Political Philosophy

[un.privileged]

[quote]A free market consists of freely-made transactions between a willing buyer and a willing seller at a mutually agreed-upon price.

Any forceful coercion by a third party (whether you want to call it a "state" or a "private defense agency/voluntary defense association" or whatever) is socialism, and is directly opposed to a free society.
A free market consists of freely-made transactions between a willing buyer and a willing seller at a mutually agreed-upon price.

Any forceful coercion by a third party (whether you want to call it a "state" or a "private defense agency/voluntary defense association" or whatever) is socialism, and is directly opposed to a free society.

Declaring your enforcing body a "private" or "voluntary" agency does not make it any less tyrannical.

"Private defense agencies/voluntary defense associations" (backed up by AK-47s?) declaring whether or not private property is being properly "utilized" to "serve labor," and whether the owner has a right to keep it does not constitute a "free market," by any stretch of the imagination, no matter what you choose to call it.

Communism by any other name is still communism.

[/quote]
Whoever said forceful coercion, and whoever said that the third parties such as the PDA will [i]take[/i] it? The PDA will simply [i]STOP[/i] protecting you, it's as simple as that.

That means the previous "owner" will no more be backed up by an "AK-47", as he has his property un-utilized or idled for a certain period. It simply will be treated unowned, and that means no PDA will come to protect your property. [b]It requires more RISK to protect a property[/b], especially backing up only a few non-working owners with an AK-47 from the working people under a distributist/mutualist society. The more stronger the protection, the more risk it will take, the more expensive the service will be. It is of [i]your OWN risk[/i] to own property without utilizing it or leaving it idle. Now, how does it consist force at all? Nobody is pointing a gun at your face. Your life will still be protected, so nobody has the right to initiate violence against you (your life is ABSOLUTELY yours whatever you do, unlike private property). However others would have the freedom to use your illegitimate (unutilized and idled) property, as long as both parties do not point a gun at each other's face. When you leave your fertile land for a certain period, I will be free to use it as long as I do not initiate violence to you.

Under Communism, the State have total control over WHATEVER you want to use, and you can't own anything at all, whether you contribute your labor or not. If you want to use a means of production, you are forced to ask a license from the State, as it belongs to the State. If you use it without the license from the State, you will say hello to the Commie's little friend. Not only this, you are forced to pay the service of this control freak State.

Under Mutualist/Distributist, nobody is being forced to use WHATEVER available, unutilized or idled, property. There's absolutely no license to any idled property. But then again this depends on market demand. If the under a certain community an anarcho-capitalist property protection style predominates, then so be it, nobody is going to declare war with the anarcho-capitalist PDA, as war is too expensive.

[quote]No, of course nothing will ever need to be confiscated by the good "PDA"s in the Worker's Paradise.
Unless of course, the wicked capitalist landowner stubbornly refuses to let his land be "redistributed" for the "service of labor."

Then Dear Leader (oops, I meant "the Community") and his trusty PDAs will be forced to step in and make things right.
[/quote]
No community nor PDA has any right whatsoever to intervene in people peacefully homesteading property. It is between the potential homesteader and the previous owner. Under a mutualist/distributist society it is highly unlikely to have "a capitalist landowner stubbornly refuse to let his land" being used by others. If there exist this kind of landowner, I'll just simply use the "capitalist" illegitimate property, ignoring his/her refusal. I won't even have to point a gun. If he/she point a gun at me, then we have a problem, unless he/she sued me on court to prove that his/her property is actively being utilized/left un-idled.

[quote]When in doubt, bring up the BP oil spill to condemn "capitalism" in general. Obviously, the oil spill would never had been a problem, had the oil rig only been under some socialist/anarchist/what-have-you system of ownership. Limiting private property rights would've cleaned it right up![/quote]
I have no doubt. It is not my fault that it is a fact that [i]actual-existing[/i]-Capitalism relies massively from the nanny State to rescue and protect huge Capitalist firms.

What I meant by Capitalism, is [i]State[/i] Capitalism, a system where the State actively intervenes in behalf of Capitalist. Of course BP spill is a [i]State[/i] Capitalist problem. Limited liability for tort is illegitimate in a free society. Every libertarian I know understand that you are responsible for the damage caused by your own property. Everybody is fully liable for their own action. But no, under State Capitalism, the nanny State comes to protect and rescue privileged companies from responsibility.

I would recommend you reading these two articles
[url="http://c4ss.org/content/2685"]In a Truly Free Market, BP would be toast[/url]
[url="http://c4ss.org/content/2804"]BP's fate in a Free Market part II[/url]



PS : I've argued a couple times before that even many Austrian free market anarchist agrees that the word "Capitalism" is problematic. I had provided a link to a wonderful video by Sheldon Richman (he's also in the Austrian camp), regarding Free market VS Capitalism.I recommend you to watch it.

Edited August 31, 2010 by un.privileged

[un.privileged]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' timestamp='1283191713' post='2165473']
RE: distributism.......... why is local industry preferable to 'big business'?
[/quote]
My personally answer would be, more autonomy, independency, more control over your [i]own[/i] work. Not mentioning it is more likely in a free society.

The rise of big business in State Capitalism, has a lot to do with State intervention.
In the Austrian camp, there's still endless debate regarding this. not all Austrians agree with each other you know. I'm being given an impression that you think all Austrian economist prefers big business.
Even Roderick Long, an Austro-Libertarian Free Market Anarchist agrees with me.

