Why are they beating down MY door? And, yes, if they try to take stuff that's mine, I will defend myself. The correct solution to this problem is not for me to have nothing, but for them to not try to take other peoples' stuff.
The way to get them not to take other people's stuff is to make it possible for them to get stuff of their own. You have four choices there: Free Market, which will take 92 cents out of every dollar for profit for the stockholders; Private charity, which is a little better at 80 cents out of every dollar for "Administrative costs"; Local Government/Protected Local Private industry, which is much better at 8 cents out of every dollar for "Administrative costs" or "small business owner profit", and Federal Government, which due to economies of scale spends a scant 2 cents out of every dollar on Administrative Costs. I personally prefer the third for being more transparent and accountable- but I recognize it's about 4x as expensive as the fourth.
I don't disagree with you. I do assert that the bill is growing, and I'm not getting any more for my money, and I don't think that's OK.
That's just inflation- if we reduce the money supply that would be fixed, possibly even reversed.
Not when I can avoid it, no. Are you telling me that the only place with sweatshops is China, and if I just avoid Chinese clothes, I'm OK?
No, but if it's not China it's some equally objectional place. The entire purpose of the WTO is to remove your choices in this matter as much as possible.
No, I'm seeking a shirt.
Well, I suppose if you got yourself a loom and made your own cloth, you could get a shirt without getting the moral stain the "free market" has forced you into. But since first world countries require salaries too large for making cloth, it'd be a particularily unprofitable thing for you to do.
I decline to take responsibility for the bad acts of people I do not know.
That's ok, the market forces you to take responsibility for the bad acts of people you pay the wages of anyway- by consuming their goods you are complicit in their acts.
Sorry. I do my best to avoid products I know to be built by slave labor, but I cannot act with perfect information.
And since the free market provides you with an anonymous ability to not know, that's your moral out?
Are you serious? You think that just because I don't agree with you, I must be stupid and ignorant?
No, not stupid- but certainly ignorant if you think everything's just hunky dory out there in free market land.
If there was a mechanism to make the poor better off, while not making everybody poor, I would support it.
The United States showed such a mechanism in the 1950s- the greatest expansion of the middle class the world has ever seen. It took 97% marginal tax rates to do it though, and a shrinking money supply.
The least bad mechanism to that aim is market economies, not command economies.
History has shown that market economies and command economies do not work for this purpose.
Keeping my neighbor from stealing my food is not asserting my rights at the expense of anybody. It's just asserting my rights. You don't have a right to my food.
Are you really naive enough to think that a local private police force would stop there?
Agreed. And, ideally, The People own the government. I wish to return to that ideal.
Ah, that would lead to the second greatest period of middle class expansion the world has ever seen: 900-1200 AD in Europe, under the kings and nobles and noblese oblige and most of all, the Guilds. High taxes once again, but also the concept of a Just Wage and a Fair Price- the fair price being cost of materials + labor under the just wage, the just wage being whatever it took for a single man to feed a family of up to 10 people. Teenagers would apprentice themselves to a master craftsman, and everybody would own or build their own tools, very little trade was neccessary to maintain the system. And the guild could blacklist the businessman who charged less than, or more than, a fair price.
I don't necessarily disagree with you, but how do you make sure vigilantes are good actors? What's to prevent the rich or the poor from being vigilantes against YOU, for any value of you?
Nothing. You can either be a part of the community, and benefit from the business that brings, or you can leave and become a hermit. Try to game the system, and the vigilantes will string you up for a lynchin'. As it should be when people control the government- for vigilanteism is the ultimate of people controling the government. Why should you get away with stepping on another person's rights, to build value for yourself?
I don't care about class. Classes don't have rights. The only rights are those that adhere to individuals.
An 1876 Supreme Court ruling that I happen to also disagree with says differently; but that's almost beside the point. Upper classes will build superior fake rights for themselves when people control the government, because they can afford better government than you can.
OK, so those two periods had robed people in masks knifing bad actors?
Sort of. Europe in 900-1200 A.D. had the Church Guilds, who could blacklist and even kill those who broke guild rules, sometimes with the help of the local government; since even minor nobles had the right of life and death over their chattel holdings, and needed the Guilds for any consuming they wished to do. The 1950s had three organizations directly under control of the federal government: The IRS, The House Un-American Activities Committee, and the FBI; all of whom were charged with keeping different portions of the economic controls in place.
With radically fewer services overall, and what services are provided are locally accountable, you could in fact realize a tax savings.
If you have radically fewer services overall- what will you do when the people who need those services come beating your door down? Shoot them all?
I don't think you understand the basic concept behind government services to begin with. It's preventative insurance against a much larger cost in the future. Fail to pay that cost, and you'll just be stuck with the much bigger bill.
However, this scenario is at least as idealistic as Marx's, and equally unlikely to occur. So, since I do not have nor do I seek power over my fellow man, you have nothing to worry about.
You buy clothes from China don't you? If so, you're seeking power over your fellow man.
What kind of shoes do you wear? What chinese dissident was forced to make your shirt? You can't live in America anymore without oppressing *somebody*- even if that person is a half a world away.
I think the "third world" is no worse off, and many people world wide are living longer and healthier and richer lives.
You've never been outside of the United States, have you? Or even just down to your local homeless congregation center?
Um, something that is owned and operated by private individuals is called private enterprise.
The only difference between a private enterprise and a government is in who owns it.
