Typical knee-jerk conservatism by someone who doesn't understand conservatism (or basic finance). There's nothing wrong with making an investment in resources, which is what he's trying to do.
It's not the government's business to "invest" in particular companies, regardless of whether or not it uses their products. The government has responsibility to those citizens who happens to be employees and shareholders of the competitors of that company whose jobs and incomes are in jeopardy because "their" government is supporting their competitor. Choosing products on an open tender based on best price, quality etc is ok. "Investing" public money in a specific company in anticipation of it, rather than it's competitors, providing the best products sometimes in the future is completely wrong and it should be illegal if it isn't already.
When faced with this problem, I usually take the slice which has the most pepperoni on it. As for pizzas without pepperoni, the method might need some modifications, such as counting the ham pieces, anchovies etc. You might not end up with a largest slice, but you will get the most meat which is fair enough for me.
The barrier to entry is just a part of a larger equation that still limits what a manufacturer can charge for a product even if there are no competitors around. If the company that has an effective monopoly for some product keeps increasing the price, there is point at which entering the market with a cheaper product becomes attractive, even with very high entry costs. Just because there is only one company serving a particular market, doesn't necessarily mean that the free market is not in effect. As long as there is potential for competitors to enter the market, that company is still constrained by market forces.
That is the biggest question, and the answer is a resounding yes. If everyone can make the greenest FOO, it will less expensive. If it's less expensive, it will be more likely to replace existing non-green FOO.
Your logic is flawless assuming that somebody bothers to invent the greenest FOO in the first place. Where will you find investors to finance your R&D if they know that the moment your invention is proven to work everybody will copy it and sell it at a lower price than you (since they don't have to recoup those R&D costs)? Without patents, the smart money is on waiting and copying, not inventing.
While you can't disprove a religion, you can easily disprove a planet hiding behind the sun by looking behind it.
I think they are actually in the same category. You "can't disprove" that there is an invisible planet hiding behind the sun (with gravity suspended) or one that god will put into existence out of nothing etc etc. One can come up with any kind of fantasy and call it not disprovable. It's really no different than saying that you "can't disprove" that an omnipotent being *created the universe* in 6 days or any of the miracles in the bible.
Why should a private company be forced to act as an unpaid tax collecting agent of the government? It is the IRS's job to collect taxes, not Amazon's. What people like you obviously don't realize is that most of the bureaucratic, safety related, tax related etc etc requirements that the government imposes on businesses actually benefit large corporations, who sometimes actively lobby for them, because they provide a barrier to entry for the small competitors. You put a finger on it exactly. It's no big deal at all for Amazon to meet these requirements. It IS a big deal for a small company trying to compete with Amazon, and your argument that "if you don't like it don't start a business at all" is music to the ears of large corporations. Some people don't in fact start a business due to already excessive red tape required and we are all worse off for it
So guys from freecreditreport.com, cybersquatters, AND their lawyers were all in one courtroom at one time? Damn,there's never a suicide bomber around when you need one
I don't see why people see a difference between deterrence and revenge. All human and some animal societies have a concept of revenge which probably evolved because it serves the purpose of deterrence. I would argue most punishments for most crimes in the US are already too light to function as an effective deterrence - hence the fact that they don't. See countries where harsh punishments are applied even for minor offenses, such as Singapore, and where the crime level is extremely low. But the main thing for me in favor of the retribution is not it's effectiveness in providing as deterrence or not, but in providing a psychological satisfaction to the victim, which I think the victim is entitled to. I think we all feel something unfair is taking place when the perpetrator is let off with less harm done to themselves than they have caused to the victim, and the victim feels that even stronger.
I don't know, bitching about too many H-1Bs coming here and taking our jobs used to be pretty common here. Not sure if those doing the bitching were PhDs but I presume most were at least college graduates.
I would prefer to live in a place where human rights are championed, personal liberty is maximized and freedom of speech and freedom from government oppression is paramount. So, I guess I'm saying where should I move to?
Not sure if this is the case here, but something to keep in mind is that there are limited resources for conducting medical studies and sometimes they are simply rejected on the grounds of being superfluous or not well thought out or unnecessary for whatever other reason, in which case the proponents sometimes like to claim some sort of conspiracy to hide the truth etc. Few posts above somebody posted links to perfectly good studies that show efficacy of the vaccines in question.
