democrats controlled Congress for Bush's last two years in office. Unemployment was around 4.4% when Democrats took over both houses. Where is it at now?

HERE is a pretty little chart to help you out.

http://blog.mises.org/16107/bushs-huge-budget-numbers-blamed-on-obama/

Seems like you're damned if you do, damned if you dont...

There are always options, the difference is in who profits.

From the fine slashdot summary:

Propecia ... can make men irreversibly impotent.

From the fine article:

In a small percentage of cases, symptoms persisted even after the medication was stopped.

For those men, "it's a life sentence," said lead researcher Abdulmaged M. Traish, a professor of biochemistry and urology at Boston University School of Medicine.

"No sex. No desire. Potential depression," Traish added.

Translation: taking the drug takes the man's ability to have an erection away. Just stopping the drug isn't enough to restore normal function. There's no way for the pharmaceutical industry to earn $2.5 billion dollars a year on unpatentable nutritional therapy, acupuncture needles, botanicals, etc, so it is better for "Wall Street" to lose a few lawsuits and let men think that they're irreparably damaged than to put a chink in their own armor. (Reference for "Wall Street's" takeover of medical education, which mostly limits doctors' training to drugs & surgery: 100 years of medical robbery).

I have a friend who uses acupuncture points to help men get their woodies back. She is developing several lines of informational products that show how to hold specific points to restore and enhance male sexual function. Her marketing advisor said to get this domain name: Energy Viagra For Long Lasting Sex, that by the time the "blue pill" trademark holder comes after her she'll be famous and won't need to use that domain anymore.

"Energy Viagra" is for impotence... I think her premature ejaculation package is almost done...

Put an email address into the box and she'll be sure to let you know how to order her DVDs. :)

The Myth of Natural Monopoly p.56-57
Unnatural Monopoly: Critical Moments In The Development Of The Bell System Monopoly

That would mean only the established big players can compete/produce.

Not even close. Big established players only can compeat today. It won't take long for a new, smaller, player to be slapped with a lawsuit from those established big players today. Without an army of lawyers it's difficult if not impossible to wade through the patent mine field, and what small business can afford such an army of attorneys?

Because if I invent something with a 10M budget and start producing it, they easily can take my invention and produce it cheaper

Again not quite. As the inventor you have first mover advantage. Big players can take years to turn around and produce something. Big players don't turn on a dime. And if you haven't made improvements in your product by the tyme your competition releases it's own compeating product then you're not progressing.

What would be the point then for me to invent anything?

If the above do not work for you then there's these things called trade secrets. Fabrication businesses already exist that will build or manufacture other businesses products on contract. The Taiwanese business Foxconn builds computers and other electronics for others, Apple contracted with Foxconn to make iPads, iPhones, and iPods. Trade secrets, and contracts, prevent Foxconn from making these and selling them as their own products. I as an inventor could go to Foxconn or another fabricator, have them sign an NDA or Non-disclosure Agreement, and ask them if they can manufacture my product. Then if Foxconn started to sell my invention as their own product I have good grounds to sue and believe I can win.

Now I may not have enough money to file a lawsuit myself but I could find an investor would does have deep pockets. Or better yet again with signed NDAs I can show my invention to angel investors or business incubators. With their assistance I can start manufacturing my product myself.

And all that ignores why patents are granted, yes patents are granted and not a right. According to the Constitution of the USA patents are meant "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;". However economic studies have shown patents impede progress. Yet Another Study Finds Patents Do Not Encourage Innovation. Economists say copyright and patent laws are killing innovation; hurting economy.

Falcon

That would mean only the established big players can compete/produce.

Not even close. Big established players only can compeat today. It won't take long for a new, smaller, player to be slapped with a lawsuit from those established big players today. Without an army of lawyers it's difficult if not impossible to wade through the patent mine field, and what small business can afford such an army of attorneys?