That's the polar opposite of "big government".
No it isn't- it's still people banding together to assert their rights at the expense of their neighbors.
Well, it used to be, anyhow, before the plutocrats merged them together.
It never actually was- all government was private enterprise in the begining, it's the same thing on a different scale.
Absolutely true. What is the best way to get there? Free enterprise, or a command economy?
Neither free enterprise nor a command economy can build a middle class. Only a strongly regulated small economy that prevents liars and theives from profiting can build a middle class- and the best way to do that is to allow vigilanteism. The free enterprise allows liars and theieves to prosper from their own ability; the command economy allows liars and theives to use government to do their bidding.
If you think I'm in favor of the status quo, you're mistaken. However, I believe you and I would disagree on the mechanisms that could best serve the goal of increasing wealth and well-being of large numbers of people.
I look to history on that score. There were two periods in history that showed an unprecidented increase in wealth and well-being of large numbers of people- naturally the opposite seems to be the norm. Those two periods were 900-1200 AD in Europe and 1942-1959 in America. The first used distributism under the guild system for an economy with high barriers of entry between villages; the second used excessive taxation on the rich to discourage greed and grow big government. Can you find me another period which benefited more than 90% of the people simultaneously?
OK, I detest the current administration and the system that spawned it almost as much as you do, but that's a pretty silly assertion.
It's not a silly assertion at all- low taxes on the rich allow them to keep the non-rich from moving into their circle effectively. It's been that way in every society since Babylon.
OK, you must be assuming that I'm in favor of this particular administration's tax strategy. No. I am in favor of radically overhauling the government and making it much smaller, much more local, and much less expensive.
However, that would not result in a tax cut. Making things more local reduces economies of scale, and thus efficiency- making government more expensive and resulting in a tax hike in the end. I'm also for this, but I'm realistic about it that it would not result in reduced taxes, just reapportioned taxes (as in, more of your money going to your city or county than the state or the feds). The same services would need to be supplied by somebody- and private industry would be even worse (just look at some private roads around stores sometime- they're great at leading you into the parkinglot, but suck at letting you leave).
THAT is a tax cut. This administration is just playing a shell game.
It's ALL just a shell game- the services have to be provided by SOMEBODY, it's really just how locally do you want them provided? Al Capone was great at providing services to his neighborhoods.
I'm willing to bet the Nehalem Native Americans would survive such a thing. They have a habit of running up Neahkahnie Mountain when the ocean receeds greatly- and unless such a mega-tsunami could top 2000 feet, at least some would survive to tell the tale. Of course, they get big floods every winter, so it's not such a big deal....
I don't think anybody would let the rich get away with oppressing anybody.
It's happening right now- American workers have basically been thrown out to the dogs in favor of trade with China.
Just look at the anger targeted at the rich even today.
Anger isn't enough to stop the rich from oppressing others. Only executions can do that.
And if you're allowed to defend yourself with a gun, why couldn't you delegate that power to an agency, like the police, on an insurance basis?
You can- but that's getting back away from the libertarian anarchist ideal of NO GOVERNMENT.
That IS the point of insurance, just like health insurance means pooling a small monthly fee for many people, so that the individual risk of a dangerous disease or accident can be paid for even by people with no big pockets. And in that case again, the insurance fee could be used to keep a few doctors and hospitals employed/financed, i.e. insourcing.
Yes, and taxes are just a form of mandated insurance; that's what Government is- a big insurance policy. Cut those taxes- and you'd better expect to pay more elsewhere for the same services.
The difference between state police and insurance-based protection is that you have every right to defend yourself against evil agents, while many people would believe that they don't have the right to stand up against evil government, guess why, because it's *government*!
You don't have the right to defend yourself against truly evil agents either- if they have more money then you do they'll have more bullets in their clip.
Likewise, you could just cancel your contract anytime, thus starving the bastards, depriving them of further funds.
Nah, they'll just use their reserves that they profited off of you to buy whatever competitor you switched to. Either that, or kill you outright for attempting to switch, that's how the "police" in Sicily used to do it.
See how well you can stop paying the IRS to bleed out the warmongering Federal Government and all the lobbyists and other crooks in DC! Again, it's government, so by definition, you HAVE to pay them.
You can't stop paying a rich person either- see how long it takes after you stop paying on your credit cards before they haul you off to jail.
Assuming that most people actually do favor human rights and freedom from a few rich bastards,
They don't as long as they believe the lie that they can become one of those few rich bastards- why would they cut off what they think of as thier own rights?
either using our own guns, or by creating (yes, you could create YOUR OWN, better and cheaper, agencies) police forces paid through insurance premiums (or voluntary funding).
Go ahead and try- that's what the Mafisio has done for generations now. They usually end up worse- because they are run by the rich.
"Most pork is really investment"??? That really really begs the question. Certainly, government spending is never justified as investment: investing resources is allocating them in the expectation of making a profit; pork is allocating resources in order to cement political patronage.
Political patronage is a form of profit- done correctly, it profits the widest number of VOTERS possible. The more voters you profit with your political patronage, the safer your seat. This gets kind of messed up though when so much money is dumped into the political system that the only people to vote for are those effectively taking bribes.
I guess pork might be considered a form of investment for the politician in question, but never surely for society in general.
On the contrary- the best pork (in America, the Interstate Highway System is a grand example, as was the Rural Electrification Act) benefits society in general because it is specifically targeted to hit as many voters as possible.
