77 replies to this topic

[Alex Libman]

Ok so if virtually every square inch of land is claimed by a state of some sort, this is extremely good evidence that there are systemic factors at work here that make abolishing the state hopelessly utopian. Until those systemic factors change, we're stuck with them.

The "systemic factor" is government violence, and it's not going to change without people like me to passively resist them. And, once again, I'm not out to "abolish the state", only to escape it, and as escaping it becomes easier for other people it will eventually collapse on its own.

Even with the relative ease of switching nationalities, there still isn't some huge influx to your beloved "free market" economies.

The freest economies all max out their legal immigration quotas and have plenty of "illegal" immigration as well.

If everyone who wanted to could move, we would see the largest mass-migration in human history involving billions of people!

Edited by Alex Libman, 23 April 2010 - 01:24 PM.

[Lallante]

Democracy, Law, the balance of power between the three arms of government, and constitutionally enshrined safeguards. The very structure of government is designed to make it accountable.

If voting protects us from government dictatorship, why does voting with our wallets not do the same?

Why is a monopoly of law better than different law systems competing?

What is the difference between the arms of a government and daughter companies of a corporation?

What is the constitution but a piece of paper?

Your reply to Alex suggests that you haven't really thought your perspective through; you are clearly opposed to the free market view, but your arguments in defence of statism are not very good. Everything you say just keeps begging the same question: you are afraid that one huge corporation will take over the world and enslave everyone, and yet you fail to see how the government is in an even better position to do exactly the same.

What is this accountability you talk about? Who is the government accountable to? Its citizens? In many countries, the government has already made owning guns illegal to everyone else except the state itself. How is this "accountability" going to stop the state from abusing its power if it so decides? If they come to your home and throw you in prison for some excuse, then what? You think a government can't do that but a corporation can? Clearly you can't argue that the people would revolt, because you've already said that the people don't care about such things on the free market (i.e. choose non-violent companies).

You should really post a decent reply to Alex's points -- which were very good -- or just admit that you don't really know what makes the government better than a business.

EDIT: And this should be a given, but... please, try to answer using rational argumentation, not "hahahahahahah that's ridiculous".

Voting with your wallet only works when there are alternatives. Once all competiting companies are eliminated, you no longer have the opportunity to vote. It also fails when you, the 'voter', do not have access to the necessary information to determine that one company has done something wrong and another is better. An unregulated free-market would be hopelessly inefficient because every company would release untrue propeganda about both itself and its competitors - consumers will have no way to know which information is correct.

You cant have different optional competing legal systems - what happens if someone chooses to opt out of all of them and goes around killing every one? What happens if you want to sue someone who has signed up to a different system to yours? What stops you setting up a legal system which has the law "everything I say has the force of law and anything I do is legal"?

Government is bound by external limits and rules, under your true free market idea, there are no external limits or rules, only market forces. Market failure means this will lead to horrific inefficiencies (which, more importantly, manifest themselves as horrible unfairness to consumers).

" you are afraid that one huge corporation will take over the world and enslave everyone, and yet you fail to see how the government is in an even better position to do exactly the same."

No, thats just the most clearcut example. Market abuse is rife already, with only the government (/legal system) keeping it in check. Everything from cartel price fixing to intimidation to false advertising would happen in a true free market system, not just the ubermonopoly extreme scenario.

Government is NOT in a position to do the same thing - it is held to account internally and externally in a way a corporation in a true free market would not be.

You dont need to own guns to hold the government to account. You can vote, you can demand resignations, you can, in extremes, be civilly disobedient. In a democracy the government will be held to account for its actions - its why the republicans arent in power in the US and Labour are about to lose power in the UK - the populace are holding them to account for their choices. You suffer from a cognitive dissonance here - you think that people are too 'brainwashed' to hold the government to account but think they will be perfectly capable of holding corporations (who would have far fewer limits on their behaviour) to account... Whats to stop corporations doing the brainwashing?

You clearly dont understand how the complex checks and balances of a modern democracy and legal system work. Not only that you dont seem to care that you dont understand. Governments CANT just lock you up on a whim. In the UK at least you have a right to judicially review ANY act of the government that you believe to be unlawful. You can take ANY act that contravenes your rights to the ECtHR. You cant just make the blanket claim that the government can do what it likes without evidence that this does occur and that people dont hold the government to account.

You seem pretty ignorant of some pretty basic mechanics of modern political systems - I suggest you read up on the meaning of "balance of powers", "government accountability" and "rule of law".


You have still completely failed to address how a perfectly free market would deal with market abuse, price fixing, public goods etc. Furthermore, I'd love to hear what you think should/would happen to a poor, heavily disabled person in your 'utopia'. They would die?

Edited by Lallante, 23 April 2010 - 01:54 PM.

[Lallante]

The freest economies all max out their legal immigration quotas and have plenty of "illegal" immigration as well.

Wat? Actually, per capita immigration is far more signficant in 'socialist' countries. Very few countries even have 'quotas'. What are you even talking about.

If everyone who wanted to could move, we would see the largest mass-migration in human history involving billions of people!

Wat? Evidence?

[Lallante]

I'm bored, so I will actually bother to deconstruct your garbage argument.

Once again, let's compare the accountability of government to the accountability of, say, WalMart (the largest market entity in the world whose wealth doesn't chiefly come from government force, as is the case for most oil companies and Microsoft)...

source that Microsoft's wealth comes from 'government force'?

