Oh, another one. We can use induction of-course by looking at the past, and if the performance of the past (and of the current) is any indication of the future, then this vicious cycle of: republic (which allows for most wealth to be created), democracy (which happens ONLY because there is all this wealth accumulated) and then tyranny (which happens because democracy / mobocracy is used by the politicos to gain most power by stealing and handing out bread, circuses and military contracts) will always be the resulting outcome of all future democracies, just like they were of all past democracies (the few that existed).
The ones that are still in existence today - well, we are looking at them becoming totalitarian dictatorships right at this very moment.
But I don't care to predict the far away future, I only care about this life time, so you can keep your pedantry in your basement.
I argue that CORRECTLY-IMPLEMENTED* democracy cannot ever lead to tyranny
- ha ha ha, and you will tell us all about how you'll implement this 'correctly', and you'll tell us all about how you'll change the character of the people NOT to want to live better than their neighbours by doing as little as possible actual production?
Yeah, we've seen this nonsense said over and over, by every revolutionary and every missionary of the world.
The history of the United States would contradict your fairy-tale views. When the U.S. was it's most prosperous, when the standard of living for the average citizen was at it's absolute highest, the extremely wealthy were "suffering" tax rates far, far higher than at any time before or since.
- nonsense. That's the time after 1947, when gov't cut spending by 64% and taxes by 30%, which finally allowed the Great Depression to end, but that wasn't due to high taxes or anything of the sort, it was the consequence of USA having a near monopoly on production as the rest of the world was in shambles.
The real prosperity (not based on the unfortunate situation of the rest of the world) was achieved in USA in 19 century after the Civil war, when free market allowed maximum competition and turned the country into a manufacturing powerhouse, turning USA into a major (or biggest) creditor nation and exporter of hight quality manufactured goods.
Of-course unlike all other Republics before it, USA is quite unique in the artificial way that it started its existence. Roman Republic was created on the ruins of the overthrown monarchy, and it ended with Caesar, Sulla and later Pompey - dictators.
It takes a bit of time, but it looks like all republics turn into democracies and then dictatorships.
The height of economic development is achieved during the time the nation is a republic, then of-course, as the nation is very rich BECAUSE it is so free as a republic, that it develops huge appetite for various government programs - too many people are not actually producing anything of value, but they want their bread and circuses, and the politicos deliver.
Of-course this stuff doesn't come from vacuum, it's stolen from those, who actually produce, and it's given away to the mob (but probably mostly to preferred contractors in form of wars - military contracts), and the democracy lives this way until it exhausts the riches acquired by the republic.
Then, as the society collapses because the wealth is inevitably squandered, and the gov't inflates money because it can't really steal anything from anybody anymore, the people 'elect' a dictator (or one comes to power somehow), and that's the unfortunate cycle that gets repeated over and over.
Even today blacks are only, what, 15% of population in USA?
In any case, by the time the Civil war ended you can't even make an argument that there was slavery involved in industrialisation, and in reality industrialisation didn't even happen in the Southern states, it started in the North if I am not completely mistaken.
As to 'straight' - this is not an argument at all.
Of-course I wouldn't have ratified the original Constitution as it didn't actually recognise people as equals under the law, so if I could be there and influence that outcome, there wouldn't have been a union until those problems would have been fixed.
By your argument, Somalia must have the fastest growing economy on earth due to the lack of government intervention.
- no, that's not my argument, that's a strawman.
Somalia is a consequence of a country that was destroyed by the former Communist regime and a resulting civil war (that's one way to end the totalitarian Communist rule). Of-course it wasn't much freer before the Communist rule as a British colony.
Somalia has multiple different forms of government right now, not 'anarchy' actually, as many believe, and in a sense they are more free (depending on the part of the land) than many people elsewhere. Somalia actually became one of the first countries in the world where people started using mobile phones as means of payment, that's because there was no government stifling innovation in various parts of the economy, including banking.
Somalia is a poor country of-course, but it cannot be used as an argument against libertarian idea, because it's a poor country that was devastated by decades of dictatorship under many different rulers. This argument has so much 'fail' in it, but it gets repeated by the uninformed, because they were told so by the other uninformed, etc.
Interesting argument, but it relies on a logical fallacy that implies our wealth is derived from being free, and not from being a growing industrialized nation.
- there is no logical fallacy, the wealth in USA was increased specifically because the country was free from government regulations and various taxes.
Out of 37 richest self-made people in USA, 27 were born prior to 1850. Only 3 were born in the 20th century - Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and Sam Walton.
1870 to 1913 time period increased overall wealth of all the people in USA comparatively more than any time before or after. This was done without most of what is called 'government' today, including most departments, agencies, income taxes, money printing (inflation), regulations, etc.
Over the 19th century the value of the USD went up by 100%, prices were falling throughout the century while competition was growing. The real middle class (small business owners and professionals) were created in that century. Many in the US mistakenly think of the 1950s as the time when the middle class was created, but that is absolutely false. That wasn't the time of middle class, it was time of lower class being in a position of relative monopoly on production, while other countries were in a post-war destruction and rebuilding period, USA didn't suffer destruction of any infrastructure. Of-course as the productive output grew, so did the government and it was taking on more and more powers and taking away more and more liberties.
Eventually they destroyed the money completely, defaulted on it in 1971 and investment capital started moving out, which is the consequence of people with investment capital not willing to see it being destroyed by the government created inflation.
Inflation hurts the lower classes the most, as they can't really shift their income and assets from dollar denominated into something else, like commodities or other currencies and businesses across the world.
Have you ever asked yourself this question: why are Americans NOT welcome in any of the foreign banks and for example why are they NOT allowed to invest into Myanmar's economy?
