There are many better ways to spend that cash though. Think schools, healthcare, infrastructure, and job training.
Sounds great. Don't take the money in taxes in the first place, and I'll be very glad to spend it on just such things.
As a side benefit, without the bureaucratic overhead of filtering the money through government, more of the money will end up being used for making peoples lives better.
You're forgetting the largest barrier to entry: Government regulation.
Why is there only one telephone company in my town, and in fact in every town in America? Mandated government monopoly rationalized by declaring that the cost of providing initial service is so high that without that grant of monopoly no one would provide the service.
Yet this is exactly the same argument used to support Ma Bell. That is exactly the argument used to support three television networks.
So what happens when the legal barrier to entry is removed? Innovation occurs as people find ways to compete and make a profit.
Why are there three cell phone companies in Mogadishu, Somalia, and again only one in my town? Because there is no legal barrier to entry in Somalia like there is in the US. So all the technical barriers to providing service in such a remote and chaotic place are overcome by interested individuals looking to make a profit.
Drugs? Do tell, how many different brands of aspirin are there, since aspirin is "public domain"? One, since without that regulation there will be a monopoly? Hahahahaha. Oh, and I've been noticing only one car brand on the road for years now. Thanks for explaining that one, too.
To do a very short recap of my own experience, I was doing network engineering in 1993 when control of the "routing tables" were released by the NSF and thereby ISPs were first legally allowed to peer directly with each other, as well as having the legal restriction on commercial content on "the Internet" repealed.
De-regulation at its most fundamental, the Fed.Gov simply let go.
The result was that "the Internet" exploded in function, reach and availability. The cost of connecting dropped immediately and has been continuing to drop ever since. The "technical issues" that had been the basis for Al Gore's "Information Superhighway" evaporated as each ISP worked to solve the problems of routing and peering, and engineers like myself found efficiencies that would never have been utilized if the "Information Superhighway" had been mandated by law.
The DMCA and such have been trying to put the genie back in the bottle, to re-regulate the content and use of "the Internet". Evil or stupid? It's hard to tell the difference with politicians and bureaucrats.
yet another example of why laws that are created to protect the economic process of innovation are necessary.
Not at all. The reason that I.E. overwhelmed Netscape so quickly is because it was free for Windows owners, and all CDs of Win95 shipped after IE was written had IE included on them. Rather than take the time to pay for and download (with dial-up, remember) Netscape, people went with cheap or used what was already there.
Patents and copyrights were irrelevant to the issue. Or, by your argument, Linux distributions should be punished because of undercutting Microsoft's business model?
Patents and copyrights are supposed to prevent the copying, for a short time, of a limited scope of endeavor. That's all, and so long as that's all they did anyone arguing against them was easily ridiculed. With the expansion of patent to cover everything, and the extention of copyright to absurd lengths of time, the abuses allowed under these government mandated monopolies are so obvious they can no longer be hidden behind the smoke-screen of "benefiting the collective". Monopoly destroys innovation, it does not foster it. Or do you really want to go back to a single telephone provider where it is illegal to compete with them?
The problem with advocating the use of force to promote something you think is beneficial, is that that same force will be used by someone else to promote something they think is beneficial.
So what did people do before patents and copyright? They prosecuted fraud. Beethovan couldn't claim the theme was his, he had to say, "Beethovan's variations on a theme by Mozart." Gee, that wasn't hard. The world gets more great music, and both authors get the credit which is due to them.
I worked at GE Plastics for a while. You can imagine this company did not lose money.
Talking to the engineers and managers, I learned how they did it: The GEP edge is in development. A customer brings a requirement, specific properties of the polymer that they need. Melting temp, elasticity, viscosity, tensile strength, colour, density, whatever it may be. GEP then produces materials with those properties quicker than any other producer in the world can, and in whatever quantity needed.
During the year or more that it takes a competitor to copy those properties and come up to speed of production in order to undercut GEP's price, GEP charged a premium. A "monopoly price", in effect, because there is in fact no other supplier of the material. They can't charge too much, of course, or they will piss off potential repeat business or motivate prospective customers to wait the extra time needed for some cheaper producer to ramp up production.
Where there is competition, there are always alternatives. But you only get to choose two out of "fast, good, cheap".