Because if I invent something with a 10M budget and start producing it, they easily can take my invention and produce it cheaper

Again not quite. As the inventor you have first mover advantage. Big players can take years to turn around and produce something. Big players don't turn on a dime. And if you haven't made improvements in your product by the tyme your competition releases it's own compeating product then you're not progressing.

What would be the point then for me to invent anything?

If the above do not work for you then there's these things called trade secrets. Fabrication businesses already exist that will build or manufacture other businesses products on contract. The Taiwanese business Foxconn builds computers and other electronics for others, Apple contracted with Foxconn to make iPads, iPhones, and iPods. Trade secrets, and contracts, prevent Foxconn from making these and selling them as their own products. I as an inventor could go to Foxconn or another fabricator, have them sign an NDA or Non-disclosure Agreement, and ask them if they can manufacture my product. Then if Foxconn started to sell my invention as their own product I have good grounds to sue and believe I can win.

Now I may not have enough money to file a lawsuit myself but I could find an investor would does have deep pockets. Or better yet again with signed NDAs I can show my invention to angel investors or business incubators. With their assistance I can start manufacturing my product myself.

And all that ignores why patents are granted, yes patents are granted and not a right. According to the Constitution of the USA patents are meant "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;". However economic studies have shown patents impede progress. Yet Another Study Finds Patents Do Not Encourage Innovation. Economists say copyright and patent laws are killing innovation; hurting economy.

Falcon

No. Just convince Glen Beck that patents are the spawn of the Devil. Congress will fix this inside of a week.

He shouldn't be far from that position already. Beck is a Libertarian who has advocated a non-interventionist foreign policy and large scale cuts in military spending (which distinguishes him from many on the right), and he seems to favor the Austrian school of economics, which is probably where you'll find the greatest concentration of hostility to the idea of intellectual property.

The anti-IP position isn't universal among Austrians by any means, but see, e.g., Rethinking Intellectual Property: History, Theory, and Economics by Stephan Kinsella for a defense of that position.

Or, better yet, how about licensed radios that actually have some range to them?

Best yet, drop requiring licenses period. Allow the airwaves to be homesteaded. Congress – Stop Selling Our Airwaves!.

Falcon

To add to your post: http://mises.org/books/against.pdf

Coercion by definition is theft (including fraud) or violence or the viable threat of it. A big company refusing to voluntarily agree to extend a contract, or deciding to switch suppliers for an input good isn't coercion, that's raw buying power, and we all have it.

I'm against any intervention that distorts price signals, including variations in the buying power of the dollar, and price fixing of interest rates, which is simply the rent collected from money, that is to say, fixing price of time (and as economics teaches, price fixing causes shortages or surpluses, so doing this to the price of time can only cause such shortages over time, which is to mean a financial bubble).

The likely answer would be yes, but do keep in mind that deregulation is not the same thing as removal of the rule of law. We need rule of law, not arbitrary regulation: http://mises.org/daily/4100

http://mises.org/daily/3682

Maybe IP is just yet another tool that large, established concerns can use to raise entry barriers for new competitors.

Coincidentally, I just read an article today -- Rethinking IP -- that suggests doing away with the concept of IP, entirely:

"We must start by taking a close look at the traditional libertarian assumption that IP is, in fact, a legitimate type of property right. And it turns out that advocates of the free market have made a mistake all along. Patent and copyright, to take the two worst manifestations of IP, are nothing but state monopolies that violate property rights. IP is antithetical to capitalism and the free market."

> That's a common myth: gold-backed currency has "real value" and fiat currency has no "real value".

That's because people don't understand (hyper) inflation or what causes it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimbabwean_dollar

> The thing is: money serves as an exchange medium of value.

Ok, you understand the first meaning of money ...

> Since the usefulness (or value) of gold (or just about anything else physical) depends on many factors, the only sane option is fiat.
... but not the 2nd or 3rd meaning.