[url="http://www.cato-unbound.org/2008/11/10/roderick-long/corporations-versus-the-market-or-whip-conflation-now/"]Corporations vs the Free Market, or Whip Conflation Now[/url]
[indent] Vast corporate empires like Wal-Mart are often either hailed or condemned (depending on the speaker’s perspective) as products of the free market. [b]But not only is Wal-Mart a direct beneficiary of (usually local) government intervention in the form of such measures as eminent domain and tax breaks, but it also reaps less obvious benefits from policies of wider application.[/b] [b]The funding of public highways through tax revenues, for example, constitutes a [i]de facto[/i] transportation subsidy, allowing Wal-Mart and similar chains to socialize the costs of shipping and so enabling them to compete more successfully against local businesses[/b]; the low prices we enjoy at Wal-Mart in our capacity as consumers are thus made possible in part by our having already indirectly subsidized Wal-Mart’s operating costs in our capacity as taxpayers.

[b]Wal-Mart also keeps its costs low by paying low salaries; but what makes those low salaries possible is the absence of more lucrative alternatives for its employees—and [i]that[/i] fact in turn owes much to government intervention. The existence of regulations, fees, licensure requirements, et cetera does not affect all market participants equally; it’s much easier for wealthy, well-established companies to jump through these hoops than it is for new firms just starting up[/b]. Hence such regulations both decrease the number of employers bidding for employees’ services (thus keeping salaries low) and make it harder for the less affluent to start enterprises of their own.[8] Legal restrictions on labor organizing also make it harder for such workers to organize collectively on their own behalf.[9]



[/indent]
[url="http://www.cato-unbound.org/2008/11/25/roderick-long/free-market-firms-smaller-flatter-and-more-crowded/"]Free Market firms, Smaller, Flatter, and More Crowded[/url] (His response to Peter Klein)
[indent][b]With regard to ©, it is also true that many small businesses receive plenty of government aid. But once again, it is unlikely that such aid on average benefits small firms at the expense of large ones, given the natural advantage that concentrated interests have over dispersed ones in influencing governmental policy. Moreover, to borrow [url="http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/956/35425"]Bastiat's phraseology[/url], the small firms that benefit from government assistance are those that are [i]seen[/i]; the ones that are most harmed by government action are those that are [i]unseen [/i]because they are [url="http://www.fee.org/publications/the-freeman/article.asp?aid=8204"]prevented from coming into business in the first place[/url][/b]. In the absence of licensure, zoning, and other regulations, how many people would start a restaurant [i]today [/i]if all they needed was their living room and their kitchen? How many people would start a beauty salon [i]today [/i]if all they needed was a chair and some scissors, combs, gels, and so on? How many people would start a taxi service [i]today [/i]if all they needed was a car and a cell phone? How many people would start a day care service [i]today [/i]if a bunch of working parents could simply get together and pool their resources to pay a few of their number to take care of the children of the rest? These are not the sorts of small businesses that receive SBIR awards; they are the sorts of small businesses that get hammered down by the full strength of the state whenever they dare to make an appearance without threading the lengthy and costly maze of the state's permission process. The assistance that small firms receive comes largely at the expense, not of larger firms, but of still [i]smaller [/i]firms—or of those who [i]would [/i]start such smaller firms if they could.

As Jesse Walker [url="http://blog.mises.org/archives/008924.asp#comment-472909"]has observed[/url]:

[indent] Removing occupational licensing laws alone would unleash such a flood of tiny enterprises—many of them one-man or one-woman shows, sometimes run part-time—that I doubt the elimination of antitrust law and small-business setasides would offset it. Especially when large businesses have proven so adept at using antitrust and setasides for their own purposes.

[/indent]A genuine freed market, then, might well see what Sam Konkin described as [b]the dissolution of the proletariat in the entrepeneuriat.[/b]

With regard to (d), Klein thinks that non-corporate forms suffer from [url="http://organizationsandmarkets.com/2007/04/04/vaguely-defined-property-rights"]vaguely defined property rights[/url]. [b] I found this claim puzzling, since "vaguely defined property rights" are notoriously a problem that plagues the [i]corporate [/i]form. It is unclear [i]who [/i]owns the corporation, given that there is no identifiable group whose relationship to the corporation involves the usual characteristics of ownership such as unlimited liability (in tort).[/b] Note that I'm not claiming that shareholders [i]ought [/i]to have unlimited liability; at any rate, I see the point of the argument that their separation from direct day-to-day control makes their exemption from liability reasonable. (I'm undecided as to whether I agree or disagree with that argument, but at any rate I don't automatically dismiss it.) But the case against regarding them as fully [i]liable [/i]seems like an equally good case against regarding them as full [i]owners[/i]; it turns them into something more like [i]clients [/i]of the corporation, leaving it unclear where the real ownership lies. Perhaps some division of ownership between shareholders and managers can be achieved contractually in a way that mirrors current corporate structure, but even so, corporate ownership will then be neither more nor less "vague" than in non-corporate forms of enterprise. (Certainly Klein is aware of principal-agent problems in the current corporate form, since he has written about them extensively.)