It's not because Myanmar is against it or foreign banks are against it in principle, it's because it is impossible to deal with Americans because of US federal government.
In fact Patriot Act became one of the biggest nails in the coffin of US citizens trying to diversify their investments out of USA (which everybody should do - diversify out of their own country, but especially those, whose country is actively destroying their own currency and economy).
As a side note Patriot Act successfully prevents any new investment businesses from appearing that can compete with the likes of JPM and GS, handing all of the potential investors only to the government approved 'investment' firms (which they are not).
Investors move their savings, investments, businesses out of USA and many European countries for a reason - the reason is that how abusive those regimes are and how much of their work/time/money/nerves is stolen from individual businessmen in those places.
Freedom is the absolute necessity for a thriving market economy, without freedom there is no market economy, and other types of economies cannot create and efficiently distribute anywhere near as much wealth as free market economies have shown to be able to.
China might be an argument against your supposition.
- China is the argument that proves my position.
Of-course China was a completely totalitarian dictatorship only 50 years ago, but now it is so free, that most businesses find it to be much easier to do business in China (with all the other problems that the country presents) than anywhere else in the world, and relatively low salaries are really not the main reason to go there.
The real reason is of-course much less regulations and much lower taxes. China doesn't have the ponzi scheme of SS, Medicare, it's not real
Um.. did it ever cross you mind that the weathy has a responsibility to ensure that the society which is has benifitted from immensely is sustained?
- what crossed my mind is that this is exactly the kind of thought process that destroys the society by taking away people's individual rights and killing off the economy.
There is a moral argument for providing a social safety net
- not by using majority to steal from minority. There is absolutely nothing moral or just about it.
May I remind you that there were a time when government was small - social cohesion was usually maintained by force - and the living standards of the many were squalid. Are you seriously adovcating the return to those times (just so we can compete with China on cheap labor)?
- May I remind you that there was time when USA had the most individual freedoms FROM government intervention (specifically between the Civil war and WWI) and that was the time when USA became the most productive country, becoming world's biggest creditor nation, exporting highest quality, affordable manufactured goods. All this, while increasing the strength of its own economy and making everybody who lived in it much wealthier (the dollar gained value by factor of 2, while USA still became the largest exporter of manufactured goods).
This was definitely prior to USA growing a huge government and destroying its economy and society in the process, while becoming world's greatest debtor nation not only on the planet at the time, but in history of humanity. USA is now bankrupt, only holding together by other nations providing it with the consumables that it eats without producing anything in return.
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There is no such thing as 'responsibility' of the few to maintain standard of living for many, that's pure nonsense. Voluntarism is the key, but it only works in a free society, there is no voluntarism in a totalitarian regime. Again: democracy leads to tyranny, that's what you have now.
As to 'safety net' - the best safety net that the humanity has invented is a wealthy and a growing economy based on a free individual making voluntary decisions in a market that is not perverted by the government intervention. Sadly USA has lost this very simple knowledge, so now it's losing the economy that it developed in that system.
I expect a ton of stories, and I immediately treat all of them with suspicion and probably for a good reason. I won't bother reading TFAs either. If/. wants to be taken seriously today, it has do to do something extraordinary. For all I care today is a day when/. clowns are especially rampant.
Oh, by the way, while you are absolutely correct about my stance on democracy, that was not really the main point of the comment.
The main point was that at any time that federal government is one side of a legal issue and an individual on the other side, federal government must always lose, no exceptions.
There can be no case when it is correct or right or moral or just for the federal government to win any case at all when it concerns an individual.
States can deal with criminal and other laws where it concerns an individual, federal government must not even be allowed to deal with individuals, only with collective that are the States.
You are right, I am NOT keen on democracy. USA had it correct - it wasn't built as a democracy, it was built as a republic. Democracy always leads to tyranny, not to freedom.
It's very easy to have a majority to vote to trump the freedoms of the minority, and this eventually trumps freedoms of everybody, because it destroys the concept of freedom and gives tools to the government officials that they didn't have before that they use to take away freedoms from everybody.
But in the beginning the majority of the mob is used to steal these freedoms from the minority in order to open this door, at first it's done by promising the majority to use government force to steal something from the minority and give it to the majority.
Government is used as a legalised robbery mechanism, that's how the majority of the people in USA for example (over 50%) only contribute 3% of all income taxes, and minority contributes the rest.
Same with all other 'social' programs, including Medicare, SS, whatever. But this is just a gateway for the government to steal freedoms from everybody and apply this power against everybody (TSA, DHS, Patriot Act, NDAA with indefinite detentions, extrajudicial murder by the POTUS, destruction of money by the Fed, etc.)
I am NOT AT ALL keen on democracy, democracy never leads to more freedoms, only to tyranny, people knew this millennia ago.
I think you'll find very few unionized privately owned companies. In the 1980s the CEO of a then nonunion airline said "any business that gets a union deserves one."
- nonsense.
First of all it doesn't actually matter how the company is owned really, but secondly - union organisations exist to make money for the union organisers. Unions appeared in shops that didn't have any need for them (from point of view of employees) enough times that I can give plenty of evidence that this statement is false.
What's so unfair about bargaining one on one?
- what are you, Orwellian mouthpiece? How is bargaining with a SINGLE representative of the entire workforce the same as bargaining with individuals about their own contracts?
There are no barriers to entry except qualification for the job. The union doesn't have anything whatever to do with hiring. The company does the hiring.
- oh, so much bullshit. Two words:
Closed shop.
You can't be that dense, so it's on purpose. Closed shops mean exactly this: you can't be hired unless you also qualify and become a union member, and then you become part of the collective bargaining, not an individual anymore.