• First of all, WalMart cannot operate through violence, while violence is the only thing that makes government possible. Would you allow WalMart to "tax" (steal) money against your will, force your children to a WalMart-controlled "school" (where they pledge allegiance to WalMart, and learn that WalMart freed the slaves or invented the Internet), "draft" (abduct and enslave) you into military "service" under the flag of WalMart, or let WalMart devalue the currency you are forced to use for all your business transactions?! Would you still shop at WalMart if it violently destroyed its competition, built nuclear weapons, killed millions of people, imprisoned millions more for victimless crimes, etc, etc, etc?! Of course not - no one would! Only the "divine right of government" delusion makes this possible! If WalMart was to suddenly "go evil" and initiate aggression against someone, it's assets of $0.16 trillion dollars would quickly drop toward zero, while the governments, which don't create any value themselves, can steal or control as much of the world's $70+ trillion yearly product as they see fit!

In what sense does the Government act violently towards its citizens that Walmart cannot exercise against its employees?

WalMart does "tax" people - it has a profit markup on all of its goods sold in its stores - this is no different from a tax! WalMart controls what its employees can wear, what they can do in their freetime (no drugs for example), when they get holiday (lol, as if they even get a signficant amount of holiday...). Walmart has rules on what customers can wear in their stores (no bare chests, no bare feet). WalMart makes all employees make a "WalMart pledge" which is every bit as cloying as the pledge of alleigance. Walmart can alter its employees hours at will.

Admittedly WalMart doesnt have an army. HOWEVER, in your perfect free market it obviously WOULD have an army (to protect its stores from competitors and 'criminals', it might even have conscription from its employees (there would be nothing to stop it).

Everything you hate about government, a corporation could and would do, but without the same limits or accountability, in a true free market - why wouldnt it? Detention without trial? why not? torture of competitors? why not? etc etc.

• You have individual choice of in deciding whether to do business with WalMart, any other store, or to avoid stores entirely and be an agorist (which is what I do for tax resistance purposes). The government is imposed over you whether you want it or not. In addition to deciding where to shop, you also individually decide which products and services you buy from WalMart. The decision for which products or services you get from a government is made for you by the ruling class, some of whom are elected every few years - that is the fraction of the population that chooses to waste their time on voting (in most local elections it's just local government bureaucrats voting for their own job security) gets to decide between a small set of very similar choices.

Choice is only true choice if you have perfect information. If you dont, then you aren't really making a choice: consider this, If I told you you could shop at shop A or shop B, and that shop A was always cheaper and better quality, and that shop B's products were dangerous and their employees evil, if you had no more information to go on, you would 'choose' shop A. But what if everything I told you was a lie and the reverse was the case? you haven't made a true choice because you dont have access to the information necessary to make an informed decision. This is the ultimate problem of the idea you can 'vote with your wallet' -> you cant if you dont have the information needed to properly choose between options. Without government regulation and a legal system bringing that information to light and preventing false information, choice is an illusion.

• The checks and balances on WalMart come from accessibility of viable alternatives, that is your ability to make a left instead of right on the highway and go to Target, Best Buy, or any of the hundreds of other retailers you will find within the 15 minute driving distance of an average suburban home, not to mention the thousands of large stores you can use on the Internet, and millions of people you can do business with on sites like eBay. The checks and balances on government come from a promise that some of the bureaucrats are supposed to kindly keep an eye out on some other bureaucrats, which never works in real life because they have far more to gain from cooperating and covering each-other's mistakes. Switching to a different government may require years of bureaucratic red tape (if they let you out at all), losing a sizable fraction of your capital, moving several thousand miles, learning a new language and culture, etc - and governments all over the world are becoming ever-more homogenized, immune to intergovernmental competition, and pretty soon there'll be a world government monopoly and nowhere to run.

My previous points apply - viable alternatives are meaningless if you cant accurately assess them. Furthermore, there is nothing to stop all the alternatives being taken over by the largest of them, leaving no other options. Finally, there is nothing to stop all the alternatives forming a cartel to fix prices and quality at the most profitable (but not most efficient) levels.

I've explained in detail the checks and balances on government in my other posts, I'm not going to do so again. Simply put, to say that the only safeguard is "a promise from some bureaucrats" is either incredibly ignorant or wilfully deceitful.

To move countries is actually really simple. Have you ever done it? I have. I used to have Turkish citizenship and lived there for a number of years. I have since moved back to my citizenship of birth, British. Its not difficult. You DONT lose capital by moving countries.

What evidence do you have that there will ever be a "world government monopoly". You sound a lot like the conspiricy theory tin-foil hat nutjobs.

• Then you have accountability for mistakes - if a product or service you get from WalMart isn't as advertised, you will usually be able to return it. Accountability comes from being subject to competition - if WalMart gets a bad reputation then fewer people will shop there, and its bottom line will suffer until it shrinks out of existence, while competitors that provide better customer service will expand to fill the gap. When was the last time an election choice was invalidated and tax money returned because a politician didn't keep all of his campaign promises?! And most campaign promises are so vague it's very difficult to find any politicians who actually promise something specific and then deliver it! When the government screws up, it gets more power, not less!