With all due respect, you are either insane, an idiot, or ignorant of history. Try google "Local Currency", and research specifically, "LETS", for one.
e.g.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_Exchange_Trading_Systems

Second, read this white paper:
"What Has Government Done to Our Money? " by Murray N. Rothbard
http://mises.org/books/whathasgovernmentdone.pdf

Third, at least watch "The Corporation"
http://www.thecorporation.com/

May I remind you of a famous quote:
    "Permit me to issue and control the money of the nation and I care not who makes its laws. â" Mayer Amsched Rothchild, a prominent European banker in the eighteenth century"

Other links that may be of interest ( I don't particular agree with them, but they do provide some perspectives.)

Money as Debt by Paul Grignon
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279

The Corruption that is Modern Banking - Money as Debt
http://bsalert.com/news/2085/The_Corruption_That_Is_Modern_Banking_Money_As_Debt.html?r3

You don't need fiat currency, and you don't need usary to have an economic model. The only reason economic systems fail is for one reason only: greed.

Until we either have 1 global currancy,

I'm with you. The "Federal Reserve" is a privately owned banking cartel, engineered by banks, for banks. The system is a collossal Ponzi scheme designed to siphon wealth off to bank owners, and (unfortunately) eventually collapse under it's own weight.

Strong claims require strong evidence, right?

1) Go to Google Images and search "federal debt". You will see charts indicating an exponential function, where we currently are in a nearly vertical rise.

2) Next google "federal deficit". This is basically the amount we are behind on our loan payments.

3) If you want some background, here's some interesting reading:

"What Has Government Done to Our Money?" by Murray N. Rothbard
(free download at http://mises.org/money.asp)

"The Creature from Jekyll Island" by G. Edward Griffin
"The Web of Debt" by Ellen Hodgson Brown (I trust the history more than the recommendations)

To paraphrase: Damn it, we paid them for services, we should be able to tell them how to run their business!

The problem with the right of way corridors is that you chose to give them those in the first place rather than make them pay for it and allow others to do the same thing. As for the airways, there was a burgeoning homestead system being developed for airways way back before the government short circuited things.

My introduction to the Flexner Report was 100 Years of Medical Robbery. I don't read mises.org anymore, but that piece is still memorable. I also recommend the followup, Real Medical Freedom.

Read a summary of Voyage from Yesteryear - it sounds interesting. Thanks.

Herbert Shelton, Joel Fuhrman, and Blue Zones?

Not familiar with any of those, sorry. I've read your links, and I have heard of Natural Hygiene before. I had something like lupus, and diet didn't make a difference. From my study of the Cayce material, I decided that I needed to go to an Osteopath, and that was quite helpful for my specific case. The second chapter of Spontaneous Healing has the best introduction to Osteopathic Medicine that I know of. (Most used book stores have a copy - google's preview snips the first page of that chapter. boo, hiss, boo.) Donna Eden's approach to Energy Medicine is also rather successful, and learn-able.

thanks again. :)

-jjk

My introduction to the Flexner Report was 100 Years of Medical Robbery. I don't read mises.org anymore, but that piece is still memorable. I also recommend the followup, Real Medical Freedom.

Read a summary of Voyage from Yesteryear - it sounds interesting. Thanks.

Herbert Shelton, Joel Fuhrman, and Blue Zones?

Not familiar with any of those, sorry. I've read your links, and I have heard of Natural Hygiene before. I had something like lupus, and diet didn't make a difference. From my study of the Cayce material, I decided that I needed to go to an Osteopath, and that was quite helpful for my specific case. The second chapter of Spontaneous Healing has the best introduction to Osteopathic Medicine that I know of. (Most used book stores have a copy - google's preview snips the first page of that chapter. boo, hiss, boo.) Donna Eden's approach to Energy Medicine is also rather successful, and learn-able.

thanks again. :)

-jjk

or, is common roads, infrastructure and stuff like that too 'commie' for people like you?

the fact that the gov mismanages our funds has nothing to do with the fact that the funds are NEEDED to 'run society'.