On health care, this is complete bollocks - the UK NHS are a bunch of murderers, when it comes to anything serious. I would give anything to return to the old charity hospital system, where a lack of state involvement in healthcare meant that free charity hospitals thrived in the inner cities for those that needed them.
Who paid for those charities though? And how do you know that they thrived?
State involvement in health care is the absolute pits. Yes, I have personal experience. I think you will find that it is Marxism that is the con game for funneling money from the poor to the rich. Under Marxism, the politically connected become the new rich, and everyone else becomes the new poor, money notwithstanding.
Corporations are collections of individuals acting toward a common cause (legally they're separate entities but effectively that's all they are in reality.) If you ban corporate contributions then you'd have to ban political parties. The only reason I can imagine why someone would want to deny "corporations" (collections of individuals united by common business purposes) from making political contributions; they are more likely to have money.
That is my singular reason for doing so- banning political parties in general is a bonus.
Some individuals are more equal than others, when it comes to political contributions. We can't let Corporations donate to political causes, I mean, they won't like my cause. I mean, my party's cause. I mean, my PAC's cause.
Which is exactly why all political contributions should be capped at $5.
That's the fundamental argument. Because otherwise that's all a corporation is. It's a group of human beings (and pointy haired bosses) who act in unison by a process of reason (or irrationality, or boredom.)
No, that's not quite correct. A corporation is a group of human beings who act in unison to create PROFIT. Or at least, that's the entire reason for the existance of a corporation. If you want to sumblimate your own individuality to the making of profit for others- so be it, but don't use my government to do your dirty work.
So there's no difference from a corporation and your local rotary club. Just different goals. Which you (as an individual may or may not like.)
Very true- but when you name that different goal- it's a lot more sinister.
First, you seem to know little about American education.
What good has American Education done- except to make us kowtow to the rich and powerful?
However, their present usefulness does not even come close to the political and social power they currently possess. At present, it would seem that the job of the union is to extort money from their membership for political maneuvering that is well beyond the purview of worker protection.
That political maneuvering is for worker protection- the workers cannot be protected without laws. And in most states, you've already LOST your right to form a union, so it hasn't done very much at all.
This is done in apparent conflict with American statute and legal precedent. In their spare time, the union exerts its collective bargaining power to the extreme detriment of both labor and industry by severely handicapping the ability of industry to remain competitive, leading to the "downsizing" (and eventual failure) of the industry on which labor relies. Case study: the American automobile industry. Now, I don't expect you Brits to understand this, as you live in an essentially socialist state with no real respect for the positive aspects of market forces.
Oh, that's funny- it was the union's fault that the American Automobile Industry failed to keep the Electric Vehicles on the market....and thus lost market share.
The minimum wage, at best, is a worthless exercise in devaluing the nominal labor remuneration. At worst, it is an oppressive upheaval of the labor market hurting the most vulnerable wage earners, for whom the minimum wage is ostensibly created to help.
True- and that's why the SEIU is calling for a MAXIMUM WAGE LIMIT instead.
Doesn't *really* matter what group of society should profit at the cost of some other group now, does it? How about liberty instead? Meaning that no group should hold an advantage at the cost of another group; that entails that government isn't used/abused to use guns against your fellow citizens to get what *you* want (because that's what majority rule is: having everybody pay for the gun that oppresses the minority for the next few years). If the government wasn't doing it, the rich would. You can't get away from government that easily. Look at the other guy who wants no taxes and no government services in this thread- and when challenged, he'd rather raise his own private army (ok, he called it a "mutual defense organization", but it equates to the same thing) and BECOME the government.
Um, the only way I could work for no wages would be if I were wealthy. If I was wealthy, I wouldn't call what I do all day "work".
Then I'd point out that if you're not wealthy, a tax cut isn't going to do you any good- you probably don't pay any taxes already (or at least, not any worth complaining about).
I am not prepared to debate theories of wealth creation with you. However, if you look at the average well-being of a human today, vs. the average well-being of a human 600 years ago, the increase is due to wealth creation.
Worldwide average or single country? I'm willing to bet the people we oppress are significantly worse off- while the few who had wealth creation (and they are the few) are better off. 64 million people in America don't have health insurance- they're worse off than their parents were.
I have a lot more confidence in my ability to set up a mutual defense organization than I have in your ability to apportion wages "to each according to their needs".
Ah, but you see, if you set up a mutual defense organization you're back to "Big Government". I thought you said you wanted NO governmental services- your mutual defense organization is a governmental service EVEN IF IT IS PRIVATELY OWNED.
Middle class? You said ditch diggers. Then again, I betcha the ditch diggers have a damn good union, don't they? Wish they were better at digging ditches, as I look out the window seeing the hash they're going to be making of a few major downtown streets for the next two years.
The more jobs that are in the middle class, the more people become consumers. The more consumers there are, the more work there is for everybody, the more profit there is to be made. It's a damned good thing those hypothetical ditch diggers have a union- without that union, you'd have no customers to serve.
The problem with Marxism is the same as the problem with capitalism: The ones in charge want to stay in charge, and enrich themselves in the process. The fatal flaw of Marxism is that there is no way for somebody to become in charge unless they start out in charge, or have a parent/patron that is in charge.