Oh, I am not proposing it, ideally the free market would take care of it, and it would but it may lead to unacceptable shortages and so on so I'm not saying the gov should be out of it altogether. I was just for the sake of the argument accepting the premise that there is an energy emergency, and if so it would make more sense to at least increase the price and have people come up with their own, possibly innovative, ways to cut their consumption than to have more silly regulations on which appliances they are allowed or not allowed to use.
It's like anything else, as the energy becomes less available the price goes up and the consumption goes down. Since the gov in that state is already so heavily involved in the energy industry as in every other aspect of life, its hard to take it out overnight but a good first step would be to stop dreaming up inane regulations like this. At least increase taxes on energy so that those who use more have to pay more. What difference does it make if they use it by having an inefficient tv (illegal) or by leaving it on twice as long (legal)?
Well I disagree that libertarianism leads to anarchy but then you haven't provided any arguments in favor of your assertion. If your primary goal in organizing the society is individual liberty, then I think it is essential that the use of physical force is taken off the scene, i.e monopolized by a single agent (government) accountable to everybody and governed by impartial laws. I don't think there is any inconsistency there. Libertarians are not advocating laws of the jungle - there is no liberty for the pray with all those predators around. For some reason many people seem to misunderstand that. I think the issue is that there are too many anarchists around calling themselves libertarians and giving the rest of us a bad name.
The difference is that the role for the government in monopolizing the use of force by providing laws/police/military is essential for ensuring individual liberty in the way that government provided education, healthcare, fire service and a million other things government does are not.
Ok, I guess I am not being consistent in including the "safety net" and most libertarians will have nothing to do with it, but I personally think that while able bodied adults have sole responsibility of providing for themselves, those unable to do so (disabled, children, old people etc) in a civilized society should have at least guaranteed survival even by force, IF private charity fails to meet their needs.
Well, in my opinion anarchists are a small fringe group but I guess the perception depends on which forums you hang out. To answer your earlier question, yes I think libertarian philosophy as I see it is very much in line with objectivism and that the differences are trivial compared to the alternatives. The ideas you are arguing against, such as anarchy without a state that monopolizes the use of physical force, I a) would have nothing to do with either, and b) don't believe are major part of the Libertarian party or the majority of libertarians (though we can argue about percentages). So I don't think we have a disagreement about anarcho-capitalism, but only about whether those people constitute a major fraction of libertarians, which I don't know, and if they do, well, all I can say is that I disagree with them and that they are giving the rest of us a bad name.
As for the last part of your post, I sort of think democracy is important and the way to achieve liberty is by persuading people that it's good for them, which it is. To say that it's better to do away with the state because people will vote in the welfare state for themselves is to choose a far greater evil over a lesser one. Maybe I should read up a bit more on how these anarcho-capitalists think liberty can be preserved in a society without the state, because it seems obviously impossible. To have a bunch of privately owned courts, police forces etc is so ridiculous and certain to be abused that I guess I understand why people say that libertarians (misunderstanding anarchists for libertarians) are idealizing the human nature much like communists do.
Yes, people who hang out in any forums probably include a fair number of nutcases who might be loud but how do you know what percentage they represent unless you have access to some polls that I don't know about. The positions of the Libertarian party can be easily found on the website and are closer to what I described than what you assume are libertarian views. Ok, you are probably right about the safety net, that is something I tend to throw in there:) since I cannot see how private charity can be guaranteed to take care of those who physically cannot provide for themselves. If it does, even better.
The problem is, to put it simply, there isn't a fixed amount of stuff to divide up. The stuff is not there until somebody produces it. Those who produce it want to keep what they produce, rather than share it with those who don't produce. I don't see anything wrong with that. Your example of grazing rights in a communal grazing land doesn't apply if there is no communal grazing land. You either buy the grazing land or you pay rent to the land owner to be able to graze there. That's it, the free market regulates the grazing rights, no need for some bureaucrat to be sitting there deciding who gets what. History shows that private management even of limited natural resources does a far better job than public. Just compare the efficiency in usage of privately owned natural resources in the USA with the disaster that was public planning in the old USSR. There is a case to be made here, such as if somebody corners the market on an essential resource and then refuses to allow access to anybody else, which can be regulated if it does arise. It is a minor exceptional possibility which I don't think ever even happened in practice.