[/indent]
[url="http://www.cato-unbound.org/2008/11/19/roderick-long/keeping-libertarian-keeping-left/"]Keeping Libertarian, Keeping Left[/url] (Response to Steven Horwitz)

[indent][b]I heartily agree with Horwitz that Wal-Mart did a far better job of disaster relief than FEMA[/b]; I also agree with him that Wal-Mart's superior performance in this regard is to be attributed to its operating in a more competitive context and so facing less extreme incentival and informational perversities. Where we disagree, perhaps, is over the size of the gap between the competitive context to which Wal-Mart owes its success and the competitive context that would exist under genuine [i]laissez-faire[/i].[b] I think it's large enough that the preferability of Wal-Mart over FEMA looks a bit like the preferability of Mussolini over Hitler; yes, Mussolini was better than Hitler[/b], and that can be worth pointing out, but I'd rather spend time looking for an alternative to both of them.[2] (And if a firm that, e.g., treats its employees as badly as Wal-Mart does could really thrive in a freed market, that might well [i]justify [/i]skepticism as to the value of markets.)[/indent][indent]Horwitz notes his agreement with [url="http://www.willwilkinson.net/flybottle/2008/11/10/whip-conflation-now"]Will Wilkinson's argument[/url] that "when the primary subsidy is the national and local automobile-centric transportation infrastucture, I can't really see the point in picking on a company that makes consumers better off by making the most of the tax-funded infrastructure everyone uses." Two points: First, I never claimed that funding for highways was the [i]primary [/i]means by which Wal-Mart benefits from governmental intervention; it's only one of a long list. (For those who share Wilkinson's and Horwitz's skepticism of the extent to which large firms like Wal-Mart benefit from state patronages and would suffer from diseconomies of scale in a free market, I recommend Kevin Carson's two books[3] on the subject.) Second, [b] the fact that everyone uses the tax-funded highway system doesn't mean that everyone benefits from it [i]equally[/i]; firms with wider distribution, and so higher shipping costs, benefit [i]more [/i]from public highways than their competitors, and to this extent public funding of highways constitutes a net redistribution from local firms to nationwide firms.[/b]

[/indent]
Or this article in the freeman [url="http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/scratching-by-how-government-creates-poverty-as-we-know-it/"]Scratching by : How Government Creates Poverty as we know it[/url]
[indent][b]In a free market, vacant lots and abandoned buildings could eventually be homesteaded by anyone willing to do the work of occupying and using them. [/b]Poor people could use abandoned spaces within their own communities for setting up shop, for gardening, or for living space. In Miami, in October 2006, a group of community organizers and about 35 homeless people built [url="http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=2142"]Umoja Village[/url], a shanty town, on an inner-city lot that the local government had kept vacant for years. They publicly stated to the local government that "We have only one demand . . . leave us alone."

That would be the end of the story in a free market: there would be no [url="http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/the-blight-of-eminent-domain/"]eminent domain[/url], no government ownership, and thus also no political process of seizure and redevelopment; once-homeless people could establish property rights to abandoned land through their own sweat equity—without fear of the government's demolishing their work and selling their land out from under them. [b]But back in Miami, the city attorney and city council took about a month to begin legal efforts to destroy the residents' homes and force them off the lot. [/b]In April 2007 the city police took advantage of an accidental fire to enforce its politically fabricated title to the land, clearing the lot, arresting 11 people, and erecting a fence to safeguard the once-again vacant lot for professional "affordable housing" developers.

[/indent]
[indent]
[/indent]
Well, now I would ask you. Why is big business preferable to local industry?

[un.privileged]

[quote name='Winchester' timestamp='1283175608' post='2165351']
You got it completely backwards. Your free society (in which people undeserving of their property will be divested of it) will become a feudal state.[/quote]
I don't understand. Are you defending the State? What's the difference, it's like saying our current system will become a totilitarian State.

It does not justify maintaining a system where violence is inherent in it. It does not justify taking the fruit of my labor for the welfare of others.

And some people does not deserve property. It's a fact. Even though they differ to a certain extent, secularist like Murray Rothbard and the Holy Mother Church agrees that something just cannot be owned by simply [i]buying[/i], and both do agrees that [i]labour [/i]is a necessary condition for first-user.
Murray Rothbard in his masterpiece book Man, Economy, and the State (it can be downloaded free from [url="http://mises.org/books/mespm.pdf"]here[/url])
[indent]
Problems and difficulties arise whenever the "first-user, firstowner"
principle is not met. In almost all countries, governments
have laid claim to ownership of new, unused land. Governments
could never own original land on the free market. This act of
appropriation by the government already sows the seeds for distortion
of market allocations when the land goes into use.[b] Thus,
suppose that the government disposes of its unused public lands
by selling them at auction to the highest bidder. Since the government
has no valid property claim to ownership, [u]neither does
the buyer from the government.[/u] If the buyer, as often happens,
"owns" [i][size="3"]but does not use or settle the land[/size][/i], then he becomes a
land speculator in a pejorative sense. [/b][b]For the true user, when he
comes along, is forced either to rent or buy the land from this
speculator, who does not have valid title to the area.[/b] [b]He cannot
have valid title because his title derives from the State, which
also did not have valid title in the free-market sense. [/b]Therefore,
some of the charges that the Georgists have leveled against land
speculation are true, not because land speculation is bad per se,
but because the speculator came to own the land, not by valid
title, but via the government, which originally arrogated title to
itself. So now the purchase price (or, alternatively, the rent) paid
by the would-be user really does become the payment of a tax
for permission to use the land.
[/indent]

Edited August 31, 2010 by un.privileged

[un.privileged]