This means people cannot compete based on quality and price of labour and based on their compensation package, they can't chose options that union is against and thus they are all part of one monopoly structure.
And even when they are not a closed shop, what happens when union starts pressuring the company, the individual workers that are not in the union cannot can expect problems with the company because of the union.
I'm a cog in the company machine, and together with other cogs I have more power than without them.
- right, you have more power as long as the employer is locked into your labour market. Guess what, luckily for the employers that's no longer such an insurmountable problem as it used to be. But also you are NOT 99%, that's a huge load of crap, your union makes sure that you are not.
It's there to ensure that the 99% doesn't compete with your union, and obviously the union sets the rules of who can enter it, so it's a huge barrier to entry. Beyond that - unions cause the employers to have much less ability to hire people because the union usually pushes prices up, not only the salary and benefits, but also the insane threat of litigation, the insane rules that the government enforces on behalf of unions, ability to strike and close the shop, whatever.
You are not 99%, not even close.
So you're saying that universities lie to their students about history?
- not only do the lie to their students, but many of them are lying to themselves and/or are ignorant of actual data.
The link I gave in the previous comment gives specific data with names of the programs, with dates, it's not something of a secret, it's just nobody provides the context for it in your lectures and the political pressure is always to promote government agenda, and i9t's the same agenda - Keynesian BS shamans are there to give justification to the gov't to steal money, mostly by inflation and taxes and regulations.
If so, where did you learn your "truths?" You're saying the text I linked was wrong? Where are your citations for the bullshit in the comment you linked?
- are you stupid? I gave specific data, with names of programs, with numbers, for how much was spent, what the interest rates were, what the money supply was, I gave data on the Hoover and beginning of the FDR time and did a little bit of comparison to 2008. If you can't understand simple things like names of programs, amounts in dollars, interest rates, why would I bother giving you ANYTHING else? You can't follow one post, why would I bother with another?
You can read my journal, that's a good starting point for you if you actually care to understand something that you will not be taught in your worthless classes by your Marxist lecturers.
it hurts the poor disproportionately more, because the rich don't hold cash (or don't have to), they can have all sorts of non-cash assets, commodities, businesses, other currencies, whatever.
POOR people get hurt because inflation eventually destroys the economy and it pushes prices up. Wages don't have to follow at all (like in 70s or now).
People are striking for a living wage and to be able to take their kids to a doctor and not be financially ruined by doing so.
- it has to break, it has to fall apart to the very bone, it was skewed one way for too long, it was the way of destruction of individual liberty. People have allowed the government to overstep the boundaries that gov't was confined in and thus people have gotten used to getting things without actually paying for them, and it is completely utterly wrong.
No businessman must tolerate being stolen from, and rhetoric that accompanies the theft is atrocious - the rich are not paying their 'fair share'.
There is no fair share that would ever satisfy the ever hungry government power, and the original US revolution was fought against King who imposed a 3% tax. Serfs paid 25% of their total income in taxes.
To be elevated to the level of serfs, many 'rich' people have to see their taxes cut by over 50%.
The true destruction came with a very tiny portion of the population conspiring to allow the super-mega powerful to print fake currency and tax income, and this allowed for huge growth of government power and eventually this is what caused destruction of the economy. The ever growing government appetite and the never shrinking spending, debt, deficit, and the ever inflating currency lead to one logical outcome: the investment capital gets wiped out, and so to prevent this eventuality people moved their businesses wherever, and GOOD FOR THEM. They couldn't do it soon enough, we need people on this planet who have capital and who are willing to keep working rather than just taking off and enjoying their money on a beach somewhere, just drinking cocktails with pretty ladies.
Pretty much every shop that had a union was destroyed (except for the government at this point, but gov't doesn't count, it doesn't have to actually EARN anything to keep going as long as it can print, and it can print).
US People with their government have pushed US businesses to extinction. Nothing was ever enough and instead of COMPETING the people decided that they will take the easy road and just attack the businesses with regulations and taxes and inflation.
USA has been in free fall for 100 years, but especially for the last 40 years since USA defaulted on the dollar in 1971.
Lastly: you are again talking about 're-engineering' the society.
Those are the exact words that every other failed revolutionary ever uttered before he descended the country and the people into the civil war, poverty and destruction.
But there is no monopoly on labor. A union is the employees of a company bargaining collectively with management, which is also a collective.
- says who? A business owner doesn't have to be a 'collective', especially in private companies there is always somebody specific on top, somebody who owns the business.
He is then put into a position of looking at one single representative from the entire labour force - union. That's monopoly.
Unions take power from the 1% and give it to the 99%.
- this statement does not mean anything. I don't know if you understand, but unions are NOT 99%. In fact unions are created so that people from the 99% cannot COMPETE FOR THE SAME POSITIONS as union members.
Unions are created specifically to ensure that there is monopoly, so that the employer is faced with a monopoly labour market but also so that there is an artificial barrier to entry to anybody who is not in the union.
You are under a false impression of what unions are and what they do.
I'm in a union and I hold no monopoly; there are thousands of me.
- you are part of the monopoly, you set the prices not on individual level but by agreement with a bunch of other employees.
Also you are part of the barrier to entry that is put in front of the people who are not in the union, you are preventing them from selling their product (labour) at lower prices and/or higher quality.
And should I break the contract, management is free to fire me and hire someone else. Management can hire anyone.
- you are a cog in the union machine, so what?
As to the rest of your post, where do you get those ignorant ideas? Not in any college level history class!
- obviously. You don't know a thing about actual history and actual economics, that's on purpose.
The 1929 stock market crash was caused by exactly the same thing that caused the 2008 crash -- Republicans and the "the less government we have, the better".