Actually, the real fatal flaw in both has nothing to do with who is in charge- it has to do with who isn't in charge. We care about our family. We care about our clan, our tribe. That's about the most any human being can be realistically expected to care about- thus any situation larger than the clan or the tribe WILL be a situation of oppressors and oppressed- and that holds true for both capitalism and communism.
Rags to riches doesn't happen often, but it does happen.
Not really- not since 2001. But that's another story.
I'll go ahead and say it in the face of being considered "pro-corporation" but how else are corporations supposed to solve the problem?
The corporations shouldn't be allowed to solve the problem at all- individual people should instead. We've given the corporations entirely too much power.
In a slightly more controversial/real situation. You are a corporation that disposes of toxic waste. While nobody would argue that having legislation that encourages lessening the environmental impact of industry processes is a good thing. If your industry is affected, then that additional legislation adds additional costs. Does that mean that you should resist the legislation? If you do, are you evil (for supporting the "destruction of the environment")? If everything was black and white, laws and life would be a lot easier. But as the saying goes there are two sides to every coin.
I say the living, breathing human citizens should have *SUPERIOR* rights to the invented imitation corporate citizens. And that merely giving corporations a form of personhood invites such evil.
"Expenses stay the same?" I thought libertarianism was all about reducing the influence of the state on our lives. Surely expenses go down if the state does less.
If the state does less, then expenses usually go up, because most pork is really investment. A great example of this is health care for the poor- where the state does nothing, expenses on everybody else goes up because the poor don't get the preventative care needed to cut emergency room visits that they can't afford.
Libertarianism is just a con game to funnel money from the poor to the rich.
I want less services from the Government. I want to pay less taxes.
Less services from government means more emergency expenditures in the future- because the basic services government pays for now is preventing such things as violent revolutions (if you don't believe me, look up the Bonus Army and what happened that FORCED Roosevelt to come up with the new deal). It's spending a dollar now to save two dollars in the future.
Again, you assume a zero sum game.
That's not just an assumption- it IS a zero sum game when you look at it realistically instead of through rose-colored glasses.
I am willing to forego every single benefit I get from the government, as long as I also don't have to pay.
Oh, you'll still have to pay- if not the government, then the poor breaking down your door to get at your food in numbers greater than the ammo your gun holds.
And that's somehow good?
More people in the middle class means more consumers which means more business for everybody. See my sig line.
Why would I work hard, if I'm only ever going to get ditch digger wages?
If you're not working in a place you enjoy and would work for for no wages, then you're in the wrong job anyway.
Pork is when I take tax dollars collected nationally, and spend them on my pet project locally. Cutting taxes is when I take less tax dollars nationally. These two activities are not the same thing.
Ah, but expenses stay the same, and tax cuts aren't national- they're targeted to benefit certain groups of people. Some states have more of those groups than others, and the burden to pay more taxes to replace the lost revenue is simply shifted. Worse yet is when they don't pass other additional taxes to replace the lost revenue- then the cost is shifted temporally instead of geographically, as additional taxes will be required in the future to pay back not only the lost revenue, but interest on the lost revenue. It's just another form of pork- enchancing the status of a portion of the population at the cost of other people in the population. The biggest expansion of the middle class ever recorded in any country was in the United States in the 1950s- under 95% top progressive marginal income tax, which essentially flattened the economy so that the richest CEO and the lowest ditch digger were paid the same. All tax cuts since then have increased the difference in wealth between the two.
This is why I wrote the JE today targeting the late Milton Friedman as the architect of poverty.
And there is your problem - ask why it takes $500,000 to get a seat.
Well, there's the initial filing fees, the campaigning inside the party to get the nomination, the TV time at $10,000 for a single 30 second advert, the campaigning against other candidates- democracy in a free market is expensive even if your main form of advertisement is just handbills (printing costs money!)
Because people vote for a face they're familiar with, regardless of how well they know them; and because $500,000 is how much buisnesses are prepared to pay for the ammount of power they can get from this person.
Yep- and unfortuneately the salary-to-campaign-costs is a logrithmic scale- the higher up your are, the more the corps are willing to pay your challenger, so the more you have to spend to get the seat.
Not an easy problem to fix, but the best one I see is either make publicity cheaper with the internet, and/or remove the ammount of power those people have and spread it around a bit more.
Unless someone has a better idea?
Not better, just different- how about removing personhood, and therefore free speech rights, from the corporations? Then at least you're down to individual private contributions instead.
any street corner to see the CCTV cameras of the state watching you
I'm personally amazed at the British response to this development. I would have expected more Monty Python Wannabees putting on shows for the government or small plastic dinasoars taped to said cameras- instead you've pretty much got business as usual there.
What you want are legislators willing to reduce the size of the State.
Such legislators cannot be elected in any capitalist society- the real money payback in paying for a politician's campaign is in the pork. Who would invest $4 million in the campaign of somebody who won't return any pork?
The real sad thing is the con game the libertarians have going- convincing people that cutting taxes isn't just another form of pork.
You have to look at Cmdr Taco's JE. It's part of Discussion 2 upgrade- think of it as + and - controls, but he wants us to learn to use them on our own and decide how we want to use them, so he just labeled them one two three and four.
Slashdot Mirror
Why are they beating down MY door? And, yes, if they try to take stuff that's mine, I will defend myself. The correct solution to this problem is not for me to have nothing, but for them to not try to take other peoples' stuff.