The Libertarian (well, to be precise, anarcho-capitalist - "libertarian" is more broad than that)
Sorry, but that distinction is more important than to be included as a side note in brackets. Can you point to a mainstream libertarian who advocates having no working government? You are judging an ideology by it's most extreme elements, who actually themselves fail to understand it. It's kind of like me saying, left-wing people in the USA (well to be precise, the communists - "left-wing" is more broad than that) dream is that of a government takeover of industry, central planning, collective farms, abolition of multi-party system etc etc.
Libertarians propose "limited" government, not no government. If you are going to have individual liberty, then the necessary condition is the existence of laws, which have to be enforced. You cannot have liberty in an anarchy where the first person with more power than you will take the liberty away from you. So yes, that means government provides laws, military, police, and arguably infrastructure where not practical for private sector and limited safety net (for disabled etc) and it is financed by taxes. That is the mainstream libertarian position, not anarchy.
And you get a prize for being yet another idiot who doesn't understand the difference between libertarianism and anarchy. Hint: liberty for everybody, not just for those with biggest guns. Libertarian society cannot exist without a strong government to protect individuals from oppression by other individuals. Socialism and other collectivist ideologies, religious and secular, however have a lot to do with Somalia and many other failed states.
Thanks for agreeing with me. Sorry if I'm assuming too much, but if you think that the government bailouts were an example of capitalism at work, let me assure you it was not. Quite the opposite. Governments keeping unprofitable businesses alive at taxpayers cost in order to save the jobs and preserve what they think is some sort of a public benefit is a standard feature of left wing governments everywhere.
or you could say, government allows all citizens to provide for each other in an efficient and cost effective manner
And what socialist fantasy planet are we talking about? As far as the reality on planet Earth goes, replace "allows" with "forces" and "efficient and cost effective" with "corrupt and wasteful" and you'll be closer to the truth in just about every case.
Presumably Finland, being a large country with a smallish population, has some tiny pockets of people living in the middle of nowhere 100s of miles from major population centers, and probably in pretty inhospitable terrain? So the Finnish ISPs will be legally required to provide each and every one of them with 100Mb internet access at low price by 2015? I can't believe that that is true, but if it is all I can say is wow! Good luck to whoever has to pay for that.
Slashdot Mirror
Can't believe this was modded up. What part of it's not his money you don't understand?
Typical knee-jerk conservatism by someone who doesn't understand conservatism (or basic finance). There's nothing wrong with making an investment in resources, which is what he's trying to do.
It's not the government's business to "invest" in particular companies, regardless of whether or not it uses their products. The government has responsibility to those citizens who happens to be employees and shareholders of the competitors of that company whose jobs and incomes are in jeopardy because "their" government is supporting their competitor. Choosing products on an open tender based on best price, quality etc is ok. "Investing" public money in a specific company in anticipation of it, rather than it's competitors, providing the best products sometimes in the future is completely wrong and it should be illegal if it isn't already.
When faced with this problem, I usually take the slice which has the most pepperoni on it. As for pizzas without pepperoni, the method might need some modifications, such as counting the ham pieces, anchovies etc. You might not end up with a largest slice, but you will get the most meat which is fair enough for me.
The barrier to entry is just a part of a larger equation that still limits what a manufacturer can charge for a product even if there are no competitors around. If the company that has an effective monopoly for some product keeps increasing the price, there is point at which entering the market with a cheaper product becomes attractive, even with very high entry costs. Just because there is only one company serving a particular market, doesn't necessarily mean that the free market is not in effect. As long as there is potential for competitors to enter the market, that company is still constrained by market forces.
That is the biggest question, and the answer is a resounding yes. If everyone can make the greenest FOO, it will less expensive. If it's less expensive, it will be more likely to replace existing non-green FOO.
Your logic is flawless assuming that somebody bothers to invent the greenest FOO in the first place. Where will you find investors to finance your R&D if they know that the moment your invention is proven to work everybody will copy it and sell it at a lower price than you (since they don't have to recoup those R&D costs)? Without patents, the smart money is on waiting and copying, not inventing.
While you can't disprove a religion, you can easily disprove a planet hiding behind the sun by looking behind it.
I think they are actually in the same category. You "can't disprove" that there is an invisible planet hiding behind the sun (with gravity suspended) or one that god will put into existence out of nothing etc etc. One can come up with any kind of fantasy and call it not disprovable. It's really no different than saying that you "can't disprove" that an omnipotent being *created the universe* in 6 days or any of the miracles in the bible.