You can only return items to Walmart because of government regulation that says they must offer this service (aka Consumer Rights regulations) . They WOULD NOT DO SO if they could get away with it, eg in your scenario. WalMart has a horrific reputation for employee abuse and working standards, for its treatment of child workers overseas, for its blatantly anti-competative practises against small competitors and so on. People dont know (lack of information again) or dont care (consumers DO NOT vote with their wallets effetively).

If a politician doesnt keep his promises, elect someone different next time.

• WalMart exists on the basis of individual Rights. Like any "corporation", WalMart is a legal entity, that is a series of voluntary-but-binding contractual agreements between several million of its stockholders, as well as its executives / managers / other employees, business partners, etc. It has no "divine rights", just the Rights granted to it by the individuals who explicitly empower it on the basis of their own Rights. Would you buy stock in a company that can't account for trillions of dollars of its military spending, as is the case with the U.S. government?! Would you buy stock in a company that has been running deficits for years and expects future generations of stockholders to pay for them?! Would you buy stock in a company that buys $640 toilet seats, $7,600 coffee makers, $436 hammers? Of course not! The stockholders get a full accounting for every penny that WalMart handles, and if there is ever any corruption they can sue the alleged violator through an independent (not WalMart-controlled) court and attain justice.

Lol. There is almost no sentance that can have WalMart and 'rights' in it that isnt laughably false. You seem to have incorrect and very limited knowledge of how companies work. Stockholders are NOT party to a contract with WalMart...

People still buy stock in proven unethical companies. There are hundreds of examples - BAE, Blackwatch, Goldman Sachs etc. I like that you cite the ridiculous overpriced toilet seats etc - that was corporate fraud, something that would be utterly rife without any government intervention.

the ONLY REASON that WalMart has to account to its investors for its budget is GOVERNMENT REGULATION that forces it to. It would not do so by choice (look, for example, at companies 100 years ago!)

[Alex Libman]

Actually, per capita immigration is far more signficant in 'socialist' countries.

Huh? You mean emigration from the more socialist countries? I'm talking about immigration to the more capitalist ones. The countries with the highest proportion of immigrants per capita are also those that top the rankings of economic freedom (or are well-known "tax heavens" too small to be included in the latter listing). Notable exceptions are religious enclaves like Vatican City and Israel.

Very few countries even have 'quotas'. What are you even talking about.

Now I know you're joking...

If everyone who wanted to could move, we would see the largest mass-migration in human history involving billions of people!

Wat? Evidence?

I don't have the time to search for the more reputable survey I've seen, but here's another one: 73% of people in India, for example, "would be interested in moving to America if economic and political barriers were non-existent", 52% in France, 65% of South Africans, etc.

source that Microsoft's wealth comes from 'government force'?

Not all of Microsoft's wealth, but a sizable fraction of it only exists due to the government-enforced "positive right" to "intellectual property", which in reality violates the actual Property Rights of people who copy Microsoft software (a legitimate "trickle down benefit"). A summary of my opinion on the software industry can be found here.

In what sense does the Government act violently towards its citizens that Walmart cannot exercise against its employees?

First and foremost - WalMart's employees are there by choice, and they can quit at any time.

WalMart does "tax" people - it has a profit markup on all of its goods sold in its stores - this is no different from a tax!

That's a totally unrelated financial concept. WalMart (hopefully) makes a profit, but only as a proportional reward for providing people value for value voluntarily. The more competition WalMart has, the less value it brings, the lower are the profits. Government, on the other hand, destroys its competition by force, forces its services on its "subjects" by force, and taxes are its plunder.


(Beam me up, Scotty, there's no intelligent life down here... I'll finish the rest of this later.)

Edited by Alex Libman, 23 April 2010 - 02:48 PM.

[JLL]

Besides North Korea, which countries prevent their citizens from emigrating? Oh right, hardly any.

Thankfully, most countries don't make it impossible to move elsewhere, but it is nonetheless quite difficult. Then there is the fact that by doing so, you will have to "start your life over", so to speak. This begs the question why it's me who should leave and not the thieves who are taking my property by force? I have never signed any mysterious social agreement people keep talking about, and simply being born somewhere cannot possibly be a reason to have obligations to some group of people.

[JLL]

Voting with your wallet only works when there are alternatives. Once all competiting companies are eliminated, you no longer have the opportunity to vote. It also fails when you, the 'voter', do not have access to the necessary information to determine that one company has done something wrong and another is better. An unregulated free-market would be hopelessly inefficient because every company would release untrue propeganda about both itself and its competitors - consumers will have no way to know which information is correct.

Why is the above not possible with governments?

You cant have different optional competing legal systems - what happens if someone chooses to opt out of all of them and goes around killing every one? What happens if you want to sue someone who has signed up to a different system to yours? What stops you setting up a legal system which has the law "everything I say has the force of law and anything I do is legal"?

This was discussed in another thread. There's no reason why someone on a killing spree could not be put into jail or forced to compensate fort heir crimes or even killed in the free market.

What stops you setting up a state which has the law "it's okay for husbands to beat their wives, because women are like animals"? Such states already exists.

Government is bound by external limits and rules, under your true free market idea, there are no external limits or rules, only market forces. Market failure means this will lead to horrific inefficiencies (which, more importantly, manifest themselves as horrible unfairness to consumers).

You keep repeating this idea of external limits and rules... which are what exactly?

Government is NOT in a position to do the same thing - it is held to account internally and externally in a way a corporation in a true free market would not be.