The unions impede on the ability of the economy to grow faster, how come the government is all over companies that are supposedly monopolies, but when people form a monopoly on their product - labour (labour also needs to be bought, like all other products), then it's all OK?
It's not OK when government protects monopolies, be it monopolies of the banks or monopolies of the unions on labour.
The reason USA had the largest middle class was because USA had the most freedoms compared to all other countries, and so Civil war to WWI USA had developed the real largest middle class - professionals and small businesses.
Then IRS started collecting income/corporate taxes (and later payroll) and the Fed started printing money (causing the depression of 1921, 1929, 1970s, 1990s, and current).
The prosperity that came with the end of the WWII, when the Great Depression could finally end because gov't cut taxes by 30% and spending by 64%, was exactly due to the fact that gov't cut spending but also because USA had a limited time monopoly on production - most of the rest of the world was pretty much in ruin.
That was USA's peace dividend, but it decided that wars are much more profitable for some people and created the military industrial complex. Eventually other countries picked up the slack and fewer US products were bought, but the appetite for big gov't grew, which was now funded not just by 'honest' taxes but also by inflation, and INFLATION DESTROYS SAVINGS AND INVESTMENT - causes companies to shut down the shop and move somewhere else, where their investment capital is not destroyed by the illegal actions of the government.
Once most of the real manufacturing leaves, the economy is on life support of the fake money and foreign countries willing to exchange their manufactured goods for this fake money, but that can't last forever.
The entire idea of amendments is flawed. The people have forgotten obviously that the Federal government only exists as an agreement among States (ratification is signing a contract), and the Constitution enumerates the powers of the federal government. But this means that the governments has no powers except for those that are listed in Article 1, section 8, however amendments cloud this issue for the crowd (supposedly not for judges and politicians, right?) and the crowd believes that the government is allowed everything and it is only limited by the amendments.
It was probably the first step on the way of destroying the contract that was the Constitution - allowing the amendments in the first place.
Of-course the original document shouldn't have been signed the way it was proposed because of various included violations of the human rights in the first place ( blacks are not full people, etc.)
People have been robbed of their initiative, and they are robbed of fruits of their labour with high taxes and inflation, they can't really afford to buy farms and to learn and become farmers. Of-course this also defeats the purpose of industrialisation, what do you propose - back to subsistence farming?
The people are only LETTING themselves get robbed. But when you're letting people rob you, is it really robbery?
- no, they lack the understanding that they are getting robbed and thus it continues. Of-course all people deserve their governments, I suppose they are just not ready yet to change themselves. But it's coming.
Again, this is the Randean paradise called America. Americans don't care that there would be multiple winners. They only care if *they themselves* are the winners.
- but they would win if they stopped being taxed and stopped subsidising losing businesses, they would win more purchasing power. They don't understand it yet. The fact that some other people would win as well is inconsequential, I am not, I am NEVER asking for somebody to SACRIFICE anything, I am talking about people behaving in their best self interest, and Americans are not yet doing it with all these taxes and subsidies, so they are not Randian at all, they don't have convictions.
Americans have very very few convictions in reality, very few and very few of them, but it's the same with most other people in the world.
Compared to Africa, everybody in America is already a winner. As such, there's no incentive for Americans to change their ways even if it would increase winners in Africa...
- that's not what I am talking about. I am talking about self interest. AMERICANS would win if they stopped taxing and subsidising, Africans come as a distant afterthought (and they don't have to think about them) they should just really think about themselves and that would be enough.
No, they are Randeans to the core. They never abandoned their convictions. Americans have always and still do only care about themselves. They don't care if Africans are starving. They care about their farmers getting subsidies, their banks getting bail outs, their politicians getting kick backs, etc.
- most Americans are not farmers and most Americans are not bankers.
Most Americans are suffering from gov't bailing out banks and subsidising farms and taxing workers. So it's all wrong, especially your belief that Americans have principles.
The fact Libertarians exist (including in America) means they are not in the Matrix.
- that makes no sense. In the movie the Matrix existed and so did Neo and so did the underground, etc. The one didn't negate the other, they complemented each other. Without the Matrix there would be no underground.
Heck, people were able to topple Soviet Russia. People are more capable at taking care of themselves than you think.
- you are completely off on the reasons as to why USSR fell apart. It was the same reasons that will cause the downfall of the USA and it really wasn't about the weeks of 1991 revolt in Russia. It was about 75 years of destruction of the economy and especially last 15 years of Afghanistan and printing of trillions of rubles a year and producing nothing.
It's very much similar to what USA is going through right now.
Likewise, Africans are more capable a taking care of themselves than you think. Given time, Africans will figure out how to survive even if subsidies exist. Even if subsidies INCREASE. Just keep doing what's good for yourself. You don't have to care for other people. It's not your job to take care of other people's problems.
- well I guess you just completely misunderstand me.
I. Do. Not. Care. About. Other. People.
I only care about myself and whoever closest to me, but this means that I need other p
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Oh, another one. We can use induction of-course by looking at the past, and if the performance of the past (and of the current) is any indication of the future, then this vicious cycle of: republic (which allows for most wealth to be created), democracy (which happens ONLY because there is all this wealth accumulated) and then tyranny (which happens because democracy / mobocracy is used by the politicos to gain most power by stealing and handing out bread, circuses and military contracts) will always be the resulting outcome of all future democracies, just like they were of all past democracies (the few that existed).
The ones that are still in existence today - well, we are looking at them becoming totalitarian dictatorships right at this very moment.
But I don't care to predict the far away future, I only care about this life time, so you can keep your pedantry in your basement.