The way to get them not to take other people's stuff is to make it possible for them to get stuff of their own. You have four choices there: Free Market, which will take 92 cents out of every dollar for profit for the stockholders; Private charity, which is a little better at 80 cents out of every dollar for "Administrative costs"; Local Government/Protected Local Private industry, which is much better at 8 cents out of every dollar for "Administrative costs" or "small business owner profit", and Federal Government, which due to economies of scale spends a scant 2 cents out of every dollar on Administrative Costs. I personally prefer the third for being more transparent and accountable- but I recognize it's about 4x as expensive as the fourth.
I don't disagree with you. I do assert that the bill is growing, and I'm not getting any more for my money, and I don't think that's OK.
That's just inflation- if we reduce the money supply that would be fixed, possibly even reversed.
Not when I can avoid it, no. Are you telling me that the only place with sweatshops is China, and if I just avoid Chinese clothes, I'm OK?
No, but if it's not China it's some equally objectional place. The entire purpose of the WTO is to remove your choices in this matter as much as possible.
No, I'm seeking a shirt.
Well, I suppose if you got yourself a loom and made your own cloth, you could get a shirt without getting the moral stain the "free market" has forced you into. But since first world countries require salaries too large for making cloth, it'd be a particularily unprofitable thing for you to do.
I decline to take responsibility for the bad acts of people I do not know.
That's ok, the market forces you to take responsibility for the bad acts of people you pay the wages of anyway- by consuming their goods you are complicit in their acts.
Sorry. I do my best to avoid products I know to be built by slave labor, but I cannot act with perfect information.
And since the free market provides you with an anonymous ability to not know, that's your moral out?
Are you serious? You think that just because I don't agree with you, I must be stupid and ignorant?
No, not stupid- but certainly ignorant if you think everything's just hunky dory out there in free market land.
If there was a mechanism to make the poor better off, while not making everybody poor, I would support it.
The United States showed such a mechanism in the 1950s- the greatest expansion of the middle class the world has ever seen. It took 97% marginal tax rates to do it though, and a shrinking money supply.
The least bad mechanism to that aim is market economies, not command economies.
History has shown that market economies and command economies do not work for this purpose.
Keeping my neighbor from stealing my food is not asserting my rights at the expense of anybody. It's just asserting my rights. You don't have a right to my food.
Are you really naive enough to think that a local private police force would stop there?
Agreed. And, ideally, The People own the government. I wish to return to that ideal.
Ah, that would lead to the second greatest period of middle class expansion the world has ever seen: 900-1200 AD in Europe, under the kings and nobles and noblese oblige and most of all, the Guilds. High taxes once again, but also the concept of a Just Wage and a Fair Price- the fair price being cost of materials + labor under the just wage, the just wage being whatever it took for a single man to feed a family of up to 10 people. Teenagers would apprentice themselves to a master craftsman, and everybody would own or build their own tools, very little trade was neccessary to maintain the system. And the guild could blacklist the businessman who charged less than, or more than, a fair price.
I don't necessarily disagree with you, but how do you make sure vigilantes are good actors? What's to prevent the rich or the poor from being vigilantes against YOU, for any value of you?
Nothing. You can either be a part of the community, and benefit from the business that brings, or you can leave and become a hermit. Try to game the system, and the vigilantes will string you up for a lynchin'. As it should be when people control the government- for vigilanteism is the ultimate of people controling the government. Why should you get away with stepping on another person's rights, to build value for yourself?
I don't care about class. Classes don't have rights. The only rights are those that adhere to individuals.
An 1876 Supreme Court ruling that I happen to also disagree with says differently; but that's almost beside the point. Upper classes will build superior fake rights for themselves when people control the government, because they can afford better government than you can.
OK, so those two periods had robed people in masks knifing bad actors?
Sort of. Europe in 900-1200 A.D. had the Church Guilds, who could blacklist and even kill those who broke guild rules, sometimes with the help of the local government; since even minor nobles had the right of life and death over their chattel holdings, and needed the Guilds for any consuming they wished to do. The 1950s had three organizations directly under control of the federal government: The IRS, The House Un-American Activities Committee, and the FBI; all of whom were charged with keeping different portions of the economic controls in place.
Why do you contin
With radically fewer services overall, and what services are provided are locally accountable, you could in fact realize a tax savings.
If you have radically fewer services overall- what will you do when the people who need those services come beating your door down? Shoot them all?
I don't think you understand the basic concept behind government services to begin with. It's preventative insurance against a much larger cost in the future. Fail to pay that cost, and you'll just be stuck with the much bigger bill.
However, this scenario is at least as idealistic as Marx's, and equally unlikely to occur. So, since I do not have nor do I seek power over my fellow man, you have nothing to worry about.
You buy clothes from China don't you? If so, you're seeking power over your fellow man.
Who's "we"? I'm not oppressing anybody.
What kind of shoes do you wear? What chinese dissident was forced to make your shirt? You can't live in America anymore without oppressing *somebody*- even if that person is a half a world away.
I think the "third world" is no worse off, and many people world wide are living longer and healthier and richer lives.
You've never been outside of the United States, have you? Or even just down to your local homeless congregation center?
Um, something that is owned and operated by private individuals is called private enterprise.
The only difference between a private enterprise and a government is in who owns it.
That's the polar opposite of "big government".
No it isn't- it's still people banding together to assert their rights at the expense of their neighbors.
Well, it used to be, anyhow, before the plutocrats merged them together.