[quote]And I consider anything other than a free and willing agreement between buyer and seller to be contrary to a free market, regardless of what linguistic gymnastics you might use to say otherwise.[/quote]
I'm sorry, but [i]historically[/i], it was the American libertarians that played linguistic gymnastics
1. Defending the word "Capitalism", which has always meant by most as the current massive State intervention in behalf of capitalists, not the free market you've been talking about. The word Capitalism never meant the free market in the first place! Thomas Hodgkin, a radical free marketer, used the word "Capitalism" pejoratively even before Marx used it, to refer to a system where the Capitalist class predominates by relying on the State for the accumulation of capital. I'm sorry but that's history. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hodgskin
2. Taking over th[font="Arial"]e word "Libertarian", which is very identical to a leftish movement ([url="http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0706b.asp"]http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0706b.asp[/url] , and that is an Austrian website claiming, not me)
[/font][indent] [font="Arial"][b]The terms were apparently first used in the French Legislative Assembly after the revolution of 1789.[/b] In that context those who sat on the right side of the assembly were steadfast supporters of the dethroned monarchy and aristocracy — the ancien régime — (and hence were conservatives) while those who sat on the left opposed its reinstatement (and hence were radicals). It should follow from this that libertarians, or classical liberals, would sit on the left. [/font]

[font="Arial"]Indeed, that is where they sat.[b] Frédéric Bastiat, the radical laissez-faire writer and activist, was a member of the assembly (1848–1850) and sat on the left side along with Pierre-Joseph Proudhon,[/b] t[b]he "mutualist" whose adage "Liberty is the mother, not the daughter, of order" graced the masthead of [i]Liberty,[/i] the newspaper of the American libertarian and individualist anarchist Benjamin Tucker. [/b][/font]

[font="Arial"](Proudhon is also famous for saying, "Property is theft," but the full context of his work makes clear that he meant absentee ownership resulting from state privilege, for he also wrote, in [i]Theory of Property,[/i] "Where shall we find a power capable of counterbalancing this formidable might of the State? There is no other except property.... The absolute right of the State is in conflict with the absolute right of the property owner. Property is the greatest revolutionary force which exists.") [/font]

[font="Arial"]From early on libertarians were seen, and saw themselves, as on the Left. Obviously, "the Left" could comprise people who agreed on very little — as long as they opposed the established regime (or restoration of the old regime). The French Left in the first half of the 19th century included individualists and collectivists, laissez-faire free-marketeers and those who wanted state control of the means of production, state socialism. One could say that the Left itself had left and right wings, with the laissez-fairists on the left-left and the state socialists on the right-left. [/font]

[font="Arial"]But however you slice it, libertarianism was of the Left. [/font]

[/indent]
It's pretty difficult to argue with somebody who is so ignorant of history. I'm playing linguistic gymnastics? Yeah right.

Edited August 31, 2010 by un.privileged

[Socrates]

[quote name='un.privileged' timestamp='1283228996' post='2165775']
Whoever said forceful coercion, and whoever said that the third parties such as the PDA will [i]take[/i] it? The PDA will simply [i]STOP[/i] protecting you, it's as simple as that. [/quote]
What if I've paid the PDA handsomely to protect me, and they agree to it? (After all, it is a free market).
Or better yet, what if I decide to protect my own property from any unauthorized squatters and your stinkin' PDA? (Since apparently now they're pacifists, they should be push-overs.)

[quote]That means the previous "owner" will no more be backed up by an "AK-47", as he has his property un-utilized or idled for a certain period. It simply will be treated unowned, and that means no PDA will come to protect your property. [b]It requires more RISK to protect a property[/b], especially backing up only a few non-working owners with an AK-47 from the working people under a distributist/mutualist society. The more stronger the protection, the more risk it will take, the more expensive the service will be. It is of [i]your OWN risk[/i] to own property without utilizing it or leaving it idle. Now, how does it consist force at all? Nobody is pointing a gun at your face. Your life will still be protected, so nobody has the right to initiate violence against you (your life is ABSOLUTELY yours whatever you do, unlike private property). However others would have the freedom to use your illegitimate (unutilized and idled) property, as long as both parties do not point a gun at each other's face. When you leave your fertile land for a certain period, I will be free to use it as long as I do not initiate violence to you.[/quote]
That's nice.
I guess I'll just wander over and set up camp in an "under-utilized" corner of your backyard, and start growing pot, or whatever it is "mutualist" socialist hippies like to do. Or better yet, maybe I'll do something really subversive there, like publish anti-anarchist literature.

If you don't like it, your PDA can fight it out with my PDA.

[quote]Under Communism, the State have total control over WHATEVER you want to use, and you can't own anything at all, whether you contribute your labor or not. If you want to use a means of production, you are forced to ask a license from the State, as it belongs to the State. If you use it without the license from the State, you will say hello to the Commie's little friend. Not only this, you are forced to pay the service of this control freak State.

Under Mutualist/Distributist, nobody is being forced to use WHATEVER available, unutilized or idled, property. There's absolutely no license to any idled property. But then again this depends on market demand. If the under a certain community an anarcho-capitalist property protection style predominates, then so be it, nobody is going to declare war with the anarcho-capitalist PDA, as war is too expensive.[/quote]
Oh, indeed.

So, the leaders of your little socialist paradise will ensure that land-owners are kept too impoverished to be able to defend their land against the mighty "anarcho-capitalist PDA"?
Sounds familiar.

A socialist tyranny by any other name . . .