The original arguments for copyright and patent, the American ones anyway, were to grant for a limited time a government guarantee of legal force to protect your "monopoly price" for your creation. But as so many people have discovered, nothing about government ever remains limited.
When they were truly limited, in scope and time, it was difficult to argue against them and not be seen as some kind of inane radical out of touch with "reality". Lysander Spooner comes to mind. The shortcomings of such government mandated monopolies have since been demonstrated in every area of endeavor, including now patent and copyright, to a degree that has become undeniable.
But the principle holds true in all areas of human effort, including computer operating systems, telephone service providers, plastics, and even music: It is competition, not vested interest, that generates innovation.
Vested interest, however, generates more campaign contributions.
Or, "Operating systems are just too complex. It takes a huge well-funded corporation to support that kind of development."
I assure you, as an anarcho-capitalist, I run into this same absurd "argument" on all kinds of subjects.
"Dams are just too big and expensive, they cannot be built privately." Oh, but don't notice that Boulder Dam was a private project expropriated by the Fed.Gov and renamed Hoover Dam...
Not only that, he answers his own email.
on
A New TCP/IP Classic
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
I wrote to him to discuss something I'd noticed in the IPv6 sections, and he wrote back. It was very nice to discuss it with him directly, and I'll gladly echo the fact that his work is both easy to read and informative.
I've read a LOT of networking crap over the 25 years I've been doing computer networking, this ease of reading is not common to the genre.
You really tend to conflate economic models and moral models.
That's because they are the same thing. They both are aspects of human interaction.
And what else is givrnment other than the moral desires of the public writ large?
I see you have bought into "democracy". Try this: Government is the institution with a monopoly on the initiation of force. Governments only tool is coercion, every penny it "spends" is stolen at gun point from someone.
While it is possible that you agree with some actions of the government you live under, and therefore think government is good. However, that has nothing to do with what government is, and you could think of lots of examples of governments doing things you do not agree with.
I think that everyone would be a lot happier if we all realized that economics was a morality-free zone...
There is no such thing. Individuals interact, each according to their own morality and desires. There is no human interaction that does not bear some aspect of the morality of the participants.
I recommend the writings of Murray Rothbard, or for that matter Ludwig von Mises. Lots of discussions of morality as embodied in economic matters on the mises.org we site.
Government is force, like fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. Its nature is coercion, and as such it attracts those who enjoy wielding power over others. Lots of efforts by very smart people over the ages have tried to limit its power, none successfully.
If no one had a good reason to fear their neighbors:
a) there would be no need for cops.
There is no need of government police. Private security works well for the few malcontents.
b) or fences
Haven't you heard? Locks keep out honest people.
c) or guard dogs
See above.
d) or the right to keep and bear arms
Ah! But the right to keep and bear arms respects your neighbors as responsible individuals. It is those that advocate disarming people who are doing the projecting and fearing their neighbors.
While your other examples have some merit to show that some people are sometimes bad, the RKBA is explicit recognition that there are far more good people than bad. And while nothing will prevent bad people from getting and abusing their arms, they can certainly be corrected by good people with weapons.
The truth is that no one existed who was willing to spend the capital to go into space.
So there was no mandate for this "democratic" government to do it. Fascinating.
I hope that she doesn't grow up to be so utterly ungrateful because -- Oh my God! -- they were paid for with tax dollars.
Here's the problem: I object, you don't. Rather than you and those who agree with you shouldering the full costs of your opinion, you use the coercion of government to reduce your burden by spreading it out upon others.
It's nice that you get to justify and rationalize your use of force against others, with lots of things you agree with. I'm not saying they didn't get done or that they are not somewhat useful. I object that they were and are being done with blood money extracted at gun point.
If enough people believe in a project to create the mandate required in "our" limited constitutional republic for the government to do it, then there are enough interested people to do it without coercion. If coercion is required, then there is no such mandate and the government does not have the power to enact it.
Each and every one of your examples would have happened anyway, if people wanted it, because people want it. Government can only interfere.
A democracy enforces those regulations upon which its citizens agree,
But I do not agree. That is one reason that democracy sucks so badly, the two wolves get to assert that because the sheep gets a "vote", the sheep is somehow agreeing to be dinner.
the dog-eat-dog environment of natural selection and evolution whose parallel in human society we know as anarchy.
