Absolutely. But the primary distinction is that it would be voluntary, which is precisely what a real government isn't, and is the entire source of discontent with government by anarcho-capitalists.
If it looks like a wolf but acts like a dog, it isn't really a wolf, is it?
If a plumber did something like that: a. The customer would be able to report the incident and he would never be hired again. b. He would probably incur legal penalties. c. He would have to hope his customer was a peaceful person.
If your protector did something like that: a. You'd already have hired a different protector. b. A protector is in the business of making money by providing a service, not fighting needless wars against other protectors, the latter of which would almost certainly result in him losing even more business as word got out of his abuse of power. c. He'd be hoping that you had no recourse, but he'd be wrong, because there would be a market in protectors, so the chances of you being completely without protection would essentially be nil.
The situation you describe simply wouldn't happen, because it would not be in the interests of protectors to do "business" like the mob.
Libertarianism advocates a (limited) government. It is not anarchism. There are differing definitions of libertarian. Many anarcho-capitalists classify themselves as libertarian. I do not, because it leads to the confusion you point out. For the record, I believe limited government is folly, because all governments expand their powers indefinitely over time. The only way to avoid this trap is never to submit to a coercive force in the first place, and to preserve your rights as a free man or woman. On a side note, why would one of these "protector" companies let you change to another "protector"? For the same reason your plumber doesn't sabotage your water main when you decide to go with a different plumber. Are you really that paranoid?
What I always like to point out to those ignorant of anarchy is that anarchy implies a lack of compulsory government, but does NOT imply a lack of order. Order is achieved naturally through market forces: people provide for their own protection, which in most cases means they contract for it; but unlike the (questionable) protection we derive from our governments, those in anarcho-capitalist societies could voluntarily change protectors without ending up in prison for treason.
Any sufficiently organized community is indistinguishable from government.
False.
A government is merely a territorial monopoly of jurisdiction. (See Hans-Hermann Hoppe's summary of his own book, Democracy: The God That Failed.) If you own property and do not surrender your right to sever any contracts with other entities to whom you grant certain powers (e.g., over defense), you have not given over control to a government. Such was the state of the United States prior to the Civil War, when secession was viewed as legitimate. Unfortunately, the primary result of the Civil War was that the national government attained supremacy over the individual states, a reversal of the prior situation.
Just because it isn't in the constitution doesn't mean it isn't a right.
While there are lots of rights explicitly protected by the constitution---carrying weapons in public; being safe from unreasonable search and seizure; conversing in speech or in print; etc.---the Bill of Rights is not intended to enumerate only those few rights you have, with everything else being privileges granted by an all-powerful government. In practice it may seem this way, but that is merely (!!) an aberration resulting from distortions promoted by those wishing to aggrandize government for their own personal gain, using indoctrination in the form of public schooling and widespread petty law enforcement to create a passive, easily-controlled populace.
The constitution was explicitly designed to enumerate those rights that the individuals and states were granting to the federal government---you know, that whole limited powers thing---not the other way around.
It's funny you call me a sheep. Sheep are prey. I am not. I am a free man, and have the ability to defend that freedom, which makes me distinctly not prey.
And I will continue to bleat about the 2nd, because the teeth of the 2nd makes enforcing the 1st possible.
By your logic I should be able to carry a gun around downtown, after all I want to, and it doesn't disrupt anybody, and it's "nobody else's goddamned business" Yes, you should. And you can in 37 states without any discrimination (either no permit or "shall-issue" concealed carry permits), and in 11 others with the permission of the state.
The gun laws are the same way: though it varies from town to town, some town chiefs simply do not issue carry permits to anyone except the rich and politically well-connected. Despite concealed carry permits being shall-issue in 37 states (at my last count), the subjects of drunken King Kennedy are evidently too stupid to handle firearms safely in public and are forced to carry a cellphone with its unfortunate 10-minute trigger as their only form of defense.