I know I will be modded down, I don't care

Not only is it unnecessary for government to build roads, but they would actually work much better if it was the private sector doing them. For example, there would not be any traffic at all, and there would not be roads built that are never used. You would not pay for roads you don't use like you do today through taxes.

The same applies for many programs such as fire fighting, police, courts, education, national defense, charity and others

Murry Rothbard even wrote a whole book describing not only how the private sector would handle each one of these services but very logically explains why it would do a better job at it. The book is free for you to read or even listen to, you can get it in html, pdf or mp3 for free. Your specific example of roads is addressed in chapter 11

It's very true in the economics world. The Austrian economists have been giving away books for as long as they've had a website, and they've found it increases the market for their printed books.

Notice the key word "wrongful" there?

If I walked up to you and took (Say) the cell phone you were holding, that would be initiation of violence, it would be theft. unless I am the owner of that phone and there was no agreement for you to hold it, then it's my right to take it from you. That's what "wrongful" is. Just because an entity like the government does it, doesn't make it just. Whatever you want to call it, it's a violation of individual rights, period.

Except that I am plundered.

You can't be plundered of something you never owned! You realize the difference between allocation and rationing, right? It's the same difference between scarcity and shortage.

Liberty does you no good if you lack resources to exercise it, nor do individual rights when you have to give them up to be allowed to eat by your corporate overlords.

You cannot give up individual rights, by definition! They are yours alone. You can't give them away even if you wanted to! If there's a "corporate overlord" who is telling me how to run my Internet... oh wait that sounds a lot like the government doesn't it? Government, corporation, it doesn't matter, coercion is bad, immoral, period. In that sense yes, power is bad, but show me the last cooperation that was breaking into people's homes threatening to forcefully take money from workers -- It's really only something the government does (the State is the monopoly on the means of coercion, after all).

The weak aren't suppressed by freedom, they are empowered by it, because of this thing called comparative advantage maybe you've heard of it. It doesn't matter how small and incapable you are, you still benefit from voluntary exchange, it's a logical consequence of the act of exchange.

I believe it wasn't uncommon for multiple utility grids to be made, before the state mandated that there could only be one... http://mises.org/journals/rae/pdf/rae9_2_3.pdf But I don't blame you if you don't believe it, because after all, yours is the most recited story taught in government schools.

The unamended Constitution doesn't even use the word "freedom". The Constitution enforces this thing called liberty (maybe you've heard of it) where people have certain individual rights, chief among these are your right to life (you own yourself), property (you can own things as you own yourself), and liberty (you can make voluntary agreements with other people, possibly to exchange your property, among other things).

Overall, this is called freedom. People like to misuse this word, though, to try and grant abilities to people that don't actually exist. You don't have the "freedom" to steal money from other people, for instance.

You talk about wealth like somehow if one person becomes wealthier, another person must become less wealthy as a result. This is absolutely not true, because a free market is not a zero-sum game, it must have a positive outcome for both parties, otherwise the exchange could not have occurred by definition.

Enron collapsed as soon as we discovered they were doing wrong. That was the whole point. Nowadays, the wrongdoers get bailed out by taxpayer money, and keep on doing wrong without repercussion.

AT&T and Time Warner exist in their current form solely because of government regulation, consolidation, and franchise of past utility companies, under the guise of "natural monopoly". Government is still the reason there is no competition. If it wasn't for that, there would still be several competing utility companies in my town.

http://mises.org/journals/rae/pdf/RAE9_2_3.pdf

The ironic thing is that that very people who chant "information is not property" would be the first in line to sue their bank if there was a security breach caused by an employee with a "hacked" phone that was lost and could not be remotely wiped.

I don't understand the contradiction. Information not being property doesn't stop me from signing a contracting binding someone to protect it. Contracts were never limited to the protection of property...