No. That is "chaos", not anarchy. Gynarchy, rule by women. Monarchy, rule by one person. Oligarchy, rule by elders or an entrenched elite. Anarchy, no one in a position of rule.
Chaos can exist under any form of government. Under Lenin, for instance, most of Russia was in a state of chaos as they died in great numbers while left without food, without shelter, because Lenin tried to enforce orthodox Communism. He had to release some power, allow money and some small level of voluntary trade in order for the people to survive. Mao found the same thing.
The tax code in the US is a good example of chaos. It is so complex, and changes constantly, that no two accountants come up with the same numbers. People dread being audited not because they think they have done something wrong, but because they can never know for sure that they have not.
in those societies in which anarchy more widely prevails (both now - think Nigeria and Pakistan
I suggest that the very strong governments in both Nigeria and Pakistan would disagree with you. Those two countries are in no way anarchic. They are chaotic, certainly. Somalia is pretty close to anarchy, and doing quite well. Last I heard, Mogadishu had three cell-phone companies, while even America continues to have locally mandated monopolies where only one carrier may serve a geographic location. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somaliahttp://www.awdaldevelopment.org/Html/resources.htm
I would actually be quite interested in any objections you have to the presentations on anarchy. I know people try to justify coercive force in interesting ways.
Most of the time the Golden Rule translates as 'be nice to others' (probably because that seems to be the only thing people can universally agree upon) and for the most part regulation is an attempt to enforce that behavior.
If you were correct, "government" would be limited to prosecution of force and fraud. None of which has anything to do with regulation. Regulation is how people are allowed to peacefully interact, since violent interaction is (and always has been) illegal.
Human civilization has been built in spite of government, not because of it. The irrational belief that might makes right is the basis of all government. Governments are instituted, as so eloquently written, to secure pre-existing rights to life, liberty and property. Government didn't make any of that possible, its only capacity is to interfere.
Where you and I differ is that I object to that interference, and you agree with it. Under a different government than you have now, it is very likely that one could be found that you object to but that someone else thinks is great.
Again, that is why regulation doesn't work: people disagree. When people are in agreement, no regulation is needed. When they disagree, regulation tramples the rights of those who disagree with it.
You describe a world where intervention by the courts is the sole means of government regulation, whereas in today's world we have the courts and direct regulation. I don't see how X AND Y implies NOT Y.
You say that I advocate government regulation through the courts, which actually I do not. Courts do remain after regulation is removed, but they already exist and operate today. Therefore, "regulation through the courts" is not a change from today.
What I advocate is prosecution for force and fraud. That's all. Further regulation is merely an excuse for creating bureaucracy and facilitating graft, corruption and cronyism.
I, and society, have that right because we generally agree on it...
Then it is not a right, it is a power. A power granted by tyranny of the majority. If it were a right, then I could do it too and I cannot. I am forced to abide regulations promulgated by others, regardless of their effects.
Don't worry, someone will do the same thing to you some time. I wonder if you'll object then as I object now?
I would consider allowing civil suits against companies that make faulty products a limitation on liberty, and a form of government coercion, so I suspected that you would probably actually oppose it. Your position, as stated, seems logically inconsistent to me. But I apologize for putting words in your mouth.
Thank you. Prosecution for force and fraud is the excuse by which government exists at all, when there is any excuse given. Some say "defense", some say "peace keeping", others "police powers", but it's all about punishing force and fraud.
If government limited itself to that function, it would be very difficult to object to it. Unfortunately, government power tends to grow, and such a limited grant of power never lasts. It is educational that even in the US, the "Alien and Sedition Acts" which are blatantly unconstitutional were passed and enforced so soon after the Constitution was ratified at all.
But someone got the bright idea of "pro-active law enforcement", where people are punished for crimes they _might_ commit, by restricting their liberty to make the choice. This is very easy to object to, which is why it seems that my statements are contradictory. I'm trying very hard to be clear on principle, but a full tryst would require an entire book, such as Murray Rothbard's _For A New Liberty_, which in fact does it and does it well.
Here's something to chew on: Even if all coercive government were to vanish tomorrow, there would still be courts because that is the way "the English speaking world" and most of the rest of the world has found works. A respected person acting a judge, community members standing as jury, if the ruling is denied then the perpetrator goes "outlaw". It isn't perfect, but neither is pro-active law enforcement. From everything that I have read, it is a far more peaceful way to interact than through coercive government.