I argue that CORRECTLY-IMPLEMENTED* democracy cannot ever lead to tyranny
- ha ha ha, and you will tell us all about how you'll implement this 'correctly', and you'll tell us all about how you'll change the character of the people NOT to want to live better than their neighbours by doing as little as possible actual production?
Yeah, we've seen this nonsense said over and over, by every revolutionary and every missionary of the world.
The history of the United States would contradict your fairy-tale views. When the U.S. was it's most prosperous, when the standard of living for the average citizen was at it's absolute highest, the extremely wealthy were "suffering" tax rates far, far higher than at any time before or since.
- nonsense. That's the time after 1947, when gov't cut spending by 64% and taxes by 30%, which finally allowed the Great Depression to end, but that wasn't due to high taxes or anything of the sort, it was the consequence of USA having a near monopoly on production as the rest of the world was in shambles.
The real prosperity (not based on the unfortunate situation of the rest of the world) was achieved in USA in 19 century after the Civil war, when free market allowed maximum competition and turned the country into a manufacturing powerhouse, turning USA into a major (or biggest) creditor nation and exporter of hight quality manufactured goods.
"Republic" means a form of government that is controlled by its subjects. In other words, it's pretty much synonymous with democracy.
- be specific. It's a representative democracy, which is an attempt to prevent mobocracy, which always leads to tyranny.
Examples are plenty, if you are American, you are living in one. But as I said, I am not reinventing a bicycle here.
Of-course unlike all other Republics before it, USA is quite unique in the artificial way that it started its existence. Roman Republic was created on the ruins of the overthrown monarchy, and it ended with Caesar, Sulla and later Pompey - dictators.
It takes a bit of time, but it looks like all republics turn into democracies and then dictatorships.
The height of economic development is achieved during the time the nation is a republic, then of-course, as the nation is very rich BECAUSE it is so free as a republic, that it develops huge appetite for various government programs - too many people are not actually producing anything of value, but they want their bread and circuses, and the politicos deliver.
Of-course this stuff doesn't come from vacuum, it's stolen from those, who actually produce, and it's given away to the mob (but probably mostly to preferred contractors in form of wars - military contracts), and the democracy lives this way until it exhausts the riches acquired by the republic.
Then, as the society collapses because the wealth is inevitably squandered, and the gov't inflates money because it can't really steal anything from anybody anymore, the people 'elect' a dictator (or one comes to power somehow), and that's the unfortunate cycle that gets repeated over and over.
Even today blacks are only, what, 15% of population in USA?
In any case, by the time the Civil war ended you can't even make an argument that there was slavery involved in industrialisation, and in reality industrialisation didn't even happen in the Southern states, it started in the North if I am not completely mistaken.
As to 'straight' - this is not an argument at all.
Of-course I wouldn't have ratified the original Constitution as it didn't actually recognise people as equals under the law, so if I could be there and influence that outcome, there wouldn't have been a union until those problems would have been fixed.
I can't compromise on freedom, that's all.
By your argument, Somalia must have the fastest growing economy on earth due to the lack of government intervention.
- no, that's not my argument, that's a strawman.
Somalia is a consequence of a country that was destroyed by the former Communist regime and a resulting civil war (that's one way to end the totalitarian Communist rule). Of-course it wasn't much freer before the Communist rule as a British colony.
Somalia has multiple different forms of government right now, not 'anarchy' actually, as many believe, and in a sense they are more free (depending on the part of the land) than many people elsewhere. Somalia actually became one of the first countries in the world where people started using mobile phones as means of payment, that's because there was no government stifling innovation in various parts of the economy, including banking.
Somalia is a poor country of-course, but it cannot be used as an argument against libertarian idea, because it's a poor country that was devastated by decades of dictatorship under many different rulers. This argument has so much 'fail' in it, but it gets repeated by the uninformed, because they were told so by the other uninformed, etc.
As to the rest of your comment, I gave a much lengthier reply already.
Interesting argument, but it relies on a logical fallacy that implies our wealth is derived from being free, and not from being a growing industrialized nation.
- there is no logical fallacy, the wealth in USA was increased specifically because the country was free from government regulations and various taxes.
Out of 37 richest self-made people in USA, 27 were born prior to 1850. Only 3 were born in the 20th century - Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and Sam Walton.
1870 to 1913 time period increased overall wealth of all the people in USA comparatively more than any time before or after. This was done without most of what is called 'government' today, including most departments, agencies, income taxes, money printing (inflation), regulations, etc.
Over the 19th century the value of the USD went up by 100%, prices were falling throughout the century while competition was growing. The real middle class (small business owners and professionals) were created in that century. Many in the US mistakenly think of the 1950s as the time when the middle class was created, but that is absolutely false. That wasn't the time of middle class, it was time of lower class being in a position of relative monopoly on production, while other countries were in a post-war destruction and rebuilding period, USA didn't suffer destruction of any infrastructure. Of-course as the productive output grew, so did the government and it was taking on more and more powers and taking away more and more liberties.
Eventually they destroyed the money completely, defaulted on it in 1971 and investment capital started moving out, which is the consequence of people with investment capital not willing to see it being destroyed by the government created inflation.
Inflation hurts the lower classes the most, as they can't really shift their income and assets from dollar denominated into something else, like commodities or other currencies and businesses across the world.
Have you ever asked yourself this question: why are Americans NOT welcome in any of the foreign banks and for example why are they NOT allowed to invest into Myanmar's economy?
It's not because Myanmar is against it or foreign banks are against it in principle, it's because it is impossible to deal with Americans because of US federal government.
In fact Patriot Act became one of the biggest nails in the coffin of US citizens trying to diversify their investments out of USA (which everybody should do - diversify out of their own country, but especially those, whose country is actively destroying their own currency and economy).