Please elaborate.

The "internally" part sounds like the people who are working for the government/corporation are the ones making sure they don't do any harm. That doesn't sound like a great idea, does it?

The "externally" part sounds like consumers/citizens looking out for their own interests, not voting/buying from businesses/governments that intend to do harm. So where again is the difference?

You dont need to own guns to hold the government to account. You can vote,

You can stop buying from businesses that you consider bad, and you certainly don't have to work there.

you can demand resignations

Really? You have the power to demand resignations? You must be a very influential person. I suppose there is then nothing to prevent you from demanding the resignation of CEO, is there?

you can, in extremes, be civilly disobedient.

Also possible without the government.

In a democracy the government will be held to account for its actions - its why the republicans arent in power in the US and Labour are about to lose power in the UK - the populace are holding them to account for their choices.

And once more, why does the populace not hold businesses to account for their choices?

You suffer from a cognitive dissonance here - you think that people are too 'brainwashed' to hold the government to account but think they will be perfectly capable of holding corporations (who would have far fewer limits on their behaviour) to account... Whats to stop corporations doing the brainwashing?

It's you who has the dissonance here -- I'm not saying businesses cannot try to brainwash people, I'm saying all the things you think are problems of the free market are also problems of the government.

I just happen to think that under a voluntary system, people will be in a much better position to not be brainwashed etc.

You clearly dont understand how the complex checks and balances of a modern democracy and legal system work.

I know how it is supposed to work, but it does not work. How else would corruption exist?

Not only that you dont seem to care that you dont understand. Governments CANT just lock you up on a whim.

Really? I heard the US was pretty good at doing that. Tell the folks at Guantanamo I said hi.

You have still completely failed to address how a perfectly free market would deal with market abuse, price fixing, public goods etc. Furthermore, I'd love to hear what you think should/would happen to a poor, heavily disabled person in your 'utopia'. They would die?

I would love to discuss free market alternatives to the things you mention above, but let's get this first topic out of the way first, shall we?

[Lallante]

Yet again you sidestep the issue of market failures and the actual practical consequences of a free-market to take pot-shots and make wild unsubstantiated claims about the evil of government.

The answer to most of your questions is, as I've replied so many times before:
"The separation of powers, the rule of law, constitutions and democracy". By all means keep demonstrating that you dont understand how these concepts work (or wildly claim, without evidence, that they dont). No system is perfect, democratic government certainly isnt, but its vastly better than the chaotic asocial feudal anarchy that a "pure" free-market without government intervention would cause.

Mad-max or Waterworld are both pretty good representations of the kind of society you are suggesting.

[JLL]

You said in another thread:

I take each of your posts and answer your points line by line. You cant, or wont, do the same with mine because you dont have an argument, you just have empty rhetoric.

I had a list of questions, and you did not answer each of them "line by line" as you claim.

I do understand what the separation of powers is; what I am getting at is that it is in no way a guarantee that the government can not do bad things.

I am trying to make you see that the separation is a meaningless factor -- in the free market, we would have a similar separation of tasks. So we can rule out that the separation of powers is relevant.

The next point, then, is the rule of law -- in the free market, we would also have the rule of law. This is thus also irrelevant here.

The constitution is nothing but a piece of paper. It is not even a contract, because I have never agreed to my country's constitution. Why do you trust this piece of paper but not one signed between you and a private defense company?

Finally, we have democracy -- by definition, majority rule over the minority. If anything, this mob rule proves that the government is extremely capable of doing the things you so fear.

You can repeat your "empty rhetoric" about this unholy four, but it does not prove that they really mean the government cannot use force against us. You just keep repeating that I don't understand, and that you've already replied, but you have not even once given any rational reasons as to WHY things would work the way you say they do.

I'll quote myself, because this is perhaps the most relevant part of my post:

The "internally" part sounds like the people who are working for the government/corporation are the ones making sure they don't do any harm. That doesn't sound like a great idea, does it?

The "externally" part sounds like consumers/citizens looking out for their own interests, not voting/buying from businesses/governments that intend to do harm. So where again is the difference?

[JLL]

Yet again you sidestep the issue of market failures and the actual practical consequences of a free-market to take pot-shots and make wild unsubstantiated claims about the evil of government.

What are the actual, practical, historical consequences of a free market? Otherwise I must assume you are merely hypothesizing.

[Lallante]

You said in another thread:

I take each of your posts and answer your points line by line. You cant, or wont, do the same with mine because you dont have an argument, you just have empty rhetoric.

I had a list of questions, and you did not answer each of them "line by line" as you claim.

I do understand what the separation of powers is; what I am getting at is that it is in no way a guarantee that the government can not do bad things.

I am trying to make you see that the separation is a meaningless factor -- in the free market, we would have a similar separation of tasks. So we can rule out that the separation of powers is relevant.

The next point, then, is the rule of law -- in the free market, we would also have the rule of law. This is thus also irrelevant here.

The constitution is nothing but a piece of paper. It is not even a contract, because I have never agreed to my country's constitution. Why do you trust this piece of paper but not one signed between you and a private defense company?

Finally, we have democracy -- by definition, majority rule over the minority. If anything, this mob rule proves that the government is extremely capable of doing the things you so fear.