That may be where most of the misunderstanding comes from: I object to government, not governance.
"Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness; it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances: what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living?
"Thus it every day renders the exercise of the free agency of man less useful and less frequent; it circumscribes the will within a narrower range and gradually robs a man of all the uses of himself."
the industry in question tripled prices and slashed services to maximize profit, while colluding with local governments to create barriers to entry for competition.
How is citing more abuse by government supposed to convince me that I'm wrong in my citing the abuses of government?
software companies will not want to get sued over buggy, hard-to-use software...
Have you read the End User License Agreements that Microsoft publishes under?
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. --Albert Einstein
One of the best arguments against expecting government to solve problems I've ever read. Thank you.
Speaking of Enron, did you know what Enron tried to make a business out of? Buying and selling pollution credits. Partnering with governments to build inefficient and needless power plants.
If you're actually interested in learning more than what you heard in government run public school, I can suggest _How Capitalism Saved America_ by Thomas DiLorenzo.
Learning some actual history will do you some good. Come back after reading it if you still disagree, and I'll gladly discuss any shortcomings you believe Prof. DiLorenzo's arguments have.
You're not describing deregulation - you're describing regulation by the courts.
In order for this to be a true statement, intervention by courts now would not exist. Since it does now happen, your statement is a logical null.
There is also a non-zero cost to knowing all of the "good" brands and companies.
This is the argument of someone who wants to impose their opinions of good and bad on others. Just because someone else doesn't use a product or service that I believe to be wonderfully fantastic and know it would benefit them greatly, I still have no right to force it on them. Why do you believe you do have that right?
Somebody else's safety choices can affect me.
That's why liability insurance exists. Or do you believe that regulation somehow eliminates risk? I've got several thousand dead people on the other side of that equation, dead as a direct result of regulators creating an environment where jet planes could be hyjacked in flight by a handful of idiots with pocket knives.
Finally, you're probably lying. People who think like you are generally in favor of tort reform, which would eliminate your idea of regulation by the courts.
It is unfortunate that so many people labor under such fear of their neighbors. Now you show how you're afraid of me, afraid of my argument for liberty is somehow just a show, a lie.
How do you get out of bed in the morning with such a load of fear on your heart?
but so did a lot of things that fell apart in practice.
Really, when?
in order to be perfectly competitive, the execution will be perfect, and they will never be tempted to cut just a bit more to survive against a competitor.
Putting words in my mouth doesn't work. Not only didn't I say that, your use of the words "perfectly competitive" is the antithesis of what I know to be true.
But in order for regulation to work, the regulators would have to know all these things you say is impossible for the airline executives to know.
So how about this: Nothing is perfect. A free-market allows failure, which a government bureaucracy is inherently insulated against. By those failures, awareness of what works and what doesn't in increased.
One fact you cannot deny: Any airline with a proven quality and safety record could charge a premium, just like Compaq or Apple computers, and people will pay it.
The study under discussion addresses the abuses of entrenched telecommunications "monopolies". The problem being that those "monopolies" were established by governments in the first place. All the study does is prove Ludwig von Mises' axiom that every government intervention causes problems which spawn more government interventions to "fix", which cause more problems, ad infinitum.
Slashdot Mirror
There are many better ways to spend that cash though. Think schools, healthcare, infrastructure, and job training.
Sounds great. Don't take the money in taxes in the first place, and I'll be very glad to spend it on just such things.
As a side benefit, without the bureaucratic overhead of filtering the money through government, more of the money will end up being used for making peoples lives better.
Bob-
Ok, point in your favor.
One problem I ran into in Japan is that some of their English was better than mine.
A lover who only speaks the language you want to learn. Don't learn, don't get laid.
Talk about motivation! Nothing else can come close.
Bob-
You're forgetting the largest barrier to entry: Government regulation.
Why is there only one telephone company in my town, and in fact in every town in America? Mandated government monopoly rationalized by declaring that the cost of providing initial service is so high that without that grant of monopoly no one would provide the service.
Yet this is exactly the same argument used to support Ma Bell. That is exactly the argument used to support three television networks.
So what happens when the legal barrier to entry is removed? Innovation occurs as people find ways to compete and make a profit.