As a side note Patriot Act successfully prevents any new investment businesses from appearing that can compete with the likes of JPM and GS, handing all of the potential investors only to the government approved 'investment' firms (which they are not).
Investors move their savings, investments, businesses out of USA and many European countries for a reason - the reason is that how abusive those regimes are and how much of their work/time/money/nerves is stolen from individual businessmen in those places.
Freedom is the absolute necessity for a thriving market economy, without freedom there is no market economy, and other types of economies cannot create and efficiently distribute anywhere near as much wealth as free market economies have shown to be able to.
China might be an argument against your supposition.
- China is the argument that proves my position.
Of-course China was a completely totalitarian dictatorship only 50 years ago, but now it is so free, that most businesses find it to be much easier to do business in China (with all the other problems that the country presents) than anywhere else in the world, and relatively low salaries are really not the main reason to go there.
The real reason is of-course much less regulations and much lower taxes. China doesn't have the ponzi scheme of SS, Medicare, it's not real
Um.. did it ever cross you mind that the weathy has a responsibility to ensure that the society which is has benifitted from immensely is sustained?
- what crossed my mind is that this is exactly the kind of thought process that destroys the society by taking away people's individual rights and killing off the economy.
There is a moral argument for providing a social safety net
- not by using majority to steal from minority. There is absolutely nothing moral or just about it.
May I remind you that there were a time when government was small - social cohesion was usually maintained by force - and the living standards of the many were squalid. Are you seriously adovcating the return to those times (just so we can compete with China on cheap labor)?
- May I remind you that there was time when USA had the most individual freedoms FROM government intervention (specifically between the Civil war and WWI) and that was the time when USA became the most productive country, becoming world's biggest creditor nation, exporting highest quality, affordable manufactured goods. All this, while increasing the strength of its own economy and making everybody who lived in it much wealthier (the dollar gained value by factor of 2, while USA still became the largest exporter of manufactured goods).
This was definitely prior to USA growing a huge government and destroying its economy and society in the process, while becoming world's greatest debtor nation not only on the planet at the time, but in history of humanity. USA is now bankrupt, only holding together by other nations providing it with the consumables that it eats without producing anything in return.
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There is no such thing as 'responsibility' of the few to maintain standard of living for many, that's pure nonsense. Voluntarism is the key, but it only works in a free society, there is no voluntarism in a totalitarian regime. Again: democracy leads to tyranny, that's what you have now.
As to 'safety net' - the best safety net that the humanity has invented is a wealthy and a growing economy based on a free individual making voluntary decisions in a market that is not perverted by the government intervention. Sadly USA has lost this very simple knowledge, so now it's losing the economy that it developed in that system.
Shouldn't /. have pink 'OMG PONNIES' style today?
I expect a ton of stories, and I immediately treat all of them with suspicion and probably for a good reason. I won't bother reading TFAs either. If /. wants to be taken seriously today, it has do to do something extraordinary. For all I care today is a day when /. clowns are especially rampant.
Oh, by the way, while you are absolutely correct about my stance on democracy, that was not really the main point of the comment.
The main point was that at any time that federal government is one side of a legal issue and an individual on the other side, federal government must always lose, no exceptions.
There can be no case when it is correct or right or moral or just for the federal government to win any case at all when it concerns an individual.
States can deal with criminal and other laws where it concerns an individual, federal government must not even be allowed to deal with individuals, only with collective that are the States.
You are right, I am NOT keen on democracy. USA had it correct - it wasn't built as a democracy, it was built as a republic. Democracy always leads to tyranny, not to freedom.
It's very easy to have a majority to vote to trump the freedoms of the minority, and this eventually trumps freedoms of everybody, because it destroys the concept of freedom and gives tools to the government officials that they didn't have before that they use to take away freedoms from everybody.
But in the beginning the majority of the mob is used to steal these freedoms from the minority in order to open this door, at first it's done by promising the majority to use government force to steal something from the minority and give it to the majority.
Government is used as a legalised robbery mechanism, that's how the majority of the people in USA for example (over 50%) only contribute 3% of all income taxes, and minority contributes the rest.
Same with all other 'social' programs, including Medicare, SS, whatever. But this is just a gateway for the government to steal freedoms from everybody and apply this power against everybody (TSA, DHS, Patriot Act, NDAA with indefinite detentions, extrajudicial murder by the POTUS, destruction of money by the Fed, etc.)
I am NOT AT ALL keen on democracy, democracy never leads to more freedoms, only to tyranny, people knew this millennia ago.
That's not a law based on which an individual will be put in front of a federal judge, do you even understand what it is?
Criminal laws are handled by States.
"Unpopular laws"? Nonsense.
The correct application of the jury nullification is any time when there is a conflict between the individual and the collective.
Any time at all when an individual is brought up on any charges by the Federal government jury nullification must be applied.
I think you'll find very few unionized privately owned companies. In the 1980s the CEO of a then nonunion airline said "any business that gets a union deserves one."
- nonsense.
First of all it doesn't actually matter how the company is owned really, but secondly - union organisations exist to make money for the union organisers. Unions appeared in shops that didn't have any need for them (from point of view of employees) enough times that I can give plenty of evidence that this statement is false.
What's so unfair about bargaining one on one?
- what are you, Orwellian mouthpiece? How is bargaining with a SINGLE representative of the entire workforce the same as bargaining with individuals about their own contracts?
There are no barriers to entry except qualification for the job. The union doesn't have anything whatever to do with hiring. The company does the hiring.
- oh, so much bullshit. Two words:
Closed shop.