What it does mean is that I can't sue the recipient of such information (the guy who finds the data), even if he shares it with the world, because he wasn't bound to me through any contract not to divulge such information.
In the case of file-sharing, for example, the companies could sue the original sharer (if they legally prove the act of selling the product entails also a binding obligation not to redistribute it), but they couldn't sell subsequent downloaders or uploaders, who have no contract with the company.

http://mises.org/journals/jls/15_2/15_2_1.pdf [pdf]

Are you serious? How do you prevent the various companies from simply using the same frequencies, thus making it unusable for anybody?

I'm all for way fewer government granted monopolies (even cable companies, which of course could require multiple cable runs for competing companies, just like the telephone system originally), but for things that use the limited bandwidth of the air, there needs to be some regulation.

Are you serious? How do you prevent the various companies from simply using the same frequencies, thus making it unusable for anybody?

I am absolutely serious. Before the airwaves were ever licensed US courts were upholding homesteading of the airwaves. In any given area people were allowed to broadcast on frequencies that others were not also broadcasting on. If one person broadcast on one frequency and someone else came along and started to interfere with the signal the first broadcaster was able to take the person interfering to court to stop them from also using that frequency. This did not fit in with the plans of large businesses who wanted to restrict their competition so they eventually convinced the government to require broadcasting licenses. In 1927 the Radio Act of 1927 became law and was what created the Federal Radio Commission (FRC) which was the predecessor of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The FRC was given the power by congress to license broadcasters.

for things that use the limited bandwidth of the air, there needs to be some regulation.

Scarcity of the airwaves? HAHA! There is not scarcity though the mass media wants you to believe that. They can't have much competition, if they did then they wouldn't be that profitable, or able to drawn out other voices and views. The "right" complains the left and "liberals" drown their voices and the left complains Fox drowns their voices. Me, I might want to start a radio show about model railroads and trains, and if I can get some hobby shops in my area to sponsor it I may even operate it as a talk show and let listeners call in. Of course as it is now I can't do it broadcasting over the airwaves, though I might over the web.

Falcon

With a million years to continue mining I would look for more pressing issues than space fantasies.

Read this:
http://mises.org/journals/scholar/hatch.pdf

That is only one article, there are others. The upshot is that banks loaned what they did not have and the Federal Reserve let them do it. And when the house of cards collapsed they are forcing other to pay for it and walking away from it. That is flat out theft and immoral.

But, one side getting a free benefit doesn't deprive the author of anything that they previously had. The author was not harmed in the least.

The author is deprived a potential sale.

If you've truly read my other comments, you'd see that I didn't avoid the question about what is broken. Here's one thing that's broken.

I've seen and read some of them and in all of those you've dodged the question.

Supposedly, in order for artists of digital media (perhaps other media, too) to make a profit in the current system, they must introduce artificial scarcity

I'll read that tomorrow and possibly get back with a response if I remember. :)

Currently I assume you're bitching about a highly regulated capitalist model as being insufficient to get you and others free stuff.

You neglected to mention the almost infinite amount of other ideas that haven't even been thought of yet. Reducing that amount to a choice between two different systems is illogical.

No, it's ignorance. As I said, those are the only 2 I can think of that will net you free stuff. Since you've refused (unless it's in that link) to give alternatives, I'm ignorant to what they might be. If you can name or describe any of those almost infinite ideas, please do.

In a system that doesn't utilize artificial currency, people would be motivated by the love of their profession, not by their desire to get more money at all costs. Gone would be the people who only work for money. The people that work for money now only because they have to, however, would not be gone.