It never actually was- all government was private enterprise in the begining, it's the same thing on a different scale.
Absolutely true. What is the best way to get there? Free enterprise, or a command economy?
Neither free enterprise nor a command economy can build a middle class. Only a strongly regulated small economy that prevents liars and theives from profiting can build a middle class- and the best way to do that is to allow vigilanteism. The free enterprise allows liars and theieves to prosper from their own ability; the command economy allows liars and theives to use government to do their bidding.
If you think I'm in favor of the status quo, you're mistaken. However, I believe you and I would disagree on the mechanisms that could best serve the goal of increasing wealth and well-being of large numbers of people.
I look to history on that score. There were two periods in history that showed an unprecidented increase in wealth and well-being of large numbers of people- naturally the opposite seems to be the norm. Those two periods were 900-1200 AD in Europe and 1942-1959 in America. The first used distributism under the guild system for an economy with high barriers of entry between villages; the second used excessive taxation on the rich to discourage greed and grow big government. Can you find me another period which benefited more than 90% of the people simultaneously?
OK, I detest the current administration and the system that spawned it almost as much as you do, but that's a pretty silly assertion.
It's not a silly assertion at all- low taxes on the rich allow them to keep the non-rich from moving into their circle effectively. It's been that way in every society since Babylon.
OK, you must be assuming that I'm in favor of this particular administration's tax strategy. No. I am in favor of radically overhauling the government and making it much smaller, much more local, and much less expensive.
However, that would not result in a tax cut. Making things more local reduces economies of scale, and thus efficiency- making government more expensive and resulting in a tax hike in the end. I'm also for this, but I'm realistic about it that it would not result in reduced taxes, just reapportioned taxes (as in, more of your money going to your city or county than the state or the feds). The same services would need to be supplied by somebody- and private industry would be even worse (just look at some private roads around stores sometime- they're great at leading you into the parkinglot, but suck at letting you leave).
THAT is a tax cut. This administration is just playing a shell game.
It's ALL just a shell game- the services have to be provided by SOMEBODY, it's really just how locally do you want them provided? Al Capone was great at providing services to his neighborhoods.
I'm willing to bet the Nehalem Native Americans would survive such a thing. They have a habit of running up Neahkahnie Mountain when the ocean receeds greatly- and unless such a mega-tsunami could top 2000 feet, at least some would survive to tell the tale. Of course, they get big floods every winter, so it's not such a big deal....
Nah, by his standards Americans are just too stupid to work in IT. Or at least, that seems to be the subtext to what he's saying.
I don't think anybody would let the rich get away with oppressing anybody.
It's happening right now- American workers have basically been thrown out to the dogs in favor of trade with China.
Just look at the anger targeted at the rich even today.
Anger isn't enough to stop the rich from oppressing others. Only executions can do that.
And if you're allowed to defend yourself with a gun, why couldn't you delegate that power to an agency, like the police, on an insurance basis?
You can- but that's getting back away from the libertarian anarchist ideal of NO GOVERNMENT.
That IS the point of insurance, just like health insurance means pooling a small monthly fee for many people, so that the individual risk of a dangerous disease or accident can be paid for even by people with no big pockets. And in that case again, the insurance fee could be used to keep a few doctors and hospitals employed/financed, i.e. insourcing.
Yes, and taxes are just a form of mandated insurance; that's what Government is- a big insurance policy. Cut those taxes- and you'd better expect to pay more elsewhere for the same services.
The difference between state police and insurance-based protection is that you have every right to defend yourself against evil agents, while many people would believe that they don't have the right to stand up against evil government, guess why, because it's *government*!
You don't have the right to defend yourself against truly evil agents either- if they have more money then you do they'll have more bullets in their clip.
Likewise, you could just cancel your contract anytime, thus starving the bastards, depriving them of further funds.
Nah, they'll just use their reserves that they profited off of you to buy whatever competitor you switched to. Either that, or kill you outright for attempting to switch, that's how the "police" in Sicily used to do it.
See how well you can stop paying the IRS to bleed out the warmongering Federal Government and all the lobbyists and other crooks in DC! Again, it's government, so by definition, you HAVE to pay them.
You can't stop paying a rich person either- see how long it takes after you stop paying on your credit cards before they haul you off to jail.
Assuming that most people actually do favor human rights and freedom from a few rich bastards,
They don't as long as they believe the lie that they can become one of those few rich bastards- why would they cut off what they think of as thier own rights?
either using our own guns, or by creating (yes, you could create YOUR OWN, better and cheaper, agencies) police forces paid through insurance premiums (or voluntary funding).
Go ahead and try- that's what the Mafisio has done for generations now. They usually end up worse- because they are run by the rich.
"Most pork is really investment"??? That really really begs the question. Certainly, government spending is never justified as investment: investing resources is allocating them in the expectation of making a profit; pork is allocating resources in order to cement political patronage.
Political patronage is a form of profit- done correctly, it profits the widest number of VOTERS possible. The more voters you profit with your political patronage, the safer your seat. This gets kind of messed up though when so much money is dumped into the political system that the only people to vote for are those effectively taking bribes.
I guess pork might be considered a form of investment for the politician in question, but never surely for society in general.
On the contrary- the best pork (in America, the Interstate Highway System is a grand example, as was the Rural Electrification Act) benefits society in general because it is specifically targeted to hit as many voters as possible.