You can repeat your "empty rhetoric" about this unholy four, but it does not prove that they really mean the government cannot use force against us. You just keep repeating that I don't understand, and that you've already replied, but you have not even once given any rational reasons as to WHY things would work the way you say they do.

I'll quote myself, because this is perhaps the most relevant part of my post:

The "internally" part sounds like the people who are working for the government/corporation are the ones making sure they don't do any harm. That doesn't sound like a great idea, does it?

The "externally" part sounds like consumers/citizens looking out for their own interests, not voting/buying from businesses/governments that intend to do harm. So where again is the difference?

You ignored 3/4 of my post (the bits you cant answer) , and are now complaining that I did the same in replying to your reply?

Separation of powers not relevant? I'm not even sure you know what it means. We have three branches of government - the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary, which each hold the others to account because they are motivated differently. There is no equivilent within a corporation - every employee is focussed on the same motivation - profit!

The rule of law means a lot more than just the existence of a set of guidelines that you enforce (again, please look it up). It includes certain principles such as generality, equality, and certainty.

A constitution is vastly more than a piece of paper. It provides rights and give individuals the ability to enforce them when they feel the government has infringed upon them. In your perfect free market no-government world, there is literally nothing to prevent a company reneging on its contracts (and then covering this up publicly so it doesnt suffer any PR damage).

If democracy is so flawed, why is it so widespread? Why are there no radical free-market countries? Why haven't your views been put into practice when so many other forms of society (communism, fascism, democracy, royal-rule etc) have been?

In conclusion - the government CAN use force against its citizens, but if it does so unjustly it can and will (in properly functioning democracies like those found in most western countries anyway) be held to account for its actions.

[JLL]

You ignored 3/4 of my post (the bits you cant answer) , and are now complaining that I did the same in replying to your reply?

No, you made the complaint in another thread, I was quoting you. Remember? But anyway, on with the post. Now, where is that 3/4 I did not answer? I'm not sure which post you mean.

Separation of powers not relevant? I'm not even sure you know what it means. We have three branches of government - the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary, which each hold the others to account because they are motivated differently. There is no equivilent within a corporation - every employee is focussed on the same motivation - profit!

Right, but what I'm saying is that on the free market, we could have similar branches, not one corporation doing everything. But since this division doesn't alleviate your worries on the free market, it should not do so within a state either.

How do you know the executive branch is not conspiring with the legislative branch? The government as a whole is a violent monopoly, so just because there is some seeming separation doesn't mean much.

The rule of law means a lot more than just the existence of a set of guidelines that you enforce (again, please look it up). It includes certain principles such as generality, equality, and certainty.

And the free market is based on the principle of non-aggression. So what?

A constitution is vastly more than a piece of paper. It provides rights and give individuals the ability to enforce them when they feel the government has infringed upon them. In your perfect free market no-government world, there is literally nothing to prevent a company reneging on its contracts (and then covering this up publicly so it doesnt suffer any PR damage).

Right, so it's a magical piece of paper that has the power to protect you from government violence.

Let's say government henchmen come to your door to take your possessions and you object, waving the magical piece of paper in your hand, screaming "but look, this is forbidden in the constitution!" The bad guys then take you to court where they will hear your case and see whether the government was wrong or right.

Great, except that the judge is also the government. The government acts as the arbitrator in its own crimes. That should be troubling to anyone with half a brain.

On the free market, when you sign a contract, you most likely also agree on a third party arbitrator which will be used if you or the business break the contract. The third party arbitrator will then make the business pay you the amount agreed upon in the contract. Just like contracts are handled now, except that the arbitrator will not be the government.

If democracy is so flawed, why is it so widespread? Why are there no radical free-market countries? Why haven't your views been put into practice when so many other forms of society (communism, fascism, democracy, royal-rule etc) have been?

Well these are much more interesting questions I've heard various theories on how states came to be, but as far as I know, we don't really know all the facts. There have been some pretty radical free-market countries in history, such as medieval Iceland, and the United States back in the day, and they always result in more wellbeing than socialist/communist experiments.

I'm not really sure how this democracy experiment will pan out, but I hope that it does not end in a one world government. What is your opinion on a one world government, by the way? Bad idea, good idea?

In conclusion - the government CAN use force against its citizens, but if it does so unjustly it can and will (in properly functioning democracies like those found in most western countries anyway) be held to account for its actions.

Well this is what I'm getting at. Our disagreement is not over whether governments and businesses cannot use force against their citizens/customers, it's whether governments or businesses are more likely to do so.

[N.T.M.]

The hard work that needs to be done is to make people understand that the natural revolution in health care furthers everyone's interests, except big pharma's.

And it is exactly that conflict of interests that you elicited which must make people question their veracity.

[Alex Libman]

WalMart controls what its employees can wear, what they can do in their freetime (no drugs for example), when they get holiday (lol, as if they even get a signficant amount of holiday...). Walmart has rules on what customers can wear in their stores (no bare chests, no bare feet). WalMart makes all employees make a "WalMart pledge" which is every bit as cloying as the pledge of alleigance.

All of those rules are an extension of the property Rights of WalMart's stockholders. Just like you can set rules in your own house, so is the case for your place of business, as long as those rules are announced to the people they will affect in advance (which things like smart-phones can make ever-easier to keep track of). If WalMart is so bad then why do millions of people choose to work, shop, partner, and invest in it there voluntarily?

Walmart can alter its employees hours at will.