[quote]No community nor PDA has any right whatsoever to intervene in people peacefully homesteading property. It is between the potential homesteader and the previous owner. Under a mutualist/distributist society it is highly unlikely to have "a capitalist landowner stubbornly refuse to let his land" being used by others. If there exist this kind of landowner, I'll just simply use the "capitalist" illegitimate property, ignoring his/her refusal. I won't even have to point a gun. If he/she point a gun at me, then we have a problem, unless he/she sued me on court to prove that his/her property is actively being utilized/left un-idled.[/quote]
Sorry, I was forgetting that in your cute little "anarchist" fantasy utopia, human nature would be radically altered, and no one would ever be violent, or disagree with anarcho-socialist principles, and there would be nothing but peace, luv, and grooviness.

However, if anyone did have the audacity to make trouble, you'd have the "anarchist" courts to rule whether or not privately-owned property was being adequately "utilized," of course.
(A state by any other name . . .)

No offense, but I find your fantasy world pretty boring, as well as otherwise unappealing. Think I'll go find a good [i]Lord of the Rings[/i] forum to post in instead.

Edited August 31, 2010 by Socrates

[Socrates]

[quote name='un.privileged' timestamp='1283233522' post='2165784']
I'm sorry, but [i]historically[/i], it was the American libertarians that played linguistic gymnastics
1. Defending the word "Capitalism", which has always meant by most as the current massive State intervention in behalf of capitalists, not the free market you've been talking about. The word Capitalism never meant the free market in the first place! Thomas Hodgkin, a radical free marketer, used the word "Capitalism" pejoratively even before Marx used it, to refer to a system where the Capitalist class predominates by relying on the State for the accumulation of capital. I'm sorry but that's history. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hodgskin
2. Taking over th[font="Arial"]e word "Libertarian", which is very identical to a leftish movement ([url="http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0706b.asp"]http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0706b.asp[/url] , and that is an Austrian website claiming, not me)
[/font][indent] [font="Arial"][b]The terms were apparently first used in the French Legislative Assembly after the revolution of 1789.[/b] In that context those who sat on the right side of the assembly were steadfast supporters of the dethroned monarchy and aristocracy — the ancien régime — (and hence were conservatives) while those who sat on the left opposed its reinstatement (and hence were radicals). It should follow from this that libertarians, or classical liberals, would sit on the left. [/font]

[font="Arial"]Indeed, that is where they sat.[b] Frédéric Bastiat, the radical laissez-faire writer and activist, was a member of the assembly (1848–1850) and sat on the left side along with Pierre-Joseph Proudhon,[/b] t[b]he "mutualist" whose adage "Liberty is the mother, not the daughter, of order" graced the masthead of [i]Liberty,[/i] the newspaper of the American libertarian and individualist anarchist Benjamin Tucker. [/b][/font]

[font="Arial"](Proudhon is also famous for saying, "Property is theft," but the full context of his work makes clear that he meant absentee ownership resulting from state privilege, for he also wrote, in [i]Theory of Property,[/i] "Where shall we find a power capable of counterbalancing this formidable might of the State? There is no other except property.... The absolute right of the State is in conflict with the absolute right of the property owner. Property is the greatest revolutionary force which exists.") [/font]

[font="Arial"]From early on libertarians were seen, and saw themselves, as on the Left. Obviously, "the Left" could comprise people who agreed on very little — as long as they opposed the established regime (or restoration of the old regime). The French Left in the first half of the 19th century included individualists and collectivists, laissez-faire free-marketeers and those who wanted state control of the means of production, state socialism. One could say that the Left itself had left and right wings, with the laissez-fairists on the left-left and the state socialists on the right-left. [/font]

[font="Arial"]But however you slice it, libertarianism was of the Left. [/font][/indent][/quote]
That has little relevance to anything I posted. "Right" and "Left" are labels, not arguments.

[quote]
It's pretty difficult to argue with somebody who is so ignorant of history. I'm playing linguistic gymnastics? Yeah right.
[/quote]
Thank you, sir.
A good day to you too.

Edited August 31, 2010 by Socrates

[Sternhauser]

.

Edited August 31, 2010 by Sternhauser

[un.privileged]

[quote]What if I've paid the PDA handsomely to protect me, and they agree to it? (After all, it is a free market).
Or better yet, what if I decide to protect my own property from any unauthorized squatters and your stinkin' PDA? (Since apparently now they're pacifists, they should be push-overs.)
[/quote]
If they agree to it, that means they have a serious consideration to go to war with other private defense agencies. In a free market, conflicting forms of protection service by PDAs would be very unlikely.
As Murray Rothbard, in "Defense Services on the Free Market" [url="http://mises.org/rothbard/mes/chap13.asp"]http://mises.org/rot.../mes/chap13.asp[/url] , said :

[indent]