You can't be that dense, so it's on purpose. Closed shops mean exactly this: you can't be hired unless you also qualify and become a union member, and then you become part of the collective bargaining, not an individual anymore.
This means people cannot compete based on quality and price of labour and based on their compensation package, they can't chose options that union is against and thus they are all part of one monopoly structure.
And even when they are not a closed shop, what happens when union starts pressuring the company, the individual workers that are not in the union cannot can expect problems with the company because of the union.
I'm a cog in the company machine, and together with other cogs I have more power than without them.
- right, you have more power as long as the employer is locked into your labour market. Guess what, luckily for the employers that's no longer such an insurmountable problem as it used to be. But also you are NOT 99%, that's a huge load of crap, your union makes sure that you are not.
It's there to ensure that the 99% doesn't compete with your union, and obviously the union sets the rules of who can enter it, so it's a huge barrier to entry. Beyond that - unions cause the employers to have much less ability to hire people because the union usually pushes prices up, not only the salary and benefits, but also the insane threat of litigation, the insane rules that the government enforces on behalf of unions, ability to strike and close the shop, whatever.
You are not 99%, not even close.
So you're saying that universities lie to their students about history?
- not only do the lie to their students, but many of them are lying to themselves and/or are ignorant of actual data.
The link I gave in the previous comment gives specific data with names of the programs, with dates, it's not something of a secret, it's just nobody provides the context for it in your lectures and the political pressure is always to promote government agenda, and i9t's the same agenda - Keynesian BS shamans are there to give justification to the gov't to steal money, mostly by inflation and taxes and regulations.
If so, where did you learn your "truths?" You're saying the text I linked was wrong? Where are your citations for the bullshit in the comment you linked?
- are you stupid? I gave specific data, with names of programs, with numbers, for how much was spent, what the interest rates were, what the money supply was, I gave data on the Hoover and beginning of the FDR time and did a little bit of comparison to 2008. If you can't understand simple things like names of programs, amounts in dollars, interest rates, why would I bother giving you ANYTHING else? You can't follow one post, why would I bother with another?
You can read my journal, that's a good starting point for you if you actually care to understand something that you will not be taught in your worthless classes by your Marxist lecturers.
it hurts the poor disproportionately more, because the rich don't hold cash (or don't have to), they can have all sorts of non-cash assets, commodities, businesses, other currencies, whatever.
POOR people get hurt because inflation eventually destroys the economy and it pushes prices up. Wages don't have to follow at all (like in 70s or now).
Answer me this: what do electronic sheep dream of?
People are striking for a living wage and to be able to take their kids to a doctor and not be financially ruined by doing so.
- it has to break, it has to fall apart to the very bone, it was skewed one way for too long, it was the way of destruction of individual liberty. People have allowed the government to overstep the boundaries that gov't was confined in and thus people have gotten used to getting things without actually paying for them, and it is completely utterly wrong.
No businessman must tolerate being stolen from, and rhetoric that accompanies the theft is atrocious - the rich are not paying their 'fair share'.
There is no fair share that would ever satisfy the ever hungry government power, and the original US revolution was fought against King who imposed a 3% tax. Serfs paid 25% of their total income in taxes.
To be elevated to the level of serfs, many 'rich' people have to see their taxes cut by over 50%.
The true destruction came with a very tiny portion of the population conspiring to allow the super-mega powerful to print fake currency and tax income, and this allowed for huge growth of government power and eventually this is what caused destruction of the economy. The ever growing government appetite and the never shrinking spending, debt, deficit, and the ever inflating currency lead to one logical outcome: the investment capital gets wiped out, and so to prevent this eventuality people moved their businesses wherever, and GOOD FOR THEM. They couldn't do it soon enough, we need people on this planet who have capital and who are willing to keep working rather than just taking off and enjoying their money on a beach somewhere, just drinking cocktails with pretty ladies.
Pretty much every shop that had a union was destroyed (except for the government at this point, but gov't doesn't count, it doesn't have to actually EARN anything to keep going as long as it can print, and it can print).
US People with their government have pushed US businesses to extinction. Nothing was ever enough and instead of COMPETING the people decided that they will take the easy road and just attack the businesses with regulations and taxes and inflation.
USA has been in free fall for 100 years, but especially for the last 40 years since USA defaulted on the dollar in 1971.
Lastly: you are again talking about 're-engineering' the society.
Those are the exact words that every other failed revolutionary ever uttered before he descended the country and the people into the civil war, poverty and destruction.
But there is no monopoly on labor. A union is the employees of a company bargaining collectively with management, which is also a collective.
- says who? A business owner doesn't have to be a 'collective', especially in private companies there is always somebody specific on top, somebody who owns the business.
He is then put into a position of looking at one single representative from the entire labour force - union. That's monopoly.
Unions take power from the 1% and give it to the 99%.
- this statement does not mean anything. I don't know if you understand, but unions are NOT 99%. In fact unions are created so that people from the 99% cannot COMPETE FOR THE SAME POSITIONS as union members.
Unions are created specifically to ensure that there is monopoly, so that the employer is faced with a monopoly labour market but also so that there is an artificial barrier to entry to anybody who is not in the union.
You are under a false impression of what unions are and what they do.
I'm in a union and I hold no monopoly; there are thousands of me.
- you are part of the monopoly, you set the prices not on individual level but by agreement with a bunch of other employees.
Also you are part of the barrier to entry that is put in front of the people who are not in the union, you are preventing them from selling their product (labour) at lower prices and/or higher quality.
And should I break the contract, management is free to fire me and hire someone else. Management can hire anyone.
- you are a cog in the union machine, so what?
As to the rest of your post, where do you get those ignorant ideas? Not in any college level history class!