That can be prevented through contractual agreements, and if WalMart violates the contract then it becomes void and it may be required to pay restitution (and a single incident of WalMart screwing one employee would be enough to tarnish its reputation). And of course workers aren't typically obligated to any chronological commitments - they can quit at any time. A government, on the other hand, can change its laws at will and there's nothing you can do.

Admittedly WalMart doesnt have an army. HOWEVER, in your perfect free market it obviously WOULD have an army (to protect its stores from competitors and 'criminals', it might even have conscription from its employees (there would be nothing to stop it).

Yes, in a free market WalMart would have its own security guards, which may be armed, but it's not cost-effective for private entities to keep too a large a security force when contracting with local neighborhood / private highway security providers would be much more efficient, and better from the PR point of view as well. There will be many small private defense agencies, private bounty hunters, as well as regional agencies that provide things like on-demand helicopter support. Decentralization means if WalMart decided to "become evil", the vast majority of its stores and/or their security guards simply won't go along. Who wants to go on a campaign to certain death under the flag of WalMart?!

Furthermore, future trends in military and security technologies suggest a divergence of defensive and offensive weapons, with the latter gradually becoming taboo. Potential liability / insurance costs mean private security has a far greater incentive to invest in "less lethal" defensive weapons than the state does, so you'll see a lot of innovations like remotely controlled Taser / "sleeping gas" guns that are hidden above the store's ceiling but can quickly bust out and stop the bad guys if/when they'll ever become needed. And then you have passive security technologies like vast arrays of networked security cameras, live satellite tracking of robbery getaway vehicles, special tags on small items that are worth stealing, bulletproof suits (and other surfaces - "in the future everything is bulletproof"), impenetrable doors, remotely activated gates, all cash above $X kept in a 50-ton safe with a one-way opening that can be inserted into but cannot be opened except with a special top-secret truck that comes once a week, etc, etc, etc.

So the private sector can defend itself quite well without ever becoming even a small fraction as dangerous as the state. If a company ever starts buying too many lethal weapons, it will be ostracized out of business pretty darn fast because doing business with it would be like wearing a Hitler t-shirt in a Jewish neighborhood! We live at a point in human history where petty crime is quickly becoming a problem of the past - it will always exist, but only as a marginal issue. The new technology that makes crime next to impossible to get away with will either serve legitimate property owners and be a force for good, or it will serve governments, if they still exist, and we'll find ourselves in a global Big Brother dystopia from which there can be no escape! (And when the globes come off, millions might die!)

Everything you hate about government, a corporation could and would do, but without the same limits or accountability, in a true free market - why wouldnt it? Detention without trial? why not? torture of competitors? why not? etc etc.

What you are saying is the complete opposite of reality. A corporation can't as much as rip you off by a penny in change without you having recourse, and the rest of the world would side with you (even if you have no proof, because, c'mon, why would a reputable person make a fuss over a penny). A government, on the other hand, is a religious concept in most people's minds, and is thus able to get away with anything without even taking its gloves off.

Choice is only true choice if you have perfect information. If you dont, then you aren't really making a choice: consider this, If I told you you could shop at shop A or shop B, and that shop A was always cheaper and better quality, and that shop B's products were dangerous and their employees evil, if you had no more information to go on, you would 'choose' shop A. But what if everything I told you was a lie and the reverse was the case?

(Having only two shops to choose from on a planet with 6+ billion people and ever-cheaper jet-flight is a very rare situation, and one that government isn't at all likely to help with, but, fine, I'll play along.) Why are you the only authority on how shop A and shop B compare? I can ask somebody else, or I can comparison-shop for myself, and if I find out you are lying then I can expose you. I doubt that shop A can afford to pay professional liars more than their identity is worth, especially since rational people will learn not to trust information that comes from a source whose reputation cannot be verified.

Without government regulation and a legal system bringing that information to light and preventing false information, choice is an illusion.

Government does the very opposite - it hides information. For example, the source code for a dozen Microsoft products leaked onto a small hacker BBS once, but the FBI was able to contain the leak by arresting a dozen people and now it's nowhere to be found. Can you click on any spot on Google Earth and find out who owns that land? No. You know why? The government monopoly keeps the property records and limits access to them, while in an Anarcho-Capitalist society being able to prove that you own property would pretty much necessitate open source property databases. Want to have a look at all those trillion-dollar military projects your "taxes" are paying for? Too bad, they're "top secret"! Video from the pentagon on 9/11? Four blurry frames released after more time than it takes to animate a Disney feature! Security video confiscated after the OKC bombing? Still not released! Etc, etc, etc. (And I won't even make any jokes about the president's birth certificate...)

The government also lures people into a false sense of security, which discourages them from seeking out information for themselves. In a free market people expect the businesses to compete for consumers' trust, which means making information available to be verified by independent sources. No transparency, no sale.

My previous points apply - viable alternatives are meaningless if you cant accurately assess them. Furthermore, there is nothing to stop all the alternatives being taken over by the largest of them, leaving no other options.

The only monopoly that has ever existed is government - for everything else there has always been a choice. Government force through scams like "patents" and Big Business having the lobbying advantage in creating new regulations also limits competition quite a bit. There have been times when there was only one "best" choice and that company achieved a great market share, but only by earning that share qualitatively, and when it stopped innovating or raised prices its market share quickly diminished.