Very few people are, will be, or can be motivated simply by love of their profession. Most people hate their jobs and hate working period. Until you can guarantee with absolute certainty that there will be just enough or an excess of farmers, road builders, factory workers, etc. to provide the basics for modern human society, you can keep your utopia far away from me. If all those things can be created in abundance only by people that love their jobs, why would the people that only work because they have to still be around? There's a breakdown in your logic. The majority of increases in efficiency have arisen by people trying to increase their profits, by lowering their costs not gouging their customers. The ultimate manifestation of the desire to make more money "at all costs" has been lowered prices and thus more widespread availability of goods and services to those of a lower economic status.

Humans as a general rule are not altruistic creatures. Many say they are but do not put their energy into any such task unless they're certain they can be seen doing it. That's simply vanity, not compassion.

The broken system is capitalism. Again, my inability to think of a viable alternative does not make my criticism of the current system moot. I only know that it is broken.

No, but it does make the discussion quite pointless. If you can't find a better solution to even a highly specific detail, it's hard to support an argument for or against it. You're basically just saying "this sucks" over and over and somewhat moving on. Actually what you have said over and over is "no harm", "harm no one", etc. and it becomes tiresome. The harm is in the violation of the authors rights. Whether you can see that harm or not makes it no less real.

Everyone who decided not to buy a product or not to give someone else money. Everyone who told others not to buy a product.

That's not a logical argument at all. When you produce something, no one has an obligation to purchase it. There's also no expectation of that when the developer created it, but there should be a good faith expectation (think before rampant piracy) by t

Like I said, you've deprived them of the exclusivity of distribution, which obviously has significant value.

Uh, their ego has significant value? If I said that I should be able to control all of the money in the world and I was unable to, then I've lost something of significant value? Just because the law provides it, that doesn't be it has significant value, so that can't be it.

Secondly you speak of 'fixing the system' but you propose no such fix, nor specifically identify the flaw.

Artificial scarcity.

I don't need to have a viable alternative in order for my criticisms of the current system to be valid.

No, he's mainly upset because the exchange for the good or service hasn't occurred fully. One side gets a benefit for nothing and the other doesn't get the benefit of revenue or income, not profit for the first 150,000 copies.

But, one side getting a free benefit doesn't deprive the author of anything that they previously had. The author was not harmed in the least.

You've avoided the question that's been asked several time by saying the debate isn't about what fixes the system or truly even what is broken.

If you've truly read my other comments, you'd see that I didn't avoid the question about what is broken. Here's one thing that's broken.

Supposedly, in order for artists of digital media (perhaps other media, too) to make a profit in the current system, they must introduce artificial scarcity and try to limit the amount of their work that exists only to those who paid (even though merely copying their work didn't deprive them of anything that they already owned, and therefore didn't hurt them). Sometimes, them or others, even though pirates aren't actually interacting with them at all, try to force the pirate to pay money even though no damages were inflicted upon them. How is that not broken? I don't blame the artists for trying to make money, I blame the system which forces them to earn money if they would like to produce more content.

Currently I assume you're bitching about a highly regulated capitalist model as being insufficient to get you and others free stuff.

If you had actually read my comments, you'd see that I'm "bitching" because, currently, people who are doing no harm to anyone else are being treated as criminals.

Either of those would be worse than current.

You neglected to mention the almost infinite amount of other ideas that haven't even been thought of yet. Reducing that amount to a choice between two different systems is illogical.

hence why would anyone even be motivated to learn those skills in the first place?

In a system that doesn't utilize artificial currency, people would be motivated by the love of their profession, not by their desire to get more money at all costs. Gone would be the people who only work for money. The people that work for money now only because they have to, however, would not be gone.

Neither of those other solutions seem any more adequate, so I'd love to know your solution to the so called broken system that is yet to be clearly defined.

The broken system is capitalism. Again, my inability to think of a viable alternative does not make my criticism of the current system moot. I only know that it is broken.

Remember: merely not giving someone money does not harm them. You only harm them by wasting their time (which pirates don't do because the pirate wasn't the one that specifically requested they make the media), stealing money that they already had (they never had potential profit), wasting their resources, or depriving them of property (copying doesn't deprive them of their property, if that's what you can even call data).