On health care, this is complete bollocks - the UK NHS are a bunch of murderers, when it comes to anything serious. I would give anything to return to the old charity hospital system, where a lack of state involvement in healthcare meant that free charity hospitals thrived in the inner cities for those that needed them.
Who paid for those charities though? And how do you know that they thrived?
State involvement in health care is the absolute pits. Yes, I have personal experience. I think you will find that it is Marxism that is the con game for funneling money from the poor to the rich. Under Marxism, the politically connected become the new rich, and everyone else becomes the new poor, money notwithstanding.
No, that's Stalinism- a corruption of Marxism.
Corporations are collections of individuals acting toward a common cause (legally they're separate entities but effectively that's all they are in reality.) If you ban corporate contributions then you'd have to ban political parties. The only reason I can imagine why someone would want to deny "corporations" (collections of individuals united by common business purposes) from making political contributions; they are more likely to have money.
That is my singular reason for doing so- banning political parties in general is a bonus.
Some individuals are more equal than others, when it comes to political contributions. We can't let Corporations donate to political causes, I mean, they won't like my cause. I mean, my party's cause. I mean, my PAC's cause.
Which is exactly why all political contributions should be capped at $5.
That's the fundamental argument. Because otherwise that's all a corporation is. It's a group of human beings (and pointy haired bosses) who act in unison by a process of reason (or irrationality, or boredom.)
No, that's not quite correct. A corporation is a group of human beings who act in unison to create PROFIT. Or at least, that's the entire reason for the existance of a corporation. If you want to sumblimate your own individuality to the making of profit for others- so be it, but don't use my government to do your dirty work.
So there's no difference from a corporation and your local rotary club. Just different goals. Which you (as an individual may or may not like.)
Very true- but when you name that different goal- it's a lot more sinister.
First, you seem to know little about American education.
What good has American Education done- except to make us kowtow to the rich and powerful?
However, their present usefulness does not even come close to the political and social power they currently possess. At present, it would seem that the job of the union is to extort money from their membership for political maneuvering that is well beyond the purview of worker protection.
That political maneuvering is for worker protection- the workers cannot be protected without laws. And in most states, you've already LOST your right to form a union, so it hasn't done very much at all.
This is done in apparent conflict with American statute and legal precedent. In their spare time, the union exerts its collective bargaining power to the extreme detriment of both labor and industry by severely handicapping the ability of industry to remain competitive, leading to the "downsizing" (and eventual failure) of the industry on which labor relies. Case study: the American automobile industry. Now, I don't expect you Brits to understand this, as you live in an essentially socialist state with no real respect for the positive aspects of market forces.
Oh, that's funny- it was the union's fault that the American Automobile Industry failed to keep the Electric Vehicles on the market....and thus lost market share.
The minimum wage, at best, is a worthless exercise in devaluing the nominal labor remuneration. At worst, it is an oppressive upheaval of the labor market hurting the most vulnerable wage earners, for whom the minimum wage is ostensibly created to help.
True- and that's why the SEIU is calling for a MAXIMUM WAGE LIMIT instead.
Doesn't *really* matter what group of society should profit at the cost of some other group now, does it? How about liberty instead? Meaning that no group should hold an advantage at the cost of another group; that entails that government isn't used/abused to use guns against your fellow citizens to get what *you* want (because that's what majority rule is: having everybody pay for the gun that oppresses the minority for the next few years).
If the government wasn't doing it, the rich would. You can't get away from government that easily. Look at the other guy who wants no taxes and no government services in this thread- and when challenged, he'd rather raise his own private army (ok, he called it a "mutual defense organization", but it equates to the same thing) and BECOME the government.
Um, the only way I could work for no wages would be if I were wealthy. If I was wealthy, I wouldn't call what I do all day "work".
Then I'd point out that if you're not wealthy, a tax cut isn't going to do you any good- you probably don't pay any taxes already (or at least, not any worth complaining about).
I am not prepared to debate theories of wealth creation with you. However, if you look at the average well-being of a human today, vs. the average well-being of a human 600 years ago, the increase is due to wealth creation.
Worldwide average or single country? I'm willing to bet the people we oppress are significantly worse off- while the few who had wealth creation (and they are the few) are better off. 64 million people in America don't have health insurance- they're worse off than their parents were.
I have a lot more confidence in my ability to set up a mutual defense organization than I have in your ability to apportion wages "to each according to their needs".
Ah, but you see, if you set up a mutual defense organization you're back to "Big Government". I thought you said you wanted NO governmental services- your mutual defense organization is a governmental service EVEN IF IT IS PRIVATELY OWNED.
Middle class? You said ditch diggers. Then again, I betcha the ditch diggers have a damn good union, don't they? Wish they were better at digging ditches, as I look out the window seeing the hash they're going to be making of a few major downtown streets for the next two years.
The more jobs that are in the middle class, the more people become consumers. The more consumers there are, the more work there is for everybody, the more profit there is to be made. It's a damned good thing those hypothetical ditch diggers have a union- without that union, you'd have no customers to serve.
The problem with Marxism is the same as the problem with capitalism: The ones in charge want to stay in charge, and enrich themselves in the process. The fatal flaw of Marxism is that there is no way for somebody to become in charge unless they start out in charge, or have a parent/patron that is in charge.