One common objection to the feasibility of marketable protection (its [i]desirability[/i] is not the problem here) runs as follows: Suppose that Jones subscribes to Defense Agency X and Smith subscribes to Defense Agency Y. (We will assume for convenience that the defense agency includes a police force and a court or courts, although in practice these two functions might well be performed by separate firms.) Smith alleges that he has been assaulted, or robbed, by Jones; Jones denies the charge. How, then, is justice to be dispensed?Clearly, Smith will file charges against Jones and institute suit or trial proceedings in the Y court system. Jones is invited to defend himself against the charges, although there can be no subpoena power, since any sort of force used against a man not yet convicted of a crime is itself an invasive and criminal act that could not be consonant with the free society we have been postulating. If Jones is declared innocent, or if he is declared guilty and consents to the finding, then there if no problem on this level, and the Y courts then institute suitable measures of punishment.[url="http://mises.org/rothbard/mes/chap13.asp#_ftn3"][3][/url] [b]But what if Jones challenges the finding? In that case, he can either take the case to his X court system, or take it directly to a privately competitive Appeals Court of a type that will undoubtedly spring up in abundance on the market to fill the great need for such tribunals. Probably there will be just a few Appeals Court systems, far fewer than the number of primary courts, and each of the lower courts will boast to its customers about being members of those Appeals Court systems noted for their efficiency and probity.[/b] The Appeals Court decision can then be taken by the society as binding. Indeed, in the basic legal code of the free society, there probably would be enshrined some such clause as that the decision of any two courts will be considered binding, i.e., will be the point at which the court will be able to take action against the party adjudged guilty.[url="http://mises.org/rothbard/mes/chap13.asp#_ftn4"][4][/url]

[/indent]

You seem to have no understanding of why you [i]originally[/i] have the right own something. Buying [i]is not[/i] a sufficient requirement, as that always depends who you bought it from. If you bought it from a robber (e.g. the State) , does that makes it yours? No, you have to at least mix your labour with it in order it to be yours. [i]Labour[/i], in any logical morally way, is always the [i]original [/i]legitimate claim of ownership, not physical force (how do you protect something without physical force?). If you found a piece of land, which you do not settle in, and and you prohibit others to use it using physical violence, you have become the State. The most respected thinker of the Austrian school, Murray Rothbard, even confirms this. The Church confirms this. You can confirm your claim with your own baseless assumption.

[quote]Oh, indeed.

So, the leaders of your little socialist paradise will ensure that land-owners are kept too impoverished to be able to defend their land against the mighty "anarcho-capitalist PDA"?
Sounds familiar.

[/quote]
There wouldn't be any leaders that will ensure land-owners, there will only be a voluntary agreement. That means you will ensure yourself by either making a voluntary agreement with a PDA you freely choose. You can even protect yourself if you want, but the moment you use violence towards the non-violent, you have become the State.

[quote]A socialist tyranny by any other name . . .
[/quote]
Aren't you living in one?

Seriously, you keep labeling me "Socialist". From your argument, you don't even appear to provide a definition with any academic source to even back it up.
In your definition of "Socialism", our current system would be Socialist, as a third party (the State) actively intervenes using phyisical coercion within "freely-made transactions between a willing buyer and a willing seller at a mutually agreed-upon price" (taxation). You do love living in a tyrannical State Socialist world do you as you seem to defend the free market and the existence of the State. That is very much contradictory. You either have a free market or the State. Under your definition, you are the Socialist, because you legitimize State too much to force others to give their legitimate property no matter how small it is. Are you a self-hating Socialist?

[quote]Sorry, I was forgetting that in your cute little "anarchist" fantasy utopia, human nature would be radically altered, and no one would ever be violent, or disagree with anarcho-socialist principles, and there would be nothing but peace, luv, and grooviness.

However, if anyone did have the audacity to make trouble, you'd have the "anarchist" courts to rule whether or not privately-owned property was being adequately "utilized," of course.
(A state by any other name . . .)
[/quote]
You are living in the utopia, where you think an entity with a monopoly of physical force will bring order to the society, which historicaly has been the worst mass murders in entire human civilization.

Have fun with that.

[quote]No offense, but I find your fantasy world pretty boring, as well as otherwise unappealing. Think I'll go find a good [i]Lord of the Rings[/i] forum to post in instead.[/quote]
It's boring is it? It's so boring that you even spend time to reply my boring posts.

Edited September 1, 2010 by un.privileged

[Winchester]

[quote name='un.privileged' timestamp='1283231186' post='2165782']
I don't understand. Are you defending the State? What's the difference, it's like saying our current system will become a totilitarian State. [/quote]
I rejecting the "non-state" state you're proposing. Violence is inherent to man. Socialism and the system you're suggesting glosses over its violence.

I[quote]t does not justify maintaining a system where violence is inherent in it. It does not justify taking the fruit of my labor for the welfare of others.[/quote]
You seem to be losing track--[i]you're [/i]the socialist. Socialism relies upon coercive redistribution.
As for the "fruits" of your labor being taken, perhaps you mean whilst under the employ of someone?

[quote]And some people do[s]es[/s] not deserve property. [/quote]
And the violence is revealed. I suppose a dirty hippy mob is a more legitimate exercise of violence than a uniformed state police force.

[un.privileged]

[quote name='Winchester' timestamp='1283345553' post='2166219']
I rejecting the "non-state" state you're proposing. Violence is inherent to man. Socialism and the system you're suggesting glosses over its violence. [/quote]
There's absolutely no proof to this. You are proposing violence here not me. You are the one defending a violent entity having a territorial monopoly of law and order.
I do not support coercive violence in any way, except to defend life and legitimate claims of private property.


[quote]
You seem to be losing track--[i]you're [/i]the socialist. Socialism relies upon coercive redistribution.[/quote]
I do not rely on coercion, nor redistribution, nor any physical violence. I am an anarchist or what was historically called a [i]libertarian[/i] socialist.

Besides, socialism does not mean coercive redistribution. That's Social Democracy. Where in the world did you get this definition? From Mars?