Unfortunately, at this point the Chinese internet *does* belong to the Chinese government, because the people of China obviously are not willing to stand up and possibly die for self-government. Until they decide to have a revolution (armed or not), they can lie in the bed their complacency has made for them.
Whatever happened to freedom of association? A private entity---i.e., anything that is *not* the government---should be able to discriminate on any basis it chooses.
Even if you agree with the legality of civil rights laws, the employees of a particular company are not a protected group under that legislation.
How can I trust cellphone manufacturers to get the hard stuff right, when they can't even get the easy stuff right?
Case in point: the side buttons on almost every clamshell/flip phone. Why isn't there an option to completely disable them when the phone is closed? How many times have I pulled the Motorola V330 out of my pocket only to find it's been silenced because the keys in the same pocket have helpfully managed to set the ringer to "Silent"?
"If we can reinvent the car, imagine the jobs we can create." said bill sponsor Rep. Bob Inglis, R-S.C."
Who's this "we" he's talking about? Politicians never actually do anything except take credit for others' work while taxing and inflating them to the poorhouse in the process.
(But, hey, at least after being taxed/inflated into the poorhouse you'll have a whole plethora of welfare programs to choose from.)
I bought the four disc DVD set when it came out, but that POS is hitting half.com when I get my hands on this. Finally, no Jabba, no "whoosh!" at Alderaan, no ring of fire when the Death Star explodes, no interruption of the wonderful "Hyperspace" piece at the end of Empire, and...
HAN FIRES FIRST!
I take the passive aggressive approach
on
Explorer Destroyer
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I just don't have the time to see if my page looks good on every browser, so I simply code to the standard and if IE can't display it properly, tough nuts. I include a small but helpful link to Firefox on the front page.
...that April Fool's Day lands on the weekend both this year and next year. Since I don't often read slashdot on the weekend, perhaps that means I'll miss most of this foolishness.
Most elite private colleges are charging around $31,000/year in tuition and fees, give or take a thousand.
Perhaps you mean tuition PLUS room and board? Yes, then you're getting into the low $40's; but in general you can avoid that after your freshman year in most colleges by living off-campus.
While you can get a good education at almost any college, and be forced to get one to a greater or lesser degree depending on how rigorous the curriculum is, the tuition pays for the credential: a Bachelor of Science from Stanford means a lot more to potential employers than "I listened to all the lectures and did all the problem sets required for a Stanford degree. No really, I did!"
Objective-C does OO much more like Smalltalk: method dispatch is determined at runtime, not a compile time. So does C++: they're called virtual function tables.
Unless you mean that in ObjC the possible methods for an object are not available at link time, in which case type safety is not available. I don't know enough about ObjC; perhaps you can explain it to me succinctly?
...I fire back with the almost-certainly-true statement that "You don't know C++ well enough to judge its value as a language."
I have been coding in C++ for about 15 years; I have seen the language evolve over that time; and while there are aspects that I don't like, for the most part I think C++ is wonderful and natural to program in, as long as one takes the time to design API's in an extensible way. This is no different from any other language, though C++ certainly gives you more rope if you are already inclined to hang yourself; but, OTOH, the extra slack makes it possible to type-safely do things that cannot be done in languages without multiple inheritance or parametric polymorphism.
FWIW, the same is true of me for Objective C: I can make only the most shallow, uninformed observations about it, so I generally avoid doing so. Perhaps one day I'll learn it so I can make an informed judgment about it, but until then, I'll keep my mouth shut.
Slashdot Mirror
that is in some ways similar to government
Absolutely. But the primary distinction is that it would be voluntary, which is precisely what a real government isn't, and is the entire source of discontent with government by anarcho-capitalists.
If it looks like a wolf but acts like a dog, it isn't really a wolf, is it?
Kyle
If a plumber did something like that:
a. The customer would be able to report the incident and he would never be hired again.
b. He would probably incur legal penalties.
c. He would have to hope his customer was a peaceful person.