Actually, the real fatal flaw in both has nothing to do with who is in charge- it has to do with who isn't in charge. We care about our family. We care about our clan, our tribe. That's about the most any human being can be realistically expected to care about- thus any situation larger than the clan or the tribe WILL be a situation of oppressors and oppressed- and that holds true for both capitalism and communism.
Rags to riches doesn't happen often, but it does happen.
Not really- not since 2001. But that's another story.
I'll go ahead and say it in the face of being considered "pro-corporation" but how else are corporations supposed to solve the problem?
The corporations shouldn't be allowed to solve the problem at all- individual people should instead. We've given the corporations entirely too much power.
In a slightly more controversial/real situation. You are a corporation that disposes of toxic waste. While nobody would argue that having legislation that encourages lessening the environmental impact of industry processes is a good thing. If your industry is affected, then that additional legislation adds additional costs. Does that mean that you should resist the legislation? If you do, are you evil (for supporting the "destruction of the environment")? If everything was black and white, laws and life would be a lot easier. But as the saying goes there are two sides to every coin.
I say the living, breathing human citizens should have *SUPERIOR* rights to the invented imitation corporate citizens. And that merely giving corporations a form of personhood invites such evil.
"Expenses stay the same?" I thought libertarianism was all about reducing the influence of the state on our lives. Surely expenses go down if the state does less.
If the state does less, then expenses usually go up, because most pork is really investment. A great example of this is health care for the poor- where the state does nothing, expenses on everybody else goes up because the poor don't get the preventative care needed to cut emergency room visits that they can't afford.
Libertarianism is just a con game to funnel money from the poor to the rich.
I want less services from the Government. I want to pay less taxes.
Less services from government means more emergency expenditures in the future- because the basic services government pays for now is preventing such things as violent revolutions (if you don't believe me, look up the Bonus Army and what happened that FORCED Roosevelt to come up with the new deal). It's spending a dollar now to save two dollars in the future.
Again, you assume a zero sum game.
That's not just an assumption- it IS a zero sum game when you look at it realistically instead of through rose-colored glasses.
I am willing to forego every single benefit I get from the government, as long as I also don't have to pay.
Oh, you'll still have to pay- if not the government, then the poor breaking down your door to get at your food in numbers greater than the ammo your gun holds.
And that's somehow good?
More people in the middle class means more consumers which means more business for everybody. See my sig line.
Why would I work hard, if I'm only ever going to get ditch digger wages?
If you're not working in a place you enjoy and would work for for no wages, then you're in the wrong job anyway.
Not sure where you got the 60k number,
I got these numbers from my own state races- though I'd also point out that Oregon ranks 47th out of 50 for lowest paid legislature.
OK, you're going to have to walk me through this.
Glad to.
Pork is when I take tax dollars collected nationally, and spend them on my pet project locally. Cutting taxes is when I take less tax dollars nationally. These two activities are not the same thing.
Ah, but expenses stay the same, and tax cuts aren't national- they're targeted to benefit certain groups of people. Some states have more of those groups than others, and the burden to pay more taxes to replace the lost revenue is simply shifted. Worse yet is when they don't pass other additional taxes to replace the lost revenue- then the cost is shifted temporally instead of geographically, as additional taxes will be required in the future to pay back not only the lost revenue, but interest on the lost revenue. It's just another form of pork- enchancing the status of a portion of the population at the cost of other people in the population. The biggest expansion of the middle class ever recorded in any country was in the United States in the 1950s- under 95% top progressive marginal income tax, which essentially flattened the economy so that the richest CEO and the lowest ditch digger were paid the same. All tax cuts since then have increased the difference in wealth between the two.
This is why I wrote the JE today targeting the late Milton Friedman as the architect of poverty.
And there is your problem - ask why it takes $500,000 to get a seat.
Well, there's the initial filing fees, the campaigning inside the party to get the nomination, the TV time at $10,000 for a single 30 second advert, the campaigning against other candidates- democracy in a free market is expensive even if your main form of advertisement is just handbills (printing costs money!)
Because people vote for a face they're familiar with, regardless of how well they know them; and because $500,000 is how much buisnesses are prepared to pay for the ammount of power they can get from this person.
Yep- and unfortuneately the salary-to-campaign-costs is a logrithmic scale- the higher up your are, the more the corps are willing to pay your challenger, so the more you have to spend to get the seat.
Not an easy problem to fix, but the best one I see is either make publicity cheaper with the internet, and/or remove the ammount of power those people have and spread it around a bit more.
Unless someone has a better idea?
Not better, just different- how about removing personhood, and therefore free speech rights, from the corporations? Then at least you're down to individual private contributions instead.
any street corner to see the CCTV cameras of the state watching you
I'm personally amazed at the British response to this development. I would have expected more Monty Python Wannabees putting on shows for the government or small plastic dinasoars taped to said cameras- instead you've pretty much got business as usual there.
What you want are legislators willing to reduce the size of the State.
Such legislators cannot be elected in any capitalist society- the real money payback in paying for a politician's campaign is in the pork. Who would invest $4 million in the campaign of somebody who won't return any pork?
The real sad thing is the con game the libertarians have going- convincing people that cutting taxes isn't just another form of pork.
You have to look at Cmdr Taco's JE. It's part of Discussion 2 upgrade- think of it as + and - controls, but he wants us to learn to use them on our own and decide how we want to use them, so he just labeled them one two three and four.
High turnout is bad for the right wing.
The funny part of that is that Mr. Blair is actually a Labour party candidate....the left wing of British Politics.