- obviously. You don't know a thing about actual history and actual economics, that's on purpose.
The 1929 stock market crash was caused by exactly the same thing that caused the 2008 crash -- Republicans and the "the less government we have, the better".
- ignoramus.
I have a good post on it I am not about to repeat.
You don't make any sense. All labour that is paid for is bought.
All of your comments are strange at very least, something is funny about them.
It's as if you are asking me to stop writing what I write, why do you give a shit about what I write?
Like me.
Why should I?
The reason for that is unions.
- wrong.
The unions impede on the ability of the economy to grow faster, how come the government is all over companies that are supposedly monopolies, but when people form a monopoly on their product - labour (labour also needs to be bought, like all other products), then it's all OK?
It's not OK when government protects monopolies, be it monopolies of the banks or monopolies of the unions on labour.
The reason USA had the largest middle class was because USA had the most freedoms compared to all other countries, and so Civil war to WWI USA had developed the real largest middle class - professionals and small businesses.
Then IRS started collecting income/corporate taxes (and later payroll) and the Fed started printing money (causing the depression of 1921, 1929, 1970s, 1990s, and current).
The prosperity that came with the end of the WWII, when the Great Depression could finally end because gov't cut taxes by 30% and spending by 64%, was exactly due to the fact that gov't cut spending but also because USA had a limited time monopoly on production - most of the rest of the world was pretty much in ruin.
That was USA's peace dividend, but it decided that wars are much more profitable for some people and created the military industrial complex. Eventually other countries picked up the slack and fewer US products were bought, but the appetite for big gov't grew, which was now funded not just by 'honest' taxes but also by inflation, and INFLATION DESTROYS SAVINGS AND INVESTMENT - causes companies to shut down the shop and move somewhere else, where their investment capital is not destroyed by the illegal actions of the government.
Once most of the real manufacturing leaves, the economy is on life support of the fake money and foreign countries willing to exchange their manufactured goods for this fake money, but that can't last forever.
The entire idea of amendments is flawed. The people have forgotten obviously that the Federal government only exists as an agreement among States (ratification is signing a contract), and the Constitution enumerates the powers of the federal government. But this means that the governments has no powers except for those that are listed in Article 1, section 8, however amendments cloud this issue for the crowd (supposedly not for judges and politicians, right?) and the crowd believes that the government is allowed everything and it is only limited by the amendments.
It was probably the first step on the way of destroying the contract that was the Constitution - allowing the amendments in the first place.
Of-course the original document shouldn't have been signed the way it was proposed because of various included violations of the human rights in the first place ( blacks are not full people, etc.)
Maybe it won't be Americans first, maybe it will be the Irish first that will just STOP PAYING THEIR TAXES.
Good for them.
I heard of a guy in Canada who married a tree.
People have been robbed of their initiative, and they are robbed of fruits of their labour with high taxes and inflation, they can't really afford to buy farms and to learn and become farmers. Of-course this also defeats the purpose of industrialisation, what do you propose - back to subsistence farming?
The people are only LETTING themselves get robbed. But when you're letting people rob you, is it really robbery?
- no, they lack the understanding that they are getting robbed and thus it continues. Of-course all people deserve their governments, I suppose they are just not ready yet to change themselves. But it's coming.
Again, this is the Randean paradise called America. Americans don't care that there would be multiple winners. They only care if *they themselves* are the winners.
- but they would win if they stopped being taxed and stopped subsidising losing businesses, they would win more purchasing power. They don't understand it yet. The fact that some other people would win as well is inconsequential, I am not, I am NEVER asking for somebody to SACRIFICE anything, I am talking about people behaving in their best self interest, and Americans are not yet doing it with all these taxes and subsidies, so they are not Randian at all, they don't have convictions.
Americans have very very few convictions in reality, very few and very few of them, but it's the same with most other people in the world.
Compared to Africa, everybody in America is already a winner. As such, there's no incentive for Americans to change their ways even if it would increase winners in Africa...
- that's not what I am talking about. I am talking about self interest. AMERICANS would win if they stopped taxing and subsidising, Africans come as a distant afterthought (and they don't have to think about them) they should just really think about themselves and that would be enough.
No, they are Randeans to the core. They never abandoned their convictions. Americans have always and still do only care about themselves. They don't care if Africans are starving. They care about their farmers getting subsidies, their banks getting bail outs, their politicians getting kick backs, etc.
- most Americans are not farmers and most Americans are not bankers.
Most Americans are suffering from gov't bailing out banks and subsidising farms and taxing workers. So it's all wrong, especially your belief that Americans have principles.
The fact Libertarians exist (including in America) means they are not in the Matrix.
- that makes no sense. In the movie the Matrix existed and so did Neo and so did the underground, etc. The one didn't negate the other, they complemented each other. Without the Matrix there would be no underground.
Heck, people were able to topple Soviet Russia. People are more capable at taking care of themselves than you think.
- you are completely off on the reasons as to why USSR fell apart. It was the same reasons that will cause the downfall of the USA and it really wasn't about the weeks of 1991 revolt in Russia. It was about 75 years of destruction of the economy and especially last 15 years of Afghanistan and printing of trillions of rubles a year and producing nothing.
It's very much similar to what USA is going through right now.
Likewise, Africans are more capable a taking care of themselves than you think. Given time, Africans will figure out how to survive even if subsidies exist. Even if subsidies INCREASE. Just keep doing what's good for yourself. You don't have to care for other people. It's not your job to take care of other people's problems.
- well I guess you just completely misunderstand me.
I. Do. Not. Care. About. Other. People.
I only care about myself and whoever closest to me, but this means that I need other p