Finally, there is nothing to stop all the alternatives forming a cartel to fix prices and quality at the most profitable (but not most efficient) levels.

Private sector collusion is a common government-promoted scare tactic, but it's a very rare phenomenon in real life, because market observers always catch on to what's going on quite quickly, and the reputation of the companies involved falls quite a bit, while any company that refuses to join the cartel and continues to sell better / cheaper products is seen as a hero and quickly gains market share.

And given a sufficiently informed consumer base, the tactic of "flooding the market" becomes a form of corporate suicide as everyone stockpiles products while they're cheap and sells them when the prices go up, thus getting the company's profits in its stead. The competitors will also see that the company is flooding the market and simply wait them out by temporarily switching their production to something else. As the economy becomes more service-oriented and manufacturing processes become ever-more sophisticated and agile, the ability of a company to rapidly (re)enter a certain market when its competitor starts slacking improves.

Edited by Alex Libman, 24 April 2010 - 03:38 PM.

[Alex Libman]

I've explained in detail the checks and balances on government in my other posts, I'm not going to do so again. Simply put, to say that the only safeguard is "a promise from some bureaucrats" is either incredibly ignorant or wilfully deceitful.

There is only one party and only one branch, and even the boundaries between different layers of government (municipal vs state vs federal) and geographical jurisdictions are quickly disappearing. Government is a single evolutionary system with a single interest - to maintain and expand its own power. Any claim otherwise is a complete failure to understand the basics of group psychology. Believing that professional wrestling is real would be a lot less naive! Being elected to a position of power requires a lot of loyalty to the existing power structure. Whenever a "true believer" politician slips through and refuses to be corrupted then he is quickly weeded out in the next election (or blackmailed, or set up with a prostitute, or if all else fails assassinated).

To move countries is actually really simple. Have you ever done it? I have. I used to have Turkish citizenship and lived there for a number of years. I have since moved back to my citizenship of birth, British. Its not difficult. You DONT lose capital by moving countries.

You've transferred from one prison cell and into a better one because a spot was available. Not everyone can do this, and it does not constitute a level of competition that would affect governments in any significant way. (Now there is a good example of a cartel!) It will soon be much easier for people to move around the world, but only because governments will become even more homogenized.

What evidence do you have that there will ever be a "world government monopoly". You sound a lot like the conspiricy theory tin-foil hat nutjobs.

Even European integration once sounded like a conspiracy theory. A world government has been the dream of the ruling classes for a very long time, and with "enabling events" like "terrorism" and "global warming" it's finally within their grasp. A world government is the only way they can defend themselves from intergovernmental competition where some governments become more free, attract ever-more brains and capital, and limit on how tyrannical the other governments can get. Without countries like USA, Canada, Australia, Switzerland, etc making the USSR look bad in comparison, the whole world would definitely have gone communist by now!

And why are you so hateful to government skeptics? You don't call people "nutjobs" for suspecting the worst about the LDS Church or Microsoft, for example, but if they dare research and theorize about the one institution that has a recent documented history of lies, deception, theft, and murder on a massive scale - oh noes, they must be crazy! Governments are not "innocent until proven guilty" - their aggression (ex. collecting "taxes") is a self-evident fact! The burden of proof is on the government to prove whatever moral imperatives to force that it claims to have, which even most socialists will agree necessitates transparency and accountability, and the point of good "conspiracy theories" is to document its failure in doing so!

You can only return items to Walmart because of government regulation that says they must offer this service (aka Consumer Rights regulations).

Wow, in your mind nothing happens except by the will of God, that is government. No natural phenomena exist - no natural selection, no competitive pressure, no enlightened self-interest...

The government of course loves to jump in front of every parade that it can, but it's the private sector that starts those parades, and that's exactly how product return policies came about, because they encourage more impulsive buying and consumer good will.

WalMart has a horrific reputation for employee abuse and working standards, for its treatment of child workers overseas, for its blatantly anti-competative practises against small competitors and so on. People dont know (lack of information again) or dont care (consumers DO NOT vote with their wallets effetively).

WalMart is badmouthed by a lot of socialist hippies because it's so big and successful, but a rational analysis of those criticisms shows that in absence of WalMart those workers would be even worse off. What most socialists consider "anti-competitive practices" are also a force for good. The main reason why people "don't know" or "don't care" is because they expect Mommy Government to think and act for them, which only leads to greater corruption.

If a politician doesnt keep his promises, elect someone different next time.

How would you feel if WalMart forced everyone in your town to shop there because all people in your town had to vote every four years whether they all shop in WalMart or Target? How would you feel if WalMart took half your salary (possibly more), and provided you with goods and services you didn't want but were chosen for you and that you couldn't return? How would you feel if WalMart put people in jail for victimless "crimes" it didn't approve of? How would you feel if WalMart made you pay to kill people overseas for refusing to obey the WalMart Empire?

Don't like WalMart? Well, you better hope and pray your town votes for Target four years from now - which will be pretty much the same but the advertising campaign will be a little different!

Lol. There is almost no sentance that can have WalMart and 'rights' in it that isnt laughably false.

WalMart cannot violate anyone's Rights by a single penny. The government cannot make a penny except by violating somebody's Rights.

You seem to have incorrect and very limited knowledge of how companies work. Stockholders are NOT party to a contract with WalMart...