If your protector did something like that:
a. You'd already have hired a different protector.
b. A protector is in the business of making money by providing a service, not fighting needless wars against other protectors, the latter of which would almost certainly result in him losing even more business as word got out of his abuse of power.
c. He'd be hoping that you had no recourse, but he'd be wrong, because there would be a market in protectors, so the chances of you being completely without protection would essentially be nil.
The situation you describe simply wouldn't happen, because it would not be in the interests of protectors to do "business" like the mob.
Libertarianism advocates a (limited) government. It is not anarchism.
There are differing definitions of libertarian. Many anarcho-capitalists classify themselves as libertarian. I do not, because it leads to the confusion you point out. For the record, I believe limited government is folly, because all governments expand their powers indefinitely over time. The only way to avoid this trap is never to submit to a coercive force in the first place, and to preserve your rights as a free man or woman.
On a side note, why would one of these "protector" companies let you change to another "protector"?
For the same reason your plumber doesn't sabotage your water main when you decide to go with a different plumber. Are you really that paranoid?
Kyle
What I always like to point out to those ignorant of anarchy is that anarchy implies a lack of compulsory government, but does NOT imply a lack of order. Order is achieved naturally through market forces: people provide for their own protection, which in most cases means they contract for it; but unlike the (questionable) protection we derive from our governments, those in anarcho-capitalist societies could voluntarily change protectors without ending up in prison for treason.
Any sufficiently organized community is indistinguishable from government.
False.
A government is merely a territorial monopoly of jurisdiction. (See Hans-Hermann Hoppe's summary of his own book, Democracy: The God That Failed.) If you own property and do not surrender your right to sever any contracts with other entities to whom you grant certain powers (e.g., over defense), you have not given over control to a government. Such was the state of the United States prior to the Civil War, when secession was viewed as legitimate. Unfortunately, the primary result of the Civil War was that the national government attained supremacy over the individual states, a reversal of the prior situation.
Cheers,
Kyle
Just because it isn't in the constitution doesn't mean it isn't a right.
While there are lots of rights explicitly protected by the constitution---carrying weapons in public; being safe from unreasonable search and seizure; conversing in speech or in print; etc.---the Bill of Rights is not intended to enumerate only those few rights you have, with everything else being privileges granted by an all-powerful government. In practice it may seem this way, but that is merely (!!) an aberration resulting from distortions promoted by those wishing to aggrandize government for their own personal gain, using indoctrination in the form of public schooling and widespread petty law enforcement to create a passive, easily-controlled populace.
The constitution was explicitly designed to enumerate those rights that the individuals and states were granting to the federal government---you know, that whole limited powers thing---not the other way around.
What, and you think you folks could rise up?
Push them enough, and they will.
Sad little sheep, keep bleating about the 2nd.
It's funny you call me a sheep. Sheep are prey. I am not. I am a free man, and have the ability to defend that freedom, which makes me distinctly not prey.
And I will continue to bleat about the 2nd, because the teeth of the 2nd makes enforcing the 1st possible.
Hopefully our mates across the sea will rise up
Yeah, too bad they gave up all their guns. (Well, everyone except the criminals, that is.) Kind of hard to rise up now, isn't it?
By your logic I should be able to carry a gun around downtown, after all I want to, and it doesn't disrupt anybody, and it's "nobody else's goddamned business"
Yes, you should. And you can in 37 states without any discrimination (either no permit or "shall-issue" concealed carry permits), and in 11 others with the permission of the state.
The gun laws are the same way: though it varies from town to town, some town chiefs simply do not issue carry permits to anyone except the rich and politically well-connected. Despite concealed carry permits being shall-issue in 37 states (at my last count), the subjects of drunken King Kennedy are evidently too stupid to handle firearms safely in public and are forced to carry a cellphone with its unfortunate 10-minute trigger as their only form of defense.