Oh and then you'll just response with a terrific argument by saying "Bla bla you support coercion, you socialist dirty pig bla bla bla".

And I have never proposed this, it's just there in your imagination. Perhaps you need to see a psychiatrist.

[quote]As for the "fruits" of your labor being taken, perhaps you mean whilst under the employ of someone?[/quote]
I meant taxation. That's what the State do, and the State always claims that taxation is justified for the "welfare" of the whole society. In our current existing [i]State [/i]Capitalism practically means redistribution for the favored rich by taxing (legalized theft and violence) to the rest of the society.


[quote]And the violence is revealed. I suppose a dirty hippy mob is a more legitimate exercise of violence than a uniformed state police force.
[/quote]
How is this revealed? Some ownership is illegitimate, I didn't say this. It was written in a papal encyclical. Is the Pope a hippy mob with a legitimate exercise of violence?
You think all ownership is legitimate? What is the base of your claim? Please give me. I have provided source from both the freest free market economist in the history of mankind and a Papal encyclical.

Btw, I still don't get how it is logical to conclude that a violence is revealed in a statement that says "Some people do not deserve property"? Robbers do not deserve property they took.

Edited September 1, 2010 by un.privileged

[Winchester]

[quote name='un.privileged' timestamp='1283346941' post='2166222']
I do not support coercive violence in any way, except to defend life and legitimate claims of private property.[/quote]
...

[quote]I do not rely on coercion, nor redistribution, nor any physical violence. I am an anarchist or what was historically called a [i]libertarian[/i] socialist. [/quote]
Socialism requires redistribution. Your hero's lack of imagination is not my problem. Find the correct word.


[quote]Besides, socialism does not mean coercive redistribution. That's Social Democracy. Where in the world did you get this definition? From Mars?[/quote]
Socialism by itself is leftist. It requires authority and relies upon people evening out supposed injustices. This will require coercion.

[quote]Oh and then you'll just response with a terrific argument by saying "Bla bla you support coercion, you socialist dirty pig bla bla bla".[/quote]
Yes, my arguments are terrific. I don't think you're a socialist pig. I think you're overly impressed with combining incompatible government models.

[quote]And I have never proposed this, it's just there in your imagination. Perhaps you need to see a psychiatrist.[/quote]
And there we have it. Socialists believe imgagination requires psychiatric intervention. Well, I believe we all now see the totalitarian system for what it is.


[quote]How is this revealed? Some ownership is illegitimate, I didn't say this. It was written in a papal encyclical. Is the Pope a hippy mob with a legitimate exercise of violence?
You think all ownership is legitimate? What is the base of your claim? Please give me. I have provided source from both the freest free market economist in the history of mankind and a Papal encyclical.[/quote]
You're proposing that a system that can co-opt "unused" land will work. I say it will be abused almost immediately. "Oh look, Moon Unit (that's a hippy name) James's (a sane person) land has weeds. Let's go take it from him since he's not using it and start up an organic yogurt farm!" Moon Unit: "Whoah....great idea, bro!"

[quote]Btw, I still don't get how it is logical to conclude that a violence is revealed in a statement that says "Some people do not deserve property"? Robbers do not deserve property they took.
[/quote]
And we deprive robbers of their property by what?

Violence.

I win.

[un.privileged]

[quote]Socialism requires redistribution. Your hero's lack of imagination is not my problem. Find the correct word.[/quote]
Okay, say that "Socialism" of your definition means an absolute requirement of coercive redistribution. That means you are living in one. All existing State, are by your definition, Socialist. The State's function is to redistribute wealth. You are a closet "Socialist" under your definition. You like the State, all the existing State redistribute wealth. Admit it, you are a closet "Socialist".

[quote]Socialism by itself is leftist. It requires authority and relies upon people evening out supposed injustices. This will require coercion.[/quote]
Under your definition yes. Under the historical definition of [i]Libertarian[/i] Socialism, no.

[quote]And there we have it. Socialists believe imgagination requires psychiatric intervention. Well, I believe we all now see the totalitarian system for what it is.[/quote]
It was a recommendation, not total requirement. See the difference?.

[quote]
You're proposing that a system that can co-opt "unused" land will work. I say it will be abused almost immediately. "Oh look, Moon Unit (that's a hippy name) James's (a sane person) land has weeds. Let's go take it from him since he's not using it and start up an organic yogurt farm!" Moon Unit: "Whoah....great idea, bro!"[/quote]
Every system will have an abuse. Unlike your imaginative hypothesis, the fact is our current system legalize abuse. "Look, he's buying stuff" tax him for the already rich. "Look, he's selling stuff" tax him for the already rich. "Look, he's getting paid" tax him for the already rich. "Look he has land' tax him for the already rich. [i]Totalitarian[/i] right?

[quote]And we deprive robbers of their property by what?

Violence.
[/quote]
I'm an anarchist, not an absolute pacifist. Violence is only justified to defend life and legitimate ownership. State justifies the initiation of violence.

Edited September 2, 2010 by un.privileged

[Winchester]

[quote name='un.privileged' timestamp='1283402861' post='2166800']
Okay, say that "Socialism" of your definition means an absolute requirement of coercive redistribution. That means you are living in one. All existing State, are by your definition, Socialist. The State's function is to redistribute wealth. You are a closet "Socialist" under your definition. You like the State, all the existing State redistribute wealth. Admit it, you are a closet "Socialist".[/quote]
I reject the socialist aspects of the state and wealth redistribution.