Why are there three cell phone companies in Mogadishu, Somalia, and again only one in my town? Because there is no legal barrier to entry in Somalia like there is in the US. So all the technical barriers to providing service in such a remote and chaotic place are overcome by interested individuals looking to make a profit.
Drugs? Do tell, how many different brands of aspirin are there, since aspirin is "public domain"? One, since without that regulation there will be a monopoly? Hahahahaha. Oh, and I've been noticing only one car brand on the road for years now. Thanks for explaining that one, too.
Bob-
http://www.mises.org/story/1881 The Evaporation of the FCC by Tim Swanson
http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?Id=1662 The Spectrum Should Be Private Property: The Economics, History, and Future of Wireless Technology by B.K. Marcus
To do a very short recap of my own experience, I was doing network engineering in 1993 when control of the "routing tables" were released by the NSF and thereby ISPs were first legally allowed to peer directly with each other, as well as having the legal restriction on commercial content on "the Internet" repealed.
De-regulation at its most fundamental, the Fed.Gov simply let go.
The result was that "the Internet" exploded in function, reach and availability. The cost of connecting dropped immediately and has been continuing to drop ever since. The "technical issues" that had been the basis for Al Gore's "Information Superhighway" evaporated as each ISP worked to solve the problems of routing and peering, and engineers like myself found efficiencies that would never have been utilized if the "Information Superhighway" had been mandated by law.
The DMCA and such have been trying to put the genie back in the bottle, to re-regulate the content and use of "the Internet". Evil or stupid? It's hard to tell the difference with politicians and bureaucrats.
Bob-
yet another example of why laws that are created to protect the economic process of innovation are necessary.
Not at all. The reason that I.E. overwhelmed Netscape so quickly is because it was free for Windows owners, and all CDs of Win95 shipped after IE was written had IE included on them. Rather than take the time to pay for and download (with dial-up, remember) Netscape, people went with cheap or used what was already there.
Patents and copyrights were irrelevant to the issue. Or, by your argument, Linux distributions should be punished because of undercutting Microsoft's business model?
Patents and copyrights are supposed to prevent the copying, for a short time, of a limited scope of endeavor. That's all, and so long as that's all they did anyone arguing against them was easily ridiculed. With the expansion of patent to cover everything, and the extention of copyright to absurd lengths of time, the abuses allowed under these government mandated monopolies are so obvious they can no longer be hidden behind the smoke-screen of "benefiting the collective". Monopoly destroys innovation, it does not foster it. Or do you really want to go back to a single telephone provider where it is illegal to compete with them?
The problem with advocating the use of force to promote something you think is beneficial, is that that same force will be used by someone else to promote something they think is beneficial.
So what did people do before patents and copyright? They prosecuted fraud. Beethovan couldn't claim the theme was his, he had to say, "Beethovan's variations on a theme by Mozart." Gee, that wasn't hard. The world gets more great music, and both authors get the credit which is due to them.
Bob-
damn. i hate it when that happens. suffice to say there should have been a /i after "development". sorry. so much for not previewing....
here's a bonus link: http://www.mises.org/story/1881
bob-
I worked at GE Plastics for a while. You can imagine this company did not lose money.
Talking to the engineers and managers, I learned how they did it: The GEP edge is in development. A customer brings a requirement, specific properties of the polymer that they need. Melting temp, elasticity, viscosity, tensile strength, colour, density, whatever it may be. GEP then produces materials with those properties quicker than any other producer in the world can, and in whatever quantity needed.
During the year or more that it takes a competitor to copy those properties and come up to speed of production in order to undercut GEP's price, GEP charged a premium. A "monopoly price", in effect, because there is in fact no other supplier of the material. They can't charge too much, of course, or they will piss off potential repeat business or motivate prospective customers to wait the extra time needed for some cheaper producer to ramp up production.
Where there is competition, there are always alternatives. But you only get to choose two out of "fast, good, cheap".
The original arguments for copyright and patent, the American ones anyway, were to grant for a limited time a government guarantee of legal force to protect your "monopoly price" for your creation. But as so many people have discovered, nothing about government ever remains limited.
When they were truly limited, in scope and time, it was difficult to argue against them and not be seen as some kind of inane radical out of touch with "reality". Lysander Spooner comes to mind. The shortcomings of such government mandated monopolies have since been demonstrated in every area of endeavor, including now patent and copyright, to a degree that has become undeniable.