Unfortunately, at this point the Chinese internet *does* belong to the Chinese government, because the people of China obviously are not willing to stand up and possibly die for self-government. Until they decide to have a revolution (armed or not), they can lie in the bed their complacency has made for them.
Whatever happened to freedom of association? A private entity---i.e., anything that is *not* the government---should be able to discriminate on any basis it chooses.
Even if you agree with the legality of civil rights laws, the employees of a particular company are not a protected group under that legislation.
Can you, for example, please point out where the forced-labor camps in the US are?
How can I trust cellphone manufacturers to get the hard stuff right, when they can't even get the easy stuff right?
Case in point: the side buttons on almost every clamshell/flip phone. Why isn't there an option to completely disable them when the phone is closed? How many times have I pulled the Motorola V330 out of my pocket only to find it's been silenced because the keys in the same pocket have helpfully managed to set the ringer to "Silent"?
This isn't rocket science.
"If we can reinvent the car, imagine the jobs we can create." said bill sponsor Rep. Bob Inglis, R-S.C."
Who's this "we" he's talking about? Politicians never actually do anything except take credit for others' work while taxing and inflating them to the poorhouse in the process.
(But, hey, at least after being taxed/inflated into the poorhouse you'll have a whole plethora of welfare programs to choose from.)
I bought the four disc DVD set when it came out, but that POS is hitting half.com when I get my hands on this. Finally, no Jabba, no "whoosh!" at Alderaan, no ring of fire when the Death Star explodes, no interruption of the wonderful "Hyperspace" piece at the end of Empire, and...
HAN FIRES FIRST!
I just don't have the time to see if my page looks good on every browser, so I simply code to the standard and if IE can't display it properly, tough nuts. I include a small but helpful link to Firefox on the front page.
RMS isn't keeping the money for himself: he's trying to reduce demand by charging, and giving all the proceeds to the FSF.
What do you people all have against RMS? Remember that you use his software every day.
1. Reduce time for advertising.
2. Charge more for said reduced time.
3. ???
4. Profit!
...that April Fool's Day lands on the weekend both this year and next year. Since I don't often read slashdot on the weekend, perhaps that means I'll miss most of this foolishness.
See you all Monday.
Very insightful comment, something unusual for Slashdot.
Most elite private colleges are charging around $31,000/year in tuition and fees, give or take a thousand.
Perhaps you mean tuition PLUS room and board? Yes, then you're getting into the low $40's; but in general you can avoid that after your freshman year in most colleges by living off-campus.
While you can get a good education at almost any college, and be forced to get one to a greater or lesser degree depending on how rigorous the curriculum is, the tuition pays for the credential: a Bachelor of Science from Stanford means a lot more to potential employers than "I listened to all the lectures and did all the problem sets required for a Stanford degree. No really, I did!"
Objective-C does OO much more like Smalltalk: method dispatch is determined at runtime, not a compile time.
So does C++: they're called virtual function tables.
Unless you mean that in ObjC the possible methods for an object are not available at link time, in which case type safety is not available. I don't know enough about ObjC; perhaps you can explain it to me succinctly?
Kyle
...I fire back with the almost-certainly-true statement that "You don't know C++ well enough to judge its value as a language."
I have been coding in C++ for about 15 years; I have seen the language evolve over that time; and while there are aspects that I don't like, for the most part I think C++ is wonderful and natural to program in, as long as one takes the time to design API's in an extensible way. This is no different from any other language, though C++ certainly gives you more rope if you are already inclined to hang yourself; but, OTOH, the extra slack makes it possible to type-safely do things that cannot be done in languages without multiple inheritance or parametric polymorphism.
FWIW, the same is true of me for Objective C: I can make only the most shallow, uninformed observations about it, so I generally avoid doing so. Perhaps one day I'll learn it so I can make an informed judgment about it, but until then, I'll keep my mouth shut.