[quote]Under your definition yes. Under the historical definition of [i]Libertarian[/i] Socialism, no.[/quote]
"Theosophy" has been around since the 1800s. It's a stupid term and ridiculous and no amount of time, books or nattering goofballs will change that. The same for a term that misuses socialism.


[quote]It was a recommendation, not total requirement. See the difference?.[/quote]
Under socialism, recommendations are requirements.


[quote]Every system will have an abuse. Unlike your imaginative hypothesis, the fact is our current system legalize abuse. "Look, he's buying stuff" tax him for the already rich. "Look, he's selling stuff" tax him for the already rich. "Look, he's getting paid" tax him for the already rich. "Look he has land' tax him for the already rich. [i]Totalitarian[/i] right?[/quote]
I don't view taxation as automatically unjust. All systems will be abused. A "system" without leadership (cue the anarchy no longer means no leadership argument up is down black is white) will not survive the ambitions of the soon to be wealthy.

[quote]I'm an anarchist, not an absolute pacifist. Violence is only justified to defend life and legitimate ownership. State justifies the initiation of violence.
[/quote]
And legitimate ownership will mean whomever has the guns.

[un.privileged]

[quote]I reject the socialist aspects of the state and wealth redistribution.[/quote]
That's what the State do. It redistributes wealth by forcing me to pay protection cost for others. Not only that, in our State Capitalist system, the State forces me to give money to bailout big banks and to provide welfare for big Corporations. And because most investment bankers underwrites government bonds, it forces me to redeem government debt. I'm being forced to suffer from inflationary prices created through violence, while only a few group of privileged individuals benefits. It forces me to pay for transportation subsidies and building roads, which mostly benefits long range big business. It forces me to be liable for environmental damage cause by Corporations, even though I have never signed a contract agreeing to be liable. It forces me to give money to subsidize powerful quasi-govermental globa financial institutions such as the WTO, IMF, and the World Bank - which provide debts to dictators around the world. It forces me to pay the infrastructures for multinational Corporations in third world countries, including nation building through unjust wars. Not including agriculture subsidies for rich nations to export to poor countries, to ensure farmers in third world countries to not being able to compete. It is wealth redistribution of a certain kind, wealth redistribution for the welfare of the rich. It is Socialism for the rich.

It also forces me to use fiat money in order to utilize one of the most crucial thing for human beings, unowned land (Government owns most of the land without homesteading, just pure violence to back up its claim), into productive activity.


[quote]"Theosophy" has been around since the 1800s. It's a stupid term and ridiculous and no amount of time, books or nattering goofballs will change that. The same for a term that misuses socialism.[/quote]
That's [i]your[/i] claim, and it has no historical basis to support it.

[quote]I don't view taxation as automatically unjust. All systems will be abused. A "system" without leadership (cue the anarchy no longer means no leadership argument up is down black is white) will not survive the ambitions of the soon to be wealthy.[/quote]
Taxation is a coercive act by a group of individuals claiming an authority to initiate violence to take your money for redistribution of wealth. That is the function. You are a closet "Socialist", using your own understanding of the term. You are forcing me to pay for your welfare - your protection - by a service provided by a monopolistic entity that you choose.

As an Anarchist, and a Catholic, I believe we must have leaders, but not worldly leaders, we need spiritual leaders. Christ is my ultimate leader, and the Pope is His vicar on earth.

[quote]And legitimate ownership will mean whomever has the guns. [/quote]
Not guns, but labour. You are misinformed. Do you really have any basis of what the nature of legitimate ownership is, or do you rely only solely on your imagination?

[indent] As mentioned above, [size="3"][b]property is acquired first of all through [u]work[/u] in order that [u]it may serve work[/u][/b][/size]. This concerns in a special way ownership of the means of production.[size="3"] [i]Isolating[/i] these means as a [i]separate[/i] property in order to set it up in the form of "capital" in opposition to "labour"[/size]-and even to practise exploitation of labour-[size="3"]is contrary to the very nature of these means and their possession[/size]. [b]They cannot be [/b][i][b]possessed against labour[/b], [/i]they cannot even be [i]possessed for possession's sake, [/i][b]because [size="3"]the [u]only[/u] legitimate title to their possession- whether in the form of private ownerhip or in the form of public or collective ownership-is [/size][i][size="3"]that they should serve labour[/size]
[/i][/b][i](Pope John Paul II ~ Laborem Exercens)
[/i][b][i]
[/i][/b][/indent]

Edited September 2, 2010 by un.privileged

[un.privileged]

[quote]
Under socialism, recommendations are requirements.[/quote]
Using your definition, I'm not a Socialist. I am against taxation, I am against redistribution of wealth, [i]especially [/i]redistribution of wealth upwards (transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich), and I am against an external force which interferes via violence in [i]legitimate[/i] ownership as described by the papal encyclical, [i]Laborem Exercens[/i].

And I do not require you to see a psychiatrist, I'm recommending it to you, so it's absolutely up to you. When you are tired and somebody recommend you sleeping, would you call him a Socialist? It's very simple, when you are claiming a lot of baseless thing, except basing on pure imaginations, and believing it to be true as it is logically and historically incorrect, I recommend you to see a psychiatrist. You don't have to go, and I won't call a Soviet secret police to kidnap you for psychiatric experiments.

Edited September 2, 2010 by un.privileged