But the principle holds true in all areas of human effort, including computer operating systems, telephone service providers, plastics, and even music: It is competition, not vested interest, that generates innovation.
Vested interest, however, generates more campaign contributions.
Bob-
I thought I was all alone, until I found Ludwig von Mises.
The problem is that _Human Action_ is longer than _Dianetics_, so not as many people have read it.
Bob-
Or, "Operating systems are just too complex. It takes a huge well-funded corporation to support that kind of development."
I assure you, as an anarcho-capitalist, I run into this same absurd "argument" on all kinds of subjects.
"Dams are just too big and expensive, they cannot be built privately." Oh, but don't notice that Boulder Dam was a private project expropriated by the Fed.Gov and renamed Hoover Dam...
I wrote to him to discuss something I'd noticed in the IPv6 sections, and he wrote back. It was very nice to discuss it with him directly, and I'll gladly echo the fact that his work is both easy to read and informative.
I've read a LOT of networking crap over the 25 years I've been doing computer networking, this ease of reading is not common to the genre.
His work is also online:
http://www.tcpipguide.com/free/index.htm
Bob-
Kind of hurts when you realize you JUST MIGHT BE WRONG, doesn't it?
The article is wrong. What hurts is that such error is published in mainstream media on a repulsively regular basis.
Bob-
He merely disagrees with your opinion.
He stated a raft of false historical anecdotes, and when directed to materials to help correct the error states he's not interested.
So it's both ignorance and apathy.
I do agree that many people use the term ignorance to mean disagreement, I was trying to be more accurate.
Bob-
I evidently know more than you.
I have no problem with that, there will always be someone with a greater knowledge than I in any particular subject.
However, on the nature of governmet, you are woefully ignorant.
Wow!
Thank you.
You really tend to conflate economic models and moral models.
That's because they are the same thing. They both are aspects of human interaction.
And what else is givrnment other than the moral desires of the public writ large?
I see you have bought into "democracy". Try this: Government is the institution with a monopoly on the initiation of force. Governments only tool is coercion, every penny it "spends" is stolen at gun point from someone.
While it is possible that you agree with some actions of the government you live under, and therefore think government is good. However, that has nothing to do with what government is, and you could think of lots of examples of governments doing things you do not agree with.
I think that everyone would be a lot happier if we all realized that economics was a morality-free zone...
There is no such thing. Individuals interact, each according to their own morality and desires. There is no human interaction that does not bear some aspect of the morality of the participants.
I recommend the writings of Murray Rothbard, or for that matter Ludwig von Mises. Lots of discussions of morality as embodied in economic matters on the mises.org we site.
Government is force, like fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. Its nature is coercion, and as such it attracts those who enjoy wielding power over others. Lots of efforts by very smart people over the ages have tried to limit its power, none successfully.
If no one had a good reason to fear their neighbors:
a) there would be no need for cops.
There is no need of government police. Private security works well for the few malcontents.
b) or fences
Haven't you heard? Locks keep out honest people.
c) or guard dogs
See above.
d) or the right to keep and bear arms
Ah! But the right to keep and bear arms respects your neighbors as responsible individuals. It is those that advocate disarming people who are doing the projecting and fearing their neighbors.
While your other examples have some merit to show that some people are sometimes bad, the RKBA is explicit recognition that there are far more good people than bad. And while nothing will prevent bad people from getting and abusing their arms, they can certainly be corrected by good people with weapons.
The truth is that no one existed who was willing to spend the capital to go into space.
So there was no mandate for this "democratic" government to do it. Fascinating.
I hope that she doesn't grow up to be so utterly ungrateful because -- Oh my God! -- they were paid for with tax dollars.
Here's the problem: I object, you don't. Rather than you and those who agree with you shouldering the full costs of your opinion, you use the coercion of government to reduce your burden by spreading it out upon others.
It's nice that you get to justify and rationalize your use of force against others, with lots of things you agree with. I'm not saying they didn't get done or that they are not somewhat useful. I object that they were and are being done with blood money extracted at gun point.
If enough people believe in a project to create the mandate required in "our" limited constitutional republic for the government to do it, then there are enough interested people to do it without coercion. If coercion is required, then there is no such mandate and the government does not have the power to enact it.