Saying that it is possible to steal potential profit (and that it harms people) would be either indirectly or directly blaming almost everyone in existence. Everyone who decided not to buy a product or not to give someone else money. Everyone who told others not to buy a product.

Yes, we still live in a system which requires that you have money, but blaming pirates (who don't deprive anyone of anything that they already had, and therefore don't harm them) for the inability of artists to turn a profit instead of the broken capitalistic society itself is both irresponsible and illogical. Ignoring the real problem isn't going to help anything.

But the person has wasted their time and resources, they worked on the product and then someone has essentially just used the time and resources that was put into the work without the legitimate compensation.

Yes, but they only did so once. The pirate also did not specifically request that they do so, nor did they use up any of their time or resources.

Again, this basically boils down to people who merely didn't buy the product. Whether they wanted it or not is irrelevant. If you think the action of someone not giving the author money harms them (which it doesn't) because they spent time and effort on the product, you are either directly or indirectly including these people as well.

After all, these people don't have a right to obtain people's work for free if these people wish to charge for it.

Taking every point that I've made into account, my question is: why? What harm does it do? How does merely not granting someone money when they didn't interact with them (therefore they didn't use their time or resources) or deprive them of anything harm someone?

You don't see people duplicating Philips HD TVs, they have to buy them if they want it.

Of course not. But they would if they had the ability to. If it was possible, I'm sure that they would try to restrict that too. This is why I don't like artificial scarcity.

I think in order to fix this problem, the solution is introduce the actual limitations that a physical product has with regards to it's duplication.

The solution is not to introduce more artificial scarcity, but to figure out a way in which it will no longer be 'needed'. Capitalism has failed in this regard. The least that could be done is attempting to find a solution, but the ones in power do not even acknowledge the problem (likely due to the existence of money and bribery in the first place). The people must therefore be the ones to do so.

However whining about the system being broken is getting a bit repetitive.

Sorry, I've gotten so many similar replies that I've found myself repeating the same thing over and over again.

where is the artificial scarcity in this case?

They are trying to stop people from copying a product that is essentially in an unlimited supply. Here's an article that pretty much talks about what I'm saying.

Finally, can you please explain to us why it is ok to make use of a product that has take real time and money to produce without ever giving the makers the a cent?

Nothing is being specifically taken from them. Not time, not money, not property, and not resources. Absolutely nothing. If you argue "potential profit," then again, this includes people who have merely decided not to buy the product.

Still doesn't solve the problem of the media corporations being this special (and not particularly more trustworthy) category of corporation that, unlike every other corporation out there, gets to say what it wants.

Ah but there is a way to deal with mass media and large media corporations. Free the airwaves. As I've posted before the airwaves were homesteaded before the FCC, and its predecessor the Federal Radio Commission was created. Abolish the FCC, or at least airwave licensing, and the media corporation lose power.

To head off criticism that large broadcaster will drown out smaller broadcasters with higher powered transmitters, US courts had been ruling that the person who homesteaded a radio frequency in a given location "owned" that frequency there and others could not interfere with the owner broadcasting on said frequency.

Falcon

No

Competition needs not actual competition; as long as the market is free for new investors to come in, competition already exists. The "monopolist" can only profit as much as it would cost the second best entrepreneur to come in. But that's something I suppose only Austrian Economists fully understand, so it's inevitable that people will be clueless for decades to come still.

Also, the state is the biggest monopoly of all. Those inherently opposed to monopolies should consistently oppose it - yet most do not. They look for the greatest monopoly to swallow all others, never accomplishing anything that was allegedly intended. That's because the state cannot increase competition, it is analytically impossible. All the state can do is restrict, forbid, restrain. Every time it breaks a monopoly for example, it creates a cartel of higher prices.

http://mises.org/journals/rae/pdf/rae9_2_3.pdf