Why should a private company be forced to act as an unpaid tax collecting agent of the government? It is the IRS's job to collect taxes, not Amazon's. What people like you obviously don't realize is that most of the bureaucratic, safety related, tax related etc etc requirements that the government imposes on businesses actually benefit large corporations, who sometimes actively lobby for them, because they provide a barrier to entry for the small competitors. You put a finger on it exactly. It's no big deal at all for Amazon to meet these requirements. It IS a big deal for a small company trying to compete with Amazon, and your argument that "if you don't like it don't start a business at all" is music to the ears of large corporations. Some people don't in fact start a business due to already excessive red tape required and we are all worse off for it
So guys from freecreditreport.com, cybersquatters, AND their lawyers were all in one courtroom at one time? Damn,there's never a suicide bomber around when you need one
I don't see why people see a difference between deterrence and revenge. All human and some animal societies have a concept of revenge which probably evolved because it serves the purpose of deterrence. I would argue most punishments for most crimes in the US are already too light to function as an effective deterrence - hence the fact that they don't. See countries where harsh punishments are applied even for minor offenses, such as Singapore, and where the crime level is extremely low. But the main thing for me in favor of the retribution is not it's effectiveness in providing as deterrence or not, but in providing a psychological satisfaction to the victim, which I think the victim is entitled to. I think we all feel something unfair is taking place when the perpetrator is let off with less harm done to themselves than they have caused to the victim, and the victim feels that even stronger.
I don't know, bitching about too many H-1Bs coming here and taking our jobs used to be pretty common here. Not sure if those doing the bitching were PhDs but I presume most were at least college graduates.
I would prefer to live in a place where human rights are championed, personal liberty is maximized and freedom of speech and freedom from government oppression is paramount. So, I guess I'm saying where should I move to?
Unfortunately you'll have to stay in the USA.
Not sure if this is the case here, but something to keep in mind is that there are limited resources for conducting medical studies and sometimes they are simply rejected on the grounds of being superfluous or not well thought out or unnecessary for whatever other reason, in which case the proponents sometimes like to claim some sort of conspiracy to hide the truth etc. Few posts above somebody posted links to perfectly good studies that show efficacy of the vaccines in question.
Oh, I am not proposing it, ideally the free market would take care of it, and it would but it may lead to unacceptable shortages and so on so I'm not saying the gov should be out of it altogether. I was just for the sake of the argument accepting the premise that there is an energy emergency, and if so it would make more sense to at least increase the price and have people come up with their own, possibly innovative, ways to cut their consumption than to have more silly regulations on which appliances they are allowed or not allowed to use.
It's like anything else, as the energy becomes less available the price goes up and the consumption goes down. Since the gov in that state is already so heavily involved in the energy industry as in every other aspect of life, its hard to take it out overnight but a good first step would be to stop dreaming up inane regulations like this. At least increase taxes on energy so that those who use more have to pay more. What difference does it make if they use it by having an inefficient tv (illegal) or by leaving it on twice as long (legal)?
Well I disagree that libertarianism leads to anarchy but then you haven't provided any arguments in favor of your assertion. If your primary goal in organizing the society is individual liberty, then I think it is essential that the use of physical force is taken off the scene, i.e monopolized by a single agent (government) accountable to everybody and governed by impartial laws. I don't think there is any inconsistency there. Libertarians are not advocating laws of the jungle - there is no liberty for the pray with all those predators around. For some reason many people seem to misunderstand that. I think the issue is that there are too many anarchists around calling themselves libertarians and giving the rest of us a bad name.
The difference is that the role for the government in monopolizing the use of force by providing laws/police/military is essential for ensuring individual liberty in the way that government provided education, healthcare, fire service and a million other things government does are not.
Ok, I guess I am not being consistent in including the "safety net" and most libertarians will have nothing to do with it, but I personally think that while able bodied adults have sole responsibility of providing for themselves, those unable to do so (disabled, children, old people etc) in a civilized society should have at least guaranteed survival even by force, IF private charity fails to meet their needs.
Well, in my opinion anarchists are a small fringe group but I guess the perception depends on which forums you hang out. To answer your earlier question, yes I think libertarian philosophy as I see it is very much in line with objectivism and that the differences are trivial compared to the alternatives. The ideas you are arguing against, such as anarchy without a state that monopolizes the use of physical force, I a) would have nothing to do with either, and b) don't believe are major part of the Libertarian party or the majority of libertarians (though we can argue about percentages). So I don't think we have a disagreement about anarcho-capitalism, but only about whether those people constitute a major fraction of libertarians, which I don't know, and if they do, well, all I can say is that I disagree with them and that they are giving the rest of us a bad name.