Well, you took the word "contract" more narrowly than I meant it. You don't need to sign anything when buying a stock, but you gain the privileges of a stockholder, which may include voting on things like board of directors appointments, dividends, etc.

People still buy stock in proven unethical companies.

Only because of the government's monopoly on defining ethics, according to which unethical companies aren't even supposed to exist, thus there is no social pressure to ostracize bad companies.

I like that you cite the ridiculous overpriced toilet seats etc - that was corporate fraud, something that would be utterly rife without any government intervention.

Of course someone profited from that corruption, and there were probably kickbacks as well. Corporate fraud involving government is a problem of government, where stolen money is spent with no incentive for efficiency and very little direct accountability.

the ONLY REASON that WalMart has to account to its investors for its budget is GOVERNMENT REGULATION that forces it to. It would not do so by choice (look, for example, at companies 100 years ago!)

Things might have been very different 100 years ago, when the stock market was a private club for a few thousand elite millionaires and information flowed through less formal channels, but why would anyone in the modern world invest in a company that isn't accountable to its shareholders?

Edited by Alex Libman, 24 April 2010 - 03:53 PM.

[Alex Libman]

Yet again you sidestep the issue of market failures and the actual practical consequences of a free-market to take pot-shots and make wild unsubstantiated claims about the evil of government.

I already explained that market failures do not exist. Perhaps you'd like to reference some alleged market failures so that I could debunk them?

The answer to most of your questions is, as I've replied so many times before: "The separation of powers, the rule of law, constitutions and democracy". By all means keep demonstrating that you dont understand how these concepts work (or wildly claim, without evidence, that they dont).

If "separation of powers" was a significant justification for government power then Elaine Brown (for example) would have been able to "separate" herself from government "power" without being thrown in a cage for the rest of her life. True separation of powers can only exist in the free market, where power doesn't stem from a single "divine right of governments" delusion. Governmental separation of powers even in theory, even if it was functionally effective, simply means the three thugs aggressing against you are looking out for their own interest, which of course first and foremost includes their cooperation in their violence against you!

Rule of law is irrelevant if it's law made by tyrants!

The constitution, which is only recognizes some of individual Rights under Natural Law, and which I never signed so it's not a binding agreement... I recommend you watch this lecture by Michael Badnarik - about 95% of everything the Federal government does is unconstitutional!

And democracy -- best represented by the People's Democratic Republic of (North) Korea -- is ridiculous even in theory, because governments will always influence the electorate far more than the electorate can influence the government. Democracy might work somewhat in a small New England town hall meeting, which would work just as well under Anarcho-Capitalist charter cities, but it cannot scale much beyond a hundred people or so, much less 300+ million!

No system is perfect, democratic government certainly isnt, but its vastly better than the chaotic asocial feudal anarchy that a "pure" free-market without government intervention would cause.

Heh, "feudal anarchy" - another perfect oxymoron!

If the free market is so bad then why are all societies doing better the closer to a free market they are, and why does the government need to impose itself on top of it by force?

Mad-max or Waterworld are both pretty good representations of the kind of society you are suggesting.

No, the best existing representations are probably places like Hong Kong and New Hampshire.

You ignored 3/4 of my post (the bits you cant answer) , and are now complaining that I did the same in replying to your reply?

Debunking statist propaganda is like unclogging a toilet - it's not the most pleasant job out there, but somebody has to do it...

Separation of powers not relevant? I'm not even sure you know what it means. We have three branches of government - the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary, which each hold the others to account because they are motivated differently. There is no equivilent within a corporation - every employee is focussed on the same motivation - profit!

A corporation can be set up with three branches or thirty-three branches in a system of checks and balances - the reason why almost no corporations are set up this way is because it's stupid. The motivation is the same, just as government's motivation is the same - maintaining the "divine right of government" delusion and strengthening the grip on power!

If democracy is so flawed, why is it so widespread? Why are there no radical free-market countries? Why haven't your views been put into practice when so many other forms of society (communism, fascism, democracy, royal-rule etc) have been?

Government force.

[Mind]

Bringing this thread back on topic, after the spirited informative political discussions:

The FDA and Obama Administration argue that people do not have a fundamental right to eat whatever food they want. No kidding. It was in a brief filed in a court case to prevent people from buying and drinking raw milk. Take a look at the brief here. It is an all-around absolute horrific tyrannical argument against individual liberty but the choice quote is on page 26.

For anyone on the fence about government control of health, particularly in regards to the incompetent and vindictive FDA, hopefully this seals the deal. The FDA is way out of control (and did I mention - incompetent) and needs to be reformed, ended, rebuilt, whatever.

Edited by Mind, 29 May 2010 - 03:21 PM.

[bobdrake12]

Bringing this thread back on topic, after the spirited informative political discussions:

The FDA and Obama Administration argue that people do not have a fundamental right to eat whatever food they want. No kidding. It was in a brief filed in a court case to prevent people from buying and drinking raw milk. Take a look at the brief here. It is an all-around absolute horrific tyrannical argument against individual liberty but the choice quote is on page 26.

For anyone on the fence about government control of health, particularly in regards to the incompetent and vindictive FDA, hopefully this seals the deal. The FDA is way out of control (and did I mention - incompetent) and needs to be reformed, ended, rebuilt, whatever.

While We the People have a vested interest in our health, the politicians have a vested interest in their campaign contributions.

A healthy population would reduce Big Pharma's profits.