Each and every one of your examples would have happened anyway, if people wanted it, because people want it. Government can only interfere.
A democracy enforces those regulations upon which its citizens agree,
m
p 3 http://www.mises.org/mp3/ASC8/ASCDemo.mp3 as three items that may enlighten you as to what anarchy, as opposed to chaos, is.
But I do not agree. That is one reason that democracy sucks so badly, the two wolves get to assert that because the sheep gets a "vote", the sheep is somehow agreeing to be dinner.
the dog-eat-dog environment of natural selection and evolution whose parallel in human society we know as anarchy.
No. That is "chaos", not anarchy. Gynarchy, rule by women. Monarchy, rule by one person. Oligarchy, rule by elders or an entrenched elite. Anarchy, no one in a position of rule.
Chaos can exist under any form of government. Under Lenin, for instance, most of Russia was in a state of chaos as they died in great numbers while left without food, without shelter, because Lenin tried to enforce orthodox Communism. He had to release some power, allow money and some small level of voluntary trade in order for the people to survive. Mao found the same thing.
The tax code in the US is a good example of chaos. It is so complex, and changes constantly, that no two accountants come up with the same numbers. People dread being audited not because they think they have done something wrong, but because they can never know for sure that they have not.
in those societies in which anarchy more widely prevails (both now - think Nigeria and Pakistan
I suggest that the very strong governments in both Nigeria and Pakistan would disagree with you. Those two countries are in no way anarchic. They are chaotic, certainly. Somalia is pretty close to anarchy, and doing quite well. Last I heard, Mogadishu had three cell-phone companies, while even America continues to have locally mandated monopolies where only one carrier may serve a geographic location. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somalia http://www.awdaldevelopment.org/Html/resources.ht
I recommend http://www.mises.org/story/1778 http://www.mises.org/multimedia/mp3/bb05/birzer.m
I would actually be quite interested in any objections you have to the presentations on anarchy. I know people try to justify coercive force in interesting ways.
Most of the time the Golden Rule translates as 'be nice to others' (probably because that seems to be the only thing people can universally agree upon) and for the most part regulation is an attempt to enforce that behavior.
If you were correct, "government" would be limited to prosecution of force and fraud. None of which has anything to do with regulation. Regulation is how people are allowed to peacefully interact, since violent interaction is (and always has been) illegal.
Human civilization has been built in spite of government, not because of it. The irrational belief that might makes right is the basis of all government. Governments are instituted, as so eloquently written, to secure pre-existing rights to life, liberty and property. Government didn't make any of that possible, its only capacity is to interfere.
Where you and I differ is that I object to that interference, and you agree with it. Under a different government than you have now, it is very likely that one could be found that you object to but that someone else thinks is great.
Again, that is why regulation doesn't work: people disagree. When people are in agreement, no regulation is needed. When they disagree, regulation tramples the rights of those who disagree with it.
You describe a world where intervention by the courts is the sole means of government regulation, whereas in today's world we have the courts and direct regulation. I don't see how X AND Y implies NOT Y.
You say that I advocate government regulation through the courts, which actually I do not. Courts do remain after regulation is removed, but they already exist and operate today. Therefore, "regulation through the courts" is not a change from today.
What I advocate is prosecution for force and fraud. That's all. Further regulation is merely an excuse for creating bureaucracy and facilitating graft, corruption and cronyism.
I, and society, have that right because we generally agree on it...
Then it is not a right, it is a power. A power granted by tyranny of the majority. If it were a right, then I could do it too and I cannot. I am forced to abide regulations promulgated by others, regardless of their effects.
Don't worry, someone will do the same thing to you some time. I wonder if you'll object then as I object now?
I would consider allowing civil suits against companies that make faulty products a limitation on liberty, and a form of government coercion, so I suspected that you would probably actually oppose it. Your position, as stated, seems logically inconsistent to me. But I apologize for putting words in your mouth.
Thank you. Prosecution for force and fraud is the excuse by which government exists at all, when there is any excuse given. Some say "defense", some say "peace keeping", others "police powers", but it's all about punishing force and fraud.
If government limited itself to that function, it would be very difficult to object to it. Unfortunately, government power tends to grow, and such a limited grant of power never lasts. It is educational that even in the US, the "Alien and Sedition Acts" which are blatantly unconstitutional were passed and enforced so soon after the Constitution was ratified at all.