As for the last part of your post, I sort of think democracy is important and the way to achieve liberty is by persuading people that it's good for them, which it is. To say that it's better to do away with the state because people will vote in the welfare state for themselves is to choose a far greater evil over a lesser one. Maybe I should read up a bit more on how these anarcho-capitalists think liberty can be preserved in a society without the state, because it seems obviously impossible. To have a bunch of privately owned courts, police forces etc is so ridiculous and certain to be abused that I guess I understand why people say that libertarians (misunderstanding anarchists for libertarians) are idealizing the human nature much like communists do.
Yes, people who hang out in any forums probably include a fair number of nutcases who might be loud but how do you know what percentage they represent unless you have access to some polls that I don't know about. The positions of the Libertarian party can be easily found on the website and are closer to what I described than what you assume are libertarian views. Ok, you are probably right about the safety net, that is something I tend to throw in there :) since I cannot see how private charity can be guaranteed to take care of those who physically cannot provide for themselves. If it does, even better.
The problem is, to put it simply, there isn't a fixed amount of stuff to divide up. The stuff is not there until somebody produces it. Those who produce it want to keep what they produce, rather than share it with those who don't produce. I don't see anything wrong with that. Your example of grazing rights in a communal grazing land doesn't apply if there is no communal grazing land. You either buy the grazing land or you pay rent to the land owner to be able to graze there. That's it, the free market regulates the grazing rights, no need for some bureaucrat to be sitting there deciding who gets what. History shows that private management even of limited natural resources does a far better job than public. Just compare the efficiency in usage of privately owned natural resources in the USA with the disaster that was public planning in the old USSR. There is a case to be made here, such as if somebody corners the market on an essential resource and then refuses to allow access to anybody else, which can be regulated if it does arise. It is a minor exceptional possibility which I don't think ever even happened in practice.
The Libertarian (well, to be precise, anarcho-capitalist - "libertarian" is more broad than that)
Sorry, but that distinction is more important than to be included as a side note in brackets. Can you point to a mainstream libertarian who advocates having no working government? You are judging an ideology by it's most extreme elements, who actually themselves fail to understand it. It's kind of like me saying, left-wing people in the USA (well to be precise, the communists - "left-wing" is more broad than that) dream is that of a government takeover of industry, central planning, collective farms, abolition of multi-party system etc etc.
Libertarians propose "limited" government, not no government. If you are going to have individual liberty, then the necessary condition is the existence of laws, which have to be enforced. You cannot have liberty in an anarchy where the first person with more power than you will take the liberty away from you. So yes, that means government provides laws, military, police, and arguably infrastructure where not practical for private sector and limited safety net (for disabled etc) and it is financed by taxes. That is the mainstream libertarian position, not anarchy.
And you get a prize for being yet another idiot who doesn't understand the difference between libertarianism and anarchy. Hint: liberty for everybody, not just for those with biggest guns. Libertarian society cannot exist without a strong government to protect individuals from oppression by other individuals. Socialism and other collectivist ideologies, religious and secular, however have a lot to do with Somalia and many other failed states.
I hope you are being sarcastic. That's like saying theft involves no force because you are free not to own anything that anyone can steal.
Thanks for agreeing with me. Sorry if I'm assuming too much, but if you think that the government bailouts were an example of capitalism at work, let me assure you it was not. Quite the opposite. Governments keeping unprofitable businesses alive at taxpayers cost in order to save the jobs and preserve what they think is some sort of a public benefit is a standard feature of left wing governments everywhere.
or you could say, government allows all citizens to provide for each other in an efficient and cost effective manner
And what socialist fantasy planet are we talking about? As far as the reality on planet Earth goes, replace "allows" with "forces" and "efficient and cost effective" with "corrupt and wasteful" and you'll be closer to the truth in just about every case.
Presumably Finland, being a large country with a smallish population, has some tiny pockets of people living in the middle of nowhere 100s of miles from major population centers, and probably in pretty inhospitable terrain? So the Finnish ISPs will be legally required to provide each and every one of them with 100Mb internet access at low price by 2015? I can't believe that that is true, but if it is all I can say is wow! Good luck to whoever has to pay for that.