But someone got the bright idea of "pro-active law enforcement", where people are punished for crimes they _might_ commit, by restricting their liberty to make the choice. This is very easy to object to, which is why it seems that my statements are contradictory. I'm trying very hard to be clear on principle, but a full tryst would require an entire book, such as Murray Rothbard's _For A New Liberty_, which in fact does it and does it well.
Here's something to chew on: Even if all coercive government were to vanish tomorrow, there would still be courts because that is the way "the English speaking world" and most of the rest of the world has found works. A respected person acting a judge, community members standing as jury, if the ruling is denied then the perpetrator goes "outlaw". It isn't perfect, but neither is pro-active law enforcement. From everything that I have read, it is a far more peaceful way to interact than through coercive government.
That may be where most of the misunderstanding comes from: I object to government, not governance.
Have you ever read Alexis de Tocqueville? He writes of "regulation" without knowing to use that word:
m
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/ch4_06.ht
"Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness; it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances: what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living?
"Thus it every day renders the exercise of the free agency of man less useful and less frequent; it circumscribes the will within a narrower range and gradually robs a man of all the uses of himself."
the industry in question tripled prices and slashed services to maximize profit, while colluding with local governments to create barriers to entry for competition.
How is citing more abuse by government supposed to convince me that I'm wrong in my citing the abuses of government?
software companies will not want to get sued over buggy, hard-to-use software...
Have you read the End User License Agreements that Microsoft publishes under?
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
--Albert Einstein
One of the best arguments against expecting government to solve problems I've ever read. Thank you.
Bob-
Speaking of Enron, did you know what Enron tried to make a business out of? Buying and selling pollution credits. Partnering with governments to build inefficient and needless power plants.
If you're actually interested in learning more than what you heard in government run public school, I can suggest _How Capitalism Saved America_ by Thomas DiLorenzo.
Learning some actual history will do you some good. Come back after reading it if you still disagree, and I'll gladly discuss any shortcomings you believe Prof. DiLorenzo's arguments have.
Bob-
You're not describing deregulation - you're describing regulation by the courts.
In order for this to be a true statement, intervention by courts now would not exist. Since it does now happen, your statement is a logical null.
There is also a non-zero cost to knowing all of the "good" brands and companies.
This is the argument of someone who wants to impose their opinions of good and bad on others. Just because someone else doesn't use a product or service that I believe to be wonderfully fantastic and know it would benefit them greatly, I still have no right to force it on them. Why do you believe you do have that right?
Somebody else's safety choices can affect me.
That's why liability insurance exists. Or do you believe that regulation somehow eliminates risk? I've got several thousand dead people on the other side of that equation, dead as a direct result of regulators creating an environment where jet planes could be hyjacked in flight by a handful of idiots with pocket knives.
Finally, you're probably lying. People who think like you are generally in favor of tort reform, which would eliminate your idea of regulation by the courts.
It is unfortunate that so many people labor under such fear of their neighbors. Now you show how you're afraid of me, afraid of my argument for liberty is somehow just a show, a lie.
How do you get out of bed in the morning with such a load of fear on your heart?
Bob-
but so did a lot of things that fell apart in practice.
Really, when?
in order to be perfectly competitive, the execution will be perfect, and they will never be tempted to cut just a bit more to survive against a competitor.
Putting words in my mouth doesn't work. Not only didn't I say that, your use of the words "perfectly competitive" is the antithesis of what I know to be true.
But in order for regulation to work, the regulators would have to know all these things you say is impossible for the airline executives to know.
So how about this: Nothing is perfect. A free-market allows failure, which a government bureaucracy is inherently insulated against. By those failures, awareness of what works and what doesn't in increased.
One fact you cannot deny: Any airline with a proven quality and safety record could charge a premium, just like Compaq or Apple computers, and people will pay it.
The study under discussion addresses the abuses of entrenched telecommunications "monopolies". The problem being that those "monopolies" were established by governments in the first place. All the study does is prove Ludwig von Mises' axiom that every government intervention causes problems which spawn more government interventions to "fix", which cause more problems, ad infinitum.
Bob-
Very well said, Woldry. Now I don't have to respond and say exactly the same thing, and likely not nearly so well.
Thank you.
Bob-